David Holt - President, Consumer Energy Alliance Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Don't touch the live wire. Six twenty two is our
time here in Houston's boring news. Whether you're talking about electricity,
natural gas. The one area where it is really, I
think inexpensive right now is gasoline. I got gas last week.
What would I pay to nineteen a gallon to nineteen?

(00:21):
Bob moorg expensive in other states with higher gas taxes.
When we were in Florida over that we give it
was like three O nine I think for gallon of
gas in Miami. But I was mentioning my natural gas
bill that was pretty high. My electricity bill for AC
this summer is a little higher than I've seen in
a while. David Holt joins, US president of Consumer Energy Alliance.

(00:43):
I feel like we're getting a mixed message here on energy.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
David.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
We've got a really cheap gasoline right now, but the
other stuff not so cheap, you know, you know it is.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I mean, we've talked about affordability now on your show
for years, and it's you know, with natural gas, electricity prices,
we're seeing inventories are down just a little bit, demand
is up, so the economy.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
That's a signal for the economy in a way.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
So you know, that's why we're seeing a little bit
higher natural gas prices. Electricity prices are really you know,
that's a state by.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
State issue more than anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Those states that have good energy policies, states similar to Texas,
are generally paying a little bit less for electricity. Those
states that have been kind of draconian in their energy
policy that you know, they have restrictions, they've restricted natural gas,
they've banned our stopped pipelines, they've kind of gone all
in on certain forms of energy and restricted others. Those

(01:38):
states are paying a lot more. California and New York,
New Jersey, the Northeast states, New England, states, things like that.
So there's a there's more of a diversity or a
delta between the states on electricity prices now than we've
ever seen in a while certainly. And then you're exactly right,
Gathleene diesel prices, great story there. So you know, consumers

(02:00):
are getting a lot of relief at the pump. I
think national average now is around two sixty five or so.
But then in California you're still paying over six dollars
a gallon, So you know, there's there's policies. State policies
are really showing their ugly head. And those states that
get energy right are are are paying less for energy,

(02:21):
and those states that are clearly have had wrong, illogical
energy policies are paying more.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
I think our friend Chuck Devora over at the Texas
Public Policy Foundation thinks that once the big beautiful bill
really goes into affect this upcoming year, that that's going
to help with energy prices.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Do you agree? I think so.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
I mean, one thing we can look back on. You know,
from day one of the Trump administration, they declared a
national Energy Emergency.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
They saw that you.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Know, energy policies, regulations and the previous administration and a
lot of states we're just wrong. So let's let's free
up the energy industry. Let's remove some of these redundant
and unnecessary regulations. And with that, we've really seen gasoline
diesel prices going on going down. With electricity, we've got
a couple of things going on. We've one right now,

(03:07):
we have demand is up, but we also have the
data center, the AI revolution that's just getting started, and
that's really going to increase a lot of electricity demand
in a very short amount of time.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
So states and DC have to.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Get ahead of that, and there's a little bit of
probably speculation going on our anticipation of more demand coming
and that's probably playing a little bit in these prices
for electricity. But you know, we're gonna be it's gonna
be really interesting to see what the Texas Legislature does
in the next session because we're gonna have a lot
of data centers coming online here in Texas, so we've

(03:43):
got to get ahead of.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
That as well well. And we're hopelessly behind right now.
I've been calling for years and I know you probably
are feeling the same way that we just have to
build more reliable energy plants of natural gas plants and
other things to produce energy here in Texas, and we're
just not getting it done.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
We're really you're you're exactly right, and you know, listen,
we've we've also got to recognize that there are groups
out there that have said no to natural gas pipelines,
that have said no to expanded for expansions for refineries,
that have said no to new natural gas plants or
added natural gas plants. So we've got to change our
permitting system at the state level and in Washington to

(04:23):
limit the ability for endless litigation to stop these new
this new construction for energy projects that's really getting baked
into our costs right now. We need to recognize that,
and policymakers need to get.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Ahead of it, all right. David Holt, thank you. Always
good to hear from you. February Christmas, David Hole, President
of Consumer Energy Alliance at six twenty seven