[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                   OUT OF CONTROL: THE IMPACT OF WILDFIRES 
                 ON OUR POWER SECTOR AND THE ENVIRONMENT

=======================================================================

                             JOINT HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                         SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

                                AND THE

             SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                            JANUARY 28, 2020

                               __________

                           Serial No. 116-91
                           
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                           


      Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce

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                        energycommerce.house.gov
                        
                              __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
48-685 PDF               WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     
                   COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

                     FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
                                 Chairman
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois              GREG WALDEN, Oregon
ANNA G. ESHOO, California              Ranking Member
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York             FRED UPTON, Michigan
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado              JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania             MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois             STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina    ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
DORIS O. MATSUI, California          CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
KATHY CASTOR, Florida                BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland           PETE OLSON, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California           DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PAUL TONKO, New York                 GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York, Vice     BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
    Chair                            BILLY LONG, Missouri
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa                 LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon                BILL FLORES, Texas
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,               SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
    Massachusetts                    MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
TONY CARDENAS, California            RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
RAUL RUIZ, California                TIM WALBERG, Michigan
SCOTT H. PETERS, California          EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan             JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas                GREG GIANFORTE, Montana
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
DARREN SOTO, Florida
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
                                 ------                                

                           Professional Staff

                   JEFFREY C. CARROLL, Staff Director
                TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Deputy Staff Director
                MIKE BLOOMQUIST, Minority Staff Director
                         Subcommittee on Energy

                        BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
                                 Chairman
SCOTT H. PETERS, California          FRED UPTON, Michigan
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania               Ranking Member
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland           ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
JERRY McNERNEY, California, Vice     CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
    Chair                            PETE OLSON, Texas
PAUL TONKO, New York                 DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa                 ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina    H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon                LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,               BILL FLORES, Texas
    Massachusetts                    RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas                TIM WALBERG, Michigan
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire         GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex 
    officio)
                                 ------                                

             Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change

                          PAUL TONKO, New York
                                 Chairman
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York           JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
SCOTT H. PETERS, California            Ranking Member
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California    CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia         DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware       BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
DARREN SOTO, Florida                 BILLY LONG, Missouri
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado              BILL FLORES, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois             MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
DORIS O. MATSUI, California          EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
JERRY McNERNEY, California           JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
RAUL RUIZ, California, Vice Chair    GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex 
    officio)
                             C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hon. Bobby L. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State 
  of Illinois, opening statement.................................     2
    Prepared statement...........................................     2
Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of 
  Michigan, opening statement....................................     3
    Prepared statement...........................................     4
Hon. Paul Tonko, a Representative in Congress from the State of 
  New York, opening statement....................................     5
    Prepared statement...........................................     6
Hon. John Shimkus, a Representative in Congress from the State of 
  Illinois, opening statement....................................     8
    Prepared statement...........................................     9
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 
  State of New Jersey, opening statement.........................    10
    Prepared statement...........................................    11
Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of 
  Oregon, opening statement......................................    13
    Prepared statement...........................................    15

                               Witnesses

William D. Johnson, CEO and President, PG&E Corporation..........    16
    Prepared statement...........................................    19
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   177
John J. MacWilliams, Senior Fellow, Center on Global Energy 
  Policy, Columbia University....................................    30
    Prepared statement...........................................    32
Anthony S. Davis, Ph.D., Interim Dean, College of Forestry, 
  Oregon State University........................................    40
    Prepared statement...........................................    42
Brandon M. Collins, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Center for Fire 
  Research and Outreach, Berkeley Forests, University of 
  California.....................................................    50
    Prepared statement...........................................    52
Dave Markham, President and CEO, Central Electric Cooperative, 
  Incorporated...................................................    61
    Prepared statement...........................................    63

                           Submitted Material

Article of January 9, 2020, ``As Australia burns, the same 
  ingredients for disaster fare found in New Jersey,'' from The 
  New Jersey Advance Media, by Michael Sol Warren, submitted by 
  Mr. Pallone....................................................   123
Letter of January 28, 2020, by Scott Drury, President, SDG&E, to 
  Mr. Rush, et al., submitted by Mr. Rush........................   127
Letter of January 28, 2020 from Edison Electric Institute, to Mr. 
  Pallone and Mr. Walden, submitted by Mr. Rush..................   130
Letter of January 28, 2020 from Jupiter, to Mr. Rush, et al., 
  submitted by Mr. Rush..........................................   135
Letter of January 27, 2020, from Western Governors' Association, 
  to Mr Rush, et. al., submitted by Mr. Rush.....................   140
Article of October 10, 2019, ``For the Most Vulnerable, 
  California Blackouts? Can Be Life or Death', '' by Thomas 
  Fuller, New York Times, submitted by Mr. Rush..................   160
Article of November 19, 2019, ``California's Preemptive Blackouts 
  Put a Strain on People With Home Medical Needs,'' by Mark 
  Kreidler, National Public Radio, submitted by Mr. Rush.........   163
Article of January 12, 2020, ``Australia's indigenous people have 
  a solution for the country's bushfires. And it's bee around for 
  50,000 years, from CNN, by Leah Asmelash,'' submitted by Mr. 
  Shimkus........................................................   169
Letter of November 14, 2019, by Josh Harder, United States 
  Representative (CA-10), to Mr. Pallone and Mr. Walden, 
  submitted by Mr. Rush..........................................   175

 
  OUT OF CONTROL: THE IMPACT OF WILDFIRES ON OUR POWER SECTOR AND THE 
                              ENVIRONMENT

                              ----------                              


                       TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2020

                  House of Representatives,
                             Subcommittee on Energy
                             joint with the
    Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change,
                          Committee on Energy and Commerce,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in 
the John D. Dingell Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, 
Hon. Bobby L. Rush (chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy) 
presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Rush, DeGette, Doyle, 
Matsui, Sarbanes, McNerney, Tonko, Clarke, Loebsack, Schrader, 
Kennedy, Ruiz, Peters, Dingell, Veasey, Kuster, Kelly, 
Barragan, McEachin, Blunt Rochester, Soto, O'Halleran, Pallone 
(ex officio), Walden (subcommittee ranking member), Upton, 
Shimkus, Latta, Rodgers, McKinley, Kinzinger, Griffith, 
Johnson, Long, Bucshon, Flores, Mullin, Hudson, Walberg, 
Carter, and Duncan.
    Also present: Representatives Eshoo, Cardenas, and 
Gianforte.
    Staff present: Jeffrey C. Carroll, Staff Director; 
Catherine Giliohann, FERG Detailee; Waverly Gordon, Deputy 
Chief Counsel; Tiffany Guarascio, Deputy Staff Director; Omar 
Guzman-Toro, Policy Analyst; Zach Kahan, Outreach and Member 
Service Coordinator; Rick Kessler, Senior Advisor and Staff 
Directory, Energy and Environment; Brendan Larkin, Policy 
Coordinator; Jourdan Lewis, Policy Analyst; Elysa Montfort, 
Press Secretary; Joe Orlando, Staff Assistant; Lino Pena-
Martinez, Staff Assistant; Alivia Roberts, Press Assistant; 
Nikki Roy, Policy Coordinator; Medha Surampudy, Professional 
Staff Member; Rebecca Tomilchik, Staff Assistant; Tuley Wright, 
Energy and Environment Policy Advisor; William Clutterbuck, 
Minority Staff Assistant; Jordan Davis, Minority Senior 
Advisor; Tyler Greenberg, Minority Staff Assistant; Peter 
Kielty, Minority General Counsel; Mary Martin, Minority Chief 
Counsel, Energy and Environment and Climate Change; Brandon 
Mooney, Minority Deputy Chief Counsel, Energy; Brannon Rains, 
Minority Legislative Clerk; and Peter Spencer, Minority Senior 
Professional Staff Member, Environment and Climate Change.
    Mr. Rush [presiding]. The Subcommittee on Energy and the 
Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change will now come to 
order.
    The Chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes for the 
purposes of an opening statement.

 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOBBY L. RUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Good morning again.
    Today, the committee convenes for a joint subcommittee 
hearing to conduct oversight of an issue ravaging communities 
and plaguing the environment. Fires often occur within the U.S. 
An average of 73,000 wildfires burn seven million acres of U.S. 
land each and every year. Though these fires are, in some 
cases, part of the healthy ecosystem, their destruction has 
devastated communities both here at home and around the world.
    For the Members of Congress present, there are 
representatives from each of these areas that have been 
recently hard hit by wildfires among you, including my 
colleagues from California, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. I 
might add that we are also joined by a member of my staff who 
is here from Australia and whose community is still feeling the 
impact of recent wildfires in his nation.
    According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, the 
annual area burned in our nation's western states alone could 
increase two to six times the current areas by the middle of 
this century. Factors contributing to this predicted uptick 
include climate change, urban development, poor vegetation 
management, and issues related to power lines.
    Last year, California experienced historically catastrophic 
fires resulting in a tragic loss of life and unimaginable 
destruction to homes and property. One-half of the causes of 
California's most disastrous fires are linked to electric 
utility infrastructure. High winds, in particular, blow nearby 
vegetation into power lines and aging electric infrastructure 
causes live wires to fall and igniting the fires. Since 2007, 
California regulators have permitted the use of public safety 
power shutoffs by electric utilities to prevent the ignition of 
wildfires during high-wind events. However, long-term solutions 
like microgrids and the hardening of our grid infrastructure 
are necessary considerations, as blackouts pose a risk to more 
and more populations and other ratepayers.
    I want to thank our witnesses for their participation in 
today's hearing, and I look forward to identifying concrete 
solutions to these daunting problems.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Rush follows:]

                Prepared Statement of Hon. Bobby L. Rush

    Good morning, today the Committee convenes for a joint 
subcommittee hearing to conduct oversight of an issue ravaging 
communities and plaguing the environment.
    Often occurring on our nation's west coast, an average of 
73,000 wildfires burn seven million acres of U.S. land each 
year. Though these fires are, in some cases, part of healthy 
ecosystems, their destruction has devastated communities, both 
here, at home, and around the world.
    In this room alone, we have representation from areas 
recently hard hit by wildfires. This includes my colleagues 
from California, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. 
Additionally, we are joined by a member of my staff from 
Australia whose community is still feeling the impact of recent 
wildfires.
    According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, the 
annual area burned in our nation's western states alone could 
increase two to six times the current average by mid-century. 
Factors contributing to this projected uptick include climate 
change, urban development, poor vegetation management, and 
issues related to power lines.
    Last year, California experienced historically catastrophic 
fires resulting in a tragic loss of life and unthinkable 
destruction to homes and properties. Of the known causes of 
California's most disastrous fires, one half are linked to 
electric utility infrastructure. High winds, in particular, 
blow nearby vegetation into power lines and snap aging 
electrical infrastructure causing live wires to fall and ignite 
fires.
    Since 2007, California regulators have permitted the use of 
Public Safety Power Shut-offs by electric utilities to prevent 
the ignition of wildfires during high wind events. However, 
long-term solutions, like microgrids and the hardening of our 
grid infrastructure, are necessary considerations as lengthy 
blackouts pose a risk to vulnerable populations and other 
ratepayers.
    I thank our witnesses for their participation in today's 
hearing and look forward to identifying concrete solution to 
these daunting problems. And now, it is my district honor to 
recognize, for the purposes of an opening statement, my friend 
from the great State of Michigan, With that, Mr. Upton.

    And now, it is my distinct honor to recognize for the 
purposes of an opening statement my friend from the great State 
of Michigan, Mr. Upton.

   OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

    Mr. Upton. Well, thank you, my friend and chairman, for 
holding today's joint hearing to examine the impact of the 
recent wildfires and certainly to discuss ways to improve 
forest management and maintain electrical equipment to prevent 
fires and reduce risk to human health as well as to the 
environment.
    There are many of us that believe there is no question that 
the biggest driver of the recent wildfires is decades of 
mismanagement of our nation's forests. Yes, climate change is, 
indeed, playing a role, but the evidence suggests that our 
direct impact to the land and the ways that we manage our 
forests has a lot to do with the situation that we are facing 
today.
    So, I plan to use today's hearing to discuss what we can do 
to improve forest conditions, prevent sparks on electrical 
lines, remove brush and trees from utility corridors, and, yes, 
strengthen planning and preparedness at every level.
    Wildfires are not a new phenomenon. Before the pioneers 
settled in the West, wildfires were much more widespread and 
they burned many more acres than they burn today. However, 
today's wildfires are burning hotter and with more intensity as 
a result of decades of fire suppression and the buildup of 
brush and dead trees.
    So, with population growth and urban sprawl, more people 
than ever before, especially in the West, are living in 
wilderness areas that are prone to wildfires. I look forward to 
hearing from our forestry experts, Dr. Collins and Dr. Davis, 
to expand on the trends influencing wildfires and share 
suggestions to improve forest conditions that can reduce the 
risk of fires. There are many steps that we can take 
immediately, including the thinning of brush, prescribed burns, 
and allowing some wildfires to run their course naturally.
    But, as we know from some of our prior hearings on 
wildfires, these issues are particularly acute in California 
and Oregon, which have both suffered devastating wildfires in 
recent years. So, I look forward to hearing from Mr. Johnson 
and Mr. Markham about what utilities can do to manage hazardous 
trees on their right-of-way and maintain their equipment to 
prevent sparks.
    I am also interested to learn more about how utilities can 
improve preparation with more accurate forecasting, more 
proactive maintenance and tree clearing, more sensors and 
automated equipment to improve visibility on their systems. 
There is a big role in technology here. So, we need to be 
thinking about how do we innovate and drive these new ideas 
into practice.
    Members of this committee are also interested in gathering 
lessons learned on the regulatory side, especially at the state 
level. If there are permitting challenges that prevent 
utilities from clearing hazardous trees, we need to address 
them. Much of the focus of today's hearing will certainly be on 
California and the challenges that they are experiencing with 
their electric utilities.
    While the fires themselves are devastating, millions of 
residents in California also have been suffering through these 
public safety power shutoffs in an attempt to prevent wildfires 
from being started by electrical equipment during strong winds 
and dry weather. These blackouts have resulted in cascading 
effects, causing widespread interruptions affecting public 
safety, health care, transportation, and other government 
services.
    These proactive blackouts are simply not sustainable. It is 
crazy to think about living in a modern society where one must 
constantly worry about whether the lights are on or whether 
they can come back on, whether the freezer defrosts, let alone 
worry about whether 911 is going to work in an emergency.
    The bottom line is that we need to make sure that our 
utilities and government regulators are taking an all-hazards 
approach. Now more than ever, we should be focused on grid 
reliability and resilience. I believe that we should treat 
wildfires like severe weather and cyberattacks. We need to be 
more focused on those threats and make sure that we have the 
tools in place across the board to protect, respond, and 
recover from wildfires wherever they might occur.
    With that, I look forward to today's testimony and 
continuing the conversation with colleagues on both sides about 
some legislative solutions. I would note that we have got a 
number of bills that address grid reliability and pipeline 
security, which would strengthen the Department of Energy's 
ability to respond to natural disasters like wildfires. So, 
let's get these bills to the floor soon. They are but one of 
the many steps that we need to take.
    With that, I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:]

                 Prepared statement of Hon. Fred Upton

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's hearing to 
examine the impact of the recent wildfires and discuss ways to 
improve forest management and maintain electrical equipment to 
prevent fires and reduce risks to human health and the 
environment.
    There is no question that the biggest driver of the recent 
wildfires is decades of mismanagement of our nation's forests. 
Yes, climate change is playing a role, but the evidence 
suggests that our direct impact to the land and the way we 
manage our forests has much more to do with the situation we 
are facing today.
    I plan to use today's hearing to discuss what we can do to 
improve forest conditions, prevent sparks on electrical lines, 
remove brush and trees from utility corridors, and strengthen 
planning and preparedness as the State and local level.
    Wildfires are not a new phenomenon. Before the pioneers 
settled the West, wildfires were much more widespread, and they 
burned many more acres than they burn today. However, today's 
wildfires are burning hotter and with more intensity as a 
result of decades of fire suppression and the buildup of brush 
and dead trees.
    With population growth and urban sprawl, more people than 
ever before, especially in the West, are living in wilderness 
areas that are prone to wildfires. I look forward to hearing 
from our forestry experts, Dr. Collins and Dr. Davis, to expand 
on the trends influencing wildfires and share suggestions to 
improve forest conditions and reduce the risk of fires. There 
are many steps we can take immediately--including thinning of 
brush, prescribed burns, and allowing some wildfires to run 
their course naturally.
    As we know from some of our prior hearings on wildfires, 
these issues are particularly acute in California and Oregon, 
which have both suffered devastating wildfires in recent years. 
I look forward to hearing from Mr. Johnson and Mr. Markham 
about what utilities can do to manage hazard trees on their 
rights-of-way and maintain their equipment to prevent sparks.
    I am also interested to learn more about how utilities can 
improve preparation with more accurate forecasting, more 
proactive maintenance and tree clearing, and more sensors and 
automated equipment to improve visibility on their systems. 
There is a big role for technology here, so we need to be 
thinking about how to innovate and drive these new ideas into 
practice.
    Members of this Committee are also interested to gather 
lessons-learned on the regulatory side, especially at the State 
level. If there are permitting challenges that prevents 
utilities from clearing hazard trees, we should address them. 
Much of the focus of today's hearing will be on California, and 
the challenges they are experiencing with their electric 
utilities.
    While the fires themselves are devastating, millions of 
residents in California have also been suffering through 
``public safety power shutoffs'' in attempt to prevent 
wildfires from being started by electrical equipment during 
strong winds and dry weather. These blackouts have resulted in 
cascading effects, causing widespread interruptions affecting 
public safety, healthcare, transportation, and other government 
services.
    These proactive blackouts are simply not sustainable. It is 
crazy to imagine living in a modern society where one must 
constantly worry about whether the lights are going to come on 
or whether the freezer defrost, let alone worry about whether 
911 is going to work in an emergency.
    The bottom line is that we need to make sure our utilities 
and government regulators are taking an ``all hazards'' 
approach. Now, more than ever, we should be focused on grid 
reliability and resilience. I believe we should treat wildfires 
like severe weather and cyber-attacks. We need to be laser 
focused on the threat, and make sure we have tools in place 
across the board to protect, respond, and recover to wildfires 
when they occur.
    With that, I look forward to today's testimony and 
continuing the conversation with my colleagues about some 
legislative solutions. I would note that we have several bills 
addressing grid reliability and pipeline security, which would 
strengthen the Department of Energy's ability to respond to 
natural disasters like wildfires. I hope to get those bills to 
the floor soon, but they are one of many steps we can take.
    Thank you, I yield back.

    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Tonko, who is the chairman of the Subcommittee 
on Environment and Climate Change. Mr. Tonko is recognized for 
5 minutes.

   OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL TONKO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

    Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Chairman Rush, and thank you to our 
witnesses for being here this morning.
    In recent years, we, unfortunately, have become accustomed 
to the destructive power of wildfires. The growing number of 
these disasters poses significant health, ecological, and 
fiscal risks. We know the consequences of these fires can be 
devastating. But simply quenching them without addressing their 
root cause is incomplete and irresponsible.
    These dramatic increases in wildfires are a symptom of an 
ailing planet, and climate change is contributing to the 
growing severity of these fires. Across the country, climate 
change is raising temperatures, exacerbating the drought, 
drying soil, and killing trees. These conditions prime the 
landscape for long, dangerous burns.
    In previous hearings, we have heard that our forests 
capture and store significant amounts of carbon, which can 
reduce climate pollution and help meet emissions reduction 
goals. Wildfires reverse that benefit. Not only do fires 
generate harmful air pollution and smoke, causing tremendous 
public health challenges, they are turning forests, potential 
climate solutions as carbon sink, into sources of emissions. 
Simply put, climate change is worsening fires, which cause more 
climate damage.
    We also know that our wildfire response requires greater 
resilience, adaptation, and planning. This is especially true 
in the context of the power sector. Today, we will seek to 
understand what is necessary to design and operate an 
electricity system that is more resilient and acknowledges that 
fire poses a risk to, and can be caused by, our energy 
infrastructure.
    I hope we will hear more about the strategies being 
proposed to ensure high-risk areas can continue to have both 
safe and reliable service and we are enabling the investments 
in grid modernization and management necessary to, indeed, 
harden our systems.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Tonko follows:]

                 Prepared Statement of Hon. Paul Tonko

    Thank you, Chairman Rush and thank you to our witnesses for 
being here this morning.
    In recent years, we unfortunately have become accustomed to 
the destructive power of wildfires. The growing number of these 
disasters poses significant health, ecological, and fiscal 
risks.
    We know the consequences of these fires can be devastating, 
but simply quenching them without addressing their root cause 
is incomplete and irresponsible.
    These dramatic increases in wildfires are a symptom of an 
ailing planet, and climate change is contributing to the 
growing severity of these fires.
    Across the country, climate change is raising temperatures, 
exacerbating drought, drying soil, and killing trees. These 
conditions prime the landscape for long, dangerous burns.
    In previous hearings, we have heard that our forests 
capture and store significant amounts of carbon, which can 
reduce climatepollution and help meet emissions reduction 
goals. Wildfires reverse that benefit.
    Not only do fires generate harmful air pollution and smoke, 
causing a tremendous public health challenges, they are 
turningforests--potential climate solutions as carbon sinks--
into sources of emissions.
    Simply put, climate change is worsening fires, which cause 
more climate damage.
    We also know that our wildfire response requires greater 
resilience, adaptation, and planning. This is especially true 
in the context of the power sector.
    Today we will seek to understand what is necessary to 
design and operate an electricity system that is more resilient 
and acknowledges that fires pose a risk to--and can be caused 
by--our energy infrastructure.
    I hope we will hear more about the strategies being 
proposed to ensure high-risk areas can continue to have both 
safe and reliable service, and we are enabling the investments 
in grid modernization and management necessary to harden our 
systems.

    With that, I will yield 1-minute of my remaining time to 
Mr. Cardenas.
    Mr. Cardenas. Thank you, Chairman Tonko.
    First, I want to take a moment to thank the thousands of 
firefighters and first responders throughout California and 
across the country who are on the front lines risking their 
lives to protect us from these devastating fires.
    These fires are all too common in my district and across 
the State and across the country. It is alarming how wildfires 
have grown in intensity, frequency, and ferocity in recent 
years. A big wildfire in California used to be maybe tens of 
thousands of acres, maybe or 100,000. Now we are talking a 
million acres or more. These wildfires threaten American lives, 
homes, property, and business. From January to October 2019, we 
had over 40,000 wildfires that burned over 4.4 million acres.
    As we hold this hearing, Australia burns. Raging fires have 
swept across Australia, devastating land, property, and 
wildlife; and more than 30 people have been killed, over a 
billion animals have died, and more than 3,000 homes have been 
burned down.
    Ladies and gentlemen, we can do more, and one of the 
biggest contributors to this phenomenon is human activity.
    I yield back to Mr. Tonko.
    Mr. Tonko. I now yield the remainder of my time to the 
gentleman from California, Mr. McNerney.
    Mr. McNerney. I thank the Chair.
    I requested today's hearings in part because our current 
energy infrastructure in this country is not adequate to 
today's challenge. Our energy grid serves as the backbone of 
our economy, touching every aspect of our lives. A reliable 
grid system is also crucial for our national security and for a 
clean energy future.
    Over the past few decades, a combination of actions at the 
federal and state levels have rendered our energy grid ill-
prepared to withstand the physical impact of wildfires and 
other modern risks. This poses a major challenge, as wildfires 
and other extreme weather events are expected to continue to 
increase in severity due to climate change.
    But in order to secure utility wildfire resilience and 
encourage grid modernization, we, first need to understand if 
and when infrastructure investment began to taper off and why. 
I also want to get a clear picture of what the Federal 
Government can and should do to prevent wildfires, including 
increasing investment in energy infrastructure and in the 
development of resilience and fire-preventing standards at the 
state levels.
    I thank the witnesses for attending, and I yield back to 
the Chair.
    Mr. Tonko. And with that, Mr. Chair, I yield back the 
remainder of my time.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Shimkus, and the 
ranking member of the Subcommittee on Environment and Climate 
Change.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SHIMKUS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Today's hearing will review the risk and harms of wildfires 
and what may be done to address the risk. The general focus 
concerns the role of the electric power structure, which has 
been linked to destructive fires, especially in California in 
the recent years.
    Orienting our focus around the power sector should be 
useful for the subcommittees, both from energy and environment 
policy perspectives. It should help inform a better 
understanding of what it takes to reduce wildfire risk and 
improve the resiliency when wildfire risks are especially 
high--as has been the case in California and the Pacific 
Northwest for a number of years now.
    It also will help us focus on the future risk in a 
practical way. When we talk about addressing long-term climate 
risk, for example, a big part of the discussion must involve 
what is needed to provide for adaptive capacity of communities 
to reduce, respond, and recover from the impacts of those 
risks.
    Part of the capacity involves ensuring the economic 
wherewithal of communities to respond to risk. Another part 
involves ensuring effective information and permitting for 
timely decisions that enable cost-effective, resilient 
infrastructure. Overall, adaptive capacity is about flexibility 
to respond to risks, whatever they may be. I understand, for 
example, that one of the benefits of PG&E's exercise in 
communications and outreach during the power outages has been 
to better prepare the communication and response for 
catastrophic events like earthquakes.
    During the 115th Congress, I chaired two subcommittee 
hearings on wildfires. We examined the air quality impacts of 
wildfires with a focus on stakeholder perspectives. We also 
examined the mitigation and management strategies for reducing 
air quality risk from wildfire smoke. Generally, these 
strategies involve efforts to reduce the intensity and 
frequency of wildfires that threaten communities. The 
strategies also involve managing the inevitable smoke impacts, 
whether from wildfires or from what is known as prescribed 
burning. And they involve ensuring that effective actions are 
credited appropriately in air quality planning, air quality 
monitoring, and compliance activities, so states and localities 
are not punished for taking action that will improve public 
health.
    The EPA has issued guidance over the past year aiming to 
reduce penalties for prescribed burns and wildfires. This 
process requires significant coordination, planning, and 
approvals. More may be done in terms of the agency recognizing 
large regional fire events that impact multiple states. It is 
bad enough for communities to experience choking wildfire 
smoke, but for states to be further penalized for these 
exceptional events does not make sense.
    Today's hearing should provide additional perspective to 
help understand the importance of these strategies to the 
larger goal of reducing the harmful impacts of wildfires. 
Additional information on the value of preventative measures 
such as prescribed burns, mechanical thinning, and related 
practices would be useful today.
    Two of our witnesses today, Dr. Brandon Collins and Dr. 
Anthony Davis, can talk about the value of these practices from 
their fieldwork in California and the Pacific Northwest. And we 
welcome you here.
    During the past two wildfire hearings, we learned about the 
experience in the Eastern United States, which has a long 
culture of more active fire management than in the West. There 
are many reasons for this, some involving topography and other 
unique factors of the West, but the underlying fact is that 
more can be done today to reduce the risk.
    It will be useful to examine the measures most necessary to 
respond to recover from wildfire events. For electric 
providers, the most pressing issues concern restoration of 
power or ensuring communities have the electricity when they 
need it most, and increasing their technological ability to 
ensure reliability during hazard events.
    For federal and state policymakers, there is also a need to 
ensure forests recover and are resilient to inevitable fire 
events and other hazards. Having basic facts on this can go a 
long way to improving our energy, environment, and public 
health policies.
    Let me welcome the panelists. I look forward to 
understanding the challenges and opportunities you face and 
what we can do to ensure our policies accommodate what is 
necessary to reduce the risk and ensure the adaptive capacity 
of communities going forward.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time, and I thank 
you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Shimkus follow:]

                Prepared Statement of Hon. John Shimkus

    Today's hearing will review the risks and harms of 
wildfires and what may be done to address these risks. The 
general focus concerns the role of the electric power 
infrastructure, which has been linked to destructive fires, 
especially in California in recent years.
    Orienting our focus around the power sector should be 
useful for the Subcommittees, both from the energy and 
environment policy perspectives. It should help inform a better 
understanding of what it takes to reduce wildfire risks and 
improve the resilience when wildfire risks are especially 
high--as has been the case in California and the Pacific 
Northwest for a number of years now.
    It also should help us focus on future risks in a practical 
way. When we talk about addressing long term climate risks, for 
example, a big part of the discussion must involve what is 
needed to provide for the adaptive capacity of communities to 
reduce, respond, and recover from impacts of those risks.
    Part of this capacity involves ensuring the economic 
wherewithal of communities to respond to risks. Another part 
involves ensuring effective information and permitting for 
timely decisions that enable for cost-effective, resilient 
infrastructure.
    Overall, adaptive capacity is about flexibility to respond 
to risks, whatever they may be. I understand, for example, that 
one of the benefits of the PG&E's exercising the communications 
and outreach during its power outages has been to better 
prepare the communication and response for catastrophic events 
like earthquakes.
    During the 115th Congress, I chaired two subcommittee 
hearings on wildfires. We examined the air quality impacts of 
wildfires, with a focus on stake holder perspectives. We also 
examined the mitigation and management strategies for reducing 
air quality risks from wildfire smoke.
    Generally, these strategies involved efforts to reduce the 
intensity and frequency of wildfires that threaten communities. 
The strategies also involve managing the inevitable smoke 
impacts, whether from wildfires or from what is known as 
prescribed burning. And they involve ensuring that effective 
actions are credited appropriately in air quality planning, air 
quality monitoring, and compliance activities, so states and 
localities are not punished for taking action that will improve 
public health.
    The EPA has issued guidance over the past year aiming to 
reduce penalties for prescribed burns and wildfires, but this 
process requires significant coordination, planning and 
approvals. More may be done in terms of the agency recognizing 
large regional fire events that impact multiple states. It's 
bad enough for communities to experience choking wildfire 
smoke, but for states to be further penalized for these 
exceptional events does not make sense.
    Today's hearing should provide additional perspective to 
help understand the importance of these strategies to the 
larger goal of reducing the harmful impacts of wildfires. 
Additional information on the value of preventive measures such 
as prescribed burns, mechanical thinning and related practices 
would be useful today.
    Two of our witnesses today, Dr. Brandon Collins and Dr. 
Anthony Davis, can talk about the value of these practices from 
their field work in California and the Pacific Northwest.
    During the past two wildfire hearings, we learned about the 
experience in the eastern United States which has a long 
culture of more active fire management than in the west. There 
are many reasons for this, some involving topography and other 
unique factors of the west, but the underlying fact is that 
more can be done today to reduce risks.
    It will also be useful to examine the measures most 
necessary to respond and recover from wildfire events. For 
electric providers, the most pressing issues concern 
restoration of power (or ensuring communities have the 
electricity when they most need it) and increasing their 
technological ability to ensure reliability during hazard 
events.
    For federal and state policymakers there is also the need 
to ensure forests recover and are resilient to inevitable fire 
events and other hazards. Having basic facts on this can go a 
long way to improving our energy, environmental and public 
health policies.
    Let me welcome the panelists. I look forward to 
understanding the challenges and opportunities you face, and 
what we can do to ensure our policies accommodate what is 
necessary to reduce the risks and ensure adaptive capacity of 
communities going forward.
    Thank you.

    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Pallone, the chairman of the full committee, for 
the purposes of an opening statement. Mr. Pallone is recognized 
for 5 minutes.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE 
            IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

    Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Rush.
    This is an important hearing today. And as we examine the 
impact of wildfires on our energy infrastructure and the 
environment, wildfires are becoming more frequent and more 
dangerous and more destructive due to the impacts of climate 
change. And it is not only the United States that is affected 
by these fires. Catastrophic wildfires continue to rage in 
Australia, which has been the focus of media attention, and 
they claims lives and property and decimate unique wildlife and 
habitats. And the costs of these events are tremendous and they 
continue to rise.
    Mr. Chairman, I just wanted, if I could, to ask unanimous 
consent to enter into the record an article in my local 
newspaper talking about how the types of wildfires that have 
raged in Australia could very well happen in my home State of 
New Jersey in the Pinelands, which is an area that in many ways 
has a similar phenomena to the brush that has caught fire in 
Australia.
    And fire is, and has been, a part of the life cycle of many 
ecosystems, but inadequate management coupled with the 
expansion of communities and infrastructures in the fire-prone 
areas has increased fire risk. Failure to address these risks 
is contributing to more wildfires getting started, and when 
they do start, climate change, and the extended droughts and 
high temperatures associated with it, results in fires that 
burn hotter over more extensive areas.
    Since the seventies, the average annual number of large 
wildfires in the Western United States has tripled and the area 
burned six times greater. Last year, nearly 50,000 wildfires 
burned nearly 4.6 million acres throughout the United States, 
and these wildfires are particularly destructive in the Western 
States. And California has borne the brunt of the damage and 
devastation over the last several years.
    While climate change is making wildfires more severe and 
more frequent, most wildfires in the United States are caused 
by human activity. The 2018 Camp Fire in California was the 
deadliest wildfire in nearly a century. It was started by 
transmission lines owned by PG&E. Clearly, electric utilities 
have to do more to ensure their systems are modernized and 
maintained to prevent sparking fires, and the safety of the 
communities they serve depends upon responsible equipment 
management and maintenance. And when more drastic preventive 
measures must be taken, such as the planned power shutoffs that 
affected millions of PG&E customers last year, utilities must 
minimize the impact on customers in areas without power.
    We have to reduce fire risks associated with infrastructure 
located in fire-prone areas. We have to do a better job of 
habitat management and we must address climate change to avoid 
ever-worsening droughts and elevated temperatures that 
intensify fires once they start.
    This is critical because the Fourth National Climate 
Assessment projects that the frequency of wildfires could 
increase by 25 percent and the number of very large fires could 
triple if we don't act. The devastation and suffering caused by 
wildfires can only be curtailed by moving forward with an array 
of policies to accomplish these goals. There is no singular 
solution to the problem.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]

             Prepared Statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.

    This is an important hearing today as we examine the impact 
of wildfires on our energy infrastructure and the environment. 
Wildfires are becoming more frequent, more dangerous, and more 
destructive due to the impacts of climate change.
    It is not only the United States that is affected by these 
fires. Catastrophic wildfires continue to rage in Australia, 
claiming lives and property and decimating unique wildlife and 
habitats. The costs of these events are tremendous, and they 
continue to rise.
    Fire is and has been part of the lifecycle of many 
ecosystems. But inadequate management, coupled with the 
expansion of communities and infrastructure into fire-prone 
areas, have increased fire risks. Failure to address these 
risks is contributing to more wildfires getting started. And 
when they do start, climate change--and the extended droughts 
and high temperatures associated with it--results in fires that 
burn hotter over more extensive areas.
    Since the 1970s, the average annual number of large 
wildfires in the western United States has tripled and the area 
burned is six times greater. Last year, nearly 50,000 wildfires 
burned nearly 4.6 million acres throughout the United States. 
These wildfires are particularly destructive in the western 
states, and California has borne the brunt of the damage and 
devastation over the last several years.
    While climate change is making wildfires more severe and 
more frequent, most wildfires in the United States are caused 
by human activity. The 2018 Camp Fire in California was the 
deadliest wildfire in nearly a century. It was started by 
transmission lines owned by PG&E. Clearly, electric utilities 
must do more to ensure their systems are modernized and 
maintained to prevent sparking wildfires. The safety of the 
communities they serve depends upon responsible equipment 
management and maintenance. And when more drastic preventive 
measures must be taken--such as the planned power shutoffs that 
affected millions of PG&E customers last year--utilities must 
minimize the impact on customers in areas without power.
    We must reduce fire risks associated with infrastructure 
located in fire-prone areas. We must do a better job of habitat 
management. And we must address climate change to avoid ever-
worsening droughts and elevated temperatures that intensify 
fires once they start. This is critical because the Fourth 
National Climate Assessment projects that the frequency of 
wildfires could increase by 25 percent, and the number of very 
large fires could triple, if we don't act. The devastation and 
suffering caused by wildfires can only be curtailed by moving 
forward with an array of policies to accomplish these goals--
there is no singular solution to this problem.
    We must act.

    I would like to yield now at least a minute to 
Representative Matsui, and, if time remains after that, to Mr. 
Peters. And so, I yield now to Ms. Matsui.
    Ms. Matsui. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to say, while the most recent and devastating 
wildfires have not occurred in my district, but above and 
around my district, we are getting the downwind effects of this 
devastation. Therefore, I want to highlight the risk my 
constituents face because of wildfire smoke containing harmful 
chemicals, like carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and 
dangerous levels of particulate matter.
    Today's hearing can bring much-needed attention to this 
issue. It is our responsibility to press policy and industry 
experts for answers to difficult questions about public health 
and safety, grid reliability, and in the face of rapidly-
changing climate, how utilities are accounting for worsening 
natural disasters. We must take this opportunity today to 
demand accountability and push for answers as to how we can 
avoid past mistakes and plan for a safer future for our 
constituents.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and 
constituents, and I yield the rest of the time to Mr. Peters.
    Mr. Peters. Thank you, Ms. Matsui and Mr. Pallone.
    There is a vicious feedback loop that exists between 
wildfires and climate change. So, you have these longer periods 
of drought caused by climate change that dry out trees and 
vegetation. That leads to more frequent, unpredictable, and 
intense wildfires. And then, that, in turn, leads to the 
release of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and black carbon back 
into the atmosphere, which perpetuates the cycle. And burned-
out forests accelerate that cycle, as forests lose almost all 
their capacity to sequester carbon.
     So, I want to know what Congress needs to do about this. 
And it is tempting to focus on the points of ignition, but what 
we see is, whether this is caused by a power line--and our 
electric utilities have to do better--or whether it is caused 
by a cigarette, the reason these fires are so intense has to do 
with climate change. And I hope today's hearing will illuminate 
how we should respond to that as Congress.
    And I appreciate the time and yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The subcommittees have a unanimous consent request from the 
full committee chairman. Are there any objections? Seeing no 
objections, so ordered.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Walden, who is the ranking 
member of the full committee, for the purposes of his opening 
statement. Mr. Walden, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON

    Mr. Walden. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Rush. We 
appreciate you and others holding this hearing jointly between 
the two subcommittees.
    I want to welcome Dr. Davis from Oregon State University, 
School of Forestry, and Dave Markham especially from central 
Oregon. And we will talk more about them coming up. We are glad 
you and the other panelists are here today.
    This is really an important topic, an important topic for 
those of us in the West. It is the third hearing. When I 
chaired this committee, we had two hearings on air quality and 
the effects of wildfire smoke on human health conditions. So, I 
am really appreciative of the fact that we are continuing this 
sequence of hearings.
    When we last held a hearing on this topic in September of 
2018, my home State of Oregon, for the second year in a row, 
was battling near-record wildfires. Communities in the 
district, my district, experienced some of the worse air 
quality in the world--in the world--while also suffering 
significant economic impact as tourists went elsewhere. 
Oregonians told me those with breathing disorders actually had 
to leave the State, go over to the Oregon coast, go somewhere 
else, to find air that they could breathe. Just two months 
after the hearing, California, tragically, suffered the fatal 
Camp Fire, devastating the town of Paradise.
    In the wake of that and other harmful events, California 
and Oregon have moved toward requiring utilities to strengthen 
emergency plans, including de-energizing lines in areas of high 
risk. My hometown, serviced by PacifiCorp, was told this year 
we would be in that zone. If there is a problem, they will de-
energize our entire town.
    This last year, we witnessed how this risk-reduction 
practice put two million people in the dark just as windstorms 
were threatening new wildfires. The news reports suggest this 
may become the norm in coming years. But we also know this 
strategy is not without negative consequences, especially for 
people who have special medical needs that may require 
electricity without interruption. Just think about that; 
somewhere along the way, your power goes down in your entire 
community and you are left trying to figure out how to breathe.
    Meanwhile, government red tape continues to stand in the 
way of common-sense hazard tree removal or grid safety 
improvements and utility rights-of-way. This is a fact. This is 
a fact. In fact, I have got a slide, if we could put it up on 
the screen here, Dave Markham of Central Electric Cooperative 
in Redmond provided for me. Central Electric's service 
territory is 56 percent on federal land. This is partially a 
federal land management problem, and I know he will speak to 
these challenges later. But he gave me this photo. It is behind 
us. I don't know if we can put it on the side screens or not.
    Last April, Central Electric applied to move this power 
pole--you see it in the distance, an aged power pole--20 feet, 
20 feet, so they could mitigate against the threat of wildfire. 
That was in April. The new location would be safer, it would be 
more accessible. The Forest Service didn't get around to that 
application until October, seven months later. By then, it was 
too late in the work year to go move one pole--one pole.
    This is why we have got to reform the federal rules and 
laws that prevent utilities from doing what they know needs to 
be done to protect our great national forests and the 
communities around them. Delays in this sort of maintenance 
efforts can have deadly consequences, especially when combined 
with our poorly-managed federal forests that, frankly, are 
overstocked and waiting to burn.
    While climate change plays a role--and it does, and it has 
extended the fire season in the West by upwards of 30 days, 
according to some researchers--the evidence remains 
overwhelming that increasingly-intense fire seasons are also 
driven by the way we have managed or mismanaged or not managed 
our federal forestlands. They are overstocked with trees.
    For example, OSU Forestry Professor John Bailey testified 
before this committee two years ago that tree stand densities 
in the driest areas of my district would naturally be as low as 
20 trees per acre. That is what Nature had planned. That is how 
it used to be. Then, we suppressed fire. We did all these other 
things. Those forests today have upwards of a thousand trees 
per acre, not 20 as Nature intended, but because man has 
interfered, we have upwards of a thousand. Think about that for 
a minute. And so, when fire strikes, that excess ends up as 
smoke and carbon in our atmosphere.
    We know the Forest Service and EPA have data that, in 2015, 
in my State of Oregon, we burned 685,000 acres. That emitted 
the equivalent of emissions for three million cars or three and 
a half coal plants. Nationwide, since 2015, we have burned 39 
million acres in the United States, following the same pattern 
that would be emissions roughly equivalent to 170 million cars 
or nearly 200 power plants.
    Taking sensible steps to improve NEPA and increase the pace 
and scale of forest management activities, and thin our 
forests, and then, go back and keep thinning them--it is not a 
once and done--would be a win for climate; it would be a win 
for our communities, and it would be a win for public safety.
    A 2014 study by the U.S. Forest Service, Sierra Nevada 
Conservancy, and Nature Conservancy found that fuel treatment 
projects can reduce the size and intensity of fire between 30 
and 76 percent. That treatment also helps reduce carbon 
emissions from these fires by up to 85 percent. We need to do 
more active management. We have legislation to do that.
    And I would also love to hear in the end from our 
scientists about the emissions that come from post-fire debris, 
because I am told by some in the Forest Service that can be 
upwards of 75 percent of the carbon emissions come from the 
decay of the debris that is left after a fire and not cleaned 
up.
    Mr. Chairman, you have been most generous. My time has 
expired, and I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:]

                 Prepared Statement of Hon. Greg Walden

    Today's joint subcommittee hearing on wildfire impacts 
returns to an important topic for the Committee-and vitally 
important for tens of millions of people, especially 
Oregonians, Californians, and those across the West who have 
been experiencing massive devastation from these catastrophic 
fires.
    When we last held a hearing on this topic in September 
2018, my home state of Oregon for the second year in a row was 
battling near record wildfires. Communities in my district 
experienced some of the worst air quality in the world, while 
also suffering significant economic impact as tourists went 
elsewhere.
    Just two months after the hearing, California suffered the 
tragically fatal Camp Fire, devastating the town of Paradise.
    In the wake of that and other harmful events, California 
and Oregon have moved toward requiring utilities to strengthen 
emergency plans, including de-energizing lines in areas of high 
risk.
    This past year we witnessed how this risk reduction 
practice put two million people in the dark just as windstorms 
were threatening new wildfires. And news reports suggest this 
may become the norm in coming years. But we also know this 
strategy is not without negative consequences for people who 
have special medical needs that require electricity without 
interruption.
    Meanwhile, government red tape continues to stand in the 
way of common-sense hazard tree removal or grid safety 
improvements in utility right of ways.
    We're joined today by Dave Markham of Central Electric 
Cooperative in Redmond Oregon. Central Electric's service 
territory is 56 percent on federal land. I know he'll speak to 
the challenges that presents later, but I want to share this 
photo he showed me earlier.
    Last year Central Electric applied to move the power pole 
in this photo 20 feet to mitigate against wildfire. The new 
location would be safer and more accessible. The Forest Service 
didn't get to their application until October, and then Central 
Electric missed the short window to move the pole.
    Delays in these sorts of maintenance efforts can have 
deadly consequences, especially when combined with our poorly 
managed federal forests waiting to burn. Something has to 
change.
    While climate plays a role, I think the evidence remains 
overwhelming that increasingly intense fires seasons are driven 
by the decades of poor management that has left our federal 
forests overstocked with trees.
    For example, OSU forestry professor John Bailey testified 
before us two years ago that tree stand densities in the driest 
areas of eastern Oregon would naturally be as low as 20 trees 
per acre, but those forests today could have upwards of a 
thousand trees per acre. Think about that for a minute--20 
trees versus 1,000 trees.
    When fire strikes, that excess ends up as smoke and carbon 
in our atmosphere. We know from Forest Service and EPA data 
that in 2015 in Oregon we burned 685,000 acres, which emitted 
the equivalent of three million cars, or 3.5 coal fired plants.
    Nationwide since 2015, we've burned 39 million acres. 
Following the same pattern that would be emissions roughly 
equal to 170 million cars or 199 coal fired plants.
    Taking sensible steps to improve NEPA and increase the pace 
and scale of forest management activities that thin out our 
forests is a win for our forests, the climate, and the health 
of our communities and citizens.
    A 2014 study by the U.S. Forest Service, the Sierra Nevada 
Conservancy, and The Nature Conservancy found that fuel 
treatment projects can reduce the size and intensity of fire 
between 30 and 76 percent.
    Treatment also helps reduce carbon emissions from these 
fires by up to 85 percent. This is among the reasons why the 
UN's climate panel recommends forest management as a key tool 
for addressing climate risks.
    The good news is, we have measures like the Resilient 
Federal Forests Act that we can enact right now, this year to 
help propel smarter forest management practices, reduce the 
risk of wildfire and ensure that we clean up after fires and 
replant our forests for future generations.
    Rather than pursue grand climate schemes that cannot become 
law, we should focus this Congress on practical measures, like 
forest management where we have made some bipartisan progress 
in recent years, but plenty of meaningful work remains.
    Turning back to energy infrastructure, we should look also 
look today at technology and practices that can reduce inherent 
risks in the power sector and increase reliability and 
resilience during fire emergencies.
    Our panel offers an array of experience that can help work 
through core issues like fire management, resilience, the 
intersection of our electric infrastructure with fire risks and 
public safety, the prospects of advancing technology to 
minimize risks, and to more rapidly respond and recover from 
wildfires.
    I look forward to your insights.

    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair would like to remind Members that, pursuant to 
committee rules, all Members' written opening statements shall 
be made part of the record.
    Now I would like to welcome our witnesses for today's 
hearing. Our witnesses are Mr. William Johnson, who is CEO and 
President of PG&E Corporation; Mr. John MacWilliams, Senior 
Fellow, the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia 
University; Dr. Anthony Davis, the Interim Dean of College of 
Forestry at Oregon State University; Dr. Brandon Collins, 
Research Scientist, the Center for Fire Research and Outreach, 
Berkeley Forests, University of California at Berkeley, and Dr. 
David Markham, President and CEO of the Central Electric 
Cooperative, Incorporated.
    I want to thank each of you for joining us today. We look 
forward to your testimony.
    But, before we begin, I would like to explain the lighting 
system. In front of you is a series of lights. The light will 
initially be green. The light will turn yellow when you have 1-
minute remaining. Please begin to wrap up your testimony at 
that point. The light will turn red when your time expires. 
Thank you very much.
    Mr. Johnson, you are recognized now for 5 minutes.

   STATEMENTS OF WILLIAM D. JOHNSON, CEO AND PRESIDENT, PG&E 
  CORPORATION; JOHN J. MACWILLIAMS, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER ON 
 GLOBAL ENERGY POLICY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY; ANTHONY S. DAVIS, 
    Ph.D., INTERIM DEAN, COLLEGE OF FORESTRY, OREGON STATE 
UNIVERSITY; BRANDON M. COLLINS Ph.D, RESEARCH SCIENTIST, CENTER 
FOR FIRE RESEARCH AND OUTREACH, BERKELEY FORESTS, UNIVERSITY OF 
  CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, AND DAVID MARKHAM, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 
           CENTRAL ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, INCORPORATED

                STATEMENT OF WILLIAM D. JOHNSON

    Mr. Johnson. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I am Bill Johnson, the CEO and President of PG&E 
Corporation.
    I appreciate the committee's interest in wildfire impacts 
and resilience and commend the California delegation for their 
engagement on this topic, because California is, indeed, ground 
zero for these issues, having had the State's most destructive 
and deadly wildfires in its history in 2017 and 2018. And PG&E 
equipment played a significant role in several of these fatal 
fires, for which we are deeply sorry. And we are taking action 
to help those communities rebuild and recover and to prevent 
events like this from ever happening again.
    But, as we have heard this morning, this is not an issue 
limited to California. It is an issue across this nation, and 
recent events in Australia indicate it is a global problem.
    PG&E is addressing the wildfire challenge comprehensively 
and increasing the resilience of our system. We are intensely 
focused on safety for our customers, our communities, our 
workforce, and providing our customers with the reliable, 
affordable, and clean energy they expect and deserve. But we 
also know this: climate change will continue to increase the 
intensity of the environmental conditions contributing to 
wildfire and other risks.
    Just seven years ago, about 15 percent of PG&E's service 
area was designated as having an elevated fire risk. Today, 
that number is over 50 percent and is growing. In other words, 
the risk has more than tripled in under a decade.
    In response, and through utilizing best practices and 
lessons learned from our peers like San Diego Gas & Electric 
and Southern California Edison, PG&E is implementing a 
comprehensive wildfire safety plan that addresses ignition risk 
drivers and the consequences of those ignitions from electric 
infrastructure.
    Last year, we inspected every element of our electric 
system within the high fire threat districts, examining almost 
25 million components in only four months, and repaired any 
safety conditions we found on a priority basis. We are 
bolstering situational awareness and emergency response by 
deploying weather stations, high-definition cameras, as well as 
using satellite data and modeling techniques to predict 
wildfire spread and behavior. We are hardening our system in 
the areas where the fire threat is highest by installing 
stronger and more resilient poles and covered power lines, as 
well as undergrounding. And we are increasing vegetation 
management in high-risk areas, incorporating analytical and 
predictive capabilities, and expanding the scope and 
intrusiveness of our inspection process.
    But we are also turning off power for safety during severe 
wind events, which has significant impacts for vulnerable 
customers, critical infrastructure, and first responders. Now 
this plan is working in reducing the risk of catastrophic 
fires. Last year, there was no loss of life from PG&E electric 
infrastructure due to fire.
    But shutting off power is not the way we want to serve our 
customers. It creates its own set of safety risks and customer 
impacts. So, before the next wildfire season begins, we will 
improve the execution of these events, narrow their scope, and 
shorten their duration. We are deploying customer-centric 
solutions such as microgrids and resilient zones to mitigate 
the impact of the power shutoffs. And ultimately, all of these 
efforts will increase grid resilience to any hazard.
    As we go about this work, we will continue to seek and 
collaborate with external partners, including those at the 
federal level. We believe that Congress can help reduce the 
wildfire threat and increase overall grid and climate 
resilience through actions that include enacting a market-
based, economy wide climate policy that encourages innovation 
in both carbon mitigation and adaptation technologies; by 
directing the Energy Department to develop a framework and 
process for cost-benefit analyses of resilience investments; by 
increasing eligibility and funding for energy assistance and 
community resilience programs to offset cost to low-income 
customers, and support research and development of new 
technologies and forward-looking climate data.
    Specific to addressing the wildfire threat, we believe the 
federal government should continue its efforts to fund forest 
management and fire suppression activities; implement the 
forest and vegetation management legislation advanced by 
Congressmen Schrader and LaMalfa; ensure access to federal 
lands for prevention and response; incentivize pre-disaster 
mitigation planning and build greater resilience for our 
infrastructure in communities, and authorize federal agencies 
to share satellite data for wildfire detection.
    PG&E is urgently addressing the wildfire threat and 
increasing the resilience of our systems. We appreciate 
Congress' partnership in that effort.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]
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    Mr. Rush. I want to thank you.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. John MacWilliams for 5 minutes 
for the purposes of an opening statement.

                STATEMENT OF JOHN J MacWILLIAMS

    Mr. MacWilliams. Thank you, Chairman Rush and Chairman 
Tonko, Ranking Members Upton and Shimkus, for the invitation to 
testify today.
    I am John MacWilliams. I am a Senior Fellow at Columbia 
University's Center on Global Energy Policy.
    The California wildfires and resulting bankruptcy of one of 
the nation's leading utilities are important as a case study 
for how we are going to appropriately allocate the inevitable, 
enormous, and increasing costs of climate change to our 
nation's critical infrastructure among numerous stakeholders, 
including ratepayers, investors, and federal and state 
taxpayers.
    In August 2019, the Center on Global Energy Policy 
published a research paper, ``PG&E: Market and Policy 
Perspectives on the First Climate Change Bankruptcy''. In that 
paper, my coauthors, Sarah La Monaca and James Kobus, who are 
here with me today, and I noted that climate change played a 
material role in the wildfires and PG&E's subsequent 
bankruptcy. And this is because climate change has created 
conditions in California and elsewhere that make fires more 
intense, more damaging, and more likely to occur.
    Now, the scientific literature almost universally projects 
significant climate change-driven increases in wildfire 
activity and intensity across the United States. The United 
States Government's Fourth National Climate Assessment notes 
that, ``by the middle of this century, the annual area burned 
in the Western United States could increase from two to six 
times from the present''.
    Wildfires pose a major threat to reliable electricity 
service. While the fires themselves can disrupt electricity 
service, a new and emerging trend has further underscored this 
problem, which has been discussed, preventative power shutoffs 
that have affected millions of customers. These events 
highlight the escalating costs and the difficulty of providing 
reliable electricity service in a country that is rapidly 
becoming more vulnerable to the negative effects of climate 
change. The bottom line is that, if customers are going to 
continue to demand the near 100 percent reliability of electric 
service that they have become accustomed to, large 
infrastructure investment will be required to modernize the 
grid to make it more resilient.
    We have seen the potential damages from wildfires may be 
large enough to threaten the financial viability of the 
utilities, but, in any event, they will materially increase the 
cost to utility sector stakeholders, drive up electricity 
rates, and importantly, crowd out essential investment in 
renewable energy and grid upgrades.
    So, what should the federal government do? First and 
foremost, Congress should focus on the broad impact of climate 
change and the effect it is going to have, is having on our 
environment, our people, and on our economy. And the California 
wildfires are just a vivid example of the devastation that 
climate change will increasingly bring. We are encouraged by 
the efforts of this committee to bring together public and 
private sector leaders to address climate change and U.S. 
greenhouse gas emissions, including the CLEAN Future Act 
Framework.
    Second, challenges of this magnitude can't be solved 
without large amounts of private sector investment, and 
Congress should examine ways to encourage such capital flows. 
One mechanism that my former colleagues at the Department of 
Energy and I have advocated in the past is the creation of a 
national infrastructure bank. Given the magnitude of these 
challenges, I would strongly encourage Congress to take a fresh 
look at this possibility. The recent proposal to create a 
National Climate Bank is a positive step in this direction.
    Third, FERC could incentivize greater fire prevention and 
grid hardening. It has utilized specialized profit incentives 
and accelerated cost recovery mechanisms in the past, and such 
mechanisms could be used to provide incentives for utility 
companies to prioritize resiliency and fire prevention.
    And finally, Congress should support increased research, 
development, demonstration, and deployment funding for wildfire 
prevention methods and technologies. The Department of Energy 
and its 17 National Labs provide enormous technical 
capabilities. From my work as a senior advisor to Lawrence 
Livermore National Lab, I am very aware of the great work that 
they and the other Bay Area labs are doing. Promising research 
is being conducted on sensor technology, high altitude wind 
forecasting, high-performance computing for fire simulation and 
prediction. And other National Labs, including Idaho National 
Lab and National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado, have 
valuable expertise to contribute and experience. INL was 
evacuated last summer when it was threatened by a wildfire.
    In conclusion, I would like to thank you for holding this 
hearing, Mr. Chairman. The California wildfires should be a 
call for action regarding the adverse impacts of climate 
change. And as tragic as these events have been, one only needs 
to look at Australia to see the potential for even greater 
devastation to come.
    Thank you, and I would be pleased to take your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. MacWilliams follows:]
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    Mr. Rush. Thank you, Mr. MacWilliams.
    Dr. Davis, you are recognize for 5 minutes for an opening 
statement.

              STATEMENT OF ANTHONY S. DAVIS, Ph.D.

    Dr. Davis. Chairman Rush and Chairman Tonko, Ranking Member 
Upton and Ranking Member Shimkus, thank you for the opportunity 
to testify today on the issue of wildfire in our western 
landscapes. I would also like to thank Representatives Schrader 
and Walden from Oregon for their attention to this issue.
    I am Anthony Dean, Interim Dean of the College of Forestry 
at Oregon State University.
    Our society invests more time, energy, and resources 
fighting fires than we do in taking proactive steps to reduce 
wildfire severity and foster the resiliency of our forests and 
communities. Past management, current climate, and shifts in 
land use have left us with a landscape that has more trees and 
more contiguous forested areas inhabited by people than ever 
before. To respond, we must apply our evolving knowledge of 
fire behavior and forest management to deal with the new fire 
reality.
    The economic and social impact of wildfire is staggering 
when one includes post-fire costs such as health care, loss of 
business revenue and property, and, too often, the loss of 
human life. And perhaps the highest risk comes in the form of 
drinking water. Many cities benefit from water filtration that 
our forest systems provide every day, and wildfire places a 
risk on our water systems, globally valued at more than $4 
trillion per year.
    In addition to watersheds, another key area of risk is 
smoke. Recent levels of wildfire smoke in the Pacific Northwest 
have been unprecedented, regularly resulting in conditions that 
would have been classified as non-attainment under Clean Air 
Act standards. Wildfire smoke differentially affects vulnerable 
groups such as those with preexisting respiratory and cardiac 
conditions, the elderly, the young, and pregnant women. Smoke 
impacts may be greater among poorer populations due to exposure 
as a result of lack of access to indoor environments with air 
filtration systems. And beyond individual impacts, wildfire 
smoke significantly affects all segments of the outdoor 
economy, threatening small businesses that already operate on 
thin margins.
    To address this complex fire challenge and its impacts, we 
must first better understand fire. An important consideration 
is that wildfires are not new and that they are necessary. They 
renew numerous ecological processes while also regulating and 
reducing the total amount of fuel available for burning.
    Looking back, the history of fire on our landscape offers 
important lessons towards addressing future fire behavior, from 
how indigenous peoples used fire as a management tool to the 
natural frequency and intensity of wildfire burning.
    We must also consider our past success in fire suppression 
and the impact year after year of effective fire control. This 
success has led to an increase in continuous biomass available 
to burn across the forest landscape, which is a prime 
contributor to our current challenge.
    Looking forward, managed fire and effective treatments on 
our landscapes will be critical in addressing wildfire and its 
impacts, but the scale of the problem does not allow us to 
simply cut our way out of this challenge. We can prioritize 
fire resilience and preparedness in important areas such as 
critical watersheds in population centers, but this will not 
address the presence of smoke in communities.
    As we look for solutions, we must also recognize two 
issues. Climate is a primary driver, and people choose to live 
in fire-prone areas. Changing climate drives us towards novel 
conditions that require research and corresponding adaptive 
measures. Fire severity and total area burn are largely 
determined by a combination of climate, weather, topography, 
and fuels. And compounding this, more people live in the 
wildland-urban interface than ever before, presenting not only 
a greater human area needing protection, but also more 
potential sources of ignition. In Oregon in 2018, two-thirds of 
fires were started by humans.
    To take action, we must work to demystify public 
perceptions of some of the elements around the fire in Western 
systems. Fire will never be eliminated from Western forests. It 
is part of our future and it is an important part of the 
ecology of our forests. But, with a better-informed public, a 
commitment among scientists, policymakers, and practitioners to 
collaborate across administrative and geographic boundaries, 
and consideration of both fire history and novel climate 
conditions, we can develop solutions. Failing to act now will 
only increase the cost and lengthen the time before we see a 
meaningful change.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to offer this 
testimony. I look forward to answering any questions you may 
have.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Davis follows:]
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    Mr. Rush. Thank you, Dr. Davis.
    And now, the Chair recognizes Dr. Collins for 5 minutes for 
the purpose of an opening statement.

             STATEMENT OF BRANDON M. COLLINS, Ph.D.

    Dr. Collins. So, thank you to the chairpersons and all of 
the members, frankly, of the subcommittees. This is an 
important issue, obviously, to many people, and we come at it 
from different angles.
    From my perspective as a scientist, I think that this is 
the ultimate goal of research, is to inform this type of 
process and, also, give information to the forest managers. So, 
this is a true honor for me to be here. Thank you.
    So, I am going to echo some of the comments that have been 
said before. I will try to do it quickly, but, then, get to 
some of the punch lines that I have to offer.
    Fire has been a part of Western forests for millennia, and 
I think we have come to realize that excluding it, it is not 
going to happen. It is impossible. So, the next question is how 
to sort of work with fire.
    One perspective could be that wildfires that are happening 
now or that have been happening over the last several years are 
just simply the return of a naturally consistent process that 
we have kept out for so long. The problem is that the effects 
of these fires are not natural at all. And when I talk about 
effects, I think so many people emphasize the size of 
wildfires, that they have grown twofold, fivefold, whatever, 
but it is not that. The size isn't really the issue. It is the 
size of the patches with nearly complete or complete tree 
mortality. Those patches right now are probably on the order of 
five to ten times bigger than what they were historically.
    And as a result, our forests are not adapted to that. The 
tree species cannot regenerate naturally following that type of 
disturbance, as we call it in ecology. So, I think that is the 
one thing to focus on, is the size of large patches and how we 
can reduce that.
    And let me say quickly, too, some of the cascading effects 
of the sizes of these patches. One is, obviously, the really 
delayed, if at all, the lack of regeneration from trees. But 
you can think about the effects on habitat, the effects on 
carbon sequestration when you shift from a tree-dominated area 
to a shrub-dominated area.
    So, we have talked about what some of the drivers of this 
are, and I think there is sort of a debate as to climate versus 
forest management. My perspective--and it is supported by a lot 
of data--is that it is forest conditions that are the primary 
driver, with climate being sort of an exacerbating effect. If 
you think about what climate does, it really opens the window 
of opportunity for fires to spread, and spread beyond our 
capacity to put them out. We are very, very good at putting 
fires out. We can put out 90-95 percent of all ignitions. It is 
the ones that are burning on those warmer, windier days that 
exceed our capacity to put them out, and those are the ones 
affecting the landscape. So, the climate opens that window up, 
but it is really the forest conditions that allow them to 
continue and burn over tens of thousands of acres.
    So, what I would like to say here is let's think about just 
the drivers for the moment of what that forest change is. One 
is, obviously, the elimination of fire, right? Folks before 
have talked about sort of the increases in tree density. We 
have, however you want to count trees--if you want to count up 
the smallest or just count sort of medium-sized trees and 
bigger--we are looking at a five- to tenfold increase in trees, 
in tree density relative to historical conditions.
    Fuel loads have doubled, if not tripled. And that is the 
dead surface, dead material on the surface. And then, also, 
there is just greater continuity. We have forest cover, sort of 
wall-to-wall trees, over giant landscapes. And as a result, 
when fires get up in the crowns of these trees, we have very 
limited capacity to put them out.
    So, on the side of mitigation, what can we do here? We have 
been studying this for a couple of decades now in terms of what 
you can do to restore forest structure and to reduce wildfire 
hazards. There is no single answer here. The answer is sort of 
all of the above.
    It is thinning. It is thinning the right way, which from a 
federal standpoint, there are many statutes in place to sort of 
protection from the, quote-unquote, logging that so many people 
are concerned about. But, then, there are also a lot of things 
in the way in terms of how readily thinning can get inhibited. 
But we know that thinning can't happen everywhere.
    We have some really inaccessible parts of the landscape 
where we need to do a lot of burning, either prescribed burning 
or, frankly, managing natural wildfires under conditions where 
we could have put them out. And I know that sounds terrible for 
some folks. Wildfire is the enemy, but, frankly, we are going 
to have to embrace it to a certain extent and do our best to 
manage it.
    So, I am going to close with this. I think it is a time at 
this point--if it is not clear already; it should be--that we 
need to prioritize forest management. For the past several 
decades, we have prioritized other resources, and for a good 
reason, right? They were compromised. But at this point, I 
think it is pretty darn clear that forests are pretty 
vulnerable and they need to be prioritized, so that all the 
rest of the things that cascade from forests or that forests 
depend on are there for future generations.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Collins follows:]
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    Mr. Rush. I want to thank you, Dr. Collins.
    The Chair wants to remind our spectators that we welcome 
you here to the committee hearing and we ask that you really 
refrain from any displays or commentary on the witnesses or any 
of the members as they engage on this committee. We hope that 
you will follow suit.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Markham for 5 minutes for the 
purposes of an opening statement.

                   STATEMENT OF DAVID MARKHAM

    Mr. Markham. Good morning, Chairmen Rush and Tonko, Ranking 
Members Upton and Shimkus, and members of the subcommittees.
    I am Dave Markham. I am the CEO of Central Electric 
Cooperative, and we are headquartered in Redmond, Oregon. We 
provide nearly 100 percent carbon emission-free electricity to 
more than 38,000 members throughout central Oregon. I also 
serve as chairman of PNGC Power, a generation transmission 
cooperative that is headquartered in Portland and owned by 15 
Northwest electric distribution cooperatives. I appreciate the 
opportunity to testify today on the impact of wildfires on the 
power sector and the environment.
    Oregon's 18 electric cooperatives serve over 500,000 
Oregonians across 65 percent of the land mass of the State. And 
often, that is in some of the most heavily forested areas in 
the United States. In fact, Central Electric, the area we serve 
is more than 56 percent federal land.
    Now it is a challenging job, but electric cooperatives, we 
are very committed to keeping our rights-of-way cleared and 
keeping our electric systems maintained. Oregon electric 
cooperatives, we are proactively addressing increased wildfire 
risk by instituting wildfire mitigation plans, which really 
they just formalize the actions that we have been taking 
voluntarily for years.
    For example, Central Electric, we upgraded 23 miles of 
transmission line, much of it through heavily forested areas, 
and we replaced wood poles with much more expensive steel 
structures. Now we are in the process of conducting maintenance 
on 13 miles of distribution line on national forestland. We are 
replacing 4-foot cross arms with wider 8-foot cross arms that 
allow power lines to be spaced further apart, so that it 
reduces the potential for a wildfire ignition from a falling 
tree limb. And these are just two examples of the many measures 
that we are taking to reduce wildfire risk.
    But I think you all know that even the very best maintained 
electric systems, they have had pole fires, downed wires, and 
equipment failures that cause fires. But, I will tell you, we 
can also do more, and we are going to need the cooperation of 
the Federal Government to do so.
     And I have had the privilege of twice testifying before 
Congress about the need to streamline vegetation management 
practices and eliminating delays when performing routine 
maintenance and upgrades of our system on federal lands. 
America's electric cooperatives, we were pleased that in 2018 
Congress passed vegetation management legislation to improve 
system reliability and reduce wildfire risk. And I would 
personally like to take a moment and thank Central Electric's 
Congressman Greg Walden and Oregon's Congressman Kurt Schrader 
for their extensive leadership passing that legislation.
    However, more work needs to be done, and the regulations 
and the guidelines for vegetation management, they must closely 
align with the underlying law. Congress made it very clear that 
we need to eliminate the time-consuming regulatory processes 
because months are still slipping away before permits are 
issued to perform routine work.
    Last year, Central Electric identified 30 dead and dying 
trees on heavily forested federal land. And they needed to be 
removed or trimmed before the wildfire season. We submitted a 
request to the federal land agency to remove these trees on 
February 4th, 2019. Now we didn't hear anything until I raised 
the issue in a meeting with the CEQ when I was back here in 
Washington, DC, last April. Within one week of my return, we 
had an issue of a Notice to Proceed. So, while three months 
passed before receiving approval, it took only three days to 
get our crews in there and remove those 30 trees that posed a 
wildfire threat. And then, in nearly an identical situation 
with the neighboring Land Management Agency District, Central 
Electric requested the removal of more than 50 trees, and we 
received almost immediate permission to proceed.
    And you see, this situation, it highlights the inconsistent 
application of policies by our Land Agency District Offices. 
Unfortunately, the delays, they are not an isolated incident to 
Central Electric and they are a threat to public safety.
    Now my intention is not to denigrate the hard-working land 
management professionals. Rather, I am here to discuss 
solutions where the Federal Government can support and approve 
certain policies and practices. And we support the reform of 
the National Environmental Policy Act because it ensures 
clarity and certainty, and it eliminates costly project delays 
for electric cooperatives.
    In Oregon, we are also taking a very unique approach to 
implementing the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management 
Strategy. Electric coop and land agency leadership, we are 
coming together and we are going to craft agreements, so that 
we can identify increased actions that we can take together to 
reduce wildfire risk. And while these agreements, they will be 
signed at the local level, it is critical that Congress urge 
the Departments of Interior and Agriculture to support these 
agreements.
    While significant challenges remain, we look forward to 
working with Congress to build upon the steps that electric 
cooperatives have taken as national leaders in wildfire 
mitigation. And thank you for the opportunity to testify.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Markham follows:]
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    Mr. Rush. I want to thank all of the witnesses.
    We have concluded the opening statements, and before we 
move to member questions, I want to be really clear to you, Dr. 
Collins. My previous comments, they weren't directed toward 
you. Behind you is someone who was raising a sign, and you 
didn't see them, but the committee saw them. And so, I was just 
admonishing that individual to not raise any signs. So, my 
comments were not directed at all toward you, and I wanted to 
be clear on that. All right?
    As I stated, we have concluded the opening statements and 
we will now move to members' questioning. Each member will have 
5 minutes to ask questions of our witnesses. And I will start 
by recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
    Wildfires and climate change-related disasters are having a 
great impact on the power sector and an even greater impact on 
those who rely on its services. Mr. MacWilliams, as the 
Department of Energy's former Chief Risk Officer, your 
testimony is noteworthy in today's discussion. In your recent 
report on ``Market and Policy Perspectives,'' you discussed the 
implications of climate change on the utility market, cost-
sharing, recovery of costs, and investments in grid resilience. 
When you highlight the importance of these investments, how 
might utilities and regulators address these implications while 
keeping down the cost to ratepayers?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Yes, as I mentioned in my opening statement, this really 
goes back to the fact that enormous infrastructure is going to 
be required to deal with this really complex set of issues. 
There are various estimates out there, which I am sure you have 
seen, but they range globally from $2.4 trillion to $3.5 
trillion to meet our objectives to keep temperature rise to 1.5 
degrees C and to meet the Paris targets. So, that is an 
enormous amount of money. There is a lot of capital, 
institutional capital, out there that wants to invest in these 
kinds of projects, but we have got to find ways to incentivize 
that.
    In the paper, as you alluded to, my coauthors and I were 
trying to look at whether the financial markets are really 
taking the costs and these risks into account yet. And the 
answer is that, in the immediate aftermath of PG&E's 
bankruptcy, we did see some in certain aspects of markets, but, 
then, markets rebounded. So, markets in general, are not 
pricing-in immediate bankruptcies by other utilities because of 
these issues.
    But, at the same time, what we are seeing, looking at 
markets broadly, is that investors are becoming concerned with 
these issues. Insurance companies are starting to price these 
things in. You have seen recent remarks by leading asset 
managers talking about climate change risk. So, as a risk 
officer, I do think these are very relevant. I am happy to 
expound more, but I don't want to take more time.
    Mr. Rush. I want to thank you.
    Mr. Johnson, in your capacity as CEO of PG&E, would you 
agree with the comments of Mr. MacWilliams? And I understand 
that your company has conducted de-energization events and 
provided resource centers to protect public safety. However, I 
am concerned by press reports of all of this placing a strain 
on people with medical needs and disabilities. As mentioned by 
my colleague, Mr. Walden, some people can't breathe without 
electricity. With this in mind, what improvements has PG&E made 
to its safety plan?
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and you hit on a 
question that is of particular importance to me, which is 
medical need people, folks like this who need help in the best 
of times, and when we turn the power off, how do we deal with 
that? And so, we have made some significant improvements in 
that.
    First of all, we spent a lot of last years notifying 
everybody in California in our service area about the potential 
to have these PSPS events, and power shutoffs. When we have an 
event, we notify every medical baseline customer. If we can't 
get them on the phone or electronically, we go to their house. 
We, then, make sure that the local agencies, the communities, 
the counties--we all have a common list of these people. We 
open up customer resource centers where we have air 
conditioning, water, ability to charge medical devices. And we 
have also reached out to the NGO and community-based 
organizations to help us identify the needs that these folks 
have that we can help with before the next fire season.
    Mr. Rush. The Chair's time is up, and the Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Upton for 5 minutes for the purposes of 
questioning the witnesses.
    Mr. Upton. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of 
things.
    Dr. Collins, I think many of us here recognize that the 
time to prioritize forest management is long overdue to try to 
reduce these risks. A couple of questions, and then, I am going 
to yield some time to my friend, Mr. Walden.
    Mr. Markham, when you said that you had identified 30 trees 
and submitted to the forest. Do they actually come back and, 
then, check your work to make sure that they are dead or dying? 
I mean, do you mark them with a big ``X'' on the trunk? What is 
the normal process?
    Mr. Markham. Well, in this case, if there were one or two 
dangerous trees, we can go out and remove them. But where we 
are dealing, with, there were 30 trees identified; we take a 
picture of those. We submit their geographical location of 
them. We submit it and, basically, until we hear back from 
them, we cannot proceed.
    Mr. Upton. You can't do it until they----
    Mr. Markham. Yes.
    Mr. Upton. And they have been more responsive in recent 
months than they have been in the past?
    Mr. Markham. We are working through, and that is what these 
agreements do that we are putting together, that we are working 
to put together. So that we can identify these kinds of issues. 
We can take advantage of categoric exclusions. We cannot have 
to wait.
    I personally believe that we have to make things like this 
a priority with the federal land agencies over approval of a 
driveway. This is much more important.
    Mr. Upton. Yes, yes. So, as you talk about that, then, Mr. 
Johnson, in your testimony, you indicate that--I am looking at 
page 1--``Between 2010 and 2018, according to the Forest 
Service, over 147 million trees in California alone have died 
from drought and invasive beetles. PG&E estimates there are 
more than 100 million trees adjacent to its overhead power 
lines with the potential to either grow into or fall into the 
lines.'' So, how are you working with the Forest Service to 
prioritize those 100 million trees on somewhat of a timely 
basis, as you are at the center of the controversy?
    Mr. Johnson. About 30 percent of our territory is in or 
around federal lands, and I think we operate in something like 
14 different national forests. So, we have a lot of interfaces 
with the federal agencies.
    I have only been there about nine months, but what I am 
told is that, in recent months, particularly after the bill 
passed last year by Mr. Schrader and Mr. LaMalfa as the 
sponsors, they have been much----
    Mr. Upton. He is here, by the way. He is at the end.
    Mr. Johnson [continuing]. Much more attuned to this 
process. For example, we signed a 30-year agreement with the 
Forest Service. We don't have to renew permits every year. We 
have a 30-year way to do it. We are funding some of the work. 
So, I think the situation had greatly improved from where it 
was before I got there, but I think it still needs to make sure 
that these things are funded. There are some pilot projects 
going on that need to be made permanent. But I think it is in 
better shape than it was.
    Mr. Upton. Thank you.
    I yield my remaining two minutes to Mr. Walden.
    Mr. Walden. Thank you very much, Mr. Upton.
    Mr. Markham, Mr. Johnson talked about the percentage of his 
system that is on federal land. What is the percentage of your 
system on federal land?
    Mr. Markham. Fifty-six percent, Representative.
    Mr. Walden. Fifty-six percent? How many miles of line do 
you have to oversee and maintain?
    Mr. Markham. We have several thousand miles of transmission 
and distribution lines.
    Mr. Walden. Something like 3900 miles of transmission and 
distribution line? Do you have any idea how many poles you 
have?
    Mr. Markham. We have 45,000 poles.
    Mr. Walden. So, when I put up that photo--maybe we can put 
it up again--that is one pole you wanted to move, and it took 
seven months. And then, that put you outside the work window, 
right?
    Mr. Markham. Yes, we have a short work window. We have 
three months that we can work out in this area because of 
wildlife habitat and wildfire risk.
    Mr. Walden. All right. Thank you for that.
    I want to go to Dr. Davis. Thank you again for being here.
    In our home State of Oregon, in 2017, State fire-protected 
lands and Forest Service lands received roughly the same number 
of fire starts, whether it was the State-protected lands or the 
Forest Service-protected lands. And yet, the Forest Service 
lands accounted for 95 percent of the acres burned. And this is 
a pattern. I have seen it. I assume you have seen it in your 
research. Climate affects both. Can you speak to what the 
differences are? And then, I have a got a question about woody 
biomass as well. But I have only got 27 seconds. So, go.
    Dr. Davis. Briefly, as several people have mentioned, 
federal lands tend to have more trees per acre than State or 
private lands, in the State of Oregon. Those stands, those 
federal lands are often also in more remote and more contiguous 
blocks of forest. So, it is the multitude of drivers as well as 
those dry conditions that enter into those forests.
    Mr. Walden. And how the fires are fought?
    Dr. Davis. How the fires are fought, but, also, the 
location of those forests.
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Dr. Davis. The east side of the forests is drier than the 
west side, where there is a dominance of private land.
    Mr. Walden. All right. My time has expired. Thank you.
    Mr. Rush. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Tonko for 5 minutes. 
So, the Chair now recognizes Ms. DeGette for 5 minutes.
    Ms. DeGette. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
    I really want to thank this panel for coming today. I know 
the focus of this hearing has been on the wildfires in 
California, but I am from Colorado and we are seeing the same 
kinds of devastation all throughout the West, not just the 
Pacific Northwest and the West Coast.
    I want to talk for a minute about the Hayman Fire. People 
forget about it. Some of our witnesses are nodding. It was in 
2002, and it was the biggest forest fire we have had in 
Colorado. I think it was exacerbated, as many of our witnesses 
have said, by the effects of climate change.
    And I just want to point out a couple of the issues that 
several of our witnesses had mentioned. This fire, it resulted 
in the death of a civilian, the indirect deaths of five 
firefighters, $39.1 million in suppression costs, and $40.4 
million in property losses.
    My congressional district is the city of Denver and 
suburbs. What the Hayman Fire did is it dramatically, and for a 
long period of time, impacted the water quality in Denver 
because a lot of the fire was directly around one of the 
reservoirs that serves Denver. And I have spent a lot of time 
talking with Denver Water about the impacts that the runoff 
from that fire had in our aquifers.
    Dr. Davis, I know you mentioned very briefly in your 
statement about the impacts on water. I am wondering if you can 
expand briefly on what you are seeing on that.
    Dr. Davis. Yes. As I mentioned briefly, the risk to our 
watershed--every day we drink clean water, and in the Western 
U.S., in particular, Colorado as well, that water is filtered 
through our forests. And that filtration value before it gets 
to municipal sources is a tremendous economic contribution or 
benefit for the public good. As many of those forests are 
overstocked, they are at risk of burning. Making sure that 
those are priority areas to avoid having a wildfire come in and 
burn at high intensity should be a priority.
    Ms. DeGette. And the other problem--and I think, Dr. 
Collins, you referred to this, too--is now, with climate 
change, the heat is so much greater, that the destruction is so 
much greater, and it is much harder for those forests to 
regenerate themselves and protect against this toxic runoff.
    Dr. Collins, you talked about three methods of reducing 
wildfire risk--prescribed fires, mechanical treatment by 
removing mid-sized trees, and wood-chipping, and also, a 
combination of both. Obviously, everything doesn't work 
everywhere, is that right?
    Dr. Collins. Right. And I think one of the things, it is 
funny you mentioned the Hayman Fire. That is the first fire I 
worked on when I came to Colorado in 2002, and I know the 
Cheesman Reservoir and all that happened there. One of the 
interesting things there is they had done thinning projects, 
and I think even a little bit of prescribed burning.
    Ms. DeGette. Right.
    Dr. Collins. But it was the scale of the thinning relative 
to the scale of the forest problem there. The thinning was 
happening in really discrete areas right along roads and it was 
blown over pretty easily.
    Ms. DeGette. Yes, because of the intensity of the fire.
    Dr. Collins. Right. And so, with regard to sort of not 
being able to do everything everywhere, I think we are limited 
oftentimes in terms of slope, you know, the slope that 
mechanical equipment can operate on, for good reason, right? 
For protecting the reservoir and things like that. But I was 
saying that there is no one-size-fits-all sort of thing.
    Ms. DeGette. Yes.
    Dr. Collins. We need to do all of those things wherever 
possible.
    Ms. DeGette. Well, and the other issue--and this is true 
throughout the West; I see it in my State--is, we have millions 
of acres of trees. So, if you said you were going to go in with 
mechanical treatment and try to thin all of these forests, it 
would be impossible, isn't that correct?
    Dr. Collins. Well, I wouldn't say impossible.
    Ms. DeGette. How much do you think it would cost?
    Dr. Collins. Well, it depends if you can set up a market 
for the material, right? I mean, woody biomass was mentioned. 
It is not new, right?
    Ms. DeGette. Right.
    Dr. Collins. But the key is, can we incentivize woody 
biomass utilization? Can we have other products? Oriented 
strand board that uses small----
    Ms. DeGette. But you still couldn't do it throughout the 
whole West?
    Dr. Collins. No, not on every acre. No, not at all.
    Ms. DeGette. Right. Yes. OK. Thank you.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentle lady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Shimkus for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. David, Dr. Collins, thank you for being here.
    And I also, too, want to highlight Doug LaMalfa from 
California, who is sitting in and listening to us, and his 
legislation, along with our good friend, the Democrat from 
Oregon, who has been mentioned. So, good work on that and we 
appreciate that.
    I am not trying to be flippant, but prior to the industrial 
age, were there forest fires in the West, Dr. Davis?
    Dr. Davis. Absolutely.
    Mr. Shimkus. And, Dr. Collins?
    Dr. Collins. Yes.
    Mr. Shimkus. OK. Again, I am not trying to be flippant. I 
also, many of us, accept the premise that climate change is 
occurring, and I think as some of the people out West, it is 
extending the season a little bit longer, and then, you have 
drier stuff. And then, you can count this buildup.
    For people on this committee, this will be no surprise, but 
I want to talk to Mr. Johnson a little bit. Before I do that, a 
nuclear power plant, how much CO2 does it emit, Mr. Johnson?
    Mr. Johnson. Zero, I believe.
    Mr. Shimkus. Mr. MacWilliams, you know the answer.
    Mr. MacWilliams. That is correct, yes, sir.
    Mr. Shimkus. You all know zero. OK. Nuclear power plants 
emit zero.
    So, I want to focus on Diablo Canyon, if I may, for a few 
minutes. My friends from California know I have focused a lot 
on California because of just the challenges that are there. It 
is still operating, but it is planned for closure; is that 
correct?
    Mr. Johnson. It is operating with a planned closure date, 
one unit in 2023, and the other in 2025.
    Mr. Shimkus. So, how much megawatts of electricity is it 
generating?
    Mr. Johnson. So, each unit is roughly 1250 megawatts.
    Mr. Shimkus. That is where my calculations were a little 
bit off. I thought it was 1100, and I calculated it would 
service about 1.1 million homes, I think. But with the larger 
megawatt outage, you predict--if we are doing it on homes, how 
many homes is that?
    Mr. Johnson. A million and a half homes, somewhere in that 
range.
    Mr. Shimkus. Per reactor?
    Mr. Johnson. Yes, per reactor.
    Mr. Shimkus. So, three million in total?
    I would encourage my colleagues that, as we move on this 
debate, just for electricity cost, just for clean generation, 
nuclear power has to be part of the portfolio. You just can't 
get there without that, and I would encourage that.
    But we have additional problems, don't we, Mr. Johnson? So, 
why are you closing? If it is cleaner burning; no CO2 
emissions, which everybody wants, a baseline major generation, 
why are you closing it?
    Mr. Johnson. Well, as I said, I have been here nine months, 
and the decision had been made by the time I got there. But I 
think the decision was a policy one based on the desire not to 
have nuclear in California.
    Mr. Shimkus. And whose decision was that?
    Mr. Johnson. I assume the policymakers, whoever they were.
    Mr. Shimkus. You know who they were.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Johnson. Well, I would think it is the governor and the 
legislature, those folks.
    Mr. Shimkus. OK. All right.
    Mr. Johnson. Yes.
    Mr. Shimkus. So, they don't want it, but there are probably 
some good reasons, too, I think. I mean, Diablo Canyon is 
located where?
    Mr. Johnson. On the Pacific Ocean a couple of hours south 
of San Francisco.
    Mr. Shimkus. And so, we all know California. I lived there 
for a year and a half, serving in the United States Army. I 
experienced a few earthquakes. It is prone to earthquakes, 
right?
    Mr. Johnson. Yes.
    Mr. Shimkus. So, there are credible reasons why 
Californians may think that maybe a nuclear power plant on an 
earthquake region might not be the best thing to do. I mean, I 
think that makes sense.
    First of all, who pays for the decommissioning of this 
power plant?
    Mr. Johnson. The customers of PG&E.
    Mr. Shimkus. The ratepayers? OK.
    Mr. Johnson. The ratepayers.
    Mr. Shimkus. That would be these three million homes-plus, 
whatever.
    The next question is, the plant is all level to the ground; 
then, you can walk away? You have no problems, right.
    Mr. Johnson. No, you can never walk away.
    Mr. Shimkus. And why?
    Mr. Johnson. Well, you have radioactive materials there for 
some period of time. You have to decontaminate and decommission 
the plant.
    Mr. Shimkus. What radioactive material do you have 
remaining?
    Mr. Johnson. Well, you have the vessel.
    Mr. Shimkus. OK.
    Mr. Johnson. You have taken the fuel and probably moved it 
offsite, but you still have a lot of pieces----
    Mr. Shimkus. Is there a plan to move fuel offsite?
    Mr. Johnson. I don't think there is a plan yet. You have to 
take it out of the reactor and store it.
    Mr. Shimkus. Yes, that is why we are working with Mr. 
Peters and Mr. McNerney, and all my friends in California, and 
Ms. Matsui, to develop a place for regional and, then, long-
term storage. So, we get that off the books. Because who is 
going to pay for the storage of that nuclear waste on your 
property?
    Mr. Johnson. The same people who are paying for everything 
else.
    Mr. Shimkus. It is going to be the Federal Government----
    Mr. Johnson. Sooner or later----
    Mr. Shimkus [continuing]. Is really the answer to that one, 
after you litigate with us.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    You also have a lot of power plants in the Chicago land 
area, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Rush. Very interesting.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Doyle for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Doyle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank you 
for holding this hearing.
    Obviously, we are here to focus on the devastating effects 
of wildfires, but I think it is also a good opportunity to talk 
about the larger threat of climate change and the challenges it 
presents. As Mr. Johnson testified, in under a decade, PG&E's 
service area went from 15 percent elevated fire risk to 50 
percent designated as high fire threat. Much of that is due to 
a warming climate that has brought record temperatures, 
drought, and an unprecedented amount of dead trees.
    But it is not only wildfires affecting communities around 
the country. We have seen record flooding in the Midwest, 
massive hurricanes in the Southeast, and in Pittsburgh, where I 
live, record rainfalls leading to flooding and landslides. So, 
while climate change does not cause any individual disaster, it 
certainly plays a role in making the conditions worse. And as 
we have seen all over the country, not being prepared for these 
new conditions and the risks they bring can have deadly 
consequences. So, even as we work to reduce our carbon 
emissions and limit future warming, we still have to adapt to a 
world that is already being impacted by climate change.
    Mr. Johnson, you talked about one of the more drastic 
measures, the PSPS program, where you turn people's power off. 
And the transmission or distribution equipment is a main issue 
both in starting the fires and determining who gets their power 
shut off. What role do you see energy storage and microgrids 
playing in making communities more resilient, reducing the 
amount of people affected by the PSPS program, and reducing the 
overall need for more transmission infrastructure?
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you for that great question. Just to put 
this in context, less than ten percent of fires are caused by 
electric infrastructure. Of that number, a great many, 70 
percent or more, caused by distribution, the little wires. So, 
that is the causation.
    And so, yes, I think a lot of things are going to play a 
role in reducing it, including microgrids, materials, new 
technology, sensors, covered wires, but microgrids, some form 
of storage with a smaller footprint, so you are not relying on 
that thousand-mile-long corridor in the forest. I think all of 
those things; in fact, we are planning to do many of those 
things ourselves starting this year.
    Mr. Doyle. That is good to hear.
    Mr. MacWilliams, as you know, the CLEAN Future Act would 
create a National Climate Bank, and this bank would invest in a 
number of clean energy, transportation energy efficiency, and 
grid modernization projects. And so, while we are investing and 
making a cleaner future, we need to adapt to the current world 
that we live in. What suggestions do you have for how we can 
specifically incentivize public-private partnerships to fund 
resilience and adaption projects?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Well, thank you, Congressman.
    And as you mentioned, the threats here really are broader 
than wildfires. I recognize it is not the direct subject of 
this testimony, but in my written testimony I referred to that, 
and for that matter, very similar threats from cybersecurity 
and physical security, as Mr. Johnson knows from the Metcalf 
incident a few years ago.
    So, essentially, what we need to be doing is investing in 
our infrastructure. In this country, we essentially operate our 
government on a cash basis, not an accrual basis. And so, as a 
result of that, we don't have a concept of accumulated 
depreciation. And if you ran a company like that, you would be 
in trouble pretty quickly.
    And so, what is happening in this country is we are facing 
this large wall that we are about to hit in our infrastructure, 
and certainly in our energy infrastructure, but also in other 
areas such as our national security infrastructure, which is 
why in the past I and others have argued for a national 
infrastructure bank. Now what is being talked about here, which 
I think is very positive, is a climate bank, a very similar 
concept. But, essentially, what we need is a public-private 
entity to be able to support infrastructure investment. Or I am 
afraid, unfortunately, if we just use our traditional methods 
of infrastructure investment, we will never get there, given 
the billions and billions of dollars that are required.
    Mr. Doyle. Thank you, Mr. MacWilliams. I want to thank all 
of our panelists for your testimony today. It has been quite 
informative. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Latta for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for 
holding today's hearing.
    And thanks to our witnesses for appearing before us today. 
We really appreciate your testimony.
    Mr. Markham, if I could start my questioning with you, one 
thing is, I have the largest number of rural coops of anybody 
in the State of Ohio. So, I appreciate the work that you do out 
West.
    I am also a co-chair of the Grid Innovation Caucus with my 
good friend, the gentleman from the 11th District from 
California. One of the goals of the Caucus is to discuss 
solutions to the many challenges facing the electric grid, 
including resiliency and how advanced technologies can be 
utilized to enhance the grid. It is important that we are 
looking to protect the grid, not just from cyberattacks, but 
also physical threats like wildfires, hurricanes, and 
tornadoes.
    In your testimony, you speak about efforts to install new 
technologies such as taller steel poles that would enhance 
reliability and resiliency. Will you go into more detail about 
other technologies that are being deployed to respond to 
physical threats to the grid?
    Mr. Markham. Yes. Yes, you bet. Thank you, Representative.
    We are pursuing right now looking at a pilot program. This 
is probably the most significant, is the opportunity to use 
digital waveform analytics technology, and it has the 
capability of detecting a problem on the line before it becomes 
a fault and can ignite a wildfire. That is probably one of the 
biggest things that we are looking at now.
    The other things that we are pursuing and looking at in our 
long-term plan is demand response and how we manage the heavy 
loads that come onto our transmission lines, being able to 
reduce power from significant events or weather events, things 
like that.
    We also have fully deployed advanced metering 
infrastructure. It allows two-way communication with our 
meters. It gives us a lot of information.
    And then, we are moving towards electronic closures in our 
substations, a lot more advanced things. The more information 
we get, the better technology, the more that we can get data 
and better respond and be in front of the issues.
    Mr. Latta. Let me just kind of follow up with my friend, 
the ranking member, who was sitting next to me a little bit 
ago. In your testimony, you are talking about quite a bit of 
issues you have had with the permit approval times, the 
inconsistent application policy, and the delays involved. But I 
would like to go back, again, to this.
    In your testimony, you talk about the application you filed 
back on April the 17th of last year. And in that, you were 
talking about what you are trying to get done and the window of 
opportunity in Camp Sherman to perform the job before the fire 
season remains limited due to the heavy winter snow and the wet 
spring months. But eight months, as Mr. Walden had pointed out, 
had elapsed before the federal agency decided to even post the 
proposed action to get those public comments for that two-week 
period. Where are you at on that right now?
    Mr. Markham. Right now, it is still receiving input from 
the public. I will commend the Forest Service Ranger for 
applying categoric exclusions to reduce the timeframe of doing 
this. But, again, I don't know if it is resources available to 
our federal land agencies that it has to take this long, but in 
that instance we have three months to complete a job--in 
October, November, December. If we have heavy snows in November 
and December, we can't do it. So, we are down to one month, 
October. That is how critical it is where we are at.
    Mr. Latta. OK. And again, when you are looking at that 
critical period of time, are you finding that, in talking to 
other electric coops out West, that they are experiencing the 
same delay, that it is taking this long to get something done?
    Mr. Markham. Absolutely, yes. And we are working to improve 
that, the relationships. Again, central Oregon and throughout 
the State, we are working with our federal land agencies to get 
agreements together, so we can get some accountability, some 
consistency, and get some of these issues resolved.
    Mr. Latta. We were talking a little bit beforehand, Mr. 
Walden and I, and the question that came up was SHPA. Are you 
still having a problem with SHPA? And maybe you could explain 
what this is.
    Mr. Markham. Yes, Representative, State Historic 
Preservation Office. And so, out where we are working to 
replace the 113 poles, Congressman Walden showed the one pole. 
That is under a State Historical Preservation Site, Historical 
Site. We actually have to have an archeologist there when we 
relocate and begin digging for the new pole. In fact, there 
are, I believe, 29 poles where the archeologist has to be 
present while we do our digging. Now, again, I commend the 
Forest Service because they could have required a full survey, 
but they are only requiring that archeologists be there. So, 
yes, we deal with SHPA.
    Mr. Latta. Does it take very long to get the archeologists?
    Mr. Markham. What's that? I am sorry.
    Mr. Latta. Does it take long to get the archeologists?
    Mr. Markham. You know, I am not involved in part of that. I 
just know that, if that is part of why the delay of nine 
months, I am not sure if that is part of it or not.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My time has 
expired, and thank you for your indulgence.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Tonko for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Chairman Rush.
    Yes, Mr. MacWilliams, I really appreciate the image in your 
testimony that shows wildfires are projected to be worse in 
many parts of the country, well beyond California, by mid-
century. These climate-related conditions may be appearing 
first in the West, but make no mistake, many other regions will 
be impacted. So, can you give a little more explanation on the 
factors driving this increased risk?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Thank you for the question.
    Yes. And as my colleagues here to the left who are 
scientists, which I am not, clearly, the conditions that we are 
seeing caused by climate change are exacerbating the intensity 
and the frequency. And when combined with forest management 
issues that have been discussed, we are in the situation that 
we are seeing.
    But one of the things we tried to indicate there in the 
paper, as you indicated, was that this is, while severe in 
California, this is a problem across the country. And as I 
previously testified, we have seen similar problems with 
flooding and other climate change-related issues as well.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you for that.
    And do you believe there are lessons we should be taking 
from the response to recent Western fires and applying them 
more broadly?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Yes. I spoke a few minutes ago about the 
need for infrastructure. My concern is that we really need to 
treat this as a call to action and that we need to really get 
on this. We have enormous infrastructure needs.
    And secondly, I think, you know, there is really 
encouraging work being done on the technology front. And so, as 
I mentioned in my opening statement, I would really encourage 
Congress to be funding, and looking carefully, but funding 
technology development because, in short, essentially, when you 
look at the enormous amount of data that is being generated 
from all these sensors, you combine them with advanced data 
analytics and high-performance computing advances in deep 
learning, there is an enormous amount that can be done there.
    Mr. Tonko. So, are those tasks that you would assign to the 
utilities arena, or are there other steps that utilities in 
future high-risk areas should begin in terms of reducing these 
long-term risks?
    Mr. MacWilliams. I mean, my understanding--and others can 
speak to this as well--my understanding is that it is really a 
combination of efforts. I am familiar with the efforts, as I 
mentioned, that Livermore Lab and some of the other National 
Labs are doing working with the CPUC, working with utilities 
such as PG&E. Perhaps Mr. Johnson can add to that. But it is, 
obviously, a combination of effort here, but I think technology 
combined with infrastructure, that we can do a lot.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
    And, Mr. Johnson and Markham, to the extent federal 
investments support grid modernization, do you believe there 
should be additional focus on how grid modernization can 
support resilience?
    Mr. Johnson. Absolutely, I do. We used to think about 
reliability all the time. I think now it is time to think about 
reliability and resilience as discrete things. And so, anything 
that helps with resilience, given these challenges, would be 
helpful.
    Mr. Tonko. Mr. Markham?
    Mr. Markham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Yes, absolutely. Resilience just, for example, over the 
next 20 years, we are investing $300 million into hardening our 
system. That is a tremendous amount of money for an electric 
cooperative.
    I talked about the pilot project where we would like to use 
the digital waveform analytics. That is not inexpensive. And 
any sort of assistance we can get to provide resiliency, it 
just helps speed up the process.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
    And it seems that new sensors and microgrids and other 
smart technologies may be helpful, but you are also working on 
more traditional hardening approaches: an increased focus on 
vegetation management, replacing wood poles with metal, and the 
coating of wires. Do you have any thoughts on the role for some 
of these lower-cost and perhaps lower-tech solutions as part of 
a more resilient electricity system? Any of you?
    Mr. Markham. Absolutely. As far as for me, there are three 
things to mitigate wildfire risk. The most important step is 
hardening your system, vegetation management, and technology. 
We just talked about technology. Hardening the system, $300 
million. Vegetation management, and I want to hit on that 
because that is more traditional.
    I commend PG&E, $3.8 billion they have spent on vegetation 
management since 2009. I wanted to contrast that with one of 
our smallest electric cooperatives in the State. The $3.8 
billion comes to $22 annually per customer per year. And at 
West Oregon Electric Cooperative, they spend $300 a year for 
vegetation management. So, you have to do those traditional 
forms, not just technology, but those, too, to prevent 
wildfires.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
    And when you relate that fiscally to the damage that may 
occur, it seems like it is a very sound preventative device.
    Mr. Markham. Absolutely.
    Mr. Tonko. So, I thank you all.
    With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from West Virginia, my friend, Mr. 
McKinley, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. McKinley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 
having this hearing on this.
    This is important because it really focuses back on forest 
management, and I thought that it seems to be that a lot of 
premise of where we were moving on this was that would be our 
primary objective, because that is something we can set policy. 
We can work on, forest management. But you have heard 
throughout the hearing so far that there have been efforts to 
distract us, to divert us over, by adding into some of the 
issues, I guess, of climate change.
    I don't disagree that climate change is out there. But my 
concern--and eventually, I'll get, Dr. Collins, to a question 
to you--but I am concerned about we don't control the climate 
in America. If you look back on it, there was an MIT study that 
came out just recently that said, regardless of anything the 
United States does to decrease its emissions--regardless--until 
China and India reduce their emissions, the result will be 
climate catastrophe. In that period of time, China and India 
have both increased their CO2 emissions by over 200 percent. We 
are vulnerable in America for droughts, wildfires, rising sea 
levels, all based on what is happening around the world.
    Earlier this year, the Financial Times came out with they 
are increasing the use of coal in China. Actually, they are 
under construction now. For the next five years, they are going 
to be producing brand-new coal-fired power plants equivalent to 
all the capacity of Europe, and the European Union. So, the 
world is still continuing to use fossil fuels, and it is 
impacting us in America. So, yes, we can do all the right 
things. That is why I am hoping we can get back to focus on 
forest management, because we can't control what the other 
countries are doing on this.
    And then, there were some interesting reports that came out 
that conflict me with this testimony that came out here today. 
Here the Royal Society in London came out with a report that 
said global area burned appears to have overall declined over 
the past two decades.
    The Washington Post, in June of 2017, said that fires have 
consumed--the amount of land being burned in wildfires is 
declining. That conflicts with what we are hearing. So, I am 
concerned about it. I don't know all the aspects of this. But 
you see this conflicting data on this.
    So, my question to you, Dr. Collins, would be, if we were 
to follow Congressman Pallone and others on the other side of 
the aisle and go for decarbonization of America--we can do 
that; that can happen--if we were to do that, by year 2050, 
would we still experience droughts, wildfires, severe weather 
storms, and rising oceans? Can you elaborate on that?
    Dr. Collins. I will say this: I am not a climate scientist. 
So, on that respect, I probably had better decline to answer 
that. My guess as a forest scientist is that fire is going to 
be around for a long time; drought is going to be around. And 
so, my take on it is that we need to plan for its 
inevitability. And to do so means to do and large-scale forest 
management, large-scale reductions in tree density for dealing 
with these expected droughts.
    Now whether or not our policies--let's say from a 
standpoint of forests, I think it is a good goal to look to 
forests to do some of the sequestering, but not at the expense 
of exposing forests to further disturbance from drought and 
fire. There is sort of a resilient capacity that the forests 
can take in terms of carbon, but we can't just keep packing it 
in there. I don't know if that answers your question.
    Mr. McKinley. Well, so the answer is you still think, from 
forestry, there would still be wildfires, even if we totally 
decarbonized our economy in the United States?
    Dr. Collins. I think so, yes.
    Mr. McKinley. Yes. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Pallone for 5 minutes for questioning our 
witnesses.
    Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Rush.
    It is clear from the testimony today that wildfire risk in 
the American West is extreme, and it is also clear that 
wildfires are not exclusively a Western State problem. In fact, 
Alaska, not California, saw the most acreage burned last year, 
and high-intensity wildfires occurs recently in east Texas, and 
the Smoky Mountains, the Shenandoah Valley. And as Mr. 
MacWilliams' testimony shows, fire will likely increase 
nationwide over the next 50 years. And I mentioned in my 
opening statement wildfire threats exist in my home State of 
New Jersey.
    And I know we have heard from our witnesses today that 
climate change is driving the nationwide increase in fire 
severity. So, I wanted to ask Mr. MacWilliams or Dr. Davis, can 
you explain the specific aspects of climate change that are 
driving this increased risk? I would start with Mr. 
MacWilliams, if I could.
    Mr. MacWilliams. Yes. Again, I am not a climate scientist, 
but I have spent much of my career in this area. I mean, 
essentially, the science behind climate change has been around 
for 100 years. And we essentially have a one-way mirror that, 
as CO2 is put into the atmosphere, CO2 comes down to earth, and 
the wavelengths change. And as it is reflected back in, it 
bounces back off and comes back down to earth. That is causing 
heating. It is causing thermal expansion of water and 
intensifying storms and other weather effects, and obviously, 
wildfires. So, that is the essential effect.
    And I also did not mean in any way to--I think putting 
opposition between climate change and forest management is a 
false dichotomy. We obviously need both to solve these 
problems, and the low-hanging fruit in some ways is forest 
management practices because that is the fuel. What we have to 
look at is the conditions over time across the country and 
other places in the world that are creating more fuel and 
exacerbating the wildfires, which, as has been stated, have 
been a natural part of forests really forever.
    Mr. Pallone. And these changes are not unique to California 
or even the American West?
    Mr. MacWilliams. No, those are global effects, and we are 
seeing them; as we have talked about, we are seeing them 
everywhere, including Siberia, for that matter.
    Mr. Pallone. All right. Dr. Davis, did you want to comment?
    Dr. Davis. Certainly. I would like to add that one of the 
elements that changing climate brings to this is that we 
shouldn't expect traditional methods to yield traditional 
responses. And that is where the forests that we have, the 
rangelands that we have, may behave differently, even if we go 
in with the expectation that what has worked in the past won't 
work more. In the West, we see our fire season is about 30 days 
longer now than it was three decades ago. That increased length 
means there is more opportunity for those areas to burn each 
year and more areas at risk each year, coupled with people 
choosing to live in that wildland-urban interface.
    Mr. Pallone. OK. Mr. Johnson, from what we have heard today 
and from what we know about climate change, climate-related 
threats to the grid are diverse. Wildfires, hurricanes, and 
rising sea levels are just a few examples.
    So, your company is struggling with it now. I just wanted 
to ask, how can utilities keep up with the threats? And have 
you learned any useful lessons from other utilities in your own 
State or elsewhere that have dealt with these questions 
already?
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you for the question.
    California is an interesting place here. It is one percent 
of global emissions. It's the fifth or sixth biggest economy in 
the world, and it is suffering some of the most significant 
climate change effects already, despite being such a small 
contributor. So, we are sort of hyper-attuned to this issue.
    Decarbonizing electricity and then, moving to 
electrification is probably the greatest step we can take to 
deal with this challenge of carbon. And I think if you look at 
the utility industry over the last decade, you have seen pretty 
good progress on that front in decarbonizing. I think that is 
the most important thing we could do.
    Mr. Pallone. I appreciate it. As was already mentioned, I 
think we have to take some bold action to stem the worse 
impacts of catastrophic climate change. We are announcing today 
on the Democratic side that we are going to put forward the 
actual legislative text for the CLEAN Future Act, which seeks 
to have carbon-neutral by 2050, and the power sector seeks to 
establish that standard. So, I appreciate your comments.
    And thank you, Chairman Rush, for having this hearing 
today. I think it is really important for all of us, including 
my State. Thank you.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from West Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for 
5 minutes.
    Mr. Griffith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    And it is good to be from western Virginia, where we have 
lots of trees, and we try to manage our forests.
    Mr. Rush. The Chair stands corrected.
    Mr. Griffith. That is all right.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman from Virginia.
    Mr. Griffith. I am so close to West Virginia it might as 
well be the same, but I do appreciate it.
    And I will say, Mr. MacWilliams, I agree with you that 
trying to say it is either climate or forest management is a 
false dichotomy. I am going to focus in my questions on forest 
management, but climate change is clearly part of the issue as 
well. We have to focus on both, and I agree with that comment 
you made a minute or two ago.
    Dr. Collins, what a fascinating area that you have to 
study. So, I want to ask some questions, and I am going to 
start with your comment in your written testimony about 
``large-scale tree mortality from bark beetles and possibly 
other yet-unseen insect and pathogen outbreaks,'' because that 
can be a significant portion.
    My question is you talked about tree density previously. 
Does the density of the trees lead to a faster spread of both 
the bark beetles and possibly other pathogens?
    Dr. Collins. It does. It does partly because, in the case 
of bark beetles, they communicate with each other by 
pheromones. And the closer trees are to each other, the more 
readily accepted the pheromones are.
    Mr. Griffith. They reproduce more rapidly?
    Dr. Collins. Yes, and then, they can, also, what they call 
mass attack.
    But the other effect it has is on individual tree vigor, 
right? As there are more trees, they are competing for the same 
amount or less water and nutrients. And so, there is decreased 
vigor; hence, their defenses are lower and they cannot defend 
themselves from bark beetles or other pathogens.
    Mr. Griffith. Yes, and we have to pay attention to these. 
And I certainly am no expert, but I love this kind of area of 
science. And so, I had one of my team go pull up out of the 
archives the May 2007 National Geographic where it references 
the red marsh worms and the common nightcrawlers that 
apparently were brought over by the Europeans and devastated 
the leaf litter in the previously-wormless northern woods of 
what is now the United States, drying out areas such as the 
pines and making it more susceptible to any of the problems 
that you might have with drier areas, because previously it was 
all wet.
    That being said, I was interested in your comments about 
the fact that we are burning all the trees, instead of having 
patchy. Because, historically--and many of our species have 
adapted to--there is a fire, but inside of the fire area there 
are areas that did not get burned. And so, you have the red-
cockaded woodpecker that used to live in Chairman Pallone's 
pines in New Jersey but don't live there anymore. That is not 
necessarily the reason. But we could reintroduce them if we had 
some living trees and some burned-out trees, because they feed 
on the dead trees and they live in the living trees.
    Do you see examples similar to that? Because I am more 
familiar with the eastern birds. Do you see more examples like 
that in the western forests?
    Dr. Collins. In terms of maybe what some of the impacts of 
forest change have been on species?
    Mr. Griffith. Well, that, and the fact that they need to 
have some fire, but not where it burns everything.
    Dr. Collins. Absolutely. I think there are cases of a few 
woodpeckers that are what they call ``burn specialists,'' and 
they thrive in burnt forests; although they can still live in 
green forests, but they do best in burned forests. The thing is 
that it took that sort of patchy landscape that you described 
where they could rely on sort of constant burned forests, 
although they shifted around to different areas. Now, with 
these giant patches of burned forests, you have a feast for a 
short time, and that time period is maybe a few years after the 
fire, and then, you have famine because you have a giant area 
that is deforested. So, we do have these examples.
    Mr. Griffith. And they don't have any place to live 
because, normally, they live in the living trees?
    Dr. Collins. Sure. Yes, it is sort of a population dynamic 
where they move between green and burned forests.
    Mr. Griffith. Right. Right. That is a significant problem.
    Are you seeing anything else in regard to, whether it be 
insects or birds, the impact of this? And I am assuming that 
the reason we are having this huge burn is not just that we are 
hotter and drier, but because all these trees are so close 
together, your fuel. You mentioned that in your opening 
statement, too, if you want to talk about that some more, about 
how the crowns are so close together, the trees, when the fire 
gets up in there, there is no way to retard it.
    Dr. Collins. Sure. I think about it in terms of something 
we call continuity, where let's say in the historical forest 
condition there were a lot of breaks, and not only just in the 
tree crowns, but on the surface as well. So, we have really not 
to say lost continuity, you know, that we have lost that, but 
we have really homogenized forests. And we have greater 
continuity not even just in the tree crowns, but on the 
surface. I mean, there is not a lot stopping the spread of fire 
right now, except for when we can get in there with crews and 
cut the fuel away.
    Mr. Griffith. So, what we need is a diversity of species 
and a number of places where we don't have so many trees close 
together, and some patches of prairie or open land in between?
    Dr. Collins. Sure. We call it a mosaic on the landscape.
    Mr. Griffith. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentle lady from California, Ms. Matsui, for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    And I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today 
on this very important topic.
    Under the authority of the Clean Air Act, the Federal 
Government has a responsibility to monitor and set standards 
for national ambient air quality. Included in the list of 
pollutants to monitor is particulate matter--or, as we call it, 
PM--which are small, inhalable particles that can cause serious 
health risks.
    Dr. Davis, more specifically, what are the health risks to 
those who are exposed to wildfire smoke, whether this is direct 
exposure from communities where these fires are occurring or 
indirect exposure for communities who are downwind?
    Dr. Davis. Thank you for the question.
    And I am not a medical expert. I am a forester by training. 
So, I will speak to this from the forestry perspective and my 
own experience.
    Ms. Matsui. Certainly.
    Dr. Davis. The people who spend time outside in the smoky 
season do inhale different sizes of particles. And there are 
some important distinctions in terms of particles from wildfire 
versus particles from prescribed burn or controlled burns. 
Those are often different sizes.
    One of the areas that are expanding in study across the 
U.S. and around the world is both the acute short-term exposure 
to smoke and what that causes in terms of a daily response, 
but, also, for people who live in smoke-prone areas, that 
prolonged chronic exposure. We don't actually know what some of 
those effects are, but we see them as similar to other types of 
smoke that people inhale.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. Do our constituents have tools to monitor 
this smoke and, more specifically, elevated levels of PM in the 
event of a large wildfire?
    Dr. Davis. We collectively do not have great tools to be 
able to inform what different levels of smoke mean. People may 
be aware that it is smoky, but not what that particular matter 
is. If suspect we were all asked what a particular level of 
smoke meant to us, we would not know those numbers. That is 
also disproportionately more likely to affect people in lower-
income brackets who are exposed to smoke chronically and, then, 
also, to those who simply do not have a choice to opt-out of 
being exposed to smoke.
    Ms. Matsui. Right. Well, what we find, also, is that, since 
it is around an urban area, which could be my city of 
Sacramento or even areas like San Francisco, the particulate 
matter was such that they had to cancel schools and everything 
else. And it is a type where everybody thinks they can wear a 
mask, but the masks aren't effective, and it stays there for 
the longest time.
    Mr. MacWilliams, you laid out in your testimony a number of 
federal policy recommendations, including how entities like 
FERC or NERC can become more engaged players in encouraging 
grid upgrades and developing financial mechanisms for private 
utilities to utilize. Does the federal government currently 
have standards for transmission lines to prevent fire risks?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Thank you for the question.
    What I was trying to focus on in the testimony there, as I 
mentioned, is that I think we have got to provide incentives 
for utilities, as well as accountability, but incentives for 
utilities to be able to invest in all these necessary upgrades 
in infrastructure and technologies. And one of the concerns is 
that some of the current regulatory structures--and I recognize 
much of that is governed by state law--do not necessarily 
incentivize utilities to do that.
    So, the reason I mentioned the FERC is, as you mentioned; 
obviously, FERC has regulatory authorities over transmission 
lines, although many of these issues have been caused by local 
distribution lines. And therefore, in the past, as you are 
aware, the FERC has agreed to incentives for certain 
transmission-related areas, and I think those could be applied 
here. So, that is why I indicated that I think FERC could be 
doing some very positive work in this area.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. Thank you.
    Earlier this week, a member of CAL FIRE communicated to my 
office that the devastating fires of the Camp Fire and the 
Kincade Fire were the result of historic wind events, some of 
which reached 100 miles per hour for sustained periods of time. 
If these wind events are happening every year and are causing 
wildfires to continue to rank amongst the worst in State 
history, they are obviously not historic or isolated events 
anymore, but the new norm. As such, should we be focusing our 
resources on research and developing more accurate prediction 
models, and on infrastructure upgrades to take these new norms 
into account?
    Mr. MacWilliams, again, you referenced ongoing research 
being conducted at laboratories around the country on this. Is 
the latest research to better predict dangerous wind events 
that can lead to wildfires?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Yes. The research that I was referencing, 
which I am familiar with--and obviously, there is a lot more 
being done--is that, particularly in California, there is a lot 
of work being done. We are putting enormous amounts of sensors 
in, which needs to be done. Those sensors are providing or 
creating a lot of data. And it is everything from high altitude 
winds to local effects, to try to be able to, first of all, 
warn when situations are likely to cause wildfires. But, to me, 
some of the more interesting things are using big data, high-
performance computing, and some of the advanced simulation 
technologies that we are developing to be able to simulate and 
look at creating prevention models.
    Ms. Matsui. Well, that is good, and I would like to follow 
up later on that.
    Mr. MacWilliams. We would be pleased to.
    Ms. Matsui. And thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have 
gone over my time. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentle lady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Walden, the ranking member of the full 
committee, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Walden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate it. And 
again, thanks for hosting this hearing as well.
    And I want to thank all of our witnesses for your 
testimony. We have another hearing going on upstairs. So, I 
have had to go back and forth.
    Talking about air quality, at one of the prior hearings we 
did in the prior Congress, I had a constituent from Medford 
that sent me a photo of his CPAP filter from his breathing 
device. After a couple of days, it was literally black, and we 
put it up on the screen. And so, to my friend from the 
Sacramento area, Ms. Matsui, we have suffered the same sort of 
things. And you get into Medford and some of these areas, they 
are in a bowl, and the smoke gets in there. Literally, it will 
settle in there for a month at a time. It is awful. Somebody 
told me it was the equivalent of your kid smoking a pack of 
cigarettes every day. So, they closed schools. They cancelled 
festivals, the Bread Festival. The Ashland Shakespearean 
Festival had to cancel outdoor performances. It has a huge 
economic impact, and a huge human health impact.
    I want to talk about the forest management component of 
this. As climate changes, we know there is more stress on the 
trees; we know there is more density, because we have managed 
fire to the best of our ability. And we have got to do 
something about it. I mean, you have got to reduce the fuel 
loads, in my opinion.
    Now, when you talk in these terms, there are groups that 
say, ``Oh, you're just for industrial logging and you're going 
to clear-cut everything and rape and pillage the land.'' But if 
you go back to nature, a lot of these environments had natural 
fire events. They thinned it out.
    And I want to ask about the issue of woody biomass because 
there are organizations that treat that like it were the evil 
of the land. And yet, we know you can take that woody biomass, 
get a market for it, and produce it. It is used as a fuel 
source. Some would argue it is a zero carbon overall. And I 
wonder, Dr. Collins, do you want to speak to that? Mr. 
MacWilliams maybe? You seem to be nodding, Dr. Collins. Woody 
biomass?
    Dr. Collins. Sure, I will take a stab at it. So, yes, and I 
think there is an argument that could be made there that, if 
you assume that that biomass will ultimately burn in a 
wildfire; and you balance that out with the opportunity to 
remove it, and then, burn it and make energy, then, yes, you 
could argue it is a zero-balance on the carbon.
    Mr. Walden. All right. Mr. MacWilliams, do you want to----
    Mr. MacWilliams. Yes, just to add, there is interesting 
work being done now. I think there is a report coming out 
shortly on the subject from the National Labs at Livermore, in 
particular, looking at biomass gasification when complying with 
CO2 sequestration, which it turns out California has some very 
good areas in the Central Valley to sequester CO2.
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Mr. MacWilliams. But, then, ultimately, turning that into 
hydrogen.
    Mr. Walden. Oh, interesting.
    Mr. MacWilliams. If that could be made to work, of course, 
that is a good thing.
    Mr. Walden. And part of this is the funding issue, which 
some of you spoke to, and we battle over that in Congress. 
There is never enough. We are going to be a hundred years 
behind probably at the rate we are going to keep up because the 
forests keep growing and dying, and everything else.
    But you have got this woody biomass that remains on the 
forest floor. And aren't I correct that that adds to the 
intensity of the fuel and the destruction of the soils, and 
often you get a second fire that goes back through that? Dr. 
Davis? Dr. Collins? Does anybody disagree with that notion?
    Dr. Collins. No, I don't disagree.
    Mr. Walden. All right. Good. I am doing basic science here. 
All right. More fuel, more intensive fire.
    And so, what we are trying to figure out is, how do we get 
back in balance with nature here? And can you use this 
material? And meanwhile, Mr. Markham over here is struggling 
for seven months to get approval to move one power pole out of 
the way of what he thinks will be a more fire danger area into 
a safer area.
    Now I know my colleague, Mr. Latta, and I was talking about 
the issue involving the approval process that may include the 
Historic Preservation Office. Did you all talk about that while 
I was upstairs?
    Mr. Markham. Yes, I filled them in on that. SHPA has to be 
involved because it is a historic site.
    Mr. Walden. And the historic site is because of what?
    Mr. Markham. Actually, I believe it goes back many years 
and that at some point, the tribes were occupying that area.
    Mr. Walden. OK. All right. So, you are looking for any 
tribal sort of issues there?
    Mr. Markham. Yes, yes.
    Mr. Walden. But, when you are looking at this overall 
approval process, the example that I used, the seven months, 
how often does that happen to you?
    Mr. Markham. You know, Representative, it is getting 
better, but, historically, we have timelines that we have to 
meet with budgets, with the need to get things done, small 
windows. And so, it is pretty common that it takes that long.
    Mr. Walden. All right. And, Mr. Johnson, I want to go to 
you for a final question and comment. Given the horrible 
tragedies of these fires, given the backlog of maintenance to 
thin out or cut out and improve your right-of-way, do you have 
landowners that try to stop you from trimming trees you believe 
in your right-of-way need to be cut?
    Mr. Johnson. Yes, in fact, we do, which is hard to 
understand, given the circumstances we face. I will say people 
have gotten a lot more willing to have things cut, but there 
are a number of people who just do not want their trees, or not 
even their trees, cut.
    Mr. Walden. And if those trees end up causing a fire, who 
is liable?
    Mr. Johnson. In California, if your equipment is involved 
in the fire in any way, you are liable.
    Mr. Walden. So, even if the private owner of the tree says, 
``Don't cut it,'' and you are in a fight over that, if that 
tree gets into your line and starts a fire, you have the 
liability, is that accurate?
    Mr. Johnson. That is inverse condemnation in California, 
yes, sir.
    Mr. Walden. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for your indulgence. I 
yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes another fine Representative from the state of 
California, Mr. McNerney, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the Chair for that shout out 
there.
    And I thank the witnesses. Your testimony has been very 
helpful; a lot of good suggestions or recommendations. PG&E 
showed what was already being done. So, I appreciate those 
comments.
    Mr. MacWilliams, has there been a decline in the nation's 
energy infrastructure in the past decades?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Yes, as I referred to earlier, I think our 
infrastructure in many areas, including critical energy 
infrastructure and, also other areas such as national security 
infrastructure, is in decline and badly in need of investment.
    Mr. McNerney. So, what factors led to that decline?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Well, as I was saying earlier, I think 
part of the issue is just the way the government approaches 
infrastructure investment being essentially on a cash basis as 
opposed to accrual. So, we don't have a sense of accumulated 
depreciation. So, we are not preparing for the reinvestment. 
And as a result, we are essentially facing a wall in 
infrastructure investment that we are facing, unfortunately, at 
the same time that we have all these new demands on our 
infrastructure, particularly the grid, as we need to make it 
more intelligent and more resilient.
    Mr. McNerney. So, the Federal Government has a role, then, 
in improving the situation?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Absolutely. It is a nationwide issue.
    Mr. McNerney. Absolutely.
    One thing that many people don't realize, Mr. Johnson, is 
how broad the risk or threat of climate change poses to our 
energy infrastructure and how much it is going to cost to make 
that more resilient. Can you speak to the importance of federal 
investment and advancing research development and deployment of 
technologies that will make our grids more resilient?
    Mr. Johnson. Yes. So, one of the great things about our 
country is the National Laboratory system, where many good 
things come out. And it is a good investment, in my view, in 
those institutions. There is a lot of work being done in those 
institutions on things that will help with fire prevention and 
suppression--sensors, sectionalizing devices, all kinds of 
things. So, I think investment in those National Labs is a 
great idea in this space.
    Mr. McNerney. Well, what about local governments? What 
should the state and local governments be doing?
    Mr. Johnson. Well, I think the states have to take their 
part in the forest management pieces of state lands. And I 
think on the local level, that is mostly a coordination/
communication to make sure that people who are affected by 
these things, like power shutoffs, are well taken care of. So, 
I think the local thing is more about taking care of the local 
people.
    Mr. McNerney. Could you talk a little bit about the grid, 
the new sensor technology and microgrid resilient zones?
    Mr. Johnson. Sure There is a couple of things going on. The 
essential problem for fire and electric equipment is a piece of 
vegetation hits the line. There is a spark. It causes a fire. 
It is really that simple.
    So, if you can cover your line with some material that it 
won't spark, that is helpful. Historically, that line, when it 
breaks, we can't see it break. So, we need a sensor that will 
shut off the power to that line as soon as it breaks, right? 
And so, things like rapid earth fault current limiter, which 
has been used in Australia--we are piloting it here--that is 
exactly the kind of thing that will do distribution fault 
anticipation. There is maybe some artificial intelligence that 
will tell us when we are likely to have a fault on a line, a 
lot of radiofrequency sensors, these kinds of things. So, there 
is a lot of technology work going on here.
    Mr. McNerney. Dr. Collins, you indicated that proper 
thinning is needed, but what about improper thinning? I mean, 
if we pass authorizations to do thinning, what is the 
propensity that that will result in improper thinning and what 
would be the consequence of that?
    Dr. Collins. Are we talking about federal land?
    Mr. McNerney. Federal land.
    Dr. Collins. Yes, I think it is pretty unlikely, given the 
set of regulations that are in place already, at least for the 
Forest Service in California. I mean, I suppose if we were to 
raise what we call diameter limits for cutting, then it could 
be improper thinning where you are cutting the largest trees. 
But that seems like something that is not really on the table, 
at least from what I understand.
    Mr. McNerney. Dr. Davis, what caused the large increase in 
tree density? What specifically caused that? I mean, we heard a 
lot about that today. What has caused that?
    Dr. Davis. Simply suppression of fires. And where 
previously fires for millennia would burn through at different 
intensities, that would actually clear out what would burn in 
the future. As we started to put out fires more and more 
effectively, and we did that at a point where it was wetter and 
cooler, then those trees all grew, and they grew into that 
continuous forest that Dr. Collins mentioned before, where the 
ability for flame to travel over greater distance increased.
    Mr. McNerney. So, fire suppression has caused fire 
explosion?
    Dr. Davis. Yes.
    Mr. McNerney. All right. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Johnson from Ohio for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Johnson of Ohio. I want to thank both committee chairs 
for holding this hearing today.
    I know we are discussing an issue defined by recent 
wildfires out West, but this issue is certainly relevant to 
Ohio as well, as I have about 2500 acres of the Wayne National 
Forest in my district, where the carefully burned process, 
which is what you folks would call prescribed burns, took place 
last year to clear out some of the problem areas.
    As I mentioned, the Wayne is in southeast Ohio. It is a 
patchwork of public and private lands, and these burns are one 
of the important ways to protect human property and to reduce 
damages from wildfires. Additionally, they encourage plant and 
animal biodiversity and help ensure that our native oaks remain 
prevalent within the forest.
    We have been largely spared in Ohio from the devastation of 
wildfires, and I do share my colleagues' concern that something 
has to be done. Regardless of this debate, we are having today 
about why they are occurring; we have got to figure out a 
solution.
    So, this question, Dr. Davis, you have noted in your 
testimony that more people are living in forests than ever 
before. So, to both you and Dr. Collins, has public acceptance 
of prescribed burning or active forest management become an 
issue?
    Dr. Davis. I think that education of people who live in the 
wildland-urban interface is one of the great opportunities we 
have to be able to accept those treatments that we use, whether 
it is through thinning treatments appropriately conducted or 
through managed fire and prescribed fire. I don't think we are 
there yet.
    Mr. Johnson of Ohio. Yes. Dr. Collins?
    Dr. Collins. In California, I will tell you that it seems 
like acceptance is growing, at least in those communities that 
are immediately adjacent to some of the wildlands. And that is 
partly just because of what we have experienced. I think people 
are pushed to that acceptance, I will say.
    Mr. Johnson of Ohio. I have an analogy because in Ohio we 
live on the Ohio River. So, we have flooding issues and 
watershed issues. And so, we have manmade retainments that are 
put in place, and have been put in place, to control water 
retention and those kinds of things, to protect from flooding. 
Over the years, residents have come in and built up around 
those manmade lakes. And now, in order to manage the watershed, 
you have to reduce the water in those manmade lakes. And so, 
people get upset because, wait a minute, now we can't run our 
boats and all that kind of stuff in our lake, not realizing, of 
course, what the intended purpose was.
    So, it seems to me that prescribed burning and public 
acceptance of it is a big challenge because folks build 
property and they set up their homesteads there. They begin 
raising their families there. And then, all of a sudden, now 
they have got to face this prescribed burning.
    Does the media report this issue accurately, you think? 
Either one of you? Both of you?
    Dr. Collins. I am seeing, at least in California, I am 
seeing some media attention on the prevention side, and it is 
neat to see. The thing that is always the dilemma here is that 
you can have public acceptance, but the implementation is kind 
of a different story, right? When you are talking about small 
parcels of land, each with their own unique considerations on 
what you would have to account for on a prescribed burn, you 
almost just can't do that at scale. People might want it, but, 
then, from an implementation side, you can't do it. So, I am a 
little concerned about that.
    Mr. Johnson of Ohio. Dr. Davis?
    Dr. Davis. So, I think that one of the challenges we have 
is that right now we are concerned about the wildfires in 
Australia. Last year, it was the wildfires in Brazil. Before 
that, it was the wildfires in California or in Oregon. And the 
fire itself garners a lot of attention, but that smoke issue I 
referred to earlier affects residents hundreds or thousands of 
miles away, even from where those treatments might need to take 
place. And there is a disconnect between someone who 
experiences smoke from a fire a hundred or a thousand miles 
away and someone who experiences the threat of the actual fire. 
So, it is a space where we have to do more work.
    Mr. Johnson of Ohio. Yes. So, how do we develop community 
support for prescribed burning? How do we do that differently?
    Dr. Collins. One thing we are seeing--and we are kind of 
adopting this from the Southeast--is that there are these 
prescribed burn associations where there are individuals, 
landowners, some sort of maybe ex-fire-types from agencies, 
that get together and want to do something locally on their 
land. And I think they are getting more support for that where 
even some of the agencies like CAL FIRE would even back that, 
but it is not totally ready to turn over. I mean, CAL FIRE is 
not ready to just hand the reins of burning off to some 
association.
    Mr. Johnson of Ohio. Yes. OK. All right.
    Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Kennedy for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize for 
bouncing back and forth, as some others have been as well.
    But I thank all the witnesses for being here, for your 
thoughtful testimony.
    And, Chairman Rush and Chairman Tonko, and Ranking Members 
Upton and Shimkus, thank you for convening this hearing and for 
taking the threat of wildfires as seriously as it deserves
    Few natural disasters so clearly and painfully illustrate 
the reinforcing cycle of climate change and the cost of our 
continued inaction as wildfires. Climate change leads to rising 
temperatures, invasive species, frequent droughts, and extreme 
winds, which contribute to historic wildfires, which cause 
skyrocketing carbon emissions, which exacerbate climate change, 
which causes fires; and that cycle continues until we commit to 
ending climate change.
    Every single day that we wait only makes it harder to 
finally come up with a solution and end it. We can debate and 
discuss mitigation factors today, and I appreciate the 
suggestions that have come forth and the testimony, but those 
mitigation factors will mean little if you are not willing to 
have an honest conversation about one of the driving factors to 
it, obviously, climate change.
    Some of our colleagues will say that the science isn't as 
clear as I claim it is. In response, I would point to a recent 
NASA report, released just a few months ago, that said that, 
quote, ``Where warming and drying climate has increased the 
risk of fires, we have seen an increase in burning.'' End 
quote. A Pentagon study, released a year ago, before historic 
fires scorched California, warned that, if we did not address 
climate change, more than 40 U.S. bases around the world would 
be threatened by wildfires in the next two decades.
    There are other colleagues that will acknowledge that 
climate change is real, but that it is just too complicated or 
too late or too early or too expensive to confront. But if we 
listen to the testimony from our witnesses today, we will 
understand how disingenuous that argument often is.
    We are already paying for climate change. We are paying for 
it when climate change forces energy utility companies to file 
for bankruptcy. We are paying for it when ratepayers are forced 
to contribute $10.5 billion to an insurance fund to cover 
climate costs. We are paying for it when entire species are 
wiped off the face of the earth. We are paying for it when 
devastated families have to open GoFundMe pages to rebuild 
homes. We are paying for it when Americans die trying to escape 
fires and when brave first responders sacrifice their lives for 
others.
    So, to begin, to Dr. Davis and Dr. Collins, you both spoke 
at some length about the mitigation factors we can take to 
prepare for wildfires and contain the damage. And I would say, 
I think from the testimony that I have heard, you would agree 
this is not an ``either/or'' about mitigation or climate 
change, but definitely a ``both/and''.
    To start that conversation--again, some of these questions 
might have been referenced earlier--could you quantify if we 
have already spent billions, if not hundreds of billions, 
collectively, on climate change? To start, Dr. Davis?
    Dr. Davis. I think we have spent a lot responding to and 
learning about how these novel climate situations interact with 
our forests and rangelands, which represent much of the West. 
Moving forward, we have to realize that the treatments that we 
will put into place that worked before will not work the same 
way, absolutely. We have to recognize that the dry conditions 
that we have are leading into what causes fuels to dry out and 
increases that burn susceptibility. The drought condition that 
has prolonged the Western U.S. is something that leads into 
forest mortality. It also affects our agricultural producers as 
well.
    These responses are collective together in response to both 
historical management practices and changing climate 
conditions. It is going to be a multi-billions of billions of 
dollar solution and take decades to actually arrest the trend 
that we have seen in our forests.
    Mr. Kennedy. Dr. Collins?
    Dr. Collins. So, in California, I can't quote you on the 
numbers, but our investments have been pretty significant with 
regard to trying to mitigate climate change. And we have had 
this debate for ten years, it seems like, and it seems like 
maybe we have gotten over it in terms of whether or not it pays 
to do forest treatments, whether it is prescribed burning or 
thinning, from a carbon standpoint to mitigate some of the 
effects of climate. And I think we have collectively agreed, 
especially after the last couple of years, that it does. 
Because, frankly, what you are talking about is removing 
carbon, either burning it with prescribed burning or removing 
it by thinning, which, of course, is a negative on the ledger, 
but, then, it is the foregone emissions when a wildfire comes.
    So, I think that one of the things that are important to 
consider is that we can't just keep packing carbon into these 
wildlands, that the wildfire threat is pretty real, and that 
has its own carbon implications.
    Mr. Kennedy. And very briefly, because I have got ten 
seconds, to you both, if we continue on the current path, do 
forest fires become more prevalent or less frequent? Dr. Davis?
    Dr. Davis. The models show us that they will be more 
prevalent.
    Mr. Kennedy. Dr. Collins?
    Dr. Collins. The same.
    Mr. Kennedy. Thank you.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Long, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Long. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And five months into my term as a Congressman, in Joplin, a 
Missouri town of 50,000 people, we lost 161 souls to a tornado. 
Tornadoes are extremely scary and worrisome. Hurricanes, the 
same thing. But in each of those instances, a lot of times you 
will have some type of warning. I cannot imagine anything that 
would strike more fear into someone than a wildfire. And you 
see this footage on TV.
    Our youngest daughter was a student at Pepperdine, and she 
was in the broadcast journalism department there. And Stefan 
Holt, Lester Holt's son, was a couple of years ahead of her, 
and he was reporting from out there. I never will forget, he 
announced that Pepperdine had said that they had a mandatory 
evacuation of their faculty and staff, but didn't say anything 
about the kids. So, I never did understand that program, how 
they evacuated the faculty and staff, but didn't evacuate the 
students. But, with that being said, like I said, especially as 
a parent of someone on campus, and seeing the fires, there is 
nothing more frightening.
    Mr. Markham, you mentioned in your testimony that you have 
an upcoming meeting with the Oregon electric coops, State, 
regional, and district land management agencies on actions to 
reduce wildfire risks. What are the specific goals the coops 
are hoping to accomplish through those meetings?
    Mr. Markham. Representative, we are very optimistic that, 
by being able to come together, we can resolve some of these 
inconsistencies that we are having between our federal land 
agency district offices--and this isn't just in central Oregon; 
it is throughout the State--that; we can agree on why it takes 
in one place four months to get a permit to go remove dead 
trees and in another district we get immediate approval. If we 
can do these agreements that were similar to the sage-grouse 
with insurances, I think we can hash this out, and it will be a 
huge approach to implementing the cohesive strategy and 
mitigating wildfire.
    Mr. Long. How have the federal land management agencies 
supported the Oregon coops in implementing your cohesive 
strategy to prevent a wildfire?
    Mr. Markham. They are being very supportive, as we proceed 
with working on applying the principles of the cohesive 
strategy and coming together. I am very pleased with the 
support we are getting.
    Mr. Long. I know that much of your coop territory covers 
federal lands. So, you work with the U.S. Forest Service, the 
Bureau of Land Management, and other federal agencies on 
preventing these wildfires. If a wildfire were to break out on 
federal land, who is the lead agency in charge? Who does your 
first call go to?
    Mr. Markham. The first call on federal land, that is a good 
question on that. I am not sure I can answer if that is the 
Forest Service that takes over, depending on where it is at; 
the BLM, or the state forestry.
    Mr. Long. Say that again, the last part?
    Mr. Markham. The state forestry department, Oregon State 
Department of Forestry. You have got the BLM, the Forest 
Service, and the Oregon Forestry Department.
    Mr. Long. OK. Some have described federal lands as powder 
kegs because of all the easily combustible brush and deadwood 
that has been allowed to accumulate on the ground, as we have 
talked about several times here today. How did this occur and 
how does it contribute to the severity of these wildfires?
    Mr. Markham. It obviously can be devastating. I was looking 
earlier at the Oregon State University statistics, or it was 
U.S. Forest Service statistics, where their inventory, there 
are more trees dead on the ground than there are standing, and 
that is concerning when it comes to wildfire risk.
    Mr. Long. What more needs to happen at the federal level 
and the state level to achieve more effective forest 
management?
    Mr. Markham. Well, we have to have consistency within our 
federal agencies. We have to be able to take the regulations we 
have and put in some robust timelines. We have to have 
accountability. And then, we also have to have prioritization. 
I mentioned that earlier where I believe that, when we are 
looking at a project that is going to reduce wildfire risk, we 
can't go down to the bottom of the pile where somebody may be 
wanting to put in a driveway on federal land. We have to be a 
priority where we are not waiting nine months.
    Mr. Long. Real quickly in my last 15 seconds here, what 
role does litigation play in the ability to manage federal 
forests? What role is litigation playing?
    Mr. Markham. It is pretty critical because, if there is a 
tree that we have not been able to remove and it starts a 
wildfire, we are going to be held responsible for it.
    Mr. Long. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me seven 
extra seconds. I will yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentle lady from New York, Ms. Clarke, for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Clarke. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank our 
Ranking Member Upton, for convening this important hearing on 
how we can improve the power sector in order to better serve 
and safeguard our communities.
    I want to thank you, our panelists, as well for offering 
your testimony here today.
    And I have heard a number of panelists mention forest 
management as part of this issue. However, there was also an 
across-the-board acknowledgment of the exacerbation and force 
multiplier of climate change as part of the equation. So, the 
recent wildfires in California, as well as the major fires in 
Oregon, Alaska, Australia, and Brazil over this past year, are 
a stark reminder of the climate crisis facing our nation and of 
the severity of the impacts that this crisis is already having 
on our homes, communities, and critical infrastructure.
    NASA-NOAA just recently reported that this past decade was 
the hottest ever on record, and our computer models project 
that the average temperatures will continue to get hotter for 
many years to come, unless we act swiftly to curb climate 
warming emissions.
    As our climate changes, natural disasters such as 
wildfires, droughts, storms, and floods are becoming more 
frequent with more severity. From 2016 to 2018, there were 15 
individual billion-dollar disasters, and on average each year, 
that is more than twice the number of billion-dollar disasters 
that occurred each year from 1980 to 2016. In 2018 alone, NOAA 
estimates that the total cost to the United States from natural 
disasters was over $91 billion.
    As these impacts continue to increase, there is no doubt 
that the power sector is of critical importance, as recent 
fires in California, unfortunately, demonstrate. This issue 
also hits very close to home for me. From Superstorm Sandy to 
intense summer heat waves, extreme weather has caused 
communities in Brooklyn to experience major power outages 
almost every single year over the past decade. Last summer, 
over 40,000 people lost electricity when extreme temperatures 
pushed our electric grid to the brink of failure, leading our 
local utility to preemptively cut off power.
    So, right now, in cities across our country, new smart 
technologies are being put in place to increase the efficiency 
and resilience of critical municipal systems and service. Many 
of these technologies also make us safer by granting us greater 
degrees of control and by enabling us to access data and 
respond to problems in real-time.
    So, I would like to ask, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Markham, do 
you think there is an important place for these technologies 
within the power sector and on transmission lines? And do you 
think that we could use smart grid technology in locations such 
as California or New York City to prevent future wildfires or 
blackouts, and make these systems more resilient?
    Mr. Markham. Yes, thank you, Congressman.
    Technology, as I mentioned earlier, three major components, 
and technology being one of them. We have to get better at 
utilizing technology to prevent things from blackouts. I do 
believe that, as we look at load management capabilities, and 
demand response capabilities, we can use those. In our area, it 
is potential blackouts or issues during wintertime, not 
summertime. So, we have to manage our high peak demands, which 
quadruple on our system. And so, yes, doing things like that is 
very critical to the system.
    Ms. Clarke. Very well.
    Mr. Johnson. I agree entirely with that answer. Anything 
that we can do to use energy smarter, more resiliently, to use 
less of it, because it is a precious resource, so any 
technology we can deploy--storage, smart grid, anything that 
achieves a move toward decarbonization--I think is a very 
helpful thing.
    Ms. Clarke. And as you think about sort of the forest type 
of setting, even sensors. I don't know that we have begun to 
look as much into sensor technology, given the density of the 
forestry and things of that nature, but I do want to put that 
on the record.
    I know that you have mentioned a few of the technologies 
before, Mr. Johnson, but could you please elaborate on what you 
see as a couple of the most important technologies and how they 
could be used?
    Mr. Johnson. The most important technology in the short 
term is materials that keep our conductors from sparking. So, 
material coverage, different materials. After that, I think a 
move to microgrids with a storage capability probably is the 
best answer to a lot of these questions.
    Ms. Clarke. Very well. I yield back; and I thank you, 
gentlemen, for your expertise here today.
    Mr. Rush. The gentle lady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Flores, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Flores. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Collins, let me start with you, if we can. Your 
testimony goes into great detail about how the century-long 
forest management practices that we have had of fire removal 
and suppression have transformed the sort of severe wildfires 
that we see today. The accumulation of dead or dying trees has 
allowed an unnatural and chaotic form of wildfires while also 
allowing harmful invasive species to find a home, which further 
damages the forests. These disasters subvert the benefits of a 
healthy forest, as you talked about, including natural carbon 
storage and clay water filtration. It appears that we are 
missing out on huge opportunities to benefit from the outcomes 
of a healthy, more resilient forest.
    And so, do you agree that the unnaturally severe wildfires 
we are experiencing today prevent us from enjoying the all-
important ecological benefits of a more resilient forest?
    Dr. Collins. Yes, I think there are instances where 
recreation, in particular, has been impacted, people's scenic 
views from their homes, all that, yes.
    Mr. Flores. What are some of the challenges from fire 
smoke, both from a health perspective and a safety perspective?
    Dr. Collins. The challenges to just the general public or?
    Mr. Flores. Yes.
    Dr. Collins. You mean in terms of mitigating it or----
    Mr. Flores. No. I guess, what are the environmental and 
health challenges?
    Dr. Collins. When a wildfire happens?
    Mr. Flores. Yes. Fires from the smoke.
    Dr. Collins. Sure. I mean, the smoke obviously, as has been 
mentioned before, especially particulate matter, is quite 
concerning. The obvious thing of evacuating them. And even if 
you are evacuated in a safe time, there is a lot of emergency 
problems as you tend to put people on narrow roads and people 
sort of freak out a little bit, I guess.
    Mr. Flores. Yes.
    Dr. Collins. And then, there is the obvious thing like what 
happened in Paradise in California. So, it spans the gamut in 
terms of impacts to communities.
    Mr. Flores. And so, let's compare and contrast the 
challenges for a wildfire versus a prescribed fire. So, walk us 
through. Let's just focus on smoke for a minute, the 
environmental and safety aspects of smoke.
    Dr. Collins. From a smoke standpoint, there is pretty good 
regulatory structure in place to approve burns when there is 
good dispersion. So, in general, they can be done at least 
under forecasted conditions that don't tend to impact 
communities. Now, that being said, there are going to be 
unforeseen things that weren't forecasted that will impact 
communities. But, in general, we try to manage smoke.
    And then, also, there are containment lines that try to 
prevent fire from escaping the footprint, but there is always 
that little, small percentage of risk that is out there, that a 
fire will escape containment, even a prescribed fire.
    Mr. Flores. OK. Mr. Johnson, quick questions for you. 
During wildfires, how does your natural gas distribution system 
hold up?
    Mr. Johnson. It held up well. We did, out of caution, turn 
off a number of customers in one of the fires, but, in general, 
it held up well.
    Mr. Flores. OK. And I assume it held up well because of the 
inherent resiliency of a buried pipe versus a suspended high 
line, is that correct?
    Mr. Johnson. Yes, that is correct.
    Mr. Flores. OK. And did you have to cut off gas? OK, you 
did say you had to do some preventive cutoffs of supply to 
customers. But did you, under the PSPS, in addition to cutting 
off electricity?
    Mr. Johnson. No. We cut off about 20,000 gas customers 
because there was a fire in their area.
    Mr. Flores. OK.
    Mr. Johnson. As part of the PSPS, we do not turn off gas.
    Mr. Flores. OK. All right. And how many total customers 
were cut off, had their electricity cut off?
    Mr. Johnson. In meters, 900,000, so 2.5 million people, on 
that order in the largest one.
    Mr. Flores. OK. So, 900,000 customers versus 20,000 
customers, electric cutoffs versus gas cutoffs. But PG&E has 
supported gas bans in many jurisdictions. Do you support these 
gas bans for safety reasons not expressed in your letters and 
comments?
    Mr. Johnson. So, we have supported the California policy, 
which is to work out of using gas as a fossil fuel into the 
future; we have supported it in several instances where it made 
sense in new construction to ban gas.
    Mr. Flores. Do you support these gas bans for economic 
reasons?
    Mr. Johnson. No. Well, in the new construction, if it makes 
sense not to use gas, it is economical, but our support is 
really the support of the California policy, which is to 
eventually, over some period of time, work out of natural gas 
as a fuel.
    Mr. Flores. OK. All right.
    Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Dr. Ruiz for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.
    Wildfires have devastating impacts on life and livelihoods, 
to homes and economies, but most people visualize rapidly-
spreading fires that are an imminent threat to life and homes, 
triggering evacuations and Red Cross shelters. Communities and 
counties are good at these rapid responses to severe threats. 
However, most people don't think about the effects that 
lingering particulate matter from smoke has on people's health. 
Smoke triggers asthma attacks in children and respiratory 
failure in older Americans with COPD, and emphysema. And 
chronic exposure can decrease lung function, even in non-
asthmatic children. So, lingering smoke is correlated with an 
increased risk of emergency department visits and hospital 
admissions for asthma.
    Furthermore, resource-poor and underdeveloped communities 
are especially at risk for these health conditions because of 
outdoor work environments, decreased access to health care, and 
lack of access to filtered indoor air, and closed air 
conditioning.
    This past fall, in my district, there was a 50-acre mulch 
fire that did not pose an imminent threat to life or homes. 
However, it did produce lingering smoke that caused students 
from nearby schools to be transported to the hospital and the 
school district to close for a full week. Students at home did 
not have closed-air circuit ACs because many live in trailers 
with swamp cooler window units which concentrate the smoke 
indoors, making the matter worse. Farm workers endured this 
smoke working outdoors in the fields.
    You see, this isn't theoretical. Airborne hazards are real 
for my constituents. I grew up there, and enough is enough. 
This is why I have taken action, forming a collaborative effort 
bringing together federal, state, county, tribal, and school 
officials to better prevent, mitigate, and respond to airborne 
hazards. We must have better systems to protect the public from 
the risks associated with breathing smoke-filled air.
    So, I would like to ask you a question, Dr. Davis. In your 
testimony, you spoke about the need for collaborations like 
this when it comes to informing the public and mitigating 
health risks. How important is effective communication between 
different agencies when it comes to mitigating the impacts of 
health? And I am not talking about the imminent threat of life 
and homes and evacuations with the shelter, which it happens. I 
am talking about the situation where there is just poor air 
quality in a community. How important is it for that dialog?
    Dr. Davis. I think it is a vital issue that we really 
address. And I think education is the way to go. This has to be 
multi-scale in terms of all aspects of government, all the 
different levels of government. And we have to recognize that 
there are many inherent social barriers towards more at-risk or 
lower-income people being able to participate.
    Mr. Ruiz. So, what is the importance of the agencies 
communicating? What is the most important information that the 
public needs to know when a smoke event is occurring?
    Dr. Davis. Without being an expert in emergency 
communications, I do think understanding how those chronic 
situations can emerge, where people often feel like they can 
respond to an acute situation, an immediate situation, but they 
do not necessarily know what it means to go day after day after 
day into those same conditions, and the lifelong potential 
health impacts that has on individuals.
    Mr. Ruiz. And one specific problem you describe is the lack 
of consistent messaging regarding how we talk about the impacts 
of smoke. What is your recommendation to Congress to harmonize 
this type of messaging?
    Dr. Davis. Again, I think if we look at the research and 
the experience that we have from communicating other major 
potential health impacts, even looking at things like smoking 
as an issue and how we have changed our messaging over decades 
in relation to smoking, the same approach could be taken with 
messaging around wildfire smoke exposure.
    Mr. Ruiz. And so, in resource-poor settings where you don't 
have closed-circuit ACs to send students home to, what is your 
recommendation and how important is investing in comprehensive 
plans to have a shelter-in-place location for communities, 
especially those underserved communities?
    Dr. Davis. I do believe that shelter-in-place has to be 
something that we really do look to develop. I also believe 
that there are social barriers to people being able to take 
time off of work, being able to go home and make sure that 
their children are being taken to those shelters as well. So, 
it is not as simple as just having the shelters.
    Mr. Ruiz. It is a form of communicating and addressing the 
other needs.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Duncan, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to reference the memo put out by the Energy and 
Commerce Committee. In paragraph 1, or (i), the current state 
of wildfires, it says, ``Additionally, 2018 and 2017 were some 
of the worst years for wildfires in California.'' It says on 
the memo that 2018 saw 7600 fires that burned 1.9 million 
acres. In 2019, there were 7800 California wildfires.
    Let me just go back, a little simple research, 2000 through 
2018, and I am going to read some numbers to you. I am not 
going to read the years, but start at 2000 to 2018: 7,622, 
9,458, 8,328, 9,116, 8,415, 7,162, 8,202, 9,093, 4,923. 2009 
was 9,159; 2010, 6,554; 7,989; 7,950; 9,907 in 2013; 7,865; 
8,745 in 2015; 6,986; 9,133 in 2017, and 8,572, based on 
Wikipedia, in 2018. That's a heck of a lot of wildfires. To say 
that 2018 and 2017 were some of the worst years for wildfires 
in California, this debunks that. There's been a lot of 
wildfires. Those were all California wildfires--8,000, 7,000, 
9,000. The numbers refute that statement.
    But what is mitigation? I think we all know what mitigation 
is, sitting on the panel. But FEMA says that mitigation is 
``the effort to reduce loss of life and property by lessening 
the impact of disasters. In order for mitigation to be 
effective, we need to take action now--before the next 
disaster--to reduce human and financial consequences later.'' 
That is ``analyzing risk, reducing risk, and insuring against 
risk''. That is mitigation.
    Now I am from South Carolina. You go, you don't know 
anything about Western fires and Western situations. I own 
property in Montana. In August of 2011--excuse me--August 11th, 
2018, I was out there. A lightning storm came through. There 
was already a fire burning, I believe, on Gibralter Ridge. But, 
on August the 11th, the lightning storm caused four fires, 
three of which were just outside of the Glacier National Park 
on Montana State property. They had mitigated the risk and the 
fires were reduced to a very small amount of acreage.
    But, inside Glacier National Park, where no mitigation is 
done because it is a National Park, 14,500 acres were burned, 
the Lake McDonald Fire or the Howe Ridge Fire, because they 
haven't done any mitigation. I have been to a fire line. I have 
talked with firefighters. I have seen the need for prescribed 
burning. Those were lightning fires in Montana.
    But wildfires aren't unique just to the Western States. In 
2009, Horry County, South Carolina--that's Myrtle Beach, for 
those that don't know where Horry County is--burned 20,000 
acres, destroyed 60 homes, and evacuated 2500 people. Now the 
reason that fire got so out of control and would burn so hot 
was because they had not done any prescribed burning on that 
State forest. Why hadn't they don't any prescribed burning on 
that State forest? It is because of the encroachment of the 
communities under development up on that State forest. And when 
they had tried prescribed burning in the past, the residents 
said, ``Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute.''
    We have the Sumter National Forest in my district, in my 
home county. They do prescribed burning on those national 
forests. They wait for westerly winds. They wait for the right 
conditions, so that the fires can burn and they can do a 
prescribed burning to keep wildfires like that from happening.
    And I listened to all this talk today about climate change 
and how all that is changing and affecting wildfires, when I 
see thousands and thousands of wildfires in California, and I 
have to think to myself, why do these wildfires seem to be more 
out of control or more intense? And I go back to the spotted 
owl, go back to lack of good forest management of prescribed 
burning and cutting old-growth forests, that sort of thing that 
happened after spotted owl in the 1990s forward.
    But I also understand that our communities are growing and 
encroaching on these areas that we normally would do good 
forest management practices. So, it is just like farms; people 
don't like the smell of farms because they have moved out there 
and they go, ``Wait a minute. I don't like the smell of that 
farm. I don't like those trucks going at six o'clock in the 
morning down the roads.''
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time has----
    Mr. Duncan. We need to do prescribed burning and good 
forest management. That will help mitigate this.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. Schrader, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Schrader. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I think pretty much everybody on the panel has referenced a 
bipartisan bill I worked on for several Congresses with my good 
friend and colleague, Doug LaMalfa from California, to 
streamline the ability of power companies to get into the 
rights-of-way and clear these areas of these trees and 
vegetation, to prevent the catastrophic fires. Fire is going to 
happen, but at least the catastrophic fires.
    I am disappointed that only 69 members of my party voted 
for that bill, when it is a no-brainer. Every person on this 
panel has talked about vegetative management as a critical 
piece of the puzzle to deal with the climate change effects we 
are seeing that are starting these catastrophic fires. There 
are 60 million acres of national forestland at risk right now.
    Mr. Markham, I would like you to talk about a situation you 
had in the Prineville area a few years ago where you sought the 
ability to treat some problems, and what happened, and then, 
what happened in terms of what the agency wanted you to do 
after the fact.
    Mr. Markham. OK. Congressman, I am trying to remember this. 
It was over in Prineville. I cannot recall this story that we 
are talking about.
    Mr. Schrader. Well, I can refresh your memory.
    Mr. Markham. OK.
    Mr. Schrader. You had asked to remove some hazardous fuel, 
and some trees in the area. You were worried about the right-
of-way. The Forest Service refused to do that. There was a 
fire, and then, they tried to bill you for the damn fire.
    Mr. Markham. Actually, yes. OK. Actually, down in La Pine, 
it was with Midstate Electric Cooperative.
    Mr. Ruiz. Right. Yes.
    Mr. Markham. And they had requested removal of a dangerous 
tree and they basically were denied. That tree ended up coming 
down. It started a fire, and I believe it was over half a 
million dollars in fire suppression costs they ended up having 
to pay.
    Mr. Schrader. Yes. That is ridiculous. That is ridiculous--
asking to do the right thing, getting refused, and then, being 
billed for the aftereffects.
    Mr. Johnson, do you have a budget for vegetative 
management?
    Mr. Johnson. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Schrader. And what is that number?
    Mr. Johnson. Historically, it has been about $300 million a 
year for the last ten years. This year it was a billion 
dollars.
    Mr. Schrader. Now that is a lot of money, even in 
Washington, D.C. And so, the number is going up, trying to be 
proactive and deal with these issues that are out there. Has 
the federal government over the years been helpful in trying to 
help you get in there with the regulatory framework and stuff? 
Or has it been a little bit of a hassle?
    Mr. Johnson. More helpful in the last year or so. Before 
that, it was quite a bit of a hassle, but I think the last 
year, a couple of things; the bill made a big difference. You 
got their attention. And also, everybody is starting to wake up 
to the fact that, whatever the cause of the risk is, the risk 
is growing of these fires.
    Mr. Schrader. Sure. Mr. Markham, do you have clear 
guidelines yet from the federal government about the vegetative 
management bill that this Congress and the President signed, 
and it is in the law now?
    Mr. Markham. No, Congressman, we do not.
    Mr. Schrader. No, we don't. That is two years ago--two 
years ago--before the fire that devastated California. Where 
the heck is our federal government? Where are the agencies 
sitting on this where it is pretty crystal-clear all they want 
to do is remove hazardous fuels. They are not clear-cutting the 
American forests. They are not burning all the BLM grasslands. 
They are just trying to do a little extra work. This should not 
be very complicated at this point.
    And I hold the federal government responsible, not PG&E, 
for these catastrophic fires that we are seeing throughout the 
West--Oregon, Washington, California; you name the particular 
area. It is not the utilities' fault. They don't get any 
positive press by allowing a fire to happen. They try and do 
the right thing, but, again and again, they come up against 
various obstacles.
    Dr. Davis, I would like to talk a little bit about forest 
mortality. There was a study coming out of Oregon State 
University that talked about. If we are not doing management of 
the forests, what sort of emissions occur from the death and 
decay of our forests right now, particularly in Oregon?
    Dr. Davis. This is an area where really we are seeing a lot 
of new studies come online because this is something we have to 
get a better handle on as we look towards that carbon balance 
in forests. So, I would like to dig in a little bit more on 
that and follow up with you afterwards.
    But some of this builds off of something Dr. Collins 
mentioned, where when those fires burn more intensively, the 
stronger, hotter burning fires, then it can be difficult for 
trees to regrow afterwards, which can disrupt the way that that 
cycle of emissions, and then, absorption of carbon occurs over 
time.
    Mr. Schrader. Absolutely. And the study I was talking about 
indicated that we have 22 million metric tons of CO2 emissions 
that come from just the mortality in the forests, from the 
overgrowth that you and Dr. Collins both alluded to. That is 
equal to all the emissions put into the air by the 
transportation sector in the State of Oregon. And that is just 
by letting trees die, not doing project management, not doing 
the right things at the end of the day.
    I think it is a huge problem that we have got out there. We 
are way behind the curve in addressing this. People want to do 
new technology. That is great, but let's use the old 
technology.
    One last thing that I will reference real quick. There was 
a question by one of my colleagues that talked about can we 
possibly thin all these acres. The answer is yes. It may take 
20, 30, or 40 years. That is jobs in rural Oregon. That is a 
great way to leverage both opportunities. And what is the cost 
to the federal government? Zero, because the companies will pay 
for the privilege to harvest trees and do the project 
management for us. This is a win-win for the taxpayer, a win-
win for rural communities, and a great win for getting rid of 
these catastrophic fires.
    And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentle lady from Washington, Mrs. McMorris 
Rodgers, for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And building upon my neighbor from Oregon, I believe that 
if Americans really understood the condition of our national 
forests, they would be outraged and they would be demanding 
more action. We are seeing it with the larger and larger 
catastrophic fires.
    But just to kind of put it in perspective, the national 
forests, the U.S. Forest Service owns nearly 200 million acres, 
and they estimate that 40 percent--so, 80 million acres of 
trees in America--are dead, diseased, dying timber. And my 
neighbor in Oregon just highlighted the impact of carbon that 
is being released because of the mismanagement.
    In recent years, my home State of Washington has faced 
catastrophic fires. And these fires are so damaging. They hurt 
our health, dangerous impacts due to smoke. In Spokane, 
Washington, our air quality has been so bad that it is off the 
Air Quality Index. We can't even measure it. And there is no 
place to go. It really is a scary feeling when the air quality 
is so bad and there is no place to go. It jeopardizes our 
safety. It is destroying our environment, releasing dangerous 
emissions into the air.
    We should all, Republicans and Democrats, be able to come 
together to support healthy forests. When our forests are 
healthy, it becomes harder for these fires to take off. But, 
right now, we are not effectively managing or responding to an 
increasingly at-risk forest.
    Unfortunately, decades of overregulation and frivolous 
lawsuits have stalled forest management and our ability to keep 
our forests healthy. And we are all paying the price.
    Over the last few years in Congress, I have been encouraged 
that we took steps to fix fire borrowing, so we can better 
fight fires. And we have worked to advance active forest 
management reforms to give communities more tools to improve 
the health of our forests.
    Last year, I introduced the FORESTS Act of 2019 to further 
promote active management on federal forestland. There is still 
more work that needs to be done. Local communities, industries, 
tribes, states, and the Federal Government should all play a 
role in actively managing our forests and reducing the risk of 
fire.
    In eastern Washington that I am proud to represent, we have 
shown that local collaboration can work and what it can 
accomplish. We are proud right now that on the Colville 
National Forest, a million-acre national forest in northeastern 
Washington, we have the A to Z Project, which is a public-
private partnership where local communities, conservation 
groups, the recreational community, industry, and the Forest 
Service teamed up together and awarded a contract for 50,000 
acres over a 10-year period. The Vaagen Brothers Lumber Company 
is managing this contract. They funded the environmental review 
process, and we are reducing fuel loads by removing small-
diameter logs. It is working.
    If you want to come visit, we would love to have you. We 
had the Chief of the Forest Service out last August. Many other 
groups are coming and seeing it, and it works.
    It has been so successful that we are planning another A to 
Z Project, and it is almost completed. After decades of warring 
between industry and the environmental communities, these types 
of collaborative projects should serve as a national model for 
forest restoration that would improve our environment and the 
economy.
    So, with the remaining time, Dr. Collins, what forest 
management strategies have shown successful, especially in 
thinning the small-diameter logs? Would you talk about carbon 
sequestration impacts of thinning and what roles fires 
historically have played in the natural landscape, especially 
related to watershed health? Yes?
    Dr. Collins. We have talked about this before, but I will 
briefly summarize. The historical role of fire was as sort of a 
regulating mechanism. It sort of kept the forests in check with 
regard to growth, the establishment of young trees, and the 
accumulation of surface fuel on the forest floor. But it did 
that in a very complex and heterogeneous way across a 
watershed, for example. So, to think that we just need to thin 
everything the same way and need to burn everything the same 
way would be an oversimplification and, frankly, ecologically 
not something we would want. So, I think to a certain extent, 
we need to embrace some of that complexity, the heterogeneity, 
and incorporate these ideas both from a thinning standpoint and 
from a prescribed burning standpoint in order to achieve that 
health, I guess.
    Mrs. Rodgers. Yes. So, would you talk about the 
collaborative approach and if other strategies are working that 
you think are going to help?
    Dr. Collins. Sure. I recognize that we are out of time. The 
collaborative approach is working in California. There are many 
examples of it. My problem with it is it is slow. It is slow 
and we are not keeping up with sort of the pace at which fires 
happen.
    Mrs. Rodgers. It does keep us out of the courts, though.
    Dr. Collins. It is true.
    Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Rush. The gentle lady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Peters, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thanks to the witnesses for being here.
    As you may know, the San Diego region, including parts of 
my district, was devastated by wildfires in 2003 and 2007, when 
I was a local elected official. We have had more fires since 
then. But the first one showed how unprepared we were. And 
afterwards, we made huge changes. One of the outfits that made 
changes was our utility, San Diego Gas & Electric, which made 
investments in much of the infrastructure we are hearing about 
today. That was done in coordination with county emergency 
operations, CAL FIRE, and city fire departments. We have new 
technologies like cameras, weather stations, helicopters, the 
input of the community groups around fire preparedness, and 
more.
    And, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to introduce to 
the record a January 28th letter from SDG&E.
    Mr. Rush. Hearing no objections, so ordered.
    [The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
    Mr. Peters. I want to ask, first, Mr. Collins, in your 
testimony, it is clear that we need an all-of-the-above 
strategy for managing--thinning, vegetative management, 
prescribed burns, and controlled burns. What I didn't hear or 
at least read in the presentation was how we are managing all 
of the residuals created from thinning and other vegetation 
management. So, we have a lot of leftover waste in the form of 
treetops, limbs, non-merchantable timber, and underbrush. We 
shouldn't be leaving this material out on the forest floor. 
What are the options for removing the waste? In particular, is 
there a way to use it, sustainably harvested, for some sort of 
biomass energy?
    Dr. Collins. I think that is essential to where we need to 
go with regard to forest health.
    Mr. Peters. What do we need to do, though, as Congress? 
Because there is not a market for that, I think a free market. 
So, what should we be doing to encourage that kind of use?
    Dr. Collins. You know, I am not a policy person myself, so 
I don't know what it takes to incentivize that production or 
that establishment of the industry. But the hurdle that we 
often can't get over is transportation. We can't push that 
material any further than, let's say, about 50 miles before it 
costs more than it is worth to turn it into energy. So, we end 
up burning that stuff in giant piles. After a thinning project, 
there are piles the size of a house that we burn under light 
snow and have lots of emissions associated with it.
    Mr. Peters. So, we are burning that material today, but 
without getting energy out of it?
    Dr. Collins. Right. And causing air quality impacts.
    Mr. Peters. What I would like to look at maybe is whether 
something like the California low carbon fuel standard is 
enough of an incentive to encourage us to reuse that material. 
If we are burning it anyway, we ought to be getting energy out 
of it.
    Dr. Collins. I mean, at least as far as what I see, it 
hasn't happened yet.
    Mr. Peters. OK.
    Dr. Collins. I think there is talk about it. There has been 
talk about it for five or seven years, but it hasn't really hit 
the road yet.
    Mr. Peters. I would suggest that is something that our 
committee might want to look at.
    I would ask Mr. Johnson, we talked about the Schrader-
LaMalfa bill, which I voted for in 2017, and we are now waiting 
for the administration to issue regulations under that. And we 
are hopeful that that generates the kind of permission for you 
to do your job in a way that helps prevent fires in the future. 
Are you aware of any other legislative action that the Congress 
needs to take along those lines? Or as long as the regulations 
come out and are favorable, did the Schrader-LaMalfa bill meet 
the needs of the legislation that we were looking for?
    Mr. Johnson. I think that bill meets at least the needs of 
PG&E, if it is enacted the way that we think it should be and 
if there is continued funding from the Congress to make sure 
that the activities are being done. But I think if we can get 
the regulations in the right place, that is a giant step 
forward.
    Mr. Peters. And I assume we will be in touch as the 
regulations come out--I think I share a little bit of Mr. 
Schrader's impatience--to make sure that we do cover all the 
bases. And we will be looking forward to working with you on 
that.
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you.
    Mr. Peters. And I would ask Professor MacWilliams about the 
research you referenced. You talked about the work the National 
Labs are conducting. What kind of investments are we looking 
for the federal government to make in terms of planning, 
monitoring, modeling, and other research needs?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Sure. Well, actually, I will go back to 
the first topic that you were referring to, which is biomass. 
And I mentioned a little bit earlier there is really 
interesting work being done right now at National Labs and 
other places looking at biomass gasification to produce 
hydrogen, which is exactly to your point. And then, you need to 
sequester the CO2, and it turns out, as I mentioned, in 
California, there is some good geology for that.
    That is the type of thing, when you talk about what the 
Federal Government can be doing, obviously, many of these are 
state and local issues. Recognize that. But the federal 
government, through funding the Department of Energy and other 
agencies working on these technologies, and then, also, 
obviously, as you are aware, looking at financial incentives, 
tax incentives, and other things, to encourage those kinds of 
technologies.
    The other technologies, very briefly, are the ones we have 
been talking about--center technology, advanced computing 
technologies, building large data lakes, those types of things.
    Mr. Peters. Very much appreciate the hearing and realize 
this is work for all of us to do, and we hope everyone will 
continue to step up, from the communities on up to the Federal 
Government.
    And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank all of you for being here.
    Obviously, this is a very important subject, particularly 
for us in the State of Georgia. Georgia is the No. 1 forestry 
state in the nation and we have a lot of forestlands, 
particularly in my district. We, too, have had forest fires. In 
fact, I will remind you about the West Mims Fire that was just 
a few years ago in the Okefenokee Swamp. Also, we have the Big 
Turnaround Fire in 2007.
    I represents the entire coast of Georgia and goes all the 
way across, almost halfway across Georgia. So, I have the 
Georgia-Florida state line. And, of course, the Big Turnaround 
Fire choked Georgia and Florida for many years and for a long 
time while it was happening.
    But I want to talk about forest management because forest 
management is extremely important to us in Georgia, something 
that I think we do a good job with. We have sustainable 
forests. We have prescribed burns quite often. In fact, I am 
having a prescribed burn on the property that I own in Camden 
County near Cumberland Island on Sheffield Island. I am having 
it done next week, as a matter of fact. It is a precautionary 
measure. We are doing it to make sure that we don't have 
problems later on. Of course, we are doing this in conjunction 
with DNR, the Department of Natural Resources in Georgia, 
making sure that the wind conditions are right, the weather 
conditions are right. But now is the time to do that.
    And I want to ask you, Dr. Collins, the growth of 
communities, particularly in areas that before we didn't have 
communities, combined with the lack of forest management, how 
has that contributed to the rise of some of the severe fires 
that we have seen in our country, particularly out West?
    Dr. Collins. Dr. Davis mentioned this as well. It is an 
issue. I mean, there are many issues. One is that some of the 
people moving into those communities aren't totally familiar 
with the ecology of the forest, the fact that they are prone to 
burn, they are adapted to burn. And so, they don't know/
understand that there is a role that we need to play there in 
terms of managing the forests.
    The other thing is that what they see when they move there 
is their expectation of what is natural. But the problem is 
that what we are looking at right now is a completely unnatural 
condition for the forests. So, any alteration to what they see 
in terms of thinning, or something like that, looks unnatural 
to them. And, in fact, it is trying to move us back towards a 
more natural condition. So, I think we have some problems, and 
I suppose education would definitely work there. But, also, 
what is happening, frankly, in California is the wildfires are 
educating people pretty quickly, and they are making them want 
to do something.
    Mr. Carter. I have the pleasure and the privilege of 
serving on the Select Committee on Climate Change. And one of 
the things that we talk about is resiliency and ability for our 
resiliency, and that is bipartisan. I mean, we all believe 
that, that we need to do that. There is no question about it.
    And I believe that, in order to address climate change that 
I do believe in, I believe we have got to have innovation, 
adaptation, and mitigation. One of the ways that we can 
mitigate some of the things that are happening here is through 
land management.
    Again, Dr. Collins, is that something that you think we are 
doing a good enough job of practicing? Or are there 
improvements that we can make?
    Dr. Collins. Well, I still think we are behind in terms of 
the scale that we are implementing. We kind of know what we 
should do, but we are just not implementing it at a scale that 
is necessary. I mean, there is a number of reasons for it, but 
I think that we just need to get over that hurdle.
    Mr. Carter. Right, right.
    Well, let me ask you this: in your testimony, you discussed 
the Blodgett Forest--I hope I pronounced that right--the study 
that was undertaken by UC-Berkeley. Did you go into the study 
with any kind of preconceived notions about what should or 
shouldn't be considered to address wildfire suppression?
    Dr. Collins. Yes, I think a lot of us understood that 
thinning of different strata of fuel, where you take out what 
are called the ladder fuels, and then, if you were to remove 
surface fuels, yes, you would absolutely have an effect on 
wildfire hazard. And, of course, we did. But what we didn't 
anticipate were some of the longer-term effects.
    Mr. Carter. Such as? Longer-term effects?
    Dr. Collins. Well, the changes in the fuel structure. Like, 
for example, in the area where we did a thinning, which was a 
commercial thinning, but it left about 30 or 40 percent canopy 
cover of the trees, and then, we burned it. We actually had a 
really strong and uniform shrub response, which was not 
probably something we wanted a ton of. So, there are things 
like that that we could adjust future treatments and do better. 
I think those are some of the neat take-homes of that long-term 
study.
    Mr. Carter. Yes. Well, my time is about up, but I do want 
to thank you all for being here. This is a very serious 
subject. I do think it is something that, if we use common 
sense and use what is available to us, and build up our 
resiliency, that regardless of the carbon buildup, regardless 
of whatever, we could do a better job. There is no question in 
my mind about that.
    And thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentle lady from California, Ms. Barragan, for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Barragan. Thank you, and thank you all for being here 
for this conversation. It has been interesting to hear about 
climate change and forest management. I think we can agree that 
it is going to be a combination of both.
    I happen to be a big believer that the combination of the 
increasing heat, longer droughts, and intensifying winds, along 
with record-breaking wildfires, are becoming the new norm for 
California, which is not a good new norm for us. In Southern 
California, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby has been 
outspoken on this, stating that, ``Climate change is undeniably 
a part of why these wildfires are more devastating and 
destructive than ever before.'' I think it is such an important 
issue that he is going to be my guest at the State of the Union 
to talk about the impact that wildfires are having and being 
intensified by climate change.
    And, Dr. Davis, I want to thank you for talking about the 
health impacts. Because sometimes people say, well, the 
wildfires are not in my backyard; why should I be so concerned 
about it? So, to talk about the health impacts of what they are 
doing to our air and to our communities is so critical.
    Some people want to just ignore the climate change aspect 
of it. We have heard a little about that today. We heard the 
President merely say more rakes will solve the problem. I 
happen to believe, especially after our conversation today; it 
is more complicated than that.
    Mr. Johnson, I want to go to you to talk a little bit about 
microgrids. One of the solutions for improving community 
resiliency to outages from climate disasters is microgrids, 
where we combine local clean energy resources, such as solar 
with battery storage, to keep the power on. Can you speak to 
this solution and what policy changes Congress can make to 
bring microgrids to more communities?
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you for that great question.
    We know they work because we had one during the fire 
season. The Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe has a microgrid. It is 
solar with battery storage. And they were able to use that to 
keep some of the Humboldt County areas electrified during one 
of the PSPSes. So, we do think going forward and have actually 
significant plans to increase the number of microgrids, on the 
order of perhaps 20 more this year and 40 more over time.
    I think these are largely--well; one thing that would 
happen to help fix this would be a carbon standard, would be a 
climate standard by the Congress. That certainly would move 
this in the right direction. Otherwise, I think these are 
mostly state decisions, reflecting state standards. And in 
California, it is very hospitable to this kind of application.
    Ms. Barragan. What do you envision that carbon standard by 
the Congress would be like?
    Mr. Johnson. Economywide, affordable, and driving 
innovation.
    Ms. Barragan. OK. And, Mr. MacWilliams, as the area 
designated as a high fire threat widens and additional risk 
from climate change hazards such as storms and flooding grow, I 
am concerned that homeowners, particularly low-income residents 
and people of color, will not be able to afford home insurance. 
How is access and affordability to insurance being impacted in 
California and the country?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Yes, I think that is absolutely an issue. 
One of the things I mentioned in my written testimony is that, 
to me, what is happening in California, but in climate change-
related issues more broadly, is that we are seeing society 
really having to grapple with the question of how we are going 
to take these increased costs, which are going to be very 
significant, and allocate them among all these different 
stakeholders, whether it is the ratepayers or taxpayers, et 
cetera. And so, this is another example where we are going to 
look at and decide how we can support those communities because 
increased costs are going to go up because risks are going up, 
and the actuaries will reflect that ultimately in rates.
    Ms. Barragan. Right. I happen to represent a district--
there are only four districts poorer in California than my 
district. And when I would call people throughout California 
during the wildfires, those in more affluent communities would 
say, ``Well, my family is just evacuating. We're going to get a 
hotel. Not a big deal for us, more of an inconvenience.'' But 
when I think about my own district, and districts like mine, 
there will be many communities who will not have the ability to 
do that, which is why I think it is so important that we 
collaboratively work together to prevent more wildfires. And 
how do we get it so that it is not the new norm?
    And so, thank you to our panel for all your suggestions. 
And I am sure this will not be the end of the conversation.
    With that, I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentle lady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Soto, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    When we are looking at the numbers, it is staggering. Since 
1970, in the U.S., the average number of large wildfires has 
tripled. The area burned is six times greater since 1970. Since 
1984, the area burned by wildfires in the Western States has 
doubled. And I think we all understand this is not a 
coincidence. This is the result of a human-caused climate 
crisis.
    I think a lot of these individual policies that have been 
recommended, including by Congressman Schrader--I was happy to 
vote for that bill, along with other recent federal policies--
California and their new vegetation management programs, and I 
just witnessed this today; those are all helpful. But, as the 
saying goes, we must see the forest from the trees. That is why 
we put forward the CLEAN Future Act, a holistic, economywide 
approach to the climate crisis to get to 100 percent carbon-
neutral by 2050.
    We talked about the West Coast. We talked about Australia. 
We lost a Floridian, Rick A. DeMorgan, Jr., from Navarre, 
Florida, a firefighter down there trying to help out.
    In southern Polk County in central Florida, over two years 
ago, we saw rampant fire in our forest. And in 1998, over 
500,000 acres in Florida went under flames.
    So, first, my questions are for Mr. Johnson and Mr. 
Markham. Are we embracing clean energy and reducing fossil 
fuels in a way that we could bend the arc of carbon pollution 
to potentially get to carbon-neutral by 2050? Are we seeing 
that among both your organizations? And I will start with you, 
Mr. Johnson.
    Mr. Johnson. We are certainly making an effort to do that. 
And that is in the standard in California. I think it will be 
difficult to do that. We don't have the technology to do it 
today. But part of setting a standard and a goal is that you 
are going to have to figure out how to do it and how to make 
the technology.
    So, you know, PG&E, I think last year the electricity was 
80 percent carbon-free. So, we are moving toward that standard. 
But the closer you get, the harder it is going to get.
    Mr. Soto. Sure.
    Mr. Johnson. That is just the nature of things. But this is 
how innovation happens.
    Mr. Soto. Well, we said we would go to the moon and we did.
    Mr. Johnson. I know.
    Mr. Soto. And I believe in American ingenuity. And that's 
why we are here today. So, thanks for that commitment.
    And for you, Mr. Markham, I know our cooperatives are doing 
a lot, too.
    Mr. Markham. Thank you, Congressman Soto.
    Central Electric and the cooperatives throughout Oregon, we 
are about 97 percent carbon-emission-free right now. So, our 
growth, I think the most important thing in protecting our 
hydropower that we have right now is a carbon-emission-free 
resource. That is very critical.
    Now the State has been working. It had a carbon plan last 
year. They are looking at it again in this year's legislative 
session with the investor-owned utilities and utilities, larger 
utilities like we are as a coop.
    But I think that technology is going to have to improve as 
far as battery storage because, in Oregon, in my area, for us 
to have the ability to use more of that, we have to have a 
week's worth. It can get 10-20 below and stay there for a week. 
So, we have to have battery technology that can last that long, 
not just a day.
    Mr. Soto. Sure. Thank you for that.
    And when we are hearing about forestry management, we see 
this fine line and this quandary of forest and trees that are 
some of the best ways for carbon sequestration. But if you 
don't manage it right, it actually is a net contributor, as we 
have seen in some of these areas.
    And so, my questions are for Dr. Davis and Dr. Collins. The 
new California vegetation plan, the wildlife suppression 
funding, and Forest Management Activities Act that we passed 
last year, Congressman Schrader's bill, and even in the farm 
bill, we have put forward new policies. How are those going 
right now? We will start with you, Dr. Davis.
    Dr. Davis. I think it takes a long time for us to learn how 
to apply policies and to be able to use those, also recognizing 
that the scale of wildfire issues and the size of the landscape 
that we are talking about, this is a decadal-century issue, not 
a year-to-year issue.
    Mr. Soto. And, Dr. Collins?
    Dr. Collins. I agree with that, very much so. And I think 
one of the things we struggle with a little bit is the actual 
probability of wildfire occurrence. In order to realize the 
benefit of doing some kind of treatment and actually taking 
carbon off the landscape, it has to burn, frankly, because you 
are balancing that against the wildfire impacts, and it is 
really hard to prove. So, it takes that longer-term 
perspective.
    Mr. Soto. Thanks for that.
    And I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I am going to be pretty brief because, as you can imagine, 
by this point in the hearing, most of the questions that I have 
been asked and answered.
    But I thought maybe Mr. MacWilliams, and anybody else who 
wants to answer, we certainly have talked about managing the 
forests in order to limit wildfires and the ways that they 
should. And we have talked about prescribed burning and other 
measures that are part of a comprehensive and robust management 
program. But maybe you could speak a little bit to how much the 
lens is being brought, or maybe it could be brought more 
effectively, of thinking of the forests in terms of the carbon 
sink that they represent.
    In other words, you could approach--and I think, probably 
traditionally, we have approached these forests--with the idea 
of how to limit wildfires, manage the fuel, et cetera. That 
wouldn't necessarily mean that in the planning, you are 
bringing the lens of how to design the forests and build the 
forests to maximize the carbon sink potential that these 
forests have. And I wonder if you could speak to the value of 
bringing that kind of a lens and perspective in on the front 
end, so the groundwork of building these management plans, as 
opposed to the kind of thinking of it as an afterthought.
    Mr. MacWilliams. Well, I think from a climate perspective, 
that is absolutely an important point. And I will defer to Dr. 
Collins and Dr. Davis on the technical side, of designing the 
forest management. But, obviously, forests are a very important 
sink, and that is why the burnings and the clearings we have 
seen, particularly in the Amazon and other places, since this 
is a global problem, are such a concern for us.
    In general, I mean, as we have been talking about all day 
long, we have a very complex problem here, and complex 
solutions usually do not yield to single solutions. That is why 
all the things we are talking about here, forest management and 
all these other climate-related activities, are so important. 
And that is why leadership, obviously, from the Congress is so 
important, which is why, personally, I am so encouraged by the 
bipartisan nature of this hearing.
    Dr. Collins. One thing I think you brought up, which is 
kind of interesting, is that we need to differentiate between 
the total carbon capacity that a forest could carry versus the 
stable carbon capacity. And I think that the stable is one that 
could endure fire and still remain; whereas, the total, you 
know, we could keep packing it in there, but it won't last, 
given the current sort of trajectory for wildfire.
    Dr. Davis. And I would just add that we are here talking 
about wildfire. We are talking about climate. We also have to 
look at our forests as the source of carbon storage as one 
lever. There are reactional values; There are cultural 
resources within these forests, sustainable bioproducts and 
timber that we can grow to use and renew our cities. There is 
water filtration and values. There is a recreational economy 
and rural economy. And looking at these collectively across the 
forest is really important, so that we don't maximize one set 
of values right now, and then, try to adapt to a different set 
of values in five years. We need to look at this as a lasting 
change.
    Mr. Sarbanes. Thanks. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. And the Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. O'Halleran, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you, Chairman Rush.
    Today's hearing focuses on an issue that greatly impacts 
the Southwest and Arizona, preventing catastrophic wildfires. I 
do want to mention that I am in agreement with the gentleman 
from West Virginia when he talked earlier about what other 
countries are contributing more and more CO2 into the 
atmosphere, even though they have indicated that they want to 
do less. But that doesn't mean that the United States doesn't 
lead. If they are not leading and they are so large, then 
somebody has to lead, and I think our citizens want us to lead.
    Arizona CD1 includes all or part of six large national 
forests and, also, the Grand Canyon, each of which is filled 
with ecological beauty and plays an important role in Arizona's 
rural communities and the State's water supply. I have actively 
supported forest restoration policies for over 15 years. In the 
Arizona legislature, I chaired the natural resource committee 
and co-chaired the Governor's Forest Health Oversight 
Committee, which produced a report with recommendations for 
stakeholders, local governments, the State, and Congress.
    We need to maintain forest health and prevent catastrophic 
fires today. My office provides active oversight and support 
for the U.S. Forest Service's Forest Restoration Initiative, 
4FRI, the largest restoration effort in our nation. And it does 
have its problems even after what we have done in the last 
couple of years.
    Last summer, nearly 2,000 acres burned in Flagstaff. For 
Arizona, that is a really small fire, but it was in Flagstaff, 
which is surrounded by our national forests. And it was within 
a block of homes. Luckily, people got to it fast during the 
Museum Fire. I would like to Arizona's utility partners, State 
and federal agencies, and our first responders for actively 
preventing the Museum Fire from worsening into the next 
tragedy.
    The climate threat is real, and we must take every measure 
possible to prevent future wildfires from devastating our 
forests, which help our air quality and capture carbon; are 
critical for the water supply into the future for Arizona and 
for the Colorado River.
    And I do have a question for Dr. Collins. Your testimony 
highlights the rate of forest restoration efforts nationwide as 
insufficient. I would be in agreement with that. 4FRI is one of 
the largest forest restoration efforts nationwide. I would like 
to see forest thinning in Arizona pick up the pace. They are 
critical and, also, for economic development in rural areas. 
What barriers still exist that prevent the pace of forest 
maintenance?
    Dr. Collins. I think we have talked about some of those 
today. Obviously, things tend to always flow back to funding, 
right? But one of the things that we haven't talked about that 
is kind of interesting in my interactions with folks on the 
Forest Service at the district level is how much trouble there 
is internally with regard to the NEPA process itself. And I am 
not saying that the NEPA process is problematic inherently, but 
it has gotten so complex that, even within what they call an 
interdisciplinary team, they cannot agree on priorities. Each 
specialist--you know, the aquatic specialist, go on down the 
line--each specialist sort of protects their own duty. And as a 
result, the area for treatment gets trimmed further and 
further. So, it is amazing to me, we always think about sort of 
some outside litigants and things like that, but it is actually 
some of the internal stuff that is really difficult to 
overcome.
    Mr. O'Halleran. And in the case of the Forest Service, they 
might want to expedite it, but there are other agencies 
involved all the time.
    Dr. Collins. Sure.
    Mr. O'Halleran. And that might not be their immediate 
priority. And so, that lengthens the process also.
    Mr. Davis, could you comment on whether the research 
efforts of the U.S. Forest Service and the rest of the 
government agencies for productive uses of forest byproducts 
and biomass are sufficient?
    Dr. Davis. There is excellent research being conducted. I 
do believe that, if we reframed the scale of work that needs to 
be conducted on our landscapes to invest in research at that 
scale, we would see an investment in research collaboratively 
across federal agencies, across private universities, public 
institutions, and NGOs. There is research being done that is 
advancing this, but I don't think it is at the scale that we 
need to see to be able to move this into a functioning economy.
    Mr. O'Halleran. And then, Doctor, you also highlighted the 
natural effect of controlled fires leading to an increase in 
biomass remnants. In our case, biomass, if we can't get rid of 
it, we can't thin those forests out. That is just a fact. And I 
just think that we need to get going on that. How can biomass 
and forest byproducts--and I am the wrong way, Mr. Chairman. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentle lady from Delaware, Ms. Blunt Rochester.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you so much to the witnesses today.
    The science is clear; we must transition to a 100 percent 
clean economy, energy economy, as quickly as possible if we are 
going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. I hear 
every day from my constituents in Delaware who are facing the 
impacts on a daily basis, whether it is our farmers who are 
suffering from drought or small business owners who rely on 
tourism that our beaches provide. And as a resident of the 
State with the lowest--and I have to get it correct because 
Florida has challenged me--but our State has the lowest mean 
elevation in the country. We see the effects all too well.
     Climate change is fueling extreme weather, which impacts 
every part of our country. And whether it is the wildfires 
ravaging communities out West or heat waves, extreme drought, 
or major hurricanes, these events are happening more frequently 
and more intensively because of climate change. That means that 
we must have an electricity grid that is resilient and also 
will keep the power on during these extreme weather events.
    I enjoyed the conversation back and forth as well about 
prescribed burns. In Delaware, we actually have an example 
where the Nature Conservancy in Delaware conducted a prescribed 
burn on 20 acres of the Hurley Tract property of Middleford 
North Preserve in April of 2018. And so, even the conversation 
about prescribed burn associations was interesting to me.
    But my first question is for Mr. MacWilliams. When we look 
at wildfires in the context of climate change, it is clear that 
multiple strategies need to be deployed to strengthen the grid. 
Not all threats will look the same. How does planning for 
wildfires fit into the broader strategy of planning for climate 
change?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Well, I think planning for wildfires is 
sort of part and parcel with strengthening a grid, making it 
more resilient, making it more intelligent, which is required 
for a number of threats. It is not just wildfires, as you well 
know. You referred to sea level rise. It is a huge issue. I 
referred to earlier that, from a technical perspective, 
cybersecurity threats, and some physical security threats are 
all very similar. So, it is really tied into a broader effort 
that is very important to make our grid more resilient and more 
intelligence and, ultimately, more efficient. And so, that, in 
turn, with technology such as microgrids, storage, and other 
things, will change the generation mix and will facilitate us 
moving to a lower carbon future.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. You kind of anticipated my next 
question, which was, as we protect against these multiple 
threats, how do we ensure that grid planning is comprehensive?
    Mr. MacWilliams. Well, as you well know, energy policy in 
this country is really a combination of federal, state, and 
local. At times, that is very helpful, and at times, that could 
be impediment to large-scale change. In this situation where we 
are dealing with transmission and interstate commerce, 
obviously, the Federal Government has authorities and FERC has 
substantial authorities. So, that is one way. But I think, as 
has been said numerous times, building partnerships between 
federal and state and local authorities are going to be 
critical here if we are going to solve the complex issue.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. Mr. Johnson, in your testimony, you 
detailed some of the resiliency projects currently underway at 
PG&E. Are you also pursuing clean options like solar paired 
with storage? And what do you think is the role of renewable in 
making communities more resilient?
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you for that question.
    We are pursuing everything, all of the above, as long as it 
is clean. To do microgrids, you know, PG&E I think, has the 
most distributed energy resources of any company in the 
country, something like 450,000 rooftop solar. So, we are 
familiar with distributed clean. And so, yes, I do think this 
will help with resilience. The closer the generation and 
distribution are to the community, the more resilient it is.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. And that kind of leads to, what 
efforts are the easiest and fastest to deploy? And what 
demonstration projects can be easily scaled? And I have 20 
seconds.
    Mr. Johnson. Yes. So, we know how to scale solar. We do 
rooftops. We also have big solar. We will deploy some gas 
generation, but it is renewable gas. So, we will be in the 
renewable gas business, hooking up microgrids with that kind of 
technology.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you so much, and I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentle lady yields back. There are two 
members who have patience and have endured in the hearing for a 
number of hours now, and they are not members of the 
subcommittees, but they waived onto the subcommittees. And now, 
we will recognize the gentleman from Montana, Mr. Gianforte, 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Gianforte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 
hearing and, also, for allowing me to participate today.
    My home State of Montana exports about half of the 
electricity it generates, some from coal, some hydropower, some 
natural gas, and some from wind. But, no matter what color the 
energy is, it still moves on a transmission line.
    In 2017, we had a devastating fire season all across the 
West. In Montana alone, we burned 1.2 million acres in 2017.
    The first bill I voted on as a new Member of the House was 
the Electricity Reliability and Forest Protection Act, 
introduced by my colleague, Representative Zinke, at the time. 
The bill, now law, makes it easier to perform vegetation 
management on rights-of-way across federal lands. That bill and 
other forest management provisions, including the fire 
borrowing fix, were included in the year-end package that 
President Trump signed into the law. We are thankful to get 
some more tools.
    Mr. Markham, thank you for being here today. Your coop 
serves customers in Oregon and is part of a larger organization 
that stretches across the Pacific Northwest, including Montana. 
Your members know that transmission lines aren't cheap, and 
neither are fires. What else can Congress do to help ensure you 
are able to continue delivering affordable, reliable 
electricity to your customers?
    Mr. Markham. Thank you, Congressman from the great State of 
Montana.
    As I mentioned, we are member-owners of PNGC Power, 15-
member distribution electric cooperatives throughout there. I 
think the most important thing that we have to make certain is 
that there is resource adequacy within the Northwest. That is a 
significant issue right now. We are, obviously, removing a lot 
of the fossil fuel plants we are replacing--but are we 
replacing fast enough?--with solar wind. And so, that is 
probably the biggest issue, making certain that there is 
resource adequacy and capacity.
    Mr. Gianforte. So, production capability----
    Mr. Markham. Correct.
    Mr. Gianforte [continuing]. To keep the grid reliable?
    Mr. Markham. Yes, absolutely. Yes.
    Mr. Gianforte. OK. Good.
    Well, there has been a lot of talk today about climate 
change. The solution to addressing climate change is unleashing 
American innovation, not imposing government regulation. 
History bears out the successes of American innovation for 
confronting big challenges. And while we are innovating, we 
have to remember that we cannot control the weather, but we can 
control how we manage our forests. Healthy forests sequester 
carbon and are more resilient to catastrophic wildfires.
    We have to promote collaborative approaches that reduce the 
constant litigation against critical forest management projects 
that would help us resolve our forest health crisis. We need to 
modernize the Endangered Species Act. We need to build on 
President Trump's NEPA reform, so that we can get critical 
energy infrastructure built and forest management projects 
approved in a timely manner. These are not theories. They are 
not academic discussions. These are pragmatic, common-sense 
steps we can take to bring health back to our forests and 
reduce the danger of wildfires.
    I thank the witnesses for being here today and sharing your 
experiences. It is very important to us.
    And with that, I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, the 
gentle lady from California, Ms. Eshoo, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the ranking 
member, for allowing me to waive onto the subcommittees today.
    And thank you to each of the witnesses. I have been here 
for a while and I have been listening hard, and I have learned 
a great deal from you. So, thank you.
    I want to start today by--I know that the title of the 
hearing is ``The Impact of Wildfires on our Power Sector and 
the Environment''. I want to kind of rename it, if I might, 
``The Impact of Wildfires on our Power Sector and our Power 
Sector on Us,'' because we have had some real problems.
    For the rest of you, I am a Californian, and I know that 
Mr. Johnson knows this. Now I have some questions for you, Mr. 
Johnson. I am going to give you my questions first, and then, 
allow you the time to answer them.
    I don't presuppose that everyone in Washington, DC, knows 
who PG&E is or what they have done. Now Californians know it. I 
certainly know it, and my constituents have lived it.
    In your testimony on page three, you indicate that it will 
take 12 to 14 years--12 to 14 years--to harden and strengthen 
the grid. That timeframe implies that you have deferred a lot 
of maintenance over the last ten years. So, my first question 
is, why didn't the deferred maintenance happen and why was this 
allowed to happen?
    Secondly, how are ratepayers to be convinced that these 
preemptive blackouts, which have just caused hell in people's 
lives, in plain English--these preventive preemptive blackouts, 
are they really based on good science and careful assessment of 
safety concerns, and not just simply PG&E turning off the juice 
to shield the company and its shareholders from legal 
liability, and not protect the ratepayers and Californians from 
possible fires? There is a great deal of trust that has been 
lost between the utility and people. I also would like to know, 
how can ratepayers be confident that you are putting safety 
first when you have only hardened three percent--3 percent--of 
your systems in high-risk areas?
    And something that was notable last fall in part of my 
congressional district in Santa Cruz County, which I think you 
are aware of, they discovered that PG&E's list of critical 
facilities was incomplete and, notably--notably--excluding a 
local hospital. Now, this is, you know, it is like you can just 
blow a hole through the ceiling with that one. So, I would like 
to know what steps you have taken to ensure that these lists 
are correct.
    You can start with strengthening the grid, the deferred 
maintenance. And then, on to the preemptive blackouts, is it 
science, or is it turning off the juice for the reasons that I 
stated? And then, obviously, your lists, have you updated them? 
Are they correct? As well as ratepayers being confident that 
you are putting safety first.
    Mr. Johnson. Well, thank you for those questions. I will 
try to respond.
    Ms. Eshoo. You are nice to say, ``Thank you.''
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Johnson. I will try to answer them in order.
    Ms. Eshoo. OK.
    Mr. Johnson. First of all, the 12 to 14 years is not an 
issue of deferred maintenance. It is an issue of putting up new 
conductor that is covered with wire. So, this is a new project. 
This is not----
    Ms. Eshoo. Are you suggesting that you did not, that PG&E 
did not defer maintenance?
    Mr. Johnson. I am just saying, on this particular thing, 
the 12 to 14 years is part of a plan we----
    Ms. Eshoo. Well, I remind everyone that there were, not 
under your watch but previously, six felony charges against 
PG&E for the homes exploding and people's lives lost in San 
Bruno, California. That was a direct result of deferred 
maintenance. How about no maintenance, I would say. But, at any 
rate, go ahead.
    Mr. Johnson. I cannot speak to that. That was a decade 
before I got there.
    Ms. Eshoo. I said--OK.
    Mr. Johnson. But I am familiar with it. The 12 to 14 in the 
testimony refers to a new project, not to deferred maintenance.
    On the preemptive blackouts, so you know about our company 
and you know that in the last couple of years, our equipment 
was involved in the fatality of 100 people. And so, when we 
came to the fire season this year, I wanted to make sure that 
we had a program that was based on science, sound science, 
filed with the Commission, that we would protect public life 
and public property. And we did achieve that. Now we did it at 
a cost, and that is your point.
    But these were not just made up out of the air. We have a 
very precise algorithm that takes into account wind speed, wind 
direction, humidity, fuel content, and all these things, based 
on very significant meteorology input. And so, I do understand 
the point that where you are standing or living, there might 
not be any weather, but your power is off. And that is because 
of the way the transmission system is built and the 
distribution system. Somewhere a line connected to your house 
was in those conditions that was a fire risk. So, there is no 
trying to get around the liability rules or anything else. This 
is based purely on the science and on the methodology that we 
filed with the Commission.
    Can the ratepayers be confident we are putting safety 
first? I think they can. We only did three percent of the 
system. It was the first year. We are going to do a lot more of 
the system as time goes on. These are new programs.
    Ms. Eshoo. And what year do you anticipate 100 percent?
    Mr. Rush. The gentle lady's time is up.
    Ms. Eshoo. Can he answer? Can he answer?
    Mr. Rush. Yes.
    Mr. Johnson. Long after I retire. I would say not ten 
years. I think one thing we learned this year is we have to get 
these programs shorten, in place quicker. So, maybe five to 
seven years, but shorter.
    Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will submit the rest 
of my questions to the witnesses in writing. Thank you.
    Mr. Rush. The gentle lady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Veasey, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Veasey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
    While the wildfires in California and Australia have been 
dominating the news, we have had our issues, too. And we try to 
be very responsible in Texas about how we have put renewable 
energy on our grid. We have done a great job of it, too, and 
being able to keep safety first and foremost as well. But that 
doesn't mean that we haven't had issues because of the power 
lines.
    We have had about 4,000 wildfires in Texas that have been 
caused by power lines. And in the aftermath of some really bad 
fires that we had in 2011 that were caused by electric 
distribution lines, the legislature in the State authorized the 
Texas Power Line Caused Wildfire Mitigation Project. The 
project aimed to study the causes and possible solutions to 
wildfires. They found that, while most utilities' initiatives 
to harden physical structures through things like better poles 
and covered wires were steps in the right direction, they ended 
up being insufficient.
    In addition to shoring up the physical infrastructure and 
reducing foliage near lines, the group suggested using more 
advanced technologies and big data to detect and even forecast 
when failures might occur. My understanding is that it is 
difficult to statistically predict failures of distribution 
circuits because components that are designed to last 40 years 
in service very rarely fail.
    And so, my question to the panel today is, what advances 
have been made in using remote sensors and big data to more 
reliably detect or even predict events or other failures before 
they have a chance to start fires?
    Mr. Johnson. Let me try a little bit of that. Actually, in 
your home State, at Texas A&M, there is a lot of work going on 
on this particular item----
    Mr. Veasey. Absolutely.
    Mr. Johnson [continuing]. Using really artificial 
intelligence to be able to predict when we are going to have a 
fault on a distribution line. And so, that is in the field 
being tested.
    And the other thing, historically, utilities like ours have 
back-cast and looked at historical data. We are now learning 
that big data is a much better tool for projecting forward. And 
I think you will see we are starting to deploy that in our own 
wildfire program. So, there is a big impact.
    Mr. Veasey. Anyone else?
    Mr. MacWilliams. I would just add, one of the reasons that 
I have stressed the role of the National Labs is, as you all 
know, the National Labs, several of them in particular, 
including Bay Area labs, are the home of the largest 
supercomputers in the United States. And so, there is a lot of 
work being done on new computing architectures using big data 
and data analytics and deep learning to build what they refer 
to as cognitive simulation. And those are exactly the 
technologies you are referring to, which I believe are quite 
applicable to fire prevention.
    Mr. Veasey. In order to make sure that safety is being 
maintained responsibly, does the safety component of making 
sure that this infrastructure is being maintained properly, 
does it need to be completely separate from the way the rest of 
the electric distribution is run in the state? Does it need to 
be a completely separate entity for people that don't 
necessarily have anything to do with anything else surrounding 
electric distribution and what goes on the grid, but just 
something that is a completely different safety component that 
is independent of anything else political that may be happening 
in any state surrounding a grid?
    Mr. Johnson. I don't know the answer to that question. 
Maybe my colleague in operations at the end does here.
    Mr. Markham. I can say that, in Oregon, we have the Oregon 
Public Utility Commission that oversees electric cooperatives, 
all utilities, for safety. They actually come out in the field.
    We know our system better than anybody else, our line 
personnel, and employees who have been there 20-30 years. We 
know the nuances. We know where we need to focus our 
maintenance plans and hardening plans every year.
    The Public Utility Commission has strict requirements on 
what we need to do for safety every year. And then, they come 
out and check us on that. So, they are an independent party, 
and then, it is our job to make sure that the safety is being 
employed.
    Mr. Veasey. Any thoughts, in particular, on PG&E and them 
separating the safety component versus the other aspects of the 
business?
    [No response.]
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Cardenas, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Cardenas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 
you for holding this very important hearing on this critical 
matter, and all the other chairmen and ranking members of the 
committees.
    I want to touch base--it wasn't going to be my first 
question, but since Ms. Eshoo touched on it. This question is 
for Mr. Johnson over at PG&E. Does the CPUC have any authority 
or any actions that they need to take before a company like 
yours can actually invest and/or do maintenance or management 
of your system? The California Public Utilities Commission----
    Mr. Johnson. Yes, yes.
    Mr. Cardenas [continuing]. For those people who don't know 
what CPUC is.
    Mr. Johnson. Yes, typically, the way that works is that you 
go to the Commission with a project. They approve it and they 
approve the rates that you would need to collect to recover it, 
yes.
    Mr. Cardenas. So, you go to them on Monday and, by Friday, 
they have it done? The answer? I want to educate the people of 
what happens.
    Mr. Johnson. Oh, no. No, it is----
    Mr. Cardenas. It is important.
    Mr. Johnson. It is a year later.
    Mr. Cardenas. OK. A year later?
    Mr. Johnson. Yes.
    Mr. Cardenas. OK. Now a year later to get an answer?
    Mr. Johnson. Yes.
    Mr. Cardenas. It doesn't mean that a year later, you get 
the answer and they say, ``OK, go cut that forest back and make 
it safer,'' right? Sometimes they say no on a safety matter.
    Mr. Johnson. Yes. Typically, you don't ever get what you 
ask for and you negotiate a solution over that period of time.
    Mr. Cardenas. OK. And that is one of the things that is 
unfortunate. The public sees a fire erupt, and then, people 
just want to focus on the moment. And the fact of the matter is 
there are a lot of factors--good, bad, and otherwise--that go 
into the scenario and the situation at hand at the moment.
    I happen to know a little bit about the CPUC because I 
spent six years in the State legislature, and I was a bit 
surprised when sometimes some of the organizations, private 
institutions that, rightfully so, want to protect the forests, 
et cetera, and some people have just never seen a dead tree or 
a live tree that they would want any human being to touch.
    And the fact of the matter is, that leads into my next 
question when it comes to fuel loads. And this question is to 
Dr. Davis. When it comes to fuel loads and these drought-
changing conditions that we are experiencing more and more, and 
we seem to have catastrophic fires, what is a megafire? Why 
would they label something a megafire? Is that term used these 
days?
    Dr. Davis. It is a term that has really gained a lot in 
modern vocabulary, recognizing the size, the number of acres--
--
    Mr. Cardenas. Because there is a greater frequency of 
megafires today than perhaps we were recording decades ago?
    Dr. Davis. Correct.
    Mr. Cardenas. Is what is going on in Australia, is that in 
any way categorized as a megafire?
    Dr. Davis. I think what we see in California is that this 
is a fire-driven ecosystem that has had larger fuel loads and 
prolonged drying conditions that we have seen elsewhere. So, it 
would move into that same category.
    Mr. Cardenas. So, when people say fires have been going on 
since the beginning of time, that is a fact.
    Dr. Davis. Yes.
    Mr. Cardenas. But, at the same time, what human beings can 
do or not do to help mitigate and reduce the potential for an 
eruption of a fire and/or the short-term and long-lasting 
effects of the fire getting to be the point where it is, 
instead of tens of thousands of acres, fires could now be to 
the tune of hundreds of thousands of acres, even millions of 
acres, that we have seen more and more frequently?
    Dr. Davis. That is the result of more fuel on the 
landscape, those drier conditions, and, also, where we 
communicate differently than we did 25 or 50 years ago. So, we 
are aware at that global scale, or even a regional scale, of 
those issues.
    Mr. Cardenas. Are there examples in other countries around 
the world where they are actually taking human mitigation, 
legislation, et cetera, and doing a better management in 
pockets of the world, or at least examples that perhaps we can 
learn from here in the United States?
    Dr. Davis. I think there are examples around the world. 
There are examples around the United States where there are 
proactive approaches. We heard earlier of examples in the 
Southeastern United States where familiarity with prescribed 
burning and with smoke awareness allows for a different 
conversation. We are see this more emerging, as Dr. Collins 
mentioned, in California as a readiness to accept treatments on 
the landscape over that long term that we have to apply them.
    Mr. Cardenas. Mexico doesn't have the best reputation of 
having government and/or public partnerships that actually 
result in good management or good practices, but it is my 
understanding that Mexico has some pretty enlightening examples 
of them with their private landowners and their federal 
government working with them, allowing them to do forest 
management. There are some examples in Mexico that have rung to 
be true and good practice?
    Dr. Davis. I am not familiar with the situation.
    Mr. Cardenas. Anybody at the table?
    [No response.]
    OK. I read a document about that. It was an anecdotal. I 
just wanted to point that out because one of the biggest 
problems we have in the United States of America, we always 
think that we do everything better than everybody else; that we 
don't want to learn from other countries, and that is 
unfortunate. That is a bit too myopic, and it is selfish and 
ignorant.
    So, I yield back. My time has expired.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    And the Chair requests unanimous consent to enter the 
following articles into the record: a letter from the Edison 
Electric Institute; a letter from Jupiter Intelligence; a 
letter from the Western Governors' Association; an article from 
The New York Times; an article from the National Public Radio, 
and an article from CNN.
    Hearing no objections, so ordered.
    Mr. Rush. This concludes the witnesses' statements, and I 
would like to thank each and every one of the witnesses for 
your participation in today's hearing. And as you travel to 
your destinations, I wish that you travel with grace and arrive 
safely at your destination.
    I remind Members that, pursuant to committee rules, they 
have ten business days to submit additional questions for the 
record to be answered by the witnesses who have appeared before 
us today. And I ask each witness to respond promptly to any 
such questions that you may receive.
    And at this time, the subcommittees stand adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:56 p.m., the subcommittees were 
adjourned.]
    [Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
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