Mr. President: Listen to Americans on Energy Policy
March 6, 2024 - With the State of the Union address now here and energy policy likely to have a significant role in the President’s agenda, it’s valuable to understand what Americans actually want from the nation’s energy policy. As new national polling released from the National Mining Association (NMA) and conducted by Maru Public Opinion makes clear, Americans are increasingly concerned with how the energy transition is being managed.
Americans remain strongly in favor of an all-of-above energy strategy that includes coal and are concerned that the rush to transition to renewable energy is going to sacrifice our ability to keep the lights on. That mounting concern is a likely reflection of growing experience with grid emergencies and ever-louder warnings from the nation’s grid operators, utilities and reliability regulators that the nation is facing a reliability crisis.
The polling shows:
78 percent of Americans support an all of the above energy strategy that includes coal (just 10 percent do not support and 12 percent don’t know).
72 percent of Americans are concerned about the speed of the transition’s impacts on reliability (18 percent are not concerned and 11 percent don’t know). This number is up from 52 percent in May 2023, the last time the NMA polled on this question.
65 percent believe we should pause closures of existing, well-operating power plants until replacement generating capacity is in place and operational (17 percent disagree and 17 percent don’t know). This is up from 56 percent in May 2023, the last time the NMA polled on this question.
Responding to the polling, Rich Nolan, NMA president and CEO, said, “The EPA is working to hijack our nation’s energy policy through irrational and unattainable compliance measures that are forcing well-operating power plants into premature retirement. Without reliable generation and enabling transmission infrastructure to replace it, experts are warning of energy rationing and blackouts, and this polling shows more and more Americans are aware of those risks, are concerned and want the administration to change course.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched a blitz of rules targeting the coal fleet to accelerate plant closures and push the fleet off the grid nearly overnight.
This regulatory blitz comes as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) – the authority overseeing the nation’s grid reliability – recently warned in its long-term reliability assessment that the nation is facing surging electricity demand, potential supply shortfalls under both extreme weather conditions and normal operating conditions, as well as alarming peak capacity deficits in grids across the country. The threat of power supply shortfalls and potential blackouts now covers most of the U.S.
Americans are right to be concerned. If the President was delivering a state of the grid address, there would be no pretending it’s strong. We’re in a crisis of our own making and voters desperately want a course correction. It’s past time the Biden administration recognizes it.
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