CAP Senior Fellow Daniel J. Weiss testifies before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Read the full testimony (CAP Action)
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on “American Energy Security and Innovation: Grid Reliability Challenges in a Shifting Energy-Resource Landscape.”
Discussing electricity security and innovation while ignoring climate change is like discussing personal health while ignoring cigarette smoking, diet, and exercise. Any examination of this shifting landscape must acknowledge that our electricity-generation systems produce much of the carbon pollution responsible for climate change and that the effects of climate change impair electricity reliability. Since coal-fired power plants emit one-third of the climate pollution in the United States, it is irresponsible to assess changes in our electricity system while ignoring climate pollution and its impacts.
Americans understand that extreme weather is related to man-made climate change that costs our economy billions of dollars annually. A recent poll from Yale University and George Mason University found that many Americans believe that global warming caused recent extreme weather and climatic events to be “more severe.”
Extreme weather events—including storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires—threaten electricity reliability. The Congressional Research Service concluded that, “[P]ower delivery systems are most vulnerable to storms and extreme weather events.”
CAP Senior Fellow Daniel J. Weiss testifies before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Read the full testimony (CAP Action)