[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
GENERATING EQUITY: DEPLOYING A JUST AND CLEAN ENERGY FUTURE
=======================================================================
VIRTUAL HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 20, 2021
__________
Serial No. 117-22
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Published for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
govinfo.gov/committee/house-energy
energycommerce.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-112 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Chairman
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
ANNA G. ESHOO, California Ranking Member
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado FRED UPTON, Michigan
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
DORIS O. MATSUI, California BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
KATHY CASTOR, Florida DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
JERRY McNERNEY, California H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
PAUL TONKO, New York BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York BILLY LONG, Missouri
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
TONY CARDENAS, California MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
RAUL RUIZ, California RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
SCOTT H. PETERS, California TIM WALBERG, Michigan
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois, Vice NEAL P. DUNN, Florida
Chair JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California DEBBBIE LESKO, Arizona
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia GREG PENCE, Indiana
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware DAN CRENSHAW, Texas
DARREN SOTO, Florida JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota
KATHLEEN M. RICE, New York
ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
KIM SCHRIER, Washington
LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
------
Professional Staff
JEFFREY C. CARROLL, Staff Director
TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Deputy Staff Director
NATE HODSON, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Energy
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
Chairman
SCOTT H. PETERS, California FRED UPTON, Michigan
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania Ranking Member
JERRY McNERNEY, California, Vice MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
Chair ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
PAUL TONKO, New York DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
KIM SCHRIER, Washington H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
DORIS O. MATSUI, California TIM WALBERG, Michigan
KATHY CASTOR, Florida JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
PETER WELCH, Vermont GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire GREG PENCE, Indiana
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware (ex officio)
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hon. Bobby L. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, opening statement................................. 2
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Michigan, opening statement.................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 4
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Washington, opening statement..................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Witnesses
Subin DeVar, Director, Initiative for Energy Justice............. 11
Prepared statement........................................... 13
Answers to submitted questions............................... 132
Kiran Bhatraju, Chief Executive Officer, Arcadia................. 18
Prepared statement........................................... 20
Answers to submitted questions............................... 134
Chandra Farley, Just Energy Director, Partnership for Southern
Equity......................................................... 30
Prepared statement........................................... 32
Answers to submitted questions............................... 136
Donnel Baird, Chief Executive Officer, BlocPower................. 42
Prepared statement........................................... 44
Answers to submitted questions............................... 137
Jose L. Perez, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hispanics
In Energy...................................................... 48
Prepared statement........................................... 50
Louise Carter-King, Mayor, City of Gillette, Wyoming............. 55
Prepared statement........................................... 56
Submitted Material
Report, ``The Fiscal and Economic Impacts of Federal Onshore Oil
and Gas Lease Moratorium and Drilling Ban Policies'','' by Dr.
Timothy J. Considine, University of Wyoming, December 14, 2020,
submitted by Mr. Rush \1\
Article of March 2021, ``The Intersection of Decarbonization
Policy Goals and Resource Adequacy Needs: A California Case
Study,'' by Elliott J. Nethercutt and Chris Devon, NRRI
Insights, submitted by Mr. Rush................................ 97
Letter of April 13, 2021, from Mike Flores, Policy Advisor,
Hispanics In Energy, to Natural Resources Committee members,
submitted by Mr. Rush.......................................... 115
Report of the Council of Economic Advisers, ``The Value of U.S.
Energy Innovation and Policies Supporting the Shale
Revolution,'' October 2019, submitted by Mr. Rush \2\
Declaration of April 19, 2021, by Mark N. Fox, Chairman of the
Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, submitted by Mr. Armstrong. 117
----------
\1\ The report has been retained in committee files and is available at
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF03/20210420/112462/HHRG-117-IF03-
20210420-SD003.pdf.
\2\ The report has been retained in committee files and is available at
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF03/20210420/112462/HHRG-117-IF03-
20210420-SD007.pdf.
Article of April 20, 2021, ``A coal miners union indicates it
will accept a switch to renewable energy in exchange for
jobs,'' by Norm Schneiber, New York Times, submitted by Mr.
Peters......................................................... 123
Letter of February 22, 2021, from Mr. Kinzinger, et al., to
President Biden, submitted by Mr. Kinzinger.................... 125
Editorial of April 19, 2021, ``John Kerry's Climate Kowtow,''
Wall Street Journal, submitted by Mr. Rush..................... 129
GENERATING EQUITY: DEPLOYING A JUST AND CLEAN ENERGY FUTURE
----------
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2021
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Energy,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:34 a.m. via
Cisco Webex online video conferencing, Hon. Bobby L. Rush
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Rush, Peters, Doyle,
McNerney, Tonko, Veasey, Schrier, Butterfield, Matsui, Castor,
Welch, Schrader, Kuster, Blunt Rochester, O'Halleran, Pallone
(ex officio), Upton (subcommittee ranking member), Burgess,
Latta, McKinley, Kinzinger, Griffith, Johnson, Bucshon,
Walberg, Duncan, Palmer, Lesko, Pence, Armstrong, Rodgers (ex
officio).
Also present: Representative Fletcher.
Staff present: Jeffrey C. Carroll, Staff Director; Waverly
Gordon, General Counsel; Tiffany Guarascio, Deputy Staff
Director; Perry Hamilton, Clerk; Fabrizio Herrera, Staff
Assistant; Mackenzie Kuhl, Digital Assistant; Kaitlyn Peel,
Digital Director; Lino Pena-Martinez, Policy Analyst; Tim
Robinson, Chief Counsel; Chloe Rodriguez, Clerk; Sarah Burke,
Minority Deputy Staff Director; Michael Cameron, Minority
Policy Analyst, Consumer Protection and Commerce, Energy,
Environment; Nate Hodson, Minority Staff Director; Emily King,
Minority Member Services Director; Mary Martin, Minority Chief
Counsel, Energy and Environment; and Michael Taggart, Minority
Policy Director.
Mr. Rush. The Subcommittee on Energy will now come to
order. Today the subcommittee is holding a hearing that is
entitled ``Generating Equity: Deploying a Just and Clean Energy
Future.'' Due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, today's
hearing is being held remotely. All Members and witnesses will
be participating via video conferencing.
As part of our hearing, microphones will be set on mute for
purposes of eliminating any background noise. Members and
witnesses, you will need to unmute your microphone each time
you wish to speak. Documents for the record can be sent to Lino
Pena-Martinez at the email address we've provided to the staff.
All documents will be entered into the record at the conclusion
of the hearing.
The Chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes for the
purposes of an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOBBY L. RUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
The Subcommittee on Energy convenes today in continuation
of its work to advance a 21st century clean energy system with
the guiding principles of equity and justice mainly in mind.
Historically, the impacts of climate change and the consumption
and production of energy have disproportionately burdened the
health and environment of our Nation's most vulnerable
communities.
A University of Washington and Stanford University study
lays these alarming facts bare for all to see: Black and low-
income people have the highest risk of death from pollution
linked to energy production. This awful truth is compounded by
the fact that these same communities lack adequate access to
clean energy solutions.
As an illustration, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
report shows that low-income households represent only 15
percent of the U.S. solar energy adaptations. The vast majority
of these low-income households instead rely on environmentally
polluting alternatives. In addition to this, DoE's Low-Income
Affordability Data (LEAD) Tool shows that the national average
energy burden for the percentage of gross income spent on
energy costs is three times higher for low-income households
than for non-low-income households.
Frankly, the poor pays more for its energy needs even
though these very same needs are met with disastrous outcomes.
These inequities also affect rural communities, and they face
some of the highest energy burdens of any U.S. household group.
With these factors in mind and given that the clean energy
transition is already underway, it is incumbent upon this body
to advance policies that ensure resilient, reliable, and
equitable clean energy systems for all. The CLEAN Future Act
includes a series of policy proposals that seem to balance the
scales by delivering clean energy solutions to our Nation's
underserved and disadvantaged communities.
The CLEAN Energy Future Act also includes my bill, the
Energy Equity Act of 2021, which would provide everyone more
access to clean energy technologies through the creation of an
Energy Equity Office within the Department of Energy.
I applaud the Biden-Harris administration for their work to
ensure that underserved and disadvantaged communities receive
their fair share of benefits through their Justice40
initiative. I also applaud Secretary Granholm for recruiting
Ms. Shalanda H. Baker, a clean energy justice leader, who is
working to integrate the Department of Energy's mission around
this very work. Therefore, I look forward to working with my
colleagues across the aisle toward those ends.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rush follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Bobby L. Rush
Good morning. The Subcommittee on Energy convenes today as
a continuation of its work to advance a 21st century clean
energy system with the principles of equity and justice chief
in mind. Historically, the impacts of climate change and the
consumption and production of energy have disproportionately
burdened the health and environments of our Nation's most
vulnerable communities. A University of Washington and Stanford
University study lays this alarming fact bare: Black and low-
income people face the highest risk for death from pollution
linked to energy production.
This truth is compounded by the fact that these same
communities lack adequate access to clean energy solutions. As
an illustration, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report
shows that low-income households represent only 15 percent of
U.S. solar adoptions. The vast majority of these low-income
households, instead, rely on polluting alternatives. In
addition to this, the Department of Energy's Low-Income Energy
Affordability Data (LEAD) Tool shows that the national average
energy burden, or the percentage of gross household income
spent on energy costs, is three times higher for low-income
households than for non-low-income household. Frankly speaking,
it really is costly to be poor. These inequities also affect
rural families, as they face some of the highest energy burdens
of any U.S. household group. With these factors in mind--and
given that the clean energy transition is already underway--it
is incumbent upon this body to advance policies that ensure a
resilient, reliable, and equitable clean energy system for all.
The CLEAN Future Act includes a series of policy proposals
that seek to balance the scales by delivering clean energy
solutions to our Nation's underserved and disadvantaged
communities. These policies--many of which were created with
input from my esteemed colleagues from this subcommittee--
include efforts to deploy a clean energy standard, distributed
energy systems, and community and low-income solar. The CLEAN
Future Act also includes my bill, the Energy Equity Act of
2021, which would drive equitable access to clean energy
technologies through the creation of an energy equity office
within the Department of Energy.
The threat that climate change poses to our communities--
especially the most vulnerable among us--requires a whole of
government approach. With this in mind, I applaud the Biden-
Harris administration for their work to ensure that underserved
and disadvantaged communities receive their fair share of
benefits through their Justice40 Initiative. I also applaud
Secretary Granholm for recruiting Ms. Shalanda H. Baker, a key
energy justice thought leader, who is working to further
integrate the Department of Energy's mission around this work.
Bipartisanship is equally important to the creation of just
and equitable policies. Therefore, I look forward to working
with my colleagues across the aisle toward those ends.
And with that, I yield to my friend and colleague, the
gentleman from Michigan, Ranking Member Upton.
Mr. Rush. With that I want to yield to my dear friend, the
great gentleman from Michigan, the ranking member, the one and
only Mr. Frederick Upton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Upton. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good to be
with you. It is nice to see you down the hallway, I think,
right? I want to thank our witnesses as well, and certainly I
look forward to today's hearing that is going to explore the
opportunities to take full advantage of America's energy
abundance, our economic strength, our spirit for innovation.
We're also going to examine what is at stake with the Biden
administration's Executive orders attacking American energy
production and manufacturing and also the majority's CLEAN
Future Act, which would enforce a de facto ban on hydraulic
fracturing, pipeline infrastructure, and even plastic
manufacturing.
Over the last decade the U.S. has become the world's
leading producer of oil and natural gas, and we are proud of
that. And as a result we import less from the Middle East, and
we're certainly more energy secure today than ever before. And
thanks to hydraulic fracturing and the shale revolution in a
good number of States, we are all reaping those benefits in the
form of good-paying jobs and, yes, affordable and reliable
energy at a much reduced cost than otherwise it would have
been.
So today we're going to hear from Gillette Mayor Louise
Carter-King and Mr. Perez. Jobs in fossil energy, mining, and
manufacturing certainly provide meaningful, family-sustaining
work for millions. States and local governments also rely on
those revenues to pay for hospitals, schools and roads.
We're not just talking about a few people's livelihoods.
We're talking about entire communities who could be harmed by a
transition to lower-paying jobs, poorer performing schools and,
yes, underfunded local government services under this CLEAN
Future Act.
So, as we discuss this so-called just transition that
certain friends across the aisle are advocating for, let's
review some of the recent history to remind ourselves how we
got to where we are today. From the days of the gas lines in
the 1970s--and yes, I remember those--to the mid-2000s, America
was trapped in an energy scarcity mindset. Energy prices always
seemed to be going up. Our domestic production was, in fact,
declining, and we faced ever-growing dependence on oil from the
Middle East.
In 2008, something remarkable began to happen within the
energy industry. In the face of global economic recession,
private companies started investing billions of dollars in new
technologies to unlock oil and gas from America's shale
resources that, in fact, had been overlooked, and thanks to the
free market and States with pro-growth regulatory policies,
domestic production flourished and we were able to cut our
imports from more than 2 million barrels a day to zero. Not
bad.
In fact, in 2020, for the first time in our history, we
became net energy exporters. Today, as a result of the shale
revolution and the rise of natural gas production, we are also
leading the world in carbon emission reductions--a good thing--
and we didn't need the top-down Federal mandate, a price on
carbon, or even the Paris Agreement to get there, either. We
owe that to the free market and competition that rewards
efficiency and innovation.
So let's recognize that the States and local governments
rather than maybe the Federal Government are the primary
drivers of the trends that we see today, which is why I believe
it is so important to hear from our mayors and the workers who
live and work in those communities.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the
testimony, engaging with the witnesses, and I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Fred Upton
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, to our witnesses,
for appearing before us today virtually to provide your
testimony.
I look forward to today's hearing to explore opportunities
to take full advantage of America's energy abundance, our
economic strength, and our spirit for innovation. We will also
examine what's at stake with the Biden administration's
Executive orders attacking American energy production and
manufacturing, and also the majority's CLEAN Future Act, which
would enforce de facto bans on hydraulic fracturing, pipeline
infrastructure, and plastics manufacturing.
Over the last decade, the United States has become the
world's leading producer of oil and natural gas. As a result,
we import less from the Middle East and we are more energy
secure today than ever before. Thanks to hydraulic fracturing
and the shale revolution, we are all reaping these benefits in
the form of good-paying jobs and affordable and reliable
energy.
As we will hear from Gillette Mayor Louise Carter-King and
Mr. Perez, jobs in fossil energy, mining, and manufacturing
provide meaningful, family sustaining work for millions of
Americans. States and local governments also rely upon the
revenues to pay for hospitals, schools, and roads. We are not
just talking about a few people's livelihoods. We are talking
about entire communities who could be harmed by a
``transition'' to lower paying jobs, poorer performing schools,
and underfunded local government services under the CLEAN
Future Act.
As we discuss the so-called ``just transition'' that my
friends across the aisle are advocating for, let us review some
recent history to remind ourselves how we got where we are
today.
From the days of gas lines in the 1970s until the mid-
2000's America was trapped in an energy scarcity mindset--
energy prices were going up, our domestic production was
declining, and we faced ever-growing dependence on oil from the
Middle East.
In 2008, something remarkable began to happen within the
energy industry. In the face of the global economic recession,
private companies started investing billions of dollars in new
technologies to unlock oil and gas from America's shale
resources that had been overlooked. Thanks to the free market
and States with pro-growth regulatory policies, domestic
production flourished, and we were able to cut our imports from
more than 2 million barrels a day to zero barrels per day. In
2020, for the first time in our history, we became net energy
exporters.
Today, as a result of the shale revolution and the rise of
natural gas, we are also leading the world in carbon emissions
reductions, and we didn't need a topdown Federal mandate, a
price on carbon, or the Paris Agreement to get there either. We
owe that to the free market and competition that rewards
efficiency and innovation.
Let us also recognize that the States and local
governments--rather than the Federal Government--are the
primary drivers of the trends we see today, which is why I
believe it so important to hear from our mayors and the workers
who live and work in the community.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the testimony
engaging with witnesses. Thank you, I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman
from the great State of New Jersey, Mr. Franklin ``Frank''
Pallone. Chairman Pallone, you are recognized for 5 minutes for
the purposes of an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Rush. This is an important
hearing. I know that you've been a champion for ensuring
inclusion of underserved communities and communities of color
in the clean energy transition, including the bill that you
recently introduced, the Energy Equity Act of 2021. So I know
how important this issue is for you.
And we're going to talk today about how we can improve
clean energy access inequity, which is a critical part of our
efforts to tackle the climate crisis. The equitable deployment
of clean energy technologies is crucial for our energy
transition. We have to ensure that all communities have access
to the environmental benefits and economic opportunities of
clean energy.
The committee has held several hearings on this critical
topic. Last Congress, this subcommittee held a hearing on
energy burdens faced by low-income communities and communities
of color and how the pandemic exacerbated those burdens, and
last week the Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee held
the hearing on important legislation to address the needs of
environmental justice communities, and through these hearings
we have heard about the urgent needs of these communities and
we have explored different strategies to address existing and
longstanding disparities.
The equitable deployment of clean energy will produce a lot
of positive results. It will improve local air quality, help us
to meet climate goals, stabilize and lower energy prices,
provide access to good jobs, and help stimulate local economies
in both urban or rural areas. And for too long underserved
communities and communities of color have disproportionately
faced the negative effects of fossil fuel generation and
climate change. These communities are often the most impacted
by the climate crisis and our country's history of reliance on
fossil fuels because they are oftentimes located in close
proximity to power plants or urban heat islands.
They also frequently endure housing conditions that lack
proper weatherization, and by gaining access to clean energy
technology such as through community solar subscriptions or
energy efficiency upgrades these households can see reduced
energy burdens and health risks as well as increased economic
opportunity.
So I think we all know that the energy industry is
changing, and this is good news for our efforts to tackle the
climate crisis and to create good-paying jobs for American
workers. According to the 2020 U.S. Energy and Employment
Report, solar and wind jobs paid higher wages than those in the
fossil fuel sector, and the clean energy sector employed
roughly three times more workers than the fossil fuel sector in
2019.
And despite these promising trends I believe the Federal
Government needs to do more to speed up and incentivize the
clean energy transition, and that is exactly what we accomplish
with the CLEAN Future Act, a plan to combat the climate crisis
and achieve net zero greenhouse gas pollution by no later than
2050. And our bill includes several provisions that support
clean energy development and deployment, including in
underserved areas. It also includes a robust set of provisions
on workforce development in transition.
This is the kind of comprehensive approach that we have to
take. I outright reject the notion that we must choose between
addressing climate change and the communities that currently
rely on fossil fuel jobs. That is a false choice, because that
transition is already happening. For example, market forces are
already driving down coal revenue. Coal generation fell 10
percent from 29 percent in 2017 to 19 percent in 2020.
And clean energy is the future, and it is time that we
worked together to ensure that these communities don't get left
behind. Yesterday the Nation's largest mining union put out a
document about this transition. And they said, and I quote,
``Change is coming whether we seek it or not.'' And the
president of the mining union said, and I quote, ``We're on the
side of job creation, of a future for our people.'' And I just
want to say emphatically, so are we.
Make no mistake. The rest of the word is already embarking
on a major transition to clean technology. We simply can't
stand idly by as the world moves on without us and American
workers and industries get left behind. I don't want that to
happen. So it is time we come together to ensure everyone
regardless of who they are or where they live has access to
cleaner, cheaper energy and the jobs that come with growth in
the clean energy sector. That is what this hearing is about.
And I want to thank you again, Chairman Rush, because this
has always been at the forefront of your concerns, and that is
why you're having this hearing today. Thanks again. I yield
back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.
Thank you, Chairman Rush, for holding this important
hearing on deploying a just and clean energy future. Chairman
Rush has been a champion for ensuring inclusion of underserved
communities and communities of color in the clean energy
transition, including through his recently introduced bill, the
Energy Equity Act of 2021.
Today we will discuss how we can improve clean energy
access and equity, which is a critical part of our efforts to
tackle the climate crisis. The equitable deployment of clean
energy technologies is crucial for our energy transition. We
must ensure that all communities have access to the
environmental benefits and economic opportunities of clean
energy.
The committee has held several hearings on this critical
topic. Last Congress, this subcommittee held a hearing on
energy burdens faced by low-income communities and communities
of color and how the pandemic exacerbated these burdens. And
last week the Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee held
a hearing on important legislation to address the needs of
environmental justice communities. Through these hearings, we
have heard about the urgent needs of these communities and we
have explored different strategies to address existing and
long-standing disparities.
The equitable deployment of clean energy will produce a lot
of positive results. It will improve local air quality, help us
meet climate goals, stabilize and lower energy prices, provide
access to good jobs, and help stimulate local economies in both
urban or rural areas.
For too long, underserved communities and communities of
color have disproportionately faced the negative effects of
fossil fuel generation and climate change. These communities
are often the most impacted by the climate crisis and our
country's history of reliance on fossil fuels because they are
oftentimes located in close proximity to power plants or urban
heat islands. They also frequently endure housing conditions
that lack proper weatherization. By gaining access to clean
energy technology, such as through community solar
subscriptions or energy efficiency upgrades, these households
can see reduced energy burdens and health risks, as well as
increased economic opportunity.
The energy industry is changing and this is good news for
our efforts to tackle the climate crisis and to create good-
paying jobs for American workers. According to the 2020 U.S.
Energy and Employment Report solar and wind jobs paid higher
wages than those in the fossil fuel sector. And, the clean
energy sector employed roughly three times more workers than
the fossil fuel sector in 2019.
Despite these promising trends, I believe the Federal
Government needs to do more to speed up and incentivize the
clean energy transition. And that is exactly what we accomplish
with the CLEAN Future Act, a plan to combat the climate crisis
and achieve net zero greenhouse gas pollution by no later than
2050. Our bill includes several provisions that support clean
energy development and deployment, including in underserved
areas. It also includes a robust set of provisions on workforce
development and transition.
This is the kind of comprehensive approach that we must
take. I outright reject claims that we must choose between
addressing climate change and the communities that currently
rely on fossil fuel jobs. That's a false choice because this
transition is already happening. Market forces are already
driving down coal revenue. Coal generation fell 10 percent from
29 percent in 2017 to 19 percent in 2020. Clean energy is the
future and it is time that we work together to ensure these
communities don't get left behind.
Yesterday, the Nation's largest mining union put out a
document about the transition, saying ``Change is coming,
whether we seek it or not.'' Its president said: ``We're on the
side of job creation, of a future for our people.'' So are we.
Make no mistake--the rest of the world is already embarking
on a major transition to clean technology. We simply cannot
stand idly by as the world moves on without us and American
workers and industries get left behind.
It is time we come together to ensure everyone--regardless
of who they are or where they live--has access to cleaner,
cheaper energy and the jobs that come with growth in the clean
energy sector.
Mr. Pallone. I think he is--do you hear him, guys? I don't.
Bobby, I think you're muted.
Mr. Rush. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was muted.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from the great
State of Washington, Ms. McMorris Rodgers, the ranking member
of the full committee, for 5 minutes for the purposes of an
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Mrs. Rodgers. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and everyone.
Mr. Rush. Good morning.
Mrs. Rodgers. Good morning. And to the chairman of the full
committee I just want to say on behalf of the Republicans that
we, too, support clean energy, but it doesn't just mean wind
and solar. It is hydro. It is nuclear. It is natural gas.
America is leading the way on all kinds of clean energy
sources.
It is great to be with all of you today. Making sure people
have access to affordable, reliable energy must remain a
priority of this committee's work on energy. Americans have led
the world in lifting people out of poverty, raising the
standard of living, and we must recognize the tremendous value
of our existing energy system. It is central for expanding
economic growth and spreading opportunity. The evidence is in
plain sight. The shale revolution has brought tremendous
opportunities, an American energy renaissance. It has
revitalized communities with hundreds of billions of dollars in
economic activity, thousands of new jobs. It has meant the
equivalent of about $2,500 extra in the average family's annual
budget, with low-income households benefiting the most from
reduced energy burdens.
It has raised the promise of a better quality of life for
families along the Ohio River Valley, in Pennsylvania, Ohio,
West Virginia. It has increased opportunity through Texas, New
Mexico and from Wyoming to California, helping people of all
incomes. To continue to address energy poverty and climate
risks Republicans. seek to build on these current achievements
in energy and economic opportunity.
We also want to keep electricity rates low. I have noted in
several recent hearings the Department of Energy data on energy
poverty and how new regulatory regimes will raise electricity
rates and stretch the family's budget's last dollar. Instead we
should focus on innovative energy technologies that will reduce
emissions while using all of our resources, including hydro,
natural gas, nuclear as outlined by the E&C Republicans'
Securing Cleaner American Energy agenda. Many of the Securing
Cleaner American Energy bills are included in the Energy
Innovation Agenda launched this week by House Republicans.
We are committed. The Energy Innovation Agenda focuses on
innovation, clean energy, conservation policies for tackling
climate change risk, building energy infrastructure and
developing new technologies, because to win the future we
should be about building not dismantling American opportunity.
Unfortunately, dismantling is a feature of the CLEAN Future
Act and the administration's job-crushing agenda. The rush to
green undermines many of the goals we all share to address
energy poverty. For example, the CLEAN Future Act will restrict
permitting of the kind of projects that provide good jobs and
raise community prosperity. They would restrict natural gas
development and supply for jobs, low energy rates, and even the
expansion of renewable energy.
Provisions in the CLEAN Future Act would force top-down
Federal requirements on State regulation of hydraulic
fracturing, dismantling the proven innovation and this approach
that has helped drive the shale revolution.
Two witnesses this morning, Jose Perez of Hispanics In
Energy, and Louise Carter-King, Mayor of Gillette, Wyoming,
will talk about the trillions of dollars of new economic
opportunity in the oil and gas development and how this
American resource fits into a cleaner energy future that
benefits everyone. The pace of transformation in the majority
bill makes no time for the practical reality of ensuring the
lights stay on when people need it most.
California is a case study for what can go wrong. Its
unrealistic policies have driven the growth of weather-
dependent, unreliable solar and wind and shuttered natural gas,
nuclear, and other traditional generators while all the time
driving up electricity rates. California's policies have
dismantled large amounts of base load and generation when the
wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. A review of the
National Regulatory Research Institute shows California's
dreams have created a huge gap in reliable, affordable energy.
When the sun goes down and the energy demand goes up, all
those homes that enjoyed inexpensive power during the day--now
the grid has a huge spike in demand. We see this happen every
summer. My friends in California are having to buy generators.
This is resulting in unreliable and expensive energy.
I'm proud of the work of this committee. America is energy
independent. It was a goal that we had for decades. We're
leading the way in bringing down carbon emission. Let us avoid
the California experiment and make sure that America continues
to lead with affordable and reliable energy.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Rodgers follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Making sure people have access to affordable, reliable
energy must remain a priority in this committee's work on
energy policy.
We must recognize the tremendous value of our existing
energy system, its central role for expanding economic growth
and spreading opportunity. The evidence is in plain sight.
The shale revolution has brought tremendous opportunities
and America's energy renaissance. This has revitalized
communities, with hundreds of billions in economic activity,
thousands of new jobs.
It's meant the equivalent of about $2,500 extra in the
average family's annual budget--with low-income households
benefiting the most from reduced energy burdens. It's raised
the promise of a better quality of life for families along the
Ohio River Valley--in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia.
It's increased opportunity through Texas, New Mexico and
from Wyoming to California--helping people of all incomes. To
continue to address energy poverty and climate risks,
Republicans seek to build on these current achievements in
energy and economic opportunity. We also want to keep
electricity rates low.
I've noted in several recent hearings the Department of
Energy data on energy poverty, and how new regulatory regimes
will raise electricity rates and stretch a family budget's last
dollar. Instead, we should foster the innovative energy
technologies that will reduce emissions while using all our
resources including hydro power, natural gas, nuclear--as
outlined in E&C Republicans' Securing Cleaner American Energy
agenda. Many of the Securing Cleaner American Energy bills are
included in the Energy Innovation Agenda launched just this
week by House Republicans.
The Energy Innovation Agenda focuses on innovation, clean
energy, and conservation policies for tackling climate change
risks, building energy infrastructure, and developing new
technologies. Because to win the future, we should be about
building, not dismantling American opportunity.
Unfortunately, dismantling is a feature of the Democrats'
CLEAN Future Act and the administration's job-crushing agenda.
The rush-to-green undermines many of the goals we all share to
address energy poverty.
For example, the CLEAN Future Act would restrict permitting
for the kind of projects that provide good jobs and raise
community prosperity. They would restrict natural gas
development and supply essential to jobs, low electricity
rates, and even the expansion of renewable energy.
Provisions in the CLEAN Future Act also would force top-
down Federal requirements on State regulation of hydraulic
fracturing--dismantling the pro-innovation regulatory approach
that helped drive the shale revolution. Two witnesses this
morning--Jose Perez of Hispanics In Energy and Louise Carter-
King, Mayor of Gillette, Wyoming--will talk about the trillions
of dollars of new economic opportunity in our oil and gas
development and how this American resource fits into a cleaner
energy future that benefits everyone.
The pace of ``transformation'' in the majority's bills
makes no time for the practical reality of ensuring the lights
stay on when people most need it.
California's downfall remains the case study for what can
go wrong here. Its unrealistic decarbonization policies have
driven the growth of weather-dependent solar and wind
resources, and shuttered natural gas, nuclear, and other
traditional generators all while driving electricity rates up.
California State policies essentially dismantled large
amounts of the baseload and dispatchable generation needed when
wind and solar come up short. A recent review by the National
Regulatory Research Institute shows California's green dreams
have created a huge resource gap that undermines reliable
delivery of energy.
Much of the solar resources encouraged by State policies
are outside the control of system operators, sitting behind the
meter on customer rooftops. When the sun goes down and energy
demand goes up, all those homes that enjoyed inexpensive power
during the day, come onto the California grid in a huge demand
spike.
We saw this summer what happens when the resources are not
available to meet the spike. California's experiment shows the
relentless rush to accommodate decarbonization goals can
backfire.
Republican policies led to an American energy renaissance
that created jobs, decreased emissions, and increased our
security. Following California and the CLEAN Future Act will
take us back to the dark ages.
We must avoid following California's path and instead focus
our policy efforts on ensuring affordable and reliable energy
the resources and innovations to accomplish that and the
American energy workers who keep the lights on.
Mrs. Rodgers. And with that I'll yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair would like
to remind all Members that, pursuant to committee rules, all
Members' written opening statements shall remain part of the
record.
Now it is my fervent and distinct honor to welcome our
esteemed witnesses for today's hearing. I would like to thank
each and every one of them for taking time out from their
precious days to come before this committee. I'm going to
introduce them to you now, and I hope that I am pronouncing
their names correctly.
The first witness is Mr. Subin DeVar, who is the director
of the Initiative For Energy Justice; Ms. Chandra Farley, Just
Energy director for the Partnership for Southern Equity; Mr.
Donnel Baird, chief executive officer of BlocPower; Mr. Jose L.
Perez, president and chief executive officer of Hispanics In
Energy; and Ms. Louise Carter-King, the mayor of the City of
Gillette.
I want to thank each and every one of our witnesses again
for joining us for today's hearing, and we look forward to your
testimony.
Mr. DeVar, you are now recognized for 5 minutes for the
purposes of an opening statement.
STATEMENTS OF SUBIN DeVAR, DIRECTOR, INITIATIVE FOR ENERGY
JUSTICE; KIRAN BHATRAJU, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ARCADIA;
CHANDRA FARLEY, JUST ENERGY DIRECTOR, PARTNERSHIP FOR SOUTHERN
EQUITY; DONNEL BAIRD, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, BLOCPOWER; JOSE
L. PEREZ, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, HISPANICS IN
ENERGY; AND LOUISE CARTER-KING, MAYOR, CITY OF GILLETTE,
WYOMING
STATEMENT OF SUBIN DeVAR
Mr. DeVar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Rush, Mr. Ranking Member
Upton, and members of the committee. My name is Subin DeVar,
director of the Initiative For Energy Justice, and I am honored
to testify on equity in the deployment of clean energy.
The COVID-19 vaccine deployment provides a useful point of
comparison for our conversation today. Experts knew we needed
to have a phased deployment of the vaccine given the time
necessary to vaccinate millions of Americans. There was a
recent debate about the priority groups, and in the end
efficiency used logical and ethical parameters to set phases of
vaccine deployment focusing first on vaccinating frontline
workers and vulnerable populations.
Equity in the energy system is not that different. You
can't transition the whole system all at once, so how do you do
it in the most fair and broadly impactful way? That is energy
equity, the just distribution of the holistic benefits of the
energy system, including nonenergy benefits such as economic
and health benefits. It particularly focuses on remediating the
harms of the existing pollution-heavy energy system centering
frontline communities and vulnerable populations.
A simple way to think about energy equity is in terms of
who benefits from the energy system and how much people benefit
from the energy system. I will discuss both of these topics in
turn in the context of obstacles to the equitable deployment of
clean energy.
First, there are two key obstacles regarding equity and who
benefits from clean energy. One, most energy regulatory
jurisdictions do not have comprehensive definitions and
strategies for target customer groups to pay special attention
to in the transition. Without such definitions it is impossible
to accurately assess the state of equity in clean energy
deployment or to implement effective solutions.
Therefore, my first recommendation is to identify priority
groups or, in other words, marginalized or underserved
communities. This should include mapping geographically defined
groups based on cumulative health impacts and demographic data
as well as other volatile populations such as low-income
households, customers who rely on home electricity to power
medical equipment, fossil fuel workers, rural and Tribal
communities.
The second obstacle to ensuring that marginalized
communities benefit from the energy system is the absence of
their voice, insight, and perspective at the stage of energy
system design and policymaking. In response to this obstacle,
my second recommendation is to invest in robust outreach,
inclusive practices for soliciting feedback and providing
resources, including financial compensation, for community
participation in rulemaking.
Next is the question of how much do various groups benefit
from clean energy. There are two primary obstacles regarding
equity in this sense. One, the absence of equity goals and
metrics is a fundamental barrier to people benefiting from the
whole suite of potential clean energy benefits. Accordingly, my
third recommendation is to require the equitable distribution
of clean energy benefits, including a minimum of 40 percent of
benefits targeted to marginalized and underserved communities.
Enforceable accountability mechanisms should track and report
on metrics of benefits every few years or every decade
alongside decarbonization targets.
A final obstacle is that overly broad clean energy
requirements combined with the profit incentive of investor-
owned utilities could fail to prioritize specific approaches to
clean energy that maximize public benefits across different
sectors. So my fourth recommendation is to focus on renewable
distributed and community-led energy resources.
A Federal clean electricity standard, for example, should
allow only energy that meets international definitions of
renewable energy, require that at least two-thirds of
electricity come from distributed energy resources and that at
least 25 percent of energy generation is community-led through
nonprofits, cooperatives, or public entities.
To close, I'd like to reiterate my main points. Equity can
be understood in terms of who benefits and how much people
benefit from the energy system. Second, inequities regarding
who benefits from clean energy can be mitigated by, one,
identifying priority groups including through mapping and, two,
investing in meaningful community participation.
Third and finally, inequities regarding how much Americans
benefit from clean energy can be addressed by requiring the
accounting of benefits and advancing renewable distributed and
community-led energy resources
Thank you. Look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. DeVar follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rush. Thanks. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
failed to introduce one of the witnesses for today's panel. I
want to introduce right now Mr. Kiran Bhatraju, and Mr.
Bhatraju is the chief executive officer of Arcadia Power. Mr.
Bhatraju, please forgive me. It was a failure of the head and
not the heart. So welcome to our subcommittee hearing.
STATEMENT OF KIRAN BHATRAJU
Mr. Bhatraju. Good morning. First I'd like to thank you,
Chairman Rush--and no offense taken--and Ranking Member Upton
for inviting me and acknowledge Chairman Pallone and Ranking
Member McMorris Rodgers as well.
I'm glad to be here today to talk about how we can combat
climate change, spur economic growth, and also lower consumer
power bills with community solar. I'm Kiran Bhatraju. I'm the
founder and CEO of Arcadia. We're a software company making it
easy for customers anywhere to choose clean energy in all 50
States no matter where you live, whether you rent or own, and
no matter how much you make. Our software platform has enabled
over a billion dollars in Energy investments in communities
across the country.
Before I talk a bit more about community solar and my
company's work, I want to talk a bit about why this topic is so
important to me. I was raised in Pike County, Kentucky, in the
heart of coal country. In elementary school we took a field
trip into a coal mine, and my father, who is a physician,
treated black lung patients. Today I run a company that serves
customers in all 50 States, and I can tell you that people
everywhere are extremely interested in solar energy,
Republicans and Democrats all over the country.
In Kentucky, they want to talk about solar because they
want to hear about economic development resilience and job
opportunities in light of a transition away from coal. In
cities, they want to hear about solar because of the threat of
climate change. People everywhere want to save money, and in
both places people think solar is hard. They think you have the
wrong roof, you have no roof. or that you can never afford it,
and that is when I like to tell then that the answer is
community solar.
Simply put, this is the best way for everyone to access the
benefits of solar energy no matter your income, whether you
rent or own, or how much sun hits your particular roof. By
joining a community solar project, customers get guaranteed
savings, and that is important. It is guaranteed savings
against the traditional utility rate. There is no long-term
commitment, no upfront cost, and if you move, your solar can
move with you. And all of that is from a new resilient
distributed solar project nearby, not one on their roof.
It is hands down the best energy product in America, and
I'm not just saying that because my company works in community
solar. It is the reason I started this company. Literally
everyone would be better off if they joined a resilient
community solar project.
Today our software is delivering savings to customers in
eight States, including a lot of places represented by folks on
this subcommittee. For some examples, we manage a project in
Kankakee County, Illinois, saving customers close to 10 percent
on their power bills. We managed the first project in New York
incorporating battery storage in Yorktown Heights, and we
manage a project in Logan County, Colorado, where the proceeds
from the leased land benefit the State's school trust.
These are just a handful of our projects. We have got 185
projects across the country. Community solar is particularly
important, and I know it is new, so I want to make this point
very clear, is that it is the only way for the majority of
Americans to actually share in the benefits of solar. Only a
third of American households can put a power plant on their
roof. The families who are excluded from rooftop solar because
they rent, because they have a low credit score--these are
disproportionately people of color, women-led households, or
people without college degrees.
Community solar, on the other hand, is available to
everyone who can pay a power bill. It doesn't matter if you
have a roof or can put a power plant on your roof. And so these
are so unique because they are offsite.
A lot of our projects are actually found on farmland. If
you're a farmer struggling with prices and you have got some
land that isn't great for farming, getting a lease payment from
a solar project might just be your lifeline. In fact, in
Pennsylvania the Farm Bureau is actually promoting community
solar because farmers can get thousands of dollars a year in
lease payments, basically a lifeline for their families.
Our projects are also often located in economically
distressed areas. Close to 22 percent of our projects are in
what are called opportunity zones representing millions of
dollars of investment in places that need it the most. So what
I'm describing to you is just one of the most exciting
competitive energy trends happening in America today. It is
happening everywhere--red States, blue States, deregulated and
regulated markets--and it can work everywhere.
The problem is other States need to catch up. The best way
to do that is to pass a law that would require public utility
commissions to consider a community solar program. The proposal
was introduced in the last Congress as the Community Solar
Consumer Choice Act, and the same language is in Section 225 of
the CLEAN Future Act. And to be clear, this legislation only
asks States to consider. They can do what they want and embrace
community solar when they learn more about the equity and the
benefits.
I'll just close by saying my job as CEO of this company is
to make it easy for people to use clean energy and to help them
save money. I've been doing this since 2014, and hands down
community solar is the only way to make that mission a reality.
I'm incredibly excited to be here and talk to you about this
new segment of solar today. Thanks for having me, and I look
forward to answering any questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bhatraju follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yield back. The Chair now
recognizes Ms. Farley for 5 minutes for the purposes of an
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF CHANDRA FARLEY
Ms. Farley. Thank you. Good morning to Honorable Chairman
Bobby Rush, Ranking Member Upton and all members of the
Subcommittee on Energy. Thank you for the opportunity to
provide this testimony today. My name is Chandra Farley, and I
am the Just Energy director at the Partnership for Southern
Equity, a racial equity organization based in Atlanta, Georgia.
The American South is a region laid bare by racial,
economic, and class inequities due to the legacy of slavery.
These facile barriers have hampered the opportunity for Black
communities, community of color, rural and low-wealth
communities to lend their perspective to the shaping of their
clean energy future. To combat this we created Just Energy, our
framework for advancing energy equity, which we define as the
fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of energy
production and consumption. We advance Just Energy through
relationship-centered strategies like organizing that build
civic power with communities across the South.
The data is clear: Historically disinvested communities in
the South bear a disproportionate burden of the negative
impacts of our climate emergency and carbon-based energy
production. The South experiences a higher frequency of
billion-dollar climate disaster events than any other region.
The Southeast is home to 84 percent of all U.S. counties that
experience persistent poverty.
Some of the biggest carbon polluters in the power sector
are in the South, and southern States rank at the bottom of
lists for energy efficiency policies and programs while also
consistently posting the highest rankings for energy burden.
Pile on the fact that we now have millions of laid-off and
unemployed workers that are losing access to their utilities
due to the economic fallout from COVID, you can see why Just
Energy is an urgent and pressing matter.
The CLEAN Future Act can deliver on many of the Just Energy
policies and community accountability tools that address
systematic issues and generate equity through increased
deployment of clean distributed and democratic energy by
focusing on four main strategies: reducing energy burdens by
lowering utility bills and stabilizing energy costs through
clean energy investments like weatherization, energy
efficiency, rooftop solar, and community microgrids; two,
improving household financial stability by providing thriving-
wage job opportunities and supporting clean energy
entrepreneurship that can lift people out of poverty and
advance an economic inclusion agenda; three, reducing harmful
carbon emissions that pollute our air and exacerbate
disproportionate impact of this pollution on environmental
injustice communities through the Environmental Justice for All
Act; and four, promoting clean-energy-centric economic
development that builds community wealth.
The levels of funding now possible across energy, water,
housing, transportation, and broadband sectors presents a
transformative opportunity for reparation and restoration of
historically disinvested communities that are locked out of the
clean energy transition. This movement moment is meeting
critically needed investment mechanisms such as the Clean
Energy and Sustainability Accelerator. Combined with the
Justice40 initiative that must be frontline community informed,
the $100 billion commitment for the Clean Energy and
Sustainability Accelerator can transform the underlying systems
of racial oppression while building lasting institutional
change.
We must also commit to taking care of the fossil fuel and
coal country communities that have kept this country growing
for the last 150 years. Through proposals such as reforming the
Rural Utility Service Hardship Loan Program, we could direct
$100 billion to facilitate the retirement of coal plants in
exchange for new investment in distributed energy resources,
high-speed broadbands, storage, and electric transportation.
When we ask ourselves how deploying a just and clean energy
future can generate equity, we must recall the definition of
equity itself: just and fair inclusion. An equitable society is
one in which all can participate, prosper, and reach their full
potential. We also need a racially equitable society, one where
society's benefits nor burdens would be skewed by race.
In short, an equitable and just transition creates an
antiracist path from hope to change. Together we can flip the
systematic inequities imbedded in our social, economic and
environmental systems to a forward-thinking, equitable, and
regenerative future. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Farley follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rush. I thank the gentlelady. The Chair now recognizes
Mr. Baird for 5 minutes for the purposes of an opening
statement. Mr. Baird, you're recognized.
STATEMENT OF DONNEL BAIRD
Mr. Baird. Good morning, and thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm
delighted to be here and have the chance to virtually meet the
Honorable Bobby Rush, who is the only human being who ever
defeated Barack Obama in an election head to head--and whipped
him good, is what I understand. My name is Donnel Baird, and I
run a climate tech startup called BlocPower. We focus on
analyzing, financing, and installing efficient and all-electric
equipment in low-income buildings.
Clean energy in low-income buildings across America is
central to economic recovery in all of our communities and
central to the survival of our species as human beings on this
planet. I am on the board of the Climate Reality Project with
Vice President Al Gore, Columbia University's Entrepreneurship
Committee, the Sierra Club Foundation, the Sunrise Movement,
Better Markets, the New York City Workforce Development Board,
the New York City Tech Alliance, and the New York Federal
Reserve Bank Advisory Board. All of these organizations must
work together in order to ensure clean energy investments in
low-income communities because it is complicated and it is
hard.
Community ownership of clean energy, energy efficiency and
internet connectivity infrastructure must, in my view, be owned
and controlled by low-income communities across America. Low-
income communities need ownership and equity, not just
ownership in the sense of morality of ownership and equity in
the sense of justice and equality but literal economic
ownership, an equity ownership of stock, of shares of special
purpose corporations that house infrastructure assets.
In low-income communities, I know that we all see lots of
waste. We see wasted fossil fuel energy in the buildings where
we burn oil to overheat these buildings, and we see a waste of
human potential due to high rates of unemployment,
incarceration, poor education, and opioid addiction. I started
my tech company to fix that waste both of fossil fuels and the
waste of human potential.
This is 2021, and this is America. This is not ancient
Mesopotamia. We do not need to heat buildings across our
country by burning dead dinosaurs in our basements and causing
high asthma rates amongst our children. We can turn millions of
buildings across America into Teslas, all-electric, healthy,
using cutting-edge software and creating up to 25 million
American jobs.
Electrifying millions of American buildings will require
sensors, smart grid, solar batteries, carbon capture and
storage, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, mobile
computing, edge computing. These are new industries that we can
and will launch and own and manufacture right here in America,
including in West Virginia. We believe that as many as 5
million permanent jobs will be created.
To date BlocPower has focused on learning how to finance
and analyze and reduce fossil fuel waste and health disparities
in New York City buildings in partnership with the New York
State government, the New York City government, and Goldman
Sachs. We've greened 1,100 apartment and community buildings in
New York City and low-income communities. We've raised over $70
million of private capital, including a $50 million loan from
Goldman Sachs.
We've designed a community-owned clean energy solar
microgrid in part with New York State because community
ownership of clean energy assets and internet broadband assets,
again, is critical. We've launched a community-owned WiFi
network to help low-income families in the Bronx who have no
broadband access to have internet access, and in a few weeks
that mesh system will serve millions of New Yorkers with free
internet [audio malfunction].
Mr. Rush. We've lost the sound, the audio. We've lost
audio.
Mr. Baird [continuing]. Caucasian 55-year-old white dudes,
immigrants, students, Americans of all kinds to work in our
company, and we've done this--in closing, we've learned a few
quick things that I believe are useful to this committee. We
believe that pay for performance public/private partnerships
are critical because they combine the best thinking and
learning from community groups, workers, finance, Wall Street,
Silicon Valley, and the best and brightest in government policy
and ensure that each and every taxpayer dollar that is spent is
wisely invested and that performance is assured. We believe
that we can leverage each dollar of taxpayer subsidy with $5 to
$10 of private capital, which we have demonstrated in our
partnership with Goldman Sachs to invest in clean energy and
low-income communities.
And in closing, clean energy must include low cost-internet
connectivity at scale. All of the clean energy devices that we
install require internet, and we must provide community
internet in low-income communities, and that community internet
must be owned by low-income communities, which is a core part
of the White House plan. America has a unique opportunity in
front of all of us right now----
Mr. Rush. Mr. Baird, pardon me. You started out with such a
bang, but your time has expired----
Mr. Baird. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rush [continuing]. And will you bring your comments to
a close.
Mr. Baird. Yes, sir. We have opportunity to launch several
new industries, and we should not waste it. Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Baird follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields. The Chair now recognizes
Mr. Perez for 5 minutes for the purposes of an opening
statement.
Mr. Perez, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JOSE L. PEREZ
Mr. Perez. My apologies. I didn't have the unmute button
on. It is on now. Good morning. My name is Jose Perez, and I'm
the president and CEO of Hispanics In Energy, and I want to
make a few remarks before I get into my statement. And that is
I want to personally thank you, Congressman Rush and
Congressman Upton, for speaking at our former events, one in
Chicago and one in Washington, DC. We really have followed your
career and thank you very much for your service to this
country.
Let me begin by saying that Hispanics In Energy, a
nonprofit, strongly supports the goal of a clean and healthy
environment, and we are eager to contribute towards that goal.
We must all fight carbon emission-induced climate change.
Providing a healthy future for our families is a core value for
our community, and we support practical and well-thought-out
efforts for clean energy development.
However, this proposed new direction of clean energy needs
much more thought and analysis before such a radical approach
is adopted. We do not think it demonstrates enough appreciation
or concern for the Hispanic energy workers community or other
communities, including our African-American and indigenous
brothers and sisters. There is no evidence that Hispanics will
benefit economically and prosper from the emerging clean energy
economy.
With 18 percent of the American people, Hispanics are
America's largest minority group, over 60 million people. We
have the highest labor force participation rate as compared to
any other group. We like to work. We quickly pick up our roots
and move to follow the jobs. We don't complain about having to
get up early in the morning to go to work.
Many in our community have chosen to work in the oil and
gas fields in Texas, California, New Mexico, Colorado, and
other critical oil-producing States. In California, 30 percent
of the 385,000 oil and gas workers are Hispanic. That is
115,000 jobs with an average salary of $100,000. So that is an
$18 billion infusion into Hispanic households and families
every year. Of all the oil and gas jobs available to Hispanics,
none beats the job opportunities as in the 86,000-square-mile
Permian Basin, a land many times bigger than Delaware where the
locals are 65 percent Hispanic.
The Permian Basin is gigantic, and it sits between the
Southeastern part of New Mexico and the Western part of Texas.
In this particular area, the development has a potential of $3
trillion with over 400,000 new jobs. Clearly, Hispanics are
already a large part of the workforce in the shale plates of
Texas, Colorado, Utah, North Dakota, and Oklahoma. The same can
be said about oil exploration and leasing along the Gulf of
Mexico. This proposal would take away those jobs and the
economic infusion going into California's Hispanic community
and those in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, North Dakota. Is that
what we want? We don't think so.
America's energy policy should include a complete mix of
energy strategies, including the expansion of nuclear energy
generation because of its safe technology, inexpensive 24/7
operation and pure, clean energy as an output. The expansion of
natural gas is the primary reason for the lowering of carbon
emissions in this country. There is still much more benefit
that could be gotten out of natural gas, the development of new
technologies to neutralize the harmful effects of carbon
emissions in burning fossil fuels, and there is a lot of great
developments. It seems like we ought to be putting more
resources to make sure that we come up with a solution for
that.
And then finally we should encompass principles that do not
harm American energy workers, that help to enhance their
training and capacity to increase their economic success and
security. Taking away from an American worker doesn't make any
sense to us. Our country's transition to a low-carbon, clean
energy economy must include all communities to be sustainable.
The clean energy sector can do way more to diversify and
embrace equity and inclusion with our Hispanic community.
Thank you for being asked to provide thoughts about energy
strategy and policy. As large as our community is in America,
it is too rare for the Government to ask for ideas about
energy.
Thank you very much for that, Congressman. I look forward
to answering any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Perez follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rush. The Chair thanks Mr. Perez. The Chair now
recognizes Ms. Carter-King for 5 minutes. You're recognized for
5 minutes for the purposes of an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF LOUISE CARTER-KING
Ms. Carter-King. Thank you and good morning, Chairman Rush,
Ranking Member Upton, and members of the committee. Thank you
for the opportunity to allow me to speak. I am here today as
the nonpartisan elected at-large Mayor of the City of Gillette,
Wyoming. On behalf of the community that proudly bills itself
as the energy capital of the Nation, I wanted to share a few
considerations from our city regarding the transition to a
decarbonized power sector.
Located in the heart of the Powder River Basin containing
significant deposits of coal, oil, gas, and uranium, our
community has a vested interest in the continued responsible
use of our region's abundant natural resources. For decades,
our residents have quite literally been on the front lines of
powering the country. Our municipal revenue and subsequent
governmental operations are largely dependent on these
industries. The loss of this revenue will have an immediate and
direct impact on the public safety of our residents from the
officers that we have on the street to the doctors and nurses
we have in our hospitals, not to mention what it will do to our
public education system, which is already facing steep cuts.
We recognize that the global demand for how energy is
produced is changing. We have worked hard to forge partnerships
with other local, State, and private entities all dedicated to
both expanding and diversifying our local economy. We are also
acutely aware that these major changes do not occur overnight
or without significant financial resources.
As is true for any other elected body, our primary goal at
the City of Gillette is to preserve and improve the quality of
life for those that we represent. Aggressive goals for the
decreased use of fossil fuels will directly result in the loss
of revenue, jobs, and well-being for the citizens of our
community and many others like it. While we understand the
desire to transition to a carbon-neutral energy matrix, we
believe a measured, thoughtful approach is prudent and
necessary.
We are actively working with other public and private
entities to not only work towards reducing carbon emissions but
also to identify new uses for carbon. Partnerships with local
utilities, the XPRIZE Foundation, the University of Wyoming
School of Energy Resources, and the U.S. Department of Energy
have spurred research into uses of the carbon created from
energy production as well as finding the value-added products
created from our abundant fossil fuel. We will need the
continued support of the Federal Government to see these
projects come to fruition for the benefit of everyone in our
Nation.
Thank you for the opportunity to hear this perspective and
for your important work. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Carter-King follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rush. I want to thank all the witnesses for their
exemplary testimony, and we have concluded the opening
statements for this morning. Now we will move toward Member
questions. Each Member will have 5 minutes to ask questions of
our witnesses. I want to start by recognizing myself for 5
minutes.
This month Chairman Pallone, Chairman Tonko, and I
introduced the CLEAN Future Act to put the Nation on a path
toward a clean energy future by no later than 2050. Among these
policies is my bill, the Energy Equity Act of 2021, which would
drive principles of equity and justice in our energy system by
establishing a Federal program office solely dedicated for
these purposes.
My first question is to Mr. DeVar. Mr. DeVar, will you
briefly describe the importance of Federal policies to advance
the equitable distribution of clean energy and why they should
be a requirement.
Mr. DeVar. Yes. Thank you, Chairman Rush. The reason why
these policies need to be a requirement in brief stems from
many of the points and questions that have been raised by all
the Members here and all the witnesses. There is a key question
in who will benefit, and in fact there is a lot of agreement
here.
I'm astounded to hear the concern about wages, about
income, and about jobs and which communities benefit from that.
And so the Federal Government has a key role in ensuring
equity. The Federal Government has a key role in leadership,
and the Office of Energy Equity that you're proposing would be
essential for closing the gaps that folks have mentioned where
there is evidence that these benefits will actually be realized
by the communities and populations that folks have raised.
Mr. Rush. Thank you, Mr. DeVar. Ms. Farley, as you know,
clean energy transmission must be just, must be equitable for
all communities, both urban and rural. How will a Federal
Energy Equity Office support community-based groups in meeting
the energy needs of all communities?
Ms. Farley. Thank you, Chairman Rush. It is critically
important that any activities with goals to be more just and
equitable include direct input from the communities who are
first and most impacted by any of the negative impacts that we
have discussed today, whether that is the climate emergency
overburdened by electricity bills and legacy pollution.
So the opportunity to establish an Energy Equity Office
within the Department of Energy is this kind of critical
opportunity. It is important that we have the infrastructure
that is needed to deliver on these benefits, and an office like
Energy Equity would be there to support Shalanda Baker, who we
are very excited about. But this is a massive undertaking,
and----
Mr. Rush. Thank you very much. I'm sorry to cut you off,
but I only have a few more seconds, and I would like to ask now
Mr. Bhatraju and Mr. Baird: How would a Federal Energy Equity
Office support public/private partnerships in delivering
greater clean energy access to underserved communities?
Mr. Bhatraju. I'll be quick. The community of solar at its
heart is expanding access to communities that haven't had
access to rooftop solar. It is a competitive energy trend, but
it requires public cooperation to set up the structures to
enable private developers and investors to actually build these
projects. So that public/private partnership is incredibly
important to expanding access.
Mr. Rush. Thank you. Mr. Baird, would you contribute to
answering the question?
Mr. Baird. Mr. Chair, thank you. My company was started by
a $2.1 million contract with the U.S. Department of Energy, and
I believe the opportunity to create similar companies started
by people of color, by women, by our country's veterans would
be greatly assisted by having an Office of Equity in the
Department of Energy, given our corporate experience and
partnership with the Department of Energy. That Office of
Equity is very necessary.
Mr. Rush. Thank you. The Chair yields back the balance of
his time. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Upton for 5 minutes for
purposes of an opening statement.
Mr. Upton. Well, I'm going to ask questions, but thank
you----
Mr. Rush. Questioning. I'm sorry.
Mr. Upton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Perez, I think that
we share similar views on the need to address climate change
and certainly the benefits of clean energy. It is something
that we know is happening and what we want. With that said, I
want to talk a little bit about some of the actual policies
that have been proposed and impact that they would have on
communities, especially the Hispanic energy workers that you
represent.
First of all, let me ask what is the volume of folks, in
fact, that you think that you represent with your position?
What are some of the numbers?
Mr. Perez. Thank you for that question, Mr. Upton. There's
about 10 and a half million people that work just in the oil
and gas side, and I would say that the total Hispanic workforce
in that sector is about 10 percent, or about a million, and
that doesn't include utilities or the clean energy space. It is
only the oil and gas side. That includes pipelines, refineries,
all the upstream. So it is a very large part of the working
population of energy workers.
Mr. Upton. I appreciate that. As you know, there was some
news that was made just in the last week to ban fracking in
California. They actually had a vote in the State legislature.
As I understand, it was defeated because, in fact, of its
impact it would have on the Hispanic community. What kind of
impact do you think a nationwide ban on fracking would have on
the Hispanic community, and not only there but throughout the
country?
Mr. Perez. Thank you for that question. We believe that the
impact would be devastating because you're talking about in the
case of the Permian Basin where it is being developed right now
with a $3 trillion potential. That community around there is 65
percent Hispanic. The workers are a higher percentage. So if
you can imagine just wiping out all that opportunity and the
significant economic impact it has not just to the workers but
to their families and their communities.
In other places like California that are more established,
the oil and gas business is fairly centralized in southern
California and parts of the current county in Bakersfield.
Those communities would also be severely impacted. And in Texas
with Eagle Ford and some of the development that goes on in
Texas, very significant impacts. So you are, basically, taking
a whole community and throwing it under the bus.
Mr. Upton. So, as you know, a frequent line that certain
many of us in Congress and on this committee have used is
``all-of-the-above'' strategy. I support all of the above.
Always have. Needs to be a strong source of renewables. We need
efforts on new technologies, whether they be clean coal or
carbon capture. I mean, all those things are very important,
but the argument has been made time and time again by some that
if, in fact, if you eliminated a number of these jobs, maybe
millions, that they would be able to find some alternative line
of work at equal pay in some other energy sector. Do you see
that as actually holding water that argument?
Mr. Perez. No. That is not our experience. I have been
working in this environment for 9 years when we organized
forums around the country around jobs and energy, and the
people who are, for example, the trainers of clean energy
workers, for example, the rooftop solar installers, they
average about $13 an hour. There's no benefits. There's no
security in their jobs. There's no career ladder. Once a job is
complete, they essentially have to go out and--they are on
their own. They have to go out and find another job, whereas we
find that in at least the oil and gas business, because the
union protection that is offered, that there is long-term
security.
And a lot of people that, even if they are working at the
lower level of the working hierarchy, you know, they still find
enough incentive to stay and make it a career and retire from
that because there is that sustainability.
So we have not seen any evidence that the clean energy
space, at least for the Hispanic community, is a good option, a
good alternative, and so it really concerns us that we are
drawing a lot of assumptions without really any evidence. So we
just think that we need to research this thing very carefully
because we are talking about a very significant, very negative
economic impact at least to our community. And so we need to
have some very sober discussions around this.
Mr. Upton. Well, I see my time has expired, but I
appreciate everybody's testimony and looking forward to
participating through the rest of the hearing. With that, Mr.
Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Pallone, the
chairman of the full committee, for 5 minutes for questioning
the witnesses.
Mr. Pallone, you are recognized.
Chairman Pallone, you are recognized.
[Pause.]
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Peters from California for 5
minutes for questioning the witnesses.
Mr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just trying to
grab a bite to eat there. I'm happy to be here, and thank you
for the hearing. I had a question for Mr. DeVar. Just
yesterday, United Mine Workers of America, the largest mine
workers union in the race to transition to clean energy jobs,
has paired with robust investment in the communities they call
home. The union says that ``change is coming whether we seek it
or not. Coal production in the electricity sector has been
falling for years for market reasons irrespective of any
Federal policy, and we can support these communities and these
workers by investing in technologies like carbon capture,
utilization and storage and by funding reclamation of abandoned
mines.''
We need to stop acting as if we have to choose between
clean energy and fossil energy and instead focus on solutions
for workers in the clean energy transition that is clearly
already happening. So can you please expand on the types of
policies that are needed in order to ensure we maintain and
develop strong energy economies in diverse regions of the
country?
Mr. DeVar. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Peters. I would say the
first thing that we need to stay true to that hope that this
transition is paired with protections for communities is to
think about where we need to set goals and metrics to ensure
that we deliver on that, and I think that is the key role of
this hearing, and I think that is the key role of the Federal
Government.
And so there are policies that can ensure that we put in
labor protections and that we incentivize those approaches to
clean energy that actually do the most to protect workers and
do the most to protect particular communities.
Mr. Peters. Thank you. Another question for you, sir. In
your testimony, you highlight the gaps in data collection that
can hinder the fair allocation of resources. In particular, you
identify the lack of definitions for what you call energy
deployment priority groups. Since we're talking about
definitions, could you expand on what you mean by ``energy
deployment priority groups'', and what data should the Federal
Government be collecting that we aren't?
Mr. DeVar. Sure. So first, as far as priority groups, I
don't have all the answers, but if we look at communities' and
States' research, we know that question have moved the needle
in understanding at least two ways of thinking about priority
group: geographically based priority groups and identity or
population groups. Some key places to start would be groups
that have higher pollution rating or health impacts, but we
also know we need to include low-income communities,
communities that are--or households that are reliant on medical
equipment. So these are just some examples.
We need two sides of data and evidence to address the
issues that everyone here has raised. We need to identify
groups, and we need to identify harms or benefits. Some of
those example are, to the point that Mr. Perez has made, what
is the evidence that certain communities, particularly Hispanic
and Latino communities, are benefiting? We need data both that
starts to disaggregate about customer groups as well as what
are the harms and benefits. And that way we would have more
data and evidence as to whether there is equity in the clean
energy transition.
Mr. Peters. Speaking about the discussion about fracking
bans from some of my colleagues, if California didn't do it, it
is probably a little bit of a Chicken Little, sky-is-falling
kind of discussion. North Dakota is not going to do it. Texas
is going to do it. And I think we can have constructive policy
discussions assuming that is not going to happen.
I guess, finally, directing to all panelists: The committee
has put forth a comprehensive bill under Chairman Pallone's
leadership and the leadership of Chairman Rush to support the
equitable deployment of clean energy technologies. Do you have
any thoughts for us in the last minute I have about what we
could do to improve what the committee has introduced? Anybody?
Ms. Farley. I'm happy to just increase that support and
making sure that any of the recommendations and any of the
policies are done in partnership directly with communities and/
or in partnership with those who represent communities. The new
White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council I think is a
great place to start. It seems to be the first mechanism that
we have in place across the administration to have that direct
input and support.
And I along with a number of other groups have previously
submitted a letter to Honorable Chairman Frank Pallone and this
committee regarding support for inclusion of the Energy
Resilient Communities Act Low-income Solar Energy as well as
new rural Just Energy financing programs. So we would really
want to make sure that these jobs that we discuss adhere to
High Roads labor standards and incentivize unionized labor.
Mr. Peters. OK. Thank you. My time has expired. Mr.
Chairman, I'd also ask if we could add to the record an article
from yesterday's New York Times on the coal miners' renewable
energy pleas. I yield back.
Mr. Rush. Hearing no objection so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Rush. The Chair now recognizes Ms. McMorris Rodgers for
5 minutes for questioning the witnesses.
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all the
witnesses for being with us today.
I mentioned in my opening statement some of the benefits of
the shale revolution not only in jobs but really in leading in
resulting in bringing down carbon emissions. America, in fact,
is leading the world in bringing down carbon emissions but also
in lowering energy spending on average $2,500 per household.
The White House Council of Economic Advisors estimated that
most of the benefits of the shale revolution went to low-income
households, which spend the highest portion of their budgets on
energy, as has been mentioned by others. The flip side to these
benefits for low-income households is what happens if policies
limit natural gas delivery or shutter natural gas generation
and raise electricity rates.
In California we've seen rates increase seven times faster
than the rest of the Nation and now are close to double what
people in the southeastern States are paying in energy costs.
We saw last summer that California wasn't able to maintain
reliable operations of its electricity system for the first
time in two decades. Wealthy people buy generators to prepare
for potential rolling blackouts caused by these policies. Low-
income households don't have this luxury, so on top of their
prices being higher there is less reliability.
Mr. Perez, in your testimony you stated that in California
the Hispanics are 30 percent of the workers in the oil and gas
industry, about 115,000 employees, good-paying jobs. Average of
these workers is about $100,000 per year plus benefits and
overtime. I wanted to ask you, Mr. Perez, what role do you see
for natural gas resources to ensure low rates and reliable and
resistant energy?
[Pause]
Mrs. Rodgers. Mr. Perez, I think you may be muted.
Mr. Perez. Apologize for that. I was saying that we believe
that to assure resiliency and low-cost energy to energy
consumers that we clearly need to have an all-energy strategy
to deal with our demand and our needs. And the way to do that
is to take a look at each sector and see how we can move
towards a level where there is zero carbon emissions.
And in the natural gas/oil space really it is technology. I
know they are working on carbon sequestration. They are
working--we have some generation plants that are now producing
very close to zero in carbon emissions, especially in the
Houston area, and so there is potential for achieving some of
these goals without having such what we consider to be very
harsh actions that have severe consequences on workers and, in
our case, our Hispanic workers.
And so clearly we think that resiliency for energy, low-
cost assurance is guaranteed by natural--I'm sorry, by several
strategies, and natural gas is a critical one.
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you for that. Thank you for
highlighting the impact on jobs. It is really exciting, though,
to hear about American ingenuity and creativity, technology
leading the way. It is definitely worth celebrating, and I
believe that that is going to be the way forward.
Ms. Carter-King, I wanted to, well, first of all, applaud
Gillette, Wyoming, as the energy capital in the United States
of America and your all-of-the-above approach. Would you just
speak to the impact on State finances as well as impact on
local schools and community services? Department of Interior
shows that Federal oil and gas revenues fund between 19 and 30
percent of New Mexico and Wyoming's State budgets.
Ms. Carter-King. Yes. Thank you, Ms. Rodgers.
It has been devastating to our State and our economy here
with trying to curtail the oil production that we have for so
many years had in our community and our State. So it has cost
already lots of jobs and a lot of our youth having to leave our
State to find employment otherwise. So I plead with the
committee and all to please work with us. Work with our
community and our State and others that need--that cannot
sustain such a quick devastation of our economy. We can work
with you. We can work with everyone to make sure that we can
research other ways that can help with the energy. We can work
with energy.
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you.
Ms. Carter-King. The people of Wyoming, we were
environmentalists before it was the in thing to be.
Mrs. Rodgers. Well, I appreciate your leadership and your
plea because the technological transformation in fossils is
very real, too, and we need to allow that to develop. So thank
you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Doyle, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Doyle. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this
hearing, you and Ranking Member Upton.
I've been listening to the testimony, and a couple things
that I would like to just reflect on before I ask questions.
I'm sympathetic to what I heard from Mr. Perez and the mayor of
the City of Gillette. I live in western Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh is surrounded by Marcellus shale gas, not in the
city of Pittsburgh but the counties around the city of
Pittsburgh. A lot of people have good jobs there.
And as Mr. Perez said, the reason they have good jobs is
they're unionized, which means they have pensions and they have
benefits. So I hope all my Republican colleagues will support
the unionization of these new industries that we're going to be
bringing online as we address climate change because that is
the key to having good-paying jobs that you can support a
family with, and I think that point needs to be made.
I would say secondly, too, that as Democrats we have to
understand the people who are working in industries that are
making good wages and have pensions and healthcare benefits
aren't going to just buy into the idea that magically there is
going to be something else to replace those jobs. It isn't that
these people in oil and gas industry don't care about a clean
environment, but they care about eating and they care about
supporting their families. And if you show them an alternative
way to make a living in the clean energy industry, they're
going to flock to that industry, but they're not going to just
take our word for it. They want to see these jobs develop.
So that is why I think it is also important as we're
building energy storage systems--and I heard the ranking member
say, ``What do we do when the sun doesn't shine and the wind
doesn't blow?'' Well, we have technologies for that. I have a
tax credit bill which I hope all my Republican colleagues will
sign onto which provides a tax incentive for these companies
that are developing and scaling up energy storage systems so
that we can store renewable energy so that when the sun doesn't
shine and the wind doesn't blow that that energy is available
to pick up that thing.
And the other thing I would say is we are not shutting down
the natural gas and oil industry overnight. This is a
transition that is going to take place over a decade or so. Our
scientists have told us that we are still going to need carbon
capture and sequestration. There is still going to be a role
for some fossil in this picture down the road.
But colleagues, this change is coming. It is coming, and if
we're going to be successful in achieving our climate change
goal to get to net zero carbon by 2050, we are going to have to
utilize a lot of technology that doesn't exist today, but we
need to fund it and research and development so that we can get
where we want. We can get 80 percent of the way there right
now. It is that last 20 percent that is going to be the tough
part, and we need to invest in that.
So I have used up almost all of my time, but let me just
ask Ms. Farley: What do we have to do at the Federal level to
ensure the jobs we are creating in the clean energy and
manufacturing and installation, that these are good-paying
jobs, that they are stable jobs like Mr. Perez talks about that
people can support families on?
Ms. Farley. Thank you, Representative Doyle.
I think that we have to make sure that we are in
partnership with people. There are strong standards around
unionized labor, what we mean by a thriving wage, jobs, what we
mean also by supporting clean energy entrepreneurship. So I
think that we have to make sure to your point we are all
concerned with supporting our families, being strong
contributors to healthy communities.
I am a product of the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act. When the housing market crashed, my housing sector job
disappeared literally overnight. I was able to regain an
opportunity to join the energy efficiency industry through a
nonprofit in the southeast that focused on building science
that jumped into and exploded with training and opportunity to
train the workforce.
Mr. Doyle. Ms. Farley, thank you. I want to ask Mr. Baird
one question, and I only have 30 seconds left.
Mr. Baird, how do we make sure that companies that are
installing energy efficiency systems or clean energy systems
have a workforce and that people have the skills they need to
do this work especially in historically disadvantaged
communities? How do we make sure we are giving people the
skills they need?
Mr. Baird. Congressman, all of the highly skilled
construction workforce of America is nearing retirement age, as
you know. We must train up a new generation of Americans who
are going to use software from day one as they execute and
implement clean energy jobs across the country. That can happen
in community colleges, local workforce development, nonprofits
and of course labor unions training people for the jobs of the
future.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, thank you for
your indulgence, and I yield back my time.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes Dr. Burgess for 5 minutes. I don't see him on the
monitor.
Dr. Burgess, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Then the Chair recognizes Mr. Latta of Ohio for 5 minutes.
Mr. Latta, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding
today's hearing, and thank you very much to our witnesses. I
think Dr. Burgess is over in Rules Committee right now.
As this subcommittee continues its hearings on many
different aspects of the clean energy policies, I have to say I
am still a little baffled that the majority continues to ignore
one of the most reliable sources of clean energy in our
country, and that is nuclear. The people that work in the
industries all along the nuclear fuel cycle, including miners,
engineers, operators, machinists and more, are proud of the
work that they do and should have our full support.
Unfortunately, government restrictions and regulations
impeded the growth of our nuclear sector for decades, and we
have fallen behind the rest of the world. We have seen our
supply chains become more vulnerable due to our heavy reliance
on foreign entities for the resources we need to power our
nuclear sector, especially when it comes to uranium.
In order to regain our leadership role in nuclear power,
protect ourselves from threats to our national security
interests, and reduce carbon emissions, we should be doing all
we can to help our domestic nuclear sector, beginning with our
uranium miners. These are some of the many reasons I introduced
H.R. 1351, which is the Nuclear Prosperity and Security Act.
The bill would direct the Department of Energy to establish and
operate a uranium reserve to ensure the availability of the
uranium mined in the United States in the event of a market
disruption.
I was glad to see this bill was included in the Republican
Securing Cleaner American Energy agenda because it will ensure
that the United States continues to lead the world in reducing
emissions while also keeping the lights on and maintaining
lower energy costs.
Mayor Carter-King, if I could start with a few questions
with you. The State of Wyoming has been at the forefront of
this industry as the United States' leader in uranium mining
and production, and also my colleague, your representative, Ms.
Cheney, is my colead on H.R. 1351. Would you speak to the
importance of maintaining a healthy domestic uranium mining
industry from both an energy and a national security aspect?
Ms. Carter-King. Yes. Thank you, Congressman Latta.
The uranium industry has really fallen in Wyoming in, I'd
say, the last decade because of decreased demand, but lately
there has been more interest in it, and that is why the
Department of Energy is also in our community now to look at
uranium and other rare earth elements that they can find in
carbon. So yes, we would be very interested in reviving our
uranium industry here around our community as well in the State
of Wyoming.
Mr. Latta. Thank you. I know that our ranking member had
asked you some questions about the effect of oil and natural
gas on your community. What about uranium? How would that
affect your community, especially when you think about the
importance in Gillette and also in Wyoming?
Ms. Carter-King. Well, I think if we could get into the
production once again of uranium it would help our county as
well as the State of Wyoming. Right now it is not--it is kind
of lower on the scale of the energy resources just because the
demand is not there. And, like you said, if we would start
looking at nuclear energy, which is one of the cleanest forms
of energy, I believe that would be a boost to our State.
Mr. Latta. You also talked about when you're thinking about
the economy and making sure that you keep people in the State
and have people coming into the State. If we would have a
situation where we would see our uranium mining going down and
also those jobs being lost right there in Wyoming, what is
going to happen to these workers? Are there other mining jobs
out there for them, or are they just going to have to either
leave the city, look someplace else? What would you anticipate?
Ms. Carter-King. Your question is what would I anticipate
if uranium continues to decrease?
Mr. Latta. Well, right. Where would the workers end up
right now? Are there other jobs out there for them, or what
would happen?
Ms. Carter-King. Not with the current state of what is
happening with energy. So no, they would have to leave our
State, and I don't know where they would go with their
particular skills as far as uranium mining goes because where
else would they go?
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My time has
expired, and I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. McNerney, for 5
minutes.
Mr. McNerney. I thank the chairman and the witnesses.
Mr. Rush. I see the chairman of the full committee has
returned.
Mr. McNerney. I'll yield.
Mr. Pallone. I mean, you can do Jerry first if you want to.
Mr. Rush. Well, he has just yielded to you, Mr. Chairman.
So why don't you go, Mr. Chairman, and then he'll wait to
become the next Democratic Member to speak.
Mr. Pallone. All right. I'm sorry. All right. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
I wanted to try to ask a couple questions of Mr. DeVar and
Mr. Bhatraju. Mr. DeVar, in your testimony, you spoke about the
role of outreach and participation. You said that lack of
access to State and Federal rulemaking processes prevent
marginalized groups from benefiting from the energy system.
Would you just expand on this, particularly on how the Federal
Government can better ensure that these impacted communities
are properly represented in decisionmaking?
Mr. DeVar. Yes, Ranking Member Pallone. Thank you.
I'd say there are three ideas that come to mind. Let's
think about it this way: Who is at a decidingmaking table, and
if there is a problem with someone not being there, what do we
do? The first thing you do is you reach out to people. So there
needs to be a robust outreach. You have to go to community
groups and leaders and trusted parties to actually reach people
in the first place. So that is one role that the Federal
Government can play.
The second would be actually resourcing people to be able
to participate meaningfully. So that could look like investor
compensation in rulemaking proceedings, and that could be
through support at the Federal level and guidelines and
encouragement of what is occurring at the State level.
And finally, I would say there has to be followthrough.
Take the example of being at a table. That would be like having
confirmation that you paid and that someone knew that you had
spoken. And so the same is true in rulemaking proceedings. We
need to have clarity that those comments were heard and
responded to.
Mr. Pallone. Right. And then you also talked about the role
of data in properly identifying these vulnerable groups. What
more could we do at the Federal level to identify these
communities of need, and what are the ramifications of
improperly targeting Federal assistance?
Mr. DeVar. I'd say first, in terms of improperly
identifying groups and targeting assistance, the downside would
be if we don't get this right we are going to have wasted
resources and we are going to have growing inequity. The issues
that everyone here is raising actually is getting to the heart
of constituents, of communities, lost jobs either from one
sector or to the other.
So what we actually agree on here in this hearing is that
we need to get to the bottom of those things, and inevitably it
is just going to be more costly if we don't really have data
about these communities and the benefits. But I'll also note
that we can have accounting and iteration, and so if we have
data, goals, and metrics we can track and in a few years see if
we're not reaching certain groups, if we're not achieving the
goals of reducing rates for energy customers, particularly low-
income communities, and then we iterate our approaches after
that.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you. I wanted to go to Mr. Bhatraju. In
your testimony, you detailed your company's business model and
how community solar can be used to increase clean energy
access, and then you detailed some of the obstacles you face in
enrolling customers, especially low- and moderate-income
customers. Could you please give us some insight into community
solar? In other words, do customers know that it is an option
for them, and what are the challenges you face with outreach?
Mr. Bhatraju. That is a great question, Congressman. When I
am sure any of you talk about solar to anyone, they're thinking
about a power plant on someone's roof, and community solar is
actually just a totally new way of delivering solar because it
is offsite. It is somewhere else. And so it is a very new
product in the market that has expanded pretty rapidly, and,
frankly, customers absolutely love it. You can live in an
apartment. You don't necessarily have to have the world's
greatest credit score. You don't have to have a roof.
One of the challenges at least our business faces is
awareness. The expansion of these programs will inevitably
increase awareness because people want energy options. They
want to be able to choose how they power their homes and their
businesses. I think what is one of the more exciting things
about community solar is the investment community loves it.
Customers love it. Utilities actually appreciate building large
centralized distributed generation sites, not individual
rooftop sites everywhere. It is an awareness that I think the
legislation and having a national legislation can really help
with.
Mr. Pallone. Well, thank you so much. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman. This has been very helpful in terms of what
we want to do with the CLEAN Future Act. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. The Chair yields back. The Chair now recognizes
the gentleman from West Virginia, my good friend Mr. McKinley,
for 5 minutes.
You're muted.
Unmute.
Mr. McKinley. I got it now. Mr. Chairman, thank you. You're
one of the few Democrats that I think really grasps the impact
of what we're talking about here today, because at church on
Sunday we had a prayer that asked God to enlighten all who
inflict darkness on others--asked God to enlighten all who
inflict darkness on others--so, in essence, to educate our
political leaders that there are consequences to their
policies.
Mr. Chairman, the Democrats control the House, the Senate,
and the Presidency. You all can force a restructuring of fossil
fuel economies all across America, but I don't believe you
fully understand the consequences of your action will result in
higher utility bills and lost jobs. How many coal mines, oil
wells, refineries, coal-fired power plants are in cities like
New York, Chicago, or San Francisco?
People working in these fossil fuels are not statistics,
but they're real people with families. They've maintained their
way of life for over a century, but now liberal Democrats are
using a political timeline to eliminate the use of fossil fuels
in 10 years or less.
Now, I've heard the promise of a just transition. It just
won't happen. Look at what has happened over history with the
steel, the electronics, and the textile industries. The
Government said all the same promises but betrayed the American
people. Mr. Chairman, there was an editorial in today's Wall
Street Journal. It was their effort, I think, to educate its
readers on the consequences of Biden's energy agenda. It begins
with, ``Beijing is clear that it would ignore any carbon
emission commitments that impinge on China's economic growth.''
It goes on to say, ``Chinese leaders don't mind the Paris
Accord because they know it doesn't bind them to anything while
Western nations will harm their economies with new regulations
and misallocated resources.''
``The Chinese must be dumfounded,'' the article goes on.
The editorial says they must be dumfounded the United States
``administration wants to kill the shale and natural gas boom
that has kept energy prices low and made the U.S. less reliant
on foreign oil,'' and then it ends with, ``No wonder Beijing
thinks America is in decline.''
So much for China's commitment to climate change. We can't
trust them on trade, South China Sea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, human
rights, intellectual property. Why should we think we can trust
them on pollution? So let me get this straight: America will
have higher utility bills, lost jobs, a less reliable grid, and
we're still going to experience extreme weather events all the
while China continues to pollute.
If I could, I'd like to turn to the mayor in Gillette.
Mayor, wouldn't it make more sense for us in America to perfect
carbon capture so that we can continue to use our fossil fuels
and maintain a stable economy in the coal fields and natural
gas production, for example, in Wyoming?
Ms. Carter-King. Absolutely, Congressman McKinley, and
thank you for the question.
That is what we have been advocating for for years now.
Work with us. We have some of the cleanest coal in the country.
We already have perfected some--you know, we have started at
least on working on cleaning the carbon out of the coal, and
our research that we've done at our integrated test center,
which also has the XPRIZE, which awarded a multimillion-dollar
prize yesterday for using carbon in construction----
Mr. McKinley. So Mayor, I've got a couple more questions
for you.
Ms. Carter-King. OK.
Mr. McKinley. How would you recommend--what would you
recommend? How do we do this to educate our Members of Congress
about the injustices that their policies will inflict on their
fellow Americans? How do we educate them?
Ms. Carter-King. Well, we would invite people to come and
visit us here where we can show them what we have been working
on. We've got the Department of Energy here. We've got
universities from across the Nation here working on our
research. Work with us. We can do this.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor, you referenced
you are the energy capital of America, and earlier you heard
Chairman Pallone say that renewables will create more jobs than
are currently in fossil fuels. Now, I'm aware of the number of
jobs that the coal-fired power plants and gas-fired power
plants, but could you tell me out in Gillette what is the size
of the parking lot, employee parking lot outside a wind farm?
Ms. Carter-King. You know, I'd have to be truthful and say
I have never seen a parking lot outside of a wind farm.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you. Mayor, I don't think we have
either. So I think this is disingenuous for us to be thinking
we're going to create long-term jobs by switching over. I think
we can find a mix that works out and so that we keep our fossil
fuels as part of all of the above. So I thank you, and I yield
back the balance of my time.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back the balance of his
time. Mr. McNerney. The patient Mr. McNerney is recognized for
5 minutes.
Mr. McNerney. I thank the chairman again and the witnesses
again. It is a great hearing.
First, I'd like to respond to the ranking member's opening
remarks in which she continued the Republican tradition of
bashing California's energy system, but please be careful. The
Texan Republican members of this committee used to do the same
thing until they had their own big freeze.
For the record, California's energy challenges are largely
due to wildfires and other climate-related disasters which are
caused by excessive carbon emissions. Let's focus on the real
problems at hand and not on phantom issues.
Mr. DeVar, in your testimony you write about the equity
benefits of distributed resources and the goal of a
demographically managed grid. Would you further explain how the
distributed nature of resources like community solar
contributes to energy equity?
Mr. DeVar. Yes. Thank you, Representative.
There are a few ways, and I think to get to the heart of
unpacking the difference between the current energy system and
the options in front of us and the clean energy system. So one
of the benefits that has come up many times here is the
question of rates and the income and expense ratio of families,
of households.
Distributed energy generation has the most potential to
really reduce someone's energy bill anywhere from 15 to 50
percent, and that is one area in which distributed resources
are really meaningful. Another metric or benefit that sort of
relates to what you just addressed is the question of
resilience. It's really only distributed generation of solar
care with storage that could really allow the flexibility of
keeping the lights on on a particular home or a microgrid for a
particular community in the face of disasters.
And third, for the issue of how distributed generation
would also allow us to target where we want to really reduce
pollution and wind down peaking power plants: There are plans,
for example in New York City, to think through pairing solar
and storage with the reduction of pollution and the use of
these plants that we don't need very often, and they both are
expensive and cost a lot of money.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Mr. Bhatraju, in California, we've
seen the value of locally sited distributed resources. Can
recourses like community solar contribute to grid resilience,
especially in underserved communities?
Mr. Bhatraju. Absolutely. To hammer this point home--and
thank you, Congressman, for the question--is community solar
allows people who move, people who rent, people who don't have
the right roof to access the benefits of the cheapest energy
source out there. We often get asked the question is community
solar--how does it compete, and who can benefit?
In reality, building larger-scale solar projects is cost
efficient. It builds resiliency to build these distributed
generation assets. These are all things that I think have been
talked about at the hearing, especially highlighting
California. A community solar program there would benefit the
grid, it would benefit resiliency, but it would also share the
benefits broadly with folks who just have been traditionally
left out of the solar revolution that we have seen in the last
few years.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Mr. Baird, I cochair the
Artificial Intelligence Caucus, and I care deeply about
reducing carbon emissions and increasing the use of clean
energy and renewables. How can AI help accomplish these goals,
especially in underserved communities? And do you have examples
that you can share for the work that BlocPower is doing?
Mr. Baird. Congressman, thank you.
We do use artificial intelligence and machine learning to
help us analyze and size the correct size of solar batteries or
all-electric heating and cooling systems on a house-by-house
basis. As the committee knows, each American home is an
individual home that needs its own specific mix of energy-
efficient and renewable energy equipment. Artificial
intelligence and machine learning will allow us to recommend
the appropriate clean energy equipment, the appropriate healthy
equipment on a building-by-building basis for over 120 million
American homes.
We can either do that by manually going house to house and
doing an assessment, or we can use the tools of Silicon Valley
to help us reduce the soft costs of clean energy so that we can
unlock more and more green construction and installation jobs.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. If you could submit policy
recommendations on using AI. And I want to say by finishing
that I sympathize with Mr. McKinley. He emphasizes the
consequences of a transition, but what about the consequences
of continuing carbon emissions? We need to make the transition.
That is exactly what we're attempting to do, and we really
prefer Republican participation in this process. I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from the greatest State in the Union.
Mr. Kinzinger from the great State of Illinois, you are
recognized.
Mr. Kinzinger. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate
you holding this.
I agree that there is a disparity in energy costs that we
should debate and address in a responsible manner. I have
consistently supported a true all-of-the-above energy approach,
and I understand the fundamental importance of preserving our
resources and natural heritage and agree that the consideration
of environmental impacts is essential to energy policymaking.
I have a record demonstrating support for renewable energy
technologies and expect their use to expand over time, but the
United States cannot simply afford to continue pushing a
renewables-only energy strategy to the detriment of abundant
and reliable sources, including nuclear and natural gas.
My colleagues and I sent a letter to President Biden in
February stating as much and asked him to work with us to
calibrate our national energy strategy, and I'll ask unanimous
consent to include that into the record.
Mr. Rush. Without objection so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you.
According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, nuclear power
generates 20 percent of America's electricity, and in 2018 it
prevented the emission of 528 million metric tons of carbon
dioxide. In Illinois, six nuclear power stations, including
four in my district, provide 88 percent of the State's
emission-free electricity. Unfortunately, due to nonmarket
governmental forces giving preferential treatment to certain
renewables, two of these plants, Byron and Dresden, are now
slated for closure.
When I visited schools in Byron or I talked to control room
operators and engineers in Dresden, I am able to see the
incredible impacts and legacy of this technology. These two
plants represent 1,500 direct jobs and millions of dollars in
municipal revenues. If these plants shut, the lost revenue
would devastate my communities and make it extremely difficult
to pay for high-quality schools, hospitals, emergency personnel
and other critical services. All this not to mention the
prospect of blackouts, unreliable electricity costs, increased
carbon emissions, and job losses.
Reserving the existing nuclear fleet will take a concerted
national approach, but I am doing what I can on my part. In
December my colleague Mike Doyle and I introduced the
Preserving Existing Nuclear Energy Generation Act, which would
help save nuclear plants that are on the chopping block,
including Byron and Dresden, by providing financial credits
through an emissions avoidance program. The bill would also
soften the blow to local communities by providing resources to
help shore up municipal budgetary shortfalls, preserve critical
services, and promote economic development. And last week I
reintroduced the Nuclear Licensing Efficiency Act, which builds
upon the recent efforts by Congress to modernize nuclear
licensing fees and procedures.
So to bring this home: Yes, there are disparities in
utility costs for households across the Nation. These
disparities can be seen across racial and ethnic lines in
geographical terms and in the rural/urban divide, but the
answer is not to simply put solar panels on the rooftops of
lower-income households, wipe our hands, and walk away, and the
answer cannot be heavy-handed intervention to artificially
reduce utility prices without regard to market forces.
So question to Mayor Carter-King. Your testimony mentions
the municipal revenues associated with the energy industry. Can
you elaborate? Specifically what financial effect would your
community suffer if these energy extraction and power
generation jobs were to disappear?
Mayor, you might be muted.
Ms. Carter-King. Thank you, Congressman Kinzinger.
It will be--it is devastating for our community. Was that
your question?
Mr. Kinzinger. Yes. If you could just kind of elaborate on
those impacts.
Ms. Carter-King. OK. Well, just the city alone we had to
cut a million dollars from our budget, and then you have the
school district, the hospital, everybody. It is a domino effect
on our community. We have got to cut people. We have got to cut
safety people on the streets, our teachers. It is devastating
for a community like ours, especially when we can help the
situation just given the chance.
Mr. Kinzinger. Well, thank you. So, as my colleagues and I
said in our letter to the President, it is long past time that
elected officials, finance and business organizations and
environmental lobbyists put down pitchforks and come to the
table and have honest discussions about the future of our
energy. Many have done so, but a handful of influential
partisans have become the loudest voices stoking fear and
talking past one another as each perpetuates a my-way-or-the-
highway approach.
The issues at their core require thoughtful debate and
compromise. I hope this committee can again be that voice of
reason and a beacon of congressional bipartisanship when it
comes to finding the appropriate balance of solutions, just as
we have in the past.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and with that I'll yield back the
balance of my time.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment, the
gentleman from New York, Mr. Tonko, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Tonko is recognized for 5 minutes. All right.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas,
Mr. Veasey, for 5 minutes. The gentleman from Texas,
Mr. Veasey, you are recognized for 5 minutes. I don't see
him on the screen.
Ms. Schrier from Washington State, you are recognized for 5
minutes.
Ms. Schrier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Well, I am proud to say that I come from Washington State,
a leader in carbon-free electricity and conservation, and most
of the electricity in Washington comes from carbon-free
resources like hydropower, wind, and solar. We've also made
significant investments on the public and private side to
ensure equity and energy efficiency investments, and this is by
providing grants or low- or no-cost loans for families to
conserve literally tens of millions of kilowatt hours of
electricity while keeping their homes warmer and safer,
particularly during the winter months.
Through conservation our State has sort of acquired new
affordable carbon-free resources without having to build
anything but just by saving, and those saved electrons can be
used to reduce emissions in other sectors, and it is really a
win/win. Yet there are still thousands of homes, especially
rental homes and multifamily buildings, that need upgraded
heating systems, added installation, double-paned windows that
could save energy long term for low-income customers, and we
need to encourage rental property owners that energy efficiency
is good for everyone's bottom line.
Now, the CLEAN Future Act would reauthorize the Energy
Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program for 10 years,
providing another valuable tool for electric customers to lower
their bills and perhaps deal with some of these more complex
challenges all while creating jobs.
Mr. Baird, can you tell me what suggestions you would have
for the committee to ensure that those dollars are distributed
in an equitable way to underserved communities?
Mr. Baird. Congresswoman, is that question for me?
Ms. Schrier. Mr. Baird, yes.
Mr. Baird. We recommend that a map be built that houses
census tracks with low-income communities all across this
country and that budget distributions through this bill and
other infrastructure investments be mapped onto that map in
order to help all employees of the Federal Government
understand the social and environmental benefits of the
investments and grants that are being made and to track and
analyze those investments post-disbursement. We think that a
centralized visualization of low-income communities is a
critical part of supporting this plan.
Ms. Schrier. Thank you very much. Now I have another
question. I am just going to change gears slightly to talk
about solar energy and low-income community solar deployment.
We've talked about the community solar projects, but Mr. DeVar,
I have a question for you that is a little bit different, and I
am listening to other questions like my colleague, Ms. Rodgers,
also from Washington State, pointed out, lack of equity in
terms of having a generator for outages or looking at Texas,
and sometimes these communities are the last to have power
restored.
And so my question is not so much community solar, but is
there any role here for solar roofing or solar panels and then
connecting that to something like a power wall, a Tesla power
wall or something else that could store enough energy for a few
days and to do this on the individual home level for low-income
homes? Any comments about that, Mr. DeVar?
Mr. DeVar. Yes. Congresswoman, this is an important issue
not just for the sake of keeping lights on, but keeping power
on, particularly for low-income communities, has more relevance
than many other Americans may realize in California or Texas.
I grew up in Houston, so I knew a lot of family and friends
who went through those issues there, spent time in California,
but folks with limited means spend a sizeable portion of their
income on every grocery bill. And so, when the power goes out
and your refrigerator stops working, that's your livelihood.
I appreciate this question because the role of solar and
storage at a local household level is crucial, and without
distributed energy resources, which starts with solar but
compare that with household storage or without storage at the
community level to have shelters or the local grocery store
somehow having backup power through storage or on a microgrid--
these are all ways in which we would have safer, stronger
communities if we deployed resilient storage technologies.
Ms. Schrier. Thank you for that answer. I really appreciate
it, and I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair sees that
Dr. Burgess has returned. Dr. Burgess, you are recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Chairman Rush. My apologies that
I'm having to toggle between several hearings today, but that's
not atypical. But, of course, with all of the disparaging
remarks being offered about the State of Texas, I thought it
was important that I be back and at least be prepared to defend
the Lone Star State.
I have a couple questions for Mr. Perez. Mr. Perez, in
particular--well, first off, thank you for being part of the
hearing today. The CLEAN Future Act that is the subject of this
hearing does, in fact, include some significant burdens on the
traditional energy sector, and there's the risk that energy
producers would raise prices, cut jobs, or just go out of
business.
So let me just ask you if traditional energy jobs promote
economic stability in diverse and minority communities.
You may be on mute.
Mr. Perez. The answer to your question is absolutely. Aside
from Hispanics In Energy, I've served in a lot of leadership
roles with trade associations, in particular the Hispanic
Chambers of Commerce, president of the Sacramento Hispanic
chamber and vice chair of the California Hispanic chamber. So
yes, economic stability is definitely part of the equation as
it relates to energy and in particular that portion of energy
in California. But all energy includes--for us includes the
utility companies and all the emerging companies that are in
the clean energy space.
Mr. Burgess. I thank you for that answer. Of course, being
from Texas you are familiar with--and it is not the area that I
represent, that is up in the Midland Odessa area--but the
Permian Basin certainly seems to have benefited the local
minority and disadvantaged communities because of the jobs boom
in the Permian Basin. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Perez. Absolutely.
Mr. Burgess. And again, then, as a natural consequence of
that, anything that restricted the energy production in that
sector would likely have a deleterious effect on those jobs,
would it not?
Mr. Perez. Absolutely. And not just the jobs, but the
cascading effect on families and communities is just
incredible.
Mr. Burgess. Right. So if those energy jobs disappeared,
would workers in those jobs be able to just quickly transition
to one of these other technologies that we're hearing about
today?
Mr. Perez. I don't see how, Congressman Burgess, because
that area, as you well know, is really almost--it is very plain
landscaping out there, mostly desert and cactus. So the answer
is no. There is no alternative. If those folks moved to
metropolitan areas, it would be a very huge stretch of reality
to see that population do that.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you. I thank you for your prior answers.
I thank you for your participation today.
I wonder if I could ask Mayor Carter-King just briefly as I
wrap up. Earlier this week it was announced that there was a
power plant in Gillette that will be carbon capture
technologies to produce concrete. That's a fairly novel
approach. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Ms. Carter-King. Yes. Thank you, Congressman Burgess.
That did just happen yesterday that a team up here at the
XPRIZE was awarded a multimillion-dollar prize for that:
technologies of extracting an element that they can use in
concrete for building purposes. So it was quite innovative and
something that can happen from the research that is going on
with carbon. They were just one of many teams that are looking
at other ways to use carbon. So it is a valuable resource in
more ways than just burning it for energy.
Mr. Burgess. Right. Well, I appreciate you bringing that
up. I had an opportunity to visit with the good folks at
Occidental Petroleum, and one of the projects that they are
working on is removing carbon from ambient air--not just from
an emission stack but from ambient air--and using that as a
feedstock to be able to produce ethylene and then a variety of
plastic products. So it is fascinating technology that people
are working on. I am glad we have such smart people in our
country that are working on innovative solutions to problems
that have perplexed generations.
Thank you, Chairman Rush. I will yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the chairman of the Environmental Subcommittee, the
gentleman from New York, Mr. Tonko, for 5 minutes.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from California,
Ms. Matsui, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank the witnesses who are here today for this very, very
important hearing.
Mr. Chairman and witnesses, in addition to decreasing
carbon emissions, clean energy deployment also improves public
health and lowers energy prices. Despite this, many of these
benefits are not available to low-income customers and
communities of color who are disproportionately affected by
high and severe energy burdens, heat islands, and pollution
from fossil fuel energy production.
The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these
disparities. With more parents and children staying at home and
increased household electricity demand, energy affordability
and home electrification are now more crucial than ever. To
tackle some of these issues I led efforts to lower energy bills
through residential tree planting, and in my district energy
equity organizations such as the Community Resource Project are
focused on home retrofits, energy efficient appliances, and
solar panel installations in low-income homes and multifamily
units.
Earlier this year I led a letter to the administration
encouraging the establishment of a Federal program to upgrade
HVAC units and improve energy efficiency in our Nation's
schools. This effort would enhance indoor air quality in
schools disproportionately affected by air pollution and also
create jobs and electrification and energy efficiency.
Mr. Baird and Ms. Farley, what initiatives can Congress
support to ensure that local vulnerable populations have access
to energy efficiency jobs and training? Mr. Baird first.
Mr. Baird. Congresswoman Matsui, thank you for the
question.
We believe that low-income communities should own the
microgrids, the solar, the electric wires that serve their
communities, and keep their low-income communities from being
vulnerable to the ravages of climate change and the
deteriorating electricity grid. Once we start from a framework
of low-income communities owning these new emerging clean
energy assets, of course we will train and hire community
residents to maintain those systems.
Of course we will develop the skills to maintain those
systems, because we will be the owners of those systems. And of
course we will embrace the jobs, the living wages, the
increased health benefits that come from embracing this
equipment. And so the traditional distrust that prevents a lot
of these technologies from being embraced from our communities
will be removed through ownership. Thank you.
Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much. And Ms. Farley, would you
like to make a comment on that also?
Ms. Farley. Yes. I think it is critically important to
marry the technologies and those job opportunities with
programs such as the National Institute of Environmental Health
Science Environmental Career Working Training Program. This
provides job safety and training for disadvantaged members of
communities of color and low-income communities to secure jobs
in these skills and technologies that we are talking about.
There is also the Environmental Workforce Development and
Job Training Program, and I think when you marry the training
with the technology you begin to generate a greater buy-in and
support that we need to advance----
Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much. I want to move on to
another topic. Mr. Bhatraju, in your testimony you mentioned
that community solar contributes to grid resilience and helps
reduce large grid expansion. How can community solar help with
wildfire resiliency?
Mr. Bhatraju. Thank you so much, Congresswoman, for the
question.
So community solar projects, they are acres-large solar
products distributed that don't require new transmission build.
So, first of all, they are cheaper to put on the grid because
you can build large-scale projects that are part of the
distribution grid. So to the question earlier, it certainly
helps with resilience and making sure the power stays on if
transmission wires go down like what happened in Texas.
But on the second point, these projects can also--they
don't catch on fire. Solar generally will use the sun to create
power and just don't have the same combustion as traditional
fossil fuel. So it is simpler in that respect.
Ms. Matsui. OK. Well, thank you. I have already run out of
time here, so I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back. I don't see Mr.
Griffith on the screen. Mr. Griffith, you are recognized for 5
minutes.
I don't see him.
We will move on to Mr. Johnson, the gentleman from Ohio.
You are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As our Nation recovers from a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic
and economic downturn, it is evident that working-class
Americans have suffered greatly, and many are still struggling
to get back on their feet, pay the bills, and care for their
families. But in listening to some of my Democratic colleagues
and their witnesses today, their message to these hard-working
Americans seems to be, ``Hey, don't worry, here is a
government-subsidized solar panel for your roof.'' I mean, are
you serious? How can we be that out of touch?
Unemployed Americans don't need wasteful green energy
projects and top-down mandates. They need jobs, the kind of
good-paying jobs that come with energy dominance. What we see
in proposals like the CLEAN Future Act is a two-pronged attack
on working Americans. The first attack includes provisions that
will increase their energy prices and decrease reliability.
This will hurt lower-income earners the most. The other attack
goes after fossil fuel jobs, which threatens the livelihoods of
millions of Americans.
So Mayor Carter-King, from your testimony today it is clear
that you represent a town that obviously punches above its
weight. I'd like to think my district in Appalachian, eastern
and southeastern Ohio is similar. We might be in an isolated,
sometimes forgotten corner of our State, but the folks I
represent take pride in keeping the economy moving by producing
the coal, oil, and gas that our region is blessed with.
So can you talk to this committee today about what it means
to your constituents and to our Nation's security for such a
small dot on the map to have such a significance, as you noted
in your testimony, not only with fossil fuel resources but also
rare earth minerals and uranium?
Ms. Carter-King. Absolutely. Thank you, Congressman
Johnson.
It is very important here with--especially since you said
rare earth elements--that we get all of that. We depend on
China for all of those, and we have plenty here in the United
States and especially here in Wyoming that would help us with
United States security and defense. So that is a great point.
Also, we do have hard-working people here who for 30, 40
years have supplied the country with energy, with goods, low
economical energy, and to just kick us to the side without even
trying to help us and even see what we can offer with our new
research and everything, it is going to be devastating for
communities like ours and I'm sure yours as well.
Mr. Johnson. OK. Well, thanks. And Mr. Perez, the message
from our Democratic colleagues and from the mainstream media is
the idea that, if someone is part of a minority group, the
American dream is somehow now out of reach and hard work just
won't get you ahead. I know that you represent many immigrants
and the children of immigrants from very poor backgrounds who
work in the oil and gas industry. It is not easy work, of
course, but as we've examined in this committee, it pays well.
So, in your opinion, does the oil and gas industry, a great
American industry, still provide a path to achieve the American
dream and with it a better future for the next generation?
Mr. Perez. For the Hispanic community, Congressman Johnson,
the answer is yes. And there is no stronger evidence of that as
we see Mexico recommitting itself to the oil and gas industry
with the current president, and the reason he is doing that is
exactly for that one reason, is jobs, good-paying jobs in an
industry that offers family security and family economic
growth. And so we just need to realize that it is not going to
be an easy transition. There's some very hard human impact
issues that we have got to seriously consider as we move in
this direction.
And we believe that technology is a great answer, nuclear
power expansion and natural gas and all the technology. We have
got a lot of innovation. We have got a lot of smart people in
America. We ought to put them to work.
Mr. Johnson. All right. Well, thanks, Mr. Perez.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back a total of 8 seconds.
Mr. Rush. The Chair certainly appreciates the gentleman for
yielding back. I see that the chairman of the Committee on
Environment has returned. The Chair now recognizes the
gentleman from New York, Mr. Tonko, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the
great work you are doing as subcommittee chair on Energy, and
thank you to our witnesses.
Before I ask my questions I just wanted to make something
abundantly clear because there has been a lot of talk about
nuclear energy today, and the CLEAN Future Act, which both you
and I have helped author along with Chairman Pallone and others
on the committee, would indeed support nuclear generators. So I
wanted to get that on the record.
One challenge we see is that landlords are rarely
incentivized to make investments that will reduce the energy
bills of their renters. This has definitely been the case of
energy efficiency and weatherization. So, Mr. Bhatraju, can you
discuss how community solar can help overcome this barrier if a
landlord doesn't want to invest in rooftop solar on his or her
building?
[Pause.]
Mr. Rush. Are you muted?
Mr. Baird. That was Mr. Bhatraju, or Mr. Baird?
Mr. Tonko. Mr. Bhatraju.
Mr. Bhatraju. I'm sorry, Congressman. I just had an issue
with my audio. Could you just repeat the question quickly?
Mr. Tonko. Kindly will do. Can you discuss how community
solar can help overcome the barrier of landlords who are rarely
incentivized to make investments that will reduce the energy
bills of their renters? What about rooftop solar on their
buildings?
Mr. Bhatraju. Yes. Absolutely. It is a great question,
Congressman. And apologies for that.
As you know, you can't really put panels on everyone's
roof, and some landlords who even can won't allow--there may be
residents in their building that want to get it, but they make
it hard to actually install even though it will save everyone
money. The beauty of community solar is you can actually build
a project distributed elsewhere. Like I was saying earlier in
my testimony, on farmland oftentimes we find farmers who have
unused land who are on the same distribution grid as maybe a
multidwelling unit and can build a project that can then serve
that multifamily housing unit and any customer inside that
actually wants the benefits and savings to solar energy.
And that is really the beauty of this product. Again, you
know, we tend to think of solar as something that has to be on
the perfectly southern-facing roof that a customer owns, and
the reality is a lot of Americans don't own their home, don't
have the perfect roof, and don't have the right credit score
for that. So this is what I love about community solar.
Everyone can access it even if you live in an apartment.
Mr. Tonko. Right. Thank you. We want to make certain that
this energy transition is affordable, that we are not impacting
especially our poorer neighborhoods. Can you give us a sense of
how community solar can result in reduced electricity bills for
people?
Mr. Bhatraju. Yes. Absolutely. It is a given now, but I
think this still is a thing people don't know. Solar is the
cheapest form of energy in the market. Every single project we
manage at Arcadia is at a 5 or 10 percent savings to the
traditional local utility rate, and that is indexed to the
utility rate over a 20-, 25-year period. So the savings are
effectively guaranteed to the customer.
Now, the question you may ask, as any business owner, like,
nothing is free, so who takes on the risk? Well, it is
developers. It is investors. It is big investment banks, tax
equity investors. They are the ones who also realize--this
transition, they realize it is an amazing economic opportunity,
and they realize they can sell cheaper power by investing in
these projects. So it is an amazing customer value prop because
they can choose cleaner energy and save money.
But to that broader point, it is the larger investment in
financial community that also loves this because you are
delivering a great customer value prop. It is a steady asset
that can produce returns over a long period of time.
Mr. Tonko. So are there any State regulatory barriers that
might make it difficult to deploy community solar or utilize
the business model that you have established?
Mr. Bhatraju. So we are a software business. We make it so
that we can manage hundreds of megawatts of projects and
deliver the credits and actually size it properly. You may have
large homes. Someone in an apartment can use different sizes.
There are barriers, right. Today there is only a handful of
States that have these programs. They are regulated and
deregulated energy markets, as I mentioned earlier. It can
happen everywhere.
And part of what we are hoping to pass this Congress with
your support is the ability to do a national program and
somewhere every State realize that you can do community solar,
create a resilient grid, give people cheaper energy bills, and
produce jobs, right, that can be everywhere. A lot of fossil
fuel jobs tend to be in very specific locations. You can put
community solar everywhere in this country, in all 50 States.
Mr. Tonko. Well, our legislation would empower States, so
this is good--or compacts of States--so this is good to know,
and we thank all of you for providing witness testimony today.
And with that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now sees Mr.
Griffith has returned. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman
from Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
apologize. I had to step out for a couple of minutes to go make
a presentation at the Rules Committee.
Earlier in the testimony as we were discussing all of this
we had Mr. Doyle, who indicated that we weren't going to get
rid of fossil fuels immediately, that we would have a decade or
so. I don't think we have to get rid of fossil fuels at all,
particularly if we work on new carbon capture technologies like
is being worked on in my district by Mova Technologies for
panel filtration, and I think it is important that we continue
to use base fuels whether it be nuclear or fossil and that we
do an all of the above.
One of the things I thought was interesting, though, and I
think it shows a weakness in some of the legislation that is
being discussed ,is that one of the witnesses in a prior
hearing who was a Democrat witness, Allison Silverstein, when I
asked her would it take more than 20 to 30 years to build the
high-voltage power lines that she thinks are necessary in order
to have a completely renewable energy system, her response was
yes. And the bottom line is that somebody has got to have these
high-voltage power lines to come through the areas to make sure
that we are wheeling the electricity to the areas that need it,
wherever the sun may not be shining because of weather
conditions or where the wind hasn't blown, but they've got
solar in the area, but it isn't working. They have to wheel it
from other areas that have an abundance.
Now, I know we've got some battery technologies, and so
forth. The problem is Mr. Doyle and some of the legislation
anticipates even in a best-case scenario that we are looking at
a decade or so, but quite frankly we can't build the
infrastructure necessary to wield that electricity, as your
witnesses showed in a prior hearing unless--it is going to take
more than 20 to 30 years to do so.
And then I asked this question that I think is an important
question because I represent one of the poorest financially--it
is a great district, but it has financial issue right across
the line from Pike County, Kentucky--in Virginia. So I know
that one of our witnesses knows about that. But I represent an
area that is pretty poor. So where are we going to put these
high-voltage power lines? Because historically what we do is we
put those high-voltage power lines where the poor folks live,
and that is who I represent, folks who don't have as much
money.
And I don't want to see the beautiful mountains of central
Appalachia crisscrossed with high-voltage power lines any more
so than they already are. And wouldn't the members of this
panel agree with me that that is not where it should be, that
they should put these new power lines closer to the big cities
where they need more of those power lines to draw the power to?
Anybody on the panel want to address that?
Mr. Bhatraju. I'm happy to, Congressman. Look, I don't
think--you know, I think there are tons of issues with siting
transmission. We will need it. You are absolutely right. We
also need hardened distribution grids. Some of these large
community solar projects, they are on the distribution grid.
They do not actually require large-scale transmission.
And to the earlier questions about resilience, these
projects can create a more resilient grid in tandem with
battery storage and other fuels by being on the specific
distribution grid not requiring new transmission buildout,
which I think a lot of other types of renewables do.
Mr. Griffith. Go ahead.
Mr. Baird. Congressman, I'm joining this hearing via my
iPhone, my smartphone. Computers used to be great big pieces of
equipment that used to take up entire rooms. Now they're small
enough to fit in your pocket or to fit in your lapel pin. That
is the same thing that is going to happen to our energy
equipment and energy infrastructure. It is going to shrink from
large, centralized energy production systems to smaller and
smaller systems that can fit in each and every American home.
That transition will occur, and it is simply a question of
who owns it. Is it going to be us, or is it going to be China?
But the technology is here, and the macro trends are clear as
to what is going to be happening in terms of the transition of
the energy industry.
Mr. Griffith. But do you truly believe that will happen in
the next decade? I think it will happen, but not in the next
decade.
Mr. Baird. I think it will happen within 5 to 7 years. It
is already happening across America.
Mr. Griffith. Well, I hope you are right because that is
what we are going to be gambling on, apparently, with America's
power system and hoping that we have enough power and hoping
the technology catches up. I would rather we had that plan
already in place. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentlelady from New Hampshire, Ms. Kuster, for 5
minutes.
Ms. Kuster, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
You are muted, Ms. Kuster.
Ms. Kuster, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
All right. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Blunt Rochester.
Ms. Blunt Rochester, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would
like to thank you also for holding this important hearing, and
thank you so much to the witnesses.
This Thursday marks the 51st year we commemorate Earth Day,
and for the second year in a row amid social distancing
measures, most Earth Day events will be virtual. The ongoing
pandemic and the racial and income disparities in COVID-19
deaths and hospitalizations are an important reminder that the
health of our planet and the health of our people are
inextricably linked.
Transitioning to clean energy is not only necessary to
protect human health and the environment, but it is also an
enormous opportunity to create a more equitable economy.
Generations of inequalities and injustices have placed a
disproportionately high energy burden on our low-income,
indigenous, and Black and brown communities.
The average low-income family in Delaware spends nearly 10
percent of their income on home energy costs. Too often
environmental justice communities are excluded from
considerations on clean energy, perpetuating underinvestment in
these communities. We need to work together to ensure that
environmental justice communities have a seat at the table as
we transition to clean energy.
And my first question is for Mr. Butrauju--sorry for that.
Bhatraju. We recognize that the transition to clean energy will
not be seamless, but we also know clean energy creates good-
paying union jobs. Prior to the pandemic there were nearly
14,000 Delaware residents working in clean energy. Can you
explain how clean energy investments like community solar
provide jobs for Americans while increasing access to energy in
high-burdened and low-income communities?
Mr. Bhatraju. Thank you, Congresswoman. And no worries at
all. My name is not phonetic.
So community solar--and I want to go over this point
again--it can happen everywhere, and the benefits are broad
because it is offsite and requires skilled electricians and
tradesmen to actually install these projects. There is a great
story out of West Virginia, for example, where a company called
Solar Holler where they have retrained coal miners to actually
install megawatts now of solar in West Virginia, as an example.
But even in urban areas you are seeing community solar as
an amazing benefit to the question earlier, people living in
apartments, and creating resilient distribution grids, hardened
grids. We know that the climate is getting weirder, and there's
more storms, and having these hardened grids is especially
beneficial for low-income populations and communities.
So the benefits of community solar are going to be more
widespread by virtue of the product itself but by virtue of the
fact that it can happen in all 50 States.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Great. Thank you. And Ms. Farley, High
Road businesses apply a collection of labor policies that take
a more sustainable approach to treating workers, the planet,
and the local community, which includes racial justice, racial
equity hiring practices, prevailing wage standards,
unionization, and environmental sustainability. We often hear
from critics that clean energy is antilabor, but the two are
not mutually exclusive, and we do know that we don't have to
choose between our good jobs and the environment.
How can we incorporate the High Road business model into
the clean energy industry to stimulate good job growth and
create jobs for all Americans?
Ms. Farley. Thank you, Congresswoman Rochester. I think
that we have strong models for this. There are many equitable
High Road job policies and programs that have been developed
and create great models and demonstrate great models of this.
We know that President Biden's American Jobs Plan specifically
speaks to the promise of higher-paying, unionized clean energy
jobs with family-sustaining benefits.
And so I think that the clean energy industry has a lot to
learn from the labor industry, and I have been encouraged to
see more coordination between traditional unions and the clean
energy industry. And I think that both industries have a lot to
learn from each other as soon as we begin to see each other as
mutually supportive and not mutually exclusive.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you so much. And thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for your leadership. I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Bucshon, for 5
minutes. You are recognized, Mr. Bucshon.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I just want to dispute a little bit the
comment made that says the rest of the world are doing what is
in the Democrats' proposals. Well, India and China don't seem
to be listening, so we don't want to economically disadvantage
ourselves.
I'm deeply troubled by the legislation to keep CLEAN Future
Act before us. The partisan bill not only jeopardizes America's
energy security and affordability, but worse it destroys the
livelihoods of hard-working Hoosiers and Americans across the
country. I want to make it clear I support an all-the-above
energy approach, and I support decreasing CO2
emissions. Innovation and technology advances such as carbon
capture are critical to this goal. We don't need to ruin the
economy and our energy leadership to do that.
The legislation proposed before us, I believe, is somewhat
out of touch with reality and moves to get rid of the fossil
fuel industry with its overreaching provisions. I want to read
from the bill itself, in fact, in Section 1002, the Energy and
Economic Transition Impact Studies section. The Democrat bill
says that ``the Secretary shall seek to enter into an agreement
with the National Academy of Sciences under which the Academy
agrees to conduct studies on matters concerning potential
impacts of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions on
workers and communities dependent on employment related to
fossil fuel as follows.''
I think I know the answer to the question, but I will read
you what the study they are proposing would do: ``Identify
types of occupations related to fossil fuels that may be
impacted by the Nation's transition to achieving net zero
greenhouse gas emissions, including occupations involved with
the extraction of fossil fuels, the refinement of fossil fuels,
the generation of electricity from fossil fuels, the production
of energy-intensive industrial products, the manufacturing of
light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles that utilize an
internal combustion engine and other component parts for such
vehicles, and the construction, operation, and maintenance of
infrastructure to deliver fossil fuels for domestic use, and
for each type of occupation identified under subparagraph (A),
estimates of the number of employees serving in each
occupation, and the locations of the employees for each type of
occupation.''
So even in the bill it is recognized that there is going to
be a substantial impact. I don't think we need to have the
Secretary study that to prove that. In regard to the all-of-
the-above approach, I think my record speaks for itself with
respect to my support for hydro and nuclear energy as well as
other renewable sources of energy, but I represent with great
pride a district that is responsible for providing the bulk of
energy generation from coal: the whole State of Indiana.
Mr. Chairman, it is personal to me. I grew up in the coal
fields in central Illinois. My father was a proud United Mine
Worker for his entire career. Over the past 4 years, however,
thousands of hard-working Hoosier coal miners in my district
have lost their jobs, and we are having more power plant
retirements. As more plants are set to retire partially because
of stringent regulations like we see in this legislation, there
will be an increase in hard-working folks who will be laid off
and struggling to find work. Why don't we innovate and
implement advanced carbon capture technology before all of
these jobs are lost?
Mr. Perez, this transition will have serious impacts on the
fossil fuel industry. What economic opportunity alternatives do
energy workers have should their years of experience and valued
skill sets no longer be needed or warranted?
Mr. Perez. Well, it is very limited, especially at the
scale when you deal with millions of people that would be
displaced across the country. I mean, the Hispanic community is
only maybe a million of those workers, but when you are dealing
with 10 million people it is very difficult because it is
essentially taking a worker, retraining them, so it is going to
be very expensive to do that, very time consuming. Some folks
will filter out because they don't like the new work, and so by
the time it all ends up it might be years down the road, and
you may only have partial success while at the same time you
are increasing economic distress for some of these workers and
their families.
And so in our case we are seeing the Hispanic community is
coming out of poverty. We definitely are in an upward mobility
mode. We are great contributors of the country's economy with
$2.3 trillion purchasing power. There is a lot of opportunity
there, and so we are very concerned about the shift over. And
we are saying let's stop. Let's really take a good look at what
we are trying to do and figure this out before we put so many
people in harm's way.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you for that. I would agree.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now once
again recognizes Ms. Kuster for 5 minutes. The gentlelady from
New Hampshire, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Kuster. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
it.
This is an important hearing, and I am grateful to our
panel for being with us today. As Congress works to help the
country transition to net zero carbon emissions, we must ensure
that low-income Americans and communities of color will benefit
from this revolution in our energy sources, and I want to make
sure that everyone has the chance.
So, according to the Department of Energy, the average low-
income family spends nearly 9 percent of their income on home
energy bills, three times more than the national average. These
burdens are even more acute in rural communities in New
England, where the average low-income family spends nearly 11
percent of their income on energy bills. It is unacceptable
that low-income Americans are forced to spend 1 out of every 10
hard-earned dollars keeping the lights on and keeping their
family warm. We need to help low-income Americans spend less
money on their energy bills, and one way we can do that is by
reducing the cost of electricity itself.
In my district, the Plymouth Area Renewable Energy
Initiative has done just that. Partnering with the Common Man
restaurant and the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, they
built a community solar project that sells clean energy into
the local grid and uses the revenue to subsidize energy bills
of local low-income families.
Mr. Bhatraju, what can Congress do to help develop more of
these projects that strengthen the grid, reduce carbon
emissions, and make the clean energy revolution more equitable?
Mr. Bhatraju. Thank you, Congresswoman. As a lot of you
know, the power grid is not actually competitive in a lot of
parts of the U.S. The community solar projects I talked about
that we manage are right now across eight States. Again, these
are red States, blue States, deregulated, regulated markets.
Community solar can happen everywhere, but it is a form of
competitive energy that we need to promote everywhere.
And it is part of the legislation that we are discussing
here today is to give every public utility commission--and
there's 50 States, 50 public utility commissions--the ability
to consider creating a community solar program. And they can go
through their own deliberations of how to do it--how big, where
to put it, et cetera--but that is all we are asking.
And I think, hopefully, it came through today that the
benefits of community solar are so much more widespread than
traditional rooftop solar that opening up the ability for these
policymakers to consider these programs, put them in all 50
States, benefits everyone, the communities and folks that are
left out of the transition.
Ms. Kuster. Great. Thank you very much. Another way to
reduce energy bills is by helping families operate their homes
more efficiently. Heat pumps cost less to operate than a
traditional natural gas or oil furnace. Because heat humps run
on electricity instead of carbon-based fuels, they can help us
meet our carbon reduction goals as we electrify the grid.
Mr. Baird, what are some of the barriers that you see to
broader heat hump utilization, and should Congress consider
incentives to help more Americans adopt this technology?
Mr. Baird. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. Heat
pumps will be a central technology in the American economy over
the next 30 to 50 years. Right now they're being primarily
produced in Japan. They are new models of heat pumps that use
carbon as refrigerant. So for our friends across the aisle who
are interested in carbon capture and storage, heat pumps
actually present a multitrillion-dollar use case for capture
carbon and using it as refrigerant in heat pumps.
The barriers to deploying heat pumps at scale include a
lack of homeowner awareness. Americans are not aware of the
benefits of heat pumps as is the case in Europe and Asia, where
heat pumps are the top home energy technology. And second, we
must train up a new, highly skilled construction workforce that
has the ability to do plumbing and electrical work and
hazardous materials construction work that is necessary to
install heat pumps in 120 million American homes. Thank you.
Ms. Kuster. Thank you very much. I did have another
question about the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program,
LIHEAP, but I will submit that for the record. Thank you. I
yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now
recognizes my friend from the great State of Michigan, Mr.
Walberg, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Walberg. I thank the Chairman, and thanks to the panel
for being here.
This is an important issue that sometimes I think we ought
to step back and really, really consider what we are talking
about for the future, especially as we are thinking about 20,
30, 50 years. Mayor Carter-King, I'd like to talk to you about
carbon capture since I know there is work being done on a
storage facility at Dry Fork Station in Gillette, which my
staff had the privilege to visit.
I agree with you that there are many good uses for carbon
rather than keep it in the ground, which is not practical in my
view, not necessary either, I believe. We should invest in
carbon capture utilization and storage. This is a bipartisan
solution since we need to figure out how to manage carbon
across the value chain, but we need to make sure we're not
duplicating existing regulations or imposing impractical
permitting requirements that may undermine future development
of this technology.
The Federal Tax Code can be a tremendous tool, but we can
also look at speeding up the infrastructure process for
companies to obtain Federal permits needed to inject
CO2 into storage. And so, Mayor King, do you support
equipping the EPA for the Federal Government with the ability
to process these infrastructure permits at a faster rate and
helping other States take the lead like you are doing in
Wyoming?
Ms. Carter-King. Absolutely. Thank you, Congressman
Walberg. That is absolutely what we would appreciate here so
that we can fast track more of the research that is going on
here. When President Biden was running for election, he said he
would work with the red States as well as the blue States.
Well, we here are willing to work with him on subjects like
this because we do need his help now.
Mr. Walberg. I think that is called primacy, isn't it?
Could you also speak to the importance of new technologies and
innovations in carbon capture utilization and storage? And then
secondarily, what would that mean for your community of
Gillette, and shouldn't we give your State a strong opportunity
to lead in this space?
Ms. Carter-King. Absolutely. Thank you again. That is a
great question. We do need the help to continue this vital
research in such an abundant resource that we have here that
can help the Nation as well as the world. Other nations do
recognize this, and we have other countries here working on the
research as well. We need to work more with the rest of the
world. This is a global problem that we can help with right
here in the Powder Basin. It is vital that we continue this
important research into carbon capture.
Mr. Walberg. Well, I think we forget--so often we forget
our primacy itself in all-of-the-above energy opportunities and
solutions that we don't necessarily need to throw them all out
or throw certain ones out, but we can use them appropriately.
Mr. Perez, thank you for being here. We keep hearing about
the job potential of this so-called just transition and no
doubt there is huge potential in clean energy jobs, but I think
we need to be realistic. Even former Secretary of Energy Moniz
concluded that new replacement green jobs pay significantly
less, not to mention impediments to retraining our entire
generation of workers.
I just think it is silly to think that a government
transition czar and task force are going to take care of all of
those workers who lose their jobs. Mr. Perez, can you speak to
your workforce and the need to reserve jobs that folks are
training for today?
Mr. Perez. Oh, absolutely. Well, first of all, we found
that there is a huge need to develop a workforce in energy
STEM, and the reason for that is 25 percent of K-12 students in
America today are Hispanics, which means 10, 15 years down the
road that is your workforce. So we need to be thinking about
how we are going to create the new intellect to innovate and
develop the technologies necessary to not only carry our
industry forward but our country and, of course, hopefully the
world.
So we initiated a program called the Hispanic American
Energy STEM Institute 2 years ago. We launched it in Arizona.
We have had similar discussion on this with very influential
people, including the top leaders of education in California
and the CEOs of the utilities there to talk about how the
industry and the academia and the community can develop a
pathway to create 25,000 Hispanic and other minority group
energy STEM graduates by the year 2025. Very ambitious goal,
but if we don't throw it out and have some discussion, who
knows? Maybe we might be able to pull it off.
But in terms of the comparison to the clean energy space,
we have connected with people who train solar installers. They
tell us that those jobs don't pay very well. It is about $13 an
hour, no benefits, no union, no sustainability, no career
ladder. Once a project is over, that person has to go out and
find another project.
So on the other hand, in the oil and gas side, we can take
assistant welders, for example, right off the street they go
through the union training. They put them on the job. It is $23
an hour, $20 an hour for benefits and then $64 a day for per
diem, which is how they house themselves and feed themselves
when they have to move across the country for these very
special jobs.
So there is a big difference in terms of the scale of
security, income, opportunity, training, education, and
development that is offered in one sector compared to another.
Mr. Walberg. Great. I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. Now the Chair does not
see Mr. O'Halleran on the screen. Mr. O'Halleran, you are next.
So the Chair now will move to Mr. Duncan.
I don't see Mr. Duncan on the screen.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Palmer from Alabama for 5
minutes. Mr. Palmer, you are recognized.
The Chair now recognizes Mrs. Lesko for 5 minutes. Mrs.
Lesko, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chair, although I see Mr. Palmer
waving his hand. So I don't know if you want to go back to him
first.
Mr. Rush. Mr. Palmer, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
You are muted, Mr. Palmer.
All right. Mrs. Lesko, why don't we just go with you. You
are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this
hearing, and I thank you for being here.
I think it is important that we talk about things like
equity, that we have an honest conversation about what equity
really means. For my colleagues, many of them on the other side
of the aisle, achieving equity requires the creation of an
Office of Energy Equity, but I believe the easier way to serve
our communities is to have policies that promote affordable and
reliable energy and maintain good-paying American jobs.
We can continue innovating and deploying clean technology
as well as a lot of traditional forms of energy like natural
gas to be a choice for Americans. I represent nearly 180,000
fixed-income senior citizens and 173,000 Hispanics in my
congressional district in Arizona, and I want to make sure that
these people and this energy policy we consider doesn't lead to
higher prices, especially on the seniors who are living off
fixed income. I also want to make sure that policies proposed
in the name of equity or environmental justice aren't taking
away good paying jobs from working class communities.
Mr. Perez, in this bill--and I would like to read part of
this bill, it is on page 953 of the CLEAN Future Act--it
identifies types of occupations related to fossil fuels that
may be impacted, meaning lost, by the Nation's transition, and
it is a fast transition, to achieving zero net greenhouse gas
emissions and includes ``occupations involved with the
extraction of fossil fuels, the refinement of fossil fuels, the
generation of electricity from fossil fuels, the production of
energy-intensive industrial products, the manufacturing of
light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles that utilize an
internal combustion engine and other component parts for such
vehicles, and the construction, operation, and maintenance of
infrastructure to deliver fossil fuels for domestic use.''
That is right in the bill, and you have testified in
advance, but I want you to repeat again the impact that the
loss of these jobs is going to have on the Hispanic community
and the 173,000 Hispanics that I have in my congressional
district.
Mr. Perez. It will be a very devastating impact
economically. It would create a depression made by government,
and so we really caution against that. We think that there
needs to be a lot of research and a lot of study. Otherwise, I
hate to say this but you probably won't want to claim
responsibility for that if that happens.
Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Perez. Mayor Carter-King, I am
really concerned about the increased cost of electricity and
energy if we rush too fast to replace the oil and gas industry
and not have an all-the-above energy policy. Do you think that
a quick rush--I think in this bill it is 14 years we only have
until electric generation plants have to totally be at zero
carbon emissions, meaning no natural gas. Do you think that
would lead to increased utility prices for these low-income and
communities of color?
Ms. Carter-King. Thank you, Congresswoman Lesko.
Absolutely. I don't think people are even thinking about how
expensive power would be. And who would that hurt? Your lower-
income people. It would be so--I can't even manage without
having the low cost of these fossil fuel energies in the mix at
least. It will be devastating to people that won't be able to
afford to turn on lights. We have spoiled our country with low
energy prices all these years. So yes, it will have quite an
impact on the price of energy across the board.
Mrs. Lesko. Well, and I am concerned for all people and
what the impact will be on the cost of utility rates and also
the reliability of the utilities of energy. And so with that I
yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Palmer.
Mr. Palmer.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me now?
Mr. Rush. Yes, Mr. Palmer.
Mr. Palmer. Perfect. I am going to make a couple statements
here about energy justice. It is widely reported that low-
income households can spend up to 20 percent of their household
income on their energy cost. It is disproportionately a heavy
burden on low-income families. I also want to point out that
they suffer energy poverty in the sense that they can't afford
to adequately heat and cool their homes. And this is especially
problematic when the homes are cold for people with respiratory
and cardiovascular issues, particularly asthma.
Mr. Perez, there is a study from IHS Market, one of the
most highly respected research groups in the world, and they
predicted that by 2035 there would be 1.9 million jobs in oil
and natural gas, that 700,000 of those would be African
Americans and Latinos. What do you say in regard to how it
would impact those communities if those jobs were not
available? Would you agree those would be very high-paying
jobs?
Mr. Perez. There is no questions about it. We partner very
closely with the American Association of Blacks in Energy,
AABE. They have been around since 1977. We are a fairly new
organization. They actually incubated us for a couple years
when we got started 10 years ago. So we have done projects
together. One of them is focused on energy jobs.
We toured around the country in 10 different cities to meet
with leaders and talk to them about the opportunities in the
energy space as it relates to jobs, and it was all inclusive.
And I can tell you that the effect from my perspective--I
cannot be a spokesperson for them--but I think that it
definitely would have an impact on the African-American
community almost as dramatically as it would in the Latino
community.
Mr. Palmer. The thing about these jobs, they are longer-
term jobs as opposed to the jobs in the green industry.
Mr. Perez. Yes.
Mr. Palmer. For instance, Germany in 2011, they reported
300,000 green jobs that had fallen to 150,000 by 2018. And then
if you go back and look at the first version of the Green New
Deal, which was the 2009 stimulus package the Obama-Biden
administration passed, the Democrats passed, in 2009, they were
predicting that it would create 5 million new green jobs, but
they could only account for 2.7 million. And according to the
Brookings Institute, most of those were bus drivers, sewage
workers, and other types of work that didn't fit the green jobs
of the future. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics even included
jobs like lobbying for green industries.
That makes no sense that there were people in the septic
tank and portable toilet servicing industry had 33 times more
green jobs than solar electric utilities. This is the kind of
stuff that really concerns me, is the misrepresentation of what
the Green New Deal will provide for the country, and
particularly the cost increases.
In California their energy costs are 60 percent higher than
the national average, and that is a tremendous burden on low-
income families. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Perez?
Mr. Perez. It is higher than other States. Absolutely. I
moved from California recently, and I live now in Minnesota,
and so big difference in terms of our energy bill, absolutely.
Mr. Palmer. I appreciate the response. I would also like to
ask again, and I have done this in two or three hearings in
Pembroke Township in Illinois. It is a city of 2,100 people, 80
percent Black population. They have no natural gas. Many of
these people heat their homes with wood-burning stoves or more
expensive propane, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson is leading an
effort to get a gas line in Pembroke Heights to provide these
people with lower costs and more reliable fuel for heating
their homes.
I just want to know from the witnesses how many of you
would support Reverend Jackson's efforts to get a natural gas
pipeline into Pembroke Township. How many of the witnesses,
period, the Republican or--would you support that, Mr. Perez?
Mr. Perez. Well, I am a Democrat, and the answer is yes.
Mr. Palmer. How about you, Mayor Carter-King? Any of the
Democrats, would you support that? Seeing no takers, I yield
back.
Mr. Baird. I oppose gas pipelines. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, the great State of
Arizona, Mr. O'Halleran, for 5 minutes.
Mr. O'Halleran, you are muted.
Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member,
and I want to thank the panel also for all their information
from today.
Changing energy economies means that rural communities like
those in my district with generating stations have lost and
will continue to lose jobs as coal becomes less economically
viable. With support like that provided by my legislation, the
New Promise Act, communities across the country will be able to
transition to the next generation of good-paying clean energy
jobs. Ensuring that Federal resources are available and
communities are driving the direction of those resources will
support communities through this transition that is already
being driven by market forces.
I believe that we should ask ourselves how Federal
investment into clean energy can improve the lives of our
constituents and our communities. Asking this question allowed
me to develop the New Promise Act to support rural economies
and make sure that hard-working Americans continue to have
opportunities to pursue good jobs.
Mr. DeVar, how will Federal transition assistance to both
local governments and workers promote rural equality in an
energy transition?
Mr. DeVar. Thank you, Congressman.
Well, first of all, the focus on local governments and
workers has to be built into recognizing where there will be
shifts in workforces. Actually, I think this question really
connects to issues that have been raised. Where are there going
to be job losses? Where will there be local governments that
have different shifts in revenue streams?
And approaching this overall transition not as one that is
simply an energy transition but approaching it as one that
focuses on American families and jobs would elevate. If we set
the goal of this transition equally to look at American
families and how they benefit and if we set metrics to ensure
that we reach cities, towns and have local governments
connected to the transition, then we would ensure that we were
able to build distributed generation, for example, which can
reach all of our cities and towns as opposed to types of
resources that may leave certain communities out as well as
rural communities.
That is the other important issue where we need to think
about the benefits of a decentralized and distributed approach,
which could really bring jobs to all of our communities.
And lastly, I will just say this is actually an important
question to think about that issue of job loss, but I think we
have to connect that also to communities that are thinking
about their income as well as communities that are facing risk
of pollution. So this isn't a simple tradeoff of one harm to
another harm. It is a complex web, and if we are honest with
ourselves we really need to analyze what the tradeoff of
benefits and burdens are, and that will really get to the heart
of addressing specifically local governments and workers.
Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you. I have followup question. Can
you speak to some successful examples of rural communities
successfully transitioning coal jobs to clean energy jobs?
Mr. DeVar. I myself am not an expert in specific job
training programs. I think some of the other witnesses here
would. But I think what I can point to is that the vehicle for
ensuring that just transition happens is often rural electric
cooperatives that are responsive to their customers, that care
about fossil fuel workers. And so if, again, we connect to
local governments and those institutions that care about folks
there, care about those jobs and tie that into our transition,
we will ensure that we have training and support for workers
from one industry to another.
Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you. Those rural co-ops are also
important to broadband distribution throughout our country
also. Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Pence, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Pence. Thank you, Chairman Rush and Ranking Member
Upton, for holding this hearing, and thank you to the witnesses
for appearing before us today.
The academic ideas incorporated in the majority's
aggressive energy policies are neither equitable nor just for
my constituents in southeast Indiana. Under this bill, a just
transition means less reliable energy for a higher price, fewer
jobs, and economically depressed communities in my Hoosier
State.
If we want a preview of a similar rush to green, we can
look to the outcomes and looming energy shortages in Germany.
The country's premature shift has left consumers with the
highest cost of electricity in the European Union. All the
while Germany still relies on their neighbor for coal and
nuclear generation to meet peak energy needs.
At a time when gas prices are already straining the budgets
of Americans in rural and suburban communities, we simply
cannot afford to foot the bill to bring renewable energy and
electric vehicles just to the urban areas. As the attack on
fossil industries intensifies, it is important to remember the
impact on the entire value and distribution chain.
That includes the trucking industry, manufacturing plants,
our farmers and Hoosier products that fuel the country. Just
the other week I had the opportunity to meet with Superior Oil
in Connersville, Indiana. This company is helping lower our
carbon footprint by recycling and reusing different types of
liquid fuels for chemical, plastics, and manufacturing
industries.
Consider companies in my district like Cardinal Ethanol and
POET who are leaders in the high-tech ethanol and biofuel
development, all from the locally sourced agriculture products.
What would be the just transition for these workers in my
district when we shift to complete electrification? What
happens to the local economy and tax revenue that grows a
community? Unfortunately, President Biden and the House
Democrats' one-size-fits-all approach to energy catches rural
Hoosiers in the crossfire.
Mayor Carter-King, your community faces a serious threat
from the policies coming from the CLEAN Future Act. In your
testimony, you detailed the real-world impact of these
aggressive policies. Eliminating fossil fuels result in the
loss of revenue, jobs, and wellbeing for the citizens of
Gillette. One of the reasons I ran for Congress was because I
watched the destruction of the manufacturing sector hollow out
entire communities across Indiana in my district. It is my fear
that the very policies we're talking about today will replicate
this situation for my constituents.
You have been investing in new, cleaner ways to use coal,
oil, and natural gas. This would benefit small rural towns by
keeping anchor institutions in place. My question: Before we
unjustly destroy entire communities on the way to green,
shouldn't we give these innovations more time to develop so we
can transition these communities in an orderly manner?
Ms. Carter-King. Thank you, Congressman Pence. Absolutely.
That is all we're asking, is for time to develop these
innovations that the great minds of the world are coming up
with here in our community and in other communities. We just
need more time. They can't happen overnight. But they will
benefit everyone. These could have worldwide implications some
of the technology that they are working on now just like the
concrete solution they came up with yesterday in the XPRIZE. So
yes, thank you. We need more time.
Mr. Pence. All right. Thank you today for being here and
championing our smaller communities. And Mr. Chair, I yield
back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Armstrong for 5 minutes.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have heard it
several times today that the free market is what is continuing
the cause of the decline of coal, and I think it is important
to go through this because if we're talking about creating new
energy standards, understanding how the electric grid works
economically is probably pretty important, and anybody who says
that market forces and not government regulation is what killed
coal simply doesn't understand how the economics of the
electric grid work.
To be sure, abundance of natural gas from shale plates has
a free-market factor in what continues to cause the decline of
coal, but that is literally the only free-market portion of
this conversation. Every other thing has been created by
government regulation.
It actually started under the H.W. Bush administration but
was aggressively and effectively pursued under the Obama
administration. The admission of CO2 to the New
Source Review standard was significant because it made the
decision to retire coal plants instead of retrofit them. The
cost and uncertainties weren't worth it. It was a bad policy,
and it was administered poorly. Rather than risk an NSR review,
coal plant were shuttered. And while the clean power plant was
never fully implemented, it was really effective in one thing:
It gave States the message that the Federal Government was
going to shut coal plants down and that States plan
accordingly, which brings us to probably the most important
thing.
There is no real free market in the electric grid. Electric
companies in most States are government-approved monopolies.
They have guaranteed market share. State regulators set the
rates, and the utilities aren't allowed to make a profit from
the sale of electricity. It is a cost-of-service business
model. Regulated by the government, it covers expenses and
builds in a profit margin which is usually around 10 percent.
We have created a system where utilities have a guaranteed
profit when they spend on capital assets, but the profits they
make on assets declines every year as an asset depreciates. As
coal plants get older, it makes utilities less--they make less
money on that asset, and as plants are paid off the electricity
is cheaper, and rate payers benefit but government-controlled
utilities don't.
Through a perverse regulatory incentive, utilities have
strong financial reasons to retire depreciated coal plants and
build wind, solar, and natural gas, and this is before we talk
about regulatory and economic advantages renewables continue to
have over coal with the never-ending production tax credit:
2019, 4.7 billion in market manipulation; 2020, 4.3 billion in
market manipulation; 2021, 4.3 billion in market manipulation,
not the least of which renewables are granted primacy on the
grid.
So when we talk about a just transition, let's be honest
what we are talking about, and we should just tell the people
in my communities like Beulah, Hazen, Watford City, Williston
and yes, Gillette, Wyoming, that we are going to kill their
communities because, whether it is coal or oil or natural gas,
none of these renewable jobs that we continue to say will exist
will scale up to allow these communities to survive.
And I am going to let everybody in on a little secret.
Everybody who lives in Watford City, North Dakota, is in the
energy business--everybody from the teacher to the cop to the
government officials. If there's 15 clean energy jobs that are
created in Rochester, Minnesota, that does nothing for the
people in my communities in western North Dakota. And we're
seeing these same fights coming in different ways right now.
One of the things we're seeing in the oil and natural gas
space is how we continue to attack pipelines. Somebody said
earlier States aren't going to ban fracking--and that's
probably true mostly because, when it comes to oil and gas,
which while there is a difference to coal, States have too much
control over production--but you don't have to kill fracking to
kill the industry. All you have got to do is continue to sue
pipelines out, sue pipelines out, sue pipelines out, make the
cost of compliance so hard, the time built to get that
infrastructure in the ground is so burdensome that the capital
to deliver the products to market matters.
And if we want to talk about equity in the setting that it
is talking in now, I would have everybody read the declaration
of Mark Fox, who is the chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes
in North Dakota. They transport 60 percent of their oil by the
Dakota Access Pipeline. It accounts for 80 percent of their
travel budget. Everybody who lives on that reservation is in
the oil and gas industry, and every single person on that
reservation is going to be negatively impacted if the Dakota
Access Pipeline shuts down, and those are the real cause for
real concerns.
And finally, when we are talking about community solar
projects and all of these different issues, we have a model for
that. It is called a co-op. We can do these things under
current existing structures. My problem is and my guess is in
order to make a co-op economically viable you are going to have
to have a carbon fuel source to back it up when the wind
doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. So with that, I would
ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the declaration
of Mark Fox, and I'll yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back. And if the gentleman
will hold on to his recommendation, I do have a series of
documents, and included in the documents that I have for
unanimous consent is the letter from Mr. Mark Fox.
So that concludes the witnesses' questioning and answers,
the questioning of the Members and answers by the witnesses. I
again want to thank our esteemed witnesses for their
participation in today's hearing. I want to thank you for your
perseverance and for your endurance, and thank you so very,
very much for your exemplary testimony.
I must remind Members that, pursuant to committee rules,
they have 10 business days to submit additional questions for
the record to be answered by our esteemed witnesses who have
appeared before us today, and I would ask each witness to
respond promptly to any such questions that you may receive.
Before we adjourn, I want to request unanimous consent to
enter into the record the following documents: a report from
the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources on Federal
leasing and drilling ban policies; a report from the NRRI
Insights, ``Resource Adequacy Needs,'' dated March of 2021; a
letter from the Hispanics In Energy regarding opposition to SB
467; a report from the executive president of the United States
CEA on the value of U.S. energy innovation and policies; a
letter from the stated Mark N. Fox with the chairman of the
Three Affiliated Tribes; an article from the New York Times
entitled ``A coal miners union indicates it will accept a
switch to renewable energy in exchange for jobs;'' a letter to
President Biden regarding winter storm Fed assistance
supporting Masonite energy; and lastly an article from the Wall
Street Journal entitled ``John Kerry's Climate Kowtow.''
Hearing no objections, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the
hearing.\1\]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The University of Wyoming and United States CEA reports have
been retained in committee files and are available at https://
docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=112462.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Rush. And I now declare that the Energy and Power
Subcommittee do hereby stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:56 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]