House GOP press Biden energy officials on prep for potential summer outages amid green energy push

FIRST ON FOX: Twenty-six House Republicans are grilling Biden administration energy officials on their preparations for potential power outages this summer across America amid the administration’s green energy push.

As energy prices soar amid historic inflation and warnings of a recession, House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., is leading the letters with several of her colleagues regarding the outage warnings from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).

"Blackouts are life threatening and extremely dangerous. President Biden, the Department of Energy, and FERC must take these threats and their responsibility to ensure reliable and affordable energy seriously," McMorris Rodgers told Fox News Digital in a statement.

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"We are demanding that the administration provide specific plans for how it will prevent potential electricity emergencies this summer," she continued.

"People are suffering enough from record high and unaffordable costs created by President Biden’s energy crisis," the Washington Republican said. "They deserve and need every assurance their lights and air conditioning will come on this summer to keep themselves and their families safe."

The letters were sent to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) chairman Richard Glick and pointed to the recent NERC assessment warning "more than half the nation will be at elevated risk of power outages this summer."

"The electricity resource shortfall is estimated to be even worse for customers living in a large region in the middle of the nation, extending from Washington to Louisiana, where the report warns about outages during normal summer conditions," the lawmakers wrote.

The Republicans wrote that the risks "have been unfolding in plain sight" and that the group had "seen little concerted effort during the Biden administration" to address the potential outages.

Several of McMorris Rodgers’ Republican committee colleagues signed onto the letter, including Reps. Michael Burgess of Texas and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana.

The power outage warnings from NERC come as the Biden administration makes a heavy push toward a green energy transition.

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President Biden on Monday invoked the Defense Production Act to accelerate domestic production of clean energy technologies, including solar panel parts, in an effort to "spur domestic manufacturing," senior administration officials said.

On Monday, Biden authorized the Department of Energy to use the Defense Production Act to rapidly expand American manufacturing in solar panel parts like photovoltaic modules and module components; building insulation; heat pumps, which heat and cool buildings super efficiently; equipment for making and using clean electricity-generated fuels, including electrolyzers, fuel cells, and related platinum group metals; and critical power grid infrastructure like transformers.

Power outages in the summer can be as detrimental to people’s health as a winter outage, especially in hotter states like Texas and Arizona.

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As temperatures rise in those states and others, individuals who are not used to the heat or do not have the constitution to withstand it are at real risk of dying from the heat.

A FERC spokesperson told FOX Business that the "Commission will respond to the members of Congress in due course" and pointed to the agency's 2022 summer assessment.

"With respect to the reliability of the bulk power system, FERC remains vigilant in working to enhance the reliability of the Bulk Power System in the face of increasingly frequent incidents of extreme weather that have adversely impact all types of electric generation," the spokesperson continued.

The Energy Department did not immediately provide comment in response to FOX Business' request.

FOX Business’ Brooke Singman contributed reporting.