Senators Send Sneering Letter to Rick Perry Over Proposed Study
Posted to Energy May 02, 2017 by Erin Mundal
Monday was mail day, rather than May Day, for Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who received a letter from seven Democratic senators expressing concern over a proposed study of the effect of regulation on the American energy market. Senators Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Mazie Hirono D-Hawaii, Al Franken, D-Minn., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., wrote in a heated terms about the proposed study, which they called a “thinly disguised attempt” to promote coal and nuclear power at the expense of wind and solar.
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“The study, as you have framed it, appears to be intended to blame wind and solar power for the financial difficulties facing coal and nuclear electric generators and to suggest that renewable energy resources threaten the reliability of the grid,” the senators wrote.
“Perhaps that is why Travis Fisher, a former official with the Koch Brothers-funded Institute for Energy Research….was chosen to lead the study,” they continued.
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In conclusion, the senators again attacked Fisher, saying that for a 60 day review “conducted by ideologues associated with a Koch Brothers-affiliated think tank” to supplant formal scientific research “would be a grave disservice to American taxpayers” and potentially an “international embarrassment.”
The letter closed with a note on Perry’s time as governor of Texas, when he “demonstrated that renewable energy can enhance fuel diversity, reduce energy prices, and improve grid reliability and resilience.”
“We had mistakenly hoped that you would pursue these same results for the nation,” the senators wrote.
The letter came in response to an April 14 memo from Perry to his chief of staff calling for a study of the long term reliability of America’s electric grid. Expressing concern about how “certain policies are affecting, and potentially putting at risk, energy security and reliability,” he called for a 60-day study examining whether burdensome regulations were forcing the premature closure of baseline power plants, including coal and nuclear facilities.
“We are blessed as a nation to have an abundance of domestic energy resources, such as coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydroelectric, all of which provide affordable baseload power and contribute to a stable, reliable and resilient grid,” Perry wrote in the memo.
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However, representatives from the nuclear energy industry welcomed the proposed study.
“New York and Illinois moved to save their reactors because they too saw nuclear energy as offering a value that should not be characterized by price alone,” said Maria Korsnick, president and chief executive of the Nuclear Energy Institute. “We’re glad to see that Secretary Perry and the Trump administration see the problem as well.”
http://www.insidesources.com/senators-send-letter-rick-perry-proposed-study/
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