[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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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\
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\9\ https://www.bcg.com/en-us/publications/2018/how-diverse-
leadership-teams-boost-innovation
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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\
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\10\ https://www.thesolarfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/
05/Solar-Industry-Diversity-Study-2019-2.pdf
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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/
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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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