US Senator Martin Heinrich (Democrat, New Mexico, Ranking Member of the US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee) and US Senator Patty Murray (Democrat, Washington, Vice Chair of the US Senate Committee on Appropriations and Ranking Member of the Energy and Water Development subcommittee) have sent a letter to the US Department of Energy (DOE), denouncing the Trump Administration for redirecting congressionally-appropriated funds set aside for carbon capture programmes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to prop up expensive, old coal power plants.
“This policy will not only cause more pollution in communities nationwide while harming public health and the environment, it will also raise energy costs at a time when the American people are already feeling the pinch with record high energy bills” says the letter, written by the two Senators at a time when electricity prices are soaring dramatically across the US, energy demand continues to rise and the Trump Administration is continuing to hamstring the clean energy sector.
“The Department of Energy’s (DOE or Department) plan to repurpose funds that Congress clearly appropriated for carbon capture programmes to instead subsidise coal power plants flies in the face of the law” the letter began. “Those funds could now be diverted to recommission coal plants— in clear defiance of congressional intent.”
The two Senators point out in the letter that the legal intention of these congressional funds, stating that they “were intended to improve rural energy resilience and reliability, while also protecting rural areas from the adverse environmental impacts of electric generation - a requirement enshrined in statute...The president cannot substitute his policy preferences for requirements in law, and that includes refusing to spend funds Congress requires the president to spend and steering those investments to unfunded priorities.”
The senators conclude the letter by demanding answers to questions surrounding the Department of Energy’s legal standing redirecting funds from clean energy programmes to coal projects and requesting documents and details on the Department’s decision-making.
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