Trump’s ‘Energy Emergency’ Triggers Massive Subsidy for LNG Power in Georgia and Alabama
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Dominance today authorized over $7 billion in loans to two wholly owned subsidiaries of Southern Company. The $7 billion sum is the largest loan package ever granted by the Department of Energy. The loans will be used in part to build 5.3 GW of new gas generation and nearly 500 megawatts (MW) in gas capacity upgrades, in Georgia and Alabama. As a result of the loans, and multilayer rate freezes already approved and in effect in Georgia and Alabama, federal taxpayers will subsidize the fossil fuel projects. In response, David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Program, issued the following statement:
“Providing federal subsidies to build expensive gas power plants makes no financial sense. We should be investing in the cheaper, clean, climate-safe energy of the future—solar, wind, battery storage, and transmission upgrades. These loans will ease pressure on energy prices in two states, Georgia and Alabama, at everyone else’s expense.
“President Trump has utterly failed to lower energy prices like he promised, and that’s why he’s resorting to misguided boondoggles like this one.”
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