Articles

Op-Ed originally published in The Washington Times.

By Troy Balderson

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House marked a long-overdue course correction for American energy policy. On the campaign trail and in his inaugural address, he promised to restore common sense to Washington’s regulatory agenda and put American energy first and on Day One, he delivered.

Since taking office, President Trump has signed several executive orders aimed at restoring American energy dominance unleashing reliable domestic energy, strengthening national security, and lowering costs for consumers.

These orders lifted the devastating freeze on new LNG export projects, ended anti-energy policies across the federal government, and promoted consumer choice by rescinding electric vehicle mandates. Federal agencies have begun to right-size federal rules, including the EPA’s recent announcement of a historic deregulation effort to roll back burdensome federal regulations and put an end to the failed Green New Deal initiatives.

After four years of heavy-handed government intervention, costly mandates, and favoritism toward the “green” energy sector, Washington is once again treating our domestic energy resources as the strategic assets they are not as an enemy to be constrained.

The previous administration forced Americans to electrify everything, from stoves to vehicles, while the Biden-led EPA worked to shut down our most dependable sources of power. That’s not a strategy. It’s a recipe for blackouts, higher bills, and economic instability.

This matters everywhere, but especially here in Central Ohio. Along with ushering new critical manufacturing, our region is one of the fastest-growing data center hubs in the country. These facilities are powering the AI revolution, but they can’t solely run on weather-dependent power sources and wishful thinking. They need steady, around-the-clock electricity.

In Central Ohio alone, power demand is projected to double from 2018 to 2028. We should be investing in connecting reliable, dispatchable baseload energy to the grid not trying to take it offline. And while the Biden-led EPA pushed to dismantle our power backbone, I’m working to expand it.

Just a few weeks ago, I reintroduced the GRID Power Act legislation aimed at cutting through the red tape that’s holding back critical power generation projects. Right now, any proposed project seeking to connect to the electric grid must go through a series of impact studies to assess necessary upgrades and costs. But before that process even begins, projects must wait in line in what’s called the “interconnection queue.”

With the enactment of Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act in 2021, we have seen a surge in renewable energy proposals flooding interconnection queues from companies seeking to take advantage of new taxpayer-funded financial incentives. Wait times in the queue have now ballooned to as much as five years, delaying much-needed baseload power generation projects and putting our grid’s reliability at risk.

The GRID Power Act empowers grid operators to work with FERC to fast-track generation projects that provide reliable, dispatchable power, address power shortages caused by retiring resources, and/or support growing power demand. These kinds of projects are exactly what we need to keep the lights on and ensure a reliable electric grid well into the future.

This Congress, I have the honor of serving as chairman of the House Energy Action Team, a coalition of Members of Congress tasked with amplifying House Republicans’ America First energy agenda. Our conference believes that our nation is on the brink of a new golden age, one of manufacturing resurgence, job creation, and middle-class prosperity. But without supporting and investing in affordable and abundant American energy, none of it will be possible.

Ohioans and all Americans deserve commonsense policies that prioritize energy reliability and long-term security. That’s exactly what President Trump and this Congress are committed to delivering.

It’s time to stop fighting the future and start powering it.