[Senate Hearing 117-7]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-7
BUILDING BACK BETTER: ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE ELECTRICITY
SECTOR AND FOSTERING ECONOMIC GROWTH
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 10, 2021
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
44-197 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont Virginia
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island Ranking Member
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama
MARK KELLY, Arizona JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
ALEX PADILLA, California ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
JONI ERNST, Iowa
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
Mary Frances Repko, Democratic Staff Director
Adam Tomlinson, Republican Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
MARCH 10, 2021
OPENING STATEMENTS
Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware.. 1
Capito, Hon. Shelly More, U.S. Senator from the State of West
Virginia....................................................... 3
WITNESSES
Rusco, Frank, Director of Natural Resources and Environment,
Government Accountability Office The Honorable Eric Garcetti,
Mayor of Los Angeles, California............................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Responses to additional questions from Senator Carper............ 22
Garcetti, Hon. Eric, Mayor of Los Angeles, California............ 29
Prepared statement........................................... 31
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Carper........................................... 42
Senator Capito........................................... 44
Fowke, Ben, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Xcel Energy.... 45
Prepared statement........................................... 47
Response to additional questions from Senator Carper......... 50
Snyder, Sandra, Vice President of Environment, Interstate Natural
Gas Association of America..................................... 58
Prepared statement........................................... 60
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Carper........................................... 63
Senator Cramer........................................... 65
Wood, Jim, Energy Institute at West Virginia University.......... 71
Prepared statement........................................... 73
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Carper........................................... 75
Senator Cramer........................................... 76
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statement of Commissionor James Danly............................ 86
Statement of Wood Mackenzie, A Versik Business................... 91
Letter from the Western Governors Association (January 31, 2019). 104
GAO Report to Congressional Requesters, Electricity Grid
Resilience, March 2021......................................... 120
Letter from Attorneys General and Environmental Agencies......... 176
2019 Average Monthly Bill, Residential data from forms EIA-861-
Schedules 4A-D, EIA and EIA-86IU............................... 191
Letter from Business Roundtable, Expedite Infrastructure
Permitting Through Existing Law................................ 193
GAO Report to Congressional Requesters, National Environmental
Policy Act, April 2014......................................... 197
Article from Texas Energy System Faces a Winter Reckoning........ 239
Letter from 118 Undersigned Law Professors....................... 245
Forty Proposed U.S. Transportation and Water Infrastructure
Projects of Major Economic Significance........................ 260
Letter from the Western Governors Association (December 3, 2018). 364
Article from NRRInsights, Practical Perspectives on Critical
Policy Issues.................................................. 367
Congressional Research Service, The National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA) Background Implementation........................... 379
BUILDING BACK BETTER: ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE ELECTRICITY
SECTOR AND FOSTERING ECONOMIC GROWTH
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2021
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The committee, met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m. in
room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Carper, Capito, Cardin, Merkley, Markey,
Kelly, Padilla, Inhofe, Cramer, Lummis, Boozman, Sullivan,
Ernst.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE
Senator Carper. Good morning, everybody. I call this
meeting to order. Senator Capito and I are pleased to be joined
this morning by a distinguished panel of witnesses to discuss
climate change and our electricity sector. Mr. Rusco, who is
here in person, welcome. Mayor Garcetti, I presume, is out in
California. Mr. Fowke, Ms. Snyder, Mr. Wood, we welcome you,
one and all.
Experts talk about climate change in technicalities, things
like ``parts per million'' or ``carbon dioxide equivalent.''
Get beyond these terms, though, and the reality is really more
severe and the urgency more apparent.
In Texas last month, as we know, that reality hit home. An
estimated 4.5 million Texans lost power, some stranded for days
on end in the freezing cold without heat or running water.
Families literally froze to death, were poisoned by carbon
monoxide, or trapped in home fires.
Overall, the crisis took the lives of 80 people, and the
estimated damages to people's homes, to their businesses, and
to their livelihoods are expected to reach over $90 billion. It
is heartbreaking, and it should never have happened in this
Country.
It is clear that Texas was ill-prepared for the unusually
frigid temperatures. Gas-fired power plants, a nuclear reactor,
coal plants, and some wind turbines, and natural gas wellheads
all succumbed to temperatures that they were unprepared for.
This wasn't the first time we have seen devastation fueled by
climate change, and sadly, it won't be the last.
As we will hear today from Mr. Rusco, a report released
this morning by the Government Accountability Office found that
climate change is expected to have far-reaching effects on the
electricity grid that could cost the American people tens of
billions of dollars in damage and power outages, like the
devastation we have just seen in Texas, but a future of more
suffering from climate change is not written in stone. We can
invest in a cleaner, more resilient electric sector. As our
President says, we need to build back better.
A judge once asked, our committee has heard me say this
more than a few times. I love to tell this story. A judge once
asked a fellow named Willie Sutton, a notorious bank robber
during the Great Depression, and purportedly asked Mr. Sutton,
``Mr. Sutton, why do you rob banks?'' Mr. Sutton replied,
famously, ``Because that is where the money is.'' When people
ask me, ``why do we need to reduce power sector climate
emissions,'' I say, ``because that is where a good deal, not
all, but a good deal of the emissions are.''
As it turns out, the electricity sector is the
secondlargest driver of climate change in our Country, the
second largest. Transportation, mobile sources, are the first,
responsible for about 28 percent of our Country's total
greenhouse gas emissions. Electricity is the second, the source
of 27 percent of the Nation's total emissions, and industry is
the third, accounting for about 22 percent. If my math is any
good, that adds up to more than three-quarters, more than three
quarters of the greenhouse gas emissions in our Country.
If we want a cleaner, safer planet, and we do, all of us,
we have to make the reduction of electric power emissions a top
priority.
President Obama understood this, and that is why he set a
national target to reduce power plant emissions by about 32
percent below 2012 levels. The Clean Power Plan was crafted
after taking and responding to 4.3 million public comments and
working with local leaders and stakeholders. I double checked,
4.3 million. That is the correct number: 4.3 million comments.
I asked her, were they responded to? And the answer was,
apparently, just about every one of them.
But there were plenty of critics who argued, several years
ago, that these national targets were too ambitious. President
Trump agreed, and he repealed the Clean Power Plan and replaced
it with an unambitious, ultimately illegal plan that was thrown
out by the courts.
It turns out that the critics could not have been more
wrong about the Clean Power Plan. American utilities are
already far surpassing its goals. We will hear soon from one of
our witnesses, Mr. Fowke from Xcel Energy, about how his
company is on track to reduce 85 percent of its carbon
emissions by 2030. Let me repeat that: 85 percent of its carbon
emissions by 2030.
This move toward clean energy didn't happen by chance.
State and local programs are driving the energy markets and
utility decisions to go clean.
Today, 30 States have adopted a mandatory renewable or
clean energy standard for their electricity sectors, 30 States.
Fourteen of them have plans in place to transition to 100
percent renewable or zero-emission energy.
Dozens of utility companies have pledged to decarbonize
their electricity in the coming decades. Forty percent of
American households are now served by utilities that have
pledged to completely decarbonize by 2050. This is encouraging
progress, but the one way that we can get to a truly clean and
safe electricity sector is if we come together and chart a
lasting, bipartisan path forward.
Like President Biden, when I hear the words clean energy,
the words that come to mind for me are job creation, and we
need that. We need every job we can create and grow.
Clean energy can create millions of good-paying jobs,
strengthen our economy, and build a more sustainable future for
our children and for our grandchildren. We have a real
opportunity to make this happen for the American people, and I
think we have an obligation not to let them down.
With that, I am delighted to turn to our Ranking Member,
Shelley Capito, from the great State of West Virginia, for her
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA
Senator Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
thank all of the witnesses who have joined us, both here today
and remotely, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about an
issue that is extremely important to everybody.
I think the recent cold weather disaster that the Chairman
talked about in Texas and similar weather-related outages in
the past few years have revealed two major challenges in the
electric sector that policymakers must address.
One is most certainly reliability. We need to ensure our
energy systems are resilient to the impacts, such as extreme
weather storms, wildfires, or cyberattacks. If an emergency
occurs, we want to make sure that any of those impacts are
minimized and are remedied quickly.
The other is affordability. Building and maintaining a
power system, especially with innovative technologies, comes at
a price. We need to make sure we are not making it unaffordable
to turn on those lights, especially during and after an
external challenge to grid reliability, and also for those who
are in the low-to mid-incomes, where the higher cost of
utilities are particularly difficult to manage.
I would suggest there are two key strategies this committee
to support to advance these related goals.
First, we need an all-of-the-above energy strategy. Clean
energy is not just wind and solar power. It includes nuclear
energy, low-carbon natural gas, hydropower, geothermal, battery
storage, and electricity generated conventionally from fuels
like coal with innovative technologies, such as carbon capture
utilization and sequestration. Fuel diversity will pay
dividends in addressing reliability by providing the
flexibility to switch sources of one generation becomes
unavailable.
Despite the progress some may seek to ignore, American
emissions have steadily decreased in the power sector over the
last decade, while global emissions have risen, especially in
China.
As of 2019, carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector
have decreased by 33 percent since 2005, and 2017 marked the
ninth time this century that the U.S. reduced emissions more
than any other nation, thanks primarily to the revolution in
domestic natural gas production.
We need to continue to buildup America's energy leadership
and invest in innovation and innovative ways, which directly
ties in with a theme I have mentioned before: we can't build
back better if we can't build anything at all.
While general oversight of the grid is not withing the
committee's jurisdiction, proper permitting absolutely is.
Certainty in permitting and consistency of regulations is
essential for building the relevant infrastructure to achieve
our goals of reliability and affordability.
For too long, States and project sponsors have been stuck
in a regulatory purgatory, seeking endless approvals from up to
13 different Federal agencies. Additionally, dozens of State
and local approvals are typically required before construction.
Building on the streamlining provisions enacted under Title
41 of the FAST Act and the creation of the Federal Permitting
Improvement Steering Council, the One Federal Decision policy
called for early coordination and predictable timelines to
deliver decisions in a timely manner without compromising any
environmental protections. However, One Federal Decision was
revoked under one of President Biden's first actions in office
when he signed Executive Order 13990.
It will be hard to deliver on clean energy if permitting
complexity represents an unsurmountable challenge. As one
example: new wind and solar projects are often constructed
hundreds of miles from consumers, far from existing
transmission lines to move that electricity where it is needed.
Without the ability to timely permit new transmission, the
ambitious goals set by President Biden of zero emissions by
2035 is just a costly pipedream. If there was any doubt as to
the path my Democrat friends want us to think about, I think if
we look at what has happened, and I see my colleague here from
California, and I am really pleased that we have Mayor Garcetti
on the panel, because I want to look at what is specifically
going on in the city of Los Angeles.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in January,
Los Angeles households paid 52.2 percent more for electricity
than the nationwide average in the same month. That is despite
LA's famously beautiful and milder weather. This is nearly 7
percent more than Los Angelenos paid last January, so the trend
is going in the wrong direction on affordability for the city
of Angels.
On reliability, according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration, in 2019, the average American lost power for
approximately 4.7 hours, including as a result of extreme
weather events like floods, blizzards, and hurricanes. In
California, also in 2019, customers had 9.87 hours without
power, which is more than a 5-hour difference, which doesn't
sound like much, but when you look at it percentagewise, it is
double the amount of time. Wildfires and controlled outages
aren't the only blame. Outages in non-fire months were also up,
compared to 2018, and Los Angeles led the way with 5,787
blackouts in the year 2019, impacting more than 6.4 million
customers. Goes to my reliability premise.
This is before ambitious plans to electrify transmission
and to shutter the State's remaining nuclear plants and put
pressure on its natural gas plants. I noticed that the Mayor is
going to be closing, I think it said three natural gas plants.
California, its demand for power and lack of generation
stresses the systems, also, of their neighboring States. For
now, it looks like things will continue to go in that direction
in California. I suggest that we can do it a better way for the
rest of the Country, but I don't disagree with everything that
the Mayor has put forward. In his testimony, he hit on my other
premise of where I think we need to go.
I was very pleased to see, and hope to engage him on, to
see that he is very interested in the permit streamlining
aspect of getting cleaner energy to every household. This is
certainly something I agree with him on, and I believe should
be a priority for our committee.
I thank the Chairman, and I would like to take a moment.
Should I introduce my West Virginian, or should I wait to do
that, Mr. Chairman?
Senator Carper. Why don't you go ahead right now?
Senator Capito. OK. Never a bad time to introduce a West
Virginian, that is for sure, as you know. I want to thank all
the witnesses here, and I want to thank particularly Jim Wood
for being here to join us to testify.
Jim Wood is the Director of the Energy Institute at West
Virginia University, where he also serves as Director of the
U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center Advanced Cold
Technology Consortium. In 2019, Mr. Wood was appointed by our
Governor, Jim Justice, to his Downstream Jobs Task Force. The
task force is working to bring manufacturing opportunities to
the State ahead of the anticipated expansion of the
petrochemical industry in Appalachia.
Additionally, Jim has 30 years of experience in the power
industry. He came to West Virginia University in 2014 from
ThermoEnergy Corporation where he was chairman, president, and
CEO of the Massachusetts-based company focused on industrial
waste-water treatment and power generation technologies. Prior
to that, prior to WVU, Jim was Deputy Assistant to the
Secretary of DOE's Office of Clean Coal for President Obama. He
was responsible for a $4.5 billion program for research and
demonstration projects related to carbon capture and storage,
advanced power generation cycles, fuel cells, and advanced
integrated gas combined cycle processes.
I am really happy to have Jim. I have relied on him as an
expert for me, to help me. I am happy to have him in West
Virginia at WVU. We are really pleased to have him in this
committee today. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Capito. Mr. Wood,
welcome. I was born in Beckley, so it is nice to have another
West Virginian in the house, and in fact, in the room, even if
virtually.
Next, I want to recognize Senator Padilla, and see if he
might introduce another one of our witnesses, whose name has
been mentioned, the mayor of the largest city in California,
the city of the angels. Senator?
Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and Ranking Member
Capito for inviting me and allowing me to introduce my friend,
the mayor of the second-largest city in America, my friend
Mayor Garcetti. Mayor Garcetti is a fourth-generation Angelino,
born and raised in the San Fran Valley, just like me. He is a
true public servant. We served together on the Los Angeles City
Council once upon a time. He is an intelligence officer in the
United States Navy Reserve, and currently serves as the 42d
mayor of the city of Los Angeles.
Throughout his tenure, among his priorities has been
leading the way with some of the Nation's most ambitious
climate goals, particularly helpful over the course of the last
4 years, as the prior administration retreated from the global
stage. Mayor Garcetti mobilized mayors across America to adapt
to the Paris Climate Agreement.
The city of Los Angeles has the largest municipal
electrical and water utility in the Country. We refer to it as
the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and that utility
is rapidly and successfully meeting California's State
renewable energy goals ahead of schedule.
Additionally, Mayor Garcetti has served in leadership roles
for LA Metro, our transit agency for the region, not just the
city of Los Angeles. From his time serving as chair, he is
advanced the electrification of the bus fleet for Metro. As the
leader of the largest municipal utility in the Nation, along
with leadership of one of the largest metropolitan
transportation systems in the Nation, Mayor Garcetti has had a
critical voice locally, regionally, and nationally on climate
change, not just for the sake of achieving climate goals, but
for fostering economic growth and opportunity.
So colleagues, please welcome my friend, Mayor Eric
Garcetti.
Senator Carper. Thanks for that introduction.
Mayor Garcetti, can you hear me?
Mayor Garcetti. I can, thank you. Can you hear me OK?
Senator Carper. Yes. I am a retired Navy captain and used
to be stationed up and down the coast in California during the
Vietnam War.
Mayor Garcetti. Wonderful.
Senator Carper. I was a naval flight officer, P-3 Aircraft
mission commander, and also the intelligence officer for my
squadron. I understand, are you still in the reserves?
Mayor Garcetti. Go Navy. No, last year, 2 years ago, I
dropped out. Thank you for your service.
Senator Carper. That is great. Well, thank you, and thanks
for your service in that capacity, too.
We have some other distinguished witnesses on today's
panel. Frank Rusco I personally welcome here. Frank is live and
in-person here for today's hearing. He is the director of the
National Resources and Environment at the Government
Accountability Office, a great team of people whose job is to
really serve as our watchdog and try to help us be more
fiscally responsible. We thank you, Frank, for joining us and
send our best to your controller general and your colleagues.
We are also fortunate to have two other witnesses join us
virtually: Ben Fowke, who is the Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer at Xcel Energy. Welcome, Ben. I have son named Ben; it
is one of my favorite names.
Also, Sandra Snyder, Vice President for Environment at the
InterState Natural Gas Association of America, and we thank you
all for joining us today.
Mr. Rusco, why don't we start with you, and you may proceed
when you are ready. Take it away. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF FRANK RUSCO, DIRECTOR OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND
ENVIRONMENT, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Rusco. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member
Capito, and members of the committee. I am pleased to be here
today to discuss the need for greater climate resilience of the
electricity grid.
The fourth National Climate Assessment, published in
November 2018, warned, among other things that extreme weather
and other disaster-causing events will increase and that
adaptation measures will need to be taken to avoid large
societal losses. In addition, the electricity grid, as part of
electricity, or energy infrastructure more broadly, is
considered a critical infrastructure that should be resilient
to all hazards to protect public health, safety, the economy,
and national security.
Our report being issued this morning looks at climate
resilience of the electricity grid in this context. We found
that the costs of large power outages, as occurred recently in
Texas, are likely to cost many billions of dollars annually
unless the grid is made more resilient to climate-related
extreme weather: wildfires, sea level rise, and flooding. These
include the direct costs of repairing damage caused to the
grid, but also include significant but hard to quantify broader
societal costs. These latter include the costs to consumers and
businesses that lose power during climate-related events.
They also include public health and safety disruptions when
power to other key sectors is disrupted. Importantly, the cost
borne by consumers during power outages are not equally
distributed across income levels. Frequently, lower-income
consumers suffer disproportionately during power outages
because they have less access to alternative power sources,
such as rooftop, solar, or generators, and fewer resources to
be able to temporarily relocate out of the affected area.
Lower-income populations are also less able to afford increases
in electricity rates, which is ultimately the way investment
operations and maintenance costs of the grid are covered.
So, how do we know what investments to make, and how can it
be paid for? GAO's disaster risk framework provides some ideas.
First, the Federal Government needs to play a role in providing
quality information to all stakeholders, including private
owners of the grid, State and local regulators, and rate payers
about the risks associated with climate-related power
disruptions. This can help State and local regulators
understand the need for resilience measures.
Second, the Federal Government can play a role in
integrating and coordinating across stakeholders to achieve a
consensus on what specific actions need to be taken.
Third, the Federal Government can provide positive
incentives or reduces disincentives to encourage resiliency
measures to be undertaken. DOE and FERC are the key Federal
agencies at play here. DOE has the capacity and has taken many
steps in cooperation with some utilities, national labs, and
other key stakeholders to identify climate change risks to the
grid.
However, DOE needs to develop a plan to guide its
resilience efforts, and to better leverage the National labs in
these efforts. DOE also needs an agency-wide strategy for
enhancing grid resilience to climate change risks. FERC,
similarly, needs to better identify and assess climate-related
risks to the grid and plan a response using its authority over
grid reliability.
While DOE and FERC can help identify and plan what
resilience measures should be taken, this still leaves a
question of how it will be paid for. GAO does not offer a
solution here, but some observations from our body of work may
be useful. First, climate change poses risks to environmental
and economic systems and creates a fiscal exposure to the
Federal Government. The Federal Government can reduce this
fiscal exposure if Federal efforts are coordinated and directed
toward common goals, such as improving climate resilience.
Second, climate resilience will take a whole-society approach
to determine what measure to take and what parts of society
bear what costs. Lower-income populations often bear a
disproportionate burden during disaster events and are less
able to pay for individual resilience measures or for those
built into the greater system.
Last, as the fourth National Climate Assessment advises,
even though there remains uncertainty about the precise effects
of climate change in every sector, acting sooner, rather than
later, while prudently learning along the way, is the
appropriate path toward climate adaptation.
Thank you, this ends my oral statement. I will be happy to
answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rusco follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Mr. Rusco, you have given us a lot to chew
on, and we look forward to asking you some questions in a
little bit, but let's turn to our other witnesses first. Mayor
Garcetti, we thank you again for joining us, I presume, from
the west coast.
Please proceed into your testimony, Mayor. Welcome. Thank
you.
STATEMENT OF HON. ERIC GARCETTI, MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES,
CALIFORNIA
Mayor Garcetti. Thank you so much, Chairman Carper, Captain
Carper, Ranking Member Moore Capito, to the entire group there,
and thank you so much, Senator Padilla, who I enjoyed tackling
energy policy together when we both sat next to each other in
the Los Angeles City Council. Two decades later, we are so
proud of your representation of our golden State. Great to be
with friends like Senator Duckworth and Senator Sanders,
Senator Inhofe, who I visited with in his office. Thank you for
the honor. I am so excited to be able to testify on this
important issue before you today.
I lead America's second-largest city, where I oversee the
Nation's largest power and water utility that is municipally
owned. We have an energy demand equal to that of the State of
Colorado, just to be able to picture what our challenge is
every single day.
I am here to say, in no uncertain terms, that an energy
grid that is 100 percent renewable, reliable, and resilient can
be achieved. Los Angeles is proof. In 2002, our utility was
just 3 percent renewable and 60 percent coal. Today, we are 40
percent renewable, and by 2025, we will have zero percent coal.
We are forging this new reality in Los Angeles, and seeing
it happen in cities nationwide. As a founding member of Climate
Mayors, a bipartisan group of over 500 mayors who are
Republicans, Democrats, Independents, we know that clean energy
transformation isn't just possible; it is a necessity.
We are excited, too, about this work, because it is
creating economic opportunity: jobs, investment, it is keeping
the lights on, and it is fueling the next generation of
American innovation.
Now, a lot of cities are buying green power on the grid,
and that is great. It is an important part of this transition.
But in LA, we own our utility, so we have to build it from
scratch. We are building a renewable grid on our own. In other
words, transitioning to clean energy from soup to nuts, all
while having to keep the power flowing 24/7. That is power for
ventilators that are keeping loved ones alive today, that is
power for our port, the largest in the western hemisphere, that
helps Long Beach bring 40 percent of all the goods into your
States across the Country, power for stadiums and venues that
will soon propel our economic recovery.
Even as our State did face some rolling blackouts, we
haven't had a single rolling blackout in Los Angeles, because
we have made sure that renewable energy is also reliable
energy. We have connected to partners across the western United
States, co-owning and co-building the Hoover Dam, hydropower in
the Pacific Northwest, wind power in Wyoming and New Mexico,
green hydrogen in Utah. Coupling this with our local,
distributed power inside the basin, on Los Angeles rooftops and
in batteries, we are saving people money. So, it is not the
rate of electricity, it is what you pay on you bill that
anybody cares about, and count this: $1.5 billion in savings
from energy efficiency alone since I took office 8 years ago.
But you have seen the news. Climate events are getting more
frequent. They are more dangerous; people are literally losing
their lives, so our work is that much more urgent.
Two local examples underscore this point for me in Los
Angeles. We are used to heat, but in July 2018, we had the
temperature spike 108 degrees that day, one of the hottest days
on record. Though we had invested in infrastructure, cables
melted. Distributing stations overloaded. Some lost power for 3
days. It wasn't an issue of power; there was plenty of that. It
was just climate change. It is time for us to change that old
book.
The second example, you know well. The Saddleridge Fire of
2019, 8,800 acres that burned, and we came very close to losing
our transmission into Los Angeles. We came within an inch, for
the first time, of rolling blackouts, but they never came,
because we could rely on local energy, panels on rooftops that
kept the energy going. Scary moments, but not isolated ones.
Whether it is destructive wildfires in Senator Merkley's
State, the record-breaking heatwaves in Senator Kelly's State,
the recent storms in Texas, there are two questions that occupy
Americans, especially young Americans: how do we save our
planet, and where is my place in that planet?
We are answering that in Los Angeles with what we call the
five zeros: a zero-carbon grid, zero-carbon buildings,
zerocarbon transportation, zero waste, and zero wasted water.
We are on our way to 55 percent renewable energy by 2025 and 80
percent by 2036, 100 percent no later than 2045. We are tapping
into American innovation, working with the National Renewable
Energy Lab to have the biggest study of its kind in American
history to get there to make it more reliable and cheaper.
One example, we invested the largest solar plant in the
Nation's history for the cheapest price ever in the world for
both generating and storing electricity, 280,000 households
worth, and it is cheaper than a new gas plant. We look at our
ability to not only invest in jobs, but to invest in the
future.
So, our advice, make your investments bigger and bolder and
faster. Scale up a national green bank. Expand our EV tax
credits to help our drivers go electric, and so much more. In
other words, Federal urgency has to match local drive, and
trust me, we will have local dollars to match that as well.
I think I have reached my 5 minutes. I look forward to
questions and answers, but this is the moment to think big, to
act fast, and yes, to Senator Capito, to also look at the
regulatory power to unleash American creativity.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mayor Garcetti follows:]
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Senator Carper. Mayor, thank you so much for those words.
We will now turn to Mr. Fowke. Mr. Fowke, you are recognized to
present your testimony. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF BEN FOWKE, CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
XCEL ENERGY
Mr. Fowke. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member
Capito, and members of the committee. My name is Ben Fowke, and
I am the Chairman and CEO of Xcel Energy, a Minnesota-based
public utility holding company serving 3.6 million electric
customers and 2 million natural gas customers in eight Western
and Midwestern States. I also serve as Chairman of the Board of
the Edison Electric Institute.
Xcel Energy has long been a clean energy leader. In 2020,
we achieved a 51 percent reduction on carbon dioxide emissions
from 2005 levels. Just over 2 years ago, I announced a twopart
goal for Xcel Energy's electric business: to deliver 100
percent carbon-free energy by 2050, and in the interim, to
reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by 2030.
Xcel Energy is a clean energy leader because we can take
advantage of the extraordinary wind and solar resources in our
backyard, but our whole industry is moving. Since December
2018, more than two dozen EEI member companies have established
zero or net-zero targets on their own.
The good news is our strategy is working. We have announced
plans to greatly expand our portfolio of low-cost renewables,
extend the life of one of our nuclear units, build new,
efficient natural gas-fired generation, and retire or reduce
the operation of our coal plants.
These plans will reduce emissions while keeping service
reliable and affordable. They rely on proven technologies,
especially renewable energy. By 2030, we estimate that
renewable energy will make up about two-thirds of our energy
mix.
However, renewable energy can only take us so far. At
higher levels of intermittent renewables, the cost of the
energy system begins to skyrocket, and its reliability
degrades. That means the whole industry, even Xcel Energy with
our remarkable renewable resources, will need some form of new,
carbon-free, 24/7 dispatchable generation to remove the last
increment of emissions on our system and get to our goal of
zero.
These technologies may include hydrogen, advanced nuclear,
advanced renewables like deep geothermal, carbon capture or
storage, or other things, perhaps, that we haven't thought of.
I believe public policy can make these technologies a reality,
and we, along with EEI and environmental groups, are
encouraging Congress to pass a carbon-free technology
initiative focused on Federal policies that will encourage
their deployment.
These technologies require the kind of innovation that I
know America can deliver. With the right policies, I am
confident that our laboratories, companies, and entrepreneurs
can develop these technologies and create new jobs and
remarkable opportunity both here at home and abroad, but these
technologies won't be available overnight.
Until they arrive, we will still need natural gas and
existing nuclear generation on our system. Natural gas and
nuclear will facilitate high levels of renewable energy and
maintain grid reliability. New natural gas will only operate
when needed, perhaps a small number of hours a year during peak
demand when renewables aren't available. In the next two
decades, at least, natural gas and nuclear do not stand in the
way of the energy's clean transformation; I believe they enable
it.
In other words, we need a balanced, diverse energy
portfolio, and that is the key to an affordable, reliable
energy system. The extreme weather that impacted our Nation
during President's Day weekend made that clear. We don't serve
that portion of Texas that was most affected, and for our
system, we were able to maintain electric power and natural gas
service for our customers, but we did experience the enormous
fuel cost increases.
I would also say that the reliability of our system was no
accident. It was the result of actions we have taken over the
last decade to invest in a balanced resource mix, one that
includes nuclear, coal, gas, wind, and solar. We relied on all
these resources during the cold snap. We also invested in the
resilience of our generating resources. For example, equipping
our wind turbines with cold weather protections and making sure
our natural gas fired plants are winterized and equipped with
dual fuel capabilities. I believe going forward, we must assure
the resilience of our Nation's natural gas production and
pipeline system, because I believe we are going to be needing
it more than ever going forward.
I think with the right policies, electric utilities can
lead the Nation to an affordable, reliable, and prosperous
clean energy future, and Congress can help. We believe the
right kind of clean energy standard would help promote the
clean energy transformation. To accelerate clean energy
development, Congress must also reform the current clean energy
tax incentives by providing a direct pay option and addressing
tax normalization. I have provided more detail about these tax
policies with my written testimony for the record.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak today, and
I very much look forward to your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fowke follows:]
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Senator Carper. Mr. Fowke, thanks very much for those
comments. We are delighted that you have been able to join us.
Next in our lineup, batting fourth, cleanup, Ms. Snyder.
Ms. Snyder, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF SANDRA SNYDER, VICE PRESIDENT OF ENVIRONMENT,
INTERSTATE NATURAL GAS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
Ms. Snyder. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, and
members of the Committee, good morning. My name is Sandra
Snyder, and I am the Vice President of Environment at the
InterState Natural Gas Association of America, INGAA. Thank you
for holding this hearing and the opportunity to testify.
INGAA appreciates the committee's focus on climate change,
energy reliability, and fostering economic growth as we build
back better. INGAA's members transport natural gas through an
underground network of pipelines that is analogous to the
interState highway system. These transmission pipelines
typically span multiple States, and they link major natural gas
supply basins and consumption areas. This extensive network has
been built and maintained using private capital.
I have four main points I would like to convey. First, the
natural gas transmission and storage sector has continued to
make progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Second,
natural gas enables cleaner, reliable, and affordable energy
across the U.S. and the world. Third, infrastructure permitting
predictability is key to building back better, and fourth,
natural gas empowers critical energy services vital to our
economy.
The natural gas transmission and storage sector has been
and continued to be committed to being part of the climate
solution. Between 2011 and 2019, the average methane emissions
from natural gas transmission and storage compressor stations
decreased by 31 percent. Even as we made these improvements, in
2018, INGAA issued voluntary commitments to further reduce
methane emissions from our facilities.
In January of this year, INGAA's members went further by
committing to working together as an industry to achieve
netzero greenhouse gas emissions from their natural gas
transmission and storage assets by 2050. Our members are
committed to reducing the carbon intensity of their
infrastructures by reducing emissions from the transmission of
natural gas using new technologies and exploring opportunities
for our infrastructure to potentially evolve in the future. To
be successful, greater investment into research and development
will be necessary, as well as new constructive energy policies
and practices.
Natural gas infrastructure enables reductions in carbon
dioxide emissions across the U.S. and global economies without
compromising reliability or affordability. Between 2005 and
2019, CO2 emissions from the U.S. power sector declined by 33
percent, with fuel switching to natural gas accounting for more
than half of those reductions.
Additionally, to support the growth of renewable energy,
members of INGAA will provide the services necessary for
flexible, fast-ramping generation and reliable energy storage
to minimize the risk of power disruptions. An INGAA survey
found that interState pipelines delivered 99.79 percent of firm
contractual commitments to transportation customers at the
primary delivery points in their contract. Furthermore,
liquefied natural gas exports from the U.S. can help other
countries meet their energy needs while also reducing
emissions.
Clarity and predictability in the infrastructure permitting
process are key to building back better. InterState natural gas
pipeline projects typically are subject to regulatory oversight
by multiple Federal agencies, including FERC, the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
To increase access to natural gas, complement the growth of
renewable energy, and deliver lower-carbon fuels, we need
permitting predictability and clear regulatory requirements
that can be applied in a consistent fashion. Our members'
projects have sometimes faced years of litigation because
certain States refuse to comply with Congress's clear direction
under the Clean Water Act regarding the timeline and scope of
their authority to assess water quality impacts.
EPA recently engaged in notice and comment rulemaking and
revised its Clean Water Act, Section 401 regulations to prevent
States from overstepping their authority. Similarly, CEQ
amended its NEPA regulations last year to address many of the
issues raised in litigation, including the scope and content of
a Federal permitting agency's need for review. A lack of
regulatory clarity and predictability hampers development in
the natural gas industry, as well as other sectors that are
trying to move America toward a cleaner energy future.
Finally, natural gas is a foundational fuel that empowers
our current and future economy. We need stable and affordable
energy to recover from the pandemic, while creating new jobs,
fueling economic growth, and minimizing greenhouse gas
emissions. Approximately one-third of the natural gas consumed
annually in the U.S. is used for power generation. Natural gas
is also used to produce products and services such as food
preparation, cars, computers, prescription drugs, and
construction materials, so even as the opportunities for
renewable energy may expand, there will continue to be a need
for natural gas and associated infrastructure.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Snyder follows:]
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Senator Carper. Ms. Snyder, we thank you for joining us.
Thank you very much for your testimony.
Last but not least, from West Virginia, the Mountain State,
Mr. Wood.
STATEMENT OF JIM WOOD, ENERGY INSTITUTE AT WEST VIRGINIA
UNIVERSITY
Mr. Wood. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, and
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to give
testimony and to answer your questions. Senator Capito, thank
you also for your generous introduction.
West Virginia University is a public, land-grant,
researchintensive university founded in 1867. It is designated
an R1 Doctoral University by the Carnegie Classification of
Institutions of Higher Education. Funding for sponsored
research programs from all sources exceeded $194 million in
Fiscal Year 2019-2020.
Examples of West Virginia's innovative research activities
include developing a rare earth oxide extraction process using
acid mine drainage and other coal mine wastes. This research is
being done with the support of the National Energy Technology
Laboratory and in collaboration with Virginia Tech and Rockwell
Automation; replacing high carbon-emitting steam methane
reforming processes with catalyst thermochemical conversion of
methane to CO2-free hydrogen and solid pure crystalline carbon;
developing techniques and technologies to integrate state-
ofthe-art down-well innovative fiber optic and micro-seismic
sensors to make improvements in data collection and production
tools with advanced big data and machine learning applications
for accurate reservoir characterization and modeling of the
Marcellus and Utica shales; research into technical and
economic advances of renewable geothermal sources of energy.
WVU, in conjunction with Lawrence Berkeley, Cornell, and the
West Virginia National Guard are researching designs for the
deep direct use of this source on campus.
Finally, we sponsor the National Alternative Fuels Training
Consortium, which is available to train people. It is national,
and it is available to train people to maintain vehicles
powered by alternative fuels, including electricity.
There are a number of important practical considerations in
addressing the challenges facing the electricity sector in
respect to climate change and fostering economic growth.
First is affordability. Just as manufacturers seek lowcost
labor or advanced mechanisms to reduce the cost to produce a
product, when electric rates rise, manufacturers will seek low-
priced sources of electricity in order to remain competitive.
This will slow economic growth in areas unable to attract
manufacturing and will shift cost recovery away from industry
and toward non-industrial consumers. Today, there are
manufacturers searching, even demanding, low-cost electricity
from renewable sources.
Second is reliance and reliability. Most commercial forms
of electric generation are designed, constructed, and operated
to be very reliable. A natural gas, combined cycle client can
operate nearly 100 percent between proper maintenance periods.
Wind turbines can operate for 3 years between oil changes, but
require preventative maintenance two to three times a year,
which is obviously scheduled when the wind is not blowing.
Third is diversity in generation. The wind farms in West
Virginia are on mountain ridges because that is where the wind
blows. Gas generation can occur wherever there are viable
pipelines. Coal-fired generation is the principal source of
electricity in West Virginia, and the supplies of coal are
plentiful. Solar generation may have a tougher time, as West
Virginia's terrain is pretty bumpy, and the northern parts of
the State are cloudy from October until mid-spring.
Fourth is grid stability. The grid operator must have a
viable plan for providing power to offset the effects of
intermittency associated with wind and solar energy. Grid
design and operations must be well-integrated with locations
and amounts of renewable and non-renewable sources of
generation and hardened against cyber security.
Fifth is storage. There is a 32-megawatt lithium ion
battery storage project in conjunction with a 98-megawatt wind
project near Elkins. The Energy Institute has begun discussions
with the Army Corps of Engineers on its use of data, which may
point to areas that can be used for pumped storage. Storage
technology will need improvements in order to provide effective
and economical replacement energy during periods of renewable
intermittency.
Between 1990 and 2018, West Virginia's CO2 emissions
declined 13.3 percent, only one of 15 States in the United
States. The implication for us is the cost-effective CCUS must
increase in order to be able to retain some amount of coal and
gas generation in the State to help offset the intermittency
problem. Passage of 45Q tax credits was a boost to CCUS, but in
all, capital costs still exceed benefits available to CCUS
systems, and in some parts of the State, the geology is
unsuitable for sub-surface storage of CO2.
I hope this information is useful, and I thank you for your
time and your attention.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wood follows:]
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Senator Carper. Thank you so much for those comments. Great
of you to join us.
Senator Capito and Senator Manchin and I are beginning the
early planning working with Aspen Institute for a workshop in
West Virginia, maybe in Morgantown in late spring that focuses
on how do we help make sure the folks whose jobs, whose
previous jobs have gone away, how do we help make sure that
they land on their feet and have a bright future as well as we
work to reduce the amount of carbon pollution in our Country
and our planet.
I just want to task each of you to give us a good idea on
how to do that. Give us a good idea on how to do that, how to
better ensure that the folks who are facing real hardship
because their contribution, if you will, is toward helping
reduce carbon dioxide in our planet, that contribution has lost
their, in many cases, livelihood. Your advice on what we can do
to help, reach back and help them.
Let's just start, if we could, with Mr. Rusco. Any thoughts
that you have, Mr. Rusco, and then we will just go right down
the line. Go ahead, Mr. Rusco.
Mr. Rusco. Thank you. I think that the energy system is in
a wide transition. It started, really, with the advent of
lower-cost natural gas as a result of the hydraulic pressuring
innovation, and that has been the primary driver behind
retirements of coal plants and nuclear power plants, as well.
The rapid expansion in recent years of renewable resources
has also helped with, or furthered, that transition. Further
transition that we need to think about is almost every major
car manufacturer in the world has now said they are going to
electrify their fleet sooner rather than later, and so we are
really looking at a massive transition in energy. That will
have implications on jobs regionally, and there will need to be
thoughtful policies in place to try to find work and training
in new sectors for people who are losing their job as a result
of this transition. I am sorry I don't have specific ideas.
Senator Carper. That is fine. That is good, hold it right
there. Let's turn next to, I would like to go to our Chairman
of Xcel. Would you go ahead, and I think it is Ben, Ben Fowke,
would you give us some ideas, please, and try to use about a
minute of your time. Thanks.
Mr. Fowke. Yes, I will be brief. We are already dealing
with this, and there is nothing, it is very personal when it is
your community or your job that is being lost as part of this
clean energy transition. What we have done is be proactively
talking to our employees and our communities well in advance,
giving long lead times.
For our employees, we are using natural attrition,
retirement. We are retraining any employees that want to
continue to work at Xcel, so they can have other jobs, that we,
I think, develop very good partnerships with our unions in that
regard.
For our communities, what we would like to do is typically
repurpose that site with replacement generation, so that tax
space is preserved. We also doubled down on their economic
development efforts, and we have been very successful in
bringing businesses into those communities using that existing
infrastructure in place.
It has worked out, quite honestly, pretty well, so that is
what we are doing. That is what we plan to do going forward.
Senator Carper. Great.
Ms. Snyder, any thoughts you have, please. Just briefly,
use maybe a minute, please.
Ms. Snyder. Natural gas is a foundational fuel that we view
as being very necessary to address the climate solution. I
think that, going forward, we are very committed to expanding
the availability of natural gas and complementing the renewable
sources that may be growing out there, so being part of that
process, and also transporting lower-carbon fuels.
So we do think that there will continue to be jobs
available in our industry, and we recognize the need to keep
the cost of energy down, so that that is not having a negative
impact on other parts of the economy. It is so important to
manufacturing industry, as well as small businesses like
restaurants that they have affordable natural gas available.
Senator Carper. Good.
Mr. Wood, please. Thank you.
Mr. Wood. Thank you. I am more inclined to think about
planning, first, and acting right after the planning. I think
we need to stimulate R&D in renewables. There is nothing that I
know of yet that is going to stop the intermittency of the
existing renewables that we have.
When the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine, you
don't get power. If you don't have power, you have to have an
ability to bring power from outside into the areas that were
served by that.
So I think that is the first thing is to plan this process
so that wind and power and other renewables are going to exist.
You will be able to substitute power from outside that area, so
that is one.
Second is, I think we need some work on development of
lithium. Electric batteries are going to require lithium. That
is something that we don't make a lot of in the States. It is
being made a lot of in China. Third is, besides making
electricity with natural gas, we think there are other things
we can do with natural gas to make products.
Senator Carper. Good. We will explore that later.
Mayor Garcetti, would you just give it a couple brief
ideas?
Mayor Garcetti. We are hiring, and it has been part of the
great success of what we are doing to transition for our energy
and climate needs to see our economy get a huge boost. By 2030,
100,000 new jobs, and as much as about a third of the job
growth, which outpaced California, which outpaced the Country
up to the last recession here in LA, has come from green jobs.
I know that is a term that gets misused a lot, but you can
start union-paying good jobs, smart meters to new lines,
transmission, et cetera. We are investing jobs in Utah, we are
investing jobs in Wyoming, in New Mexico, and other places, as
well.
A couple concrete things I would say, one is a national
training center for infrastructure jobs. You can do this; you
can do this especially with people who have been left behind in
the economy, communities of color, poor communities, rural
communities, where folks need that transition. We could show
you some examples of that that we have done in Los Angeles.
And targeted local hire and allowing local hire for
infrastructure, which I know the Senate will take up later,
hopefully, this year, is going to be absolutely critical to
making sure those jobs are local and that you find specific
people, not just statistics, but people who are transitioning
from one job to the next. Make sure you find out who they are,
train them with our community colleges, our labor unions can be
very useful too, and get them in these new, good-paying,
middleclass jobs.
Senator Carper. That is great. OK.
I skipped over one of our witnesses, and we will come back
later and ask you to just respond to the same question. Thanks
very much.
Senator Capito. I am going to yield my time; I am going to
let Senator Inhofe go. I am not giving up my time; I am just
letting him go in front of me.
Senator Inhofe. I appreciate that very much. I have another
committee that is going on right now that I have to be there
for, so thank you very much for that.
Mr. Fowke, we had problems throughout the Country during
this cold spell that we had. In fact, my State of Oklahoma is
the coldest it has been since 1878, I think. So that is
something that we have not experienced before.
But we handled it real well, and we handled it. If you look
at our neighbors down there in Texas, they had outages, they
had all these problems. We didn't have those problems, and I
have to say that it was coal that saved the day. Normally, coal
is about 10 percent of our mix, and we had to use up to 40
percent. That is the reason that we didn't have the problems
that some of the other cities had.
I think that speaks to your concern about the fuel
diversity and how important that is. I would say, if our grids
were operating on renewable alone, during that storm, what
would that have looked like? Would it have been more outages,
or less?
Mr. Fowke. Well, I don't think the big grid can operate on
renewables alone. I think it does need to be backed up,
Senator, and I think, increasingly, the Nation is moving away
from coal and toward natural gas. But you know, we have to have
better coordination between the power sector and the gas
sector, because the interdependencies are not getting less,
they are getting greater.
We also have some coal, we have some natural gas, and all
those, our plants worked. They were ready to go, so I think it
can be done without coal, but you are going to have to have a
dispatchable resource, and I think that is natural gas.
Senator Inhofe. My point is the diversity. That is what
saved us in the State of Oklahoma. Then also, the statement,
when you said it in your opening remarks, we wrote it down
because I liked the way you said it. You said for the next two
decades at least, natural gas and nuclear do not stand in the
way of the industry's clean energy transition, they make it
possible. That is a great statement.
I would like to ask Ms. Snyder, do you agree with that
statement?
Ms. Snyder. Yes, I absolutely do. Natural gas is
foundational to our energy system, and I think it is going to
play a very key role in addressing climate change.
Around one-third of electricity is generated using natural
gas right now in the U.S., and our system is extremely
reliable. Looking at a survey of the INGAA members, which are
the InterState Natural Gas Pipelines, over a 10-year span, they
were able to meet their firm contractual commitments 99.79
percent of the time, so we know how important that reliability
is. We are looking forward to the future to expanding the
availability of natural gas complementing renewables, as well
as transporting lower-carbon fuels.
Senator Inhofe. That is good. Well, I appreciate that very
much, and the one thing that I wanted to get into, and I think
there is time now, Ms. Snyder, to address this, and that is the
NEPA permitting reform.
In the previous Administration, of course, there was a lot
of criticism of our previous president on their feeling about
the reforms. I have always felt anything that takes 5 years can
be done in 2 years. At that time, they were talking about the
Council for Environmental Quality found the average time to
complete the environmental impact statement was four and a half
years, which I felt was far too long. The president at that
time said, we can do it in 2 years, so we made some reforms
there.
I would like to have your opinion. Do you think that the
improvements that were made during that time served to our
advantage in NEPA reform?
Ms. Snyder. Yes, I do. NEPA is the most litigated
environmental statute out there. As you said, it takes some
time in order to complete these environmental reviews. These
environmental reviews are necessary before our infrastructures
in the InterState Pipeline Industry can move forward and before
FERC will issue a certificate in order for it to operate.
But many different Federal agencies are involved, and I
think that programs such as the One Federal Decision are just
common sense to try to get the Federal family to work together,
cooperate, share information, and work based upon a timeline.
Senator Inhofe. I agree with that, and I think that a lot
of people are not aware of the fact that it is not just gas, it
is the wind industry also supported those reforms. I think most
all suppliers benefited from those reforms. Thank you very
much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Inhofe. I think we have
joining us by WebEx Senator Cardin, my neighbor in Delmarva.
Senator Cardin, if you are there, take it away please. Thank
you. You are recognized. Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. Thank you very much. I have enjoyed the testimony of
our witnesses. Thank you for holding this hearing; I think it
is critically important.
As we look at building back better, how do we have an
electric grid that meets the challenges that we have, the
realities of climate change, and can reduce carbon emissions?
That needs to be our goal.
So I want to try to cover two points, if I can, during my
time. First, 20 percent of our total electricity is generated
by nuclear power, but it is over 55 percent of the carbon-free
electric productions.
So as we are talking about building back better, we have a
very old nuclear fleet. Any specific suggestions as to the
importance of at least maintaining our capacity for nuclear
generated electricity, and how can we go about doing that? What
type of additional Federal policies are needed in order to be
able to maintain our capacity for nuclear power? Mr. Wood, you
are in the energy business.
Mr. Wood. Well, I can't agree with you more. I do not think
we can afford to take two steps backward by losing our existing
nuclear fleet, because you have the stats perfectly. It is 55
percent of our carbon-free energy, and I am fortunate that I
operate in a vertically integrated environment, so I can
convince my regulators, hopefully, of the importance of
nuclear. But when you are in a deregulated market and you are
competing against pure price, the carbon-free attributes of the
dispatchable resource aren't always recognized, so I think
there are ways we can preserve the nuclear fleet with grants. I
think there was legislation proposed around that, or through
tax incentives, and I think it is extremely important that we
look at that going forward.
I also try to be technology-agnostic on these technologies.
They will get the last bit of carbon off our grid, but I am a
big fan of next-generation nuclear and things like small,
modular reactors.
Senator Cardin. So, let me go to my second subject, and
that is the use of technology. We are behind technologically.
It was mentioned during this panel, the technology on battery
storage. We are not where we need to be.
As we are looking at building back better, what type of
incentives can we put into congressional action that will
advance technology in America, so we can be the leader, not
only in developing the technology, but to coin the technology,
so we have a much more efficient system? We know that certain
sources of carbon-free energy are difficult to store. Advancing
these technologies could not only help up with a more modern
capacity to deal with the needs, but also do it in a much more
environmentally friendly way. What suggestions do you have in
order to advance technology such as battery storage? Anyone on
the panel who wishes to respond, I would be glad to hear from
you.
Mayor Garcetti. I will jump in, Senator. Thank you so much
for the question.
One of the things we are doing in Los Angeles is we are
investing in transportation technology. It was mentioned by
Senator Padilla. We passed the Nation's largest transportation
measure at the local level. It is actually a one-cent, never
sun-setting sales tax that is going to provide about $120
billion in the next 40 years.
I want to land those next-generation bus companies in
America. I want to produce the lithium from California, where
we are looking at places to pull lithium from the ground. I
want to see the R&D, which you saw brilliantly from California,
land a rover on Mars just a couple weeks ago.
We have folks ready to do this, but we do think that the
Federal Government can play a big role in investing. Working
closely with the National Renewable Energy Labs, for instance,
it wasn't a bunch of elected officials; it wasn't a political
thing when we went to them saying, how do we get Los Angeles to
100 percent renewable without carbon-spewing fuels, they did it
as scientists. It is clear that investing more in those will
help us compete globally. We are still buying most of our
batteries abroad. We need to be producing those locally and the
elements of them, and I think the transportation sector is a
very robust place where that infrastructure investment can
double down, making sure that innovation comes from America.
Senator Cardin. Mayor, I think your points are well-taken.
I would just encourage specific recommendations as to what we
could include in an infrastructure bill that would help advance
that type of investment here in America, because we know it is
happening globally.
Mayor Garcetti. One specific thing would be to have a
national consortium to put a national institute together for
transportation innovation. Right now, that doesn't exist. That
is something you could locate.
Through DOT or DOT and DOE together, I think, would be a
brilliant place to put that. Right now, it is being done very
well by people in the private sector off and abroad, but here
in the United States, we don't have that today, and I think
that would be a welcome part of an infrastructure patch.
Senator Cardin. I thank you for the suggestion.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thank you so much.
I believe Senator Capito is next. I think she is going to
yield to Senator Cramer, and after that, if she doesn't reclaim
her time, Sheldon Whitehouse will be next in line, by WebEx.
All right, Senator Cramer, I think you are on.
Senator Cramer. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
Senator Capito. Thank you for this important hearing and this
important topic.
As you know, this is sort of in my wheelhouse. I spent
nearly 10 years as a utility regulator at the North Dakota
Public Service Commission, where we had not just direct
regulation over the price, regulation over utilities like and
including Xcel Energy, but integrated resource planning, siting
of a lot of things, including big transmission lines,
pipelines, interState, intraState, energy conversion facilities
of all types, including thousands of megawatts of wind.
But reliability was always at the forefront. In fact, I
like to say we were doing resiliency before most people thought
it was cool.
But as you know, as we have said, this is largely FERC
jurisdiction. About 3 years ago, there was a docket, they
opened a resiliency docket, and then just a few weeks ago, they
closed it with zero conclusions and zero recommendations.
I would say in light of the recent outages in California,
Texas, and the upper Midwest, their lack of action is an abject
failure to recognize the problem and provide answers to it.
I want to submit, however, a dissenting opinion.
Commissioner Danly's dissent really said it well: ``the bottom
line is this: as long as we have markets that procure the wrong
types of generation and in the wrong quantities, because the
resources providing the greatest reliability benefits are
insufficiently compensated, we will continue to see events like
those in California and Texas.'' I would just highly recommend
everybody to read it, and without objection, I would like to
submit it to the record.
Senator Capito.
[Presiding.] Without objection.
[The referenced information follows:]
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Senator Cramer. Mr. Fowke, as you know, I have been a
strong proponent of nuclear, and I just want to associate
myself with everything that Senator Cardin said.
By the way, the bill about the regulation overseeing all of
that, we have got to streamline it. There is no reason not to,
and so I associate myself with everything that he said.
I want to piggyback a little bit on something you said that
Senator Inhofe quoted, and that was when you said that nuclear
and gas don't have to stand in the way, in fact, they are part
of the solution. I would submit to you, there is not a better
fuel in the world than nuclear for accomplishing the goals that
you want to accomplish. I say that because I think it can, it
is not parochial to me.
We don't have any nuclear in North Dakota. Xcel has very
little generation at all in North Dakota, even though you are
our largest utility. But we do benefit tremendously from your
nuclear plants in Prairie Island and Monticello. I once got
trapped in Monticello because my polyester pants put out too
much radiation, or something.
[Laughter.]
Senator Cramer. Anyway, I am just going to associate myself
with what he asked and end with your answer, and I appreciate
that very much, but you also said, you said something else, and
it raised a question for me that gets to a point. I don't mean
it to be rude, but we don't have polar vortexes in our part of
the Country, as you know. We have winter. They seem like
vortexes to some people, but not where we live.
Xcel Energy is not just an electric utility, but you are a
gas utility as well, both in my State as well as others. One of
the things I worry about with regard to natural gas, not just
as a bridge, but somehow as a substitute for real good baseload
electricity is, when we are confronted with a 40 degree below
zero day, which is not as uncommon as people might think,
certainly 30 below is not, 20 below is not, but those are the
days the wind rarely blows.
You as a utility, if you are confronted with either heating
your home with natural gas or curtailing it to generate
electricity to keep your computer operating in your home, which
do you choose? It seems like a ridiculous question, but it is
meant to make a point, and I would welcome a response.
Mr. Wood. I will tell you, even our wind turbines, with the
winterization package, they can't work below minus 22. To
answer your question, you always choose a rolling electrical
blackout versus gas-out, because the difficulty of relighting
homes safely is incredibly time-consuming. So during the Winter
Storm Uri, all of our fossil generation, including our nuclear
generation worked.
But the natural gas plants, we switched them to oil. We
don't use it very often, but we switched to oil, and we were
able to divert that natural gas that would have been used into
the LDC for home heating.
Senator Cramer. Let me just add in my final sentence here,
that I don't want to leave anything off of the table as a
solution. I am all about your ambitious goals, and I don't
think we can get to your ambitious goals of 2050 carbon-free
without some reforms to the permitting and siting process for
building the infrastructure necessary.
But I don't want to leave out things like carbon capture
utilization and storage, either. I think we are not that far
away. If we don't kill the innovators, we are not that far away
from actually having even fossil energy being largely, if not
completely, carbon-free, so I want to work with people on the
solutions, not argue so much about the problems.
With that, I yield.
Senator Carper.
[Presiding.] All right. Thanks for that.
I am going to ask unanimous consent to submit for the
record a report from the Energy Research and Consulting Firm,
Wood Mackenzie, and other related articles. These materials
describe that the recent blackouts in Texas were caused by
failures across the entire energy system, natural gas and coal
included, due to lack of weatherization, lack of energy
reserves, and inability to draw on resources from the rest of
the national grid.
[The referenced information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. All right. With that done, I think Senator
Whitehouse is going to be recognized, thanks to the generosity
of Senator Capito. Sheldon is going to join us by WebEx, and
then back to our Ranking Member. Then after her, Senator
Padilla, Senator Wicker, and joining us from Alaska actually
live in-person, Senator Sullivan.
Senator Whitehouse, you are on by WebEx. Welcome.
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman. Good to be with
you.
Thank you, Ranking Member Capito, for letting me jump in
here.
To the last comment by Senator Cramer, I think that carbon
capture has a very important role in our climate solutions.
Ranking Member Capito and I have worked very well together on
carbon capture solutions, and we are working right now in my
office on an expansion of the direct air capture credit to help
expand innovation into that space, so that it doesn't to have
to be so geographically limited. So there is probably not a lot
in energy policy where Senator Cramer and I agree, but here we
have overlap, so that is great.
I do want to say with Ms. Snyder here how very disappointed
I have been in the way that the natural gas industry conducted
itself recently with regard to methane leakage. We were
working, I thought, extremely well with the industry in the
previous Administration. I thought the industry saw the cliff
that coal went off of and that oil was headed for, and knew it
had a longer runway and wanted to prepare for the transition in
a responsible way, and understand that its methane leakage was
the biggest part of the problem. We had an agreement about
measuring that leakage and all of that.
Then came the Trump Administration, and all of that just
got undone. We are now trying to rebuild. But I think a lot of
things got burned in those years. One of them I just have to
say was a lot of trust with the industry. I hope we have the
chance to rebuild that.
Mr. Fowke made the interesting point that nuclear, I think
his phrase was, nuclear's carbon-free attributes are not always
recognized. That is a problem I have been trying to work with
for some time. I couldn't agree more. We have been trying to
figure out a way to perhaps get existing safely operating
nuclear plants into a 45Q type compensation for the carbon-free
nature of their power so they don't artificially compete
unsuccessfully against new natural gas facilities.
I would love to have your thoughts on that, and if you want
to give me give me those thoughts at some greater length with
some reflection, I would be happy to take that as a written
question for the record that you can respond to. I would also
like you to think a little bit about what we can do to speed up
major transmission lines to the areas in our Country where
there is abundant solar and wind.
Short story, I drove through the Wind River Reservation in
Wyoming, which is three times the size of my home State, and
went through miles of what seemed just completely vacant space
that the wind was screaming across and the sun was beating down
on. The two tribes who share that reservation are losing the
snowpack that provides the summer water for them. It is
basically their summer water storage, so they are looking at
real trouble because of climate change.
It would be great to be able to have industries like that
take up in that great big reservation. Yet, it can't happen
because there is no transmission line. So a solution to that
and build back better would be something I would welcome. I
would love to have your brief comments on those.
Mr. Fowke. On the nuclear side, I mean I think it is going
to extend things like PTC, ITC. We ought to consider PTC for
the existing nuclear fleet and put it on a level playing
ground, and I think nuclear could compete with an even playing
field.
On the issue of transmission, let me just give you an
example. We knew that we needed to have more transmission, and
so we started our clean energy journey at the beginning of the
2000's. We just completed that transmission a few years ago, so
it took 15 years to get it built, and that is inter-regionally.
I think what you are talking about is to even more expand
the highways. So permitting, cost allocation, those are the
things that really bog it down. I think we have had some
comments before on having to streamline things like NEPA, et
cetera, to make that more efficient. It is absolutely going to
be necessary.
Senator Whitehouse. Well, I will try to work on that and
build back better, because we are going to be doing a lot of
building as a result of that bill.
Mr. Chairman, I think I have probably gone over my time. I
can't see my clock.
Senator Carper. No, you have got another 24 seconds to use
yet. Go ahead, Sheldon.
Senator Whitehouse. I will just say another kind word about
direct air capture, which I think is a great opportunity for
us.
Senator Carper. All right, thank you. Looking at the roster
here, after Senator Whitehouse, we are back to Senator Capito.
Senator Capito. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thanks, all of you, and I want to ask Mr. Wood my first
questions. We have talked a lot about individual generation and
how we are going to meet the challenges, and one of the things
I think that you have talked about is diversity of energy
sources, particularly as it relates to manufacturing.
If we are looking to keep our manufacturing base, and part
of build back better is bringing more American jobs,
manufacturing jobs back into this Country, do we need the
diverse set of energy resources to power our domestic
industries? Can we do it all on renewables and our capital
investments in manufacturing, based on the presumption that
they get access to affordable and reliable electricity?
Mr. Wood. Thank you for the question. I think the answer is
definitely no. We can't do it only on renewables until we have
a solution for the intermittency. I can imagine what Elon Musk
was thinking after he decided to move to Texas, and lo and
behold, he lost electricity for a long period of time, and now
he is going to build a 100-megawatt storage facility outside of
Houston.
I would like to ask him what he thinks about running a
plant that loses electricity and that can't get replaced
because there is no replacement power that can connect with
that part of Texas.
So, I don't think so. I think what I said before, which is
a planning first process ought to take place where we
understand where the large sources of renewables are, what kind
of renewables they are, how far we want to transmit them, and
where we have sources of non-renewable electricity that we can
use, including, of course, gas to replace that. Gas is, I
understand, gas and nuclear, but gas is a little bit better for
this renewable intermittency, because gas units can change load
fairly quickly. And when the wind stops, if you are not going
to shut down the plant, you are going to have to change sources
of energy very quickly. Nuclear has a pretty good record in
changing loads, but not as good as gas plants.
Senator Capito. Thank you. Thank you again for being on the
panel.
We have heard a lot about the NEPA process being 4.5 years.
I mentioned in my opening statement that we can't build back
better if we can't build. Senator Whitehouse just talked about
transmission, and the scarcity of transmission in certain areas
that could be helpful.
So, the timelines that we are looking at for full renewable
and net-zero emissions, 2035, this is a question for everybody.
I know we have talked a lot about this, but unless we can get
these things permitted in a much shorter timeframe in terms of
transmission and pipelines and other things, I don't know how
we can get to this aspirational goal of zero emissions in the
power sector by 2035.
We will just start with our guest here, Mr. Rusco, if you
have any comments on that from your report.
Mr. Rusco. Well, from previous work, we know that the
concerns about permitting are real. We have to deal with
multiple agencies.
It really helps if you have a lead agency that coordinates.
It also helps if you have a pre-application period, where
everyone can be brought together, all the stakeholders. Those
are the things that work. Some of the things that are sort of
out of the Federal realm are when you get in a lawsuit, that
sort of stops everything, and I don't know what the Federal
Government can do about that part.
Senator Capito. Thank you.
I am going to go to Mayor Garcetti on this one, because you
mentioned at the end of your remarks, it is interesting, you
know, we have heard from the industry, we have heard from
others.
But you are a quite large municipality. I don't know how
many times my State you are, but a lot. So from your
perspective, the permitting issue, since you mentioned it, how
does that impact you in your very large city?
Mayor Garcetti. Well, thank you, Senator. Absolutely.
We have so many different regulatory authorities between
the State and Federal Government. Streamlining that would be
important since we clearly do have an infrastructure that is
through multiple State. Weatherizing critical systems, for
instance, with strategic locations, both locally and
regionally, should be a part of build back better, and maybe
require them by code. But then streamline the permitting, so
that if it is required by code, it can be by right.
As we do this major grid redevelopment, that would be a
very positive thing that I think all Americans could rally
around to create that resilience through the diversity that we
need and the investments that we need to have.
Senator Capito. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Capito. I
think Senator Markey might be next, and he is right here,
inperson. Senator Markey, welcome.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
A clean energy standard is going to be absolutely essential
to ensure that we create the right metrics to guarantee that we
meet the high standards, which are going to be necessary in
order to match the magnitude of the problem.
As you already said, Mr. Chairman, one in three Americans
already live in a city or a State that has a 100 percent clean
electricity standard. It has been made a part of their State or
city mandates, and so we have a real chance here to do
something.
Actually, 12 years ago, Henry Waxman and I, over in the
House, we were able to pass a clean energy standard. It was
blocked in the Senate after it passed in the House, but still,
cities and towns have stepped up, as you said, and they put
their own clean energy standards on the books.
So, Mr. Fowke, if you could, do you believe a clean energy
standard can bring the business certainty necessary to provide
reliable and affordable power to your customers while, at the
same time encouraging clean energy innovation?
Mr. Fowke. I do. I think a well-designed clean energy
standard is the right approach to climate policy. Clearly,
details matter. But if we can design one that does recognize
the need for natural gas as a bridge fuel and the value of
carbon-free nuclear, if we have guardrails on reliability and
cost and timeframes that are pragmatic, and combine that with
more funding for those technologies that get that last bit of
carbon off the grid, I think it is the right way to go.
Xcel has supported some of the proposed legislation out
there, and I don't think my industry is far behind, in general,
in supporting that approach.
Senator Markey. Thank you. Again, the Obama administration
propounded and put in place a clean power standard, which was
going to be a 32 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030.
Even though the Trump Administration took that standard off the
books, the utility industry has already met that standard here
in 2021 that was the Obama standard in 2030.
So we can see that there is an enormous amount of momentum
in this clean energy sector. But it is important for us to
ensure, that, again, we set the standards high and that the
industry knows exactly what they are going to have to do to
meet those standards.
Mayor Garcetti, one of the questions which is constantly
asked is, can renewables be reliable? Can you create a grid
that is reliable? I know that, for example, Iowa is the fourth
or fifth most reliable grid, and they have 42 percent of their
electric generation comes from wind.
So tell us the story of, if you would, LA, and your goals
for renewables and energy efficiency, and the reliability that
you are simultaneously building into the system.
Mayor Garcetti. Absolutely. Good to see you, Senator
Markey. It was great to see you out in Los Angeles.
To your last question, by the way, one in three Americans
live already in a city or State with a 100 percent target, so
it is time to make that law. Set a target, inspire the
investment.
In Los Angeles, yes. Not only do we have greener power,
cheaper power, and more reliable power, and the stats bear that
out. The average American has about 2 hours of power that is
out. In Los Angeles, we are about 15 percent less than that.
Other States, it is much larger.
In the State of West Virginia, I know it is 8 hours, on
average. We have a reliable standard; we have a reliable
network, and that diversity comes from careful engineering. We
have distributed solar in our basin, which is much more
reliable when transmission lines cutoff for any reason of
extreme weather. We are able to meet, also, with demand
response, something that I think a build back better plan
should also invest in the technology behind that demand
response, as well, so our renewables are very diverse.
We have been able to keep that reliability. We are cheaper
than any of our peer utilities in the area. We are greener at
40 percent. We are as reliable today, and by the way, our
bills, when I say cheaper, if we were a State, we would be the
tenth cheapest of all of the States. So we are in the top
quintile in terms of what people actually pay on their
electricity bills and enjoying a greater reliability than other
places with 40 percent renewable already accounting.
Senator Markey. Could I ask you one quick additional
question? A national climate bank would be something that could
be used to help the financing for sustainable projects for
clean energy projects. It has already passed the House of
Representatives a number of times in the last couple of years.
Senator Van Hollen and I have the identical bill over here
in the Senate. What is your view of a national climate bank,
Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Garcetti. A strong proponent of it, as planet mayors
are across the Country. Sometimes, in cities like mine, we have
a large entity. We have a lot of capital we can attract, but a
lot of places don't, and we can accelerate what we are doing
even in Los Angeles with this.
So I think this would be exactly what we need to not only
bring resources forward, but to have the sort of innovation. A
lot of people are scared to take that jump forward. Every time
we have set the renewable standard in our State, it has been a
fight. But every single time we have hit it, we have hit it
early.
So I think this is something that a bank can help us get to
everywhere, especially in some of our rural areas, some of our
smaller cities, some of our smaller grids as well as large
places like Los Angeles.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for you
leadership. LA is the model that the rest of the Country can
be. Thank for your great leadership.
Mayor Garcetti. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate it.
Senator Carper. Senator Markey, thanks for joining us.
Thanks for your questions.
Before we turn to Senator Lummis, I am going to ask
unanimous consent to submit for the record reports and articles
related to the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, which
show that NEPA is not a primary cause of Federal infrastructure
project delays. I also ask unanimous consent to submit for the
record three letters, one from the Western Governors
Association, one from State Attorneys Generals, and one from
State water and wetland organizations opposing Trump EPA's
efforts to weaken State authorities to use Federal permits
under the Clean Water Act.
The letter from the Western Governors Association explains
that curtailing or reducing State authority under the Clean
Water Act, Section 401 with the wider role of States in
maintaining water quality within their boundaries would inflict
serious harm to State and Federal authorities established by
Congress, without objection.
[The referenced information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Looking at the lineup coming ahead, after
Senator Markey, we have Senator Lummis, and it looks like
Senator Merkley, and Senator Boozman, in that order. Senator
Lummis, Senator Merkley, and Senator Boozman, in that order.
Senator Lummis?
Senator Lummis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Would it be all
right if I allowed Senator Sullivan to go ahead of me? He has
been waiting for quite some time.
Senator Carper. It would not be all right. I would object
to that.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. Maybe in the Marine Corps. We are the same,
we are brothers. That would be fine. It is very kind of you to
do that.
Senator Sullivan, you are on. Colonel.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Senator Lummis. Thank you very
much. I appreciate the Chairman's and Senator Lummis's help
here. We all have a lot of hearings to go to, so thanks very
much.
Like Senator Markey, I am an all-of-the-above energy guy
myself, but one of the elements of the mix that now all of a
sudden seems out of the mix is natural gas. So I want to talk a
little bit about natural gas. This is actually important
because the United States reduced greenhouse gas emissions from
2005 to 2017 by almost 15 percent, more than any other major
economy in the world by far. It is not even close, and the main
reason we did that was because of natural gas.
Yet, we seem to be losing sight of the power of that good
jobs, clean energy, reliable energy in the mix with renewables
and others. So I think it is important to recognize, these are
a couple quotes I am going to give from people, until recently,
who were for natural gas. The United States and North America,
Mexico and the United States and Canada, will be the energy
epicenter for the 21st century in part because of our abundance
of natural gas. Who said that? 2016, Vice President Joe Biden.
We need an energy strategy for the future, an all-of-theabove
energy strategy for the 21st century that develops every source
of American-made energy, including natural gas. Who said that?
Barack Obama.
How about this one? This is a shocker. Responsible
development of natural gas is an important part of our work to
curb climate change and support a robust clean energy market at
home. Who said that? Gina McCarthy. OK?
Now, we have on good sources, it is in the press, recently,
President Biden said, I am ``all-in on natural gas.'' That is
the President, recently, in a meeting with a bunch of union
leaders.
John Kerry is against natural gas. I won't read you all the
quotes. We got the President of the United States for natural
gas, the President of the World, I guess, is his title, is
against it, John Kerry.
So I want to first just get from the witnesses the
importance of natural gas and whether they see it as an
important element of the energy mix, good jobs, and helping us
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Let me just go down the list
here. Ms. Snyder, do you think it should be an important part
of our mix, like Gina McCarthy did a couple years ago?
Ms. Snyder. Absolutely. We view natural gas as foundational
to our energy system, and that it will play a key role in
addressing climate change. As you noted, it not only enables
CO2 emissions reductions in the power sector and across
America, but it also helps drive down emission globally.
Here, as far as the sector that we represent, the
interState natural gas pipelines, between 2011 and 2019, the
average methane emissions from our compressor stations went
down by 31 percent. So we are making great strides to drive
down our methane emissions.
But even in spite of that, in 2018, we adopted voluntary
methane commitments, because we were concerned about the lack
of regulatory clarity and certainty. There was a lot of
flipflopping going on around that time, and we felt it very
necessary to have some certainty, at least within our
particular sector.
We recently went further in January of this year and
committed to working together as an industry to achieve net-
zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 from the interState
natural gas system. We think it is important to expand the
availability of natural gas to complement the growth of
renewable fuels and also deliver lower-carbon fuels.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Ms. Snyder.
Real quick, Mr. Wood, to build back better, are you as
President Biden, who is all-in on natural gas, or John Kerry,
who I guess is against his boss and against natural gas?
Mr. Wood. I live in West Virginia. We live over an ocean of
natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, so I
am all-in on it. The thing we all know that hasn't been
mentioned yet, that natural gas has only about half the amount
of carbon in it that coal does. So every megawatt that we
produce from natural gas removes half the carbon that we
produce with coal.
Senator Sullivan. Just for my final three witnesses, we are
talking about building back better, infrastructure, I think
natural gas needs to be a key part of it. Mr. Rusco, Mr. Mayor
Garcetti, Mr. Fowke, are you with the President, all-in on
natural gas, or are you with John Kerry, who evidently is
against it, and hasn't really explained why?
Mr. Rusco. Natural gas has been growing in large part
because it has been cheaper than coal. It has been displacing
coal and nuclear, and it is definitely growing, and it is an
important part.
Senator Sullivan. Great, thank you.
Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Garcetti. It is not a question of if, it is when we
will get off natural gas, and don't take my word for it. Here
at National Renewable Energy Labs, precisely for our utility,
is to look at whether we can go to renewable without depending
on natural gas. It shows that you can't.
Senator Sullivan. So are you with all-in, with the
President?
Mayor Garcetti. I think all of us will get to a place where
we move beyond natural gas. Everybody has said that. Everybody
has talked about that transition; it is just a matter of how
much time.
We should think about turbines, not natural gas. Turbines
can run on things like hydrogen, you can have a mix with
natural gas as that transition occurs. That is something that I
think will get us to zero emissions and still keep the
reliability.
Senator Sullivan. OK, Mr. Fowke. Real quick. I am sorry
about the time; I just want to get his view.
Mr. Fowke. We need natural gas to hit important interim
projects. We cannot run a grid today on 100 percent renewables
and battery. When I say grid, I mean the big grid. I am not
talking about individual business or municipality or a
community, the big grid that we are all connected to. We need
natural gas.
Senator Sullivan. Great. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I know it is five to zero. Maybe the mayor was neutral, so
we will call it four-zero-one, all-in on natural gas. Thank
you.
Senator Carper. OK. Yes, thanks so much.
Senator Lummis, back to you.
Senator Lummis. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.
My first question is for Mr. Wood. Last year, the USEIT Act
was signed into law to support carbon utilization and direct
air capture research, which is really an exciting area of
research. It is going on right now in the Permian Basin in
Texas, actually directly capturing carbon out of the air.
Are there other things our committee and Congress should be
doing to support carbon capture utilization and sequestration
technology?
Mr. Wood. One of the limitations right now is cost. It
costs about $50 a ton to remove carbon dioxide from an
operating coal-fired power plant, so we need some research and
technologies that can drop that. There are research activities
that are taking place right now, but more money, more research
into reducing the cost.
The second thing is transmission. We in West Virginia don't
have a lot of places that you can inject natural gas in the
sub-surface, so we will have to transmit it to other places.
That means pipelines. That means permits, and so those two
areas, I think, are areas that the government can help an awful
lot in developing the transmission and capture of CO2.
Senator Lummis. Thanks, Mr. Wood.
You just segued into my next question. I know that Mayor
Garcetti said in his written testimony, ``We must streamline
permitting processes through laser-focused agency coordination
and accelerated environmental review.'' I couldn't agree more.
I think that that is an important observation, and it is
something government can do.
So, my question is for Ms. Snyder. Can you speak to the
complicated process of navigating authorizations and permits
for multiple Federal agencies, as well as State and local
governments?
Ms. Snyder. Sure. It is quite a long and arduous process
for our interState pipeline. It is a multi-year process, in
fact. In order to actually construct an interState pipeline,
you first have to conduct an environmental review; that is
first and foremost. That is something that typically is
conducted by FERC, but many different Federal agencies are
involved, including the Army Corps of Engineers, the Fish and
Wildlife Service, and others.
There are other factors that occur, such as States are
often involved in taking a look at impacts to water quality. So
there is a water quality certification as well, and some of our
members have had issues in the past, where certain States are
not listening to the explicit direction that Congress gave them
and acting within a reasonable period of time, not to exceed 1
year from receipt of a request.
So, we really need to make sure that everyone is acting in
a timely fashion, streamlined, not duplicating effort, and
trying to ensure that these decisions are happening in a timely
manner. It is very important for our industry in particular,
because our projects are completely funded by private capital.
Senator Lummis. Switching gears just a little bit, Ms.
Snyder, how does natural gas infrastructure support the
development of renewable energy?
Ms. Snyder. Natural gas infrastructure is foundational to
our energy system, and it really does complement renewables
quite well, because it is extremely reliable. As we looked at a
date from a 10-year period, our members were able to meet their
firm contractual commitments 99.79 percent of the time. So
natural gas can be available to support renewable energy
sources at times when they are not available.
Senator Lummis. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I yield back.
Senator Carper. Thanks, Senator Lummis. I believe next in
line is Senator Merkley by WebEx, followed by Senator Boozman,
Senator Kelly, and finally, not last, but least, Senator
Padilla.
Senator Merkley, you are up. Thanks.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator. I am joining
you now.
This winter, a lot of Oregonians lost power as a result of
climate-intensified extreme weather. Last summer, we had a lot
of folks who lost power when, essentially, the windstorms
knocked down power lines, which created fires, and then the
fires were driven by the windstorms. We had a number of towns
in Oregon burn to the ground.
You couldn't imagine going through those towns. I travelled
600 miles around Oregon, north to south and back north again,
and never got out of the smoke. It felt like Armageddon. To see
those entire towns disappear, nothing but a little bit of
plumbing hanging up, it was just something I never expected to
witness.
So, the towns are very interested in how they harden their
infrastructure, their electric infrastructure. Today I am
introducing the Disaster-Safe Power Grid Act of 2020, in
partnership with Senator Wyden, and it prints a matching grant
program to incentivize utilities to do some of the hardening of
the electrical infrastructure in places that are high cost.
Sometimes, that includes moving the wires underground where you
are in an area prone to high winds and trees falling on the
lines and knocking them down.
So I just would ask Mr. Rusco and Mr. Garcetti whether
having a matching grant program might be helpful, because I
know California has certainly suffered from some of the same
effects.
Mr. Rusco. Yes, I think so. There is no question that the
costs of making the electricity grid more resilient are going
to be high. It is going to require a whole of government and a
whole society effort to make the right decisions and to do it
in the right way.
Mayor Garcetti. OK. And yes, Senator, absolutely. We would
run toward that. We would bring our capital toward that, and we
would embrace that in a minute.
Senator Merkley. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Garcetti, Los Angeles has benefited from distributed
solar programs, so if you had resistance from public utilities
that really, they don't really love the idea of people
generating their own electricity, and if you have had that sort
of resistance, how have you overcome it?
Mayor Garcetti. Luckily, we are in charge of the same
utility. We directly oversee it, so they got to do what we say,
but they have absolutely embraced it. Embraced it for
reliability, first and foremost, as I mentioned, during the
fires, the Salt Ridge Fire, we almost lost our transmission
lines. Three of them had to be shut down that come from outside
the city, and we came within an inch of some rolling blackouts.
It was really distributed solar, and we have been the No. 1
solar city in America five out of the last 7 years, that saved
us. It is complex; you have to rewire your city; you have to
have storage. We do have massive out--of-basin solar generation
too, but having it in-basin, putting veterans to work and low-
income communities, putting that on rooftops, has been a great
thing for our economy, great thing for our resilience as well.
Senator Merkley. So, we are going to be having a build back
better infrastructure bill. Should a program to do, kind of
copy the LA program for moving a lot more rooftop solar across
America be something that would help really expand a renewable
energy infrastructure?
Mayor Garcetti. No question. I mean, these are actually
jobs that do produce a lot of work, and it is a relatively
lower skill, but a great entrance into becoming an electrician,
earning a lot of money. We would welcome that in an
infrastructure bill. We would put our community colleges, as we
already do, to work training those folks, and we have seen a
huge industry blossom here, and it is really not what people
think.
It is not some liberal lefties and Democrats, like I said.
It is veterans, it is Republicans, it is people who see the
power of solar to really be able to have our own destiny in our
own hands as an important part of this mix, and cheaper now
that fossil fuel plants when we do that out-of-basin.
Senator Merkley. You mentioned storage, and of course one
way to address a demand-supply balance is the ability to pull
energy from other regions and balance things out. But you
mentioned storage. What is the primary means of energy storage
you are using?
Mayor Garcetti. Well, we are looking at three. One is in
Utah, where we have the Intermountain Plant, which will be
turbine-run, initially natural gas, but with hydrogen in that
mix. Hydrogen, probably over some time, if we can make that
work. We have ten different equivalents of the Empire State
Building salt caverns underneath that plant, and we are looking
at whether we can store hydrogen in there.
We are using water storage, Hoover Dam. When we have extra
wind and solar, pump it back up, and use that as a water
battery, essentially. And then of course, your more
conventional batteries that Eland built, largest generation
storage solar plant in America. We are building that right now,
and it is enough to power for about 3 days 286,000 households.
Senator Merkley. Do you have automated demand adjustment,
as well? For example, a way to turn down people's air
conditioners by a degree or two?
Mayor Garcetti. Not yet, but we are looking at the jobs,
and the infrastructure bill could really help us here. We have
to install our smart meters in cross. We are going to try to do
it in the next 18 months to 24 months. We are looking at
hundreds of jobs, again, for Americans out of work right now.
That would be a great way to have an energy core across the
United States and help with this just transition.
Senator Merkley. Mr. Fowke, let me turn to you. I think
that Xcel Energy has been quite interested in small modular
reactors. There is a company that initially started in Oregon,
NuScale, that is one of the companies that is pursuing this.
Are you interested enough that you are heading toward actual
financing of a small nuclear operation?
Mr. Fowke. No, Senator. We are focused on relicensing our
existing fleets at this point. I think the technology needs to
continue to be developed and then deployed, and then we
potentially would be interested in it. Obviously, we need to
work with our State regulators, but right now, I definitely
need to preserve my existing nuclear fleet.
Senator Merkley. I am recalling that you put out a request
for proposals, maybe it was over a year ago now, maybe it was 2
years ago, time flies, but it had stunningly low cost for solar
and wind. I think solar was lower by a cent per kilowatt hour,
but you were also requesting storage as part of the bid.
Has that project that you were putting out there, is that
now in construction, and did it turn out to be as inexpensive
as it appeared from the bids that were submitted?
Senator Carper. Senator Merkley, I am going to ask, you are
about a minute and a half over your time. Would it be all right
if we could just have that question, it was a good question,
have that answered for the record, please, so we can get
through the rest of our folks who haven't had a chance to ask
any questions.
Mr. Fowke. Yes, those prices were real.
Senator Merkley. Thank you.
Senator Carper. OK. Thank you. Thanks so much.
Senator Boozman, by WebEx. Are you there?
Senator Boozman. Yes, Chairman. I am here.
Senator Carper. Welcome. You are recognized.
Senator Boozman. Well, thank you so much, Senator Carper
and Senator Capito, for having this hearing.
As always, I think we have a really good panel and are
getting a lot of good information. Ms. Snyder, low-income
families and communities spend a larger share of their budget
on energy costs compared to middle-income families and upper
middle-income.
We especially see this, I think, in rural America. Probably
50 percent of the counties in Arkansas will lose population as
a result of the census, so we are having problems there anyway.
Tell me again, in my opinion, when you look at
environmental regulations that increase energy costs
significantly, and you are talking about a regressive tax, do
you agree that increased energy costs have a disproportionate
impact on low-income families, and particularly, an impact on
rural America that does so much traveling for everyday basic
necessities?
Ms. Snyder. Yes, I think affordability of our energy system
is extremely important for low-income communities, and also
those rural communities, as well as small businesses. We do
need to keep in mind that around one-third of the generation of
electricity in the Country is from natural gas. Natural gas has
been helping keep our energy very affordable, and I think that
this is something that we have to think about as we move
forward and look to moving America toward a clean energy future
is having it be affordable at the same time and not having
disproportionate impact.
Senator Boozman. Very good. Thank you.
Ms. Snyder, there's a bipartisan agreement that Congress
and the administration should make increased Federal investment
in infrastructure. That is something that we can be very proud
of on the EPW committee that really has just been a great
example in that regard.
Unfortunately, such investment is sometimes hindered by
duplicative and complex permitting processes. In recent years,
Congress and the previous administrations, both Republican and
Democrat, have made changes to the permitting process to
increase efficiency without lessening environmental
protections. A great example of that would be the rebuilding of
the bridge in Minnesota that fell down. That was done in a
year. Normally, that would take probably 10 or 15 years.
Would you agree that projects which are drawn out due to
regulatory burdens have a hand in making our infrastructure
projects more expensive? Why is a quicker, more efficient
permitting process a good thing for smaller, more rural States
like Arkansas?
Ms. Snyder. Yes. I think that it is very important to have
an efficient environmental review and permitting process. This
is not about trying to shortchange the review that is
undergoing; it is just trying to make sure that agencies are
working together, collaborating, sharing information, avoiding
duplication of effort, and also sticking to a timeline. This is
very important to us.
I mentioned those rural communities, and little bit more
disadvantaged communities so that they can get the
infrastructure that they need. We think that it is very
important to expand the availability of natural gas throughout
the Country so that people do have affordable energy.
Senator Boozman. Very good. Again, I agree totally. Not
cutting corners, but sticking to a timeline, getting the
agencies to work together, so thank you, Mr. Chairman, very
much, and thanks to the panel for a very, very good discussion.
Senator Carper. Senator Boozman, you are good to join us.
Thanks for your questions.
We have two new members of our committee, Senator Kelly,
and Senator Padilla. Senator Padilla, you have been very
patient. Thank you for that. Senator Kelly, you are recognized,
and if no one else shows up, Senator Padilla, you will be up.
Go ahead, Senator Kelly.
Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rusco, in you testimony, you noted that climate change
and drought can overwhelm hydro-power generation. During last
year's extreme heat wave in California, energy from the Hoover
Dam and Parker-Davis Dam destined for Arizona customers was
called upon to help keep the California grid from completely
crashing.
Do you think DOE and FERC are prepared for a scenario where
water levels get so low in the Colorado River that hydro-power
wouldn't be able to sustain California, Arizona, or other
western States during an extreme and prolonged heat wave?
Mr. Rusco. No, I think DOE and FERC have work to do in this
regard, for sure. FERC has, as it has been mentioned, had
dockets on energy resilience, and they have come to no
conclusions, but they are opening a new docket in light of the
recent events in Texas. They really do need to understand that
the system is going to be stressed going forward, and they are
going to have to figure out how to regulate it, to improve
that.
Senator Kelly. How important are hydropower and nuclear in
situations where the electrical grid needs an external power
source to recover from a total shutdown?
Mr. Rusco. Definitely, hydropower is probably the best
source for a black start or a quick return to power, and so if
the whole system goes down, you are going to need to restart
it. You need something that can turn on, and hydropower plays
that role, and then you are going to need pretty much all
sources to keep it up.
Senator Kelly. Thank you.
Mayor Garcetti, good to see you, Mayor.
Mayor Garcetti. Good to see you, too.
Senator Kelly. As you know, for many low-income families,
keeping the air conditioning running during a heat wave is
often a struggle, and the Federal Government offers grants to
homeowners such as the Low-Income Housing Energy Assistance
Program, LIHEAP. But that program was originally designed to
help non-western communities save on oil heating costs in the
winter.
Would you agree that climate change has put us on a path
where LIHEAP funding may need to be realigned for disadvantaged
communities in the south and the west due to extreme heat and
drought?
Mayor Garcetti. I very much would, Senator. My family, my
dad's side all comes from Arizona, from Superior, and from
Phoenix, emigrated there from Mexico, and we know what that
heat is like when I talk to my cousins. We know what it is like
in Los Angeles, where this wasn't the hottest year of the last
100, it is going to be the coolest of the next 100.
So, absolutely, and I think one concrete thing you could do
would be, affordable housing efficiency standards could be
established through an efficiency metric for the low-income
housing tax credit. So as you look at an infrastructure bill,
put that in there.
We should look at also existing weatherization programs,
too. They could be expanded for our low-income families, and
also incentivize, for instance, that they go to support fossil
fuel-free appliances. These things will help lower bills, these
things will help us, obviously, with the climate change
emergency that we find ourselves in, but absolutely will help
keep those bills low and contribute to cooler homes.
Senator Kelly. Well, thank you.
A followup, just a quick comment on Senator Merkley's
questions about being able to control smart thermostats from
the power company. That is something we have now in Arizona,
and I think has been used on a number of occasions when it was
both extremely hot in Arizona, but also in California, where we
often have to try to get some additional help in our summer
months. So it has been a success in Arizona, and hopefully it
will be something that will be used more in other western
States.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Senator Carper. Senator Kelly, thank you so much.
Senator Padilla, you have been here as long as I have
today, and Senator Capito, and I am happy to yield to you for
your questions.
Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Carper. Thank you for bringing the Mayor of Los
Angeles with you.
Senator Padilla. Absolutely. He said, anytime. Let's have
him here often.
One of the challenges of being at the other end of
seniority is thinking of what else to offer, value added to a
hearing like this, that hasn't been raised already. I know we
have covered a lot of important and timely issues as it relates
to build back better, the theme, the focus of this hearing. I
agree it is time to build back better, but not just build back,
build back smarter, build back greener, build back more
sustainably to address a lot of big issues.
So I am just going to share some thoughts here, and I will
end with a comment and solicit a response from Mayor Garcetti
and the other witnesses. I think we all do agree on a
bipartisan basis, that we need to build back to address a lot
of deferred maintenance issues when it comes to infrastructure
across America.
Several members of the committee have touched on the need
to be mindful of reliability of our electrical sector as we are
building back and building back better. For those of us,
especially those of us that have served at the municipal level
and even at the State level, we are very well aware of the need
to avoid great shock, right? We know that costs, over time, go
up, whether it is infrastructure or fuels, et cetera.
But ratepayer impacts, both residential and commercial, are
also an important concern to include in our deliberations. And
we have additional challenges nowadays that are absolutely
undeniable challenges posed by climate change, whether you call
it climate change or concerns about adaptation or any other
term, they are real.
Add consideration for resiliency, separate and apart from
the reliability questions and concerns that have been raised.
So there are a lot of policy considerations to consider all at
once as we will be working together to further define what
build back better means. We need to address the resiliency
given extreme weather that is impacting every region of the
Country in different ways, let alone natural disasters.
Sometimes they are related, sometimes not related at all to
changing climate.
Again, being mindful of the impacts of rates versus bills.
We got into that conversation, where California, for example,
may have per energy calculation, slightly higher rates, but the
energy bills that are arriving every month for customers to pay
still remain in the lower half of the Nation's energy bills.
We are going to be working together. One thing I will
invite us all to consider is the impact of some of the policies
that may not have been within the four corners of the subject
matter today, but do relate into our planning and investments
in the trade, in the industry. It is known as integrated
resource plan.
So we do talk about power plans and generation, multiple
sources of it, is it coal, is it natural gas, want to wean off
fossil fuels, in my opinion, go more in the renewable
direction. California has shown that you can do that
aggressively, and the sky does not fall.
We will be talking about transmission and distribution
infrastructure as part of build back better, and I want to make
sure that includes conversation and consideration about smart
grid deployment. Every utility in California is required to
have a smart grid deployment plan, not just smart meters, but
an actual, comprehensive smart grid.
But there is another piece that I want to raise for
consideration. That is the topic of energy efficiency, right?
Energy efficiency is an important tool in an integrated
resource plan that helps address demands, site management. It
should be considered as one of the most cost-effective measures
when it comes to supplies tech management and is achieving
important emission reductions.
I would love to hear from the witnesses any comments or
feedback on those elements, in addition to job creation
opportunities that energy efficiency provides, whether it is
energy audits in the residential, commercial, even industrial
sector, installation, retrofit facilities, et cetera. So that
is my best effort, Mr. Chairman, to add something of additional
value for consideration in today's hearing.
I invite the witnesses to respond or comment if they might,
and Mr. Chairman, with that, thank you very much.
Senator Carper. Senator Padilla, the vote has started on
the Senate floor, as you probably know. We are about 10 minutes
into that vote.
What I am going to ask, if you are OK with it, is that our
witnesses--is there anyone you want especially to comment
verbally? The others, I am just going to ask to respond for the
record, so that we can recognize Senator Capito again and we
will wrap it up. But is there anybody especially you want to
just, go to, one witness?
Senator Padilla. Let's go to my friend, Mayor Garcetti. If
he chooses for the record that is OK with me.
Senator Carper. Mayor Garcetti.
Mayor Garcetti. How generous you have been. Absolutely,
Senator Padilla. Thank you.
This is about jobs. I would just say, read the LA100
Report. It was written not by my level of government, but
yours. It shows that we can do this.
Second, think big, and think jobs, and think speedy. I
think that is something that brought everybody here together.
Think about the transportation engineers that we want in
America, not in other countries. Think about the manufacturing
we want in America and not someplace else. Think about the
building trades, as they are part of building this out.
And to your point, it is not just what we build, Senator
Padilla, it is what we don't build, and we save energy. That
saves our planet, and I will end on this: there is a ten-alarm
fire going off, and it is called this climate emergency. What I
love hearing across partisan lines today is, it is not a matter
if we transition, it is when.
Let's show America we can do it quick, we can do it well,
we can do it safely and reliably, and we can do it in our
lifetimes, so we leave something better for our children
behind. Thank you so much.
Senator Carper. Yes. Senator Padilla, thanks so much.
Let me yield again to Senator Capito for any closing
comments or questions she has.
Senator Capito. I just want to thank the witnesses. I want
to thank the Chairman as well. As I refer back to my opening
statement, I see there is a thread that is gone through this. A
lot of different themes, but certainly the reliability and
affordability issue is extremely important as we look toward
the future, so thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Carper. Thanks so much. I just want to say, you may
have to run to go vote. I am going to stay for a few more
minutes. Thank you to you, to our staffs, and for helping us
pull together, really, a terrific panel and make it possible to
have this excellent discussion.
I have a couple quick questions that I am going to ask for
just brief responses. First, Mr. Rusco. Does GAO have a view on
whether current siting and permitting decisions for our
Nation's energy infrastructure adequately factor in climate
change? Mr. Rusco?
Mr. Rusco. In general, no, they have not. There was a
recommendation way back in 2013 by GAO that NEPA should include
climate risks as part of its consideration, and that is
currently not the case.
Senator Carper. All right, thank you. One question I would
ask for Mayor Garcetti to share with Ben Fowke, and that is
with respect to clean energy targets. Mayor and Mr. Fowke, you
both discussed ambitious clean energy targets for your
respective city and company. In both testimoneys, I heard that
the path to lowering electric sector emissions by 80 to 85
percent is fairly certain, based on the technologies that we
have today. It is the last 15 to 20 percent emissions that are
going to be more difficult to reduce, based on today's
technology.
Question: do you both agree that we have the technology
available in this Country to reach 80 percent reductions of the
greenhouse gas emissions across the electric sector in the next
decade if this Country implemented the right Federal
incentives, investments, and regulatory structures? Do you both
agree with that? Just yes or no.
Mayor Garcetti. Yes.
Senator Carper. All right.
Mr. Fowke. I can't answer yes or no. We can do it at Xcel.
It is going to be more difficult, way more difficult, in other
areas of the Country, quite frankly.
Senator Carper. All right, thank you. Would a national
clean emissions or clean energy standard for the electricity
sector help drive innovation and deployment of clean energy?
Mr. Fowke. Yes.
Mayor Garcetti. Yes, it would.
Senator Carper. All right, good.
Wrapping up, I love to wrap up a discussion like this by
asking the diverse panel of excellent panelists we have been
blessed with today to maybe share with us a closing thought,
and what you heard today that demonstrates the areas of
agreement on the views that you shared with us, and agreement
on the actions of the Federal Government should take to support
a clean and resilient electricity sector in this Country.
So, looking for consensus here, as we close out. I am going
to just say, one of my colleagues, in fact, the guy who often
sits to my left here on this committee, says I am the most
persistently optimistic person that he knows. My wife thinks I
am too optimistic, I have got to be more realistic, but I am
too old to change.
I say everywhere, I quote almost every day of my life, the
words of Einstein, who use to say, ``in adversity, lies
opportunity,'' and I have lived it. When I was a Naval flight
officer in a very unpopular war in Southeast Asia, I would
never have imagined I would come back years later as a
Congressman to work with John McCain, John Kerry, and a bunch
of my colleagues in the House of Representatives, to normalize
relations with Vietnam.
When I was 29, I got elected to be State Treasurer of the
State that had the worst credit rating in the Country. I
couldn't balance their budgets for nothing. I had no cash
management, I had no pension system, and we were just dogmeat
when it came to running our economy and our finances.
We ended up with a triple-A credit rating; still have it
today, and a strong economy. I know from personal experience,
in adversity, lies opportunity, and we continue to face huge
adversity with respect to extreme weather events, but there's
opportunity here as well.
I just want each of you to take no more than 60 seconds,
something that you heard today, maybe said today, or you think
demonstrates areas of agreement for the members of this panel,
and really, for those of us with whom we serve to support a
clean and resilient electricity sector in this Country. Let me
see who we will start off with to close out. Hold on. OK.
Mayor, you go first, please.
Mayor Garcetti. Thank you so much, Senator.
First, I would say, there was so much common ground,
whether or not it was to be with all of my fellow panelists.
One is, I will repeat what I said, the transition is coming. It
is not a matter of it, but when.
Second, Federal Government, be there more when we need you,
and get out of the way when we don't. So, be there for a
national, maybe transportation innovation institute, jobs
consortium, but help those regulations and get us to build
these things quicker.
Third, diversity is critical in our energy supply, but
remember that renewables are diverse. So it doesn't mean that
that is just a code way of getting in the way we have done
things before, and fourth, reduce as well as build. Reduce
consumption, not just what we have built up.
Thanks again for the honor.
Senator Carper. Mayor, thank you so much. Frank Rusco,
please, Frank, would you give us a wrap-up thought, please?
Mr. Rusco. Yes. Thank you. I agree that to be able to build
back better, we have to be able to build, and there is room to
improve the Federal permitting process and streamline it. There
have been steps taken in the last two administrations to do so,
and I hope that we continue that effort to get agencies to work
together, and efficiently, so that we can actually get the
important infrastructure built to make our system resilient.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Frank.
Ben Fowke, please. Mr. Fowke.
Mr. Fowke. I think there is a lot of consensus that we can
achieve remarkable carbon reductions over the next decade. It
is going to vary region to region by geography. But we can do a
lot.
My hope is that we don't make perfection the enemy of the
good. We are going to need to preserve our nuclear fleet. We
are going to need to preserve natural gas. We are going to need
to keep our eye on the prize, which is carbon reduction in the
most affordable, pragmatic way possible. We cannot sacrifice
affordability and reliability. If our product stays affordable,
we can electrify things like transport and do it economically.
Senator Carper. All right. Thanks so much.
Ms. Snyder, please.
Ms. Snyder. I would say that we are all agreeing here today
that energy policy changes are necessary, and that really
includes ensuring that we have permitting predictability as
well as consistency in our regulations, so that we can build
back better.
Second, I would say that we are all in agreement that there
is going to be a need for new, innovative technologies. Having
Federal support and funding to progress those technologies is
going to be critical.
Third, I would say that we all seem to be saying that
natural gas is key to complementing the growth of renewables
and ensuring reliability.
Senator Carper. Thanks so much.
I am going to come back to you with a question for the
record, Ms. Snyder. It relates to natural gas. Could the
building of coal-fired plants in other places around the world
to provide electricity in places like China and India, and to
see what kind of opportunities there are for us to provide
natural gas for them as a bridge fuel, so they don't build more
coal-fired plants? Mr. Wood, please.
Mr. Wood. Well, I agree with Ms. Snyder. I think
affordability, good reliability, reduction of carbon, are our
consensus in here. We also have an example of a city that has
done a lot of good, and it is something that we can use as a
model.
Senator Carper. Mr. Wood, I was distracted for a moment.
Just repeat again what you said. I apologize.
Mr. Wood. OK. I said I agree with Ms. Snyder on her
comments, and I think we agree as a panel on need for
affordability, diversity of source, good reliability. We
haven't mentioned it often, but I think we ought to keep cyber
security in mind, and the reduction of carbon.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you. Is Gordon Gee still
your President at West Virginia University?
Mr. Wood. Yes, he is.
Senator Carper. He has been president twice there, twice at
Ohio State where I graduated from. Vanderbilt, Brown, maybe a
school in Colorado. When you see him, would you tell him a West
Virginia native from Beckley, West Virginia sends his best, OK?
Mr. Wood. Well, I hope he is watching.
Senator Carper. We hope to maybe put together a symposium
with the help of the folks at Aspen Institute to come to West
Virginia in late spring to focus on how do we make sure that we
don't leave folks behind whose jobs have disappeared or are
disappearing. We look forward to maybe having the chance to do
a few things. Give him our best, please.
I have, it looks like a catch-all unanimous consent to
place all materials into the record, and I ask unanimous
consent to submit for the record a number of reports and
articles focused on the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
in the electricity sector while improving the resiliency and
reliability of our power grid. If I have already said that
before, please bear with me.
[The referenced information follows:]
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Senator Carper. Now, in closing, I want to thank our
witnesses. This has been an extraordinary panel, and just a
wonderful time of sharing, and is a time of creation of a lot
more consensus than some people would have imagined on a really
important subject.
Our panel has included the leader of one of our largest
cities, a nonpartisan expert in industry stakeholders. Hearing
each of their perspectives shows the complexity of the
challenges ahead on this critical issue.
But after hearing from all of you today, what strikes me
the most isn't the challenges, it is really the opportunities.
The opportunity to put our Nation on the path to a safer and
more prosperous future, the opportunity to create millions of
good-paying jobs, the opportunity to build a strong and more
innovative economy, the opportunity to clean our air and
protect the environment for our children and our grandchildren.
It is the job of those of us and our Federal Government and
the government at all levels to come together and make those
opportunities a reality for the American people.
Again, I want to thank all of our witnesses for taking part
of that process. I want to thank our colleagues. Almost
everybody on the committee has joined us and been a part of
this hearing. That is terrific.
I want to thank our staffs, especially, for pulling
together a great group of witnesses from across our Country.
Senators will be allowed to submit questions for the record
through close of business on March, 24th. We will compile those
questions and send them to our witnesses and ask that our
witnesses reply to us by April the 7th. And with that, this
hearing is adjourned. God bless.
[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]