Fueling the Golden Age: Future Resource Needs and Small Business Opportunity

Thank you, Chairman. Now I call the subcommittee on Rural Development, Energy and Supply Change to order. Without objection, the chairs authorize to declare recess of the committee at any time. I now recognize myself for my opening statement. Welcome to today's hearing, Fueling the Golden Age, Future Resource Needs and Small Business Opportunity. Thank you to our witnesses for traveling here today, As industry and the American people are increasingly moving to business-friendly states, American energy and water markets are being tested like never before. In my home state of Texas, the population has grown by almost ten million residents over the last twenty years. Expanded domestic manufacturing, grid build-out, and emerging technology are driving the highest demand on these resources in decades. In states like Texas, with a rapidly growing population, we also need to ensure we have the water resources for new homes. While we welcome this growth, it brings with it a duty for this committee, Congress, and state legislatures to ensure that its costs do not fall unfairly on Main Street. Small businesses depend on reliable and affordable electricity and water. Aging infrastructure and rising demand means higher rates, slower upgrades, and less certainty. Especially as manufacturing jobs return to the United States and new technologies increase demand for reliable resources small business owners cannot be left behind. Today we will hear about the efforts underway at the state level to respond to growing resource needs and how the federal government can best partner with government agencies, corporations, and rural electric cooperatives to plan for long-term sustainable growth. While some states are investing directly in new energy and water supplies, Others are adopting rate structures that require large users to pay for the upgrades they trigger, ensuring that American households and small business ratepayers don't bear the upgrade costs. The variety of solutions presented today produ- provide models for how communities across the nation can prepare for future growth. With this unprecedented surge in demand comes an opportunity to support our small businesses in meeting this challenge head-on. Small businesses are an central part of our energy and water industries. Local contractors, suppliers, rural electric cooperatives and equipment manufacturers are central to building the generation, transmission and water infrastructure needed to support economic expansion, and the return of American industry, the return of industry to American soil. The ability for small businesses to bid on projects, scale workforces and secure certifications will determine whether local communities

Thank you, Thank you, Mister Chairman, Mister Chairman, for holding today's timely hearing, for holding today's timely hearing, and thank you to the witnesses and thank you to the witness. for joining us. Every part of the modern economy runs on energy. Without it, nothing could be grown, made, transported or sold. No small business could turn the lights on in the morning, and no worker could commute to their job. There's no disagreement on the premise of this hearing. A growing economy needs an abundance of energy. However, I hope we can have a clear-eyed discussion about the factors driving up energy costs and fueling our current cost of living crisis. Aging infrastructure that needs replacing, inflated costs for components to replace it and a shortage of electricians, construction workers and manufacturing workers to build and install those components are all driving up energy costs. More severe weather due to climate change and cyber-attacks from foreign adversaries require that we harden our infrastructure, further increasing costs. Additionally, surging demand from data centers powering artificial intelligence as well as the anticipated demand for future data centers are driving up energy prices. Their share of our country's energy consumption could rise from four percent today to as much as twelve percent in just the next two to four years. The PGM regional energy market covers the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest and has the highest concentration of new and planned data centers in the United States. In the first quarter of twenty twenty-six, their wholesale prices for energy jumped seventy-six percent. Communities have a right to be skeptical of facilities this resource-intensive, especially if agreements behind them transparency and clear benefits. Tech companies have failed to make a compelling case to the American people that the benefits of AI outweigh the costs of building and powering data centers. And while much of the investment in AI is speculative, the physical infrastructure materializing across the country will remain even if the tech bubble pops. We must consider what will happen to these data centers and the energy infrastructure built to power them if the tech bubble bursts and protect ratepayers cost of infrastructure upgrades for data centers. Ratepayers should not be subsidizing big tech companies through their electricity bills. But this administration, for all its support of the AI build-out and its calls for " energy dominance", has done everything in its power to restrict new capacity, targeting the most affordable forms of energy. By executive order, the president moved to restrict permitting for wind and solar. These are now the cheapest sources of new power, and paired with batteries are competitive with natural gas and reliability. He directed the secretary of interior to halt five offshore wind projects, costing rate payers millions in benefits before losing in court. He's gone so far as to order buyouts of previously approved offshore wind leases, paying out nearly four billion dollars of taxpayer money to firms for them to not build additional needed generation capacity. Republicans and the president worked to undermine generational investments in grid capacity. Their signature one big, bill, repealed several important tax incentives for clean energy and energy efficiency, causing us to lose out on an estimated five hundred gigawatts of new capacity over the next decade. Meanwhile, we lacked the manufacturing capacity to build our own grid components, and imports largely filled that gap. The president's fifty percent tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper made transformers, turbines and wires significantly more expensive. While that fifty percent rate was revised. fifteen percent for electrical grid grid equipment earlier this year,

Mm.

it is still too high and driving up prices for the American people. And we can't ignore that as a result of the war that the president launched in February without congressional authorization or even a clear goal, twenty percent of the world's oil was cut off. Gasoline prices surged over four dollars and diesel prices to well over five, where they have stayed since March. This is the fuel for every contractor, farm and delivery route in America, prices for everything. With no clear way out of this mess, the Iranian government will continue to hold high energy prices over our president's head, as leverage. The cost of living crisis is being driven by the cost of energy and this administration's policies are making it worse. Our small businesses are feeling the crunch. The National Federation of Independent Business found that four in five small business owners see their energy costs as significant. Eighty percent. Eighty percent. Report being impacted by gasoline costs and over ninety percent by electricity costs. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on the policies we can pursue to build an abundance of affordable clean energy to support our future economic development, and get prices down for consumers and small businesses. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you. I now recognize the Chairman of the full committee, Chairman Williams, for an opening statement.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman, uh, Elsie, for holding us today's hearing. I'm feeling the golden age of uh future resource needs a small business opportunity. And thank you to our witnesses uh for uh joining us today, discuss the future of Main Street America. After two decades of nearly flat demand, this country is facing a new era of growth in water and electricity demand, driven by the resurgence and reshoring of US manufacturing uh expanded uh electrification and the build-out of new high technology infrastructure. This growth is good news and we welcome it, and it means our economy is growing and our country is building for the future. Investments in American factories, communities and underlying energy infrastructure mean a stronger economy and new opportunities for small businesses. What we build today will help shape America's economic strength for the next generation. We have an opportunity to build the infrastructure needed to support the next two hundred and fifty years of American growth, innovation and leadership, and to ensure that we can c- in- uh out-compete our adversaries like Communist China. Much of today's infrastructure was built for an earlier era of demand. And generation, transmission and permitting timelines have not kept pace, and the consequences show up every day on Main Street. Water deserves the same attention, uh, uh, and wastewater by systems are energy-intensive, aging, and and any communities in need of significant modernization. I'm encouraged by the Trump administration's efforts to cut permitting delays, expand domestic energy production, and prioritize infrastructure that gets built. One, on day one the President declared a national uh s- uh energy emergency, and since then the administration has reformed regulations, modernized permitting technology, and made a clear commitment to completed projects. Now every year a project sits in review in another year of a tighter supply and higher costs on Main Street. Abundant American energy is the difference between the economy that grows and one that rations. So today we will hear from our witnesses, our good witnesses, about where constraints and more uh severe what communities uh uh are doing to prepare for growth and what Congress can do to insure American small businesses have the reliable affordable resources they need to compete and grow. I wanna thank all of you again for being here and for joining us. I look forward to the conversation ahead. With that I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, it's now my pleasure to introduce our witnesses. Our first witness today is the Honorable Cody Harris. Representative Harris serves in the Texas House of Representatives where he represents House District eight. During the eighty-ninth legislative session, Representative Harris served as Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. Cody was appointed by Governor Abbott as Commissioner of the Southwestern States Water Commission and serves as co-chair of the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas Advisory Committee. He is a founding member of the Texas House Nuclear Caucus and Chairman of the bicameral Texas Innovation and Technology Caucus. A fifth generation East Texan, Representative Harris is a graduate of Texas A and M University, and brings a background in real estate and banking to his legislative work. He and his wife Taylor, with us today, have four children. Thank you for joining us. Our next witness is Mister Ted Ellis. Mister Ellis is the Deputy Director of Energy and Environment at the America First Policy Institute. In his role, Mister Ellis leads strategic initiatives focused on strengthening American energy dominance. Before joining the American First Policy Institute, Mr. Ellis served as Vice President for Government Affairs at the Energy Freedom Fund. He's also a performer professional staffer for the Republican Study Committee here in the House of Representatives. Mr. Ellis received a bachelor's degree in economics from Roanoke College and studied history and literature at the University of Oxford. He is a native of Texas and was raised in Franklin, Tennessee. I'm looking forward to hearing your testimony. I now recognize Ranking Member Morrison to briefly introduce our last witness ap- appearing before us today, Doctor Morrison.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, our final witness today is Mr. Trevor Higgins. Mr. Higgins is a Senior Vice President of the Energy and Environment Department at the Center for American Progress. Before joining CAP he worked for Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and at the US Department of Energy in the office of Chief Financial Officer as a Presidential Management Fellow. He also served a detail at the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. He earned a Master of Public Policy degree from Georgetown University and a Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan. Sorry, it wasn't Minnesota, but it's still good. Thank you, Mister Higgins, for joining us today.

Thank you. We appreciate all appreciate all of you, uh, making time to testify and and just so everybody knows, they they have to pay their own way to get here. So thank you for, uh, for getting yourselves here. Before recognizing the witnesses, I'd like to remind them

Mister Chairman and committee members, Mister Chairman and committee members, thank you for the honor of testifying before you today. thank you for the honor. My name's Cody Harris and I have the privilege to represent a rural district made up of four East Texas counties. I'm a fifth generation Texan who has served in the Texas House since two thousand nineteen, currently chair of the Texas House Natural Resources Committee. Since my first session, I've made water a top priority. Until fairly recentsl- until fairly recently, water as a policy concern was largely overlooked by the average Texan, as other issues dominated the headlines. That has changed. Water profiteers attempting to steal groundwater out from underneath these Texans, combined with the surge in artificial intelligence and the data centers required to support it, have made water one of the top issues facing rural Texans today. Over the next fifty years, the state's population is projected to grow fifty-three percent, from thirty-four point two million in twenty-thirty to more than fifty-two million by twenty-eighty. Meanwhile, our existing water supplies are expected to decline by ten percent. Meeting that growth and offsetting that decline will require an estimated one hundred and seventy-four billion dollars and new water infrastructure. Without it, Texans will face water shortages totaling three point six million acre-feet per year by twenty-thirty, and that's before accounting for the needs of data centers. To solve for the water funding shortage, Texas took a major first step by passing Proposition four, which constitutionally dedicates one billion dollars per year to the Texas Water Fund for the next twenty years. Whether we like it or not, data centers have become critical infrastructure country must have. They're central to doing business, essential to national security, and we can't afford to let time China take the lead. Still, most Texans are uneasy about the potential of data centers draining our water and straining our electric grid. While water use and electric generation draw the strongest reaction, I believe there is a path forward. In Texas, we're insisting that data centers be good neighbors. Governor Abbott has required audits of data center consumption, through the state agencies, and we're actively preparing legislation to establish minimum standards for water utilization and electric generation. At the local level, we're utilizing groundwater conservation districts and groundwater management areas to build the data modeling needed to responsibly manage fresh groundwater production to ensure that future generations have access to it. We're also working to make use of nontraditional sources like produced water, which is a by-product of the oil and gas industry. In the Permian Basin alone, operators generate roughly twenty million barrels of produced water per day. Historically unusable, treatment technology has advanced to the point that it is now an ideal option for meeting the cooling needs of the data center industry. The other half of the equation is power generation, and these facilities use a lot of it. As part of President Trump's trade deal with Japan, NextEra Energy will build a sixteen billion dollar natural gas plant and my home county that will generate up to five point two gigawatts of electricity. Last session I authored House Bill fourteen, which created the Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Office, and established a three hundred and fifty million dollar fund to jumpstart the nuclear industry in Texas and improve regulatory efficiency. Beyond the substantial economic benefit of making Texas the epicenter of America's nuclear renaissance, this clean, dispatchable, always-on power source will strengthen our grid's reliability and keep Texas the energy capital of the world. It also helps ensure that the United States, and not China, leads the world in nuclear power generation. In February of twenty twenty-five, Texas A and M University announced a partnership with four different nuclear companies to build demonstration, small modular reactors. SMR's compact size and flexible flexibility mean lower costs and shorter construction timelines. They're ideal for co-locating with data centers and desalination plants, addressing both our water and energy challenges at once. Texas stands at a significant crossroads as we endeavor to balance private property rights, responsible stewardship of our natural resources, explosive economic growth, and the demand demands of modern technology advancement. But, we're Texas, and I'm confident that we will continue to embrace our strong heritage of boldly leading the way

Thank you, Mr. Harris. Mr. Ellis.

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and members of this honorable subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Ted Ellis, and I serve as the Deputy Director of Energy and Environment for the America First Policy Institute. Our nation has an abundance of energy resources. What we lack is the ability to turn that abundance into affordable, reliable power, and small businesses pay the price when we fail to build. After roughly two decades of slow electricity demand growth, America is entering a new era. Manufacturing is returning, and new technologies are adding significant demands to the grid. That growth should be welcomed, but realizing its benefits will require meeting that additional demand reliably, and affordably. Small businesses have an enormous stake in getting this right, because they sit on both sides of the energy equation. On one hand, they are energy consumers. For a small business, higher energy costs come out of margins, get passed on to customers, or make expansion harder. NFIB's twenty twenty six energy survey found that roughly four in five small business owners say energy costs have a significant effect on their business. When those costs rise, The most common responses are tighter margins and higher prices. And cost is only part of the problem. NFIB also found that two thirds of small businesses experienced a power outage in the previous year. For a small business, unreliable power can mean losing a day's sales or production, sometimes along with inventory. But small businesses are also builders. When someone constructs a major energy or industrial project, the opportunity doesn't stop with the company whose name is on it. It reaches the small suppliers in skilled trades that turn major investments into real projects. So the question before us should not be how to manage an era of energy scarcity, rather it should be how to unleash American energy dominance. Unfortunately, for too long, poor policy decisions have made it harder to access this domestic energy. We have made reliable power harder to keep and build, while rewarding megawatts on paper, rather than performance when grid is under stress. When new energy and industrial infrastructure are needed, these projects are sent into a broken permitting process that is stifling American innovation, small business, and consumers. McKinsey estimates that up to one point five trillion dollars in infrastructure capital is currently tied up in federal permitting. Those are the policy failures the Trump administration is working to reverse. Administrator Zeldin is removing unnecessary regulatory barriers at EPA while maintaining substantive environmental protections. Secretary Wright has centered DOE on energy abundance and reliability, and Secretary Burgum is advancing permitting reform and reliable energy production through the National Energy Dominance Council. Congress now has an opportunity to make those gains durable. Our research at AFPI focuses on three priorities. First, keep what works. Do not allow the premature retirement of reliable power plants when doing so would weaken system reliability. Natural gas, nuclear, coal and other dependable resources are not merely a bridge to some future system. They are part of the long-term foundation of an affordable, reliable grid. Second, build what we need. Permitting delay is a hidden tax on the American people. Streamlining permitting processes by making routine work easier to approve, imposing real deadlines on agencies, and preventing litigation or duplicative federal review from becoming a second permitting system. These are common sense policies. The rules should be durable, predictable, and technology neutral. The House Pass Speed Act is an example of an important step in that direction. Third, protect the rate payer. Give large new electricity users clear pathways to provide their own power. When they rely on the grid, the principle should be simple. The customer that creates a new cost should bear it. Those customers should build, bring, or buy the power they need and pay the incremental infrastructure costs needed to serve them. rather than shifting those costs onto families and small businesses. If Congress gets energy policy right, the small business opportunity, which is the work that happens when America builds, is enormous, and we should want that work done here by American workers and American businesses. America has the resources and the people to meet the energy demands ahead. Congress can help by making it easier to build, so small businesses have the affordable, reliable power they need, and the opportunity to help build what comes next. Thank you for allowing me to share some of our work today. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Mister Ellis. Mister Higgins.

Good morning. Thank you, uh, Chair Elzey and Ranking Member Morrison. I'm Trevor Higgins, the Senior Vice President, uh, for Energy and Environment at the Center for American Progress. Over the last year, energy costs rose fifteen percent according to the latest, uh, inflation numbers, more than four times the rate of overall inflation. more than four times the rate of wage growth. The average household this summer is expected to spend nearly eight hundred dollars on electricity. Small businesses have since the start of last year seen an increase of ten percent in commercial electricity rates and twenty-four percent in gas utility rates. Since this time last year, gasoline prices are up thirty percent, diesel prices up fifty-two percent, and jet fuel up seventy-two percent. Since the beginning of the Iran war, the average household has spent an extra four hundred and four dollars on gasoline, According to analysts at Brown University, it's updated as of this morning. Many American families and small businesses are struggling to keep up with the increasing costs. As been mentioned in a survey last winter, eighty percent of small business owners reported that increasing energy costs are significantly impacting their businesses. Roughly one quarter have lowered their energy use in response, but not every business can do that. Uh, more than half have responded by raising prices. There are many reasons why energy prices are rising. The electricity grid is aging and vulnerable to increasingly extreme weather. The power demand of data centers could triple by twenty thirty, which we estimate would increase total electricity system costs roughly fifteen percent. Who will pay these costs? Federal policy is needed to address these rising challenges. Unfortunately, the policies of the Trump administration are instead raising costs in several major ways. First, at a time when we need more energy on the grid and not less, the one big beautiful bill repealed federal clean energy eliminating more than half of the new electricity generating capacity that would have been added to the grid over the next decade. Analysis from Energy Innovation estimates this disinvestment will raise commercial electricity rates twelve percent by twenty thirty five. The Rhodium group found that the bill's increase in demand for gasoline will raise prices up to thirty seven cents per gallon by twenty thirty five. Second, although wind and solar remain the least expensive sources of new power, The administration has sought to block clean energy development on many fronts. The administration banned permits for new offshore wind projects, tried issuing stop work orders for projects already under construction. Uh, in recent deals the administration has spent nearly four billion in taxpayer dollars to get private developers to abandon offshore wind energy projects. Blocking new energy resources from reaching the grid requires utilities to fall back on older power plants that cost more to fuel and cannot meet the growth in electricity demand ultimately. Third, the administration's broad and ever-reaching tariffs have increased input prices for critical equipment. And fourth, the war of choice in Iran has damaged energy security and increased prices for Americans costing more than twelve hundred dollars per household as a result of higher energy prices, grocery bills, and interest rates. Rather than blocking investment in new clean energy, the United States needs more investment to build a bigger, better power system. That includes grid infrastructure, including transmission and distribution lines, transformers, inverters, distributed energy resources like rooftop solar that deliver benefits directly to homes and businesses, least cost new capacity from utility scale wind and solar, and not just capacity but firm generation resources like demand response, nuclear, geothermal, batteries, that can lower total system costs with little to no ongoing fuel costs. Much more. At the Center for American Progress we have published a plan for American electricity affordability recommending reforms, and investments to make this happen. alongside a rate relief fund to deliver immediate relief to households. Data centers, data centers must be made to pay their fair share of the costs of grid infrastructure that serves their growth. And any data centers that are built should be connected to the electricity grid if possible. Currently planned off-grid data center development could consume about eighteen percent as much natural gas as the entire power sector does today, which would drive up fuel prices for home heating and cooking, industry, and power plants. If these data centers instead pay their fair share of connecting to the grid, the addition of so much new demand could actually lower average costs by spreading them out over a larger base of customers particularly where the grid may have spare capacity. So in conclusion, energy prices are rising and the current administration's policies are unfortunately making the problem worse and not better. The United States needs to invest in new clean energy generation, ensure data centers are paying their fair share, and build a bigger, better electrical grid. A combination of immediate relief and long-term reforms are needed to deliver cost savings for small businesses and households alike, while building a more resilient, capable, flexible, clean, and affordable electricity system. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Higgins. We'll now move to the member questions under the five-minute rule. I'll recognize myself for five minutes. Representative Harris, um, how can the federal government best partner with states? to ensure our water and electric infrastructure is capable of sustaining long-term growth.

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman. What we're seeing in Texas is the best way, uh, for us as a state has been for the federal government to grant our state agency's primacy in regulatory matters, like the Railroad Commission of Texas, uh, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as it re- as it relates to water, uh, issues. Um, and so, as we transition into that nuclear renaissance that I was talking about in my testimony and uh that's one of the primary areas of focus is how can we um make the permitting process more efficient. Um we know that the uh as soon as these reactors are demonstrated as safe uh that then it's just a matter of site selection uh and so could the federal government then grant primacy at least on site selection to the state of Texas to expedite the process of building an and uh locating those nuclear reactors where they're needed throughout the state.

You know, you mentioned

You mentioned small modular reactors, which not everybody might know what they are, but in Texas we're really excited about the the prospect of sticking a SMR at every data center, so that it further uh reinforces the grid. Tell me a little bit more about what your vision is for SMRs and how they might help us produce water as well.

Uh, thank you for the question. Um, SMR is really help provide the answer to both our energy need uh and our water problem that we we're we're being faced with. Um, you know, Texas sits on a literal ocean of brackish groundwater, different parts of the state. Uh, but it's hard to get electricity to those areas and enough electricity operating cleanly, efficiently, always on. Uh, and so that's one of the areas where we see a huge potential. The other area is in uh, pr- produced water treatment. And so again, produced water is a by-product right now of the oil and gas industry. Uh, the state of Texas, uh, is producing about sixty million barrels of produced water a day. And right now all we can do is just re-inject it back into the ground. There's nothing else we can do with it unless we figure out how to treat it. So the legislature created the Produced Water Consortium several sessions ago, uh, a - a public-private partnership tasked with, uh, identifying technologies and ways to safely uh treat produced water. And one of the companies that's working with the produced water consortium is called Natura Resources. And they have a small - a small modular reactor. Their reactor design is a molten salt reactor. So in a molten salt reactor they can use brackish ground water to cool the reactor that it offers then a n- a - a natural by-product of - of distilled water that can be used for other uh other uses as well. So a lot of different benefits that we're seeing uh the potential for through SMRs throughout the state of Texas.

And so Texas is doing that on its own, right? I mean, y- you and the legislature and the governor are working very hard to do this. Do you see a role for Congress in this or just let you do what you're doing best?

Uh, uh, I do see a role in con- for Congress to roll back some old outdated regulations. Uh, but other than that, let Texas roll. We're we're good at doing that.

Thank you very much. Mister Ellis, over to you. Um, I grew up in the P- Texas Panhandle, which is inundated with windmills now. It's completely, it's, it's a terrible site, but I know what the, the need is. But what, what I'm concerned about is with respect to wind turbines and solar panels, how are they disposed of when they're no longer used?

Uh, thank you for the question, Congressman. The answer is that they are difficult to dispose of. These, uh, Windmills, these wind turbines, and solar panels use rare earth elements that have difficult disposal processes, and far too often we see the uh debris of windmills, wind turbines that have fallen over, or solar panels that have been destroyed by hail or other other storms. They can linger in fields and those are very hard to remediate. It's a big problem.

Well, do they bury them? Do they burn them? What - what can you be - what can you do with the blades on the wind turbines?

They - they can be buried and sometimes they are. Um, there are expensive, difficult methods for recycling, but again, too often you see these just strewn in fields and and scattered by the road.

Well, is that because we didn't pay for, we paid for them to build them but not paid for the, for them to dispose, the American taxpayer paid for them to build the turbines, and then there wasn't any money once they were done to do anything with it. So they're leaving it on the ground, is that what you're saying?

That's right, Congressman. I think that it highlights an important element. It's been said sometimes that wind and solar are the cheapest resources on the system, but they're only cheap when you don't account for the full system cost, and recycling and remediation is certainly part of that cost, and there are other costs that I'll highlight later.

All right. Thank you very much. My time has expired. I now recognize the ranking member for five minutes of questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, Mr. Higgins, in February the president, as we noted, launched a war with Iran and the Strait of Hormuz has essentially been closed ever since then gas has been

Um, so the Iran war cost uh due to the increase in fuel is estimated to cost American households twelve hundred dollars. That's because they pay more to fill up their tank of gasoline, but also because the costs of fuel trickle through the whole economy. And so grocery prices are up uh and interest rates have increased in order which affects everything from mortgages to small business loans. So the the costs are significant and um unfortunately there's really no end in sight until the war is resolved there will be continued disruptions in the global oil supply. Uh Secretary Wright recently acknowledged that three dollar gasoline might not happen until next year um and this is affecting storage of crude oil reserves, it's uh the strategic petroleum reserve is down thirty percent since the start of the war, which is its lowest level in four decades. And private storage in Cushing, Oklahoma is down to twenty-two million barrels, which is nearing its minimum operating levels. This means that further disruptions won't be able to be buffered in the same way that disruptions have to date. And that ultimately the storage levels need to be refilled over time. So I think that the uh impacts of on the disruptions to fuel are are likely

So what steps should we take to reduce our dependence on energy sources that are subject to the whims of foreign adversaries like Russia and Iran?

Right, i- i- as as much domestic uh fuel as we produce, it's still traded on a global market, and so disruptions overseas affect prices here. And that's why over time it's important to be building an economy that doesn't depend on these fossil fuels so extensively. The uh electric vehicles can reduce demands uh as i mentioned in my testimony the repeal of the incentives that made it more affordable for people who wanted to buy electric vehicles uh means that there will be more demand for gasoline persistently for many years to come enough to raise the actual price of gasoline for everybody who is still buying gasoline by up to thirty seven cents per gallon uh that that's expensive uh there are many other opportunities to electrify that homeowners who want to take advantage of should be

So diversifying our energy sources might make sense.

Mm-hmm.

Um, Americans are understandably, I think, anxious and they're, we're seeing this across the country, uh, about the rapid construction of large AI data centers. And while big tech companies are raking in hundreds of billions of in profit per year, they really, I think, are not doing a great job of bringing the American people along and demonstrating how AI might improve people's lives. They've got, they're building these massive buzzing buildings that are showing in communities across the country, they're increasing energy prices, people are kind of freaked out. Mister Higgins, your plan for energy affordability includes setting a separate rate class for data centers. How would this protect consumers from increased prices? Uh, and would it also protect small business owners who pay commercial rates?

Yes. So, many states are increasingly adopting large load tariffs to say that, uh, at the point of interconnection to the grid, uh, the new customer has to pay the upfront costs for all of the grid infrastructure and generation that might be needed to connect to the grid, so that the existing customer base doesn't have to foot the bill. That's especially important when you're talking about something so large as a data center because impacts are huge. The other um component is that on an ongoing basis, that tariff that they pay for the connection to the grid needs to cover their fair share of the cost of the system operation. Uh, this is something that many states are starting to adopt, uh, or pausing uh on deployment until they can straighten it out. I think FERC has an important role to play, and so does Congress, in making sure their national standards, transparency. And it is especially important, I think, where there are regional transmission operators like PJM, that you mentioned in your opening statement,

Mm-hmm.

where there's really it's a federal jurisdiction to make sure that the capacity auctions and other uh transmission construction efforts are cost constr- cost sensitive.

Thank you, Mr. Higgins. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Doctor Morrison, and I now recognize Mister Finstad from Minnesota for five minutes.

Thank you, Chairman Elzey, uh, thanks for holding this important hearing today and thank you to our witnesses, excuse me, for for being here with us today. Our country is facing unprecedented energy demand that will require significant transmission and distribution uh infrastructure and it's important that we have the stability to provide power to our communities. We also must acknowledge that water infrastructure and rural development are synonymous with economic resilience. For rural communities to grow, thrive and remain strong, reliable access to safe water and wastewater services must be recognized as fundamental foundation for sustainable growth. And that's why I've been, uh, proud to secure funding for projects in my district that focus on revitalizing aging water infrastructure. Uh, Representative Harris, you, uh, you, uh, gave us a glimpse into what what, uh, you, uh, your work and what Texas the Texas legislature is doing in regards to water and wastewater. Uh, you've talked about the significant investments in expanding water supplying infrastructure to support rural communities, agriculture, and new economic development. In southern Minnesota, our rural communities are facing their own struggles with aging water infrastructure. Uh, multiple estimates in Minnesota alone, multiple billions of dollars of unfunded liabilities, uh, that we don't see under, under the ground, buried, uh, sixty, seventy, eighty year old infrastructure. So, what lessons can we in Minnesota and and those of us around the country learn, uh, in regards to the Texas approach, uh, in investing in long-term water supply infrastructure while ensuring that existing farmers' small businesses are not left burying these additional costs?

Representative, thank you for the question. Um. I, I would be, um, failing if I were to take credit for what we've accomplished in Texas on my own. It's been decades of other members of the legislature have gone for me who have laid the groundwork in making water planning and investment a priority for the state of Texas. And so, uh, I would say first of all that for other states, uh, to make water policy and planning, uh, a priority for, uh, your - your localities and your legislatures. Uh, as you set your budgets, water funding should be at the very top of the list, uh, because you're absolutely right. rural communities will not thrive, they will not continue to grow, uh they can't attract new industries and and uh grow economic activity without reliable water sources. Uh and so what we did in Texas, uh the one billion dollars per year for the next twenty years, we split that into two different categories. Half of that is dedicated for new water supply and the other half is is dedicated for existing infrastructure because we're losing billions upon billions of gallons of water per year in leaky pipes, leaky infrastructure. Uh, and so we've made both a priority. And again, it's just the very tip of the iceberg, that one billion dollars per year is a ton of money, but we're facing a hundred and seventy-four billion dollar budget shortfall over the next forty years in water funding if we don't continue to make it a priority.

Thank you for that. I, you know, as a country that's celebrating the two hundred and fifty earth birthday I think there's a lot of time for us to reflect on the, on the fact that we are literally here today because we're standing on the shoulders of giants, those that went before us that had made commitments, they sacrificed everything to give us the greatest country the world's ever seen. And you look at some of the investments that were made sixty, seventy, eighty years ago, uh, by, by policymakers, by local officials that made it a priority to make sure our communities had safe and reliable drinking water and wastewater infrastructure which then led to a strong growth of economic development opportunities for, for our neighbors. uh this is our generation's kind of uh call to arms what what are we going to do for the next two hundred fifty years so it's great to hear that texas has taken a uh a very serious long term look at maybe some of the political unsexy things the the the water and waste water but yet the vital arteries and veins that keep that that keep our country going so thank you for your work on that front and uh i will be directing our our state colleagues to maybe have a conversation with you about what has worked and what hasn't worked. So I appreciate that. Uh, Mister Ellis, you've, uh, talked about and you've argued that retiring industrial and energy sites already have transmission access water infrastructure lo- local workforces and new development needs I think of southern Minnesota's first congressional district that I represent we have seen some industry you know shuffle and leave. We have seen, uh, s- some some sites go idle. And uh, it, it does beg the question of what do we do, what can we do to revitalize those. So, for rural manufacturing communities in states like Minnesota, uh, what would it take to make those sites competitive locations for new energy and man- manufacturing investments?

Thank you, Congressman. I think that's important question. My colleagues at AFPI have highlighted that the cheapest megawatt of power is usually the one we already have. Similarly, the best workforces that we uh could avail ourselves of in revitalizing uh former industrial sites or the workforces that are already there. I think we can invest in workforce development. I think we can look at siting new large projects on brownfield industrial sites. That way we can skip some of the process with regards to remediation. We can provide um liability protection for you know, pollution or other remediation elements that might already be there. I think that those sites can really be a place where we can springboard into the next generation of manufacturing.

Thank you for that, and Mr. Chairman, thank you for indulging me. Uh, I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Finstad, and now recognize Mr. Schmidt from Kansas for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. We appreciate the discussion. This is uh, in some ways a a microcosm of discussions happening in communities all over, I'm sure, the country and I know my state of Kansas and and the second congressional district in Kansas. Uh, so in that context, forgive if uh these are little more particularized questions, but uh, Mister Harris, I'll ask you uh to start with. I mean these discussions are happening everywhere, including uh in the United States military. The army just uh had their Janus project, they just announced I believe the first five sites uh that they're gonna commercialize nuclear generation on post. I think Fort Hood is one of those if I'm not mistaken.

Right, San Antonio as well.

Can you, can you uh talk a bit from your perspective, obviously you're familiar with this and have have thought about it. How does, how does whatever action the military takes in terms of creating additional generation capacity. Uh, how does that or how should that interface with the civilian discussions happening for off-post uses?

Uh, I think they work hand in hand together. Uh, as as the military, and Texas has uh, a very strong footprint of different military bases throughout. And so, as we begin to to cross this threshold on uh, revitalizing the nuclear industry and encouraging nuclear development in Texas, I think it helps to have the these military bases taking the lead uh especially when they're able to um uh not go around but they're they're they're they're able to do things more efficiently, they're able to to get them located on site more efficiently than just private sector is. And so uh the the main objective that we have right now in uh advancing this nuclear renaissance is bringing the cost curve down on production of nuclear reactors. So the more um agencies and and industries that we have engaging in that process, I think the quicker we will get to the day when we're building uh hundreds if not thousands of small modular reactors throughout the state and hopefully the country.

Mr. Ellis, do you have any thoughts on that?

Uh, thank you Congressman, yes. So, Congress already took uh effective action under NEMA, a previous nuclear law. We can go further by codifying the uh provisions of executive order fourteen three hundred. which is President uh Trump's executive order on nuclear that directs uh the National the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to further expedite timelines that's a very important part of the nuclear equation because nuclear projects are very capital intensive in addition I'm grateful to the NRC for promulgating part fifty three which is a licensing pathway that is designed particularly for these small modular reactors um I think that's gonna be very positive for them they can also continue to finalize part fifty-seven which is their framework for micro-reactors and micro-reactors are many of the advanced reactor types that the military is going to want to use on facilities here in the United States and also facilities abroad

Mr. Harris do you have any thoughts on that topic?

Uh the Center for American Progress also supports the use of nuclear, I think diversity of resources is really important for energy security, reliability and over all total system cost reductions. So uh I'd point to The Department of Energy has supported for many years uh licensing uh support for SMRs. Uh the Inflation Reduction Act, a piece of it that was preserved in OBBA, uh maintains tax incentives for production from existing nuclear and investment in new nuclear. So I think these are important components of a healthy investment in the grid.

I'd come back with a follow-up for Mister Harris, uh setting aside the military piece, but I also represent a Wolf Creek nuclear generating station, traditional reactor. Um, obviously there are some sighting advantages to being close to an existing facility, whether it's workforce, whether it's transmission, whether it's community acceptance, whether it's land and and all those assets. Have you in Texas uh approached those sighting decisions for this next-gen, new-gen nuclear in terms of how it might interface with existing facilities?

Yeah, we have actually. And so down at uh, I believe it's Comanche Peak. We've we've got two main uh existing conventional light-water uh nuclear reactors in the state of Texas. They're two different complexes. And um, the one of them is already permitted for for an additional um spot uh but and it's been that way since the nineteen sixties or seventies um but regulatory hurdles and uh everything around that have prevented that but now with SMRs um they are looking at opening that back up to to co-locate with that existing technology uh but at the same time the siting requirements when we're talking about SMRs are uh so much easier of a conversation to have because we're not talking about hundreds of acres uh to construct a a reactor we're talking about a couple of acres in some cases on these micro-reactors and the small modulars a very very small footprint and a lot of these reactor designs are walkway safe so that you don't need to have the massive build-out that you had with the the older conventional style reactors.

Thank you very much I yield back Mr. Chairman.

Thank you Mr. Schmidt and now recognize Mr. Tronis from the home of the Blue Angels in Florida.

God bless you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for uh, this is a great agenda. Um, and thank you all for being here. Um, so I I did a little bit of time on the Public Service Commission back in Florida, and I can go reflect on fuel mix of at least what the state of Florida was back in O seven, O eight. I mean, we had gas, coal, hydro, nuclear. Uh, little bit of renewable. Um, then you fast forward, you have fracking introduced into our country and and now we got basically combined cycle um generation that has replaced almost everything except what existing nuclear was already in place um nuclear cost recovery solutions that were put into motion in the state of florida because of just the uh extraordinary out of pocket expense for starting up nuclear were shelved And so you had a unfortunate set of circumstances where we started, uh, doing cost recovery advanced collection in order to build these nuclear facilities. And, and next thing you know, it's just, it's, it's cost prohibitive because of how quick and cheap a combined cycle generation unit could come online. Um, so, you know, uh, I start to scratch my head. Cuz I'll, I'll really like the idea of nuclear. Um, but I guess, uh, I would like to ask for, um, Mister Ellis to elaborate a little bit more on the President's executive order about the timeline. Cuz I guess some of the concerns I've got is with the timeline, if I, if I decided today I wanted to build a nuclear plant, you know, I'd be lucky if it's generating within twenty years. And then, within twenty years when I do it, I'm building it off a technology that was twenty years old. So, um, I I get excited about small scale nuclear, but then also feel like the only place probably small scale nuclear is probably really uh a smart fit is probably inside of a a military installation. So that's where, you know, uh, Mister Harris, I'd love to hear your comment on because because I know it like with a combined cycle facility, heck, you can run one of those security and everything with about eight eight employees. But then when you talk about bringing nuclear on, And you might need a military quality, you know, police force, security force of two hundred. So, um, you know, I guess that's the only reason why I'm just being a little critical, as as excited as I get about nuclear, how do we how do we make it affordable and how do we speed up the timeline? And, um, and how do we get buy-in when, you know, this is a vision this president sees right now that he appreciates. But, um, you know, I'm just afraid how politics change, just like we've got the chairman's point you know, wind farms that we're scratching our heads with, are these truly good providers of baseline, uh, baseload electricity? So, you're all free. It's free for all to answer those questions.

Uh, thank you Congressman. That's a quite a good question. I think there's a lot of points that that I could make. I'll try to keep them quick. Uh, as you pointed out, these are capital-intensive projects, but they do have long life spans. We have nuclear reactors on the current fleet that are sixty or or eighty years um, that they've been rated for, for safe and effective operation, I think that drives down the cost tremendously, and I think doing more to communicate that to the American people. And I think also, one thing that we find is when, you know, acknowledging that some Americans are skeptical about nuclear power, when you ask the people that actually live in those communities, and there's a very good survey, it's called Nuclear Neighbors, I highly recommend it. You ask the people in those communities, they are positive on nuclear power, they, they know it's safe, they understand that it drives jobs and wages in their communities, they understand the reliable power that it brings, so I think we can communicate that better. Um, regarding executive order fourteen three hundred, I think the the point is to make uh reactor upgrades, restarts faster, to give predictable timelines. As you mentioned there's a long lead time in site development and many other stages throughout the the nuclear approvals process. And I do think the promise of small modular and micro-reactors, advanced reactors generally, the idea that those could be prefabricated, and built at scale rather than being large bespoke projects like the existing light-water reactor fleet which I do think is very important but leaning into advances in technology the ability to make things smaller and these physics-based safety systems as you say Cody the walk-away safety systems I think that's really important and something that can give Americans a lot more confidence to build and invest in the next generation of nuclear while preserving the nuclear that we have.

I'll try to answer in twenty seconds left uh At Texas A and M University we've got five reactors being built right now by five different companies we've got one being built at Abilene Christian and so the benefit of the small modulars is once those reactor designs are approved by the NRC and the DOE then it's just down to site selection because the reactor design has already been approved uh and permitted so the time line will shrink considerably from there.

Thank you, Mr. Petronas. And now I recognize Goodlander from New Hampshire for five minutes.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, thank you to our witnesses for being here today for this important hearing. Mister Higgins, I wanna start with you, your your testimony gave me pause a number of times. You point out that energy costs have risen more than four times the rate of overall inflation and more than four times the rate of age uh of wage growth over the last year that's remarkable you also point out that consumption is only increasing um I wanna ask you about H R one, uh, the president's so-called one big beautiful bill, which you you've you've shared in your written testimony that repealing or restricting federal clean energy investment in incentives is projected to have eliminated more than half of the new electricity generation capacity that would have added to the grid over the over the decade through twenty thirty five including up to seventy-two percent of all new

Yeah, thank you for the question. So, uh, i- in twenty twenty four, ninety six percent of all new electricity being added to the grid was wind, solar, or batteries. Uh, there was nuclear, the ra- nuclear reactor was joining that year too, which is, which is right,

Mm-hmm.

right near there. And there was a little bit of gas. Um, this is just the, it's the cheapest, fastest power to bring to the grid. And under the Inflation Reduction Act, up to half of the cost of making the grid investments, uh, the generation investments was borne by the federal government instead of by taxpayers. That was saving money for taxpayers. When you take away those i- investment incentives, less of it can be built on the right timelines, and the stuff that is built passes on more costs to than it would have. It still remains the cheapest fastest source of power, so it's still being built. I think uh I saw yesterday that half of all new solar and half of all new battery installations are actually happening in Texas right now in the whole country. So it it's really impressive. It can it can happen quickly in a lot of places, but it raises costs to restrict access the the grid's ability to put that new capacity and new cheap power onto the grid fast enough because once it's on the grid, it doesn't cost much to maintain and there's no fuel costs. But getting it onto the grid is the big hurdle. And that's why uh the total cost, it it could actually increase uh cost to the power system to add new generation, to run existing power plants. Uh it's it's very uh it's significant ramifications to have repealed those tax credits.

Thank you, Mister Higgins, Mister Ellis, we've spent a lot of time since I came to Congress uh January of last year on permitting reform and you've you have advocated for permitting reform to ensure energy dominance I'm all with you on that. In your judgment, should permitting reform include making it easier for clean energy projects to take place and to fuel the grid?

Congresswoman, that's a great question, thank you. Permitting reform should be technology neutral. That means it should apply to any kind of infrastructure that we want to build, whether that's transmission and distribution, solar and wind, natural gas,

But you wouldn't be opposed to clean energy projects as a as a matter of principle.

nuclear. That's correct. I favor any kind of project that is affordable and reliable.

All the above then.

I'd prefer to say best of the above.

Best of the above.

And by and by that I mean projects that show up when they're needed, not just uh energy that sits on the grid but is not available when it's called on at times of system stress. And solar and wind unfortunately do fit into that bucket.

So I I get the question often, why are we seeing these delays to permitting clean energy projects? Why are we seeing an upending of that? Like how would you answer that question to my constituents who just see what's happening as frankly a corrupt, chaotic and senseless set of interventions by the executive branch.

Well, I'm not a lawyer so I can't speak to the legal rationale, but I do think it reflects

I'm not asking you for a legal rationale, just a common sense response. Does this make any sense at all if what we're trying to do is achieve energy dominance and lower the cost of energy at a moment when it's sky-high?

I think that it reflects the difference between energy and capacity. The kind of energy that small businesses and families want to pay for,

Uh,

Hmm.

I don't have enough time to respond to you on that. Mister Higgins, I did wanna ask you about investor owned utilities and the way it's in which they're operating across the country. What I've seen in New Hampshire right now and i've just filed a petition to intervene in a rate case one of our utilities is seeking another rate hike that's uh gonna add to the bills of hardworking people who are getting crushed i see i'm out of time but i'll submit some questions to the record and uh would welcome your expertise and ideas on how congress members of congress can actually play an important role in public utility commissions in these rate cases where the cost of energy is being decided often without enough transparency or accountability. Thank you. I yield back.

Thank you, Ms. Goodlander. Now I'd like to recognize the uh world's best congressional baseball coach of all time, Chairman Williams from Texas.

You're gonna go far in this business, uh. I wanted to say thank you again for all of you being here. Comanche Peak uh representative is in my district, so appreciate the work you're doing there. Uh, infrastructure projects are often announced before our community has uh enough trained workers to execute them. So what, to you, Mister Harris, what uh workforce needs do you see in your district uh uh particularly for electricians, line workers, welders, pipe fitters, water operators, industrial control technicians, and on and on and on?

Great question, Mister Chairman. Uh, water operators are one of the most significant needs that that we see in the rural areas. You know, we've got multiple, one county can have several different water systems operating. all all mostly non-profit and for those guys to find water operators is almost impossible uh and so we've been working with the texas education agency and our uh our korean technical colleges to develop pathways for kids out of high school uh to get certifications in in um uh system water system operation uh electrical workers is also another, especially as we see the prolifer proliferation of data centers and all these new technologies being built um w- we don't have enough electricians and um skilled labor like that. And so um we as uh the legislature have been working for years with our education agencies to try to develop a uh a fast track uh for taking kids directly out of high school with certification directly into the workforce as skilled labor.

Well, plumbers, welders, carpenters, et cetera save our economy.

That's right.

Like you're doing it, we're doing it up here too. Another question, as demand for energy, water, manufacturing, technology, infrastructure has grown, have local small co- smaller contractors and manufacturers in Texas lost opportunities to larger or already assembled out of state firms? Because they could not uh find crews obtain necessary sort of cases scale up quickly enough to meet the area project deadlines.

Chairman, I believe I can only answer that. far as it pertains to my district and my experience and i i don't believe i have seen that. Um now as as we begin to build the next area energy plant that's a result of of President Trump's trade deal with Japan, uh i can tell you that i've had uh just about every contractor in the area reach out for help getting in contact with with that uh as as that site gets developed. And i've been told by next era that they absolutely intend to work with those local contractors on building these projects. uh, and the few data centers that we've seen be built in House District eight, I do know that there have been, uh, local contractors that have been part of that as well.

Is that something you all would like to touch on real quick? OK. Um. Mister Ellis, uh, your

Thanks, Rick.

paper argues that, uh, or argues that, uh, large load users require firm dispatchable electricity, not simply additional name plate generating capacity. So the question is what does that distinction mean for utility planning and which resources are best suited to provide reliable power during peak and stressed conditions?

Uh, thank you Congressman. I think that's a very important question. With regard to some of the emerging technologies that are coming onto the grid, including data centers, these uh infrastructure facilities can have very uh high uptime requirements, uh upwards of ninety or ninety-five percent. That means that it's imperative they be powered by reliable, ultra-reliable electricity. The kinds of electricity that can supply that include hydroelectric, coal, and I think coal has a number of excellent characteristics, including that it has storage of fuel on-site, which makes it both reliable and resilient. Nuclear of course has some of the highest uh capacity factors in the the industry, including uh ninety-one percent as of the data lit this year. And then natural gas of course is wonderful for uh reliability, and then also because these facilities can ramp up and down in the amount of electricity that they request very quickly, and natural gas is well suited to that.

Alright, thank you very much and, uh, again appreciate you all coming, I yield my time back.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm gonna do a little re-attack and take, uh, five minutes for myself, uh, for, uh, just another round of questions. I think we're about out of, uh, folks to ask, so I think there's some good chances for clarification here. As we talk about small modular reactors, we throw that term around a lot. uh, Mr. Harris, what is the the the the SM- SMRs are are a lot safer. Can you explain why?

I might get Mr. Ellis to help jump jump in here to explain it more technically, but uh the reactor design uh on many of the small modular reactors aren't what we're used to and and let me say from the get-go all nuclear technology is safe. Uh, we've seen for decades and decades. Um But especially with the new advanced r- reactor designs, like let let's talk about molten salt reactors specifically. Um those use the the heat of the molten salt um to to cause the the reaction inside the reactor to produce the uh the the electricity. And so if in that case there w- something went wrong and the the reactor failed the result would be that the molten salt just cools. And it it doesn't operate at the same pressures as we see in conventional light water reactors uh they operate with the same pressure coming out of a a garden hose at home so uh in the event of a catastrophic failure you're not seeing uh massive fallout or anything like that it's all contained there on-site if in the unlikely event there is um a failure

ok

congressman i i don't wanna speak too broadly there are many reactor designs including in the smr space one of the design types that i find particularly exciting is what we're calling fast reactors so the current generation of large light water reactors that powers the american grid right now when you see those large cooling towers those are light water reactors those operate with a lower enriched uranium and these fast reactors operate with a higher enriched uranium the point is that when you have the low enriched you must slow down the neutron and then the fast reactors have uh a higher amount of uranium and the fast neutron then has the ability to split uh split the atom there and the benefit one of the benefits of that is that the physics of the uranium itself constrains the rate of the reaction so as the temperature gets hotter and hotter you approach a point at which the reaction itself starts to slow down and so it self contains so we call it a physics-based safety system.

OK. Mister,

All right.

Mister Chairman, if I may point out to another massive benefit that we're seeing is that a lot of these new reactor designs are utilizing recycled already spent nuclear fuel. So we're not creating new sources of of nuclear uh fuel waste. These are going and and almost completely depleting those previously used fuel sources.

OK. So I I think it's important to note that that the light water and SMRs are completely different and there the fear of what would happen should something go wrong, is apples and oranges. And so SMRs, you know, you know, you used to say we should see a Starbucks on every corner, you could probably see an SMR in every corner. And the footprint for, for personnel, the footprint for security uh goes way, way down. And, and, and it will reinforce the grid. So, thank you for that testimony. Mister Higgins, I just wanna make something clear, you, you mentioned a while back that the costs of a certain type of energy were borne by the federal government and not the taxpayer. Did I hear you say that right?

Uh, right, so wherever there are clean energy investment incentives or nuclear's investment incentives production tax credits that means that the cost of production or investment are import borne by the federal government.

OK, but who funds the federal government?

Taxpayers.

OK. So taxpayers who are funding for these offsets both pay for the energy to be produced, and then they pay for what they're drawing from. So anybody who says that it's just borne by the federal government, you're getting pay, you're paying twice for so-called clean energy projects because and that's why they're not being started up anymore, because the federal government money, the taxpayer money has dried up, and so there's no incentive to put it out there because the cost is so high. So I just want to clarify, thank you for that clarification. Um, I I will leave you with this. I did appreciate a few of the things that you said, and I think that the entire panel does agree that nuclear energy overall needs to be reinvigorated in this country. And it's there on for peak demand, which renewables or clean or whatever you want to call those are not up for peak demand. And especially when you talk about clean, just keep in mind the the environmental catastrophe

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you for, uh, holding this important hearing. Uh, thanks to the witnesses for being here. This is a great conversation and an important one. Um, two thoughts. Uh, first, I love all the talk about Congress having a role in all of this, and as a member of Congress and an American, I would be thrilled for Congress to reassert its Article-two power and start getting involved in legislation. Um, number two, I think we all agree that we have an enormous energy challenge in front of us. Um. And so it's going to be important that we have fulsome and fact-based conversations about that. Um, the true cost of renewable energy sources was referenced, which is totally fair and appropriate. But we've got to include the true cost and externalities all sources of energy. Uh, we have never included the true cost or externalities of oil and gas consumption, and we have subsidized them on an enormous scale. Um, it's one of the reasons that Texas is having to invest i- to make gigantic investment in water infrastructure because of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels. So I just I just wanna end with I think it's so important that we are having fulsome conversations. Well, thank you, Doctor, thank you, Doctor Morrison. And again, the, the conversation has gotten started. I think we have some philosophical differences on climate change and why Texas

Well, thank you, Doctor.

needs water. Um, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and thank you very much, uh, Mister Chairman.

Thank you, Doctor Morrison. And again, the, the conversation has gotten started. I think we have some philosophical differences on climate change and why Texas needs water. Um, and, and, and, and on the data center issue, I will say this, that number one, we need more, uh, sources of power in our country because as we've watched the war in Ukraine, and what has now occurred with drone warfare, we need to reinvigorate our defenses Uh, as far as our grid is concerned, because there's some uh, some terrorist over here could take out a, a significant portion of our grid because our p- our sources and the - and then where we have them stretching out from, uh, i- our targets, small modular reactors and a - and a number of them can help reinforce the grid from uh from foreign intervention. But also, uh, we need to understand that, uh, that we still have agricultural needs, we have a population that is still growing, And we have emerging technology, which for lack of a better term, the AI race is today's Manhattan Project. And it is essential that we win this. China is a trading partner, yes. But we didn't realize that they were gonna be an adversary thirty, forty years ago. Now they have produced themselves as an an adversary, and their goal is world domination and economic domination uh across the world to supplant the United States. They have no moral compass. They're a genocidal government. With what they have done with the Uighurs and their own people, it is not a good trading partner. They have shown themselves to be somebody who wants world domination. So this is another race that the United States and the Western powers need to win. We're gonna do that with power and water, both providing for our - our communities, but also providing resilience against a foreign adversary that has shown its true cards. I'd like to thank all of our panelists, those who have come up here, Uh, Doctor Morrison for being my cohort in this, I look forward to many more conversations in this regard. I thank all of you for being here and I'd like to last point out, uh, uh, my staffer JR Lewis is going to leave our staff for Homeland. He's, uh, he's, uh, given us a number of years of his service and I'm deeply grateful to him for doing it. You've done a fantastic job. So God bless each and every one of you. Thank you for being here. We're adjourned. yeah yeah

yeah yeah that's the best yeah probably the more i try to play like i play like