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Dr. Edmund O. Schweitzer, founder and president of Pullman, Washington-based Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security on Tuesday, December 5. The hearing, America’s Future: Leading a New Era of Energy Dominance, Security, and Environmental Stewardship, explored opportunities to expand access to affordable, reliable and clean energy.

The Subcommittee Chairs released the following statement about the hearing:

“America has led the world in reducing emissions without sacrificing innovation, economic development or our national security. We’ve done more than any other country in the world to promote freedom, raise the standard of living and fight poverty, while also maintaining some of the best environmental and labor standards in the world. This is a legacy worth preserving and building upon. The best way to achieve this is by ensuring a strong energy mix that lowers energy costs for people, creates jobs, encourages innovation and secures our supply chains. As the committee prepares to lead a bipartisan delegation to COP28 next month, we look forward to celebrating America’s energy and environmental record and discussing how the U.S.—not China—continues to lead on unleashing clean energy across the board.”

In addition to Dr. Schweitzer, several other subject matter experts testified, including:

• Anne Bradbury, CEO, American Exploration & Production Council.
• David Gattie, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Engineering and Senior Fellow, Center for International Trade and Security, University of Georgia.
• Noah Kaufman, Ph.D, Senior Research Scholar, Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

The following issues were examined at the hearing:

• The importance of American global energy leadership.
• Policies that affect the supply and delivery of energy.
• Opportunities to expand access to clean, affordable, and reliable energy, including through innovation and technology.
• The role of national security in domestic energy policy.

The hearing ran for three hours and included many questions from subcommittee members.

In his remarks, Dr. Schweitzer said: “In the past 30 years, we’ve seen new regulations, more difficulties permitting, prescriptions and proscriptions, subsidies, mandates, bans, incentives, and other market distorters. We’ve thrown so much sand in the gears of free enterprise that we now suffer long supply chains reaching all the way to China. What would happen if we take the sand out of the gears? Electricity is essential. And it is becoming more important: people expect to charge their electric cars and heat their houses and water with electricity. Whether our politics align more with Ds or Rs, we’re all plugging into the same wall plugs. It’s high time that we unleash the spirit of free enterprise, together…the very spirit that made America.”

In response to a question from Rep. Gary Palmer from Alabama, Dr. Schweitzer commented: “I’m very concerned about things like innovation hubs, tech hubs, and subsidized this and that, and mandates, and bans, and taxes, and tariffs, and quotas all being used as tools when what they are is market distorters. We are at a point in our society when we need to make it easier, not harder, to build a factory. It takes, some people say, 2-3 times longer to build a factory in the United States than it does in China. So capital, which always gets its pay, is going to move that direction…I beg, please do what we can to make it easier to drill a hole, mine and refine, to produce, to manufacture, invent and create, whether it is critical minerals, diplomas, or pills, or food products, or clothing. We have to be able to compete to serve.”

To read Dr. Schweitzer’s prepared remarks, click here.

To view the hearing recording, click here.

To view the press release from Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, click here.