Manchin: Biden's Taking Energy Offline Faster Than He's Putting It Online

On Monday's broadcast of CNBC's “Last Call,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) stated that new regulations on coal power from the EPA are taking power off the grid at the same time that demand for electricity is increasing.

Host Brian Sullivan asked, “We're going to need 25-50% more electricity generation to meet our AI and datacenter goals at the minimum in probably 7-10 years. We're building out solar, we're building out wind, we're building out battery storage. That's great. But these new EPA rules that are at least in place or being discussed would require 90% of the nasty emissions from coal to be captured. I'm sure the coal industry will say, we can't do that or it would be prohibitively expensive. Are you worried that we're going to lose power generation at a time that we need more power generation?”

Manchin answered, “Well, not only am I worried about it, the FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory [Commission] and NERC [North American Electric Reliability Corporation], the people who basically evaluate our grid are telling us we're in a danger zone right now and we're throwing more demand into [it] basically and taking off more dispatchable 24/7 power. So, there's a transition coming. But you can't take something off that you're depending on 24/7 unless you have something better to replace it with. That's all. They're not there yet.”

Sullivan then asked, “But are we more aggressively taking stuff off than we are putting stuff on?”

Manchin responded, “That's exactly what the regulators have told me.”

Earlier, Manchin praised the increased energy production under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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