Speaker disputes claims that offshore wind will raise electric bills, cites grid dispatch and court filings

An unidentified speaker at the Environment and Public Works: Senate Committee hearing challenged recent remarks by Rep. Lee Zeldin, Rep. Bergam and Rep. Wright, saying the lawmakers have "gone on a campaign of falsehood" about the cost of offshore wind.

The speaker said Secretary Burgum had called offshore wind "highly expensive" and read a tweet the speaker attributed to Burgum that called offshore wind "one of the most expensive schemes ever pushed on American taxpayers." The speaker framed those and similar statements by Zeldin, Bergam and Wright as inaccurate and said they conflict with evidence filed in court and with grid-operator practices.

The speaker said court pleadings — where parties are obliged to be truthful — and analyses by grid operators show that offshore wind can produce net cost savings. "They talk about cost savings of hundreds of millions of dollars," the speaker said, and added that grid operators routinely dispatch generating units in order of marginal cost, calling up the least expensive units first. The speaker argued that, because wind and solar often have low marginal operating costs, they are dispatched ahead of higher-cost units and can lower wholesale market clearing prices.

The remarks were a rebuttal to public claims that expanding wind and solar will make electricity less reliable and more expensive. The speaker quoted Rep. Wright's claim that wind and solar "bring us less reliable energy delivery and higher electric bills," and presented the grid-dispatch explanation to challenge that assertion.

The session did not record any formal vote or staff direction on offshore wind in the provided transcript. The speaker's statements were presented as a factual rebuttal to recent public statements; the transcript does not include responses from the lawmakers named or additional evidence presented by grid operators in the hearing record.

The hearing record supplied contains only the speaker's remarks; no final decisions, motions, or next procedural steps related to offshore wind costs are included in the transcript.