Christine Jordan Sexton
House Speaker Paul Renner continues to tease an energy bill for the 2024 Session, telling reporters that the House is continuing to work through a fine-tuned proposal.
“It’s not 20 things. It’s really some very basic things,” Renner said, adding he is looking to ensure “we are energy independent as much as we can be.”
The Speaker said his goal is to ensure that the state has a reliable energy grid to guarantee that businesses and people aren’t left without adequate power. He wants the energy to be quickly produced, domestically sourced and affordable.
“Unfortunately, that works at cross purposes with the uber-aggressive timeline that climate activists have put us on where they want us to go tomorrow,” he said. ” And if I had a magic wand, and I could say all energy is clean energy and we will never use fossil fuels again, and we could do that tomorrow at no cost, I would do it. Everybody should want a clean future. But that’s not realistic.”
Hydrogen power and nuclear power could be part of Renner’s proposal. But Renner said nuclear power continues to live under the shadow of Three Mile Island, the Pennsylvania site of a nuclear power accident that resulted in radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment.
“Do we need to revisit nuclear, which is being done in France, with no downside, no problems? But people are still living under, you know, Three Mile Island from the time when I was a kid,” Renner said.
“We just need to come to a place where we can deliver energy that is truly safe, is inexpensive, and delivers us a reliable grid. And right now, what I see happening nationally, is an effort that is at cross purposes, driving one agenda that’s going to put more and more demand on the grid, while at the same time demanding are the things that we’ll need to accommodate that cannot happen.”
