House committee hearing sought to discuss energy poverty, but Dems only ranted about Project 2025

Americans are paying more for everything from gas to groceries, and a House Energy Committee hearing Wednesday was aiming to get some insight into the problem.

The panel of witnesses included a North Carolina apple farm manager who testified that rising energy costs would leave the operation unprofitable this year. Another witness said many Americans are facing a “heat or eat” situation due to the high costs of energy.

While Republican members of the committee discussed the Biden administration’s energy policies and the impacts of high energy costs on American consumers, the Democrats on the committee repeatedly deflected and echoed the Harris campaign's talking points about the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025."

“We know exactly what four more years of Trump would look like, because it’s included in the Trump Project 2025,” Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said during his opening statements.

Democratic Reps. Diana DeGette of Colorado, Scott Peters of California, Paul Tonko of New York and Ann Kuster of New Hampshire all referred to the document and asked questions from the witnesses about it.

Project 2025 is a plan put forth by The Heritage Foundation, which details policy proposals for the next GOP administration. Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated he wasn’t involved in its development and doesn’t consider it a guiding document for his campaign for reelection.

Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, pushed back on the Democrats' deflection, saying that there was no collaboration or contribution from that committee on the project.

“I haven't even read the report, so if you want to keep misleading the American public about it, I caution you that we produce our own policy committee,” Palmer said.

What energy policies would come from a Harris administration if she wins the presidential election remain unclear. The hearing comes the day after the debate between Trump and Harris. Energy was only briefly discussed during the debate. Harris reiterated that she had no intention to ban fracking despite previously supporting the position. She also said we need “diverse sources” of energy to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil. She didn’t explain what those diverse sources would be.

Earlier this week, the official campaign website for Harris published a list of issues, which boasts of holding “Big Oil” accountable and Harris’ tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act. According to the site, if elected, Harris will seek to lower energy costs with a “thriving clean energy economy.” It also states that she would “tackle the climate crisis,” which would require a ban on fracking. Presumably, the “diverse sources” Harris spoke of at the debate would be renewable energy.

Witnesses

At Wednesday’s hearing, Linda Pryor, farm manager at her family's Hilltop Farm, an apple and corn farm in North Carolina, testified that the latest USDA figures show that this will be the second year U.S. agriculture will see negative growth.

“The agricultural sector is facing unprecedented challenges due to rising costs to operate, particularly increased petroleum prices. These costs impact more than what we pay at the gas pump. They also increase the cost of crop inputs like seed and fertilizer, farm machinery, parts, produce, packaging and other essentials,” Pryor said.

Farm expenses, she said, have increased 9.5% in the past two years. Her family’s farm last year spent $57,000 for diesel and gas in 2021. Last year, the operation paid $83,600 for fuel. These costs, she explained, roll down to the consumers at the grocery store.

“We need affordable and reliable, long-term energy solutions for farmers, to ensure that grocery shelves remain stocked with affordable options,” Pryor said.

Patrice Onwuka, director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at the Independent Women’s Forum said that overall, prices are up nearly 20% since Biden took office. Home heating and electricity prices are up, Onwuka said, costing the average American about $5,100 per year more on utilities over what they paid before Biden took office.

“Unfortunately, low income families in America face a heat-or-eat dilemma — this existential choice between paying utilities or buying food, medicine and shelter,” Onwuka said.

Onwuka also testified that the Biden administration’s efficiency standards, which target 15 consumer appliances, are driving up the cost of purchasing those items. The average household, she said, will pay an additional $9,000 to retrofit their home with the new appliances.

Big Oil greed

The Democrats bringing up the Project 2025 plan warned that it contained provisions that would eliminate subsidies and programs aimed at replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar.

Trevor Higgins, senior vice-president of Energy and Environment for the Center for American Progress, testified that the key to fighting inflation is investments in clean energy.

“The cost of installing solar and wind takes some work, which is why the inflation Reduction Act invests in getting them built. Once they are built, they just run. They don't have an ongoing fuel cost. They are the cheapest form of electricity available,” Higgins said.

Energy experts, however, disagree. While wind and solar don’t have direct fuel costs, they’re merely intermittent generators. In order to transform intermittent power into constant power requires massive overbuilding of wind and solar farms, extensive investments in transmission lines, and construction of expensive storage systems. That eats up any projected savings from eliminating fuel costs.

DeGette, the Democrat from Colorado, pointed out that the U.S. is producing record amounts of oil and gas, which she said casts doubts on Republican claims that Biden’s energy policies are driving up energy costs. The problem, she said, is the greed of oil companies.

“While we are seeing record production domestically, gas prices remain too high as big oil and gas companies return record profits and pay massive stock payoffs,” DeGette said.

She said a subcommittee hearing in 2022 had six oil executives testifying that investors demand high returns on investments, which is why they wouldn’t lower energy prices. Generally, investors in any industry, including the renewable energy industry, expect high returns on their investments. DeGette didn’t explain why it was objectionable that oil and gas investors would do the same.

Also unmentioned was the fact that many left-leaning public employee pension funds such as CALPERS, the New York State Common Retirement Fund, as well as those of Maine and Vermont still hold billions of dollars in equity stakes in fossil fuel companies. 

While the U.S. is producing record amounts of oil and gas, experts are concerned that the impact of Biden’s policies will arise within the next four years. There may be as many as 10 years between exploration activities and the onlining of a producing well, especially when it comes to offshore drilling. Oil and natural gas leasing has diminished under the Biden administration, and production levels may decline regardless of who wins the election.

If that turns out to be true, it could be many years before the problem of high energy prices is resolved.