Ranking Member Lofgren Opening Statement at Hearing on Subsurface Energy
Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren's (D-CA) opening statement as prepared for the record is below:
Thank you, Chairman Weber and Ranking Member Ross, for holding this hearing today. I would also like to thank our panel of expert witnesses for appearing before the Committee to talk about subsurface research that will help secure our clean energy future.
In particular, advanced geothermal technologies now hold great potential to be a clean energy solution across the U.S. My home state of California is helping lead geothermal innovation – hosting 53 of the 99 current U.S. geothermal power plants, accounting for 72% of the nation’s total capacity. The Geysers complex in California is the world’s largest producer of geothermal energy, generating enough electricity to power approximately 725,000 homes. The presence of such a significant facility has also stimulated STEM engagement in universities across the state, including San José State University in my district.
So I certainly support efforts to advance research and development in geothermal energy to better understand how to deploy this renewable resource, while also leveraging the talent and enthusiasm of students in my district and across the country.
Another important area that we’ll be discussing today is the Department of Energy’s R&D efforts to examine critical materials that are necessary for manufacturing a wide range of clean energy technologies. Unfortunately, many of these minerals and alloys are not readily available from domestic sources, and some important supply chains are controlled by nations that are not always our friends. Consistent with the well-vetted and bipartisan critical materials provisions in the Energy Act of 2020 that advanced through this Committee, I support continued research to develop viable substitutes to these materials that are derived from more abundant sources. And I also strongly support R&D to minimize the environmental impacts of identifying, extracting, and processing current domestic sources of critical materials that the industries of today and tomorrow will need.
I very much look for to discussing these topics in more detail with the excellent panel we have here this morning, and with that I yield back the balance of my time.
###
Previous Article