GOP policymakers tell International Energy Agency to stop being cheerleader for energy transition

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, released a report Monday documenting how the influential Energy Agency (IEA) has diverted from its mission to provide energy security to becoming a cheerleader for a transition away from fossil fuels. 

“Since 2020, however, IEA’s leadership has placed greater emphasis on achieving 'net zero' international climate goals. This new focus on an unachievable global energy transformation, urged by environmental groups and other non-governmental organizations, has caused IEA to veer away sharply from its energy security mission,” the report states. 

In March, Barrasso and Rep. Cathy Rodgers, R-Wash., sent a letter to Dr. Fatih Birol, director of the IEA, urging him to return the agency to its energy-security mission. 

“By its own admission, the IEA has placed greater emphasis on ‘build[ing] net-zero emission energy systems to comply with internationally agreed climate goals.’ Climate change is an extraordinarily complex issue deserving IEA’s attention. Excessive focus on an ‘energy transition,’ however, has led the IEA to veer away from objectively informing and educating policymakers and toward promoting an agenda with little regard to its implications for economic growth and energy security,” The letter states.