Washington, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today called a decision from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) “the right thing,” after the commission rejected a Trump administration proposal that would have thrown competitive energy markets into chaos and raised utility rates for American consumers.
In October, Wyden blasted the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule and called on FERC to reject the proposed rule that would have arbitrarily subsidized coal plants, increasing consumers’ energy bills with no benefit to energy grid reliability. The DOE’s proposal would have done untold damage to energy markets and forced consumers to pay the difference.
“FERC clearly did the right thing by rejecting Trump’s and Secretary Perry’s hair-brained proposal to pick Americans’ pockets in order to funnel more money to coal executives,” Wyden said. “I called for the commission to reject this scheme to prop up dying industries at the expense of working families, while doing nothing to secure the energy grid. I’m relieved to see every commissioner saw the danger in following the administration’s lead.”
Wyden is a senior Democrat and the former chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.