Energy committee hears warning of rapid demand growth, potential capacity shortfalls and funding pause

Mister Nassey, an EPA lawyer and energy consultant, briefed the Energy committee on an accelerating mismatch between electricity demand and available dispatchable supply, saying the combination of data‑center hyper‑scaling and AI workloads has reversed decades of flat growth.

"Updated filings put that number in the ballpark of 128 gigawatts of capacity growth that will be needed by 2029," Mister Nassey told the committee, citing regional filings and interconnection requests. He said that while renewables and storage are expanding, the grid’s ability to meet longer-duration, weather‑driven peaks depends on dispatchable thermal resources that many models and some recent retirement schedules did not fully account for.

Why it matters: The briefing framed three linked risks — rapidly rising load, thinning dispatchable generation stock, and delays building the long‑distance transmission needed to move new resources into load centers. Nassey said these pressures are most acute in parts of the Midwest and in organized markets such as MISO, where he described reserve margins as showing "significant shortfalls." He cautioned that losing more dispatchable generation would make it harder for operators to maintain reliability.

Nassey criticized elements of recent federal modeling, saying some EPA analyses used accreditation or capacity‑factor assumptions for renewables that were inconsistent with observed performance. "You can't hardwire into your assumptions capacity accreditations that are at odds with reality," he said, and he noted that several regional transmission organizations filed unusually strong technical comments in litigation before the D.C. Circuit about those models. He also said the carbon rule often referred to in the briefing — described in the presentation as the "111" carbon rule — remains pending before the D.C. Circuit.

The committee asked about practical consequences. In response, Nassey pointed to two operational and policy bottlenecks: transmission siting and federal funding. He said transmission projects are difficult to site and can be slowed by NEPA reviews, coordinated legal appeals and landowner opposition. He added that decades of additional condemnation and appeals could follow as regions try to connect remote renewable resources and new generation.

On funding, Nassey told members that a recent executive order has frozen some disbursements under the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law pending agency reports and OMB/NEC clearance within a 90‑day review window. He said some contracts are signed but funds have not yet been dispersed, and agencies are assessing whether to proceed. "There's an executive order that suspends all expenditures under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the IRA," he said. "Some of the money has been dispersed, and some has not — agencies must report and the review could pause projects."

Nassey also flagged the possibility that the Department of Energy, once its nominee is confirmed, could use authorities such as section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to declare electricity emergencies and take emergency actions to support reliability, depending on ongoing assessments of grid risk.

Throughout the briefing, Nassey urged states to adopt more comprehensive resource‑valuation metrics than simple LCOE measures — proposing evaluations that account for dispatchability and delivered energy costs — and he pointed to Utah's Office of Energy Development as an example of a state conducting integrated assessments.

What the committee did: Members asked detailed follow‑ups about specific transmission projects, funding sources for a proposed Montana‑to‑North Dakota line and whether pump storage counts as capacity. Nassey said he could not confirm the funding source for individual projects but reiterated that the executive‑order review was an active constraint on some federal disbursements. The hearing included no votes or formal committee actions; the presentation concluded with contact information and a short Q&A.

Next steps: Committee members will take the briefing into account as they consider energy‑related proposals; Nassey made his slides and contact details available for follow‑up questions.