[Senate Hearing 118-85]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                     S. Hrg. 118-85

                       BEYOND THE BREAKING POINT:
                       THE FISCAL CONSEQUENCES OF
                     CLIMATE CHANGE INFRASTRUCTURE

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             July 26, 2023

                               __________

           Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
           
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                            www.govinfo.gov
                            
                            
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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

               SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island, Chairman
PATTY MURRAY, Washington             CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
RON WYDEN, Oregon                    MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan            LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont             RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia             MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            RICK SCOTT, Florida
ALEX PADILLA, California             MIKE LEE, Utah

                   Dan Dudis, Majority Staff Director
        Kolan Davis, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel
                   Mallory B. Nersesian, Chief Clerk 
                  Alexander C. Scioscia, Hearing Clerk
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                        WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2023
                OPENING STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

                                                                   Page
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman.............................     1
    Prepared Statement...........................................    36
Senator Charles E. Grassley, Ranking Member......................     3
    Prepared Statement...........................................    38

                    STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Senator Tim Kaine................................................    19
Senator Ron Johnson..............................................    21
Senator Alex Padilla.............................................    23
Senator Mike Braun...............................................    25
Senator Ben Ray Lujan............................................    28
Senator Jeff Merkley.............................................    30
Senator John Kennedy.............................................    31

                               WITNESSES

The Honorable John Bel Edwards, Governor, Louisiana..............     6
    Prepared Statement...........................................    41
The Honorable Susan F. Tierney, Ph.D., Senior Advisor, Analysis 
  Group..........................................................     8
    Prepared Statement...........................................    47
Dr. Jesse M. Keenan, Favrot II Associate Professor of Sustainable 
  Real Estate and Urban Planning, Tulane University..............     9
    Prepared Statement...........................................    58
Mrs. Lina Apsey, President and CEO, ITC Holdings Corp............    11
    Prepared Statement...........................................    67
Mr. Alexander Herrgott, President and CEO, The Permitting 
  Institute......................................................    13
    Prepared Statement...........................................    73

                                APPENDIX

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record
    Hon. Edwards.................................................    84
    Hon. Tierney.................................................    85
    Dr. Keenan...................................................    88
    Mrs. Apsey...................................................    90
    Mr. Herrgott.................................................    97

 
                       BEYOND THE BREAKING POINT:
                       THE FISCAL CONSEQUENCES OF
                     CLIMATE CHANGE INFRASTRUCTURE

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2023

                                           Committee on the Budget,
                                                       U.S. Senate,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 9:44 a.m., 
in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse, 
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Whitehouse, Merkley, Kaine, Lujan, 
Padilla, Grassley, Johnson, Marshall, Braun, Kennedy, and R. 
Scott.
    Also present: Democratic staff: Dan Dudis, Majority Staff 
Director; Kara Allen, Senior Energy and Climate Advisor, Energy 
Lead; Matt Bolden, Climate Policy Advisor.
     Republican staff: Chris Conlin, Deputy Staff Director; 
Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Jordan Pakula, Professional 
Staff Member.
    Witnesses:
    The Honorable John Bel Edwards, Governor, Louisiana
    The Honorable Susan F. Tierney, Ph.D., Senior Advisor, 
Analysis Group
    Dr. Jesse M. Keenan, Favrot II Associate Professor of 
Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning, Tulane University
    Mrs. Linda Apsey, President And CEO, ITC Holdings Corp.
    Mr. Alexander Herrgott, President And CEO, The Permitting 
Institute

          OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WHITEHOUSE \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ Prepared statement of Chairman Whitehouse appears in the 
appendix on page 36.
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    Chairman Whitehouse. Good morning everybody. I'm happy to 
call this hearing to order. I recognize my Ranking Member, 
Chuck Grassley, and members of the Committee. Thank our 
witnesses for being here, particularly Governor John Bel 
Edwards of Louisiana. It's a great honor having you with us.
    And welcome everyone to the tenth in our series on the 
enormous economic dangers of climate change for the federal 
budget. In the last month we've seen the hottest temperatures 
ever recorded. Louisiana, I think, probably knows something 
about that. But Phoenix set a record for the most consecutive 
days above 110 degrees.
    Smoke from unprecedented Canadian wildfires has blanketed 
huge swaths of the United States. Storms in Vermont, New York 
and Pennsylvania have triggered deadly flooding, and the worst 
drought in the Midwest in over a decade is threatening corn and 
soybean production and pushing up consumer prices.
    Climate change brings climate danger, climate risk, and 
climate inflation. And this is only the beginning.
    Today we examine the climate costs to infrastructure. 
Infrastructure is the foundation of our economy. Drinking water 
and sewage systems, roads, bridges, railways, irrigation, flood 
levees, waterways, power plants, dams, transmission lines, all 
enable our society to run.
    In addition to development and financing costs, each of 
these systems has maintenance and operating costs. Increased 
temperatures, higher sea levels, and greater variability in 
precipitation translate into shorter asset lifespans and higher 
ongoing expenses.
    In Texas, Oregon and Utah, intense heat is buckling 
roadways. In Chicago, Seattle, and other major cities, bridges 
are being doused with water to keep heat from warping the 
metal. Coastal areas suffer erosion, salt water intrusion and 
flooding. 7,500 miles of East Coast roadway is in high tide 
flood zones.
    And more than 60,000 miles of roads and bridges are 
vulnerable to extreme storm damage. Just the direct damage to 
roads is estimated to cost nearly $20 billion each year, not 
counting the associated depression of economic activity.
     Our power grids are seeing record breaking demand, and 
reduced power efficiency, as well as added sea level rise risks 
where infrastructure, especially thermal power plants, is 
located along the coast.
    Extreme weather is responsible for 78 percent of the major 
disruptions to our power system. Since 2015, the frequency of 
major blackouts has doubled. In an average year power outages 
caused by extreme weather events have cost the U.S. up to $44 
billion, in years with record breaking storms like 2008's 
Hurricane Ike, power outage costs soared to $99 billion.
    And last year extreme drought in the Midwest dropped water 
levels in the Mississippi River so low that the barges got 
stuck. Nearly all U.S. agricultural exports, and more than 75 
percent of the world's exports of feed grains and soybeans come 
from the Mississippi River basin, and the lack of water caused 
shipping delays, higher costs to find alternative transport, 
and reduced local economic activity. More climate inflation.
    Both the accumulating shifts in normal weather, and the 
sudden catastrophes are putting economic stress on states, 
counties, municipalities and the federal government, as well as 
rate payers and taxpayers.
    Economics find that major hurricanes, for instance, reduce 
local government's revenues by 7.2 percent in the decade 
following a hurricane and are associated with a 13 percent drop 
in public works expenditures. We have heard repeated testimony 
that climate economic and physical hazards intersect. Today we 
will hear that infrastructure systems are also interdependent.
    The failure in one system will cascade across other 
sectors. For instance, Louisiana's power outages after 
Hurricane Ian, cascaded into wastewater failures at pumping 
stations, spilling millions of gallons of waste into local 
bodies of water. Already, we don't invest enough in our 
infrastructure.
    The power sector is a prime example. Congestion in our 
electric transmission system cost an estimated 20.8 billion 
last year alone. The price of congestion.
     Before passage of the bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the 
American Society of Civil Engineers estimated our 
infrastructure funding gap at $10.3 trillion, and would cost 3 
million jobs by 2039, even without the additional burdens of 
climate change.
    Climate change presents two public policy imperatives. 
First, we must zero out emissions by 2050 to avoid even worse 
dangers for our planet, and human way of life. And second, we 
must withstand the warming and weather we are already 
experiencing that is locked in.
    A low carbon economy will require thousands of miles of 
transmission lines, new zero carbon sources of power 
generation, much more high speed rail, new hydrogen and CO2 
pipelines, facilities for critical minerals and more. I 
appreciate very much that Ranking Member Grassley has invited 
an expert on permitting to testify today, as figuring out how 
to build out this infrastructure quickly and equitably will be 
a key challenge of the next few decades.
    Similarly, if we don't want to have to spend tens of 
billions of dollars rebuilding and re-rebuilding roads, 
buildings, sewage systems, levees and other infrastructure 
damaged by climate related extreme weather, we're going to have 
to figure out how to build smarter and better.
    The good news is that these investments to bolster our 
infrastructure create jobs, promote economic growth and are 
cost-effective. Many states recognize this value. Louisiana's 
legislature passed all four of its coastal master plans 
unanimously.
    Let me close by recognizing Ranking Member Grassley for 
Iowa's leadership on wind power.
    64 percent of Iowa's energy production now comes from wind, 
a new record for the state, and I believe a record among states 
for the country. We will need the kind of leadership of Iowa on 
wind power, or Louisiana on coastal resiliency if we are to 
tackle the climate danger before it's too late.
    Repeatedly, this Committee has heard expert testimony about 
the massive economic and fiscal costs of dawdling. Those 
dangers are clear and present. I hope that the message is 
getting through. This is real. And Senator Grassley now.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GRASSLEY \2\
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    \2\ Prepared statement of Senator Grassley appears in the appendix 
on page 38.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Senator Grassley. Before I begin my opening statement, I 
want to go back to a discussion that we had in this Committee 
at the last hearing that was a climate hearing. On your side of 
the aisle it was touted a September 2021 International Monetary 
Fund (IMF) working paper on fossil fuel subsidies. This paper 
supposedly bolsters the view that climate catastrophe is on the 
horizon.
    You explicitly called it peer reviewed in order to support 
the case. On page 2 of that paper in question reads quote, 
``IMF working papers describe research in progress by the 
authors, and are published to elicit comments, and to encourage 
debate. The views expressed in the IMF working papers are those 
of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of 
the IMF, its executive board, or IMF management.''
    Dr. Roger Pielke, a non-partisan climate scientist who has 
testified at the invitation of both Democrats and Republicans, 
provided further insight on this study in response to a 
question for the record. I asked him within that question for 
the record if a meeting between the IMF Director and democratic 
Senators has any bearing on whether an IMF working paper is 
peer reviewed.
    He responded, ``The IMF working paper would be properly 
called a pre-print in the scientific community. That is not the 
equivalent of a peer review paper.'' And then further quoting, 
``Any single peer reviewed paper is typically a small 
contribution to knowledge of particular copy. Most papers offer 
less than that.''
    He then further followed up by saying, ``Peer reviewed 
literature provides an ample resource for those who might wish 
to cherry pick those individual articles that might seem to 
offer the best support for their preferred position. This may 
be useful in political advocacy, or posturing, but it does not 
offer a reliable route to effective analysis that might inform 
policy.''
    If the Committee is to continue focusing on climate change 
it's important that we listen to the non-partisan scientists, 
rather than speculate with international bureaucrats. Now on to 
my opening statement.
    Chairman Whitehouse. May I respond to that just briefly.
    Senator Grassley. Yes, you sure can.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Because we actually had the President 
of the IMF in for a briefing to the Budget Committee. Every 
member was invited. No member on your side chose to attend. The 
President walked through how this worked, and she said that the 
methodology of that IMF report is in fact peer reviewed, but 
because it is done repeatedly, they don't peer review each 
individual report.
    But she confirmed that the methodology is in fact, peer 
reviewed. And second, she made very clear that the IMF does 
endorse and support and stand behind those reports. So if 
sadly, nobody was there to see her say that, but that is what 
she said, and please go ahead with the rest of your statement.
    Senator Grassley. Okay. Our nation is over $32 trillion in 
debt, yet this Committee is holding the 11th hearing on climate 
change. President Biden is on television bragging about his 
economic performance when Americans can't afford groceries and 
gasoline.
    Our spending is out of control, and the democrats haven't 
written a budget in the past two years. As I've said many 
times, climate change is a topic very worthy of discussion. I'm 
the father of the wind energy tax credit, as you said about 
Iowa getting so much of our electricity from wind.
    I fought for renewable energy long before climate change 
became such a political popular topic. Democrats called this 
hearing to discuss the physical impact of climate change on the 
infrastructure. I imagine we'll hear some expensive estimates 
and alarming anecdotes about the impact of severe weather 
events on infrastructure.
    But there isn't a single expert in this room who is 
qualified as a climate scientist who attribute those estimates 
and anecdotes expressly to climate change. However, several 
panelists are more than capable of discussing major policy 
issues like our broken federal permitting system, which 
continues to impede critical infrastructure projects.
    These projects would make our infrastructure more resilient 
to weather, stronger for everyday use, and would reduce 
emissions, but environmental permitting delays, caused by 
environmental groups and their friends in Congress, continue to 
drive up federal infrastructure spending along with the energy 
bills and taxes of our constituents.
    This is why I'm excited to welcome Mrs. Apsey, she's 
President and CEO of ITC Holdings, the largest independent 
electricity transmission company in the United States. ITC 
operates more than 6,600 circuit miles of transmission lines in 
Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Missouri.
    As the head of a company that actually is building 
infrastructure. Mrs. Apsey will highlight the real reasons why 
our electric grid is in peril, and why we are unable to 
complete transmission projects like the Cardinal-Hickory Creek 
One in Dubuque County, Iowa.
    Her testimony is one that my friends on the other side of 
the aisle simply don't want to hear, while accusing the fossil 
fuel industry of corruption, and accusing those they disagree 
with of criminal activity.
    They've supported astronomical, unrealistic electric 
vehicles and renewable energy goals. But they're unwilling to 
support reform to environmental legislation like the National 
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Clean Water Act, which 
impede the construction of the same infrastructure necessary to 
even attempt to meet those goals.
    A few experts understand this better than Mr. Herrgott, 
President and CEO of the Permitting Institute. He worked to 
limit permitting delays for infrastructure projects while at 
the White House, where he served as both Executive Director of 
the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, and 
Director of Infrastructure at the Council of Environmental 
Quality.
    Mr. Herrgott will show us that the democrat's grand visions 
of renewable energy are just that unless they reverse the 
course on their disastrous permitting positions. From Iowa to 
Rhode Island, our nation's roads, bridges, waterways and energy 
infrastructure are essential to America's economy, trade and 
vitality.
    I'm sure all of us here, as well as those Senators on the 
Environment and Public Works (EPW) and Energy and Natural 
Resource Committees can agree that we can work together to 
craft legislation to improve our national infrastructure in 
order to reduce our ballooning national debt. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Senator Grassley. 
I am very pleased to have a distinguished panel of five 
reputable and serious witnesses before us today. First is the 
56th Governor of the State of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards. As I 
noted in my opening remarks, Louisiana, under the Governor's 
leadership is acting to address the pervasive and serious 
challenge that climate change presents to infrastructure, 
particularly along its highly vulnerable coastlines.
    Thank you Governor Edwards, for taking time to join us 
today. Your presence underscores the importance of our hearing. 
Our second witness is the Hon. Dr. Susan Tierney. Dr. Tierney 
is a Senior Advisor with the Analysis Group, an economic, 
financial and strategic consulting company. Previously, she 
served as the Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. 
Department of Energy.
    In Massachusetts, she was the Secretary of Environmental 
Affairs, Commissioner at the Department of Public Utilities, 
and Director of the State's Energy Facility Siting Council. Our 
third witness is Dr. Jesse Keenan, an Associate Professor of 
Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning at Tulane 
University. That makes two Louisianans here. We're doing 
strong.
    His research focuses on the intersection of climate change 
adaptation and the built environment, including aspects of 
design engineering, regulation planning and financing. He also 
serves as a Senior Economist with the U.S. Army Corp of 
Engineers Research and Development Centers Environmental Lab.
    Following Dr. Keenan is Mrs. Linda Apsey, the President and 
CEO of ITC Holding Corp, the largest independent electricity 
transmission company in the U.S. Its regulated subsidies 
include ITC Transmission, Michigan Electric Transmission 
Company, ITC Midwest, and ITC Great Plains, through which it 
owns and operates high-voltage transmission infrastructure in 
Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and 
Oklahoma, with development underway in Wisconsin.
    Our final witness is Alex Herrgott, President and CEO of 
the Permitting Institute, which focuses on accelerating 
investment in infrastructure of all types. During the prior 
administration Mr. Herrgott served as Executive Director of the 
Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, and as 
Associate Director for Infrastructure at the Council on 
Environmental Quality. Thank you all for joining us today.
    Governor, the floor is yours to deliver your opening 
remarks. Everyone's complete statement will be made a matter of 
record, so please honor the five minute rule.

    STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN BEL EDWARDS, GOVERNOR, 
                         LOUISIANA \3\
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    \3\ Prepared statement of Hon. Edwards appears in the appendix on 
page 41.
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    Governor Edwards. Good morning and thank you, Chairman 
Whitehouse and Ranking Member Grassley, and all the members. I 
appreciate the opportunity to testify today, and I know there 
are a lot of coastal champions on this Committee, and I 
appreciate each and every one of you, and that includes Senator 
Kennedy.
    As Governor of Louisiana, I have devoted considerable time 
to one of the most pressing issues of our day, and that is 
climate change. As you will see from my full written statement, 
there are many lessons for Louisiana to share with this 
Committee. And we don't pretend that we've mastered this 
subject matter, and that we get it all right, but we have 
learned an awful lot of lessons, and I think we're doing some 
good work.
    We've experienced significant devastation in our recent 
history from hurricanes, floods, sea level rise, subsidence, 
coastal land lost, habitat degradation and extreme heat. 
Because we've been tested more than anywhere else in the 
country, Louisiana has gone to great lengths to increase the 
resilience of our communities, our economy and our eco system.
    Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the state crafted, 
and the legislature unanimously approved the first 
comprehensive master plan for a sustainable coast in 2007. 
Since then we've updated the plan three more times, most 
recently this May. The Coastal Master Plan is a $50 billion, 50 
year roadmap that prioritizes our investments in coastal 
infrastructure. The plan reflects the best available science, 
accounting for changes on the ground and forecasting what is at 
risk in our future.
    It recommends major investments in levee protection, home 
elevations, and ecosystem restoration. Importantly, if our 
coastal master plan is fully implemented, we could have less at 
risk in 50 years than we do today. The plan also shows how 
unacceptable a future without action could be, as we would lose 
thousands of square miles of land and increase Louisiana's 
annual risk by close to $25 billion.
    To put that in perspective, our state general fund is less 
than $12 billion on an annual basis. Of course, Louisiana is 
already building infrastructure to mitigate climate risk and 
increase resilience. Our experience proves that such 
investments do in fact pay off.
    The $14.5 billion federal and state investment in the 
Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction 
System was put to that test by Hurricanes Issac, Barry, Zeta 
and most recently, and the most powerful of all those 
Hurricane, Ida.
    The system works, and it's saved federal treasury billions 
of dollars in recovery expenses. Louisiana Highway 1 is another 
example. We're elevating a 19 mile stretch of two lane Highway 
22--I'm sorry, of Highway 22 feet above the marsh to avoid 
increasingly frequent flooding.
    This road is the vital evacuation route. It's also an 
essential transportation link to the nation's energy sector to 
Port Fourchon, which more than 90 percent of all of the Gulf of 
Mexico oil and gas production and exploration is actually 
serviced out of that port, and each day the highway is closed 
it costs the U.S. about $46 billion in lost energy production, 
and $528 million in forgone domestic product.
    Now this is an $850 million project, and that's expensive, 
but it pales in comparison to the cost of inaction. We're also 
addressing the direct impact our residents experienced from 
climate risk through a widespread effort of home elevations and 
voluntary buyouts in repetitive flood areas.
    We recently completed the relocation of the Isle de Jean 
Charles Native American community to a more resilient housing, 
in a more sustainable part of Terrebonne Parish. We're working 
with the Army Corps of Engineers on a $300 million elevation 
program in southwest Louisiana, and we're conducting seven 
other buyout programs across the state through our watershed 
initiative.
    By proactively moving residents out of harm's way we can 
sustain communities, increase equity for disadvantaged 
residents, lower insurance premiums, and restore the natural 
function of the flood plains. These projects all require 
partnership with the federal government.
    And funding from both state and federal sources because we 
need greater partnerships, and increased funding to construct 
more resilient infrastructure. And I commend the Chairman and 
other members who have cosponsored the Reinvesting in Shoreline 
Economics and Ecosystems (RISEE) Act. By sharing energy revenue 
with impacted coastal states, RISEE will enable those states to 
make proactive investments to combat challenges from the 
changing climate, which would save the American people and the 
federal government money in the long run.
    We are an energy state. No doubt about that. In 2020 I 
created the Climate Initiative Task Force to develop a Climate 
Action Plan, achieving buying into substantial Community and 
stakeholder engagement, 15 months, 49 public hearings, and the 
input of 150 stakeholders, where we unanimously adopted a plan 
to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
    This is the only such plan in the Gulf South, but we're 
already seeing results. Since adoption in 2022, the Climate 
Action Plan has attracted more than $26 billion in low carbon 
economic development to the State of Louisiana, and it also 
guided our pursuit of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 
(IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding.
    And Mr. Chairman, again, I'm happy to be here and I look 
forward to answering the questions from the Committee.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much Governor, I turn 
now to Dr. Tierney.

  STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SUSAN F. TIERNEY, PH.D., SENIOR 
                  ADVISOR, ANALYSIS GROUP \4\
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    \4\ Prepared statement of Hon. Tierney appears in the appendix on 
page 47.
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    Dr. Tierney. Good morning Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking 
Member Grassley, and members of the Committee. Thank you so 
much for inviting me to testify this morning, and I have two 
main points. First, as we have just heard, the nation's energy 
infrastructure is already being adversely impacted by the 
changing climate.
    Second, given the nation's dependence on well-functioning 
energy infrastructure, this is leading to great suffering, both 
directly by increasing costs, disrupting heating and cooling, 
and indirectly by disrupting electricity services and causing 
energy prices to spike.
    Given the Budget Committee's jurisdiction, I focus today on 
describing these circumstances rather than the solutions. 
Everyday the news highlights the many ways in which our country 
is being hit by extreme weather. These circumstances are not 
surprising, but they are challenging.
    For example, in December 2022, Winter Storm Elliott across 
the country took out power to hundreds of thousands of 
Americans. A fourth of PJM's generating capacity was out of 
operations across a 13 state region in the area between Chicago 
and the Mid-Atlantic states. Most of that was gas-fired power 
plants, accounting for 70 percent of the outages due to 
equipment and fuel problems.
    Texas, in February 2021, Winter Storm Uri brought extreme, 
severe cold and ice, electricity prices spiked to 100 times 
their normal levels, leaving many consumers with unbearable 
electricity bills. Over 246 people died, financial losses 
ranged from 80 to 130 billion.
    In 2019 in Northern California, the utilities proactive 
electricity shutoffs during high wildfire risk conditions 
impacted over 1 million customers and cost $2 billion.
    Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, one-third of domestic 
U.S. production, one-sixth of domestic U.S. natural gas 
production, and nearly 10 percent of the nation's refining 
capacity was offline.
    An estimated 4.5 million customers in Louisiana and 
Mississippi lost electrical power. U.S. oil and gas prices were 
double their normal levels for months, and it raised the 
national cost of natural gas on the order of $50 billion in the 
10 months after the storm.
    Even a decade ago, the Department of Energy estimated that 
power outages due to severe weather cost the nation between $24 
and $44 billion a year, that's adjusted for inflation. Such 
effects of the changing climate were detailed in the energy 
chapters of the most recent national climate assessment.
    For example, and I'm quoting here, ``The reliability, 
security and resilience of the energy system underpins 
virtually every sector of the U.S. economy. The nation's energy 
system is already affected by extreme weather events. Due to 
the changing climate the energy system is projected to be 
increasingly threatened by more frequent, longer lasting power 
outages, affecting critical energy infrastructure, and creating 
fuel shortages.
    Widespread energy disruptions can take weeks to fully 
resolve at sizeable economic cost. The petroleum, natural gas 
and electrical infrastructure along the east and Gulf Coasts 
are at extreme increased risk of damage.'' This is from the 
2018 assessment still.
    ``This vulnerable infrastructure serves other parts of the 
country, so regional disruptions are projected to have national 
long-lived implications.'' Now the upcoming fifth national 
climate assessment will surely point to the worsening 
conditions on energy infrastructure, and on disadvantaged 
communities across the country.
    In closing, I encourage Congress to act swiftly to address 
the emissions that are the root cause of climate change, and 
its adverse impacts on American infrastructure and citizens. 
Thank you very much.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much. Dr. Keenan, 
please proceed.

STATEMENT OF DR. JESSE M. KEENAN, FAVROT II ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR 
     OF SUSTAINABLE REAL ESTATE AND URBAN PLANNING, TULANE 
                         UNIVERSITY \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \5\ Prepared statement of Dr. Keenan appears in the appendix on 
page 58.
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    Dr. Keenan. Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Grassley, 
Members of the Committee. In my remarks today I'd like to 
outline how climate attributed physical impacts impose 
increasingly burdensome financial capital and operational costs 
for taxpayers, consumers, and infrastructure providers.
    The United States is facing increased electricity 
production costs in order of $50 billion a year by 2050. This 
figure does include increase costs for cooling buildings, 
charging cars, increased demand for water recycling. Pumping 
drinking water farther distances, water desalination, and 
increased agricultural irrigation.
    Additional costs for extreme weather like hurricanes and 
wildfires are among a wide variety of direct costs that will 
continue to be passed on to utility ratepayers. As a resident 
of New Orleans, my own electric utility only a few years ago 
just removed a bill surcharge for post-Hurricane Katrina, 13 
years after the fact.
    And the transportation sector, physical impacts have been 
widely observed from everything from extreme heatwaves to flood 
events, compromising roads, tarmacs and rail lines, as well as 
pipelines. Annual direct damages for roads and rail impacts are 
estimated to be under just 20 billion dollars a year by 2050. 
Increased operation and maintenance expenses for paving and 
resurfacing the roads is estimated to be approximately 19 
billion at the end of this decade, a year.
    None of these cost estimates and projections account for 
the indirect cost for increased logistic cost, fuel cost, delay 
costs, and lost economic output. For instance, when the water 
is too high, or too low in the Mississippi River, boat traffic 
delays have ripple effects on domestic and international food 
and grain markets.
    Within the water and wastewater sectors, annualized urban 
drainage infrastructure damages are estimated to be 
approximately 4 billion by 2050, with an additional 2 billion 
in costs associated with impairments to existing public water 
systems.
    This latter figure does not count for the untold costs of 
adaptations to address water scarcity challenges facing the 
western United States, where with reduced irrigation, 
additional groundwater mining, and increased reservoir storage 
capacity posing significant additional costs.
    Most importantly, infrastructure is getting more expensive 
because the municipal bond market is beginning to price climate 
risk. When the infrastructure providers issue general 
obligation bonds, investors are concern that a degraded tax 
base may impact the fiscal stability of the issuer over the 
term of the bond.
    This default risk is amplified for revenue bonds. For 
instance, if a toll road is washed out in the event of a 
climate event, then the payment of that bond may be compromised 
for as long as those tolls are not being paid. Recent research 
has highlighted that after disasters local governments are more 
likely to issue these revenue bonds, and that post-disaster 
issuances are paying higher comparative yields.
    Increases in capital costs may also be attributed to 
increased construction costs for incorporating engineering 
resilience within assets. For instance, a flood mitigation 
system may have to build a higher levee with greater pumping 
capacity to accommodate future projected precipitation, storm 
surge and sea level rise design standards.
    Operations and maintenance costs, O&M form climate impacts 
are perhaps one of the most immediate cost burdens for 
infrastructure providers. Additional costs for things like 
greater energy expenses for pumping storm water, more storm 
water that is, are all drags on the financial balance sheet of 
providers, and increasingly cost burden to ratepayers.
    Unfortunately, the United States is grossly behind in the 
codification of climate sensitive design and engineering 
standards, and on the lifecycle cost accounting for evaluating 
the total cost of climate impairments over the useful life of 
these assets. As this country embarks on a new era of 
infrastructure investment, we have to ask ourselves some 
difficult questions.
    Are we designing today's infrastructure to hail to 
tomorrow's load and environmental demand? In high risk zones, 
that is high-risk impact zones, where will we invest, and where 
will we disinvest in infrastructure? And finally, are we 
accounting and budgeting for the anticipated increased costs 
and operational expenses?
    Proper fiscal stewardship in the face of climate impacts 
will require stakeholders to work together to provide 
transparency and accountability. A failure to recognize and 
account for these costs will not only undermine the reliability 
of our infrastructure it will undermine our global economic 
competitiveness. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and 
I look forward to your questions.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much. Ms. Apsey.

STATEMENT OF LINDA APSEY, PRESIDENT AND CEO, ITC HOLDINGS CORP 
                              \6\
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    \6\ Prepared statement of Mrs. Apsey appears in the appendix on 
page 67.
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    Mrs. Apsey. Great. Thank you, and good morning Chair 
Whitehouse, Ranking Member Grassley, and distinguished members 
of the Committee. I am Linda Apsey, president and CEO of ITC 
Holdings Corp, the nation's largest independent transmission 
company. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
    Next month marks the 20th anniversary of the northeast 
blackout that left 50 million people in the dark. It was the 
largest blackout in North American history, and a sobering 
reminder of how vulnerable our nation's energy security can be 
when we fail to adequately invest in transmission 
infrastructure.
    The investment we make in transmission, as well as the 
regulatory and policy environment our leaders create, will 
determine the success of our energy future. I assure you there 
are measures we can take to get there however we must act with 
the same urgency and vigor that our industry and government 
leaders did 20 years ago.
    Now more than ever the health of our nation's economy 
depends on reliable and affordable access to electricity. For 
the rolling farmlands of eastern Iowa to the busy streets of 
Detroit, millions of people depend on ITC to operate the grid 
safely and reliably. However, building transmission can take up 
to a decade if not more, a pace nowhere near fast enough to 
meet the administration's clean energy goals.
    It's imperative that we examine changes to ensure that 
investment in transmission is predictable, timely and cost-
effective in order to realize the benefits of a modern 
transmission grid. While ITC has made significant investments 
in our transmission grid over the past 20 years, we are only as 
strong as our weakest link.
    The transmission grid is a highly interconnected network of 
high voltage lines that moves power within our states across 
state lines, across vast regions, and over international 
borders. The demands on our grid, and impacts on weather events 
are ever increasing, putting increased strain on an already 
fragile grid. The American Society for Civil Engineers gives 
our energy grid a C minus, hardly an acceptable grade for 
today's needs, far less our future.
    Our Midwest geography is no stranger to the severe weather 
that is impacting infrastructure all over the country. Our 
regions frequently experience ice storms, wind storms, 
flooding, and other natural disasters of increasing severity. 
In 2020, Iowa experienced a devastating derecho storm causing 
widespread power outages. It was the equivalent of a 40 mile 
wide tornado steamrolling across 200 miles of the state.
    Since that time, Iowa has experienced two additional 
derechos that have caused damage to electrical infrastructure. 
These storms, along with the recent extended heatwaves across 
much of the U.S. demonstrate the importance of a resilient and 
reliable grid. To promote needed investment, more needs to be 
done to address how we plan, how we pay for, and how we permit 
transmission.
    To begin, policymakers should adopt transmission planning 
policies that capture and account for the full range of 
transmission benefits, not just the narrow definition of 
benefits that transmission is evaluated on today. Doing so will 
help to realize highly valuable regional transmission projects.
    Policymakers should also establish more robust 
interregional transmission planning standards, which can drive 
reliability and resilience across regions, particularly during 
severe weather conditions. And in addition, policymakers should 
continue to focus on streamlining permitting approval processes 
at both the state and federal level.
    Recently Congress made progress by passing federal 
permitting reforms, but more needs to be done to decrease the 
amount of time it takes to obtain permits for major 
transmission lines, and minimize the potential for multiple 
lawsuits and litigation.
    For example, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator's 
(MISO) Cardinal-Hickory Creek Project, 102 mile transmission 
line from Dubuque, Iowa to Dane County, Wisconsin, is the last 
remaining project to be constructed in MISO's Multi-Value 
Project (MVP) portfolio from 2011. These projects were designed 
to deliver renewable energy to meet state renewable energy 
standards, provide access to lower cost generation, and enhance 
grid reliability.
    Over 100 renewable generation projects are awaiting 
completion of the Cardinal-Hickory Project in order to 
interconnect to the grid, resulting in hundreds of millions of 
dollars in lost energy savings to customers. However, the 
project has been plagued by costly delays and permitting 
challenges due to the 1.3 miles that crosses federal land.
    The federal government and project owners recently won a 
major decision from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that 
clears the way for the federal agencies to make their final 
decisions on the project. We stand ready to complete and 
energize the line, however this is contingent on expeditious 
federal action review.
    The ability to effectively and efficiently make needed 
investments in our transmission grid will determine whether we 
can achieve our critical economic security and energy goals. 
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify before the 
Committee, and I look forward to your questions.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much. Our final witness 
is Mr. Herrgott.

    STATEMENT OF ALEXANDER HERRGOTT, PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE 
                    PERMITTING INSTITUTE \7\
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    \7\ Prepared statement of Mr. Herrgott appears in the appendix on 
page 73.
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    Mr. Herrgott. Chairman Whitehouse and Ranking Member 
Grassley, my name is Alex Herrgott, and I'm President of the 
Permitting Institute (TPI), and the former and first appointed 
Executive Director of the Federal Permitting Improvement 
Steering Council.
    TPI is a federal and state focused, non-partisan, non-
profit serving as an authoritative voice on permitting, and a 
trusted expert resource in education partner for federal and 
state policymakers and regulators.
    Our diverse membership collectively support a common goal 
of accelerating infrastructure across all sectors. TPI members 
and staff speak from experience that comes from writing the 
laws in Congress, then developing projects, financing them, 
permitting them, siting them and interacting with the 
government officials for implementing a myriad of laws, 
regulations and guidelines that determine where, how and when a 
project gets built.
    The reality is that every project that turns dirt, 
regardless of the sector that you care about, encounters 
habitat, alters landscape, creates unavoidable interactions 
with nature triggering hundreds of reviews and regulations that 
govern infrastructure permits at the federal, state and local 
level.
    As the Chairman knows all too well, or as you can see from 
the chart is that infrastructure permitting is carried out by 
13 agencies operating under the authority of dozens of 
statutes, some of which are more than 100 years old. The result 
is a permitting process mired with excessive delays and 
litigation risk that stifles investment.
    Now the Energy Act of 2020, the bipartisan Infrastructure 
Law, Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors 
(CHIPS) Act, IRA, they provide an unprecedented funding for our 
nation's critical infrastructure. However, the omission of 
significant permitting reforms in this legislation is 
undermining one of the largest single federal investments in 
infrastructure since the depression.
    While Congress has agreed on modest process reforms to 
achieve greater coordination efficiency, these service level 
process changes have only served as band-aids and are not the 
necessary surgical cure.
    To be clear, interagency coordination and transparency, 
dashboards, executive orders, White House permitting action 
plans, and a strengthened federal permitting improvement 
steering council are very much needed, however they're not the 
sufficient step to reduce the hundreds of billions of dollars 
in costs associated with infrastructure permitting across all 
sectors.
    Even with the subset of reforms in the Fiscal 
Responsibility Act, just recently in the debt limit deal, would 
represent the most significant legislative changes to NEPA in 
40 years. In practice, developers will still experience most of 
the same obstacles and avoidable process delays that have 
plagued this system for decades.
    Truly impactful legislation will have to move beyond macro 
level NEPA changes, and untangle the web of confusion of 
uncertainties in this chart. The challenges and costs inflicted 
by our broken permitting system do not discriminate by sector. 
Whether it was three years on the Mid-Barataria Coastal 
Restoration Project, or as the Chairman knows all too well, 
with offshore wind.
    In the last two years the Federal Permitting Improvements 
Hearing Council executive directors received and approved more 
than 17 requests from lead permitting agencies to extend the 
completion date for at least 10 offshore wind projects on the 
dashboard, creating an additional 10 years that was not 
anticipated at the beginning of the permitting timetable.
    This is not unique to offshore wind. It's for traditional 
fossil fuel, broadband, water, you name it. The problem is 
getting worse not better at a time when we can least afford it. 
No one wins under the current system, not the companies on the 
frontlines of transitioning the U.S. harnessing technology for 
greener energy generation and storage, not the environment, and 
not the majority of Americans that will bear the brunt of these 
increased energy environment costs.
    On average, private developers reported that 20 to 30 
percent of total project costs is wasted on delays. All these 
costs are ultimately passed on to citizens, either through 
taxes, tolls, or increased rates and usage fees. It's not all 
bad news. We're seeing glimpses of what sound reform can do, 
and there's an opportunity for lawmakers to build and expand on 
the reforms enacted over the last decade.
    But in order to do that the process must be transparent. At 
present, outside of the Federal Permitting Council, some small 
issues at the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission (FERC), and the Department of 
Transportation (DOT) projects trapped under one federal 
decision under the IIJA there is no central repository in real 
time tracking on the inventory and status of projects 
navigating their way through the federal agencies.
    The lack of process transparency allows for gamesmanship of 
two year timelines, and the lack of publicly available data 
prevents stakeholder engagement, and our ability to accurately 
diagnose the problem. We don't need to hide the problems. This 
is not a republican or a democrat issue, it is a process issue 
we can fix.
    The beauty of transparency is that the facts now drive this 
debate, not hyperbole and posturing. The reality is that the 
last significant study of NEPA timelines was completed by the 
Council of Environmental Quality more than five years ago. 
Where's that study?
    While it can be convenient to blame the faceless 
bureaucrats for delays and process problems as someone who 
worked alongside the hardworking pioneers of the Federal 
Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC) dashboard, and 
the thousands of dedicated project managers across the 
interagency process, I encourage Congress to refrain from such 
rhetoric. Instead I challenge you to help me and others make 
public service the desired pathway by recognizing the talents 
required, and the contributions of these agency professionals 
that make towards advancing America's infrastructure goals.
    TPI believes the majority of republics and democrats in 
Congress, make for a faster, more transparent, predictable and 
accountable permitting process. But we first must collectively 
acknowledge that the modernization of what have often been 
called bedrock environmental laws will absolutely be required.
    Despite bipartisan agreement that the country's permitting 
process is broken, skepticism over the motivations behind the 
new legislative reform proposals, and the outside stakeholders, 
each prioritizing their narrow interest, and the fear of what a 
negotiated compromise may look like at the end of a conference 
or of a bill, it is uninhibited additional reforms.
    However, I remain cautiously optimistic that reform is 
achievable. From our vantage point at TPI, we see staff on both 
side of the aisle, and from all centers coming to us with the 
same challenge with the old version of a proposed solution.
    By providing technical assistance, and connecting members 
and stakeholders with that shared interest, we at TPI are 
working to help build a bridge required for comprehensive 
reform that eliminates obstacles for all American 
infrastructure development, not just the one that you care 
about.
    Thank you for your time, and I look forward for answering 
your questions.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Well thank you Mr. Herrgott, and 
congratulations on a truly heroic effort to pack the maximum 
number of words into your five minute window. That was 
impressively done, and also thank you for your reference to 
offshore wind, which will take me to Governor Edwards.
    First of all thank you for your positive mention, and for 
your support for the RISEE Act. This will provide revenues to 
coastal states like yours. It will expand offshore wind, 
particularly in the Gulf. It will add the construction and 
manufacturing jobs associated with offshore wind, and provide 
an economic hedge for the Gulf states against carbon bubble 
risk to state and local revenues.
    So I'm really grateful for your support. Tell me a little 
bit about what is happening along the Louisiana coast right 
now. What are you looking at?
    Governor Edwards. With respect to wind or more broadly?
    Chairman Whitehouse. With respect to coastal risk, coastal 
harms.
    Governor Edwards. Yes, sir. Well, you know, we are 
particularly challenged in Louisiana, and have been for a long 
time. We've lost 2,000 square miles of land since 1930. 
Inaction going forward with sea level rise alone we would lose 
another 3,000 square miles over the next 50 years, of course 
inaction is not----
    Chairman Whitehouse. A grand total of 5,000 square miles?
    Governor Edwards. Yes, sir. But inaction is not an option, 
and in fact that's not what we're doing. We have the country's 
most robust plan for coastal restoration and protection. We are 
investing mildly for a state our size. In 2007 when we came up 
with a plan that says $50 billion over 50 years, there was 
nothing magical about it, we just couldn't imagine we would 
ever have more than a billion dollars a year.
    And we said okay, what would we do? We are actually on 
track. Last year we spent $1.3 billion in our coast. This year 
will be 1.6 billion, and critically important is the RISEE Act 
because we constitutionally dedicate all of our federal 
offshore revenue for all gas production to our coast.
    And we, unlike interior states, we're lending at 37.5 
percent, not 50 percent. Capped at $375 million, and then it's 
shared among 4 states. So the RISEE Act would address that, but 
more importantly for us, or at least significantly it would be, 
create a revenue sharing around wind, which would be critically 
important for Louisiana because we are going to develop wind.
    There's a lease sale going to happen next month off the 
coast of Louisiana by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management 
(BOEM), but also we have five companies that are interested in 
state water wind development as well. So that's critically 
important. And Mr. Chairman, one of the things we have to start 
planning for is in 2031 the Deepwater Horizon oil spill damages 
that are funding the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion for 
example at almost $3 billion.
    Those funds go away. We really want to replace that to the 
extent that we can, at least, with wind energy revenue. So 
we've got a lot going on on our coast, and like other states, 
you know, we've got 40 percent of our people live in South 
Louisiana now, and it's such a huge part of our economy. It's a 
special place for the country, not just for Louisiana.
    But we have a real sense of urgency about what we're doing, 
and I know you've been down there to see it. And I invite all 
the Committee members to come and see what we're doing in 
Louisiana. I'm proud of our efforts, and I've traveled to the 
Netherlands and other places.
    What we're doing in Louisiana it is on scale with anything 
happening anywhere in the world right now.
    Chairman Whitehouse. The infrastructure costs that you're 
bearing to adapt to and protect against climate change and sea 
level rise, I assume that the federal government is a partner 
in that, and some of those costs revert back to the federal 
government. What is the scale of the state and federal 
investment that you look forward to?
    Governor Edwards. Well first of all the federal government 
has been a tremendous partner. If you just go back to Hurricane 
Katrina, with the failure of the federal levees around New 
Orleans, which really caused the enormous death and damage. 
There's been $14.5 billion of investment now. We have our share 
of that, and we're certainly needing that.
    But that was borne by and large through the generosity of 
people all over the country, hugely important. The Corps of 
Engineers is engaged in 10 projects all over the State of 
Louisiana, primarily in the south along the coast, along the 
river there that will have tremendous impact.
    So yes, there's tremendous investment, but it is literally 
in the billions of dollars. These are not small investments. 
But one of the things that I would like to point out, and they 
are paying off. Hurricane Ida hit southeast Louisiana in 2021, 
it was stronger than Hurricane Katrina, and a very similar 
trajectory when it hit the state.
    Very little damage compared to Hurricane Katrina, and so 
those were costs saved, and I'm sitting here not just because 
of what's happened since I've been Governor, but I firmly 
believe that the storm events are going to be more frequent, 
and they're going to be more severe, and therefore the cost 
savings will be more frequent, and they will be greater over 
time.
    Another example of this is that Corps authorized a 
protection project from Morganza to the Gulf. Hurricane Rita in 
2005, a nine foot storm surge in this area inundated 11,000 
structures. The work that we did, Hurricane Barry, same area, 9 
foot of storm surge, 11 structures. 11,000 versus 11. It costs 
a lot, but the savings accrue for a very long time.
    Now we're having a challenge getting FEMA to recognize all 
that work, and have it reflected in the Risk Rating 2.0 
premiums for the National Flood Insurance Program, that's 
another thing. But we know that these investments pay off over 
time, and they produce savings. And it's just it's so good for 
the economy, and otherwise.
    Chairman Whitehouse. So big investments could be wise 
investments. My time has expired. Let me yield to Senator 
Grassley. I will have some questions for the record for the 
other witnesses, and there is time to turn around those 
answers, so please be ready for those questions for the record 
when they come in, and please respond timely. Senator Grassley.
    Senator Grassley. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thanks to all of 
you for your testimony. I'm going to start out with Mrs. Apsey. 
President Biden's goal of making 50 percent of all new vehicles 
electric by 2030, and shifting to 100 percent carbon pollution 
free electricity by 2035, most people believe that these goals 
are impossible to meet.
    Americans don't want and can't seem to afford the dramatic 
shift to expensive electric vehicles, and a 79 percent fossil 
fuel energy mix can't change overnight. So to you, let's take a 
moment to talk about the grid. Does the United States currently 
have the infrastructure in place to even come close to 
achieving Biden's renewable goals?
    Mrs. Apsey. Great. Thank you for the question. From a 
transmission infrastructure perspective, transmission serves 
multiple needs, access to the grid, reliability, resiliency, 
security, and ultimately obviously allowing electric vehicles, 
or the electrification of our economy.
    However, our grid is not in a state even today to meet the 
current stresses on our grid, as we've talked about. And given 
the timeline to build the time it takes to plan a transmission 
project, to the time we actually put a transmission line into 
service, on average if all goes well, it takes seven years.
    I gave you an example of a project that has taken at least 
12 years. So the challenge, I think from a transmission 
infrastructure perspective, is that while the utility sector 
has made significant strides in decarbonizing, there's I think 
we've gotten to probably about almost 50 percent, you know, 
reduction in carbon. So the remaining distance is the hardest 
to go.
    Senator Grassley. I think you've answered that question 
well. You mentioned the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission 
project from its delays because of environmental reviews. Why 
hasn't 10 years been enough time to complete that project? 
Who's to blame in that regard?
    Mrs. Apsey. Well the project faces litigation from both 
local groups and national environmental groups that sought to 
litigate the portion of the project across federal wildlife 
refuge. That was the 1.3 miles, and so it's been tied up in 
multiple court venues, and at the same time, you know, we've 
been urging the federal agencies to continue to do the work so 
that when we received the outcome of the court ruling we could 
be in a position to expeditiously move forward with the 
remaining construction on the project.
    At this time, we are still you know, we are still awaiting 
the federal action--federal agencies to take action on the 
remaining permits. While we're hopeful that we can now move to 
quick action, you know, we're somewhat at the hands of the 
federal agencies.
    Senator Grassley. Mr. Herrgott, Biden has prioritized 
preferred green energy projects by government subsidies, and 
concerted regulatory effort to end fossil fuels, however just 
like fossil fuel projects, renewable projects face years of 
permitting delays.
    Why shouldn't permitting reform be at the top list of 
Anyone who's concerned about climate change? And during your 
time at the administration, did you notice any renewable energy 
project delays stemming from democrat inaction?
    Mr. Herrgott. Thank you for that question, Senator. You 
know, I'm often perplexed at the situation we find ourselves in 
on the permitting debate. This isn't like gun control or social 
issues, or social security, or the science of climate change.
    This is an apolitical science based issue, and we are using 
the process as a rhetorical tool to stop the projects that you 
don't like. It's not an effective way in which to adjudicate 
which projects go where. And what we are seeing with comments 
that are coming from my friends in the administration that I 
work with when they say we don't have a problem with NEPA, 95 
percent of all NEPA reviews end up in a categorical exclusion. 
That is misleading, right?
    The reality is that most of those projects that are being 
talked about are smaller, lower level projects at the 
Department of Transportation, and do not take into account 
these large scale energy projects.
    Which is why when the administration--we had to put our 
finger on the scale on wind and several other projects to get 
the Department of Interior to accelerate the time of doing 
these regional Environmental Impact Statements (EIS). And I 
think that what often we find in this situation is that we 
stopped treating capital being put at risk to build all 
infrastructure as partners, and we started to look at them as 
adversaries.
    And I think that there's going to be a tremendous move to 
make this issue a truly bipartisan issue because of the $10 
trillion of investment in infrastructure right now. $4 trillion 
is renewable energy, and on average it is suffering about a 7 
to 10 year delay. This is no longer a republican issue, and I'm 
almost surprised in many ways that republicans pitch permitting 
reform, as it should be coming from the other side.
    Senator Grassley. Governor, I'll have a question for you in 
writing if you please respond to it. I yield.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Next, just for the information to my 
colleagues, first Senator Kaine, Senator Johnson, Senator 
Padilla, and Senator Braun. And for the record I have not given 
up hope on bipartisan permitting reform.
    My Streamlining Interstate Transmission and Electricity 
(SITE) bill on electric transmission is in the Environmental 
Public Works Committee, and has been in Chairman Carper's 
package, and we are finalizing the Offshore Wind bill, which we 
hope will be very bipartisan, and hope very much that we can 
get our Committees to pass significant bipartisan permitting 
legislation that I hope will make all the witnesses happy. 
Senator Kaine.

                   STATEMENT OF SENATOR KAINE

    Senator Kaine. Thanks to our witnesses. It's great to be 
together with you. Virginia is a state that has very 
significant climate challenges. We have 5,000 miles of 
shoreline on the Atlantic and the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton Roads 
1.7 million people, it's often listed next to second to New 
Orleans as the community in the United States, at least in the 
eastern part of the United States most jeopardized by sea level 
rise.
    And in Appalachia where the topography of these narrow 
hollows with streams at the bottom of them often lead to really 
significant storm events that wipe out infrastructure, wipe out 
people's homes. Interestingly, the rainfall in Appalachia on an 
annual basis isn't changing, it's just that it's coming much 
more episodically and violently, which poses real risks to 
infrastructure.
    So on this hearing on infrastructure, I'm kind of focused 
on three kinds of infrastructure in Virginia. First, climate 
affects the existing infrastructure road, the main road into 
the Norfolk Naval Base, our bridges. And when there's damage to 
that infrastructure we've got to rebuild.
    Second in order to deal with some of our climate risks, 
Governor Bel Edwards, I'm a big admirer of what you've done, 
and we're making a lot of resiliency investments in the same 
way that Louisiana has, so that sea level rise doesn't affect 
communities as much. But those resilience investments are 
infrastructure projects that have their own permitting 
requirements.
    And finally, Virginia is really finally embracing kind of 
clean energy with offshore wind, significant solar deployment, 
which requires its own infrastructure, particularly in the 
transmission space. I am very excited about the commitments 
that we have made.
    The American Rescue Plan, by putting money into state and 
local governments. A lot of that one time money was used for 
infrastructure projects. That's great. The Infrastructure Bill, 
the CHIPS Bill, and the Inflation Reduction Act, but I've got 
two worries about our commitment to infrastructure.
    One, is who is going to build it? I think we have some 
significant workforce challenges that we have to grapple with. 
On manufacturing, who's going to make it with an unemployment 
rate that's so low we need to do a lot on the workforce side, 
but the second is the permitting side. And I wanted to ask your 
opinions about this, if witnesses have opinions, and maybe Mr. 
Herrgott I would suspend you might have looked at this more 
closely than others.
    When we were talking about the Inflation Reduction Act last 
summer there was a proposed 90 page permitting reform bill, and 
85 pages of it was permitting reform, and then five pages of it 
was saying but Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) doesn't have to 
apply, doesn't have to go through any of this reform.
    I opposed the five pages at the end because I thought if 
we're going to fix our permitting process, then let everybody 
meet the standards. The will of my colleagues was to the 
contrary, so that MVP had a green light. That's water under the 
bridge. But I'm curious, did you analysis, just kind of from a 
starting standpoint, that 85 page permitting reform proposal?
    Some elements of it were included in the debt ceiling deal, 
but I think sort of modest elements were included. Just from a 
starting standpoint, I've been a little surprised, not on the 
Committees, that that effort hasn't come back before us because 
like you, I think many democrats want to do permitting reform.
    There is an ENR hearing going on right now on permitting 
reform issues, but did you look at that 85 page permitting 
reform proposal, and how would you grade it? What was good? 
What was bad? What wasn't in there that should be there?
    Mr. Herrgott. Well, it's important to keep in mind that in 
the IIJA ability, EPW many of those reforms are codified on the 
DOT side. The fact that that just wasn't a rubber stamp coming 
out of Congress is remarkable to me, but the importance is that 
we're tinkering around the edges.
    Creating deadlines allows for gamesmanship on the front 
end, on deemed approves. It might get you sooner to a no rather 
than a yes. Creating page limits, a 400 page, or a 500 page EIS 
is not the reason why projects are getting delayed two to four 
to five to six years.
    Those are helpful process changes. We need those, but that 
is because we are unwilling to acknowledge that we're going to 
have to open up the Clean Water Act, written 50 years ago, 30 
years before the internet. We're going to have to open up the 
Marine Mammal Protection Act.
    We're going to have to open up these legacy bedrock 
environmental statutes. And in the political climate right now 
in the House and the Senate, I don't blame either side for 
seeing ghosts and what the intentions are on both sides, but 
the fact remains that the shared pain on both sides means that 
when I look at that bill, I go this is great.
    This is going to solve a good amount of interagency 
coordination issues. I hope it doesn't absolve the urgency and 
the imperative of us going deeper, and actually fixing the 
problem, so I wanted it, but I also want it next year, and the 
year after that, and the year after that because the reality 
here is even the fights about making a project take two years.
    And that being objected to is interesting to me considering 
that we now have AI, and natural language processing, and 
technology that can help us arrive at the objective standard 
for qualified project managers to make some objective decisions 
on projects, which is why even in the coastal Virginia offshore 
wind projects the six month delay that just occurred two months 
ago is frustrating to me.
    Just because National Fishery Service, Fish and Wildlife 
and the Corps can't get on the same page. That has nothing to 
do with the environmental laws interagency coordination. They 
have natural conflicts between their laws that forced them to 
delay the project. It has nothing to do with environmental 
protection or justice, or any of that. It's pure conflict.
    Senator Kaine. So I take your assessment of the 85 bill as 
helpful, but not sufficient. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Herrgott. I get paid by the word. I apologize.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Johnson?

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON

    Senator Johnson. Thank you Mr. Chairman. It seems to me 
that the overall question we ought to be asking is with limited 
resources, and we have limited resources, what's the best way 
to spend them? To make sure that we have a reliable grid? To 
make sure that we can mitigate against weather or climate 
change events, and mitigate the problem of hurricanes and 
tornados and floods, that type of thing?
    One thing we can do is stop building in flood zones, 
account for the external costs, the externalities when it comes 
to, you know, building expensive properties on the coastal 
regions. Don't expect the federal government to come in and you 
know, bail you out. So there's some common sense things we can 
do there.
    I'll ask Dr. Tierney and Dr. Keenan. Do you guys know how 
much we've spent in total trying to mitigate climate change 
globally?
    Dr. Tierney. I don't have that number at my fingertips, but 
I would be happy to follow-up with you.
    Senator Johnson. I'd like to hear that. We did have one 
witness from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) who said 
there's a pretty good estimate, about 5 trillion dollars. In 
the Inflation Reduction Act, the green energy component of that 
was Congressional Budget Office (CBO) cost was about 400 
billion, but Goldman Sachs said it's closer to about 1.2 
trillion with a T.
    Throughout these hearings we keep talking about different 
costs, you know, a couple of tens of billions here, 20 billion 
there, 50 billion there. We're talking $1,200 billion. I have 
no idea where that money is going to be spent. If it's going to 
be spent to mitigate climate change, I would argue it's 
probably going to be misspent because I don't think there's 
anything we can really do to hold back the tides.
    If we've already spent $5 trillion and people are still, 
you know, hair on fire concerned that we're going to--the world 
is going to end in 12 years, it's not. You know, Governor Bel 
Edwards, you were talking about the success you're having in 
Louisiana is mitigation efforts, correct?
    I mean wouldn't you like a more certain portion of that 
$1.2 trillion to use to mitigate against hurricanes as opposed 
to $1.2 trillion spent on wind, solar, I don't know how cost 
effective those things are going to be, what that's going to 
do. And I'll ask later Ms. Apsey how does that affect the grid, 
but Governor Bel Edwards?
    Governor Edwards. Well I guess I have a difference of 
opinion with you, Senator. Louisiana is the most adversely 
affected state when it comes to climate change, and we produce 
more CO2 per capita than just about any other state in the 
nation. And I think we need to be acting on both fronts.
    Senator Johnson. Do you think China or India are going to 
give up fossil fuels?
    Governor Edwards. You know, I'm not sure what they will do, 
Senator. I was taught to lead by example and from the front.
    Senator Johnson. Sure. But 80 percent of our power is 
generated by fossil fuels, and we actually had a majority 
witness say that that's not going to change either, so again 
we're just----
    Governor Edwards. I'm not an enemy of fossil fuels. We've 
been a fossil fuel state for over 100 years. But it's clear to 
me if we're going to be an energy state in the next 50 years, 
we're going to embrace the transition. We will reduce our 
reliance on fossil fuels, increase our reliance on clean energy 
such as wind.
    Senator Johnson. I just think that's just not recognizing 
reality, or economic reality. Let me just ask you.
    Dr. Tierney. 40 percent of our power is from non-carbon 
emitting.
    Senator Johnson. Ms. Apsey, I want to ask you. To what 
extent does the wind power, solar power, what does that do in 
terms of grid reliability?
    Ms. Apsey. Wind and power does provide certain benefits to 
the transmission grid. It's available at times other units are 
not available. Look, the transmission grid, the concept is 
right, is if you have it available across a broad regional 
interregional infrastructure, when you don't have capacity or 
availability in one location, it's available somewhere else.
    You need the transmission infrastructure in order to 
transport the electrons to where it needs to go. We see 
benefits from wind and solar. There are times when wind and 
solar is not available. The sun is not shining, the wind is not 
blowing. You know, just no different than you know, we need gas 
plants. We need diversity.
    We need optionality. Ultimately, diversity and optionality 
from a long-term perspective is going to be the best mechanism 
for our long-term energy security.
    Senator Johnson. One of my concerns when I was Chairman of 
Homeland Security was the threat of Electromagnetic Pulse 
(EMP). I realize it's a low probability, but highly 
catastrophic. But even Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), 
and I've been trying to get studies. I've been trying to get 
information, strategies in terms of what we need to do.
    Now from my standpoint, one of the most common sense things 
to do would be to actually purchase and put in place large 
power transformers. Couldn't even get that in the current 
National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Apparently there's 
some study that was part of the Infrastructure Bill, but 
there's no end date.
    We did talk to one transformer company. Probably about 
30,000 large power transformers would cost about $60 to $90 
billion to produce those and have them in place. Would that 
make sense from your standpoint, Ms. Apsey because we would not 
be able to replace those power transformers in the event of 
either an EMP or a GMD event, correct?
    Ms. Apsey. There is a certain limited inventory of spare 
transformers across the country, certainly we have agreements 
with our neighboring utilities, should indeed there be such an 
event that we need a transformer. Look, this country was built 
with many different voltage levels, so while I may have a 
certain transformer specification, my neighbor may have a 
different one.
    The other real issue from a transformer perspective is 
there's no domestic manufacturing of high voltage transformers 
in this country. We depend on the supply from other nations to 
supply our high voltage electric transformers.
    Senator Johnson. So that is a huge vulnerability, I guess 
what I'm arguing with limited resources, I would much rather 
see us spend $60 to $90 billion to purchase those now, put 
those in place offline in case you have one of those high 
catastrophic events, but we're not doing that.
    I mean it's unfortunate because we're again, trying to hold 
back the tides, spending $1.2 trillion is just not going to 
work. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Padilla, particularly grateful 
that Senator Padilla is here given the infrastructure issues 
California is facing after the climate driven wildfires and its 
effect on transmission. Thank you very much Senator Padilla.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA

    Senator Padilla. Thank you Mr. Chair, don't go stealing my 
intro. In many ways I do refer to California as Exhibit A on 
the climate crisis for the reasons Chairman Whitehouse just 
mentioned, and so many more.
    So I want to begin with that maybe, you know that 
California is the bell weather for the climate crisis, whether 
it's feeling and responding to the immediate impacts of extreme 
heat on our most vulnerable, flooding, and what it means for 
drinking water and agricultural production.
    The impact of fire and smoke on communities, let alone 
other agricultural products. We just have to respond to short-
term impacts, but prepare for long-term impacts of our changing 
climate. And just last week the New York Times asked to what 
many referred to as the trillion gallon question. Not the 
million dollar question, the trillion gallon question, what 
happens if California's dams fail as a result of extreme 
weather?
    If recent disasters are an indicator we can predict into 
loss of life from property, it's damaged critical 
infrastructure, and vital public facilities, valuable 
agricultural land, is that going to be taken out of production, 
let alone disruptions to California's water supply, and more. 
So the better question, I think the more responsible question 
is what kind of investments are needed to prevent such 
catastrophic events, and reduce the impact on communities.
    Governor Edwards, I appreciate your comments about the 
impacts of both the queue shocks like hurricanes and flooding, 
as well as chronic stressors like sea level rise and extreme 
heat. So you know better than anybody does the buck stop with 
you.
    We have an opportunity to try to get ahead of it through 
front end investments. Can you talk a little bit more about the 
proactive adaptation measures that have been taken, and the 
related research and innovation efforts in this space?
    Governor Edwards. Thank you, Senator for the question. I am 
very happy to talk about it because some of the most generous 
and significant transformative investments anywhere in the 
country have happened in Louisiana because of the generosity 
largely of the federal government and taxpayers all over the 
country, and we are certainly thankful.
    And of course, we have our non-federal share that we 
contribute towards that. But in instance after instance, it's 
making a positive impact, and these upfront investments while 
very costly, they save an awful lot of money on the back end 
because we are not having to go back and rebuild communities, 
and have housing programs and so forth that we had to have 
before.
    This can be demonstrated with the Hurricane Storm Damage 
Risk Reduction System, a $14.5 billion investment in the 
greater New Orleans area. The 2021 storm, Ida, was stronger 
than Katrina. But because we had this new system we had nowhere 
near the damages.
    For example, other systems have greatly reduced. I think 
you may not have been here, but with the protection systems put 
in place along the coast they were authorized by the Corps. We 
actually reduced the number of structures inundated with water 
from 11,000 with a 9 foot surge in that area in 2005 to 11 in 
2019.
    So these investments absolutely work, and they save money 
over the long run, not just in rebuilding costs, but you have 
less interruption. When Hurricane Ida hit for example, 15 
percent of the nation's refining capacity was offline, 50 
percent of the state's refining capacity, but 15 percent.
    If you can reduce the frequency of those events and the 
duration of those events, you save an awful lot of money, and 
you avoid a lot of losses and costs to the economy as well.
    Senator Padilla. It's the old adage, an ounce of prevention 
is with a pound of cure.
    Governor Edwards. Yes, sir.
    Senator Padilla. And so being smart and strategic with 
those funds and investments do pay a huge dividend, not if, but 
when if major disasters happen, and I appreciate you pointing 
to examples of the foresight of not just rebuilding to what 
was, but rebuilding to new, better, safer, standards.
    Governor Edwards. Based on conditions you expect to see in 
20 or 30 years.
    Senator Padilla. Exactly.
    Governor Edwards. With a 1.5 foot to 2.5 feet of sea level 
rise for example.
    Senator Padilla. A couple of other things. I did want to 
note, I know the Chairman asked you about coastal erosion, that 
was an area I was going to bring up, but for the record do want 
to highlight the specific challenges in what is referred to in 
Southern California as below sand corridor.
    The coastal area between San Diego and San Luis Obispo, 
which crosses Orange County, Los Angeles County, Ventura 
County, impacts infrastructure along the way. It's not just 
communities and homes and businesses, but important rail line, 
second busiest rail region, second only to the northeast 
corridor, so an important one I think that the country should 
be concerned about.
    Lastly, as my time is up, I do want to just ask Dr. Keenan 
a quick question about how long-term drought and extreme heat 
contribute to the speed and deterioration, or changes in wear 
and tear of critical infrastructure, specifically water 
infrastructure, knowing that not just in California, but 
throughout the west, water supply, reliability and 
affordability is so keen.
    Dr. Keenan. Thank you Senator for that question, and I had 
the privilege of serving the people of California previously, 
and advising them on matters of climate, and this is certainly 
and indeed a challenge to water infrastructure in California. 
I'll highlight a couple of things, and there's a wonderful 
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) report through 
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on this particular 
issue that I would draw a reference to.
    One, when we have high and low water levels, that has 
impacts on the cycling of the equipment, particularly low 
levels, because when it rains it pours, right? And the problem 
is either too much or not enough water. But when we have 
drought conditions we have equipment that's not being properly 
cycled and maintained.
    For instance, so you need to use it to maintain it in many 
ways. Also, we lose bio mass right? Grass, trees, they dry up, 
and we get more sedimentation. That sedimentation clogs 
filters, it clogs pumps, it creates a number of different 
problems, and finally we rely more on surface water for 
drinking water irrigation and the like as opposed to 
groundwater.
    And as we move to surface water we begin to take on more of 
that sedimentation, so there's systematic hydrological impacts 
there. And with that surface water, we also have to pull out 
all the pollution that comes from storm water for instance. So, 
we're getting hit at multiple levels of the system that impairs 
not only the quantity of moving water, but the quality of 
moving water.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you. And then Mr. Chair just in 
closing with Governor Edwards, it is Governor Edwards correct? 
I think I've heard Governor Bel Edwards by some of my 
colleagues around the hearing. You deserve the respect of the 
property recognition. Thank you Mr. Chair.
    Governor Edwards. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Braun.

                   STATEMENT OF SENATOR BRAUN

    Senator Braun. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I come from Indiana, 
and ran a business for 37 years, logistics and distribution. 
It's been a big benefit to get engaged in conversations like 
this. Our company was so small for so long, you had duties to 
where you did everything in that business.
    For instance, CFO, CEO wasn't even a term that we used 
until maybe 20 years ago, and I did it for 37. It was a 
blessing to have that practical kind of experience, especially 
when you get into a discussion here in the Budget Committee, 
and we're talking about climate.
    I view it as an issue that we definitely need to be engaged 
in on our side of the aisle, and starting the climate caucus 
here. When they attempted to do that for many years. It is 
valid. Conservatives need to be involved with it, from young 
conservatives to farmers who are at the leading edge of what 
might be a foot from evangelicals to Catholics.
    But then it gets down to the rubber meeting the road 
because if I wasn't really good at finance 101, I would have 
never succeeded at that business in the long run. Here we are, 
the biggest business in the world, and we do not do budgets 
anymore. We haven't done one that we've adhered to in 20-some 
years.
    We've got these big sweeping issues that the country looks 
to us to be at least civil in the discussion, and then maybe 
come with some stuff that works. I don't think borrowing now a 
trillion and a half, soon to be two trillion a year is a good 
business plan. Governor, you'd get run out of town with that 
approach in your own state.
    We got to do better. Since it's a budget hearing, I 
generally start there. Now I want to pivot to climate, which is 
a complicated discussion. My side of the aisle when I got here 
you mentioned climate you'd clear the room. You mentioned 
things like tax pricing and so forth, then you're going to get 
the mysterious text have you gone to the dark side, stuff like 
that.
    We've come a ways there, but still we're in the context of 
all solutions generally wanting to be crafted here, but we're 
in the worst place we've ever been as a country to really do 
it. And I would suggest that, Governor, many people that run 
budgets live within your means, that we should maybe be doing 
more of that in places where we can get things done.
    And you pay for it, and you don't borrow from future 
generations. And I'll give you an example in my home state. Too 
late that on the bottom end of one had an endangered mussel, 
okay?
    You had to make sure water flow was going to keep them 
alive. Well, as a consequence it through a couple drought 
years, drained the lakes by ten feet, and the big stakeholders 
were not necessarily the mussels.
    Not even the utility that had a small hydroelectric 
presence, and believe me, they wish they didn't have it on that 
lake. FERC and Fish and Wildlife. Can you imagine what that 
discussion was like in trying to actually have people that live 
there, the businesses that lived around those lakes as the main 
stakeholders.
    They had been wrestling for ten years with that confluence 
of issues. Well, we heard about it. I'm a main street 
entrepreneur that knows how to get from here to there, and in a 
little over a year we solved it. And the way we had to solve it 
was not by relying on this place, or even the various interests 
working it out. We had to step in as a Senate office.
    And it was a very--it took a little over a year, a year and 
a half to get it to the finish line, but they've been wrestling 
with it ten years. So I think the point I'm making here is a 
lot of what we need to do related to this discussion permitting 
and so forth, probably is going to have to be enabled more 
through the dynamics of what worked in this country.
    And that's not doing it from this place, directing from the 
top down. Maybe if you'd start doing things where you're 
creating more results. You can't do everything there, and a lot 
of times these things get tangled up with the process in 
general. Ten years working on a simple thing where mussels were 
a concern of a conservationist.
    Well we've got a different flow rate that was more than 
what the Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to do. FERC really 
was kind of an issue that complicated more than enabled. Fish 
and Wildlife Service wanted to maybe get some resolution, and 
we helped the people that had the most skin in the game.
    So I'm going to ask you Mr. Herrgott, what do we do in 
terms of taking the complexity of these issues and maybe trying 
to do them in ways that are a little more entrepreneurial, get 
the job done, navigate through the federal morass and actually 
start producing more results where we don't have over burdening 
regulations, and we quit borrowing money from future 
generations for whatever your interest might be here.
    Mr. Herrgott. Two quick things. First, there are always 
going to be conflicts between the natural environment and the 
human activity, and it's a balance. There's always tradeoffs. 
Our inability to recognize that we have to make risk based 
decisions, and that there will be take on species, and there 
will be impacts on the environment, but we can mitigate those.
    That's why we have the environmental review process we do. 
They're not rhetorical tools to stop projects or increase 
costs. The second is there's a disconnect between what people 
are paying for their utilities and their services and how they 
got there.
    When I asked 2,000 state legislators what the unit of 
measure is for electricity, water, gas, they don't even know 
what the unit of measure is, let alone how much it costs, or 
how much of that is attributable to permitting delays, or 
litigation, or costs of restarts and penalty fees.
    Without that connection, without that recognition of a 
holistic approach of what it takes, we're always going to be at 
loggerheads with each other, but people with their own 
constituencies.
    If I'm Nature Conservancy and I don't like hydro. I'm gonna 
stop this, because I don't like one element of the project. And 
as a result because we haven't figured it out up here, we allow 
all of the siloed unique constituencies that everyone looks out 
for to command the air space.
    Senator Braun. Thank you. Good answer. And if I have the 
latitude for one other quick question.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Keep it quick because we have another 
Senator waiting.
    Senator Braun. Yes. I understand that. This was Monticello, 
Indiana, Lake Freeman by the way, a very rural area. And my 
next question is for the Governor. What have you done in your 
own state that would cut to the chase, solve some of these 
issues where we know that you get it done more quickly, than 
oftentimes from here the top down? Do you have an example or 
two that you'd want to cite?
    Governor Edwards. Well I've got one that Mr. Herrgott was 
involved in. The largest ecosystem restoration project in our 
state's history. One of the largest in the country. And 
certainly the largest sediment diversion project ever 
undertaken is the Mid-Barataria Project in the Lower 
Mississippi River.
    The estimates initially were that that was going to be 12 
to 15 years of permitting, potentially followed by litigation 
and so forth. Well five years ago we got started and next month 
we're going to break ground. It was on the dashboard. It 
received attention and it was transparent.
    He helped usher it through the process. We had a lot of 
coordination among the federal agencies. And so, I'm just going 
to--I believe in permitting reform too, by the way. I co-
chaired an effort with the National Governor's Association with 
Spencer Cox, the Governor of Utah. It is very bipartisan. Every 
Governor in the country is concerned about this.
    It just simply takes too long now to do anything. But this 
is an example of how things can work, and so let's do more of 
what works, and less of what doesn't work.
    Senator Braun. Touche, kudos. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Lujan.

                   STATEMENT OF SENATOR LUJAN

    Senator Lujan. Good morning and thank you Mr. Chairman and 
Ranking Member, thank you both for holding this hearing. Dr. 
Tierney, thank you for being here, every one of you thank you 
for being here as well. Governor Edwards, honored to see you as 
well, sir.
    Dr. Tierney, among the many important roles that you have 
held I see that you served as Assistant Secretary for Policy at 
the Department of Energy. In that role and other roles that 
you've held in the energy sector I assume you, like me, you 
tend to recognize the important role of our National Labs, not 
just for the country, but for benefits around the world.
    And as you know, New Mexico is important to two important 
national labs, with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia 
National Laboratory. Dr. Tierney, my question is can you share 
with the Committee some of the ways that our National Labs help 
protect our nation's critical infrastructure?
    Dr. Tierney. Thank you for that great question, and I'm 
really happy to talk about the great national laboratory 
network that we have in the United States. Of course you 
mentioned the two in New Mexico. They are probably very well 
known for their contributions to the nation's national 
security, but they also have done tremendous work on energy 
infrastructure issues.
    I think in particular of Sandia's work on cybersecurity, 
and making sure the nation's energy infrastructure is more 
resilient, as well as capable of withstanding attacks that are 
predictable, going to happen, happen all the time on the 
nation's electric infrastructure for example.
    Sandia is a great example of that. North of New Mexico in 
Colorado is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. I had the 
honor of serving as their external advisory committee chair. 
They do tremendous work on analyzing the potential benefits of 
a regional electric system where there are better 
interconnections between the region, allowing for much greater 
diversity of electric demand and electric supply.
    I could on and on, but the nation's labs are truly jewels. 
They're supported by Congress and appropriations through the 
Department of Energy's many offices is critical to the nation's 
infrastructure.
    Senator Lujan. I appreciate that. Well I'm going to ask you 
to go on, Dr. Tierney with my next question, which is related 
to our national labs. But do you agree that finding solutions 
to climate change, such as designing climate resilient 
infrastructure is a responsibility that we should invest in at 
our national labs, given the material science, the planning, 
the modeling of oceans.
    And it turns out for the national security missions of 
these labs, they need to know what's happening, and where the 
wind blows for obvious reasons. But can you talk about that a 
little bit.
    Dr. Tierney. Sure. The R and D capabilities of the labs 
that span quite basic science on material's strength and 
capacity to withstand different stresses, all the way to 
deployment of infrastructure and all along that supply chain is 
extremely important. The labs are very well known for their 
basic science work, again on high energy physics.
    But on practical infrastructure issues, the materials work 
in analytics that are done make their way eventually into 
private industry, into the hands of companies that are actually 
putting infrastructure on the ground. So I didn't know this 
question was coming, and I love hitting it because they are 
truly essential to the nation's energy security and national 
security.
    Senator Lujan. I appreciate that, Dr. Tierney. Now Dr. 
Keenan, I appreciate that you included in your testimony, and I 
quote, ``The southwest U.S. faces upwards of $1.4 trillion in 
lost gross domestic product (GDP) between 2022 and 2050 due to 
risks and costs of projected water scarcity challenges.''
    Senator Padilla was asking you many questions in this 
particular area, talked about climate smart technology, 
precision agriculture, soil erosion reduction that can result 
in some of these practices, minimizing fertilizer applications. 
If we had more modern infrastructure, precision agriculture.
    What that means as well to contributing to reduction with 
some of the devastation we see with climate as well. There's 
many efforts that many of us have been working on together, but 
Dr. Keenan, yes or no, in order to avoid the $1.4 trillion 
impact in the southwest economy, do you agree that we urgently 
need to provide rural America with the tools and technology to 
adopt to climate change progression?
    Dr. Keenan. Yes.
    Senator Lujan. I appreciate that. There's some other 
questions I have. One, a few Governor Edwards that I'll submit 
for you as well, but Mr. Chairman I want to be mindful of the 
time as well, and so I'm going to yield back, but I'll submit 
the rest into the record. I really appreciate you all being 
here, all the things that you do day in and day out. Thank you 
all.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you. Mr. Herrgott has set the 
record for rapidity. Dr. Keenan has just set the record for 
brevity. Senator Merkley.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR MERKLEY

    Senator Merkley. Well thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you 
all for your testimony. I was thinking about an event last year 
where I'm at National Reagan Airport, and the pilot announced 
that we can't take off because it's too hot out. And our fuel 
load to get to Oregon means we may end up in a river if we try 
to take off.
    And so we had to wait for an hour and a half to unload gas 
or jet fuel off the plane, and then we had to land in Chicago 
to refuel to get to Oregon. And I had heard about this sort of 
thing happening in Phoenix, where 110 degrees and with the heat 
the air gets thinner, you don't have as much lift.
    But in Washington, D.C. I had never heard of this. Just on 
that particular issue, and I think I'm directing this to you 
Dr. Keenan, are we seeing that heat is driving a problem with 
runways being too short? And is there a whole transportation 
infrastructure expansion that has to happen for jets to get off 
the ground?
    Dr. Keenan. Yes. We're seeing this at different types of 
fleets if you will, both cargo and domestic passenger fleets, 
particularly larger planes, transcontinental and overseas 
flights are limited, their payload and fuel capacity.
    And this is at the surface level, but also at different 
levels of the atmosphere that are creating essentially stronger 
headwinds or steering currents that burn more fuel in flight as 
well.
    This is a challenge not just for our domestic economy in 
infrastructure, it's also a challenge in terms of national 
security in the military because we are going to have to expand 
airfields and the length of airfields really throughout our 
system. So it's a challenge.
    It's a challenge that the aviation industry is addressing 
by some measure in terms of efficiency, fuels, fleet design, et 
cetera, et cetera, but at its core we are going to have to 
extend the length of runways somewhere in the order of 20 
percent the extension of the current lengths across the airport 
system.
    Senator Merkley. Thank you. I think that's a piece many 
Americans would be surprised about. I want to turn to you, 
Governor Edwards. Thank you for joining us. The issues in my 
state from climate chaos are different than your state. In my 
state the forests are burning, the snowpack in the cascades has 
lost 240 inches over the last 90 years.
    And everything, the drought is affecting ranchers and 
farmers, the pine beetles, it's almost apocalyptic set of 
plagues. But I believe in your state it's more about 
hurricanes, rising sea levels, coastal erosion. Is that a fair 
way to describe it?
    Governor Edwards. Yes, sir. That's fair, but we are 
impacted by things that wouldn't be intuitively obvious. So for 
example, because of the draught in Iowa and elsewhere, we have 
a low river. That's allowing saltwater to come in from the Gulf 
and compromise drinking water for communities in Louisiana who 
have always taken their drinking water out of the river.
    And so we're having to do emergency work with the state and 
the parishes, but also working with the Corps of Engineers, and 
we really appreciate their help. In order to build sills, in 
order to stop the saltwater and so forth. So it is a myriad of 
things, and things that happen in one part of the country 
actually have a cascading effect in other parts of the country.
    Senator Merkley. All right. Just for the drinking water 
challenge, are you looking at billions of dollars of 
infrastructure changes?
    Governor Edwards. No sir. It's not that expensive now. 
Obviously, if this becomes something that repeats itself too 
frequently, obviously a more permanent solution would have to 
be found. It's happened before, but it last happened just a 
couple of years ago, so if we see this happening more 
frequently, then we're going to have to do something that would 
be more expensive, yes sir.
    Senator Merkley. And then I believe I've seen stories about 
your coastal lands eroding. Are there investments in adaptation 
that you're trying to, if you will, hold the ocean back, or we 
just say no, we can't. It's impossible. I thought I saw islands 
being created more--artificial islands, barriers and so forth?
    Governor Edwards. Yes, sir. Yeah. We're having tremendous 
success with our coastal restoration protection program, and it 
is a science based program.
    And we are investing a minimum of a billion dollars a year. 
And it's ecosystem restoration. And by the way when you restore 
ecosystems you provide storm surge buffer, and you actually 
protect populations and infrastructure, so it's actually 
protection.
    But we also have projects that are designed primarily for 
protection. But we're having success, and we believe that if we 
can implement our program as we envision it today, we will have 
less risk in 50 years than we do today, even with the climate 
change happening, the sea level rise between I think 1.8 and 
2.5 feet over the next 50 years, which is kind of the low and 
the medium estimate.
    Senator Merkley. And in that ecosystem restoration you're 
creating artificial or manmade barrier islands, and is that 
expensive?
    Governor Edwards. Oh yes, sir. It is very expensive, and we 
are creating and for the most part we're restoring the islands 
where they were and so forth. It is expensive, but it helps 
because that too dissipates the storm surge, and it provides 
buffer. It also provides the habitat, for example, the brown 
pelicans.
    You may have seen--what you saw was probably the Queen Bess 
Island, but the brown pelican happens to be our state bird, and 
the areas where it would nest were greatly reduced. Within a 
few weeks of us finishing the island the birds were back. And 
so, it serves a lot of purposes, but primarily that was done 
for protection.
    Senator Merkley. Well I have plenty more I could ask, but 
my time is up. Thank you very much.
    Chairman Whitehouse. And the witnesses are willing to take 
questions for the record. Before I recognize Senator Kennedy, 
let me just point out that that makes three Louisianans in the 
room, so who knows how this ends up. Senator Kennedy.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR KENNEDY

    Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome Governor. 
Professor Keenan, you teach at Tulane?
    Dr. Keenan. Yes sir, I do. I have that privilege.
    Senator Kennedy. And you have your own website, 
Keenanclimate.com.
    Dr. Keenan. Yes sir, I do.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. And you describe yourself on your 
website as a globally recognized thought leader. Is that 
correct?
    Dr. Keenan. Yes, sir.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. And you give paid speeches do you?
    Dr. Keenan. On occasion I do.
    Senator Kennedy. Do you have your own agent I believe 
according to your website, Lee Bureau?
    Dr. Keenan. This is correct.
    Senator Kennedy. And how much do you charge per speech?
    Dr. Keenan. It varies, depending on the audience, the 
amount of preparation work that goes, and the amount of follow 
through.
    Senator Kennedy. In the last paid speech you gave how much 
did you receive?
    Dr. Keenan. I would have to follow-up.
    Senator Kennedy. You don't remember?
    Dr. Keenan. I do not.
    Senator Kennedy. Do you keep--do you give that money to 
Tulane?
    Dr. Keenan. I do not.
    Senator Kennedy. You keep it?
    Dr. Keenan. Yes. This is outside of my capacity as a 
professor.
    Senator Kennedy. Right. Right.
    Dr. Keenan. As is, Senator.
    Senator Kennedy. Now you recently sent a letter--you 
recently joined a lot of other academics. You signed a letter 
demanding that elite institutions and universities stop 
accepting money from fossil fuel companies. Is that correct?
    Dr. Keenan. This is correct.
    Senator Kennedy. Do you consider Tulane an elite 
university?
    Dr. Keenan. I would like to think that we have a high 
standard of excellence in our education and our research.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. Well the Murphy family of Murphy 
Oil, and the Dimming family of Murphy Oil, have recently given 
Tulane 25 million dollars. Have you called on Tulane to give 
that money back?
    Dr. Keenan. Well, it's not they didn't give that money to 
the department or school that I work in.
    Senator Kennedy. Have you called on Tulane to give that 
money back, or you think that's okay for them to keep it?
    Dr. Keenan. It's their prerogative, not mine.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. But yet you just signed a letter 
saying that all elite universities should refuse fossil fuel 
money. Did you put a footnote in there saying except my own?
    Dr. Keenan. Well what I'd like to say, Senator, is that I 
believe it raises a conflict of interest for those that 
research climate change, that are supported by the fossil fuel 
industry.
    Senator Kennedy. Yeah, but then why don't you ask Tulane to 
give the 25 million dollars back?
    Dr. Keenan. Well I think in the context if that money were 
to be used to support climate research, information, 
disinformation, or whatever it may be, that that may be an 
appropriate conflict of interest, but I think in the context 
for which----
    Senator Kennedy. You don't see the hypocrisy here?
    Dr. Keenan. It is hypocrisy in those that may read and 
interpret it as such.
    Senator Kennedy. Maybe it's like Washington if there 
weren't double standards there wouldn't be standards at all. 
Let me ask you this. You also participated in another article 
here calling, criticizing Houston for building new buildings 
and McMansions. And you said--I'm going to read your quote. I 
don't want to misquote you, Professor.
    ``That means we have to change our consumer preference. You 
could have a super-efficient, energy-efficient, mega mansion in 
Houston or the suburbs, but it's still a McMansion. You're 
still overconsuming space.'' Did you say that?
    Dr. Keenan. Yes, sir. That's based on work as a member of 
the IPCC. Our research suggested that reducing our footprint in 
terms of total spatial footprint would have significant impacts 
in the decarbonization of the built environment.
    Senator Kennedy. And so, you're saying that people should 
live in smaller houses because larger houses contribute to 
CO2 emissions?
    Dr. Keenan. 100 percent, Senator.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. Well recently Tulane finished the 
Commons. It was 77,000 square feet. $55 million. Recently 
Tulane finished the Goldring Woldenberg Business Complex, $35 
million to complete. 92,000 square feet. Boy that's a 
McMansion.
    Mussafer Hall, 23,000 square feet. Paul Hall, 36,000 square 
feet, Richardson Hall, 50,000 square feet. Housing 
redevelopment phase I, 230,000 square feet at Tulane. Have you 
called upon Tulane to stop these buildings?
    Dr. Keenan. Sir, the habitable space within those units are 
roughly the size of the conference room back there and indeed 
quite small.
    Senator Kennedy. But the contribute to----
    Dr. Keenan. Everything that we do sir.
    Senator Kennedy. Does the Commons contribute more to 
climate change than a mansion in Houston? You are pretty quick 
to criticize the people of Houston for wanting to build, you 
thought McMansions, but you don't criticize your own 
university?
    Dr. Keenan. I don't find that to be equivocal comparison 
between space meant for students who must reside at a 
university.
    Senator Kennedy. You don't see the hypocrisy in that?
    Dr. Keenan. It is your finding and interpretation, sir.
    Senator Kennedy. But you don't see the irony of hypocrisy.
    Dr. Keenan. I'm going to go ahead and say no.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. I kind of gathered that would be 
your answer. Governor, good to see you. You live in a big 
house, don't you?
    Governor Edwards. Currently I do. Yes, sir.
    Senator Kennedy. How big is the Governor's mansion?
    Governor Edwards. I don't know the square footage, but it's 
large, and it's 60 years old this year. You ought to come by 
and see the good work.
    Senator Kennedy. I need to get by. Well the professor from 
Tulane doesn't like that. Let me ask you, do you think it's 
fair? Look, John Bel, we get 37.5 percent of offshore royalties 
under GOMESA.
    New Mexico gets 50 percent share from the federal 
government for God sakes, Wyoming gets 50 percent. North Dakota 
gets 50 percent. We get 37.5 percent, and we've got to share it 
with four other states.
    Governor Edwards. And it's capped at 375 million that we 
get to share no matter. Yes.
    Senator Kennedy. Yes. And that just sucks.
    Governor Edwards. I don't think it's fair, and 90 percent 
of all Gulf oil and gas exploration and production activities 
are served out of Port Fourchon. So we bear the brunt of the 
infrastructure necessary to make all of that happen, but we're 
not sharing the way the other states share.
    And it's one of the reasons I think the members of this 
Committee while you were out, for the one's that cosponsored 
the RISEE Act because it is incredibly important for a state 
like Louisiana. And we constitutionally dedicate every dollar 
we get as you know to the coast.
    Senator Kennedy. All we're asking is to be treated like 
everybody else, aren't we?
    Governor Edwards. Yes, sir.
    Senator Kennedy. And we have a solution don't we?
    Governor Edwards. We do.
    Senator Kennedy. And it's called RISEE Act. Tell us about 
the RISEE Act.
    Governor Edwards. Well it's a wonderful piece of 
legislation that we are obviously hoping that you pass, not 
only for the benefits that you just mentioned, but currently 
there's no revenue sharing mechanism in place in federal law 
with respect to wind.
    We'll have the first offshore wind lease sale next month. 
And so this is a very real thing for us, especially as we look 
at the loss of the BP Horizon fines that they've been paying, 
in fact Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, $2.9 billion paid for 
with BP dollars, but those go away in 2031.
    We really need to replace that revenue, and wind energy 
gives us an opportunity, but we need that structure in place, 
and I appreciate your work on that.
    Senator Kennedy. Well to be blunt, we've proven we can use 
the money well. And we put our own money up, and it is patently 
unfair that other states get a larger share, a much larger 
share than Louisiana. And I think the RISEE Act, which will 
also help our wind industry as Senator Whitehouse knows, we're 
working together on, is long overdue, and I appreciate you 
coming up here to talk about that bill.
    And I was in Judiciary, that's why I was late. And the 
Chairman has been very generous with me. Thank you Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Not a problem, Senator Kennedy. We're 
glad to have you here with your Governor present. And I would 
note that your colleague, Senator Cassidy is also an extremely 
energetic and lively proponent of the RISEE Bill.
    And we continue to work together, Governor, with your 
delegation to try to make sure that we can get this bill passed 
through ENR, with the support of your former gubernatorial 
colleague, now Senator Manchin, and we're continuing to make 
progress.
    With that, let me say that the questions for the record 
that need to be filed must be in by noon tomorrow, and if the 
witnesses would be kind enough to respond to any questions for 
the record you may receive within seven days we would 
appreciate it. I want to thank the Ranking Member for a 
particularly good panel, and a particularly helpful hearing.
    And offer my particular gratitude to Governor Edwards whose 
schedule I know is enormously busy, and who has come a long way 
to be here. We're extremely grateful to you, sir. With that the 
hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m. Wednesday, July 26, 2023, the 
hearing was adjourned.]
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