[Senate Hearing 117-290]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-290


                 21ST CENTURY COMMUNITIES: CAPITALIZING
              ON OPPORTUNITIES IN THE CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                   BANKING,HOUSING,AND URBAN AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                                   ON

 EXAMINING THE OPPORTUNITIES THAT CLEAN ENERGY INVESTMENT CAN HELP OUR 
                        COMMUNITIES AND ECONOMY

                               __________

                             APRIL 22, 2021

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 
                                Affairs
                                
                                
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                                


                Available at: https: //www.govinfo.gov /

                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
47-912 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

            COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS

                     SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Chairman

JACK REED, Rhode Island              PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey          RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
JON TESTER, Montana                  MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia             TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts      MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  JERRY MORAN, Kansas
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia             KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
                                     STEVE DAINES, Montana

                     Laura Swanson, Staff Director

                 Brad Grantz, Republican Staff Director

                       Elisha Tuku, Chief Counsel

                         John Richards, Counsel

                 Dan Sullivan, Republican Chief Counsel

                  Alexander LePore, Republican Detail

                      Cameron Ricker, Chief Clerk

                      Shelvin Simmons, IT Director

                    Charles J. Moffat, Hearing Clerk

                                  (ii)


                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                        THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 2021

                                                                   Page

Opening statement of Chairman Brown..............................     1
        Prepared statement.......................................    31

Opening statements, comments, or prepared statements of:
    Senator Toomey...............................................     3
        Prepared statement.......................................    32

                               WITNESSES

Ernest Moniz, Chief Executive Officer, Energy Futures Initiative.     6
    Prepared statement...........................................    34
    Responses to written questions of:
        Chairman Brown...........................................    81
Khalil Shahyd, Senior Policy Advisor, Natural Resources Defense 
  Council........................................................     8
    Prepared statement...........................................    51
Zoe Lipman, Director, Manufacturing and Advanced Transportation, 
  BlueGreen Alliance.............................................    10
    Prepared statement...........................................    58
David W. Kreutzer, Senior Economist, Institute for Energy 
  Research.......................................................    11
    Prepared statement...........................................    75
Neal Crabtree, Welder, Pipeliners Local Union....................    13
    Prepared statement...........................................    79

              Additional Material Supplied for the Record

Maps submitted by Zoe Lipman, Director, Manufacturing and 
  Advanced Transportation, BlueGreen Alliance....................    83

                                 (iii)

 
 21ST CENTURY COMMUNITIES: CAPITALIZING ON OPPORTUNITIES IN THE CLEAN 
                             ENERGY ECONOMY

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 2021

                                       U.S. Senate,
          Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met at 10:03 a.m., via Webex, Hon. Sherrod 
Brown, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SHERROD BROWN

    Chairman Brown. The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, 
and Urban Affairs will come to order.
    This hearing is in the virtual format. For those joining 
remotely, a few reminders.
    Once you start speaking, there will be a slight delay 
before you are displayed on the screen. To minimize background 
noise, please click the mute button until it is your turn to 
speak or ask questions.
    You should all have one box on your screens labeled 
``Clock'' that will show how much time is remaining. For all 
Senators, the 5-minute clock still applies.
    At 30 seconds remaining, you will hear a bell ring to 
remind you your time has almost expired. It will ring again at 
expiration. If there is a tech issue, we will move to the next 
Senator until it is resolved.
    To simplify the speaking order process, Senator Toomey and 
I have agreed to go by seniority for all Senators for this 
hearing.
    First, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the verdict 
in Minnesota Tuesday and the tragic shooting the same day in 
Columbus in my State.
    While Tuesday's guilty verdict was the right one, we cannot 
mistake accountability for justice. True justice would mean Mr. 
Floyd was still alive today; true justice would not allow 
another shooting to happen while the verdict was being read.
    Ma'Khia Bryant was 16 years old, a daughter, a high school 
student, a member of our Columbus community. And now another 
family in our country is in mourning.
    This must be a turning point for our country. We must use 
this moment as a call for continued action to reform our laws 
and reform a broken justice system that has failed Black 
Americans over and over.
    We have to reform our public safety system so that it 
protects all of us. And on this Committee, we continue to work 
to change the ways our society has too often been set up to 
hold Black and Brown Americans back. As you know, those who 
have followed this Committee know we have begun to do that and 
talk about structural racism and wealth inequality in from 
housing and transit and our banking system.
    I agree with my friend and colleague, the Chair of the 
Congressional Black Caucus from Columbus, Joyce Beatty: This 
must be the catalyst to trigger actions far beyond today.
    Today, on Earth Day, the Banking and Housing Committee 
returns to the subject of climate change. A few weeks ago we 
talked about risk. We are Americans. We take on big problems; 
we develop and manufacture and deploy the technologies of the 
future.
    I come from a coal State. I know the legitimate fears that 
workers and communities in Appalachian Ohio have. We listen to 
them.
    They live in towns where mining is a core part of their 
identity. They think of themselves often as ``coal towns,'' 
even though coal has not been mined there since at least the 
Reagan administration.
    There is bravery and courage and dedication to family. 
Imagine going a mile or more underground to do dangerous work 
in tight, dark, dusty places every single day.
    On Monday, my friend Cecil Roberts, the president of the 
United Mine Workers, showed that same grit when he announced 
that mine workers see a path to clean energy--path that 
supports the dignity of his members' work, that gives them a 
seat at the table, that finally brings the investment in their 
communities that they have been promised for decades.
    We must show the kind of courage that Cecil Roberts and the 
mine workers are showing.
    We show no respect by selling communities a fantasy of 
returning to the past. People want truth; they want commitment 
to help them grow the industries of the future. And I and all 
of us on this panel want to see American manufacturing thrive, 
to strengthen American competitiveness, and to give communities 
the tools they need to be a part of the 21st century clean 
energy economy.
    This is not some far off dream world of science fiction.
    We know we can seize these opportunities, because we are 
already doing it: in the Dry Lake Wind Power Project in Navajo 
County in Arizona; the Willow solar project 30 minutes 
northwest of Wasilla, Alaska; zero-emission bus manufacturing 
in Alabama, South Carolina, and Minnesota; in Kansas, 7,000 
megawatts of wind, solar, and battery storage helps power 2 
million homes; in Louisiana, where Gulf Island Fabrication 
built the foundations for the Nation's first offshore wind 
project, the Block Island Wind Farm, in Rhode Island.
    Nearly 350,000 Americans already work at solar energy jobs; 
nearly 115,000 workers do the same in wind.
    That is only the beginning. Four hundred thousand or more 
additional Americans could find jobs in solar and wind 
industries this decade.
    This is about the workers in Perrysburg and Lake Township, 
Ohio, who manufacture First Solar's highly efficient PV solar 
panels. It is about the brilliant scientists at the University 
of Toledo, making breakthroughs in ultra high-efficiency and 
thin-film solar cells.
    It is about RBI Solar, in Cincinnati, which emerged from 
the commercial greenhouse business and is now the fastest-
growing photovoltaic racking company in North America.
    It is about the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority, in 
Canton, Ohio. SARTA has built one of the largest hydrogen fuel 
cell bus fleets in the Nation. It lends its buses to help other 
transit agencies test the deployment of American-made buses 
that have zero tailpipe emissions.
    It is about Emerson, founded in 1890 as an electric fan 
company, and its 21st century collaboration with the University 
of Dayton on high-efficiency and sustainable heating, 
ventilation, and air conditioning technologies.
    This country laid 200,000 miles of railroad tracks. We 
electrified the cities and the countryside. We sent John Glenn 
into orbit. Our continued embrace of innovation puts into the 
hand of every cellphone customer a more powerful computer than 
NASA used for the Apollo program.
    Why stop now?
    Our predecessors did not say no to Henry Ford because of 
the buggy whip lobby. We are not going to say no to innovation 
in the clean energy economy.
    These new industries got a big boost at the turn of this 
century when those George Bush and Rick Perry--noted hippies 
each--pushed renewable development in Texas.
    Texas which now leads the country in electricity from wind 
power. Next in line--think about this--Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, 
North Dakota--collectively known as the ``Saudi Arabia of 
wind.''
    The growth in renewables in those States and across the 
country provides good-paying jobs, gives farmers and ranchers 
another source of income, contributing to cleaner air and 
water, saving people money.
    Retrofitting our houses and apartments to make them more 
energy efficient and resilient means lower utility bills for 
families every month.
    More and more, it is clean energy.
    The choice we face is not between keeping our communities 
frozen in time or putting people to work in new industries.
    If we do nothing, change is still coming. Clean energy jobs 
are the future.
    The only question is whether they will be American jobs.
    If we fail to invest in clean energy R&D, to retool our 
factories, and to play a leadership role, other countries will 
fill the void.
    China is already spending billions. So are Germany and 
Japan.
    We need to stop allowing the Chinese Government and its 
subsidized industries profit off our innovation.
    Let us create 21st century communities.
    Ranking Member Toomey.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATRICK J. TOOMEY

    Senator Toomey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Today I expect we will hear about all kinds of 
opportunities associated with Green New Deal-type policies. But 
our discussion really needs to include the costs of these 
policies, including the cost of lost American jobs, slower 
economic growth, increased energy costs, and the waste of 
billions of taxpayer dollars.
    Our discussion should also include the remarkable progress 
we have made in reducing carbon emissions--ironically enough, 
using fossil fuels. Let me explain.
    U.S. carbon emissions have been falling for years. Not many 
other countries can say that, but we can. In 2019, U.S. carbon 
emissions hit their lowest level since 1992 and their lowest 
per capita level since 1950, and the U.S. led the world in 
reducing energy-related CO2 emissions. These declines were 
enabled by America's recent energy renaissance made possible by 
technology and free markets.
    The natural gas boom, especially in places like 
Pennsylvania, has helped gas to significantly replace coal as 
the fuel for America's power plants. This has been the primary 
driver of the declines in carbon emissions, and we made this 
progress while creating jobs and lowering the cost of energy, 
thereby enhancing the standard of living of the American 
people, not going the other way.
    Despite all this, some of my colleagues seem determined to 
impose Green New Deal policies that will cost us jobs on a net 
basis and stifle the very developments that have allowed us to 
reduce emissions. Some describe the destruction caused by these 
policies as an ``opportunity'' to create new green energy jobs. 
But they fail to acknowledge the costs they are imposing in the 
lost jobs and higher energy prices.
    I am reminded of French economist Frederic Bastiat's famous 
1850s parable of the ``broken window.'' In the parable, someone 
breaks a shopkeeper's window, so he has to go out and hire a 
window maker to replace it. Some people think the broken window 
is a good thing because it ``created'' a job for the window 
maker. But Bastiat correctly points out the fallacy in this 
thinking. As he puts it, ``destruction is not profit.''
    The shopkeeper had to spend money and time to replace his 
window. If the window had never been broken, that money and 
time could have gone to more productive uses, like hiring a 
worker to expand the shopkeeper's business. I feel like some of 
my colleagues sometimes seem to have forgotten this basic 
economic principle.
    Just as breaking a shopkeeper's window does not somehow 
create economic gain, neither does destroying traditional 
sources of energy and replacing it with so-called green energy 
create economic gain for at least two reasons: One, it is not 
at all clear that the newly created green jobs are equivalent 
to and sufficient to replace the lost jobs. And, second, the 
end result is that society pays more for energy, and that 
lowers our standard of living. And the consequences of this 
destruction are not just academic.
    The Biden administration has already imposed policies that 
today are destroying traditional energy jobs. For example, it 
terminated the construction of the Keystone Pipeline and banned 
new oil and gas leases on Federal land.
    These actions alone will destroy tens of thousands of jobs 
for Americans. Today we are going to hear from one of them--
Neal Crabtree, a union welder who lost his job when Keystone 
was shut down.
    I am also deeply concerned about the Biden administration's 
apparent efforts to coerce banks to reduce lending to fossil 
fuel energy companies. This week all the Republicans on this 
Committee sent a letter to John Kerry warning the 
Administration not to abuse Government power in this way.
    Mr. Kerry has said that the very purpose of President 
Biden's expected global warming Executive order is to ``change 
the allocation of capital''--in other words, to redirect 
capital from traditional energy companies to companies deemed 
to be sufficiently ``green.''
    Now, this effort disturbingly resembles the Obama 
administration's notorious ``Operation Choke Point'' scandal, 
in which regulators attempted to coerce banks into denying 
services to legal yet politically disfavored businesses.
    It is neither practical nor desirable to immediately try to 
cease fossil fuel production. Fossil fuels represent 
approximately 80 percent of U.S. energy production and 
consumption. And abusing Government power to try to achieve 
that objective will distort capital allocation, raise energy 
costs for consumers, and slow economic growth.
    Finally, Green New Deal job programs have a history of 
failure. Yet President Biden's infrastructure plan would double 
down on failed policies of the past. Consider one example: His 
plan would establish a $27 billion ``National Climate Bank'' to 
provide financing for so-called green investments.
    We know that when the Government substitutes its judgment 
for that of the market, it picks winners and losers based on 
political favoritism, not business fundamentals. Just look at 
the 2009 Obama-Biden spending bill. That bill included over $80 
billion in spending, loan guarantees, and tax credits for green 
energy projects. What were the results of this massive 
Government program? There was a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse.
    Who can forget the infamous case of the solar panel company 
Solyndra? It went bankrupt and defaulted on a $535 million loan 
that had been guaranteed by--you guessed it--Federal taxpayers.
    This is what happens when the Government picks winners and 
losers based on political considerations. As one of today's 
witnesses, David Kreutzer, will testify, the Biden 
administration seems determined to repeat these mistakes of the 
past.
    Mr. Chairman, the fact is the climate is changing, and we 
should be having a vigorous debate about what to do about that. 
But that debate should honestly acknowledge that if we shift 
from low-cost, reliable fossil energy to high-cost energy, like 
wind and solar, there are costs associated. Jobs will be 
destroyed, and energy prices will go up.
    We need to weigh these costs against the perceived 
potential benefits of a shift, and we should do so in an open, 
transparent, and accountable way--not through sweeping 
Executive actions or back-door pressure campaigns to coerce 
banks to implement the Administration's preferred policies.
    Thank you.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Toomey, for your 
comments.
    I will introduce today's witnesses. We will hear from five 
witnesses.
    The Honorable Ernest Moniz, president and CEO of Energy 
Futures Initiative. Dr. Moniz appears today as head of the 
Energy Futures Initiative, which has for several years been the 
coauthor of the U.S. Energy and Employment Report. This work he 
has been doing since he was in this role for which he was 
perhaps better known, serving as the 13th U.S. Secretary of 
Energy. His service as Secretary under President Obama was the 
second tour of duty for Dr. Moniz at DOE. During the Clinton 
administration, he served as the Under Secretary of Energy, 
also worked in the White House as Assistant Director of Science 
in the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
    Khalil Shahyd is a senior policy advisor to the Natural 
Resources Defense Council. As part of NRDC's Healthy People and 
Thriving Communities Program, Mr. Shahyd focuses on policies 
and strategies to create just solutions for environmental 
crises by integrating clean energy with affordable housing and 
community development. For more than two decades, Mr. Shahyd 
has worked in community economic justice, organizing, and 
advocacy in the United States, Mexico, India, and Brazil.
    Zoe Lipman is director of manufacturing and advanced 
transportation for the BlueGreen Alliance. She leads their 
policy and advocacy work on clean energy manufacturing and 
advanced vehicles. Earlier she led the National Wildlife 
Federation's Fuel Economy and Advanced Vehicles Program, 
previously headed its Midwest Climate Policy Program.
    Dr. David Kreutzer is the senior economist for the 
Institute for Energy Research. Dr. Kreutzer joined IER after a 
decade as a senior research fellow at Heritage, where he 
covered labor and trade issues. Prior to Heritage, Dr. Kreutzer 
taught economics at James Madison and before that at Ohio 
University in Athens, Ohio.
    Mr. Neal Crabtree is a welder in Pipeliners Local Union 
798. Mr. Crabtree is a second-generation union welder who has 
worked in pipeline projects all over the country. He joins us 
today from Fouke--if I am saying that right--Arkansas. Mr. 
Crabtree is a regular contributor to Fox News.
    Secretary Moniz, as I said, has a commitment that will 
require him to leave the hearing at 11:45. If we are not 
finished, we will accommodate any Senators questions that were 
not able to be asked as questions for the record.
    I welcome all of our witnesses and thank them for 
appearing. We are fortunate to have such a distinguished panel 
of five experts to discuss the abundant and transformative 
opportunities available to American workers and communities and 
companies in the clean energy economy.
    Secretary Moniz, please give your opening remarks.

  STATEMENT OF ERNEST MONIZ, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ENERGY 
                       FUTURES INITIATIVE

    Mr. Moniz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Toomey, 
and Members of the Committee. I am very pleased to discuss with 
you today the risks associated with climate change and the 
opportunities that are presented by addressing them.
    The physical, societal, environmental, and financial 
impacts of global warming, climate change, and extreme weather 
have become evident. If we take inflation-corrected billion-
dollar extreme weather events as an indicator, the annual 
average over the last 40 years is 7, over the last 5 years is 
16, and in 2020 it was 22. These are data, not opinions. We 
need to pick up the pace on the clean energy transition that 
lies at the heart of limiting climate change impacts if we are 
to not only protect economic growth but, indeed, to prosper in 
the new energy economy.
    The recent events in Texas provide a sad example of the 
consequences of inaction. The 2021 ``Big Chill'' consequences 
could have been mitigated considerably if the elevated climate 
risk profile had been addressed in State policy and regulation, 
for example, through requirements on winterization of energy 
assets and on load-shedding protocols that reflect the 
electricity-natural gas infrastructure interdependency.
    The financial consequences were also considerable. Balance 
sheets of families, businesses, utilities, and military 
installations are badly stressed. The largest electric power 
cooperative in the State has declared bankruptcy, and the last 
shoe has not dropped on ratepayers, taxpayers, and 
shareholders. The point here is that we need to lean forward in 
addressing the realities of climate change and extreme weather.
    The good news is that clean energy responses grounded in 
technology, policy, and business model innovation, which the 
U.S. excels at, will present economic and environmental 
opportunity and needed infrastructure renewal.
    First, we need decade of supercharged clean energy 
technology innovation starting now. The portfolio must be all 
of the above. This includes large-scale CO2 management, carbon 
capture utilization and sequestration, and CO2 removal from the 
atmosphere and upper ocean layers, advanced nuclear technology, 
both fission and fusion, long-duration energy storage to 
underpin the greatly expanded use of wind and solar, low carbon 
fuels, hydrogen, and more. The full portfolio of clean energy 
solutions will provide maximum optionality and flexibility to 
meet regional needs. Indeed, we should be supporting regional 
innovation initiatives tailored to a region's resources and 
needs.
    Second, this innovation thrust needs to be paralleled by a 
focus on infrastructure modernization. Building on a smart 
electric grid is critical, but we also need CO2 and hydrogen 
infrastructures, onshore infrastructure to support major 
offshore wind expansion, electrical charging infrastructure in 
urban, suburban, and rural settings, and more.
    Third, all of this provides major quality job growth 
opportunities. Energy sector job growth pre-COVID was double 
that of the economy as a whole. The median wage in the energy 
sector is 34 percent greater than that in the broader economy, 
with unionized jobs leading the way. Building out the clean 
energy economy is especially critical as we dig out of the 
COVID-induced employment hole.
    Fourth, we need to develop secure supply chains as we 
develop the new energy economy. An example is provided by 
critical minerals and metals that are needed for many clean 
energy technologies, such as batteries or offshore wind 
turbines. We need environmentally responsible mining 
domestically, recycling and substitution by earth-abundant 
materials, all of which call for innovation. Similarly, we need 
to rebuild a domestic supply chain for generation for nuclear 
reactors and for meeting national security needs.
    Finally, we note that business has played a major role, 
even if often overlooked, in moving the needle on 
decarbonization. More than 300 businesses and investors called 
on President Biden to announce 50-percent emissions reductions 
by 2030, and that is what the President has pledged on Earth 
Day. More than 200 U.S. companies committed to net zero by 
2050, including 70 percent of the 30 largest utilities. U.S. 
automakers committed to an EV transition.
    The bottom line is that business is a great leading 
indicator of how capital will be deployed for business needs 
looking ahead years and decades. Many of our most successful 
companies have committed to a deep decarbonization trajectory 
as making the most business sense. One important direction is 
that of enhanced climate change risk disclosure which aligns 
with the strong ESG initiatives of investors such as BlackRock, 
Vanguard, and State Street. This was called for in the 
groundbreaking CFTC report last year. Business, Governments, 
and banks clearly view climate risk internalization as 
essential for properly informing investment choices by large 
institutions and individual investors alike.
    Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Toomey, and Members of the 
Committee, I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Secretary Moniz.
    Next is Mr. Shahyd. Welcome.

  STATEMENT OF KHALIL SHAHYD, SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR, NATURAL 
                   RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL

    Mr. Shahyd. Good morning, Chair Brown, Ranking Member 
Toomey, and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you 
for the opportunity to testify today.
    I am Khalil Shahyd, a senior policy advisor on equity, 
environment, and just communities with the Natural Resources 
Defense Council. NRDC is an international nonprofit 
organization of scientists, lawyers, and environmental 
specialists dedicated to protecting health and the environment.
    The United States today is confronted by extraordinary and 
interconnected crises of a global pandemic, economic recession, 
deep racial injustice, a rapidly destabilizing climate, and 
threats to the Nation's democratic foundations. Few sessions of 
Congress have shouldered greater responsibility or had greater 
opportunity. Many acts of leadership will be necessary to make 
it through these crises led by comprehensive and sustained 
Federal investment to recover, rebuild, and lay the foundation 
for a more just and stable future.
    Like most of the economy, clean energy was hit hard by 
COVID-19. At one point more than 600,000 clean energy workers 
had filed for unemployment. Energy efficiency jobs saw the 
biggest drop, declining about 11 percent as workers were 
prevented from entering homes and offices because of pandemic 
lockdowns. If the clean energy sector is to be the engine that 
drives us toward a more equitable and sustainable economy, we 
must ensure that it recovers and expands to provide the 
opportunity and livelihoods so many need.
    President Biden has committed to increasing the pace of 
climate action to cut emissions. Housing represents a key 
element of his strategy. The President wants to cut the carbon 
footprint of the U.S. building stock in half by 2035. Federal 
investments in cleaner transportation options, energy 
efficiency, and clean energy generation, combined with 
commitments to address racial inequities can deepen our actions 
against climate change. They can also create a stronger, more 
resilient economy.
    Did you know that most Americans, particularly renters, 
spend more than half their income on transportation, rent, and 
home energy costs? The climate crisis and soaring cost of 
housing are linked, and that is creating extreme burdens for 
households nationwide, including renters, female heads of 
households, and the elderly. And these burdens 
disproportionately challenge the financial stability of 
African-Americans and other communities of color.
    Often, low-income and vulnerable households are left to 
rely on low-quality housing due to residential segregation, 
long-term disinvestment, and deferred maintenance of the 
housing stock. These homes tend to waste energy so that low-
income families pay more for energy per square foot than 
higher-income residents. As a result, nearly one-third of U.S. 
households struggle to pay utility bills. In fact, about one in 
five households has been forced to choose between necessities 
like food and medicine or paying an energy bill.
    At the same time, low-income Americans are increasingly 
reliant on older housing units that leave them more vulnerable 
to extreme weather disasters like hurricanes, flooding, and 
wildfires. Unpredictable weather puts vulnerable housing stock 
at risk, leading to the displacement and destabilization of 
families and communities. It also increases the likelihood that 
they will experience--or be trapped in--poverty.
    Federal policies must ensure the reduction of emissions and 
that people can live in healthy, affordable housing.
    The Department of Energy's Weatherization Assistance 
Program is the primary source of Federal investments in home 
energy retrofits. Every year, WAP's efficiency improvements cut 
America's climate pollution by 2 million metric tons. But only 
about 35,000 homes can enroll annually, and many are not 
serviced due to funding shortfalls. At current levels, WAP will 
retrofit fewer than 150,000 homes over the next 4 years, even 
though 40 million are eligible. By providing more funding for 
WAP and new multifamily retrofit programs, Congress can make a 
difference.
    We need a whole-of-Government approach to addressing the 
climate crisis and the related challenges that confront us, and 
that begins with Congress. We need to ensure a functioning 
social safety net for all Americans. We need to invest in 
modernizing our Nation's housing stock and our infrastructure, 
and we need to enhance workforce training and benefits for 
dislocated workers.
    By taking those actions, Congress can transform our 
economy, grow jobs, and set America on a path of economic 
success for decades to come.
    Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, I thank you, and I look 
forward to your questions.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Lipman, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF ZOE LIPMAN, DIRECTOR, MANUFACTURING AND ADVANCED 
               TRANSPORTATION, BLUEGREEN ALLIANCE

    Ms. Lipman. Thank you, Chairman Brown, Ranking Member 
Toomey, and distinguished Members of the Committee. My name is 
Zoe Lipman, and I am director of manufacturing and advanced 
transportation at the BlueGreen Alliance. On behalf of my 
organization, our partners, and the millions of members and 
supporters they represent, I want to thank you for convening 
this hearing today on the opportunities in the clean energy 
economy.
    The BlueGreen Alliance unites America's largest and most 
influential labor unions and environmental organizations to 
solve today's environmental challenges in ways that create and 
maintain quality jobs and build a stronger, fairer economy. Our 
partnership is firm in the belief that Americans do not have to 
choose between good jobs and a clean environment. We can and 
must have both.
    I will focus today on the opportunity to transform basic 
industry and rebuild American manufacturing to lead in the 
clean economy, both to meet our climate goals and to power a 
real and lasting economic recovery that extends to all. It is 
also critical to our economic security and competitiveness.
    These actions are also essential as we work to rebuild from 
the ongoing COVID-19 health and economic crisis. We went into 
this pandemic with three ongoing and interconnected crises: 
economic inequality, racial injustice, and climate change. The 
pandemic has cast a harsh spotlight on the severe and 
disproportionate impacts of these crises. It also revealed 
dangerous gaps in our manufacturing supply chain and the unsafe 
and unfair conditions still faced by too many workers today.
    We stand at a crossroads. Worldwide, our competitors are 
rushing to capture the manufacturing and job gains in the 
rapidly emerging global clean economy. Decisions we make now 
can ensure that the next generation of investments in clean 
vehicles, energy, and infrastructure are made here in the 
United States and that those investments result in the kind of 
good-paying jobs that are out of the grasp of too many 
Americans.
    I will focus on three particular opportunities to deliver 
these goals.
    First, we must act at scale to rebuild and retool American 
manufacturing, basic industry, and essential supply chains. 
Expanding, retooling, and converting our factories to build the 
clean and advanced technology can secure, bring back, and grow 
jobs in communities across America. Meanwhile, reinvesting to 
modernize and transform our industrial base can make it the 
cleanest and most competitive in the world while stemming the 
flow of offshoring that costs jobs at home while increasing 
pollution worldwide.
    Second, we must execute a comprehensive electric vehicle 
manufacturing agenda. The auto industry is at the heart of the 
U.S. manufacturing economy, and it is in the midst of a 
historic shift. EVs are coming, and investments made over the 
next 2 years will determine whether the vehicles and technology 
that goes into them are made here and whether they deliver good 
family supporting jobs. In States like Tennessee and Ohio, we 
can see these changes going on in real time. Too often 
shortsighted policies that put the U.S. behind on technology 
and aggravate offshoring and outsourcing have left workers 
bearing the cost of technological and market shifts. The 
workers and communities in manufacturing States across the 
country are counting on policymakers to get it right this time.
    Finally, our roads, bridges, railroads, and transit systems 
are fundamental to commerce, to daily life, and to access to 
opportunities. Desperately needed investments in our 
transportation infrastructure would not only support large 
numbers of jobs, operating, maintaining, and upgrading these 
modes of transportation but in manufacturing as well. For 
example, the parts and materials for bus transit and passenger 
rail systems are manufactured in every State represented on 
this Committee, often far from where the vehicles themselves 
are put into service.
    We must invest at levels commensurate with our economic and 
transportation needs, and across the board we must also sustain 
and strengthen critical Buy America labor and community benefit 
standards to ensure we capture the full jobs, equity, and local 
economic benefits of these investments, and that we are target 
investments in communities that need it most.
    My written testimony delves into each of these issues more 
deeply and also highlights the policy actions Congress can take 
today to shape the future and ensure we do not repeat the 
mistakes of the past.
    In closing, making these investments right and making them 
now will give us the opportunity to lead globally, rebuild good 
union jobs in manufacturing communities across the Nation that 
have been struggling, and bolster innovation and production of 
the clean technology of the future here at home. These actions 
mean real impacts across America. The time to act is now.
    Thank you very much, and I look forward to taking your 
questions.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you.
    Dr. Kreutzer is recognized for 5 minutes. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF DAVID W. KREUTZER, SENIOR ECONOMIST, INSTITUTE FOR 
                        ENERGY RESEARCH

    Mr. Kreutzer. Thank you. Chairman Brown, Ranking Member 
Toomey, and other Senators, I want to thank you very much for 
giving me this opportunity to address you. I am David Kreutzer, 
and I am senior economist at the Institute for Energy Research.
    We have been here before. We have seen this movie. Twelve 
years ago, President Obama promised to create 3 million new 
jobs. As Senator Toomey pointed out, $80 billion of the $787 
billion stimulus package went toward supposedly creating these 
green jobs. There were all sorts of high-minded findings, the 
necessity to get people back to work, we were going to clean 
this up and do that and the other things, just like we are 
hearing today. But the reality was much different.
    The program to do job training was investigated by the 
Inspector General at the Department of Labor, and it was found 
to be a fantastic failure. For instance, more than 20 percent 
of the certificates given for green job training went to people 
that had 1 day or less of training. Forty-seven percent of the 
certificates went to people that had 5 days or fewer of 
training. The people that administered these programs could not 
even document what the outcomes were for 24 to 44 percent of 
these job training programs. The number of trainees who entered 
employment was only 40 percent of the target; 38 percent of 
those who did get jobs through the green job training program 
had jobs before they went in. So the job training program was 
supposed to be this great thing. It turned out to be a dud.
    The BLS did counts of the green jobs that were created. 
Remember, there were supposed to be 3 million new green jobs 
created. In their first report, they found, they said, 3 
million jobs in total. Digging down into those shows that it 
was quite a farce. The second report, a year later, showed 2 
million jobs, green jobs. For some reason a year later, maybe 
they became a little more honest.
    If we look at the definitions of what counted as a green 
job, we find that we have little confidence that even that 2 
million was anywhere close. For instance, if we look in the 
utility sector, the power generation sector, the number of 
green jobs that were in there in total, 80 percent of those 
green jobs were in nuclear power. The stimulus package and the 
$80 billion from that that went to supposedly creating green 
jobs in the new green technology did nothing to create those 
nuclear jobs. There had not been any new nuclear plants for 
over 30 years at that time.
    If we look at the steel industry, which few of us think of 
as being very green, though very much necessary and a good 
industry, they counted for 50 percent of the jobs in the steel 
industry as green.
    And, finally, there is a long list and probably the most 
ridiculous was the Acting Director of the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics in a hearing in front of Congressman Issa admitted 
that lobbyists for the oil industry could be counted as a green 
job since they were educating on environmental issues. So the 
green job creation was bogus. It did not happen. And the 
reports were so embarrassing that they were defunded.
    They did spend that $80 billion, though. They did not 
create the green jobs, but the money went somewhere. Who did it 
go to? It went to the politically well connected and the 
economically powerful. In its postmortem on the Solyndra 
debacle, the Washington Post wrote a story. This is a quote: 
``The Administration, which excluded lobbyists from 
policymaking positions, gave easy access to venture capitalists 
with stakes in some of the companies backed by the 
Administration, the records show. Many of those investors had 
given to Obama's 2008 campaign. Some took jobs in the 
Administration and helped manage the clean energy program.''
    OK. So that disaster had political initiation.
    There is another example--there are many, many, but I will 
just give one. Ivanpah solar thermal power plant in California 
was given a $1.6 billion loan guarantee and a $500 million 
grant from the Department of Energy. Supposedly, loan 
guarantees went to companies that could not get financing for 
economically viable projects, which does not make sense. Here 
are the partners of Ivanpah: Google, General Electric, Chevron, 
BP Alternative Energy, Morgan Stanley, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, 
and on and on. The aggregate market capitalization of those 
companies that got this loan guarantee and the grant was over 
$1 trillion. So the programs went to people that did not need 
the money for projects that did not work out. We are going to 
see that over again here if we continue with a more than 
doubling down; instead of $80 billion, we are going to 
multitrillion-dollar programs.
    Thank you very much. I have run out of time. I look forward 
to your questions.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you.
    Mr. Crabtree, welcome to the Committee. You are recognized 
for 5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF NEAL CRABTREE, WELDER, PIPELINERS LOCAL UNION 798

    Mr. Crabtree. Thank you, Chairman Brown, Ranking Member 
Toomey, for the opportunity to testify before you here today.
    I live near Texarkana, Arkansas, and I am a member of 
Pipeliners Local Union 798, and we have more than 7,000 union 
members nationwide that travel the country developing the 
pipeline infrastructure, the reliable infrastructure that we 
enjoy today. Myself, I have been a member for over 25 years 
now. I live in a rural part of the country and opportunities 
were kind of limited. So after I served 2 honorable years in 
the United States Army, this is the career path that I chose.
    This time of year is the beginning of pipeline construction 
season. And just like a lot of the other industries in this 
country, we were hit hard by COVID last year. We had a lot of 
projects that were canceled, and we were looking forward to 
2021 to get back to work, because right now over 88 percent of 
my local union members are out of work and they have been for 
some time now.
    Now, myself, I was lucky enough to be involved in the early 
stages of the Keystone Pipeline construction. We had started 
working in Nebraska. But, of course, all that ended on January 
20th when President Biden decided to revoke the permits. That 
immediately laid off 1,000 union workers, and it cost thousands 
more a chance to be employed right now this spring when major 
construction would have been underway. To have a project of 
this magnitude canceled, it is having some devastating effects 
on workers and families and communities all across the rural 
parts of this country.
    We have got members who have been out of work, like I said, 
for over a year now. They would have benefited from this, and 
this pipeline would have actually benefited the environment. 
But our union members are starting to feel like pawns in, I 
guess you would say, a chess game. We help deliver the low-cost 
energy that this country enjoys today, and now it seems we are 
being sacrificed for a green experiment at the taxpayers' 
expense.
    Like I said, in my case I was laid off 3 hours after the 
President came into office, and I never thought I would live in 
a country where my own President would put me out of work 
building a pipeline that was going to transport the same 
product that is already coming into this country. We are 
already using this oil. It is already coming by rail cars. 
There is still a demand for it. And it only made sense to build 
this pipeline to bring it in safer and doing it in a more 
environmentally friendly way.
    Like I said, the Biden administration, they seem to think 
that the loss of these jobs are just temporary jobs and the 
impact is not that big. But, you know, a lot of people in this 
country depend on temporary projects to build their career. You 
do not see a carpenter spending his whole career building the 
same house. You do not see a lawyer spending his whole career 
defending the same client. You know, this pipeline was our 
house to build this year. It was our client. And the effects of 
canceling, they are going to be far-reaching, not just for the 
workers, but it is starting to have a negative effect on other 
projects that deliver the reliable energy that this country 
needs.
    According to Mr. John Kerry, we should just go get jobs in 
the green energy field. That is a hard thing for me to swallow 
because doing that, I would be starting over at the bottom. You 
know, I have spent 25 years developing my skills, and I am 
compensated accordingly for it. You know, starting over and 
training to do another job, you will be starting at an entry-
level position with entry-level pay, and that is hard for a lot 
of Americans to handle when you have got mortgage payments, you 
have got kids to raise, you have got insurance to provide.
    You will never hear us complain about a company's right to 
develop green energy. But I do not believe the Government 
should be hindering private companies' rights to develop the 
reliable energy projects that we still need in this country 
today.
    I look forward to taking any questions you might have, and 
thank you.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you very much, Mr. Crabtree, for your 
personal testimonial.
    I want to start with Dr. Moniz, Secretary Moniz. I want to 
read something that you said to make sure we heard that. Your 
testimony: ``If we take inflation-corrected billion-dollar 
extreme weather events as an indicator, the annual average over 
the last 40 years is 7 events, over the last 5 years is 16, and 
in 2020 it was 22 events.'' That surely speaks for itself. As 
Secretary Moniz said, scientist that he is, he said those are 
not opinions, those are facts.
    My question, Secretary Moniz, I will start with you. Ohio 
workers have proven over and over they are adaptable. They can 
make just about anything given the right training and tools. 
What kind of skills training would someone need to go from a 
job in the mines or working at a gas well to roles in the clean 
energy economy? And keep in mind the comments of Mr. Crabtree 
as you answer this. Can our vocational technical schools and 
community colleges and union apprenticeship programs teach the 
skills workers need for these jobs?
    Mr. Moniz. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. In fact, I think it is 
important to emphasize and I think the President is 
emphasizing, number one, create the jobs. The training will be 
there for those jobs.
    Number two, with Mr. Crabtree's skill set in terms of 
welding, we need to look at this as in the transition there are 
going to be major infrastructures I mentioned in my testimony. 
For example, we need CO2 infrastructures. We need hydrogen 
infrastructures. A lot of those are going to be piped. A lot of 
those are going to require the same skill sets as oil and gas 
workers do today.
    So we could be looking as to how the necessary transition 
we are going into can also be focused in ways that create jobs, 
that draw upon the current skill sets of our workers, and I 
would just add particularly our unionized workers, which have 
set the standard in terms of quality jobs, pay, benefits, and 
training like apprenticeships, as you mentioned.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
    Mr. Shahyd, more than 15 million American families are 
forced to spend at least 10 percent of their income every month 
on energy bills. What would it mean for these families to get 
some basic repairs and energy-efficient upgrades to their 
homes? What tools can we use to help these families bring down 
these costs? Who would do these repair jobs?
    Mr. Shahyd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that question. 
Yes, there are millions of jobs available in retrofitting both 
residential homes and businesses as well, and those jobs cannot 
be exported. They are not blue State jobs, they are not red 
State jobs. They are American jobs available all across the 
country if we just invest smartly in them.
    And for an average family, you know, for every dollar that 
is invested in energy efficiency in a low-income home, $2 is 
put back into that family's pocket that can be spent elsewhere 
in the economy.
    There are health benefits in terms of indoor air quality 
improvements. There are benefits in terms of reduced asthma in 
children, you know, less time spent in emergency rooms for 
respiratory illnesses, and other benefits that come from these, 
in addition to, again, the employment and the economic benefits 
of investing in these services and what it means for a local 
economy.
    Right now, the Weatherization Program employs just over 
8,000 across the country, but as I mentioned, it is poorly, 
poorly, poorly underfunded. There is not a State in the Union 
without a backlog, a wait list to get into that program that 
can extend for years at a time. A fully funded program could 
employ many more workers across the country, and, again, those 
jobs exist in every Zip code, in every State, in every city. 
Anywhere where there is a home, there are eligible properties 
that need these services.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you very much, Mr. Shahyd.
    Ms. Lipman, in the last minute--I started to make it short. 
This Committee has a tradition of 20 percent of our 
infrastructure dollars, transportation dollars, go to public 
transit. I have worked with former Republican Chair Shelby on 
this Committee to support the deployment of zero-emission buses 
under our low- or no-emission vehicle program. What would 
happen if the Feds made a sizable commitment to replacing the 
140,000 transit buses and vans on the road with American 
electric vehicle buses?
    Ms. Lipman. Sure, as you said, a quick answer, and I 
submitted some maps. Not only would we see emissions reductions 
and some cost reductions as well for operators operating 
systems, but we could support manufacturing jobs across the 
country. Bus, rail, and transit manufacturing components and 
vehicle assembly exist in every State represented by this 
Committee. And often these jobs, manufacturing technology for 
transit, are taking place hundreds or even thousands of miles 
from where the vehicles themselves are put into service. So it 
is a real opportunity to build economic growth, you know, good 
jobs and operations and maintenance of these vehicles on the 
one hand and manufacturing on the other.
    I would just say also quickly that the electric vehicle 
industry, electric vehicle bus industry is an example where we 
are putting--investing in our existing diesel bus companies to 
also build electric buses with the same workers on the same 
line. We want to make sure that we are--there really are two 
industries that we are transforming, the industries we have 
today with the maintenance and growth of good family supporting 
jobs they currently support.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Ms. Lipman.
    Senator Toomey is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Senator Toomey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I just want to start by pointing out that, you know, 
statistics about increasing numbers of high-dollar destruction 
from weather events over recent decades does not necessarily 
tell us anything about the frequency or severity of weather 
events. There is no question that a huge contributing factor 
has been the increasing concentrations of population and 
development in areas that previously were relatively 
undeveloped. So it would be expected that those numbers would 
go up.
    Mr. Crabtree, first of all, I am awfully sorry to hear 
about this experience that you have been through. Could you 
share with us some sense of the kind of time and effort that 
you had to put into developing the skill set that you have in 
your chosen profession, how long it took and how much effort it 
took to learn the trade that you have been become proficient 
in?
    Mr. Crabtree. Yes, sir, Senator. Our industry is like a lot 
of the other union industries. You usually start off in an 
apprenticeship, and oftentimes that probably lasts about 5 
years, and you spend those 5 years learning the skills. Like 
myself, I wanted to be a welder. That means, you know, a lot of 
practicing, a lot of late hours after work trying to learn that 
skill. And like I said, I have been doing it for 25 years now, 
and I am still learning more about it every day. I am the kind 
of person that believes if you stop learning, then you are just 
missing out on opportunities. But it took that 25 years to get 
to where I am at today.
    You know, if you count my wage and my benefit package 
through my union, I am somewhere in the neighborhood of $80 an 
hour. I do not think even with green training I am going to 
find an entry-level job in that field that is going to provide 
me with that kind of income. And I am just one person. There 
are thousands of oil and gas workers across the country that 
are going to be in that same boat. And when you are like me, 45 
years old, you are almost at the point of life when it is a 
little too late to be starting over. So I am forced with a 
difficult situation right now, because like I said, I have 
still got mortgage payments, I have still got kids to feed.
    Senator Toomey. Mr. Crabtree, if I heard you correctly, I 
think you said that 88 percent of the members of your union are 
out of work right now? Did I get that right?
    Mr. Crabtree. Yes, sir. It is 88 percent, and like I said, 
this is the time of year--this is construction season, and the 
Keystone Pipeline would have put thousands of our members to 
work. But there is more in the country going on than just the 
Keystone. There are all kinds of projects. There is one, the 
PennEast, I believe, right there in your State, is having 
trouble getting permits that would put some of our workers to 
work.
    Senator Toomey. Yeah, permitting obstacles that are created 
by people who do not want the pipeline to exist have certainly 
occurred in my neck of the woods. Is that keeping many of your 
colleagues out of work also?
    Mr. Crabtree. Yes, sir. I have been fortunate enough--in 
the last 25 years, I have spent a lot of time in your State 
because of the development of the Marcellus shale. It has 
provided man-hours for many of our union members, and that is 
just another project that would put hundreds of thousands of 
workers--get them off unemployment.
    Senator Toomey. And make low-cost natural gas more readily 
available and more broadly available.
    Mr. Crabtree. Yes, sir.
    Senator Toomey. Let me ask Dr. Kreutzer a question. You 
criticized and you walked through examples of very problematic 
cases of waste and abuse in the last time around that the 
Federal Government launched a huge green energy program. Now, 
of course, President Biden has suggested this $27 billion 
National Climate Bank. Is there any reason to believe that this 
time it is going to go better, this time the Government is 
going to figure out how to do this, and they will allocate 
capital efficiently this time, where it was poorly allocated 
last time?
    Mr. Kreutzer. I do not see any institutional changes that 
would give us any optimism that it would be better. You know, 
over and over we see that the big programs help the already 
wealthy; they help the politically powerful; they help the 
people that run these programs. You know, in my written 
testimony I point out that in 1970, six of the twenty 
wealthiest counties in the United States were in the Midwest 
and only three were in D.C. area. In 2019, zero of the 
wealthiest 20 counties in the United States were in the 
Midwest, and nine of them were in the D.C. area. So we have, 
you know, the bureaucracy, the wealthy, the politically well 
connected, they are the ones that benefit from these huge 
programs, and since this is going to be orders of magnitude 
bigger, it will be orders of magnitude worse. Thank you.
    Senator Toomey. Thank you very much.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Toomey.
    Senator Menendez is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all 
for your testimony.
    We are making steady progress toward developing one of the 
first offshore wind projects in Federal waters off the Jersey 
shore. In late March, the Biden administration announced that 
it would begin the environmental review process for Orsted's 
Ocean Wind project, and the company recently partnered with 
private sector partners and Governor Phil Murphy's 
administration and the State to break ground on a new $250 
million offshore wind manufacturing facility that will create 
over 500 jobs.
    Last year, the State also announced a first-of-its-kind 
investment in an offshore wind port and staging area that could 
lead to 1,500 jobs and $500 million in economic activity each 
year. Projects like these seem to me to sit perfectly at the 
intersection of Federal, State, and private sector cooperation 
with benefits to our workers and families, public health, and 
the environment.
    So, Ms. Lipman, for years we have seen companies moving 
manufacturing overseas in search of cheap labor, often paying 
substandard wages and providing poor working conditions. Your 
organization represents members of both the labor and 
environmental community. What does it mean to workers that your 
members, the members you represent, to have the types of good-
paying manufacturing jobs coming home to the U.S.?
    Ms. Lipman. Thank you, Senator. It is absolutely critical, 
and it is not just critical to our organization and to the 
labor and environmental groups that are our partners. But I 
think it is critical to the workers and communities in every 
State across the Nation and certainly on this Committee. You 
mentioned offshore wind. I think it is a great example of both 
the promise and the challenges we have in getting--you know, 
bringing these jobs back at scale. As you mentioned, if we look 
at one of the projects that I am most familiar with, the Block 
Island project off of Rhode Island, as you said in your 
example, you know, it also produced hundreds of local jobs, 
again, for things like experienced welders, electricians, in 
construction. Similarly, the project labor agreements have 
ensured that as we put into service these wind turbines, we are 
building good union jobs, providing those kinds of--you know, 
the client that Mr. Crabtree mentioned.
    But when we look at, for example, the Block Island project, 
the only part of those wind turbines built in America is part 
of the foundation. The nacelle comes from France, the tower 
comes from Spain, and the blades come from Denmark. As we 
expand this industry, we need exactly the kinds of incentives 
that we have used in the past but not at the appropriate scale 
to help ensure we can help companies retool and convert to 
build the components and the nacelles to make those products.
    Senator Menendez. I agree. Thank you. I commend the New 
Jersey project to you. A lot of that is what we are doing 
there.
    Secretary Moniz, it is good to see you again.
    Mr. Moniz. Good to see you.
    Senator Menendez [presiding]. In the Energy Title of the 
bipartisan end-of-the-year deal that we reached in December, 
Congress bolstered our fusion energy science programs and 
created a new pilot program to support demonstration projects 
that reach certain milestones and move us closer to developing 
cost-competitive fusion reactors, something I strongly support. 
The Princeton Plasma Physical Laboratory, run by Princeton 
University and my State's only national laboratory, is one of 
the leading laboratories in the country when it comes to fusion 
research. Can you talk about the need to invest in basic 
research and new technologies like fusion energy, which has the 
potential not only to help us with our zero carbon energy needs 
in the future, but really has the potential to grow our economy 
and develop the next generation of American energy jobs?
    Mr. Moniz. Absolutely, Senator. If we start with fusion, in 
fact, let me say flat out there has never been as much 
innovation in fusion as we have today. Success here may be a 
lot closer than people think, and it is a game changer. The 
same statement about game changer, as you imply--and, by the 
way, Princeton, of course, as you say, is our focal point for 
that in the lab system. The game-changing aspect applies to 
many other technologies. For example, we talk a lot about 
batteries, and that is very, very important, maybe alternative 
chemistries, but we talk less about the issue of needing not 
just hours of storage but days and ultimately seasons of 
storage. Again, completely reinventing the energy system.
    So as I said, supercharged innovation in this decade, it is 
what we do well. We need to do that, and then we need to 
translate that into creating the domestic industries and jobs 
and secure supply chains that we need for offshore wind and all 
of these novel technologies.
    Senator Menendez. Well, thank you very much.
    The Chair has advised me that Senator Tillis is next, and 
so I will call upon Senator Tillis.
    Senator Tillis. Thank you, Senator Menendez and Ranking 
Member Toomey. I am pleased that we are holding this hearing as 
there are financial climate matters of great importance to 
discuss for the Banking Committee today and in future hearings. 
But, specifically, I would like to speak about the recent and 
continuing actions by John Kerry, President Biden's Special 
Envoy for Climate, to pressure financial institutions into 
making extralegal commitments to curtail their lending 
practices toward legal United States energy businesses. I along 
with Ranking Member Toomey and 10 other Members of this 
Committee recently sent a letter to Mr. Kerry urging Mr. Kerry 
and the Biden administration as a whole to refrain from 
engaging in attempts to coerce financial institutions into 
agreeing to a centrally planned U.S. energy policy that 
unfairly targets legal U.S. energy businesses and, by proxy, 
their workers.
    By Mr. Kerry's own words, President Biden plans to change 
allocation of capital through the Executive order process by 
pushing lenders to deny financial services to businesses that 
do not fall into favor with Mr. Kerry or the Biden 
administration's energy views. This is wrong. Government 
coercion of private capital not only is a clear example of the 
Federal Government unfairly picking winners and losers, but it 
will also likely result in a top-down, one-size-fits-all policy 
that does not include the choice of tailoring--or choice or 
tailoring necessary to meet the needs of a continental-wide 
country with diverse energy needs.
    Mr. Chairman, we had a hearing earlier this week when we 
were talking about what we can do for rural communities, and we 
continue to tell them to diversify their base. But these 
cancellations of pipelines, this attack on natural gas is 
destroying any opportunity for these rural communities to begin 
to actually rebuild after a number of setbacks--the COVID 
pandemic being the most recent among them.
    Mr. Crabtree, I am sorry that you are going through what 
you are. We have heard in some of the testimony today people 
talking about hundreds of jobs being created for wind projects. 
I am glad. I am for that. Hundreds of jobs being created for 
solar projects, I am glad. I am for that. In fact, I led the 
effort for the solar industry in North Carolina when I was the 
minority whip. We have got a renewable portfolio standard, and 
we created thousands of jobs. But I am hearing hundreds of jobs 
in the face of tens of thousands of jobs lost by the XL 
Pipeline cancellation, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline 
cancellation, pipelines in Pennsylvania.
    Can you tell me a little bit more--I know you have already 
spoken some to Senator Toomey, but not only about your fellow 
union workers, but what about the communities themselves? When 
you are not working, you are not staying in hotels; you are not 
buying the food that you normally do. Can you give me a sense 
of how this has that trickle-down effect on the entire 
community?
    Mr. Crabtree. A lot of these construction projects, 
especially power plants, they take place in rural parts of the 
country with really small towns, so when you have got the 
construction workers that may come into town and some of these 
projects lasting 6 to 8 months, some of them even a year, the 
amount of money that is contributed to these local economies 
can be life-changing for some of these people, not just the 
people that are working on the projects, but the amount of 
money we spend in these communities is life-changing. Then the 
tax revenue that they lose from these pipelines not being 
built, it is a huge boost for these local economies.
    Senator Tillis. In your discussions with your colleagues 
and these discussions about green energy projects, do you think 
under any scenario over the next 5 or 10 years that these 
projects could in any way make up for all the lost jobs with 
what we have seen with the onslaught of traditional energy or 
particularly natural gas? Can you game it out and just say in a 
year or two it is all going to come back? I do not see the math 
adding up.
    Mr. Crabtree. I can give you this example. I see in this 
new infrastructure bill that there is quite a bit of money 
allocated to bringing broadband to rural communities. Well, 
broadband has been around for quite a while now, so I think 
with these green projects, for them to reach the rural parts of 
America, you are looking at years or decades. So we are kind of 
wondering what we are going to do between now and then.
    Senator Tillis. We are probably going to move into a 
different trade, and probably when we get right-minded about 
energy policy that is all of the above, we are going to have a 
labor shortage. Thank you, Mr. Crabtree.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    [Pause.]
    Chairman Brown [presiding]. Sorry. Senator Cortez Masto 
from Nevada is recognized for 5 minutes. Sorry for the bit of a 
break there. I am moving back and forth with other Committees. 
Thank you, Catherine.
    Senator Cortez Masto. I appreciate that. I think we all 
are. To all of the panel members, we have various hearings 
going on, so we appreciate your patience. Thank you so much, 
Mr. Chairman. This is an important discussion this morning.
    Let me talk a little bit about the workforce here, because 
it is our human infrastructure, and I have legislation to 
strengthen our transportation workforce efforts. It is a 
bipartisan bill to set up a national public-private partnership 
to help analyze and market our in-demand jobs and the pathways 
to get those jobs, something that has the support of my largest 
building trades and Chamber of Commerce in Nevada, and I am 
working on a climate core bill to help prepare Americans in a 
number of green-minded sectors. So let me open this up to the 
panel and maybe start with Dr. Moniz.
    How do we best ensure that we are safely preparing the 
workforce to enjoy the benefits of this economic surge in green 
energy?
    Mr. Moniz. Thank you, Senator. The first thing, I believe, 
is creating the jobs, which is really, really important. And 
then I think the training opportunities by unions, by community 
colleges, and by others will certainly be there. I think, 
again, the job focus is really important.
    If I may just make a slight aside, we heard earlier some 
statements about the Bureau of Labor Statistics and green jobs. 
The whole problem is the BLS does not have green job categories 
except in limited ways. So we found, for example, that there 
were 2.4 million Americans in energy efficiency jobs, but they 
are not scored by the BLS. And the reality is it is data that 
the energy job expansion pre-COVID was double the rate of the 
economy as a whole. So we have got to focus on this opportunity 
to really get out of the employment hole caused by COVID, 
focusing on the energy transition.
    Senator Cortez Masto. I appreciate that. And I also heard 
earlier, Mr. Crabtree, your comments, and I could not agree 
more. I think coming from Nevada, 14 percent of the people that 
live in Nevada are organized labor. They are building trades. I 
agree with you. They have skills, and they do not need to be 
retrained. We need to transition those skills to the jobs of 
the future in this new kind of innovation economy with green 
energy, and I think there is potential for that. Would you 
agree?
    Mr. Crabtree. I agree, of course, that there is potential 
for that, especially with some of the younger workers in our 
industry. But I am concerned, like I said, for, you know, some 
of the older workers who are at the point of life where it is a 
little too late to be changing careers.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Yeah, no, I absolutely agree, and I 
think that is why part of our workforce training, what we are 
trying to develop here is the opportunity to take those skills 
and apply them to a different type of job, but we are not 
retraining them because they already have the skills. And I 
think that is so important for Government, and it is so 
important for all of us to remember that, yes, they are going 
to be part of our population, particularly, as I know, in 
Nevada where we have really some of the highest unemployment 
because of our hospitality industry and so many have been laid 
off. But there is the opportunity to retrain. There is the 
opportunity to give people new skills and a new opportunity for 
a different type of job. But I think there is also the 
opportunity to take the skills that they have now and 
transition those so they are not being retrained, they are not 
having to learn new skills. They already have them. We have 
building trades that are just--they already have the skills, so 
let us give them the opportunity for these new and different 
types of advanced technology jobs. And that is what I believe 
we should be focused on here at a Federal level when we are 
working with the private sector and working with our workforce 
and bringing them along with it.
    So I really appreciate the conversation today. I am going 
to yield the remainder of my time, but thank you again. This is 
such an important conversation.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Cortez Masto.
    I believe Senator Hagerty is next, but his name disappeared 
from the screen.
    Senator Hagerty. I am here, Senator Brown.
    Chairman Brown. Senator Hagerty, welcome.
    Senator Hagerty. These screens are difficult to manage, as 
I know. Thank you, Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey, 
again, for holding this meeting to talk about energy and our 
economy today. It is also a great opportunity to highlight the 
hypocrisy of these ESG funds that tout one thing but have no 
difficulty doing business with the Chinese Communist Party, who 
are among the worst polluters and violators in the world.
    I would also like to highlight the pride that I have in my 
home State of Tennessee, because I think this is how you get 
clean energy jobs right. We have done a great job with 
attracting electronic vehicle manufacturing, electric battery 
manufacturing. I was just with the team from GM and LG last 
Friday making a huge jobs announcement, a $2.3 billion 
investment in my State for a new battery production facility 
there.
    This is the way to move alongside existing combustion 
engine jobs. The auto industry hub in our State has been 
outstanding. And we are adding to our job base, we are adding 
to our skill base at the same time by bringing electronic 
vehicle manufacturing capacity onstream. But we are not doing 
it in the way that we have seen the Biden administration come 
at our energy policy. What the Biden administration did with 
the stroke of a pen was kill thousands of solid jobs in the 
energy industry. They killed the Keystone XL Pipeline. Mr. 
Crabtree, I am so sorry for the suffering that this has caused 
you and your family. I think you were fired within hours of 
that happening here.
    We have stopped drilling on Federal lands. We have made 
ourselves weaker as a Nation from a national security 
standpoint and from an economic security standpoint, because at 
a time when we have just achieved energy independence, we 
suddenly began to move in the wrong direction.
    And I appreciate Mr. Moniz's statements about the need to 
create these new jobs, but what do you tell someone like Mr. 
Crabtree who has got to be retrained, who is waiting? And, by 
the way, where are the supply chains today when you think about 
the new clean energy jobs of the future? I will tell you where 
those jobs are. They are in China because that is where you 
have to go to get the majority of the polysilicon panels for 
solar energy. That is where you have to go to get the majority 
of the turbines for wind power.
    We need to take an all-of-the-above approach, as has been 
mentioned here, and not do it in a way that devastates complete 
sectors of our economy while we wait for the future, for the 
creation of jobs in the future.
    I recall back in 2008 and 2009 the promise of green jobs, 
and that did not materialize. We need to let market forces take 
hold here rather than try to use Government dictates to produce 
ahead of market demand. It is happening in my State on a 
natural basis. I think Tennessee sets a solid model for how we 
can move about this. But I hate to see us come in and use the 
power of Government to distort markets, to impose new 
requirements ahead of the market's arrival there. I think we 
can create the right environment, the right incentives just the 
way we do with Tennessee. But I want to see us develop a very 
secure supply chain, one that is not dependent on China, before 
we take these big leaps. I would like to see us make more 
domestic capacity available and create the incentives for 
capital investment here in America to do that.
    With that said, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield back my 
time.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Hagerty.
    Senator Warren from Massachusetts is recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Senator Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    So the Federal Government is one of the biggest purchasers 
of goods and services in the entire economy. Last year, we 
spent about a half trillion dollars for everything from light 
bulbs and printer cartridges to vehicles and office buildings. 
Where the Federal Government spends that money has a big impact 
on our economy, so making good use of taxpayer dollars means 
purchasing cost-effective products and supporting high-quality 
American jobs in the process.
    We have a tremendous opportunity here to use our 
Government's enormous purse strings to help jumpstart the green 
economy and to make our environmental priorities of reducing 
carbon emissions that help fight climate change.
    Dr. Moniz, as Energy Secretary in the Obama administration, 
you led efforts to leverage new energy technologies to combat 
climate change, so let me ask you, if the Federal Government 
bought more American-made, clean, renewable, and emission-free 
energy products for Federal, State, and local use, would that 
help to incentivize industries to produce these clean energy 
products?
    Mr. Moniz. Oh, absolutely, Senator. In fact, what I would 
really emphasize is that in following that direction, what you 
are really doing is helping to make a market. And making that 
market then leads to the virtuous cycle of cost reduction as 
you learn in the manufacturing sector. And, remember, we still 
are the largest economy in the world. We can be very, very 
powerful in developing those markets and then developing not 
just our own environmental, our own energy transition, but 
creating also the export capabilities that would come from 
making those markets.
    Senator Warren. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Moniz.
    Mr. Moniz. And if I may add, it is in addition to the 
products that you emphasize, and this goes back to the issues 
of Mr. Crabtree, as I said, as well. We also need to make the 
markets in the future technologies like hydrogen, like CO2 
management, which would draw on exactly the skill sets that Mr. 
Crabtree and his workers would do. So we need to accelerate 
that as well.
    Senator Warren. That is a powerfully important point. Thank 
you.
    So if our Government commits to buying climate-friendly 
goods and services, I think what you are saying is that we can 
leverage its massive purchasing power and our Government supply 
chain to shift to a clean and sustainable economy. So the Buy 
Green Act that I have announced with Congressman Andy Levin 
does exactly that. It would establish $1.5 trillion in Federal 
procurement commitments over the next decade to purchase 
American-made, clean energy products that we can use at the 
Federal, State, and local level and for export. These purchases 
also include something I want to drill down on a bit, and that 
is electric vehicles.
    Our Federal Government has about 645,000 vehicles in its 
fleet, including over 200,000 Postal Service vehicles. But 
according to the General Services Administration, less than 1 
percent of these vehicles are electric. Buy Green would provide 
funds to electrify this fleet.
    So, Ms. Lipman, let me ask you, would transitioning the 
Federal vehicle fleet, including the postal vans, to electric 
vehicles help us meet our climate goal?
    Ms. Lipman. Well, certainly, as you well know, and everyone 
on this panel, transportation is currently our largest source 
of greenhouse gas emissions, and the shift to electric vehicles 
is a key piece of meeting that--addressing those emissions. And 
as part of that, for sure, using the--setting the example, the 
Federal Government setting the example and the market signal to 
move those large fleets would have a huge benefit.
    I would also say that things like the Postal Service, 
municipal buses, and school buses also operate in local 
communities, so you have a local health impact, too, of cutting 
emissions of toxic pollutants. But I would just underscore, as 
someone else did earlier, that the added benefit of boosting 
market force, the manufacture of these technologies in America, 
especially with Buy America and labor standards that would come 
with those Federal purchases.
    Senator Warren. Well, I appreciate that. You know, a recent 
poll showed that nearly 70 percent of voters support using 
Government contracts to prioritize buying American-made clean 
energy goods like electric vehicles and green building 
materials. This kind of strong, bipartisan support suggests 
that our country is ready for us to make big investments to 
bolster our clean energy economy.
    So I appreciate your having this hearing, Mr. Chairman. It 
is time for us to put smart policies in place to save our 
planet and to build back greener. Thank you.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Warren.
    Senator Van Hollen from Maryland is recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Senator Van Hollen. I thank our witnesses for being here 
today. Mr. Shahyd, thank you and the NRDC for your good work on 
clean energy. For years, in fact, for over a decade, we have 
tried to establish a Federal clean energy financing authority, 
a Clean Energy Accelerator. It used to go under the name of a 
``green bank'' when we proposed it in the House. Senator Markey 
and I introduced this as the National Climate Bank. I was very 
pleased to see that President Biden included $40 billion to 
capitalize a Federal Clean Energy Accelerator that could 
leverage billions and billions more in private capital to 
address our clean energy infrastructure requirements.
    I know you have seen green banks working well in States. 
Can you talk about why this piece of the American Jobs Plan is 
important?
    Mr. Shahyd. Yes, thank you, Senator, for that question. The 
Clean Energy Accelerator works to galvanize private investment 
because as much as we need Federal investment to quicken the 
pace, you know, from what we have heard here today, no one 
disagrees that we must act on climate.
    What I have heard is that we disagree on what the pace of 
that action should be, and the reason why we need, you know, 
much greater Federal investment is to quicken the pace, but the 
Federal investment still alone cannot do it. And what the Clean 
Energy Accelerator will do is to help funnel private investment 
into these industries to really push these things forward. And 
we have seen across the country local green banks and the 
American Green Bank Consortium have already identified an 
investment need of $21 billion in local markets. And these 
banks are flourishing and are in demand in red States and blue 
States, you know, including States like Florida and Michigan 
and New York and Hawaii, States like South Carolina, Alaska, 
Minnesota, and Maine. And expert analysts have found that $100 
billion in Federal capitalization of the accelerator will 
create nearly 4 million jobs in 4 years and 12 million jobs 
over the next decade--not hundreds of jobs but millions of jobs 
over the next decade. And the reason why we need this is 
because we need to quicken the pace, you know, because workers 
like Mr. Crabtree--I truly understand where he is coming from. 
You know, trust me, I too have wondered many times whether or 
not my country and my President cares about me. I know what 
that feels like. I am from Louisiana. My entire family works in 
oil and gas, from the wellhead to the gas station to the 
corporate office. But, you know, there are many people--we are 
talking about millions of people that are at risk from 
flooding, millions of people that are at risk from sea level 
rise, millions of people that are at risk from extreme weather. 
And what I ask my family is the same thing that I would ask Mr. 
Crabtree and other workers. Again, I know what it feels like to 
wonder if your country cares about you, but we also need you to 
care about us, and we need to do this together.
    I apologize that, you know, we have not yet communicated 
that or made that understood that we care about all our 
workers, and we have to do this transformation in a way that 
supports and sustains both families in the short and in the 
long term.
    Senator Van Hollen. Well, that is right. I mean, look, when 
it comes to clean energy, we need what has been referred to in 
the past in a different context an all-of-the-above strategy, 
direct Federal investment but also leveraging this.
    Secretary Moniz, great to see you. A quick question about 
ARPA-E. We on a bipartisan basis--I teamed up with former 
Senator Lamar Alexander. We extended the authorization for 
that, increased the levels. I am pleased to see that is also 
part of the President's plan. Can you talk about your 
experience and the role ARPA-E can play in terms of 
accelerating a clean energy future?
    Mr. Moniz. Well, thank you, Senator, and thank you for your 
support of ARPA-E and getting that pushed up toward the $1 
billion goal, at least, that was set some years ago. I think 
that all of the indicators from the ARPA-E had been extremely 
positive in terms of company creation, et cetera, and now with 
some authorization also to extend beyond the initial phase, I 
think that the commercialization impacts will be even greater. 
But I think the basic model that you and others have supported 
of giving kind of extraordinary authorities to be nimble, to 
bring in people with fire in their belly for getting 
technologies out there, has been a great success, and we need 
more of it.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I thank all 
of you for being. It is a very important and timely topic.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Van Hollen.
    Senator Ossoff is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to 
our panel.
    Mr. Kreutzer, you note in your testimony that ``Federal 
funding of private ventures is not at the top of the list'' of 
economic priorities, as far as you are concerned. You note, 
``Government subsidies . . . work against economic freedom.'' 
Those are correct excerpts from your testimony. Correct, sir?
    Mr. Kreutzer. I do not recall if it is word for word, but, 
yeah, sure. Economic freedom does not include Government 
subsidies.
    Senator Ossoff. You prefer market-based solutions and 
oppose Federal subsidies. I would ask then, do you oppose the 
significant multibillion-dollar annual subsidies to the oil and 
gas industry?
    Mr. Kreutzer. Yeah, but--if you measure them correctly, I 
sure do. Now, what we have seen over and over is that what is 
called a subsidy to the oil industry is actually a tax credit 
given to all manufacturers, so broadly defined, and it includes 
newspapers. It was done in an attempt to simply lower tax 
rates. So if you pull that out, you find that there is very 
little in the way of tax subsidies or subsidies of any kind to 
the oil and gas industry, especially to the major oil 
companies. There is a tax credit for the small producers. But I 
am opposed to those unnecessarily. Sure, go ahead.
    Senator Ossoff. I appreciate the detailed answer, and I 
want to make sure we have it for the record. So you oppose the 
intangible drilling cost deduction. You would support 
congressional efforts to repeal the intangible drilling cost 
deduction?
    Mr. Kreutzer. The intangible drilling cost, just like we 
have for any company that has costs, they get to take them off 
of their revenues before they pay taxes. So that is just what 
that is. I do not see why you would want to single out the oil 
companies so that they cannot deduct their costs before they 
figure out what their net is to pay taxes. That is how every 
company does it.
    Senator Ossoff. So you support allowing oil companies to 
deduct the majority of costs incurred from drilling new wells 
domestically, that subsidy which has been in Federal statute 
since around 1916, just to be clear?
    Mr. Kreutzer. If the oil companies are paying costs, they 
should be able to deduct their costs from their revenues to get 
their net income, which is what every corporation does before 
they pay tax.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Kreutzer.
    Dr. Moniz, clean energy companies that form successful hubs 
in particular areas of the State, such as, for example, the 
constellation of clean energy producers that are emerging in 
north Georgia, we have one of the largest photovoltaic 
production facilities in the Western Hemisphere in Dalton, 
Georgia. We have being established now one of the largest 
electric vehicle battery producers in the world in northeast 
Georgia. How does the formation of economies of scale and the 
consolidation of clean energy productive capacity in specific 
regions, such as in Georgia, allow us to attract more 
investment and develop more economies of scale to grow the 
clean energy sector regionally across the United States?
    Mr. Moniz. Yes, Senator, we are big advocates for the hub 
concept because this allows great efficiencies. It also allows 
more transferability of skills of the workforce when you have a 
hub. It allows the optimization of infrastructure. Too often, I 
think, we talk about, you know, continental scale 
infrastructures which are very, very difficult to build rather 
than focusing on hubs, many, many hubs in different regions 
that, again, make that infrastructure challenge, I think, much 
more manageable. So I would encourage that very, very much in 
multiple parts of the green energy developments.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you. And, Ms. Lipman, would you care 
to comment, please, on how the formation of these hubs and how 
attracting domestic and foreign direct investment in clean 
energy productive capacity in the United States can accelerate 
the transition to clean energy?
    Ms. Lipman. Actually, I concur with everything that the 
Secretary just said, and I think not only do we see how 
critical it is to ensure that we maintain the major assembly 
facilities--maintain and attract the major assembly facilities 
to build clean vehicles, batteries, advanced technologies here 
and build good jobs in them, but those--that we need not only 
do those, encourage the development of supply chains around 
them, but we need to actively incentivize the attraction of 
additional domestic suppliers to serve in these supply chains.
    I would also say this is an opportunity to look at how--we 
talked earlier about transitioning the production of clean 
technology into our existing plants, and doing this gradually 
is a great opportunity to also integrate the development of new 
suppliers or transition of suppliers to serve, to maintain and 
grow that hub and not lose it as technology changes.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Ms. Lipman. Thank you, Senator 
Ossoff.
    Senator Warnock is recognized--and I know that Secretary 
Moniz is leaving at 11:45. After Senator Warnock takes his 5 
minutes, I have one question for you, but we still get you out 
by quarter to, Mr. Secretary. Senator Warnock is recognized for 
5 minutes.
    Senator Warnock. Thank you so much, Brother Chairman.
    President Biden has made greening our transportation 
infrastructure a top priority to help meet his clean energy 
goals. That includes green transit, which I look forward to 
advancing with this Committee, but it also includes investment 
in clean electric vehicles and electric vehicle charging 
infrastructure. We have a massive $2.6 billion electric vehicle 
battery plant under construction right now in the city of 
Commerce, GA. This would produce car batteries to help increase 
the number of electric vehicles, obviously reducing carbon 
emissions and fighting climate change. On top of that, this 
plant would keep Georgia on the cutting edge of a clean energy 
economy and create at least 2,600 clean energy jobs. That is a 
win-win for my State.
    Secretary Moniz, can you talk about the importance of clean 
electric vehicle infrastructure in reducing carbon emissions 
and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels?
    Mr. Moniz. Yes, thank you, Senator Warnock. Also, I would 
like to congratulate you and Senator Ossoff for forging the 
settlement that has really supported that important battery 
manufacturing in Georgia.
    In terms of the EV infrastructure, well, I think the first 
thing to say is that, you know, we have to listen to GM and 
Ford, we have to look at Tesla's evaluation to know that 
electrification in transportation is really coming. We have to 
look at the facts that probably already cost of ownership of an 
EV and in an internal combustion engine are just about equal, 
and capital costs are coming down.
    We have to look at the fact that we need to build now the 
infrastructure that will, again, allow the market to be made 
and to have consumers want to choose those EVs, for one reason 
because they are great performance vehicles in addition to 
being clean.
    So this all comes together, and I think it is a great 
example of why our companies want to go there, our people want 
to go there, and now we need Government policies that are 
synergistic with those needs.
    Senator Warnock. Thank you so much, and I was grateful to 
play a role in helping these companies recognize that they 
needed to come to a resolution, saving a lot of jobs in 
Georgia, and what this demonstrates and will demonstrate over 
time is that the smart thing to do for our environment is also 
good public policy in terms of workers and the economy. Those 
things are not mutually exclusive. We need sustainable 
approaches to our ecology and our economy, and those things are 
actually connected and increasingly so.
    When our schools are fully reopened and kids return to in-
person instruction, nearly 25 million American children will be 
exposed to harmful air pollution each day as they travel to 
school on buses that, by and large, run on diesel fuel. 
Children in Georgia and across America should be able to get to 
and from school each day without breathing polluted air. In 
fact, innovators--I am proud that one of the innovators helping 
us to address this problem is Georgia's own Blue Bird 
Corporation down in Fort Valley, Georgia. It is already leading 
the way to replace older diesel buses, the kind that you and I 
went to school on--certainly I did--with cleaner, zero-emission 
electric buses because they see greening our school bus fleet 
as an urgent environmental concern and an economic priority.
    Ms. Lipman, can you speak to the importance of greening our 
yellow school buses?
    Ms. Lipman. For sure. As I think we have touched on a 
couple times in the hearing, the opportunity to transition our 
medium- and heavy-duty fleets, especially those where 
Government can play a role in speeding that deployment, is a 
real win-win across a whole set of variables. Not only do they 
cut emissions, not only do they, as you mentioned, you know, 
improve local air quality and health, but they help provide a 
market for precisely the companies that you mentioned earlier 
that give us the opportunity to bring electric vehicle 
manufacturing into our existing school bus and bus facilities.
    The component manufacturers, Cummins, for example, who make 
diesel engines and motors, they are also now making electric 
motors. And these investments, which have been incredibly 
valuable to communities of schools, are also part of 
transforming our manufacturing jobs.
    Senator Warnock. Well, thank you so much, and it is the 
reason why I was so proud to partner with Senator Padilla to 
introduce the Clean Commute for Kids Act this week. It will 
help our students stay safe. It will create good-paying jobs, 
modernize our country's vital transportation infrastructure. 
This bill would provide $25 billion over the next 10 years to 
help replace these old diesel buses with zero-emission school 
buses, and I would submit that it needs to be included in any 
infrastructure bill that we would do in the Congress.
    Thank you so much.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Warnock.
    A last real quick question. I do not think Senator Toomey 
has anything, so one real quick question, then I will close, 
for you, Secretary Moniz, to get you out under the wire. In 
2018, an explosion at a gas well in Belmont County, Ohio, 
eastern Ohio, not far from Wheeling, West Virginia--does not 
like that much different from the State that Mr. Crabtree lives 
in--resulted in one of the largest methane leaks on record. 
Across the country, we know billions of gallons of coal ash 
ponds are on the banks and rivers and upstream from 
communities. We know the catastrophe that occurs if these ponds 
fail.
    What opportunities, Mr. Secretary, across Appalachia and 
the rest of the country for good-paying union--and I emphasize 
``union''--jobs to plug these methane leaks, properly dispose 
of coal waste, and reclaim the abandoned mine lands?
    Mr. Moniz. Thank you. The issue of capping methane leaks, 
of course, is very, very critical for us to carry on with 
natural gas as a very, very important transition. But the 
opportunities, as you say, for union workers, a massive number 
of old wells to be properly capped. The ash ponds, we have seen 
tragedies, of course, with the ash ponds. We need to really 
move on those.
    This will be, frankly, I expect, it will be measured by 
decade, not by year, in terms of creating all those jobs and 
getting us the environmental benefits, including in a lot of 
frontline communities for addressing these legacy assets that 
are creating now environmental problems. And there will be a 
lot of union jobs in there, as you say.
    Chairman Brown. Thank you, Secretary Moniz, and thanks very 
much to all of you.
    Secretary Moniz had earlier said building out the clean 
energy economy is especially critical as we dig out of the 
COVID-19-induced employment hole. We want to make sure American 
workers like Mr. Crabtree and his fellow union members go back 
to work. Nobody in this body has fought for the dignity of work 
and fought for the union movement more than I have. When I met 
with President Biden and a number of Senators in his second or 
third week on the job, I thanked him for using the word 
``union.'' He walked up to me later and said, ``Why would I 
not?'' And I said, ``Because I have been in this room before, 
and I have never heard another President use the word `union.' 
'' Understand that. Understand that is my editorial comment.
    So if we do what we should do as lawmakers, then there will 
be plenty of jobs in infrastructure, carrying captured carbon 
and offshore wind platforms. If we fund energy efficiency 
upgrades, there will be jobs in every Zip code, making homes 
safer, healthier, and cheaper to live in. If we invest in 
manufacturing, as Ms. Lipman discussed, we can make clean 
energy jobs, bring them back from China. We are changing our 
trade policy and our tax policy. That was the biggest reason 
for the outsourcing of jobs to China, if I could, Dr. Kreutzer, 
and we do that right, we bring these jobs back, we building 
21st century communities.
    Thanks again to the witnesses.
    For Senators who wish to submit questions, those questions 
are due 1 week from today, Thursday, April 29th. You will get 
those questions. And to our witnesses, for our Committee rules, 
we ask that you respond to questions if you possibly can within 
45 days from the day you receive them.
    So thank you again. This Committee is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:43 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    [Prepared statements, responses to written questions, and 
additional material supplied for the record follow:]
              PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SHERROD BROWN
    First, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the verdict in 
Minnesota Tuesday, and the tragic shooting that same day, in Columbus 
in my State.
    While Tuesday's guilty verdict was the right one, we cannot mistake 
accountability for justice. True justice would mean George Floyd was 
still alive today, and true justice would not allow another shooting to 
happen while the verdict was being read.
    Ma'Khia Bryant was 16 years old. She was a daughter, a high school 
student, a member of our Columbus and Ohio community. And now another 
family is in mourning.
    This must be a turning point in our country. We must use this 
moment as a call for continued action to change our laws, and reform a 
broken justice system that has failed Black Americans over and over.
    We have to reform our public safety system so that it protects all 
of us. And on this Committee, we must continue to work to change all 
the ways our society has too often been set up to hold Black and Brown 
Americans back--from housing to transit to our banking system.
    I agree with my friend, colleague, and CBC Chair Joyce Beatty: This 
must be the catalyst to trigger actions far beyond today.
    Today, on Earth Day, the Banking and Housing Committee returns to 
the subject of climate change. A few weeks ago we talked about risk. 
We're Americans--we take on big problems, and we develop and 
manufacture and deploy the technologies of the future.
    I come from a coal State. I know the legitimate fears that workers 
and communities in Appalachian Ohio have. We listen to them.
    They live in towns where mining is a core part of their identity. 
They still think of themselves as ``coal towns,'' even though coal 
hasn't been mined there since at least the Reagan administration.
    I also know there's bravery, and courage, and dedication to family. 
Imagine going a mile or more underground to do dangerous work in tight, 
dark, dusty places, every single day.
    On Monday, Cecil Roberts, the President of the United Mine Workers 
of America, showed that same grit, when he announced that the 
mineworkers see a path to clean energy--a path that supports the 
dignity of his members' work, that gives them a seat at the table, and 
that finally brings the investment in their communities that they've 
been promised for decades.
    We must show the kind of courage that Cecil Roberts and the United 
Mineworkers are showing.
    We show no respect by selling communities a fantasy of returning to 
the past. People want the truth, and they want our commitment to help 
them grow the industries of the future. I want to see American 
manufacturing thrive, to strengthen American competitiveness, and to 
give communities the tools they need to be a part of the 21st century 
clean energy economy.
    This isn't some far-off dream world of science fiction.
    We know we can seize these opportunities, because we're already 
doing it in:

    The Dry Lake Wind Power Project in Navajo County, Arizona,

    The Willow solar project about 30 minutes northwest of 
        Wasilla, Alaska,

    Zero-emission bus manufacturing in Alabama, South Carolina, 
        and Minnesota,

    In Kansas, where 7,000 megawatts of wind, solar, and 
        battery storage helps power more than 2 million homes, and

    In Louisiana, where Gulf Island Fabrication built the 
        foundations for the Nation's first offshore wind project--the 
        Block Island Wind Farm, in Rhode Island.

    Nearly 350,000 Americans already work at solar energy jobs, and 
nearly 115,000 workers do the same in wind power.
    That's only the beginning. 400,000 or more additional Americans 
could find jobs in solar and wind industries this decade.
    This is about the workers in Perrysburg and Lake Township, Ohio, 
who manufacture First Solar's highly efficient PV solar panels. It's 
about the brilliant scientists at the University of Toledo, making 
breakthroughs in ultra high-efficiency and thin-film solar cells.
    It's about RBI Solar, in Cincinnati, which emerged from the 
commercial greenhouse business and is now the fastest-growing 
photovoltaic racking company in North America.
    It's about the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority, in Canton, 
Ohio. SARTA has built one of the largest hydrogen fuel cell bus fleets 
in the Nation, and lends its buses to help other transit agencies test 
the deployment of American-made buses that have zero tailpipe 
emissions.
    And it's about Emerson, founded in 1890 as an electric fan company, 
and its 21st Century collaboration with the University of Dayton on 
high-efficiency and sustainable heating, ventilation, and air 
conditioning technologies for residential and commercial use.
    This country laid 200,000 miles of railroad tracks. We electrified 
the cities and the countryside and everywhere in between. We sent John 
Glenn into orbit. And our continued embrace of innovation put into the 
hand of every cellphone customer a more powerful computer than NASA 
used for the Apollo program.
    Why would we stop now?
    Our predecessors didn't say ``No'' to Henry Ford because of the 
buggy whip lobby.
    And we aren't going to say ``No'' to innovation in the clean energy 
economy.
    These new industries got a big boost at the turn of this century 
when those George W. Bush and Rick Perry--noted hippies, both--pushed 
renewable development in Texas.
    Texas which now leads the country in electricity from wind power. 
Next in line are Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Dakota--collectively 
known as the ``Saudi Arabia of wind.''
    The growth in renewables in those States and across the country is 
providing good-paying jobs, giving farmers and ranchers another source 
of income, contributing to cleaner air and water, and saving people 
money.
    Retrofitting our houses and apartments to make them more energy 
efficient and resilient means lower utility bills for families every 
month.
    Businesses are already investing and innovating because they know 
it improves their bottom line. Utilities and rural electric co-ops are 
embracing new technologies not only because their ratepayers are 
demanding it, but also because their business models dictate using 
whatever provides reliable electricity at the lowest price.
    More and more, that's clean energy.
    The choice we face isn't between keeping our communities frozen in 
time, or putting people to work in new industries.
    Even if we do nothing, change is coming. Clean energy jobs are the 
jobs of the future.
    The only question is whether they will be American jobs.
    If we fail to invest in clean energy R&D, to retool our factories, 
and to play a leadership role, other countries will the void.
    China is already spending billions on clean energy research and 
innovation. So are Germany and Japan.
    We need to stop allowing the Chinese Government and its subsidized 
industries profit off our inventions.
    Let's create 21st century communities. Let's create more, better-
paying jobs in more places, let's bring down people's energy costs, and 
let's pave the way for another century led by American innovation.
                                 ______
                                 
            PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATRICK J. TOOMEY
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Today, I expect we will hear calls for Green New Deal-type 
policies. Our discussion needs to include the costs of these policies, 
including lost American jobs, slow economic growth, increase energy 
costs, and waste billions of taxpayer dollars.
    Our discussion should also include the remarkable progress we've 
made in reducing carbon emissions--ironically enough, using fossil 
fuels. Let me explain.
    U.S. carbon emissions have been falling for years. In 2019, U.S. 
carbon emissions hit their lowest level since 1992 and their lowest per 
capita level since 1950, and the U.S. led the world in reducing energy-
related CO2 emissions. These declines have been enabled by America's 
recent energy renaissance made possible by technology and free markets.
    The natural gas boom--in places like Pennsylvania--has helped gas 
partially replace coal as the fuel for America's power plants. This has 
been the primary driver of the declines in carbon emissions. We made 
this progress creating jobs, not destroying them.
    Nonetheless, some of my colleagues seem determined to impose Green 
New Deal policies that will cost us jobs on a net basis and stifle the 
very developments that have allowed us to reduce emissions. They often 
describe the destruction caused by these policies as an ``opportunity'' 
to create new green energy jobs. But they fail to acknowledge the costs 
they're imposing in lost jobs and higher energy prices.
    I'm reminded of French economist Frederic Bastiat's famous 1850s 
parable of the ``broken window.'' In the parable, someone breaks a 
shopkeeper's window, so he must hire a window maker to replace it. Some 
people think the broken window is a good thing because it ``created'' a 
job for the window maker. But Bastiat points out the fallacy in this 
thinking. As he puts it, ``destruction is not profit.''
    The shopkeeper had to spend money and time to replace his window. 
If the window had never been broken, that money and time would've gone 
to more productive uses--like hiring a worker to expand the 
shopkeeper's business. Some of my colleagues seem to have forgotten 
this basic economic principle.
    Just as breaking a shopkeeper's window doesn't somehow create 
economic gain, neither does destroying traditional sources of energy 
and replacing it with so-called green energy create economic gain for 
two reasons: it would only create new green jobs by destroying 
traditional energy jobs. In addition, the end result is that society 
pays more for energy, which lowers our standard of living. And the 
consequences of this destruction aren't just academic.
    The Biden administration has already imposed policies that are 
destroying traditional energy jobs. For example, it has terminated 
construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and banned new oil and gas 
leases on Federal lands.
    These actions alone will destroy tens of thousands of jobs for 
Americans. Today, we will hear from one of them--Neal Crabtree--a union 
welder who lost his job when Keystone was shut down.
    I'm also deeply concerned about the Biden administration's apparent 
efforts to coerce banks to stop lending to fossil energy companies. 
This week all the Republicans on this Committee sent a letter to John 
Kerry warning the Administration to stop abusing Government power in 
this way.
    Mr. Kerry has said the very purpose of President Biden's expected 
global warming Executive order is to ``change the allocation of 
capital''--in other words, to redirect capital from traditional energy 
companies to companies deemed to be sufficiently ``green.''
    This effort disturbingly resembles the Obama administration's 
notorious ``Operation Choke Point'' scandal, in which regulators 
attempted to coerce banks into denying services to legal yet 
politically disfavored businesses.
    It's neither practical nor desirable to immediately cease fossil 
fuel production. Fossil fuels represent approximately 80 percent of 
U.S. energy production and consumption. Abusing Government power to try 
to achieve that objective will distort capital allocation, raise energy 
costs for consumers, and slow economic growth.
    Finally, Green New Deal jobs programs have a history of failure. 
Yet, President Biden's infrastructure plan would double down on these 
failed policies of the past. Consider one example: his plan would 
establish a $27 billion ``National Climate Bank'' to provide financing 
for so-called green investments.
    We know that when the Government substitutes its judgment for that 
of the market, it picks winners and losers based on political 
favoritism, not business fundamentals. Just look at the 2009 Obama-
Biden spending bill. That bill included over $80 billion in spending, 
loan guarantees, and tax credits for green energy projects. What were 
the results of this massive Government program? Waste, fraud, and 
abuse.
    Who can forget the infamous case of the solar panel company 
Solyndra? It went bankrupt and defaulted on a $535 million loan 
guaranteed by Federal taxpayers. Solyndra's ability to secure a loan 
guarantee may have resulted from its political connections--not a track 
record of success. And the Department of Energy's Inspector General 
found that Solyndra engaged in a ``pattern of false and misleading 
assertions and statements.''
    Nevertheless, taxpayers had to bailout Solyndra for over half-a-
billion dollars. This is what happens when the Government picks winners 
and losers based on political considerations.
    As one of today's witnesses, David Kreutzer, will testify the Biden 
administration is repeating these mistakes.
    The climate is changing. And we should be having a vigorous debate 
about what to do about that. But that debate should honestly 
acknowledge that if we shift from low-cost fossil energy to high-cost 
energy, like wind and solar, there will be costs. Jobs will be 
destroyed and energy prices will go up.
    We should weigh these costs against the potentials benefits of a 
shift, and we should do so in an open, transparent, and accountable 
way--not through sweeping Executive actions and backdoor pressure 
campaigns to coerce banks to implement the Administration's preferred 
policies.
                   PREPARED STATEMENT OF ERNEST MONIZ
           Chief Executive Officer, Energy Futures Initiative
                             April 22, 2021
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                  PREPARED STATEMENT OF KHALIL SHAHYD
        Senior Policy Advisor, Natural Resources Defense Council
                             April 22, 2021
    Good morning Chair Brown, Ranking Member Toomey, and distinguished 
Members of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. 
I want to thank you for holding this hearing on Capitalizing on 
Opportunities in the Clean Energy Economy and inviting me to testify 
and provide comments.
    My name is Khalil Shahyd. I am a Senior Policy Advisor on Equity, 
Environment and Just Communities with the Natural Resources Defense 
Council (NRDC). NRDC is an international nonprofit organization of 
scientists, lawyers, and environmental specialists dedicated to 
protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has 
more than 3 million members and activists supporting work to protect 
public health, the environment and grow more sustainable livelihoods.
    The United States is confronted today by the extraordinary and 
interconnected crises of the global pandemic, economic recession, the 
persistence of deep racial injustice, a rapidly destabilizing climate, 
and threats to the democratic foundations of the Nation. Few sessions 
of Congress have ever shouldered a greater responsibility--or a greater 
opportunity. Among the many acts of leadership that will be necessary, 
making it safely through these crises will require comprehensive and 
sustained Federal investment to recover, rebuild, and lay the 
foundation for a more just and stable future.
    Make no mistake about it: the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the 
lives of many American families, with more than 8 million people now 
having fallen below the Federal poverty line since May of 2020 and 
prior to the American Rescue Plan. \1\
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     \1\ https://www.businessinsider.com/8-million-americans-fallen-
into-poverty-as-government-benefits-lapse-2021-1
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    Climate change threatens to undue steps taken to alleviate that 
economic burden and deepen the crisis unless we act swiftly to mitigate 
the most severe outcomes and build back better with a more health, 
just, and resilient economy fueled by clean energy. The climate crisis 
exacerbates the situation as millions of people in the U.S. feel the 
social, economic, and environmental effects of extreme weather each 
year. In 2020, there were 22 extreme weather/climate disaster events in 
the United States, with losses exceeding $1 billion each. Currently, 
the total cost of U.S. weather and climate disasters since the 1980s 
exceeds $1.875 trillion. These numbers represent more than just losses 
to the economy: The increasing risk of disasters threatens to plunge 
millions into poverty and deepen crises for those already suffering.
    Like most of the economy, clean energy was hit hard by the COVID-19 
pandemic and economic downturn in 2020. At one point more than 600,000 
clean energy workers had filed for unemployment. The decline in total 
clean energy employment last year was the first recorded since E2 
(Environmental Entrepreneurs) began producing its annual Clean Jobs 
America reports in 2016. If the clean energy sector is to be the engine 
that drives us toward a more equitable, sustainable economy, we must 
ensure it recovers and expands to provide the opportunity and 
livelihoods so many people need. Fortunately, the signs are there. The 
sector rebounded strongly after May to recover about half of those 
jobs, but finished the year still down 307,000 clean energy workers. 
More Federal leadership through policy and investments will be needed 
to ensure a long-term recovery and economic transition to clean energy.
How the Clean Energy Transition Will Affect the American Economy and 
        Our Ability To Compete Globally in the 21st Century
    The clean energy transition is already happening, but not fast 
enough. It's not happening fast enough for regions such as southern 
Ohio, where due to market forces and the rise of cheap but still 
polluting natural gas, more coal-fired power plants have closed than in 
any other State. Plants producing a whopping 16 gigawatts of 
electricity--enough to power about 11 million homes for a day--have 
either shut down or announced they'll be retiring soon. \2\
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     \2\ https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-can-green-groups-labor-
unions-veterans-and-coal-mining-exec-all-get-behind-solar-power
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    Global energy consumption has been shifting from a mid-20th century 
system dominated by coal and oil to one that will be dominated by 
renewable energy by the mid-21st century. President Biden has committed 
to increase the pace of climate action in order to cut emissions by at 
least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030--a nearly doubling of the 
current U.S. climate targets. This level of ambition is the minimum 
that the moment requires. Cutting U.S. emissions by this much is 
ambitious, achievable, and necessary. Establishing a target to cut 
emissions by at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and 
delivering the necessary actions, sets the conditions for the U.S. to 
help rally the world. This will need to be combined with the 
mobilization of significant financing to support developing countries 
in shifting toward a net-zero economy and addressing the impacts of 
climate change.
    However, what matters most to ensuring U.S. leadership to the world 
in addressing the climate crisis are strong actions at home. The 
Federal Government has an important role in facilitating the 
acceleration of a clean, modern 21st century energy system. Ignoring 
that role, or diminishing its effectiveness, condemns millions of small 
communities and families who struggle to pull themselves out of dire 
economic circumstances to continue suffering if we cling to outdated 
infrastructure and energy sources. We have a clear path forward.
    Consider that clean energy is the fastest growing energy sector in 
the United States and the energy system as a whole is getting cleaner.
Expected Job Growth and Economic Development Accruing From the Clean 
        Energy Transformation
    Clean energy jobs eventually bounced back from pandemic-caused 
losses by nearly 11 percent in the second half of 2020 to employ more 
than 3 million Americans across every State and nearly every county, 
according to the fifth annual Clean Jobs America report from E2. \3\ 
The report, released at the start of U.S. Climate Action Week in 
Washington, DC, comes as the Biden administration prepares to host the 
Leaders' Summit on Climate beginning tomorrow and Congress prepares to 
consider the Administration's American Jobs Plan infrastructure and 
clean energy package.
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     \3\ https://e2.org/reports/clean-jobs-america-2021/
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    While it appears the clean jobs sector is coming back, it still has 
not reached prepandemic levels. No one foresaw the COVID-19 pandemic 
and the continuing economic impact it would have.
    Clean energy sectors saw significant declines in 2020, including 
renewable energy (6 percent), grid and storage (7 percent), and clean 
fuels (7 percent). Energy efficiency jobs saw the biggest drop, 
declining about 11 percent over the year as workers were prevented from 
entering homes and offices because of the pandemic lockdowns. 
Nonetheless, energy efficiency still accounts for an even greater share 
of U.S. construction jobs, employing about one in every five 
construction workers nationwide.
    As noted in the October 2020 ``Clean Jobs, Better Jobs'' analysis 
of clean energy jobs wages and benefits by E2, the American Council on 
Renewable Energy, and the Clean Energy Leadership Institute, the 
economic shutdown affected ethnic and racial minorities more 
significantly across the Nation. In April 2020, at the peak of the 
economic shutdown, six in 10 Hispanic Americans (61 percent) and four 
in 10 Black Americans (44 percent) reported that someone in their 
household had either lost a job or experienced wage losses due to 
COVID-19; this compares to only 38 percent of White Americans. \4\
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     \4\ https://e2.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Clean-Jobs-Better-
Jobs.-October-2020.-E2-ACORE-CELI.pdf
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    Still, several clean energy sectors did see job gains in 2020, 
including wind energy which added about 2,000 jobs. But the brightest 
spot was in manufacturing of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, 
where about 12,200 jobs were added as an increasing number of 
automakers announced shifts to producing 100 percent zero-emission 
vehicles.
    Despite the setbacks, clean energy jobs rebounded quicker than the 
overall nationwide workforce, according to the analysis. Clean energy 
jobs have grown by about 11 percent since last May, compared to less 
than 9 percent growth in the national workforce during the same period.
    However, if Members of Congress want to ensure that the pace of job 
growth is fast enough and occurring in the communities and regions that 
need it most--and in the struggling districts of yours and every State 
in the Nation--we need your leadership in supporting smart policies, 
including enacting the American Jobs Plan. As Clean Jobs America 2021 
shows, these jobs are and can be created in every State. They can't be 
downsized or exported. They're not blue State jobs or red State jobs. 
They're American jobs with the potential to employ a member of every 
household in this Nation with good, family sustaining wages and 
benefits.
    According to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data (BLS), 
the median hourly wage for clean energy jobs was $23.89 in 2019. That 
was 25 percent higher than the nationwide median hourly wage of $19.14 
and also higher than most fossil fuel extraction jobs.
    For instance, wind turbine technicians in 2020 earned about $56,230 
and solar installers made about $46,470, according to BLS data. Oil and 
gas deck or galley hands made about $39,420 while oil and gas derrick 
operators took home about $47,920.
    Within the clean energy sector, looking at median hourly wages, 
wind energy workers earn the highest wages at $25.95 per hour, compared 
with $25.40 for grid modernization, $24.82 for storage, $24.48 for 
solar, and $24.44 for energy efficiency.
    To ensure that these jobs are available to workers who most need 
them, we need policies to support them and overcome hurdles, whether 
they are the result of the pandemic or the irrational antagonism of the 
previous Administration--or both. The Biden administration's plans to 
increase energy efficiency and weatherization programs, its plans to 
boost renewable energy, and its proposed investments in modernizing the 
Nation's power grid and transportation system with more electric 
vehicles and charging stations will also provide a much-needed shot in 
the arm for clean energy companies post-COVID-19. At the same time, 
President Biden's strategy to invest $100 billion in workforce training 
will help create new career paths to clean energy for millions of 
Americans. Whether all of that translates into jobs, however, remains 
dependent on what Congress does. Failure to act means prolonging the 
COVID recession, keeping us locked into a dying fossil fuel economy, 
and increasing the threat of extreme weather disruptions to lives, 
labor, and our infrastructure due to climate change.
    On the other hand, the benefits of action are many.
    Potential benefits of economywide electrification and 
decarbonization efforts, in the transportation and housing sectors.
    Most people in the U.S.--particularly renters--spend more than half 
of their income on transportation, rent, and home energy costs. 
Investment in cleaner transportation options, water and waste sewer 
systems, energy efficiency, and a clean energy future--combined with 
commitments to addressing racial inequities--can lead our actions 
against climate change while creating a stronger, more resilient 
economy set for future growth.
Transit
    Public transit is one of the key solutions to addressing the 
climate crisis and in creating more opportunity while improving the 
daily quality of life for millions of people. Transit is critical to 
the millions of Americans who use it and contrary to the way it is 
often presented, it is even critical to those who do not use it. For 
regular transit riders, it is a lifeline providing mobility options, 
generates jobs, spurs economic growth. For the wider public, policies 
supporting the improvement and expansion of transit have many societal 
benefits, such as improving air quality, reducing overall energy use, 
and avoiding carbon pollution. It also decreases traffic congestion for 
drivers by taking millions of cars off the road thus shortening average 
commute times.
    Investment in public transit has benefits beyond those counted by 
the rides. Federal spending on public transportation is a win for 
working families because it creates immediate jobs and income by 
supporting manufacturing and construction, in addition to public 
transportation operation activities.
    According to the Census Bureau, 13 percent of U.S. households have 
incomes less than $15,000, but among transit-using households, the 
ratio rises to 21 percent. \5\ Targeting Federal investments in public 
transit can ensure that spending, which helps address climate change, 
also improves the lives of the poorest households.
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     \5\ https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/Resources/resources/
reportsandpublications/Documents/APTA-Who-Rides-Public-Transportation-
2017.pdf
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    But public transit alone won't take us where we need to go on 
climate change. Try as we might, we won't convince the majority of 
Americans to leave the comforts and personal freedom of their private 
vehicles for mass transit. Commuting needs, family responsibilities, or 
lifestyle choices means we have to find ways to decarbonize private 
vehicle miles traveled with the rapid deployment of electric vehicles.
    Meeting this challenge, President Biden's American Jobs Plan 
includes investments in electric vehicle infrastructure delivering 
500,000 charging stations by 2030, and incentives to buy American-made 
electric vehicles. The latter also include a rebate for lower-income 
buyers of zero-emitting electric vehicles, a policy to make access to 
the electric vehicles market for electric more equitable.
    A national Clean Cars Program can deliver many benefits to 
communities across America. Drivers will save on fuel costs even when 
accounting for the incrementally higher upfront cost of electric 
vehicle technologies.
    A national clean cars program would benefit public health by 
reducing thousands of tons of smog-forming pollutants annually, as well 
as fine particulate matter and other toxic air contaminants. A study of 
the Illinois Clean Cars Program commissioned by NRDC also found that 
lower-income families as well as rural families will benefit. The study 
finds that the operating cost savings provide greater benefit to low-
income households because they tend to spend a larger proportion of 
their income on transportation fuel than do higher-income consumers. 
Similarly, rural drivers tend to have higher operating costs due to the 
longer distances traveled. The Studies also show that 85 percent of 
people who buy new vehicles finance them, and most will see fuel cost 
savings from Day One.
    Smart investments in transportation, including public transit and 
vehicle electrification, can have many tangible benefits to quality of 
life, health and job creation.
Housing
    Housing represents a key element of the Biden climate strategy, 
which calls for cutting the carbon footprint of the U.S. building stock 
in half by 2035 by creating incentives for deep retrofits that combine 
appliance electrification, efficiency, and on-site clean power 
generation. The climate crisis and the increasing cost of housing are 
absolutely linked--creating extreme burdens for households and families 
across this country. These include renters, female heads of households, 
and the elderly--and disproportionately challenge the financial 
stability of African-Americans and other communities of color.
    Often, low-income and vulnerable households have very few housing 
options. They are left to rely on low-quality housing due to 
residential segregation, long-term neighborhood disinvestment, and 
deferred maintenance of the housing stock. These homes tend to waste 
energy so that low-income families pay more per square foot than higher 
income residents. The result is that nearly one-third of households in 
the United States struggle to pay energy bills and in fact, about one 
in five households has been forced to choose between buying food, 
medicine or other necessities--or paying an energy bill. \6\
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     \6\ https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37072
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    As if rising cost of housing were not enough, poor and low-income 
Americans are increasingly reliant on older housing units, leaving them 
more vulnerable to major weather disasters such as hurricanes; 
flooding, wildfires, and other climate-related emergencies. These 
weather extremes place vulnerable housing stock at risk of destruction, 
leading to the displacement and destabilization of families and 
communities and increasing the likelihood that they will experience--or 
be trapped in--poverty.
    To avert the worst impacts of climate change, our policies must 
ensure both the reduction of emissions that cause climate change--and 
that people can live in safe, affordable housing. With decisive 
leadership, Congress can help address the dual crisis of affordable 
housing by fully funding Federal programs such as the Housing Trust 
Fund and Community Development Block Grant and climate change through 
smart investments in energy efficiency, electrification, and clean 
energy generation while helping to produce hundreds of thousands of new 
clean jobs--and alleviate the negative health impacts of indoor and 
outdoor air pollution.
    NRDC's report, America's Clean Energy Frontier: The Pathway to a 
Safer Climate Future, shows that the we can reduce carbon emissions by 
at least 80 percent by 2050, with fully half coming from energy 
efficiency. This means that smarter energy use is absolutely critical 
to achieving U.S. emissions reduction goals--and doing so in an 
affordable manner.
    Consider that residential energy efficiency is the largest single 
measure that can reduce climate pollution in the United States. Along 
with cutting that pollution and shrinking energy bills, efficiency has 
considerable health and safety benefits--including improved indoor air 
quality, which reduces the likelihood of asthma cases.
    The primary source of Federal investment in residential energy 
retrofits comes through the Department of Energy's Weatherization 
Assistance Program. Every year, the program's efficiency improvements 
alone cut America's climate pollution by 2 million metric tons. \7\ In 
total, residential efficiency improvements can account for carbon 
reductions as high as 550 million metric tons every year by 2050.
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     \7\ https://energy.gov/eere/articles/celebrating-40-years-america-
s-weatherization-assistance-program
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    Unfortunately, there are many barriers to increasing energy 
efficiency in the Nation's affordable housing. But Congress can help.
    Despite the considerable need for efficiency improvements in low-
income housing, many programs that facilitate retrofits are sorely 
underfunded. Across the country, only about 35,000 homes can enroll in 
WAP on a yearly basis. That's not enough. There's not a State in the 
country where the waiting list for services is not extremely long 
(sometimes years). For example, at the current rate, it would take Ohio 
almost 150 years to weatherize all the currently eligible homes. \8\ 
Meanwhile, WAP's maximum per unit expenditure is only about $7,500 for 
weatherization and $2,000 for solar installation. Raising the per-unit 
spending cap will allow deeper home retrofits, producing more savings 
for families and the environment. It also will allow WAP contractors to 
increase the wages for workers on these projects. Reducing labor 
turnover slows down and makes quality standards difficult while 
providing stable career pathways to thousands of potential workers. 
Today the under-resourced WAP program employs roughly 8,500 Americans 
across the Nation. With proper funding, it could employ far more while 
providing numerous health, economic, and environmental benefits to 
communities across the Nation.
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     \8\ Dave Rinebolt, Executive Director and Counsel at Ohio Partners 
for Affordable Energy; Comments during a panel discussion on the 
multiple benefits of Federal energy programs.
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    Despite the value the WAP program offers, multifamily housing 
units--which are often relied upon by the poorest families--are 
severely underserved in most regions of the country. The cost of 
regular maintenance and upgrades for multifamily housing are among the 
most significant barriers to preserving affordable, quality homes for 
low-income households. Without attention, the properties deteriorate. 
Federal action is needed to incentivize investments in hard-to-reach 
sectors of the housing market, with specific attention to the 
multifamily market which has tremendous potential for skilled 
employment, and energy and cost savings nationwide. Without it, there 
will be greater inequity and greater costs to families who are least 
able to afford them.
    We have a housing affordability crisis in America. Millions of 
affordable rental homes have already been demolished because housing 
providers could not afford the cost of maintaining those buildings. 
Much of the remaining affordable rental homes are aging and in need of 
repair. The escalating climate crisis will only worsen the situation.
    Energy efficiency can help bridge the growing gap between renter 
incomes and rising housing costs.
Recommendations for Public and Private Solutions To Foster and 
        Equitably Distribute the Opportunities Inherent in These 
        Changes
    Clean energy has a diversity problem. Despite its broad range of 
businesses--from construction to utilities, manufacturing, professional 
services, and repair and maintenance--the clean energy sector is 
dominated by White men.
    About 75 percent of clean energy workers across America are White. 
Black and Hispanic/Latino workers are more underrepresented in clean 
energy than they are across the rest of the economy, with Blacks 
representing 8 percent of the clean energy workforce and Hispanic/
Latinos representing 16 percent. Further, women only represent about 26 
percent of all clean energy jobs, even though they account for about 
half of the U.S. population.
    Given job growth in the clean energy sector over the past decade, 
this lack of diversity has resulted in many women and people of color 
missing out on one of America's great economic expansions.
    As the United States looks to build back a better, cleaner, more 
equitable economy, a renewed focus on increasing diversity in the clean 
energy sector is an economic imperative. Both the transition to a low-
carbon energy system as well as proposed State and Federal stimulus to 
boost the economy have the potential to create millions of new jobs 
across the United States. Policies that support the energy sector and 
its low-carbon transition must center the inclusion of women and ethnic 
and racial minorities, particularly Black workers, so that the economic 
benefits are more equitable.
    In 2018, the Boston Consulting Group found that across the broader 
economy ``companies that reported above-average diversity on their 
management teams also reported innovation revenue that was 19 
percentage points higher than that of companies with below-average 
leadership diversity.'' \9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \9\ https://www.bcg.com/en-us/publications/2018/how-diverse-
leadership-teams-boost-innovation
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In a sector like clean energy that relies heavily on innovation, 
there is ample room for improvement in diversifying management teams. 
According to a 2019 report from the Solar Energy Industries Association 
and The Solar Foundation, of all senior executives in the solar 
industry, just 2 percent are Black and only one in five are women. \10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \10\ https://www.thesolarfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/
05/Solar-Industry-Diversity-Study-2019-2.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A September 2020 report from Citi identified missed revenue gains 
and missed annual job creation opportunities due to inequitable lending 
practices economywide. ``Providing fair and equitable lending to Black 
entrepreneurs might have resulted in the creation of an additional $13 
trillion in business revenue over the last 20 years,'' Citi's authors 
wrote. ``This could have been used for investments in labor, 
technology, capital equipment, and structures and 6.1 million jobs 
might have been created per year.'' \11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \11\ https://ir.citi.com/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Federal investments are critical to overcome these barriers and the 
circumstances that drive them. The private sector alone cannot undue 
over a century's worth of Federal and financial policies that deepened 
segregation and labor discrimination.
    Policies like the national Clean Energy and Sustainability 
Accelerator would address that need by providing for better financing 
tools for clean energy projects. It would also ensure minority, rural, 
and low-income communities can:

    gain access to clean energy technologies,

    fund projects, and

    grow jobs across racial and economic lines, as well as 
        geographic ones.

    There are many steps lawmakers can take--right now--to ensure 
greater diversity in the clean energy workforce in the months and years 
ahead: \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \12\ From a forthcoming E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs) report: 
``Help Wanted: Diversity in Clean Energy Jobs''.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    For Workers

    Support education and job training for members of 
        traditionally underserved communities to expedite their 
        involvement in the development of renewable energy solutions.

    Invest in apprenticeship programs in the transportation 
        industry and industry-academic partnerships to prepare 
        underrepresented populations for entry into career positions.

    Enhance and enforce hiring and procurement policies that 
        benefit low-income communities, people of color, and women.

    For Businesses

    Create and fund ``green banks'' and other financing 
        mechanisms through more traditional financial institutions that 
        can help jumpstart clean energy companies and include specific 
        metrics for investing in minority-owned companies and 
        communities.

    Collaborate with the renewable energy industry to increase 
        business opportunities for minority entrepreneurs and increase 
        diversity of suppliers in the public and private sectors.

    Support and advance clean energy programs, including 
        renewable portfolio and energy efficiency standards, with 
        specific metric for jobs and economic development in 
        economically disadvantaged areas.

    For Communities

    Strategically and cooperatively engage low-income and 
        disadvantaged communities on energy policies at all levels in 
        order to help address the energy and jobs needs of these 
        communities while also protecting the environment.

    Ensure underserved communities that host clean energy 
        resources and facilities--such as solar and wind farms and 
        clean energy and clean vehicle industry factories--directly 
        benefit from the presence of these facilities with jobs and 
        supplier opportunities.

    Design codes, regulations, and policies to address minimum 
        energy, water, and health performance in existing multifamily 
        buildings, while providing resources to support their equitable 
        implementation.

    Adopt adequate funding and performance targets, such as 
        energy savings, for efficiency programs serving under-resourced 
        (low-income) communities.

    Ensure State housing finance agencies make ever-increasing 
        commitments to efficiency and health improvements in Low-Income 
        Housing Tax Credit-funded properties.
Conclusion
    Congress must act to double down on an ambitious strategy to 
rebuild our Nation's economy, infrastructure, and struggling 
communities. An approach based on leveraging bold and aggressive 
Federal Investments in the next generation of clean energy from 
efficiency, to generation, batteries to support health and more 
affordable homes, clean reliable transportation, and low-carbon 
sustainable agriculture.
    Robust Federal commitments in this sector will then send the right 
signal to private-sector investors to get on board.
    Congress can help address the broader unemployment situation today 
by providing pathways to careers in a sector that will be growing for 
years to come. They can also help ensure the minority communities, 
rural communities, and communities transitioning from fossil fuel 
employment are all part of the clean energy jobs of tomorrow.
    Tackling the economic costs and harnessing the economic 
opportunities of climate change make these investments worthwhile. But 
with millions of Americans still out of work or underemployed, they are 
an absolute necessity.
    A ``whole of Government'' approach to addressing the climate crisis 
and the related challenges that confront us, begins with this Congress. 
Ensuring a functioning social safety net for all Americans, investing 
in modernizing our Nation's infrastructure, and workforce training 
policies will transform our economy. It will grow jobs today and set 
America on the path of economic success for decades to come.
                    PREPARED STATEMENT OF ZOE LIPMAN
Director, Manufacturing and Advanced Transportation, BlueGreen Alliance
                             April 22, 2021
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID W. KREUTZER
            Senior Economist, Institute for Energy Research
                             April 22, 2021
    Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey, and other Members of the 
Committee, I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to 
testify on the clean energy economy.
    My name is David Kreutzer. I am senior economist at the Institute 
for Energy Research. The opinions I express today, are my own and do 
not necessarily reflect those of the Institute for Energy Research.
    The economic impact of a shift to energy sources with lower carbon 
dioxide emissions depends on how that shift is made. The reductions in 
CO2 emissions brought on by the smart-drilling revolution and the 
dramatically increased access to natural gas helped revive our 
industrial base, increasing income and employment. Forced reductions in 
CO2 emissions that raise energy costs have negative impacts on income 
and employment. In addition, policies that force CO2 reductions have 
been hijacked by political opportunists in the past and are susceptible 
to similar problems in the future.
    Creating and maintaining a dynamic, robust, and resilient economy 
is critically important for the Nation's welfare today and for 
generations to come. We are the beneficiaries of decades and centuries 
of phenomenal economic growth and we should hope to see that growth 
continue.
    Over the past 150 years, inflation-adjusted income per capita in 
the U.S. has increased by a factor of 18. Even this nearly 20-fold 
increase cannot fully measure the benefits of modern medicine and 
technology. \1\ For instance, that same period saw the tragedy of 
childhood mortality drop from 317 per thousand to seven per thousand-a 
98 percent decrease. \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \1\ For the span 1870 to 2020. Found at Measuringworth.com, 
(accessed April 19, 2021).
     \2\ Statista.com, ``Child Mortality Rate (Under 5 Years Old) in 
the United States, From 1800 to 2020'', https://www.statista.com/
statistics/1041693/united-states-all-time-child-mortality-rate/ 
(accessed April 19, 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    We see similarly dramatic improvements in human well-being on a 
shorter time scale. Since the year of my birth (1953), per-capita 
energy consumption has doubled and the atmospheric CO2 concentration 
has risen 32 percent. \3\ \4\ These changes were associated with:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \3\ Theoildrum.com, ``World Energy Consumption Since 1820 in 
Charts'', http://theoildrum.com/node/9023 (accessed April 19, 2021).
     \4\ Sealevel.info, ``Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Levels, 
1800-Present'', https://sealevel.info/co2.html (accessed April 19, 
2021).

    A 76-percent drop in childhood mortality; \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \5\ Max Roser and Jaiden Mispy, ``Global Child Mortality: It Is 
Hard To Overestimate Both the Immensity of the Tragedy, and the 
Progress the World Has Made'', Our World in Data, https://
ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-globally (accessed April 19, 2021).

    The death rate from famine dropping 98 percent; \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \6\ Joe Hasell and Max Roser, ``Famines'', Our World in Data, 
December 7, 2017, https://ourworldindata.org/famines (accessed April 
19, 2021).

    An increase in inflation-adjusted World per-capita GDP of 
        300 percent. \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \7\ Max Roser, ``Economic Growth'', Our World in Data, https://
ourworldindata.org/economic-growth (accessed April 19, 2021)

    This is only a partial list of the beneficial changes in human 
welfare the decades have seen. Of course, there are many factors 
driving these benefits, but economic freedom and affordable energy are 
among them. The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom 
consistently shows a link between economic freedom and economic growth. 
\8\ Government subsidies and mandates work against economic freedom and 
can undermine the process that creates the best jobs. The push for 
green jobs too often ignores this lesson.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \8\ The Heritage Foundation, Index of Economic Freedom, https://
www.heritage.org/index/ (accessed April 19, 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In his first term, President Obama promised to create 3 million new 
green jobs. A significant chunk of $787 billion stimulus package was 
devoted to meeting that goal. The package included grants, loan 
guarantees, and funding for job-training programs. The resulting green-
job creation fell pathetically short of its goal. The failure was 
documented in two reports from the inspector general at the Department 
of Labor and two reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    The title for the first inspector general report, ``Recovery Act: 
Slow Pace Placing Workers into Jobs Jeopardizes Employment Goals of the 
Green Jobs Program,'' is a surprisingly good summary. \9\ The report 
noted:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \9\ U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training 
Administration, Office of the Inspector General, ``Recovery Act: Slow 
Pace Placing Workers into Jobs Jeopardizes Employment Goals of the 
Green Jobs Program,'' September 30, 2011, https://www.oig.dol.gov/
public/reports/oa/2011/18-11-004-03-390.pdf (accessed April 20, 2019).

    Nearly three-fourths of the way through, only 61 percent of 
        the target level of participants had even been signed up for 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        training;

    Job placement was only 10 percent of the target level; and

    Participants who retained employment for at least 6 months 
        met only 2 percent of the target level.

    A follow-up report a year later was no more upbeat. \10\ It found:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \10\ David W. Kreutzer, Heritage Foundation Commentary, November 
1, 2012, https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/green-jobs-go-
0-4 (accessed April 20, 2019)

    More than 20 percent of certificates and degrees went to 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        recipients who had only one day of training;

    47 percent of those completing the Green Jobs program 
        received five or fewer days of training;

    Grantees could not document between 24 percent and 44 
        percent of the employment outcomes;

    The number of trainees who entered employment was less than 
        40 percent of the target; and

    38 percent of those who did enter employment already had 
        jobs before the training program.

    On the surface the BLS reports are more positive, asserting that 
the economy had over three million green jobs. \11\ A little digging 
shows that number to be so misleading as to be nearly comical. First, 
they were not the promised new jobs. Second, to get the three-million 
count, the definition of a green job was made so broad that most of the 
green jobs had greenness that was, at best, tenuous. Even if the 
definition was accepted, few of the green jobs could have been 
attributed to the green jobs program. For instance:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \11\ Bureau of Labor Statistics, News Release, ``Employment in 
Green Goods and Services-2011'', March 19, 2013, https://www.bls.gov/
news.release/pdf/ggqcew.pdf (accessed April 20, 2021).

    There were 30 times as many green jobs in portable-toilet 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        and septic-tank servicing as in solar electric utilities;

    More than 50 percent of all jobs in steel mills were green; 
        \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \12\ David Kreutzer, ``Green Jobs Count: Fewer than Before, 
Sillier than Ever'', Daily Signal, July 9, 2012, https://
www.dailysignal.com/2012/07/09/green-jobs-arent-shrinking-because-they-
dont-exist/ (accessed April 20, 2021).

    There were more green jobs in school bus and employee 
        transportation (160,896), trash collection (116,293), and used 
        merchandise stores (106,865) than in either engineering 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        services (100,847) or architectural services (71,891); and

    The acting commissioner of the BLS admitted that lobbying 
        for the oil industry could be considered a green job. \13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \13\ Youtube, ``Oil Lobbyists Have Green Jobs?'' June 15, 2012, 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsEMHQ2sjOk (accessed April 20, 2021).

    Of course, all of these jobs are important, but they are not what 
people envision when they hear about green jobs of the future, nor can 
many of them be attributed to Obama-era green-jobs policies.
    Though there were few green jobs to show for it, a lot of money was 
spent on green initiatives.
    Much of that money went to wealthy corporations and the politically 
well-connected. A Washington Post investigation into the clean-energy 
program found a disturbing amount of political influence: \14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \14\ By Joe Stephens and Carol D. Leonnig, ``Solyndra: Politics 
Infused Obama Energy Programs'', The Washington Post, December 25, 
2011, https://www.washingtonpost.com/solyndra-politics-infused-obama-
energy-programs/2011/12/14/gIQA4HllHP--story.html (accessed April 20, 
2021).

        Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama's 
        green-technology program was infused with politics at every 
        level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of 
        memos, company records and internal e-mails. Political 
        considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials.

    The story went on:

        ``What's so troubling is that politics seems to be the dominant 
        factor,'' said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for 
        Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group. ``They're not 
        talking about what the taxpayers are losing; they're not 
        talking about the failure of the technology, whether we bet on 
        the wrong horse. What they are talking about is `How are we 
        going to manage this politically?''

    The Administration, which excluded lobbyists from policymaking 
positions, gave easy access to venture capitalists with stakes in some 
of the companies backed by the Administration, the records show. Many 
of those investors had given to Obama's 2008 campaign. Some took jobs 
in the Administration and helped manage the clean-energy program.
    It is hard to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in Washington 
and not have serious political influence involved. Some things may need 
to be done by Government, but Federal funding of private ventures is 
not at the top of the list. Two cases from the Obama administration's 
green initiatives illustrate the problem with Government financing of 
private ventures.
    The poster child for politically directed bad green investment is 
Solyndra--a story of failed technology and successful rent-seeking. An 
early beneficiary of the Stimulus Package, Solyndra received a $535 
million loan guarantee in 2009. However, improvements in older 
technology undercut that of Solyndra. This problem was evident from 
almost the first day, and the company declared bankruptcy in September 
of 2011, laying off all 1,100 of its workers. Of course, taxpayers were 
left on the hook for the millions of dollars on the outstanding loan.
    The second example, the Ivanpah solar-power project, highlights a 
logical flaw in the Department of Energy's loan-guarantee program and 
illustrates problems in green-energy accounting.
    The Department of Energy's loan program supposedly targeted 
projects that were economically viable and unable (despite the supposed 
market viability) to get private financing. That the owners of Ivanpah 
might be unable to finance a market-viable project is laughable. The 
owners include the following corporations (or their subsidiaries):

    Google

    General Electric

    Chevron

    BP Alternative Energy

    StatoilHydro Venture

    Morgan Stanley

    Black River Asset Management

    Draper Fisher Jurvetson

    Vantage Point Capital Partners

    Riverwood Capital

    Double Bottom Line Venture Capital

    California State Teachers' Retirement System

    NRG Energy

    The combined market capitalization of the partners exceeded $1 
trillion at that time. Further, the list of partners included some of 
the most sophisticated and accomplished firms in corporate finance. 
Nevertheless, the Department of Energy awarded them a $500 million 
grant and a $1.6 billion loan guarantee.
    Ivanpah is a solar-thermal power plant that uses mirrors to 
concentrate solar energy to heat a liquid that then drives conventional 
turbines. Though the liquid has some thermal mass that moderates short-
term fluctuations in power output, nighttime and cloudiness are still 
problems. Overnight, the liquid cools so much that it takes a while to 
reheat it in the morning until it is hot enough to drive the turbines. 
To overcome this problem, Ivanpah uses natural gas to keep the liquid 
hot overnight, which is not a technological problem, but it is a 
problem for calculating green credits. The solution is to ignore the 
overnight use of natural gas when calculating how much electricity is 
generated by solar heat. This matters because virtually all of 
Ivanpah's power is sold at the higher prices commanded by renewable 
electricity and because that power is used by its customers to satisfy 
renewable portfolio requirements. I have estimated that were the 
natural gas burned in a modern powerplant it would generate nearly one-
third of the power sold by Ivanpah. \15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \15\ David W. Kreutzer, ``The Status of Ivanpah and Other Federal 
Loan-Guaranteed Solar Energy Projects on Bureau of Land Management 
Lands'', Testimony before the Committee on Natural Resources 
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations: United States House of 
Representatives,'' July 14, 2016, https://republicans-
naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/testimony--kreutzer.pdf 
(accessed April 20, 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Companies that should not need loan subsidies to finance their 
project, got the subsidies and produce ``green'' power, in large part, 
with natural gas. This bit of mislabeling is ignored by Ivanpah's 
owners, the Department of Energy, California regulators, and the 
utilities that purchase the power to meet mandates, because none of 
them have any incentive to do otherwise.
    Though problems like those with Solyndra and Ivanpah were not 
universal, they were all too common. In his broad overview of the 
Department of Energy's Loan Portfolio, Nick Loris found these recurring 
themes: \16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \16\ Nick Loris, ``Examining the Department of Energy's Loan 
Portfolio'', The House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space 
and Technology's: Subcommittee on Energy and Subcommittee on 
Oversight'', March 3, 2016, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/SY/SY20/
20160303/104591/HHRG-114-SY20-Wstate-LorisN-20160303.pdf (accessed 
April 20, 2021).

    Failed companies that could not survive even with the 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Federal Government's help;

    Projects that have the backing of companies with large 
        market capitalizations and substantial private investors. These 
        companies should have no trouble financing a project without 
        Government-backed loans if they believe it is worth the 
        investment;

    Private investors hedging their bets and congregating 
        toward public money. These projects on their surface appear to 
        be financial losers but the Government involvement entices 
        companies to take a chance;

    Companies and projects that benefit from a plethora of 
        Federal, State, and local policies that push renewable energy;

    Government incompetence in administering and overseeing the 
        loans.

    In 2009, the American economy was just beginning its recovery from 
the 2008 recession. The billions of dollars in green expenditures were 
promoted as a tool to combat the unemployment crisis of the time. The 
green expenditures of the Stimulus Package failed to provide 
significant help to the unemployed workers whose plight was used to 
justify the programs.
    Today, a multitrillion-dollar policy is offered as a source of 
jobs. It is also offered as a solution to problems of climate justice, 
despite the fact that these programs will have no measurable climate 
impact for decades and are unlikely to have significant positive 
impacts beyond that. With history as a guide, there is reason to think 
these programs will be encouraged and then usurped by the politically 
well-connected and the economically powerful. We saw this in 2009 and 
we have seen it more generally for decades.
    Big Government expenditure too often helps the well-connected and 
powerful instead of the supposed beneficiaries. Hints of this diversion 
can also be seen in the accumulating wealth of Washington, DC, and its 
suburbs.
    In 1970, three of the twenty wealthiest counties in America were in 
the DC area and six were in the Midwest. \17\ By 2019, eight (nine if 
you count the independent city of Falls Church, VA) of the richest 
twenty counties were in the DC suburbs and none of these twenty were in 
the Midwest. \18\ Real estate prices show a corresponding trend. 
Between 1970 and 2017, the median house price in Washington, DC, grew 
faster than in any State and 3.5 times as fast as the national average. 
\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \17\ Jack Rosenthal, ``50 Richest Counties Are in Suburbs'', The 
New York Times, September 19, 1972, https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/19/
archives/50-richest-counties-are-in-suburbs.html (accessed April 21, 
2021).
     \18\ Terrence P. Jeffrey, ``9 of 20 Richest Counties Are D.C. 
Suburbs; Virginia Suburbs Beat Silicon Valley'', CNSNews, December 12, 
2019, https://www.cnsnews.com/article/national/terence-p-jeffrey/9-20-
richest-counties-are-dc-suburbs-virginia-suburbs-beat (accessed April 
21, 2021).
     \19\ Hillary Hoffower and Andy Kiersz, ``Home Values Have More 
Than Doubled in the U.S. Since 1970--Here's How Much They've Increased 
in Every State'', Business Insider, December 18, 2018, https://
www.businessinsider.com/home-value-home-price-change-in-50-years-every-
state-2018-12 (accessed April 21, 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The changing fortunes of industries and regions spring from many 
factors, but the data in the previous paragraph do not support a claim 
that the burgeoning Government programs and budgets have stimulated the 
economy of our manufacturing heartland. We should be skeptical that 
several trillion more dollars will have a significantly different 
impact.
    Even if the shift to reduced carbon dioxide emissions is done 
without the political rent seeking, the costs to the economy come early 
and are significant, while any impacts on climate come with long 
delays, are speculative and small.
    My former colleagues, Kevin Dayaratna and Nick Loris, and I 
estimated the projected economic impact of the U.S. meeting its CO2 
reduction targets of the Paris Agreement. \20\ We projected the 20-year 
impact would lead to:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \20\ Kevin Dayaratna, Nicolas Loris, and David Kreutzer, 
``Consequences of Paris Protocol: Devastating Economic Costs, 
Essentially Zero Environmental Benefits'', Heritage Foundation Report, 
April 13, 2016, https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/
consequences-paris-protocol-devastating-economic-costs-essentially-zero 
(accessed April 21, 2021).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    An overall average shortfall of nearly 400,000 jobs;

    An average manufacturing shortfall of over 200,000 jobs;

    A total income loss of more than $20,000 for a family of 
        four;

    An aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) loss of over $2.5 
        trillion; and

    Increases in household electricity expenditures between 13 
        percent and 20 percent.

    The climate impact of these significant costs would be a moderation 
of global warming of only 0.03 degrees centigrade in 2100. \21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \21\ Bjorn Lomborg, ``Impact of Current Climate Proposals'', 
Global Policy, November 9, 2015, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/
full/10.1111/1758-5899.12295 (accessed April 21, 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The beginning of this testimony highlighted the amazing increase in 
the standard of living witnessed over the past 150 years. Though it may 
be hard to imagine, the next 150 years should see similar increases in 
wealth and amazing improvements in technology. In addition to providing 
a higher standard of living, economic growth provides for resiliency 
and protection against adversity of all sorts, whether from natural 
disasters, pandemics, or something else. Economic growth is, in a 
sense, an insurance policy.
    The benefits of economic growth are most significant over long 
periods, but growth is also effective in the shorter run. Before the 
worldwide COVID pandemic, the U.S. economy, spurred by lower tax rates 
and reduced red tape, was recording record low unemployment rates for 
African-Americans and Hispanic Americans. In addition, wages at the 
lower end were growing faster than average for the first time in 
decades.
    To ensure they reap the benefits of this increasing standard of 
living, we should deliver to our grandchildren a world that is not 
impoverished by antigrowth ideology, a world where major conflict is 
not driven by minor differences, and a world where leaders do not 
exaggerate problems so there will be a false crisis to exploit.
                                 ______
                                 
                  PREPARED STATEMENT OF NEAL CRABTREE
                     Welder, Pipeliners Local Union
                             April 22, 2021
    Chairman Brown and Ranking Member Toomey, thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today.
    I live near Texarkana, Arkansas, and I am a member of Pipeliners 
Local Union 798. Local 798 is a trade union with more than 7,000 
members, including skilled welders. I have been a welder for 25 years 
and have traveled throughout the United States to work on energy 
pipeline infrastructure. Being from a rural area of our country, 
opportunities are limited. I spent 2 honorable years in the U.S. Army 
and after that I've been serving my country providing the energy that 
has built us into the super power we are today.
    Although it's an honor to speak with you, I have to admit, I'd 
rather be working. This time of year is the beginning of pipeline 
construction season. Like other industries in this country, pipeline 
construction suffered through 2020 because of COVID. Many projects were 
cancelled so we were looking forward to 2021 and the chance to be back 
working. Right now, over 88 percent of my Local Union members are out 
of work and have been for some time now.
    I was lucky enough to be involved in the early stages of Keystone 
XL oil pipeline and had been working on the pipeline in Nebraska at the 
start of this year. But all that ended on January 20th when President 
Biden shut it down. His decision caused more than 1,000 union workers 
to lose their jobs and prevented thousands more from getting jobs this 
year. These are good union jobs. To have a project of this magnitude 
canceled is devastating.
    It's hurting a lot of workers, a lot of families, and a lot of 
communities. We've got members of my Local Union who have been out of 
work for months, many of them for over a year now. They could have 
benefited from the jobs created by Keystone XL, matter of fact, the 
environment would have benefited from Keystone XL. The members of my 
Union feel like pawns in a chess game. We delivered the low energy 
prices that the public wanted, now it seems we're being sacrificed for 
a Green Experiment at the taxpayers' expense.
    In my case, I was laid off three hours after President Biden took 
office. I never dreamed my own President would put me out of work 
building a pipeline that would've transported oil that's already coming 
into the country by rail. And to make matters worse he proclaimed that 
doing so was some major environmental victory when, in fact, it was 
just the opposite. What do I mean by that? It's simply safer, cleaner, 
and more environmentally friendly to transport oil by pipeline than it 
is by rail.
    The Biden administration seems to think these Keystone pipeline 
jobs were just ``temporary jobs'' and so the impact of destroying them 
is not that bad. They don't seem to understand that a lot of careers in 
this country rely on temporary projects, especially careers in pipeline 
construction. A carpenter doesn't spend his whole career on the same 
house. A lawyer doesn't spend his whole career with the same client. 
The Keystone XL was our house to build this year, it was our client. 
The effects of canceling this project will be far reaching, not only 
for the workers but I also believe it will have negative effects on 
future projects that provide the reliable energy this country needs. I 
am very concerned by the Biden administration's attacks on the energy 
industry as a whole. In addition to cancelling Keystone, President 
Biden has banned new oil and gas leases on Federal lands, both onshore 
and offshore. That's going to kill tens of thousands of jobs, not just 
in the energy industry, but in other sectors indirectly supported by 
the energy industry.
    According to John Kerry, workers who lose their jobs because of the 
Biden administration's policies should just go find jobs in Green 
Energy. Mr. Kerry and others seem to think construction workers don't 
have a particular set of skills and that if you work construction then 
you can do any construction job, like building wind farms and 
installing solar panels. That's an insult to me and every other blue 
collar worker in this country. My fellow Union members and I didn't go 
to college to learn to do what we do, but that doesn't mean we didn't 
spend years and years training on the job to advance ourselves to earn 
the wages that we do today.
    Telling us to go find entirely new Green Energy jobs is like 
telling a lawyer there aren't going to be any more attorneys in this 
country, so you go be a dentist. Just because you're a professional 
doesn't mean you can work in any profession. What Mr. Kerry and others 
are telling us is that we've got to start all over in something we know 
absolutely nothing about. I've spent 25 years in my trade and when jobs 
are available, I'm compensated accordingly. Starting over in another 
field means you'll start at entry level positions with entry level pay. 
That's not an option for someone with mortgage payments, kids to raise, 
and health coverage to provide.
    You'll never hear me complain about a private company's right to 
develop Green Energy. But I don't believe the Government should be 
destroying the right of a private company, like a pipeline developer, 
to upgrade our reliable energy infrastructure and putting Americans out 
of work in the process. In my view, there's just no justification for 
that.
    Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my experience and 
perspective. I look forward to answering any questions you have, matter 
of fact, I want my elected leaders to give me the tough questions and I 
beg you to. It's the only way to find solutions and perhaps some common 
ground.
        RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF CHAIRMAN BROWN
                       FROM ERNEST MONIZ

Q.1. Mr. Secretary, advanced generation nuclear energy 
production can play a key part of a clean-energy economy. It's 
my understanding that these next generation plants require a 
different fuel enrichment process compared to the nuclear 
plants of today. Yet, without a market for these advanced 
reactors, the private sector will likely not invest in the 
technology necessary for the high-assay, low-enriched uranium 
(HALEU) that will power these future plants. What role do you 
believe the U.S. Government should play to support the domestic 
manufacture of future nuclear technology--like HALEU 
processing--for both climate change as well as national 
security purposes?

A.1. The United States is in a period of unparalleled 
innovation in advanced nuclear reactor design, with a strong 
focus on modular reactors in the 50-300 MWe range and 
microreactors in the 1-10 MWe range. Private funding has played 
an important role in advancing these designs, but it is 
generally viewed that public-private partnerships will be 
needed for building the needed supply chains and deploying 
these technologies in a timely way. Congress has been 
supporting steps in this direction through cost-shared projects 
at the Department of Energy (DOE).
    These technology advances may be critical for meeting 
ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, 
especially the target of a net-zero emissions economy by mid-
century. It is becoming widely understood that a reliable and 
resilient carbon neutral electricity system will need 
significant amounts of firm dispatchable zero-carbon power, as 
is provided by nuclear energy. Furthermore, many of the new 
technologies operate at much higher temperatures than today's 
prevalent light water reactors, thereby opening up industrial 
applications that need high quality heat and are otherwise 
difficult to decarbonize.
    Most of these advanced nuclear reactors need HALEU fuel, 
and it is time to build the supply chain for the advanced 
reactors and for multiple other applications (more on this 
later). Demonstration projects for several of these advanced 
reactors are being planned for construction in the second half 
of this decade, so building the fuel supply capability now is 
timely.
    Rebuilding an American nuclear supply chain will also 
position us better internationally. Having both attractive 
advanced modular nuclear reactor designs and the capacity to 
fuel them with HALEU will give U.S. companies an advantage for 
success in export markets. In turn, such success will greatly 
strengthen our position in negotiating bilateral 123 agreements 
with strong nonproliferation provisions. The current degraded 
state of the nuclear supply chain in the U.S. has weakened our 
negotiating position materially and deprived our companies of 
some developing markets for nuclear technology.
    Consistent with these imperatives, the DOE is advancing a 
HALEU demonstration project in Piketon, Ohio, the site where 
the AC-100 uranium enrichment centrifuge was demonstrated a few 
years ago. The project will produce modest amounts of HALEU in 
2022. I believe it is important to scale up this project, both 
to provide additional HALEU and to continue building the 
manufacturing capacity and supply chain for domestic-origin 
enrichment. Starts and stops make it extremely difficult to 
build a reliable high-tech supply chain.
    I mentioned earlier multiple applications for HALEU beyond 
being an enabler for the new generation of advanced modular 
reactors and microreactors. An important need that serves our 
nuclear nonproliferation goals is replacing HEU in research 
reactors, many of which are U.S. origin but deployed both 
domestically and internationally. Another potential need is for 
deep space missions.
    In addition, there are multiple national security needs for 
enriched uranium. The key requirement for meeting these needs 
is that the enriched uranium be ``all-American''--that is, 
domestically produced uranium enriched by an American designed 
and built technology. This requirement derives from 
nonproliferation requirements in international agreements. The 
HALEU facility in Piketon will meet this requirement but will 
need to be expanded over time beyond the capacity needed to 
meet advanced reactor requirements. Such an expansion can use 
existing infrastructure built at considerable expense by DOE 
many years ago.
    One of security needs is to produce LEU fuel for TVA light 
water reactors that produce tritium for the nuclear weapons 
stockpile. Another is production of HEU for Navy nuclear 
propulsion. These needs are currently being met by using DOE 
enriched uranium reserves, which are blended down with natural 
or depleted uranium to provide HALEU or LEU. While this 
consumption of reserves can continue for some time, I believe 
it is preferable to maintain the optionality afforded by 
retaining sufficient reserves, especially when the alternative 
of enriching natural uranium to LEU and HALEU is available. At 
some point, the reserves will be depleted and there will be no 
choice but to construct an American enrichment facility, and it 
must be remembered that nuclear facilities often take longer to 
construct than anticipated.
    A decadal plan should be implemented now to build up 
enrichment capacity with American technology in a measured way, 
with an eye towards a stable sustainable manufacturing supply 
chain. The Piketon HALEU demonstration project can seed such a 
development in a timely way to meet advanced reactor needs in 
the next years and national security needs for the longer term.
    For disclosure purposes, I note that I advise Centrus 
Energy Corporation on strategic matters.
              Additional Material Supplied for the Record
  MAPS SUBMITTED BY ZOE LIPMAN, DIRECTOR, MANUFACTURING AND ADVANCED 
                   TRANSPORTATION, BLUEGREEN ALLIANCE
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