Ernst tackles environmental regulations, pushes nuclear energy

OSCEOLA - In a town hall meeting on Tuesday at the Osceola Center for SWCC, Senator Joni Ernst gave her thoughts on the Biden administration’s move toward renewable energy sources, calling them unrealistic for Iowans.

A question brought to Ernst was based on how the general public of Iowa was disillusioned with renewable sources, preferring the current coal sources that have been faced with regulations made by the Environmental Protection Agency regarding their emissions.

One citizen said the current infrastructure available in Iowa would suffer from shutting down coal plants. This would potentially cause problems with the energy supply as renewable energy infrastructure is not robust enough to be able to make such a drastic switch. Despite Iowa’s presence of wind energy and a small availability of hydro and solar energy, there still isn’t enough renewable infrastructure to fully replace the current coal plants.

Ernst criticized the current administration as “narrow-minded” for pushing these regulations. “When you have an administration, it’s pretty much mandating that everything go to renewable,” she said. “They’re not thinking about the issues, when it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. So what’s the backup?”

In the search for alternative sources of energy, Ernst proposed nuclear energy as a solution, calling it the “cleanest” source of energy.

“I’m a fan of nuclear energy,” she said. “With the recent application of nuclear energy and how they can control the issues the public might have, safety concerns, we have come a long long way if you think a couple of decades ago.”

Ernst anticipates the country over the next decade will “leave the door open” for nuclear energy, saying that the public perception of nuclear is based on accidents of years past and is unrepresentative of today’s regulations.

Fuels available for vehicles were a topic for Ernst, claiming the push for electric vehicles (EVs) by the current “heck-bent” administration is “a war on liquid fuels.”

“California doesn’t even have the infrastructure for electric vehicles,” she said.

Ernst also claims that the administration is pushing for electric vehicles to be used in the military, starting with non-tactical vehicles and expanding until the entire fleet is electric. She criticized the potential plan as unrealistic, especially for wartime areas when a tactical fleet could be under enemy scrutiny.

“Do you know how many charging stations are along the road in Iraq?” she said. “Who in a warzone wants to pull over 60 vehicles in a convoy and sit there charging for four hours?”

In a previous town hall hosted in Lenox, Ernst said the EV infrastructure available for Iowa was insignificant. “There’s just not enough power coming out of electric vehicles to do what we need to do in our everyday lives here in Iowa,” she said.