[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




 
                 FOSTERING EQUITY IN ENERGY INNOVATION

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                         SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JULY 16, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-25

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
 
 
 
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       Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
       
       
       
       
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             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
45-195PDF            WASHINGTON : 2022 
        
       

              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

             HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, 
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon                 Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California                 MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan,             BILL POSEY, Florida
    Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico     MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California             JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California           MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York                 STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia                  JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         VACANCY
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                VACANCY
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
                                 ------                                

                         Subcommittee on Energy

                 HON. JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York, Chairman
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon             RANDY WEBER, Texas, 
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan                  Ranking Member
JERRY McNERNEY, California           JIM BAIRD, Indiana
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          MIKE GARCIA, California
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         PETER MEIJER, Michigan


                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                             July 16, 2021

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Jamaal Bowman, Chairman, Subcommittee 
  on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives.......................................     8
    Written Statement............................................     9

Statement by Representative Randy Weber, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and 
  Technology, U.S. House of Representatives......................    10
    Written Statement............................................    11

Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
  Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives.......................................    13

                               Witnesses:

Dr. Dan Kammen, Distinguished Professor of Energy at the 
  University of California, Berkeley
    Oral Statement...............................................    14
    Written Statement............................................    17

Dr. Shobita Parthasarathy, Director, Science, Technology, and 
  Public Policy program, University of Michigan
    Oral Statement...............................................    32
    Written Statement............................................    35

Dr. Myles Lennon, Professor of Environment and Society and 
  Anthropology, Brown University
    Oral Statement...............................................    70
    Written Statement............................................    72

Mr. Bruno Grunau, Regional Director of NREL's Cold Climate 
  Housing Research Center (CCHRC) in Fairbanks, Alaska
    Oral Statement...............................................    78
    Written Statement............................................    80

Discussion.......................................................    97

              Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Myles Lennon, Professor of Environment and Society and 
  Anthropology, Brown University.................................   118


                 FOSTERING EQUITY IN ENERGY INNOVATION

                              ----------                              


                         FRIDAY, JULY 16, 2021

                  House of Representatives,
                            Subcommittee on Energy,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

     The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., 
via Zoom, Hon. Jamaal Bowman [Chairman of the Subcommittee] 
presiding.

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

     Chairman Bowman. Thank you so much. Good morning, 
everyone. Can you all hear me? OK. Good morning. This hearing 
will come to order. Without objection, the Chairman is 
authorized to declare recess at any time. Before I deliver my 
opening remarks, I wanted to note that today's--today the 
Committee is meeting virtually. I want to announce a couple of 
reminders to the Members about the conduct of this hearing. 
First, Members should keep their video feed on as long as they 
are present in the hearing. Members are responsible for their 
own microphones. Please also keep your microphones muted, 
unless you are speaking. Finally, if Members have documents 
they wish to submit for the record, please e-mail them to the 
Committee Clerk, whose e-mail address was circulated prior to 
the hearing.
     Thank you to all our witnesses joining us virtually today 
to discuss the importance of energy justice for frontline and 
marginalized communities. Equity cannot be pushed aside as we 
transition to renewable energy and tackle the climate crisis. 
Rather, it is essential that we consider equity in every stage 
of innovation. For example, energy storage technology today is 
primarily designed for single family households. This design 
does not suit community solar projects that aim for collective 
ownership to achieve an energy system that is of, by, and for 
the people. Incorporating equity from the beginning of the 
research process will help us avoid technological pathways that 
only serve a select few. Without every American experiencing 
the benefits of a good, healthy, zero carbon life, we will 
never be able to meet our climate goals.
     This goes to the heart of why we need to address climate 
change, inequality, and systemic racism in an integrated 
fashion. Reducing energy costs is especially important for 
families struggling with electricity bills, which includes 
almost 1/3 of households, according to the 2018 U.S. Energy 
Information Administration Report. In some regions of the 
country, half of Black households are energy insecure. Many 
green technologies, such as the use of heat pumps for 
electrification instead of relying on natural gas, can cost 
upwards of $10,000. We need Federal research on how to reduce 
costs and deploy these technologies faster. This is already 
happening in marginalized communities in my district, New 
York's 16th. In the city of Mount Vernon community organizers 
and green energy experts are working together to help low-
income households switch to heat pumps. They just received a 
major State grant to scale up that work.
     This is why research and development (R&D) cannot be 
forgotten as part of the equation of President Biden's Justice 
40 Initiative, which says that 40 percent of overall benefits 
of Federal dollars should flow to disadvantaged communities. We 
must build an equitable future from the ground up, not tack it 
on as an afterthought as technologies are ready to go out the 
door. One way to ensure that frontline communities' needs are 
being addressed is to include them in the conversation. Harvard 
University received more Federal R&D financing than all 
Historically Black Colleges and Universities combined in 2018. 
This disparity in Federal funding is unacceptable. We can do 
better, and we must do better. To achieve the best solutions, 
we need a diverse array of experts seated at the table.
     Through the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, the 
Department of Energy (DOE) has been working to expand the 
participation of underrepresented groups in all of DOE 
programs, and in the energy industry at large, through the 
Equity in Energy Initiative. I was very pleased to see the 
appointment and nomination of Shalanda Baker to lead this 
office, and encourage her swift confirmation in the Senate. One 
goal of this initiative is to strengthen the relationship 
between our National Labs and Minority Serving Institutions. We 
need people of all backgrounds to perform this research and 
help lead us into a sustainable, just future. We need to 
support innovators and creators of color so that they are 
helping to shape the green energy transition. I am proud that 
this Committee is working to make our research activities more 
inclusive at every stage of development.
     Additionally, diversity of expertise is important for 
fostering equity and energy innovation, as we will hear from 
many of our witnesses here today, including social scientists, 
as well as STEM (science, technology, engineering, and 
mathematics) professionals, is key. Social scientists can 
develop metrics to measure climate equity. Technologies must 
meet certain quantitative metrics before they are ready for 
commercialization, and the same should be said for meeting 
equity standards, so we really need a combination of science, 
engineering, and social science experts to guide effective 
green investments for all communities, and we need to be 
studying the social and economic dimensions of renewable energy 
deployment as well, including the benefits of public, 
cooperative, and community ownership of green technologies. If 
we do this right, we can build a safer, better society for all 
Americans, and show the world how to do the same.
     I want to thank again our excellent panel of witnesses 
assembled today, and I look forward to hearing your testimony.
     [The prepared statement of Chairman Bowman follows:]

    Thank you to all our witnesses joining us virtually today 
to discuss the importance of energy justice for frontline and 
marginalized communities. Equity cannot be pushed aside as we 
transition to renewable energy and tackle the climate crisis. 
Rather, it is essential that we consider equity in every stage 
of innovation.
    For example, energy storage technology today is primarily 
designed for single family households. This design does not 
suit community solar projects that aim for collective ownership 
to achieve an energy system that is of, by, and for the people. 
Incorporating equity from the beginning of the research process 
will help us avoid technological pathways that only serve a 
select few. Without every American experiencing the benefits of 
a good, healthy, zero-carbon life, we will never be able to 
meet our climate goals.
    This goes to the heart of why we need to address climate 
change, inequality, and systemic racism in an integrated 
fashion. Reducing energy costs is especially important for 
families struggling with electricity bills--almost one third of 
households, according to a 2018 U.S. Energy Information 
Administration report. In some regions of the country, half of 
Black households are energy insecure. Many green technologies, 
such as the use of heat pumps for electrification instead of 
relying on natural gas, can cost upwards of $10,000. We need 
federal research on how to how to reduce costs and deploy these 
technologies faster. This is already happening in marginalized 
communities in my district, New York's 16th: in the city of 
Mount Vernon, community organizers and green energy experts are 
working together, to help low-income households switch to heat 
pumps. They just received a major state grant to scale up that 
work.
    This is why research and development cannot be forgotten as 
part of the equation of President Biden's Justice 40 
initiative, which says that 40 percent of overall benefits of 
federal dollars should flow to disadvantaged communities. We 
must build an equitable future from the ground up, not tack it 
on as an afterthought as technologies are ready to go out the 
door. One way to ensure that frontline community needs are 
being addressed, is to include them in the conversation. 
Harvard University received more federal R&D financing than all 
Historically Black Colleges and Universities combined in 2018. 
This disparity in federal funding is unacceptable. We can do 
better. We must do better. To achieve the best solutions, we 
need a diverse array of experts seated at the table.
    Through the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, the 
Department of Energy has been working to expand the 
participation of underrepresented groups in all DOE programs, 
and in the energy industry at large, through the Equity in 
Energy initiative. I was very pleased to see the appointment 
and nomination of Shalanda Baker to lead this office, and 
encourage her swift confirmation in the Senate. One goal of 
this initiative is to strengthen the relationship between our 
national labs and minority serving institutions. We need people 
all backgrounds to perform this research and help lead us into 
a sustainable, just future. We need to support innovators and 
creators of color, so that they are helping to shape the green 
energy transition. I am proud that this Committee is working to 
make our research activities more inclusive at every stage of 
development.
    Additionally, diversity of expertise is important for 
fostering equity in energy innovation. As we will hear from 
many of our witnesses here today, including social scientists 
as well as STEM professionals is key. Social scientists can 
develop metrics to measure climate equity. Technologies must 
meet certain quantitative metrics before they are ready for 
commercialization, and the same should be said for meeting 
equity standards. So we really need a combination of science, 
engineering, and social science experts to guide effective 
green investments for all communities. And we need to be 
studying the social and economic dimensions of renewable energy 
deployment as well--including the benefits of public, 
cooperative, and community ownership of green technologies.
    If we do this right, we can build a better, safer society 
for all Americans, and show the world how to do the same.
    I want to again thank our excellent panel of witnesses 
assembled today, and I look forward to hearing your testimony. 
With that, I yield back.

     Chairman Bowman. With that, the Chair now recognizes Mr. 
Weber for an opening Statement.
     Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 
hearing, and I want to say thank you to our witnesses for 
joining us this morning. Today's discussion is somewhat of a 
timely one. On the Science Committee we have clear shared goals 
in supporting clean--a clean, secure energy future that is 
accessible to all Americans. We know that this future is near, 
but that an equitable transition can mean many different things 
to many different communities. But that's because, when it 
comes to energy equity, the needs of at-risk communities across 
this great country are as diverse as the very people that are 
making up this melting pot we call America.
     There's a very real possibility that what works in Bronx, 
New York, which is my friend's Mr. Bowman's district, might not 
work in Galveston, Texas, which is part of my district. And by 
the way, we would encourage you to come visit Galveston, Mr. 
Chairman, and while you're here, spend lots of money. There is 
no one size fits all solution to a clean energy transition. If 
we fail to account for everyone, we will see devastating 
impacts on different American workers in different local 
communities. For example, rural areas like those scattered 
across Texas actually represent, believe it or not, 86 percent 
of persistent poverty counties in the United States. And in 
those rural counties, many families' entire livelihoods are 
dependent on the current infrastructure and job security that 
comes from traditional energy production.
     Texas is just one of six States where fossil fuel jobs 
account for a significant share of total rural employment. 
Today those fossil fuel jobs outnumber clean energy jobs in 23 
of 28 rural counties across Texas. Therefore, I think it should 
be obvious that any plan to completely abandon our current 
infrastructure and energy sources would obviously be a big 
mistake. That's why a key component of a successful equitable 
energy transition is an all of the above energy strategy, with 
a focus on affordable and reliable energy technologies, while 
keeping traditional energy sources on the table, and making 
them cleaner and more efficient.
     So what does that mean? That means carbon capture, 
utilization, and sequestration that makes fossil fuels cleaner, 
it means keeping our nuclear fleet up and running. It also 
means incorporating at the same time solar, wind, and other 
renewables into that grid as a part of that puzzle, instead of 
mandating an instant and complete transition. On the Science 
Committee we know that the best way to do is by investing in 
clean energy innovation. I'm proud to say that this--that has 
been a priority for this Committee for years. There's no 
problem we cannot innovate our way around.
     Last Congress we passed the Energy Act of 2020 to 
modernize our Nation's energy policies by prioritizing the 
research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of next 
generation technology, for example, like energy storage, 
advanced nuclear, and carbon capture. As a result of this 
legislation, we will reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the 
energy and industrial sectors, while increasing U.S. 
competitiveness in clean energy technologies. That's a win for 
all Americans.
     This Congress we set our sights on the Department of 
Energy's Office of Science to continue down this innovation 
pathway. The DOE Science for the Future Act provides 
comprehensive policy guidance and funding authorization for 
major research programs that will drive new discoveries in 
energy technologies, and pave the way for the development of 
sustainable, affordable, and scalable clean energy solutions. 
On that note, I want to say congratulations to Chairman Bowman, 
along with the Full Committee Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
Ranking Member Frank Lucas, on successfully passing this bill 
on the floor by a very large bipartisan margin. I look forward 
to working with this group to get this bill over the finish 
line and signed into law. Now, I mention all these successes 
because I want my colleagues and our witnesses to know the 
Science Committee is doing our part to turn words into actions.
     Our focus always has been, as long as I've been here, and 
will continue to be, policy that keeps energy affordable and 
reliable for all Americans, especially for low-income, 
minority, rural, and senior citizen communities. These are the 
communities that suffer from a lack of access to those reliable 
energy sources, and spend proportionately higher amounts of 
their income on electricity costs. Eliminating energy poverty 
is something we all want to achieve. But in doing so, we need 
to be mindful of how policies will impact the very communities 
we're trying to serve, especially those who play a key role in 
energy productions. I want to thank our witnesses for sharing 
their insights on this, and I look forward to this discussion. 
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Weber follows:]

    Thank you, Chairman Bowman for holding this hearing and 
thank you to our witness panel for joining us this morning.
    Today's discussion is a timely one. On the Science 
Committee we have clear shared goals in supporting a clean and 
secure energy future that is accessible to all Americans. We 
know that this future is near, but that an equitable transition 
can mean many different things to many different communities.
    That's because when it comes to energy equity, the needs of 
at-risk communities across this great country are as diverse as 
the very people who make up this melting pot. There's a very 
real possibility that what works in the Bronx, New York--which 
is my friend Mr. Bowman's district--might not in work 
Galveston, Texas, part of my district.
    There is no one-size-fits-all solution to a clean energy 
transition. If we fail to account for everyone, we will see 
devastating impacts on American workers and local communities. 
For example, rural areas like those scattered across Texas 
actually represent 86 percent of persistent poverty counties in 
the United States.
    And in those rural counties, many families' entire 
livelihoods are dependent on the current infrastructure and job 
security that come from traditional energy production. Texas is 
just one of six states where fossil fuel jobs account for a 
significant share of total rural employment. Today, those 
fossil fuel jobs outnumber clean energy jobs in 23 of 28 rural 
counties across the state.
    Therefore, I think it's obvious that any plan to completely 
abandon our current infrastructure and energy sources would be 
a big mistake. That's why a key component of a successful 
equitable energy transition is an all-of-the-above energy 
strategy, with a focus on affordable and reliable energy 
technologies, and keeping traditional energy sources on the 
table while making them cleaner and more efficient. That means 
carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration that makes 
fossil fuels clean. It means keeping our nuclear fleet up and 
running. It also means incorporating solar, wind, and other 
renewables into our grid as a piece of the puzzle, instead of 
mandating an instant and complete transition.
    On the Science Committee we know that the best way to do 
this is by investing in clean energy innovation. I'm proud to 
say this Committee has made this a priority for years.
    There is no problem we cannot innovate our way around.
    Last Congress, we passed the Energy Act of 2020 to 
modernize our nation's energy policies by prioritizing 
research, development, and demonstration of next-generation 
technologies like energy storage, advanced nuclear, and carbon 
capture. As a result of this legislation, we will reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions across the energy and industrial 
sectors while increasing U.S. competitiveness in clean energy 
technologies. This is a win for all Americans.
    This Congress, we set our sights on the Department of 
Energy's Office of Science to continue down this innovation 
pathway. The DOE Science for the Future Act provides 
comprehensive policy guidance and funding authorization for 
major research programs that will drive new discoveries in 
energy technologies and pave the way for the development of 
sustainable, affordable, and scalable clean energy solutions.
    On that note, I want to congratulate Chairman Bowman, along 
with the Full Committee Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and 
Ranking Member Frank Lucas, on successfully passing this bill 
on the Floor by a large bipartisan margin. I look forward to 
working with this group to get this bill over the finish line 
and signed into law.
    I mention all these successes because I want my colleagues 
and our witnesses to know the Science Committee is doing our 
part to turn words into actions.
    Our focus has always been, and will continue to be, policy 
that keeps energy affordable and reliable, especially for low-
income, minority, rural, and senior citizen communities. These 
are the communities that suffer from a lack of access to 
reliable energy sources and spend proportionately higher 
amounts of their income on electricity costs.
    Eliminating energy poverty is something we all want to 
achieve. But in doing so, we need to be mindful of how policies 
will impact the very communities we are trying to serve. I want 
to thank our witnesses for sharing their insights on this and I 
look forward to this discussion.

     Chairman Bowman. Thank you so much, Mr. Weber, and I will 
take you up on that offer to visit your district for sure, only 
if you promise to come to the Bronx, New York, as well. I visit 
you, you visit me.
     Mr. Weber. I'm coming in the summertime. I don't want to 
be up there when it snows.
     Chairman Bowman. OK, I--we could make that work, Mr. 
Weber. We could make that work.
     Mr. Weber. Thank you.
     Chairman Bowman. If there are Members who wish to submit 
additional opening statements, your statements will be added to 
the record at this point.
     [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

    Good morning and thank you Chairman Bowman and Ranking 
Member Weber for convening this excellent panel of witnesses to 
discuss the critical importance of developing equitable energy 
solutions. As clean energy technologies become an ever-growing 
component of our global energy economy, the social impacts of 
these technologies and the policies that support them are 
becoming increasingly salient. We must work to ensure that the 
transition to a clean energy economy does not create 
communities of winners and losers, because every community is 
vital to our country's energy future.
    This Committee understands that it is essential for us to 
transition to low-carbon energy systems as quickly as possible 
to mitigate the impacts of climate change. However, we must 
also guarantee that these systems are fairer, inclusive, and 
just. Instead of defining the global climate problem narrowly 
as simply mitigating carbon emissions, the problem should be 
expanded to embrace an equity approach to creating energy 
solutions that will address the many systemic barriers to 
energy security. We will not succeed in our commitment to a 
clean and just energy future if we only prioritize 
environmental and economic outcomes at the expense of social 
sustainability.
    Granted, this problem isn't new. Marginalized communities 
have historically carried a disproportionate share of the 
energy and environmental burden, while rarely receiving any of 
the economic benefits. Researchers find these communities have 
not been considered or included in past clean energy planning 
and policymaking. Consequently, many of the same people who 
would benefit most from such initiatives are overlooked when 
policies are developed, implemented, and evaluated. And low-
income households, communities of color, older adults, and 
renters all face disproportionately high energy burdens, 
meaning they spend more of their income on energy bills 
compared to their counterparts.
    These disparities are concerning, and I believe as this 
Committee continues to shape clean energy policy, we must 
ensure that the technologies of the future do not overshadow 
the energy priorities of frontline communities. One of the 
first actions we can take is to support the early integration 
of social sciences in energy research and development. This 
will hopefully aid in eliminating bias and provide a better 
understanding of non-economic barriers that may negatively 
impact technology adoption.
    It is also imperative that we meaningfully engage with 
historically marginalized communities to create pathways for 
community-driven energy solutions that incorporate social 
issues. I sincerely believe that our success as a nation in 
addressing our climate challenge will require diverse voices to 
be heard as we strive for a green and just energy transition. 
In closing, I want to thank our panel for joining us today and 
I look forward to this discussion.

     Chairman Bowman. At this time, I would like to introduce 
our witnesses. First, Dr. Daniel Kammen holds the James and 
Katherine Lau Distinguished Chair in Sustainability at the 
University of California (UC), Berkeley. He also holds parallel 
appointments in UC Berkeley's Energy and Resource Group, where 
he serves as Chair, the Goldman School of Public Policy, where 
he directs the Center for Environmental Policy in the 
Department of Nuclear Engineering. He is a former science envoy 
at the U.S. Department of State, and has founded over 10 
companies. Thank you for being with us, Dr. Kammen.
     Next is Dr. Myles Lennon. He is the Dean--excuse me, is 
the Dean's Assistant Professor of Environment and Society and 
Anthropology at Brown University, and a former sustainable 
energy policy practitioner. His research explores how rooftop 
solar, resiliency microgrids, and other climate mitigation 
infrastructures reinforce, as well as upends, entrenched 
structures of power across race and class divisions in New York 
City. Thank you for being with us, Dr. Lennon.
     Next is Dr. Shobita Parthasarathy--sorry about that--is a 
Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Science, 
Technology, and Public Policy Program at the University of 
Michigan. She is interested in how to develop innovation and 
innovation policy to better achieve public interest and social 
justice goals. Much of her work has focused on the governance 
of emerging science and technology, particularly those that 
have uncertain environmental, social, ethical, political, and 
health implications. Thank you so much for being with us.
     Last, but not least, we have Mr. Bruno Grunau, is Regional 
Director of NREL's (National Renewable Energy Laboratory's) 
Cold Climate Housing Research Center, or CCHRC, in Fairbanks, 
Alaska. Prior to joining NREL in 2020, CCHRC had a 20-year 
history as an independent non-profit developing and advancing 
sustainable, affordable, durable housing for Alaskans and 
circumpolar people. Mr. Grunau oversees CCHRC's work in 
building science, energy policy, and demonstration of healthy, 
affordable, durable shelter and infrastructure in extreme 
environments.
     Thank you all so much for joining us today. As our 
witnesses should know, you will each have 5 minutes for your 
spoken testimony. Your written testimony will be included in 
the record for the hearing. When you all have completed your 
spoken testimony, we will begin with questions. Each Member 
will have 5 minutes to question the panel. We will start with 
Dr. Kammen. Dr. Kammen, please begin.

                  TESTIMONY OF DR. DAN KAMMEN,

               DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF ENERGY

           AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

     Dr. Kammen. I thank you, Chair Bowman, Representative 
Weber, and all of the other Members of the Committee. I truly 
appreciate the chance to be in front of you today. And I think 
I'll summarize my comments overall with one line, and that is 
that we now have the ability to both quantify the benefits of 
innovation and diversity for all Americans, with a particular 
note that diversity benefits everyone, not just the targeted 
communities, to deal with past injustices. Next slide, please?
     [Slide.]
     My overarching point in terms of the quantification is 
that we now have sufficient data to document quite clearly that 
the energy transition produces a significant bonus in jobs. 
This is something that I have been personally working on for 
over 15 years. Many other studies corroborate these similar 
numbers. And while jobs in all areas are critical for 
diversity, we can see from the chart here, when we look at the 
direct investment jobs, the indirect jobs, and those that are 
induced by the transition, there is a significant benefit to 
moving toward the smarter, greener section, essentially the 
blue and the green parts of this graph here.
     And I highlight that because I think that Representative 
Weber made a very important point about the need to preserve 
and to uphold jobs in all sectors as we make this transition. 
The fact that 2035 is our goal date for a carbon neutral 
economy gives an ample runway for the continuation of critical 
jobs today in rural and other counties that are dependent on 
them, but also an opportunity to ramp up into this not only 
large sector for additional job growth in the United States, 
but 90 percent of all energy installed around the world in 2019 
and 2020, according to the International Energy Agency, was in 
the renewable space, which means the more we transition our 
workforce, the more American workers can capture those jobs at 
home and abroad. Next slide, please?
     [Slide.]
     As we look at not only the benefits, but also the 
challenges, the comments by Chairman Bowman are particularly 
critical, and I illustrate that with a negative example of not 
heeding all of those lessons to integrate STEM and social 
science. In a large study that my laboratory conducted in 
conjunction with Google's National Sunroof Data base, a data 
base of over 60 million rooftops--next slide, please--what we 
saw around the country is that if we look at who has solar on 
their rooftops today--we did this by using GIS (Geographic 
Information Systems) data, by using remote sensing, all these 
tools, and by using census data on incomes, what we find is 
that for census blocks with no ethnic majority, that's our 
baseline. However, if we look at communities that do have an 
ethnic majority--next slide, please--we see a dramatically 
different pattern, where solar is 30 or more percent more 
common in areas where there's a White majority than the 
undifferentiated areas. And in Latino and African-American 
communities, it's between 30 to 70 percent less likely across 
an order of magnitude of incomes from below the poverty line 
for a family of four, $26,300 per year, up to a quarter 
million.
     What that says is that past efforts to do outreach, both 
STEM training, efforts to bring--workforce training grants to 
help seed companies with minority business owners and employees 
have not been anywhere near as successful as they would be. I 
highlight this because as we think about these dramatic, 
important new bills coming forward, such as House Bill 3593, 
the Energy Science for the Future Act, building in diversity, 
and oversight, and input from diverse communities will benefit 
us all not only in terms of these direct jobs, but also in 
terms of building the market for these high job creation areas. 
It's a critical aspect, and it's one that even solar, something 
many people think of as on that transition, need to have a much 
more nuanced approach to building diversity into the pipeline. 
It will benefit us all. Next slide, please.
     [Slide.]
     On the other side of the story, I want to highlight and 
second something that Chairman Bowman said about the energy 
insecurity for so many Americans, and in particular so many 
minority Americans, many rural areas, and so I illustrate that 
with a project funded by the California Energy Commission, for 
which I have the honor to be the co-Director. This is called 
the EcoBlock, and in this low-income section of Oakland, 
California, with a mixture of single-family homes, rental 
units, so-called mother-in-law units, and, as you can see in 
this graph here on the far left, an apartment building as well, 
in this design all of the rooftops generate solar, but it's 
pooled. It all is stored in a central storage facility--you can 
see the utility garage at the top center of the slide--and then 
redistributed to all the homes and apartments. This more than 
enough powers the homes, but it also provides the opportunity, 
as you can see in the inset circle, to not only power 
individuals who own or lease an electric vehicle, but also 
those who charge on the block who don't own property. It is a 
pro-equity opportunity.
     In my written comments I highlight some dramatic and 
impressive efforts, such as that of Lyft Company, which has 
announced that by 2030 all of their vehicles, roughly two 
million worldwide, will be electric, and they're working State 
by State to make the lease or the ownership of those vehicles 
available at or below cost for their drivers, a pro-equity 
maneuver. You can see on the right-hand pictures some of the 
town----

     [The prepared statement of Dr. Kammen follows:]
     
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     Chairman Bowman. I'm sorry, Dr. Kammen, your 5 minutes are 
up. Can we get to some of this during Q&A?
     Dr. Kammen. Absolutely.
     Chairman Bowman. Thank you so much. Sorry to cut you off, 
Doctor.
     Dr. Kammen. Not a problem.
     Chairman Bowman. Thank you for that testimony. Dr. Lennon, 
you are now recognized.
     Dr. Lennon. Thank you. Chairman Bowman, Ranking Member 
Weber, and the rest of the Energy Subcommittee, it's a real 
privilege to testify before you today. Clean energy 
technologies can dramatically reduce the--I'm sorry, I'm having 
some trouble with my notes. I might have to--OK. This is--I 
apologize, my--I have an iPad here with my notes, and it 
appears to have frozen, so----
     Chairman Bowman. Well, Dr. Lennon, maybe we can go to 
another witness, and then come back to----
     Dr. Lennon. I would appreciate that, and I will get this 
fixed. Thank you very much.
     Chairman Bowman. OK. No worries. As Dr. Lennon gets his 
tech in order, we will go to Dr. Parthasarathy. I hope I said 
that----
     Dr. Parthasarathy. You did, beautiful. Perfect.
     Chairman Bowman. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning.

            TESTIMONY OF DR. SHOBITA PARTHASARATHY,

                 DIRECTOR, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY,

       AND PUBLIC POLICY PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

     Dr. Parthasarathy. Good morning. Good morning, Chairman 
Bowman, Ranking Member Weber, and Members of the Committee. 
Thank you for the invitation to participate in today's hearing. 
I appreciate the opportunity to discuss how we can foster 
equity in energy innovation.
     In recent years it's become clear that low-income and 
historically marginalized communities of color are often unable 
to gain the benefits of energy innovation, yet may be 
disproportionately subject to their harms. We tend to address 
these issues, though, after the technology is developed and 
deployed, but they can be addressed proactively, so long as we 
view innovation as not just technical, but social, 
organizational, and moral, and that potentially affected 
communities and experts in the equity dimensions of innovation 
are brought into every step of the research and development 
process, even at the earliest stages, and so I really 
appreciate, Chair Bowman, what you said in your opening 
statement. In my testimony today I'll outline three ways that I 
think the Department of Energy can bring equity considerations 
into innovation. The first is by investing in community-based 
innovation. The second is by consulting communities in the 
development and citing of high-tech projects. And third, by 
incorporating equity analyses into R&D funding decisions.
     Community-based innovation is, essentially, from the 
bottom up. Local priorities, knowledge, and context are central 
to its development, and it often leads to small scale or 
collective entrepreneurship and grassroots empowerment. The 
most common form in the United States is small scale solar, in 
which local organizations create economic opportunities while 
also providing clean energy. Native Renewables, for example, 
trains Navajo people in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico to 
install small-scale photovoltaic systems, and then provides 
them to the thousands of families that are off the grid.
     But community-based innovation can also be low tech. We 
tend to think of innovation as technically complex, but we 
forget that people, especially those facing adversity, are 
always developing and tailoring inexpensive interventions that 
may be useful for others. The Indian government's National 
Innovation Foundation, or NIF, offers a useful model. Staff get 
out into communities to scout innovation, then the NIF provides 
innovators with funding to help develop and then disseminate 
the work. This includes securing patents, and negotiating 
licenses with manufacturing--with manufacturers, and what's 
interesting is that the licenses often include provisions to 
ensure that the benefits flow directly back to the community. 
DOE could create a similar program. Key to this effort is 
meeting communities where they are. Rather than focusing on 
educating them, these efforts would be dedicated to learning 
from them and amplifying their innovative work.
     Second, DOE can engage low-income and marginalized 
communities in the development of large-scale, technically 
complex interventions. Deliberative, democratic methods can be 
particularly useful in gathering nuanced information about how 
citizens, and especially people who might be disproportionately 
affected by a particular technology, might respond. Through 
these methods, researchers have shown that local communities 
have very different responses to wind energy, depending on 
their relationships with local landscapes, and that some 
communities worry about the sustainability of solar energy 
across the life cycle, particular rare earth mining. The 
objective is to move from a customary decide, announce, defend 
model, in which technologists and policymakers coalesce around 
a particular technology, and then convince communities to 
accept it, toward a consult, consider, modify, proceed model. 
That could also help minimize opposition when innovations are 
deployed.
     Finally, DOE can incorporate equity analyses into its 
grantmaking processes. In deciding whether to support a 
particular project, it could require prospective grantees to 
provide an equity impact assessment that would gather 
information about equity in design, equity in distributional 
and citing processes, equity in procedure, and historical 
legacy. DOE could look, for example, to the National Science 
Foundation's (NSF's) evaluation of broader impacts, or even 
environmental impact assessments under the National 
Environmental Policy Act as analogues. DOE can also favor 
interdisciplinary research proposals that explicitly aim to 
simultaneously study the technical and equity dimensions of a 
particular intervention. But to accomplish these objectives, 
the Department must incorporate the expertise of social 
scientists, who can evaluate the equity consequences of 
emerging technologies, both on its peer review panels, and its 
own program staff. These experts could both inform the agency 
and potential grantees on how to explicitly consider equity in 
R&D, and also help identify the most equitable paths for 
innovation and innovation for demonstration.
     In closing, to ensure that energy innovation can reduce 
rather than exacerbate inequities, we need to incorporate the 
expertise of both vulnerable communities and social scientists 
in the R&D process from the outset. Thank you, and I look 
forward to your questions.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Parthasarathy follows:]
     
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     Chairman Bowman. Thank you so much for that testimony, Dr. 
Parthasarathy. Brilliant, thank you so much. Dr. Lennon, how 
are we doing? Good to go?
     Dr. Lennon. I think we're good to go. My apologies.

                 TESTIMONY OF DR. MYLES LENNON,

              PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY

               AND ANTHROPOLOGY, BROWN UNIVERSITY

     Dr. Lennon. So, Chairman Bowman, Ranking Member Weber, and 
the rest of the Energy Subcommittee, it's a real privilege to 
testify before you today. Clean energy technologies can 
dramatically reduce the negative public health and 
environmental impacts of fossil fuel energy on low-income 
communities and communities of color, but more can be done to 
improve these technologies, to truly realize an equitable, 
sustainable energy transition. Toward this end, today I will 
identify four research areas that DOE can pursue.
     First, we need multidisciplinary research on the labor and 
environmental practices of corporations that produce renewable 
energy technologies. Currently there are companies up and down 
renewable energy supply chains that exploit vulnerable workers, 
that lack basic health and safety provisions, that dump toxic 
chemicals in the vulnerable communities where they're located, 
and that use so-called conflict minerals. At the same time, 
there are companies that abide by high labor, and health, and 
safety standards that abstain from using conflict minerals, 
that use materials that don't harm workers, such as zinc 
instead of cadmium in the production of solar panels, and that 
minimize their local environmental impact. But we still need 
much more comprehensive data on how the production of renewable 
technologies impacts marginalized workers and communities. 
Research on renewable supply chains conducted in close 
consultation with these workers and communities can help us 
determine how to incorporate good labor, health, and 
environmental justice standards in the production of clean 
energy technologies.
     Second, we need R&D that will accelerate production 
innovations that could eradicate the human rights violations 
and environmental degradation affiliated with battery energy 
storage systems. Battery energy storage systems are essential 
to harnessing the power of solar and wind, but most are made 
with lithium and cobalt, which are extracted in ways that 
decimate the health and environment of poor communities in a 
few poor countries, often, through human rights violations, 
such as child labor, and the DRC's (Democratic Republic of 
Congo's) cobalt mining industry. But we've made remarkable 
progress in developing batteries that don't use lithium and 
cobalt, including large-scale storage systems made with the 
element vanadium, and rechargeable zinc-ion batteries.
     These still-nascent technologies have tremendous potential 
to curtail the labor and environmental burden of energy storage 
production on vulnerable communities. For instance, the vast 
majority of the vanadium redox battery's components can be 
recycled, in stark contrast to lithium batteries, reducing the 
e-waste of storage technologies, which disproportionately 
burdens marginalized communities. There are also large unmined 
deposits of vanadium all over the U.S., presenting an 
opportunity for domestic jobs that would be protected by this 
country's occupational safety and health laws, a promising 
alternative to the human rights violations of cobalt mining in 
the DRC. So our battery storage R&D agenda must prioritize 
innovations that can address the labor exploitation of energy 
storage supply chains.
     Third, we need social science research that incorporates 
the insights and innovations of low-income communities and 
communities of color into community-based renewable energy 
programs, such as community solar. These programs have a mixed 
record of reducing the barriers that marginalized communities 
face in adopting renewable technologies, and local groups have 
important ideas for truly innovating these programs in ways 
that best overcome such barriers. But too often their ideas are 
sidelined, like in New York, where community groups put forward 
a brilliant proposal to incorporate environmental justice into 
the State's valuation of solar electricity. We need research 
that systematically documents these innovations and 
incorporates them into program design to empower communities to 
lead their own energy transition.
     Fourth, we need public health, engineering, and social 
science research to document and improve the health, safety, 
and efficacy of renewable energy technology recycling. By 2050 
there could be 80 million metric tons of solar panels that no 
longer work, which will demand that we ramp up recycling to 
ensure that solar does not contribute to the e-waste crisis 
plaguing poor communities. But solar recycling can cause health 
and safety problems for vulnerable workers through, for 
instance, lead exposure, and there's a dearth of data on the 
health and safety challenges that solar recycling workers face. 
We therefore need better exposure assessment tools and 
qualitative research on the health impacts of solar recycling, 
and more generally we need research on how to improve solar 
recycling infrastructure.
     These four research trajectories are not at all 
exhaustive, but instead exemplary of the many multi-
disciplinary ways we can go about centering communities who 
have been disproportionately burdened by fossil fuels in our 
transition to cleaner energy. Thank you.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Lennon follows:]
    
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     Chairman Bowman. Thank you, Dr. Lennon, for that 
insightful testimony. Mr. Grunau, you are now recognized.

        TESTIMONY OF MR. BRUNO GRUNAU, REGIONAL DIRECTOR

            OF NREL'S COLD CLIMATE HOUSING RESEARCH

              CENTER (CCHRC) IN FAIRBANKS, ALASKA

     Mr. Grunau. Well thank you, and good morning, Chairman 
Bowman, Ranking Member Weber, and to this Committee. Thank you 
so much for the opportunity to be here. It's really an honor to 
testify before you and to be on this panel of distinguished 
guests. Excuse me. So as Chairman Bowman said, I'm Bruno 
Grunau, the Regional Director of the National Renewable Energy 
Laboratories Cold Climate Housing Research Center, and while 
NREL's two main campuses are in Colorado, our farthest north 
campus is located here in Fairbanks, Alaska, which is where I'm 
calling from this morning. And it's for 20 years we've been 
working on developing sustainable, healthy shelter for people 
in extreme climates, and incorporating local and indigenous 
knowledge into our technology solutions. And we join NREL to 
continue this work at a larger scale, and to be part of the 
great work of creating a clean energy transition for all, 
where, quite frankly, NREL has been doing this for 40 years.
     But to look at how we foster equity in energy innovation, 
I'd like to share a story from Unalakleet. It's an Inupiat 
village on the Arctic Coast of Alaska. It's cold, it's remote, 
there are no roads to the outside world, but for thousands of 
years the local people and the culture, they made a home here, 
and they thrived here. And in the late 1900's, this community, 
they adopted modern homes and energy systems, but today this 
village, and many of them like it, they face a housing crisis, 
right? So the homes are too expensive to build, they're too 
expensive to heat, they're moldy, and they're making people 
sick. And because people were not included in the development 
process, the technology does not reflect Inupiat needs, the 
climate, or the culture. And the tribal leadership were worried 
because the elders and the young family were--young families 
were leaving the village, and they were depleting the community 
of its traditional and generational knowledge, of its identity.
     Last year NREL worked with tribal council to realize their 
vision of building affordable energy efficient and resilient 
homes, and maximizing the local labor from the community. So 
together we co-developed--we designed a semi-modular home that 
was built partly in the lab and partly in the community. What 
we did is we took the most complicated and expensive parts of 
the homes, the kitchen, bath, and the mechanical room, and we 
built them in a shipping container here in our Fairbanks lab. 
And at the end of the summer this piece gets shipped out to 
Unalakleet, and the rest of the home is built around it onsite 
by a local crew, and--keeping 3/4 of new jobs in that 
community. And we're on track to cut the construction costs by 
40 percent, when compared to the cost of typical housing in the 
area.
     But this new home, it will be durable, safe, healthy. It 
will use half the energy of the average home in Unalakleet, and 
it will be designed to have solar panels to generate some 
electricity--and it's equitable technology in action. And it's 
a story about the success of community engagement, which is 
about really listening to the community, and showing respect 
for that community, and their needs and their values. And in 
this case, the tribal council continued to be involved every 
step of the way to ensure that this house is appropriate for 
the climate and the culture, and the technology was not 
developed for the community, it was developed by the community.
     And this is just one village here in Alaska, in the 
Arctic, so you ask, you know, how can this approach be scaled 
across the country, to all communities that are facing similar 
energy and economic challenges to your communities? So, for 
instance, in Kingston, New York, NREL tackled inequitable 
housing burdens by listening to the community, and helping city 
leaders create a plan for 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 
through energy efficiency and renewable energy in a way that 
creates local jobs, stimulates innovation, and provides energy 
relief for low-income residents first. And this same approach 
is applied to our Nation's largest cities. In Los Angeles NREL 
city leaders map out a plan. The L.A. 100 study found that L.A. 
can achieve a reliable 100 percent renewable power as early as 
2035, with all communities sharing in the benefits of the clean 
energy transition. It's especially important for nearly half of 
L.A.'s population who lives in disadvantaged communities, where 
people pay a disproportionate amount of their income on energy. 
But work resulting from the study will address this, and these 
people will also benefit from clean and affordable mobility, 
and improved air quality.
     And we're all excited right now about deploying these 
technologies, particularly to our underserved and front-line 
communities, but deployment's just the tip of the very iceberg, 
and we can't just create the technology and assume it will go 
out to everyone just like it's a matter of checking a box, 
because beneath the surface of the iceberg is the research, 
development, and demonstration of these technologies, and we 
have to center equity every step of the way, from research, 
to--research and development and demonstration to deployment. 
Just like the people of Unalakleet were engaged from the very 
beginning, including other disadvantages in the R&D process 
will ensure a more equitable technology. So I thank you, and I 
really look forward to our discussion. I thank you.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Grunau follows:]
     
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     Chairman Bowman. Thank you very much, Mr. Grunau, for your 
testimony. At this point we will begin our first round of 
questions. The Chairman recognizes himself for 5 minutes.
     My first question goes to Dr. Parthasarathy. Thank you so 
much for your testimony. I wanted to ask you to elaborate a bit 
on how DOE can support grassroots innovation, drawing on the 
example of the NIF in India. I'm intrigued by the potential for 
building networks of local innovation labs facilitated by the 
Federal Government in a way that would harness the brilliance 
and creativity of marginalized communities, and empower them to 
develop new technologies that directly serve their needs. Can 
you say more about how a new office at DOE might coordinate 
this process, and the role that educational and other community 
institutions could play?
     Dr. Parthasarathy. Sure. So--and thank you very much. I 
really think there's a lot of potential, perhaps at DOE even 
more than some of the other Federal agencies, where I think 
that this kind of work could be useful, because DOE already has 
a network of National Labs, right? So DOE is already invested 
in and part of communities. I think it's a matter of really 
engaging with community organization, civil society 
organizations, in a real way, and, as I said in my oral 
testimony, to take people's innovative capacity, and the 
innovation that's already happening, seriously.
     We tend not to--we tend to assume, I think, too much that 
in order to innovate you have to have large labs, you have to 
have lots of technical expertise, you have to have lots of 
infrastructure. But I think what is interesting about the NIF 
case in India is that they actually are not--these--we're not 
talking about large infrastructure. We're often talking about 
people who have less than a high school education who are 
engaged in these processes. And the process of that engagement, 
the process of bringing people into the innovation system, and 
saying, you are a grassroots innovator, and we are going to 
uplift you, has an incredible impact on not just that 
individual, perhaps individually economically, but for those 
communities, right?
     So it's empowering the communities, it's providing a sense 
that we can be part of these energy solutions. And, in some of 
these cases too, they become more excited about becoming part 
of the STEM enterprise and STEM workforce, right? So it's--so 
it has all of these enormous potential gains, but I think in 
order to do that we need to do two things, and the first is to, 
I think broaden our conception of innovation, and of who an 
innovator is, and then also, I think, invest more in 
community--real community partnerships, perhaps with 
organizations that the DOE hasn't necessarily worked with 
before.
     Chairman Bowman. Awesome. Thank you so much. Dr. Kammen, I 
appreciated your discussion of the eco pilot, and how it points 
the way toward co-creating renewable energy and social justice. 
In the same vein, I'm wondering what you think about the 
potential for district heating, or other approaches to 
utilizing waste for energy, that might work at the block or 
neighborhood level. In the city of Mount Vernon in my district, 
as in many red line communities across the country, we have an 
urgent sewage crisis where, because of aging infrastructure, 
people are regularly experiencing sewage backups in their 
homes. If we need to urgently repair these systems, shouldn't 
we be replacing them with next generation infrastructures, so 
that these communities are the first to benefit? Do you see 
ways we can address sewage crises in places like Mount Vernon 
and advance green energy at the same time?
     Dr. Kammen. Chair Bowman, thank you so much for the 
question, because I think that's a perfect case of meeting 
people where they are, and tailoring innovation to meet 
multiple needs. It's an energy question, it's also a health 
question. It ties things together in exactly the same way that 
Dr. Lennon said as well. In terms of the opportunities in 
colder climates, where heating is a priority, the opportunities 
here are quite vast. We have extensive experience in 
Scandinavia, in some pilot projects in Michigan and in New York 
State, that have looked exactly at the question you highlight.
     And so getting rid of waste with advanced--whether they 
are solar incineration technologies, or some of the 
gasification technologies that we in California use to dispose 
of, but to make use of, wood from the over 100 million dead 
trees we saw from the latest round of bulk disease and drought, 
these are examples of projects that are not technologically 
that difficult, but if you don't build in the kind of 
perspective you said--this is a local problem--or, to look at 
water questions in Flint, Michigan, the upstream design of who 
will be engaged in that research is a critical example, and I 
would just highlight two areas where I'm particularly hopeful.
     One is that we have a tremendous experience with 
Department of Energy's ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects 
Agency--Energy) Program, the Advanced Research Program for 
Energy, which not only has generated a huge wave of innovation, 
but has built technological readiness levels to decide how 
close technologies are to market. We have a similar discussion 
right now about an ARPA-Terra program in agriculture, which 
addresses many of the rural needs. The feature I would 
recommend adding to those efforts is essentially what we heard 
from Shobita a second ago, and that is the need to build in 
wider sets of input into what are the questions that should be 
researched? Your question about waste management fits exactly 
into an area that may not be targeted by some of these so-
called advanced research programs, unless there's initial input 
and oversight into these are the questions that most affect all 
Americans, but particularly those that are underserved. And so 
I think it really highlights the design of the research 
program, as well as the implementation of the technical 
components that are critically needed to meet those issues. So 
thank you for that question.
     Chairman Bowman. Of course. Thank you for that response. I 
now recognize Mr. Weber for 5 minutes.
     Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that. Mr. 
Grunau, as--can you all hear me all right?
     Mr. Grunau. Yes, sir.
     Mr. Weber. I had to finally find my Air Pods. As I stated 
in my opening remarks, I'm for an all of the above energy 
approach, with a focus on keeping diverse energy sources at the 
mix--and I'm going to try to move to a little quieter area 
here. We've got--back to--I told people--I told the staff to 
tell you all I was having my nails done, the reason I had to 
get off. Give me just a minute here. Thank you for your 
indulgence. Anyway, as I said, I'm for an all of the above 
energy sources mix. However, as I said, from the Texas 
standpoint, where we have 254 counties, a lot of them are 
rural, I worry about rural communities where grid 
infrastructure can be outdated, and their ability to accept 
diverse and decentralized sources of energy that is actually 
more of a burden in that particular district than it might be 
in other communities. So is there merit to that concern? How do 
we address it? Could you elaborate on any potential solutions 
that are economically efficient? Then I want to know if any 
studies have been done in that regard. I give it to you, Mr. 
Grunau for the question--for the answer.
     Mr. Grunau. Well, thank you for the question, Congressman. 
You know, we actually did some work that speaks to what you're 
talking about, and we worked with Navajo Nation in Arizona, who 
had the largest coal fired plant in the Western U.S., and it 
was a source of economy for that area. And we worked with the 
community because we saw the closing of the plant was coming, 
and so by working with the community we were able to co-develop 
solutions to figure out what a path forward to a more 
integrated clean energy system looks like.
     You know, what--and in this case, you know, we--some of 
the co-developed solutions were, like, agricultural water 
production and storage using wind and solar power, but what we 
were able to do was bring tools to the table that we have, so 
some of the tools we have were able to look at, you know, 
energy burdens, and renewable energy resources. We have these 
tools we can bring to the table, and sit down with the 
communities and parse out, like, what solutions do we have 
here? In this case we came up with a plan and a path forward 
for a more integrated, high penetration renewable energy 
system.
     So we have the tools they can lean on, we have, you know, 
the--I'll give you--if you want some specific tools, one is 
called State and Local Planning for Energy, or SLOPE. That 
gives us county level renewable energy generation potential. 
There's another one that Low-Income Energy Portability Data, 
which is census track level on energy burden. And then we have 
tools like ARIES, which is called Advanced Research Integrated 
Energy Systems. And what that is is it's the--it provides the 
capability for planning for what the grid would look like in 
the future if we have new generation systems, you know, new 
wind systems, new solar systems. We can plan out scenarios for 
extreme weather events, like what happened in Texas. We can 
plan out for what--and look at or emulate--and we can emulate 
and we can simulate what can happen if we have bad actor 
events, right? So we have these tools, and I think it's just a 
matter of bringing the right people to the table, which is the 
community, and then the local planners, and then the tools. And 
that's--I think that's the blueprint.
     Mr. Weber. Did you have that in a study format? And I 
guess my follow-up question is, when you look at rural 
counties, Texas is big. As I said, we have 254 of them--or 254 
counties, many of them rural. I know you looked at that one 
place, was it New Mexico or Arizona?
     Mr. Grunau. Arizona.
     Mr. Weber. Did you look across the United States? What is 
the percentage of rural counties to more, you know, cities and 
suburbans, for example?
     Mr. Grunau. Well, I have a tool--I don't have the answer 
of that in front of me, but would like to get the--get back--
get the answer back to you for the record. We have the tools 
and the ability to answer that.
     Mr. Weber. OK. I'd appreciate it. And, Mr. Chairman, I 
cannot see a clock on my little iPad. Do I have time left?
     Chairman Bowman. 30 seconds.
     Mr. Weber. All right. Dr. Lennon, I'm glad you mentioned 
critical minerals in your testimony. As you right--rightly 
pointed out, the counties--countries that are mining battery 
minerals are doing so in unethical ways, violating human 
rights. Any idea, sense of percentage, of energy storage and 
battery materials that actually originate from those? Would you 
say it's 20 percent of what we buy, 50 percent of what we buy 
from those countries who violate human rights, quickly?
     Dr. Lennon. A wide--I don't know the exact figure, but a 
high percentage, a very, very high percentage of battery energy 
storage systems are made with materials that are specifically 
mined from the Lithium Triangle in Bolivia, Chile, and 
Argentina, and cobalt from DRC, where there are human rights 
violations that is common, yes.
     Mr. Weber. OK. Thank you for the quick answer. I yield 
back, Mr. Chairman.
     Staff. Ms. Bonamici is recognized.
     Ms. Bonamici. Thank you so much. Thank you to Chair 
Bowman, and Ranking Member Weber, but really thank you to our 
witnesses for your excellent testimony today. We know the 
effects of the climate crisis are already here, and we know 
they're disproportionately affecting communities who already 
face discrimination, racism. Extreme heat events like the 
unprecedented temperatures we had here in Oregon that killed 
116 Oregonians last month are expected to increase in frequency 
and intensity because of the climate crisis, and, as a result, 
historically underserved communities will continue to face the 
health risks of increasing temperatures and inequitable access 
to green spaces, and more.
     So last year I joined my colleagues on the Select 
Committee on the Climate Crisis in releasing a bold, 
comprehensive, science-based climate action plan to reach net 
zero emissions no later than mid-century, and net negative 
thereafter, and building a resilient clean energy economy using 
our climate action plan will help boost our economic recovery 
as well. It will also allow us to begin to repair the legacy of 
the environmental racism and pollution that's burdened low-
income communities and communities of color for decades. We've 
woven environmental justice throughout the plan.
     So I want to ask--first, Mr. Grunau, I appreciated the 
iceberg RDD&D metaphor in your testimony to demonstrate the 
importance of incorporating equity-centered provisions at the 
core of our policies to transition to a clean energy economy, 
and the examples you provided of community partnerships 
underscores an essential piece of advancing a just tradition. 
So what are some of the best practices that NREL developed in 
forming the community partnerships, and how can these practices 
be replicated to help make DOE funding and research 
opportunities more inclusive to underserved communities?
     Mr. Grunau. Well, thank you for the question, 
Congresswoman. You know, we like the iceberg approach, it's 
very visual. And one of the things that's really important is 
that our researchers are connected to every step in that path 
of research, development, demonstration, and deployment, and 
when we--what we really want is a--to take these lessons 
learned from the community engagement--what happens--which 
happens at later stage, you know, higher TRL (technology 
readiness level), you know, development of technology, and 
bringing those lessons, and people who have been involved in 
that, back to the very beginning, to the table.
     And at the very beginning table, when we're looking at 
creating new technologies, who do we have at the table? We want 
people at the table who--one, who have been involved with the 
problems, who we're trying to solve these problems for. Two is 
we just want to have a good, representative, diverse team that 
is--that's diverse racially, gender, not--but also just 
background, cultural background, experiences, historical 
background, right? Having people from minority serving 
institutions at the table, having some social scientists at the 
table with technical PIs, (principal investigators) right?
     And then--and now we're starting--we create, and--create 
these new technologies, now we're keeping the needle, you know, 
guided toward this equity-centered approach as we--now, as we 
go to the next stage, to development, and to deployment--I'm 
sorry, to demonstration, when we get to the deployment, we're 
no longer checking a box. And so--yeah, so----
     Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Yeah, I do want to try to get 
another question in, but thank you, it's really helpful. So, 
Dr. Parthasarathy, in your testimony you highlighted how our 
transition to a clean energy economy will require some 
sacrifices, especially from low-income communities and fossil 
fuel communities. And, Mr. Weber, I also represent some rural 
communities, and I understand we need to involve everyone here. 
We know that historically RDD&D programs have failed to 
recognize those sacrifices, and the disparity.
     So, as a leader on the Education and Labor Committee, and 
the granddaughter of a coal miner, I know that our transition 
to a clean energy economy must support workers, and I'm working 
on a bill to establish a National Economic Transition Office to 
coordinate, scale up, and target Federal economic and workforce 
development assistance to communities and workers, beginning 
with the coal communities. So what steps should Congress take 
to first recognize the challenges of a transition to a clean 
energy economy for front-line communities, and how can our 
RDD&D investments today help better prepare for a clean energy 
future that does not leave front-line communities behind?
     Dr. Parthasarathy. Great. Thank you very much, 
Representative Bonamici. I--so I guess I would say a few 
things. The first is I think too often we are not engaging with 
these communities to actually ask them what they think, what 
they want, how they see the issues, and how they might solve 
them. And I think too often we see these communities as a 
problem in a clean energy transition, and I'd like to flip that 
around a little bit and say, OK, well, they have knowledge, 
they have strategies, and they have a real understanding of 
their context, and they're also not, you know, sort of easily 
moved around on a chess board. And I think often communities 
feel that way. And so I think actually engaging people, with 
the understanding that we want to bring your knowledge and 
expertise into these processes is a key approach, and in order 
to do that, I think you both obviously need to engage these 
communities, but I think when we think about the DOE's approach 
in particular, we need to bring in expertise from social 
science.
     I know a number of other witnesses have said this, but we 
actually have--the social sciences, I think, have not been 
tapped enough when we think about the clean energy transition. 
Mr. Lennon talked about, you know, sort of qualitative work in 
particular. I think DOE tends, understandably, to focus on 
quantitative and technical metrics, and those are useful, but I 
think sometimes even just unraveling what, you know, what we 
mean by equity, what we mean by public interest and public 
good, those are the kinds of things that I think qualitative 
social scientists, and folks who are experts in equity, really 
can bring to this conversation, and help to provide real nuance 
and sophistication that I think hasn't been incorporated 
before.
     And here I would actually look to some of the work that 
the National Science Foundation has done first, in terms of 
real partnerships on things like artificial intelligence, where 
the more technical parts of the NSF have partnered with some of 
the more social science parts of the NSF to really develop some 
interesting areas, and then I've also--I know we're out of 
time, but I--but one of the things that I think is also really, 
really important is to bring in equity impact assessments. We 
have a history of bringing environmental impact assessments 
into our decisionmaking, and those have had, I think, real 
benefits for the environment. And I think, at this moment, when 
we see that there are these differential impacts, that we can 
bring that into this conversation as well.
     Ms. Bonamici. That's very helpful. Thank you for your 
indulgence, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
     Staff. Representative Baird is recognized.
     Mr. Baird. Thank you, Chairman Bowman and Ranking Member 
Weber, and I always learn something from the expertise of the 
witnesses that we bring before these Committees, so I really 
appreciate all of you being here. I guess my question goes to 
Mr. Grunau. In your testimony you provide an interesting case--
several interesting case studies of the NREL overcoming unique 
local challenges, and end up providing these communities in 
need with reliable and affordable energy. So in these examples 
you emphasize how NREL ensured their efforts supported the 
creation of local jobs. Could you elaborate a little more on 
how the NREL sourced and trained the local labor force? And 
then a continuation of that question is how permanent were 
these jobs, or were they temporary? Or just elaborate on that 
issue, if you would. So please----
     Mr. Grunau. Thank you for the----
     Mr. Baird [continuing]. Go ahead.
     Mr. Grunau. Yeah. Thank you for the question--I think 
related to that question--if I may just slip in a response to 
Representative Weber, you know, 97 percent of the counties in 
the U.S. are considered rural, and 54 percent of the population 
is rural, and the number's skewed a bit based on how the 
counties are structured. I think that's related to what you're 
asking, sir. Think I can best answer that with the example I 
gave with Unalakleet, because we have--I'm just going to talk 
about what's happening in our backyard, because I can tell you 
lots about it, right? We worked in communities like this--a 
good example's, Klunahak, right, where we came in and we did 
the workforce development, we trained teams how to do this some 
more. And when they left, it wasn't just a one-time show. It 
wasn't just where, you know, we helped, we train them, and we 
walk away. No, they continued building things, and the success 
continues.
     You know, in this case we worked with housing authorities 
who see these models as examples of what works, and so they'll 
take these models, and they'll work--and in this case--called 
the North Slope Borough, and they'll work up there and train 
their teams, and then we're seeing some of these, you know, 
designs, and, you know, technologies being replicated. So it's 
not a one-time solution, and we know and recognize that a one-
shot deal is not a solution. We're looking for a future that's 
sustainable, right? And that means economically sustainable, 
and you need jobs and building the economies. Does that answer 
your question, sir?
     Mr. Baird. Yes. Thank you very much.
     Mr. Grunau. Thank you.
     Mr. Baird. I guess my follow-up question would simply be--
and any of the other witnesses may respond to this, but it has 
to do with STEM training. Would any of you care to comment on 
how to increase the geographic diversity of STEM training, 
particularly in the area of energy innovation?
     Dr. Kammen. I would--be happy to offer a comment, and that 
is I think it's a key question. The more we diversity the types 
of people who get involved in the chain, we bring not only new 
expertise, but critically we bring individuals who see other 
problems, and I'm going to illustrate this with another 
international example.
     In Morocco they committed, a decade ago, to become a 
leader in clean energy, and, in fact, Morocco is now one of 
only two countries that are on pace to meet their Paris climate 
goals. What they did was to change their engineering 
curriculums to emphasize much more work on sustainable supply 
chains for batteries, such as Professor Lennon highlighted, to 
make wind and heat pump training, and solar training part of 
their engineering curriculum. They spun off new energy 
engineering majors, something that we've now also done at UC 
Berkeley, and partnered specifically with tribal colleges. So 
we have a partnership with the Navajo Nation, with the Pomo 
Nation, that bring people specifically to school so that they 
can then take this new expertise and go back.
     And I think that when you talk about rural communities, 
I'm from upstate New York, one of the topics that's of great 
excitement is the new announcement by the--by Ford for the F-
150 electric truck that already has 100,000 preorders. And the 
truck itself is quite dramatic, but it can also be used not 
only to power homes during outages, but it can also be used on 
the work site, and so a great number of construction workers 
have said, this is the ideal vehicle, because it allows me to 
do rural construction without backup generators, without a fuel 
supply chain. It's an opportunity for an area that, I would 
argue, rural America actually pushed and benefits from. So I 
think this diversity of training really also couples with 
recognizing a diversity of needs in the emerging clean energy 
spaces.
     Mr. Baird. So, Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for 
that comment, and I appreciate it. I see that I'm out of time, 
so I yield back.
     Staff. Mr. McNerney is recognized.
     Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the Chairman, and I thank the 
witnesses for your informative and constructive testimony. You 
all emphasize the need for including social science in helping 
the transition to a low carbon economy. There's a lot of meat 
there, so I really appreciate that.
     Professor Kammen, your graphs and slides are very useful 
in understanding the job benefits of renewable energy over 
fossil fuels, and the importance of equity in moving forward 
with clean energy. In our home State of California, worsening 
fire--fires are making power shutoffs increasingly common, 
which disproportionately impacts low-income communities. In 
your testimony you described the disparity of rooftop solar 
deployment linked to race and ethnicity. To your knowledge, has 
research identified a similar disparity in the adoption of 
microgrids, or other technologies that could provide grid 
resilience?
     Dr. Kammen. Yeah, Congressman. I want to thank you for 
asking that, because actually the idea of mini-grids, 
autonomous power units, whether they're rural or urban, meet 
many of the needs that people brought up, and certainly one 
cannot succeed in this area without bringing social science 
equally to bear.
     In fact, the EcoBlock project that I highlighted, low-
income section of Oakland, our technical team is actually 
smaller than our social science, and legal, and local 
representation team, because one of the areas where utilities 
across the country have been worried and resistant against the 
deployment of mini-grids is actually how do we deal with the 
so-called over the fence transactions? If a mini-grid has 
excess power to sell, do they need to incorporate as a full-
blown utility to be able to interact with utility, or can there 
be so-called net metering arrangements, as they're being 
pioneered by Southern California Edison, a little more slowly 
in our part of the State, in the North, sadly, so that 
communities with excess power, and in particular excess power 
that's available in a regular way, such as not only having a 
solar-powered mini-grid, but solar plus storage, meeting many 
of the criteria that Professor Lennon highlighted.
     That's an area where we critically need not just the 
technical side, but interaction with public utility 
commissions, and indeed I would argue an effort that links the 
Department of Energy, the EPA (Environmental Protection 
Agency), workforce efforts, and the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission, because we are truly challenged on the regulatory 
side to permit these projects. So it is an area where I do 
believe we will see big benefits. We don't have enough data yet 
to answer your question what fraction of mini-grids are in 
these different communities, but it is a topic where we're very 
concerned about the lack of advancement of mini-grids overall, 
because they meet so many needs. So certainly a bipartisan 
effort, and one that links across agencies, would be a critical 
way to chart how many of these mini-grids are facing regulatory 
hurdles to get them into operation.
     Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Thanks for that answer.
     Dr. Kammen. Thank you.
     Mr. McNerney. Dr. Parthasarathy, I appreciate your 
observation that engaging impacted communities early will yield 
significant benefits later. Very important, especially in areas 
like nuclear waste, and other areas where energy policy can 
have a large impact. You also discussed how traditional RD&D 
programs have failed to address inequities. What changes in 
protocols and staffing would you suggest that the National Labs 
make to incorporate equity earlier into the R&D process?
     Dr. Parthasarathy. Thank you so much for that question. So 
I think that the first wonderful step that we have now is that 
we have people at the higher levels of DOE who are thinking 
about these issues, so obviously we--you know, hopefully we 
have Shalanda Baker who is spearheading some of this at the top 
level, Wahleah Johns, who is at the Office of Indian Energy 
now, who was sort of--spearheaded the Native Renewables 
Project. So we have this kind of leadership, so I think that's 
the first important thing.
     But I think the next step, then, is to integrate this kind 
of expertise and equity at the level of the National Labs, and 
at the level of science program offices, and I'll say a couple 
of things about that. The first is that, in fact, DOE has this 
legacy. My late colleague, Steve Rayner, was at Oak Ridge for 
many years, and then at the Pacific Northwest National 
Laboratory for many years, and he was a major figure in 
thinking about--as a social scientist, and thinking about 
energy systems as sociotechnical systems. And so I think that 
there is an opportunity and a legacy to expand that kind of 
work, but I think it's key to bring that expertise into the 
bureaucracy, into the program offices.
     And then, as I said before, to have those kinds of experts 
both spearhead community partnerships, and really engage 
communities, because they have that kind of expertise of sort 
of how to do that kind of work often, but also to think about 
what metrics might look like. And I've talked a little bit 
about equity impact assessments, but I think often in these 
contexts we sort of know, or we think we know, what the metrics 
of a good project look like, right? We think about advancing 
scientific knowledge, publications, patents, entrepreneurial 
potential, but we haven't had much of a legacy of thinking 
about how do we measure equity? How do we know if something is 
equitable? And that's the kind of thing----
     Mr. McNerney. I hate to cut you off, but I've run out of 
time. And I didn't----
     Dr. Parthasarathy. Yes.
     Mr. McNerney [continuing]. Get to--I didn't even get to 
ask the other two witnesses questions. I hope you aren't 
offended. And, with that, I'll yield back.
     Staff. Ms. Ross is recognized.
     Ms. Ross. Thank you very much, and thank you, Mr. 
Chairman, for having this very important and timely discussion. 
Last week--I'm from North Carolina, from the Research Triangle 
area. Last week I had a roundtable discussion about energy 
issues with our community college, our land grant, our 
utilities, and several of our non-profits, including the 
Research Triangle Institute (RTI), which is doing work on this 
equity issue. So I got some great questions from one of my RTI 
people, and I'm going to start with Dr. Lennon, because it 
relates to what he has to do, but also because I love that he's 
at Brown, and I'm a Brown grad, so you get this first question 
for both of those reasons.
     As we know, home ownership is an important factor in 
improving energy efficiency and adopting distributed renewable 
energy. But people who don't own their own home cannot make 
major improvements to their energy infrastructure, and people 
of color are significantly less likely to own their own home. 
Incentives designed to spur residential energy efficiency 
improvements, and renewable energy adoption, are targeted at 
homeowners, which means that economic benefits of these 
programs are unlikely to be equitably distributed across 
minority and non-minority households. And property owners may 
be less likely to adopt energy efficiency if energy costs are 
borne by their tenants. So I'd like you to talk about how we 
can design residential energy efficiency and renewable energy 
policy to address this inequity, and what incentives we might 
provide to our utilities to play a role in bridging this 
divide.
     Dr. Lennon. That's a great question, Representative Ross, 
I really appreciate it. You know, on the solar side--just 
putting aside the question of energy efficiency, on the solar 
side, there is a very clear model that we have in place to 
ensure that communities where there's low home ownership rates, 
and where people don't have even the means to invest in solar 
can be a part of the transition to solar, and that is through 
community solar projects, and community solar programs, that 
allow tenants, or anyone who lives in a given community, to 
invest in a shared solar array in which they become a co-owner, 
or a leaser, of a few panels on that solar array, and then reap 
the economic benefits in the form of a tax--or, sorry, not a 
tax, in the form of a credit on their utility bill for the 
energy that is produced by those panels that they are the 
nominal owners of, or the leasers of.
     And community solar programs work. There are, though, 
still a number of barriers to ramping up community solar in 
marginalized community. So I'll just talk close to home, I'm 
from New York, we're researcher--do research in New York. In 
New York a real challenge that we've had with ramping up 
community solar in low-income communities has to do with the 
way that the State values solar electricity. They use a very--
they--New York State has pioneered a really innovative and 
interesting approach to valuing solar electricity that has 
got--they've gotten rid of traditional net metering, and 
instead they use an algorithmic approach called Value of 
Distributed Energy Resources, or VDER. And the beauty of VDER 
is it's supposed to maximize--it's supposed to really use the 
market to incentive prices where--basically solar that is 
giving greater value to the central grid----
     Ms. Ross. Um-hum.
     Dr. Lennon [continuing]. Is valued higher.
     Ms. Ross. Right.
     Dr. Lennon. And the idea is that they want to incentivize 
solar projects where there's the greatest need for the grid. 
The problem is that--is two-fold. First, that doesn't often 
align with where there's the greatest need for communities of 
color and low-income communities, and second of all, the 
volatility that comes with a pricing structure where there's 
not a----
     Ms. Ross. Right.
     Dr. Lennon [continuing]. Set price, but where price can--
prices will----
     Ms. Ross. I'm going to have to reclaim my time for just a 
second, because I only have 45 seconds.
     Dr. Lennon. No, I went over. OK.
     Ms. Ross. I'm Miss Energy Efficiency on this Committee, 
and energy efficiency saves consumers money, and it contributes 
to a better environment because we produce less energy, but 
poor people can't get weatherization, and things like that, and 
so I'm hoping that Chair Bowman will let somebody have a few 
extra seconds to share how we can promote energy efficiency in 
a way that saves the environment, and saves low-income people 
money.
     Dr. Lennon. Can I just take that for 1 second? This is a 
really basic idea. We just need to invest in weatherization, 
low-income energy efficiency programs, period. It pays--the 
investments pay for themselves. We know that there's--that 
benefits come when we invest in energy efficiency. We need to 
just write a check and enable low-income communities to 
weatherize their homes, period.
     Ms. Ross. OK. Thank you, Chair Bowman. I don't know if 
you'll let anybody else answer, but thank you very much.
     Chairman Bowman. Sure. If someone else wants to jump in 
and give a quick response, that's totally fine, yes.
     Dr. Kammen. I have just a 2 second addition to that. I 
agree exactly with what Professor Lennon said. We have other 
programs such as PACE, Property Assessed Clean Energy, that can 
be applied even for renters by doing it collectively, where 
both the property owner and the renters share in the benefit. 
And one of the features of PACE which is so attractive is that 
it's implemented for energy efficiency first, and then solar 
second, and so you make the buildings better, everyone 
benefits, and then add solar.
     Staff. Mr. Tonko is recognized.
     Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Chairman Bowman, Dr. Bowman, for 
holding this important hearing, and allowing me to wave on. We 
know to achieve ambitious climate targets innovations are 
needed in technology, in policy, and finance to accelerate the 
transition from high emission energy systems to clean energy 
solutions. However, we must look seriously at the way in which 
innovation can reinforce structural inequalities that 
disproportionately burden some communities, while benefiting 
others.
     So, Mr. Grunau, your testimony mentioned an NREL case 
study involving Kingston, New York, ironically a community just 
a bit south of my district. Like many communities in my 
district, low-income households face a high--a very high energy 
burden, spending a significant percentage of their incomes on 
heating and electricity bills. So could you share with us what 
were some of the big takeaways from that Kingston study?
     Staff. Mr. Grunau is having some technical issues, Mr. 
Tonko.
     Mr. Tonko. OK. Well, let me go to Dr. Kammen. You said in 
your testimony that a critical element of a diverse green and 
vibrant energy economy is expanding STEM, and other energy, 
water, and resource-focused training programs to all Americans. 
What is the social and economic potential of making social 
justice a core component of these programs that, as you stated, 
have often been technology-based?
     Dr. Kammen. Representative Tonko, thanks for the question, 
and I appreciate it from a fellow New Yorker. I think that 
we've actually seen some really important advances here. One is 
that in these new energy engineering programs around the 
country, such as those here at UC Berkeley, we require a 
significant amount of training in the social sciences. It is 
not a traditional energy-only approach. We have history of 
science components, we have sociology, we have economics, and 
in particular one mechanism that I would just champion here, 
which has been--President Biden has announced in January an 
Executive order that calls for the use of a social cost of 
carbon in Federal analyses.
     This, in my opinion, is a major advance because a social 
cost of carbon allows us to look at not only the impact on 
ecology, but also the impact on human communities. And while I 
do want to second what Professor Parthasarathy said, that this 
is not only about quantitative metrics, but building as much as 
we can that recognizes the impacts on diverse communities. So, 
for example, minority communities in the United States have far 
higher rates of shutoff of their electricity and other utility 
services in other communities. That's something we can 
quantify, and the more we look at not only the energy, but also 
the health and the educational cost to communities, we can 
begin to build out the kind of metrics that you're describing. 
Those are all components of this broader, more inclusive STEM 
approach, which I actually think will bring the benefits to all 
communities.
     So one last tiny example is that we now have excellent 
data that for rural communities across the country, integrating 
wind programs, integrating transparent or semi-transparent 
solar that provides shading, are benefits to rural workers. We 
see the wind revenues for rural communities being on top of 
their existing agricultural or livestock revenues, and so this 
is an area where we're able to quantify the co-benefits of the 
green transition. So thank you for the question.
     Mr. Tonko. Thank you. You're most welcome. Chairman 
Bowman, are--do we have Mr. Grunau back? Is the tech now--it's 
working?
     Chairman Bowman. Yes. He's back, yes.
     Mr. Tonko. OK, great. Welcome, Mr. Grunau, and good to see 
you again. What were some of the big takeaways from your 
Kingston, New York study?
     Mr. Grunau. Well, thank you for the question, Congressman. 
So, remember, the baseline of this is that there is a higher 
energy burden among the low-income, owner-occupied households, 
and that that number meant that 43 percent of the households 
pay more than 9 percent of their annual income on utility 
bills. So what we were able to do were identify the highest 
savings potential in the--in residential, commercial, and city 
buildings, and part of that meant replacing boilers, and 
furnaces, and AC with heat pumps, energy efficient heat pumps, 
that were able to reduce energy consumption by about 50 percent 
on average. That was a big one. And then there was a community 
center that acted as an emergency shelter, where we were able 
to optimize the--optimize photovoltaic and storage. We found 
that that was cost-effective. So these were some of the 
outcomes and the results of that work. Does that answer your 
question, sir?
     Mr. Tonko. It does, sir. And, Chairman Bowman, I'm out of 
time, but I again want to thank you for allowing me to wave on. 
And--very interesting hearing, and we need to get things done, 
and great to hear the impact that we need to place on social 
sciences too. With that I yield back, sir.
     Chairman Bowman. Thank you. Thank you very much. So we 
have finished our first round of questions. If there are 
Members who want to ask additional questions, we do have some 
time to do so. I am going to begin by asking an additional 
question, and if other Members have follow-up questions, we can 
do that. Is that OK? OK, sounds good. Just give me 1 second 
here.
     So this is an open question to the panel. I have question 
about supporting more energy entrepreneurs of color across the 
country. Where is this happening, where is it very robust, what 
more can we do in Congress to support energy entrepreneurs of 
color? I'll start with Dr. Lennon, and, you know, if we can 
give, like, maybe a 1 minute each I think we can get to all the 
panelists. So how do we do more to support energy entrepreneurs 
of color?
     Dr. Lennon. Right. I think in the solar industry an 
opportunity to support entrepreneurs of color is to invest in 
the workers, the workforce of the solar industry, which is 
predominantly, or disproportionately, people of color on the 
residential side. And these installers, if you talk to them, 
they have aspirations of starting their own businesses. They 
are very business savvy, but they don't have the formal 
education, they don't have the assets, they don't have the 
experience dealing with business. And I think that if there 
were training resources given to existing solar installers, and 
specifically people of color working on solar projects, to 
teach them how to start their own business, and to teach them 
the ins and outs of running a company, that that would spur a 
lot of new minority-owned solar businesses.
     Chairman Bowman. Thank you. Dr. Parthasarathy?
     Dr. Parthasarathy. Sure, thanks. Just to follow up on what 
Professor Lennon said, I think that part of the challenge here 
is that often entrepreneurs don't necessarily know about the 
resources that are--that might be available, or they find that 
they are a really steep--it's a really steep learning curve to, 
for example, know about the DOE resources, to get over the 
valley of death, for example, right, to actually get to 
development.
     And so there are two potential ways to address that. One 
is to actually create, as I've been--as I've mentioned before, 
right, you know, staffing within DOE to actually create those 
partnerships, but I think the second thing is to rethink what 
are the requirements? Are there particular ways in which we can 
actually support innovation where it--where it's actually 
taking place? Things like, you know, in the innovation space in 
particular, there are really interesting things happening at 
the grassroots, like maker spaces, hacker spaces, things like 
that, and sometimes those aren't necessarily always as clearly 
available to entrepreneurs of color, but I think those 
opportunities could be opened up, and then those could become 
sort of spaces that DOE staff might connect with to help 
develop that kind of innovation further.
     Chairman Bowman. Thank you. Mr. Grunau?
     Mr. Grunau. Well, thank you for the question. You know, we 
actually do a lot of strategic energy planning, and really many 
of the communities they include, you know, workforce is really 
a part of that. I really think that, you know, Dr. Lennon and 
Dr.--sorry, Parthasarathy really hit it on the head with, you 
know, just the workforce development, that people are inspired, 
they are capable. The technologists--the technology's advancing 
very quickly, so it's just a matter of trying to keep up with 
that. I really like the maker spaces. That really cultivates 
innovation.
     We--you know, one of the things we have up here in Alaska, 
there's a gentleman up here in interior Alaska that, you know, 
they've done a lot of, you know, energy efficiency surveys, 
they were involved in that, and because of it, the--in light 
bulb replacements for DOE, Indian Energy's START (Strategic 
Technical Assistance Response Team) Program, you know, and as a 
result--being involved in these types of projects, some of them 
have taken this--taken it to the next level to learn on their 
own, to look at the resources, and part of that is figuring 
out--identifying those resources, making them available to 
people like this gentleman up in interior Alaska, who can--who 
did go ahead and start his own business, start his own solar 
company.
     Chairman Bowman. OK. Dr. Kammen?
     Dr. Kammen. Yeah, I think that there are some really 
important examples to look at, so I'll call out one in 
particular called Grid Alternatives. It's an Oakland, 
California-based group that works across much of the Western 
United States, as well as in Nicaragua, and Nepal, et cetera. 
And Grid Alternatives in the United States installs energy 
efficiency and solar in low-income communities. What they've 
done, though, is in particular to target high school dropouts 
and people leaving the penal system as early employees, and 
finding them training grants and the opportunity to become team 
leaders, and then ultimately spin off their own companies.
     At the university level, we've been very successful with 
these technology competitions, but one thing where we could 
partner with the Council of Economic Advisors, my friend and 
colleague Professor Cecilia Rouse is now the Chair, she's done 
extensive work on how do we push some of these innovative 
programs to community colleges? And so I would suggest that one 
key area is to push many of these efforts to the much more 
available and affordable college system, where we want to build 
those skills.
     Chairman Bowman. Thank you so much for those responses. 
Mr. Weber, do you have another round of questions?
     Mr. Weber. Not at this time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
     Chairman Bowman. Thank you. Ms. Ross, I believe you would 
be next up.
     Ms. Ross. Thank you. Well, I do have--I have a couple more 
questions from my friend at the Research Triangle Institute, 
and I'll put this one out to anybody who wants to answer it. 
And it's something, I think, that, Mr. Chairman, it relates to 
your district in particular, that minority populations in urban 
areas are more likely to be exposed to extreme heat and higher 
levels of air pollution. Heat and pollution exposure can lead 
to significant increases in health problems, such as heat 
stroke and respiratory diseases. The energy transition may 
reduce pollution levels through vehicle and building 
electrification, but those reductions are likely to be unevenly 
distributed across minority and non-minority communities. What 
improvements are most needed in our transportation and building 
infrastructure to reduce urban heat islands? And that's for any 
of the panelists. Any----
     Dr. Kammen. Well, I'll jump in--just a quick piece, and--
that I would--I think that what you said, Representative Ross, 
is really critical. Jigar Shah, who run--who now runs the DOE 
Loan Guarantee Program, has put together a major campaign 
around heat pumps, and making them available for low-income 
communities, for renters, by the sorts of programs that 
Professor Lennon highlighted.
     Community solar can also be thought of as community energy 
efficiency, so-called virtual power plants where you can invest 
for an area, and heat pumps are a hugely cost-effective--a much 
more efficient solution than air conditioners, but making them 
available to low-income communities of color is a critical area 
where the kind of social science engineering that we've talked 
about here really does need some specific tailored legislation. 
I'd be happy to follow up, but I do think this is an area where 
we have massive untapped potential, and it's an immediate, 
literally shovel-ready opportunity to install existing 
technology in communities that suffer the worst of those heat 
and cold episodes.
     Ms. Ross. Great.
     Mr. Grunau. Representative Ross, I'd like to that. And, 
first off, I'd like to say I grew up in Clayton, not too far 
away from you there, so----
     Ms. Ross. Great. Yeah. Just south.
     Mr. Grunau. Thank you. And I think what you just did was 
you really--you pretty much defined what environmental justice 
is about, right? So you really just defined--there. And I 
really--like what Dr. Kammen just said, one of the things that 
helps a lot with these heat islands is something very simple 
that we--are all around us, is trees. It's shading, right? And 
when we miss--when that's missing--like, not only is it about 
health, and clean air, and just mental well-being, you know, 
these--you--the lack of them in these heat islands, it--the 
disparities increase because, you know, if you're using, you 
know, heat pumps or air conditioning, it can be four degrees 
hotter in these heat centers, which means your air conditioning 
and your heat pumps are that much less efficient, you know, 
that much more it's got to cool, which means now you're 
compounding the disparities of, well, the costs, basically, to 
these very people who need it the most. So I'm just going to 
give a quick answer, we need to plant trees.
     Ms. Ross. Well, thank you very much, and hopefully, if 
there are some ways that Congress can be helpful, in a follow-
up you can share those with the Chairman and myself. I'm very 
interested in, you know, proposing real solutions that will 
help people. And, you know, sometimes it's just the simplest 
thing. We don't have to do something that's new and 
sophisticated. We can just deploy existing technologies in a 
fairer way. So thank you both, and thank you for holding this 
hearing, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
     Staff. Mr. McNerney is recognized.
     Mr. McNerney. I thank the Chairman for having a second 
round. You're holding me to my comments about the other 
witnesses, so I'm going to proceed. Mr. Grunau, in your 
testimony you discussed market tendency to favor early adopters 
of technologies, instead of ensuring that those with the 
highest needs are the first to benefit. What changes at the 
National Labs could make a difference in ensuring that the 
benefits from federally funded R&D will be felt more equitably?
     Mr. Grunau. Well, the--part of the role of the National 
Labs is to develop technology, do the research, deployment, and 
demonstration in the public sphere, right, rather than doing 
the early stage R&D, and then having private businesses do 
that. So when we're doing it in the public sphere, it's for the 
public good. It's--and so I think that that's really the way 
we--you know, by centering our efforts along the lines of the 
conversation we're talking about today, with the iceberg, and 
bringing the right people to the table, I think that that's the 
solution.
     Mr. McNerney. Thank----
     Mr. Grunau. Did I get at the heart of your question?
     Mr. McNerney. Yes, yes, definitely. And in your testimony 
you mentioned that--or you discussed the DOE's Energy 
Transition Initiative Partnership Project, which is helping 11 
communities co-develop resilient solutions alongside with the 
National Labs. How will the lessons learned from these case 
studies be shared with communities across the country facing 
these similar problems?
     Mr. Grunau. Thank you so much for the question. So this--
that Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Program, we call 
it ETIPP, is for remote island and island communities. So, you 
know, take these front-line communities that are up against, 
you know, permafrost degradation, severe erosions, flooding--so 
it's about--a lot of these communities are sort of 
geographically isolated, they're the most vulnerable, so this 
is focusing on resilience.
     And so what we're doing--what that program does is it's a 
multi--it's funded by multiple--spans multiple program areas 
across EERE (Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy), 
and it allows any lab to participate to support these areas, 
and what we could do is the communities can apply, and we can 
focus on transforming their energy systems, both supply and 
demand, and, by working with them we reduce their economic risk 
to these new technologies, we ramp up their resilience. But the 
thing is, like, they have agency in the process. We're just 
providing the tools, and the community leads the decisions. And 
I really, really think that, yeah, programs like ETIPP, they 
get at community engagement. It's something that I would 
encourage that we replicate. It's a very powerful tool. And 
lessons learned in this place gets transferred to other 
communities. Thank you for the question.
     Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Dr. Lennon, you identified 
vanadium as an alternative to cobalt and lithium, and that 
vanadium is plentiful in the United States, but mining is often 
associated with environmental damage.
     Dr. Lennon. Um-hum.
     Mr. McNerney. Would you be able to address that issue?
     Dr. Lennon. Sure, yeah, of course. Vanadium is by no means 
a panacea. There is no perfect technology. We know that any--
evaluating any technology involves--or entails measuring the 
cost of benefits and hoping for a net gain. And my point, more 
than anything, was that--first of all, any renewable energy 
technology relies on some level of mining minerals, elements, 
and there's always some level of toxicity and degradation 
involved with any kind of extractive work. Not all extraction 
is the same. There is a difference between mining for cobalt 
and mining for silicon. They both have negative impacts, but 
some areas are more dangerous to workers, and the environment, 
and communities than others. Some industries are more regulated 
than others.
     And so the idea is that we need to be diversifying our 
technologies, and developing and innovating cleaner sources of 
battery energy storage systems, and cleaner resources that go 
into those battery energy storage systems. And we know that 
there are regulations, there are industries, there are places 
where the materials extracted lead to a net gain, and so my 
hope is that we are prioritizing research, and that allows us 
to put forward new technologies that use less dirty, less 
hazardous materials, where there are worker and safety 
provisions, and environmental protections in place.
     Mr. McNerney. And I'd like to follow up by saying that, 
you know, good regulations are going to make--are going to spur 
innovation in developing this technology, and in developing 
these materials. So there's a real--a place for a good 
regulation, isn't that right, Mr. Weber? Well, I'm going to 
yield back.
     Staff. Mr. Lamb is recognized.
     Mr. Lamb. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to 
all our panelists for being here today. I wanted to ask very 
specifically about jobs. I think that what happens sometimes 
when we do new energy projects, or new construction projects of 
any kind, there are--sometimes, depending on where it's 
happening, there are efforts to achieve greater equity in the 
workforce of who is building that project, but a lot of times 
it's a little harder on the ground to recruit, and train, and 
find the workers who allow you to achieve that greater equity 
stake that you're looking for.
     I often hear from people in construction that we--really 
the problem starts upstream, and we need to be doing a better 
job, particularly at the high school level, in motivating kids 
to want to work in construction, want to work in these advanced 
trades in the energy sector. And so I'd be curious from any of 
the panelists at all if you had feedback on what more we could 
be doing specifically with respect to energy jobs, you know, 
building the next generation of power plants, and that kind of 
thing, what we could do with kids now to try to make them want 
to take those jobs. And then, secondly, we do have a problem in 
government contracting where very often we have percentage set-
asides for minority, disadvantaged businesses, but we don't 
necessarily make sure that those go to prime contractors, the 
people that are running entire projects, which would then allow 
them to accumulate the capital over the years to really be big 
and important players.
     And so I don't know, for our panelists, what expertise you 
have in those two sides of the jobs issue, but that's really 
where my concern is, and if you have any feedback or 
suggestions of things that we could strengthen, or new programs 
we could create to try to make an impact here, I really 
appreciate it. Thank you.
     Mr. Grunau. Congressman, I would like to speak to that a 
little bit. You know, I'm always going to encourage, you know, 
diversity in STEM and the education piece because I think 
that's key, especially the RD&D side. Sounds to me like you're 
asking more about, you know, where it comes out on the jobs, 
and in the trades. One experience that we have had is that when 
we do these demonstration projects in these areas, what we do 
is we partner with trade schools, we partner with universities, 
we partner with the community. And I can tell you firsthand 
that we have people here who are on these teams who said, my 
gosh, I saw the impact of this, just through spread of--through 
word of mouth, right? They tell others, who come--become a part 
of this, right? And some of them are on our team today.
     Anyway--so I would just say that, you know, being a part 
and having people in the trades industry who are part of these 
really advanced energy efficient and renewable energy type 
systems, it's exciting. You want people to be there, want to 
encourage that, and figuring out a way to get them to be part 
of these demonstration--and that's where the onus is on us as 
researchers, to make sure that we pull these people into the 
equation, because that feedback--the feedback isn't just about 
the community, it's about who's working on these projects, and 
then we could take these lessons learned too to figure out, you 
know, who in the workforce does this technology--is it most--
who is it tailored to the most?
     Dr. Parthasarathy. I would just add to that, I think that 
the workforce issue is also really tied to diversifying STEM 
education, and in particular diversifying STEM education at the 
earliest stages, and in particular who is understood as an 
innovator. So, you know, we have these old stories about 
Benjamin Franklin and George Washington Carver. Today we're 
talking about Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, but I don't know 
if you all remember a few years ago, there was a young woman by 
the name of Gitanjali Rao, who was Time's Kid of the Year, I 
think, last year, and she came up with a way to measure lead in 
water.
     And I think we don't--we're not doing enough of sort of 
spotlighting the contributions today, people of color, rural 
innovators, people who are coming from these communities 
themselves, because they're in the best position to inspire 
others who are coming from those communities. And I think 
integrating that both into our STEM education, but also into 
our particular sort of trade schools and training will get us 
to, I think, where, Congressman, you were talking about, which 
is these contractors becoming prime contractors, right, 
becoming the ones who are driving this train, is to kind of 
feel like they're already part of this, they're already 
engaging in this kind of innovative work. And I think we--we're 
not quite there yet, but I think that there's a real role for 
DOE in that.
     Mr. Lamb. Thank you. I think I may be out of time, so I 
just want to thank the panelists for those ideas and 
suggestions. They're very, very helpful, and, Mr. Chair, I 
yield back.
     Staff. Mr. Tonko is recognized.
     Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Go back to Mr. Grunau. 
So, as we place equity front and center, has NREL found it 
possible to support a clean energy transition and local energy 
efficiency jobs while reducing low-income households' energy 
burden?
     Mr. Grunau. Absolutely. You know, part of--it's exciting, 
you know, when we're talking about--hey, this plan to--this 
road map to clean energy transition, like, it's exciting to 
talk about the renewables, but the energy efficiency piece is 
huge. Energy----
     Mr. Tonko. Um-hum.
     Mr. Grunau. We don't want to lower the amount of energy 
we're using. We don't want to just create more, you know, more 
and more wind turbines and solar, we want to reduce the amount 
that we need. So it starts, in my mind--the low hanging fruit 
is energy efficiency, and so those energy efficiency jobs, 
they're inherently local. They're inherently--you know, this is 
the part that's the weatherization, this is the retrofits, and 
so the--absolutely I think that that's the key, starting there, 
and that's--again, that's something you can train people to do. 
It's not necessarily highly--you know, you don't have to have 
an advanced degree in education to do this. This is something 
that we're able to do, and so--does that answer your question, 
sir?
     Mr. Tonko. Yeah. Yeah, it does, definitely, and I like the 
emphasis on energy efficiency. In your testimony you also 
talked about NREL's first of their kind tools that give local 
stakeholders access to detailed, jurisdictionally resolved data 
to support and inform their decisionmaking. How can we 
encourage State and local governments to utilize these tools 
for clean energy education and planning?
     Mr. Grunau. Well, this is a great start, and sharing it 
with others, you know, just setting up what works, and sharing 
it with others, I think that those things speak for themselves. 
So when we talk about, you know, the L.A. 100 study, for 
instance, or the example of Kingston, New York, right, where 
we--we're able to use these tools, like the State and Local 
Energy--Planning for Energy, or the low-income energy 
affordability data, these are examples of the kinds of tools we 
brought to the table to address these solutions. So I think 
just telling a story. Stories are powerful.
     Mr. Tonko. Yeah. The anecdotal evidence is a good 
exchange. Dr. Kammen, back to you. As you consider 
opportunities for clean energy jobs, such as home retrofits and 
solar installations, how can workforce development and training 
programs ensure that these employment benefits and 
opportunities are reaching people in front-line and underserved 
communities?
     Dr. Kammen. That's a great question. I think we've heard, 
actually, bits of what I would recommend as the answer. We've 
already heard groups like Native Renewables, the group that, 
since you launched now--DOE Native Energy leader Wahleah Johns 
to her DOE role, and groups like Native Renewables, we have 
other Native American associations that have been clamoring in 
the past for the kind of training programs for their inclusion, 
whether it's through BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs), or through 
EPA, or DOE programs.
     But we also have something that actually relates back also 
to the question that we just received from Representative Conor 
Lamb, and that is there are efforts to assist the high school 
to college or high school to community college efforts. Here at 
Berkeley we have an effort called Berkeley NERDS. It is New 
Experiences for Diverse Research Students, and it's a program 
that is very much focused on the communities from which these 
students came. And so in California we have a significant 
Native American, but also a first generation Latinx component 
of that training, looking at questions that affect those 
communities, often water quality, and that relates back to the 
Student of the Year--the Youth of the Year that we just heard 
about from Time magazine.
     So working with these existing groups that have built up 
extensive networks is one of the ways to do so, and I would add 
something which is not as frequently talked about here, and 
that is the international opportunity is very extreme. So, for 
example, Carnegie Mellon University has an extensive campus in 
Kigali, Rwanda, and they have partnered with local schools, and 
one of the opportunities where the clean energy transition 
builds these professional trade and other opportunities is to 
work with our international partners, so working with U.S. 
embassies, working with USAID, as opportunities to make this a 
global transition. It's also one that, of course, favors those 
countries that are ramping up the kind of workforce you're 
describing. And so, the more the U.S. pushes toward clean 
energy goals, the more it can be an effective partner, but also 
a good job producer for the U.S. companies that are 
transitioning, and all of these are areas that can feed into 
what you're asking about.
     Mr. Tonko. Thank you so much. Well, my time has run down, 
and again, thank you, Chairman Bowman, for the opportunity to 
wave on a great hearing, and I think we're learning--learned 
good approaches here for the--equity's sake, and let's go 
forward and get it done. I yield back.
     Chairman Bowman. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Mr. Tonko, 
and thank you so much to our witnesses. Before we bring this 
hearing to a close, I want to thank our witnesses for 
testifying before the Committee today. The record will remain 
open for 2 weeks for additional statements from the Members, 
and for any additional questions the Committee may ask of the 
witnesses. The witnesses are excused, and the hearing is now 
adjourned. Enjoy your weekend, everyone. Thank you so much.
     [Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the Subcommittee was 
adjourned.]

                                Appendix

                              ----------                              


                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions



                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. Myles Lennon

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