Sen. Kaine Excoriates Trump for Declaring a Bogus Energy Emergency

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) called President Donald Trump’s national energy emergency a “sham” Wednesday in floor debate on Senate Joint Resolution 10, a measure that would terminate Trump’s emergency declaration, which the president made via executive order on his first day in office.

“America is producing more energy today than at any point in the history of this nation,” Kaine said. “America is the leader in the world in energy, and for the last few years, we’ve been an energy surplus nation, producing more than we consume.”

Trump’s order directs heads of agencies “to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources, including, but not limited to, on Federal lands.” 

Those resources are defined in the order as “crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals,” with no mention of zero carbon electricity generation types. 

After about three hours of debate, the Senate defeated the joint resolution along party lines, 52-47. 

Scientists have long said humans must reduce and ultimately curtail fossil fuel emissions to stop the planet’s dangerous and accelerating warming. But business interests have resisted a rapid transition to clean energy by citing concerns over the abundance and effectiveness of the supply.

Kaine spoke with white boards behind him showing an upward trend of energy production since 1950, including oil and gas output, using numbers from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

In 2023, the U.S. produced about 102.83 quadrillion British Thermal Units, which is used to compare different types of energy, with consumption at 93.59 quadrillion BTUs, according to the EIA’s website. The U.S. has produced more electricity than it’s consumed since 2019.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration also added that it expects 63 gigawatts of new utility-scale generating capacity to be added to the U.S. electric grid this year, a 30 percent increase from the 48.6 gigawatts installed last year, which was the most brought online in one year since 2002.

Trump’s order, Kaine said, came after The Guardian and other news sources reported the president made a promise to oil companies during the campaign.

“One of the oil executives at the meeting quoted Donald Trump saying, ‘You’ll get it on the first day,’” Kaine said. “Oil and Gas will get preferential treatment on the first day with end-runs around environmental laws passed by Congress that are still part of the statutes we take an oath to implement in our jobs.”

Kaine also called out concern over Trump’s order to circumvent a host of major environmental statutes—the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, National Historic Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act—while also using eminent domain to take private land to produce more oil-, gas- and coal-fired electricity.

“President Trump is calling for a national emergency and bypassing all of these laws, if you want to produce using oil or gas or coal or nuclear or hydro, but not for wind, not for solar, not for clean battery storage,” said Kaine, noting that the Clean Water Act has helped clean up the James River where he lives. “If you’re home grown American, low cost energy is wind, solar and battery storage, you don’t get to bypass environmental laws.”

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico), who co-sponsored the resolution with Kaine, called out the number of jobs that have been created through clean energy, including a battery plant in North Carolina that will reduce dependence on those coming from China. Virginia is also expecting Microporous, a battery manufacturer, to invest $1.3 billion to open a plant in deep-red Southwest Virginia, with help from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which Trump is trying to freeze along with the Inflation Reduction Act

“Do we want to import more batteries from China? I don’t, because that’s what’s going to happen if we turn our backs on these factories and these energy sources,” Heinrich said.

Republican Senators countered by pointing to emissions controls that slow the pace of oil and gas extraction, the sluggish federal permitting of new pipelines and natural gas power plants, and strains to the electric grid, which is largely coming from data center development.

“We need to be able to overhaul what is clearly a broken federal permitting process. And we can do this. We can do this in a way that is cheaper, that is more reliable, more clean, really, than any other nation in the world,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), while advocating for oil and natural gas production in her state. 

According to a report from Advanced Energy United on Monday, reforms at PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator for Mid-Atlantic and Midwest states, could get more energy on to the grid and reduce electricity costs by $7 billion dollars.

“Do we want to import more batteries from China? I don’t, because that’s what’s going to happen if we turn our backs on these factories and these energy sources.”

— Sen. Martin Heinrich

Virginia is home to about 13 percent of the operational capacity of data centers in the world, and is creating questions over renewable energy’s ability to sufficiently supply electricity without battery storage. Virginia data centers are estimated to handle about 70 percent of the world’s internet traffic while contributing about $9.1 billion annually to the state’s economy through construction and tax revenue.

If development of the industry went unconstrained and had readily available transmission lines, electricity demand would triple in Virginia from just over 10,000 gigawatt hours of need in 2023 to more than 30,000 gigawatt hours by 2040. That demand could lead to a $37 monthly bill increase for Dominion Energy Virginia customers. Without data center development, the report forecast the demand increasing to about 12,500 gigawatt hours over that time frame.

In a recent earnings call, Dominion President and CEO Bob Blue disclosed that the utility had about 40 gigawatts of demand from data centers under contract as of December last year, up about 19 gigawatts, or 88 percent from July.

“What’s undeniable is that data center growth in Virginia is not slowing down,” said Blue. “In fact, it’s accelerating, and we’re taking every step to meet this opportunity.”

U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, the Republican Congressman representing southwest Virginia and chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment, did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment.

Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin put forth an “All of the Above” energy plan in 2022 that said solar and wind can provide electricity on a “low variable cost, but intermittent basis,” and should be paired with “affordable” batteries. The plan also pushed for continued fossil fuel use and new small modular reactor nuclear power. 

A press secretary for the governor pointed to a local news article about the Microporous project when asked for comment. 

“Governor Youngkin has spoken to senior management and they are absolutely committed to the project,” said Christian Martinez, the spokesman. 

Other Republicans on the Senate floor lauded Trump’s other efforts to repeal rules intended to spur adoption of electric vehicle purchases, and a rule to put a price on producing methane, which is the primary component of natural gas and is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere over 20 years. 

“We sit on so much energy, it’s off the chart,” said Sen. Jim Justice (R-West Virginia), while referencing coal and fossil fuel resources in the country. “Why can’t we be Saudi Arabia? I mean, for crying out loud, it absolutely is the answer, period.”