David Holt- President, Consumer Energy Alliance, Joins Houston Morning News, July 3rd, 2024

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Take the days. Donald common sense, So move in. We're election cure
the dominoes fall, political dominoes falling. On US Radio seven KGRH, a
lot of the cookouts would be happening. David Hole joins this president of the
Consumer Energy Alliance. They do anannual report on how much your average American
family pay for pays for food andfor energy, and obviously those prices,

(00:22):
especially for food, continued to rise. David, So it's gonna be a
little costly, especially if you're goingto cook something really nice like steaks.
You said it, and hopefully allof us are going to get out there
and get our family and friends togetherand do a little barbecue. But listen,
I think I don't think I'm sayinganything that everyone doesn't already know.
Every time we go to the storeevery other week, we're paying more for

(00:43):
milk and eggs and bread. Andthis week we're paying a little bit more
for meat and chicken and pork andall the sides that we're going to have
for the big barbecue. But youknow, you go back to early twenty
twenty one, late twenty twenty youknow we're paying twenty twenty five, twenty
eight percent more for our chicken wingsand our steaks, and so for an

(01:07):
average family of four, that's areal, real number if you add up
all the groceries we're buying over theyear and all the other services and everything
else we buy. And from CEA'sperspective, consumer and enginelyances perspective, we
really look at energy as the factorand one of the big key factors in
those increased prices. And if youlook at it, you know, diesel

(01:27):
truck diesel fuel delivers everything that goesto the grocery store. So as we've
all seen since early twenty twenty one, diesel fuel prices are significantly higher,
and therefore that that cost is alsopassed on to the grocery store. Farming
costs are significantly higher from energy,so those costs are also passed on.

(01:49):
So you know, from an energyperspective, that's one of the big reasons
why we're paying so much more thisyear and have over for the last several
years. Processing also, I meanpeople buy potato, they get processed,
and you've got to have energy inorder to process anything. Everything depends on
it's everything, it's everything you knowat gasoline, diesel fuel prices, and
it really all goes back to thepolicies, right, So if our energy

(02:14):
policies are bad and they they increaseenergy costs, they make energy less affordable,
then those costs get passed around theentire economy. You're right, packaging,
but the processing, the delivery,you know, the the climate controlled
environments for the chickens that are layingthe eggs, all those things add up.

(02:36):
Well, I guess it's going tobe tube stake for me until we
get to November. Anyway, Celebrateanyway. It's a great it's a great
time to get family and friends together, all right. David Holt, good
to hear from you. Appreciated precedentof the Consumer Energy Aliance. David Holt