[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
STATE OF THE NATION'S ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 27, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-102
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
GREG WALDEN, Oregon
Chairman
JOE BARTON, Texas FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
FRED UPTON, Michigan BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois ANNA G. ESHOO, California
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee GENE GREEN, Texas
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey DORIS O. MATSUI, California
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky KATHY CASTOR, Florida
PETE OLSON, Texas JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia JERRY McNERNEY, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois PETER WELCH, Vermont
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida PAUL TONKO, New York
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
BILLY LONG, Missouri DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana KURT SCHRADER, Oregon
BILL FLORES, Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III,
SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana Massachusetts
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma TONY CARDENAS, California
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina RAUL RUIZ, California
CHRIS COLLINS, New York SCOTT H. PETERS, California
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
TIM WALBERG, Michigan
MIMI WALTERS, California
RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
Subcommittee on Energy
FRED UPTON, Michigan
Chairman
PETE OLSON, Texas BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
JOE BARTON, Texas JERRY McNERNEY, California
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois SCOTT H. PETERS, California
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio GENE GREEN, Texas
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia KATHY CASTOR, Florida
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia PETER WELCH, Vermont
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio PAUL TONKO, New York
BILLY LONG, Missouri DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana KURT SCHRADER, Oregon
BILL FLORES, Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III,
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma Massachusetts
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
TIM WALBERG, Michigan officio)
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Michigan, opening statement.................................... 1
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Hon. Bobby L. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, opening statement................................. 4
Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Oregon, opening statement...................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 7
Witnesses
Gary McCarthy, Mayor, City of Schenectady........................ 10
Prepared statement........................................... 12
John Devine, Senior Vice President, HDR, Inc..................... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 18
Answers to submitted questions............................... 146
Brian Slocum, Vice President, Operations, ITC Holdings
Corporation.................................................... 33
Prepared statement........................................... 35
Answers to submitted questions............................... 150
Jim Ross, Director, International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers Construction and Maintenance Department................ 43
Prepared statement........................................... 46
Answers to submitted questions \1\........................... 156
Jennifer Chen, Attorney, Sustainable FERC Project Climate & Clean
Energy, Natural Resources Defense Council...................... 49
Prepared statement........................................... 51
Answers to submitted questions............................... 158
Brenda Hellyer, Chancellor, San Jacinto College.................. 62
Prepared statement........................................... 64
Answers to submitted questions............................... 168
Submitted Material
Statement of the Utilities Technology Council, submitted by Mr.
Harper......................................................... 115
Statement of the American Public Gas Association, submitted by
Mr. Harper..................................................... 118
Article entitled, ``Debunking the False Claims of Environmental
Review Opponents,'' the Center for American Progress, May 3,
2017, submitted by Mr. Rush.................................... 120
Article entitled, ``Trump's Infrastructure Scam Will Gut
Environmental Protections To Benefit Corporate Polluters,'' the
Center for American Progress, January 28, 2018, submitted by
Mr. Rush....................................................... 131
Statement of BlueGreen Alliance, submitted by Mr. Rush........... 134
Article entitled, ``Congress should support an infrastructure
plan that builds infrastructure--not guts health &
environmental protections,'' Earthjustice, February 27, 2018,
submitted by Mr. Rush.......................................... 139
Article entitled, ``Trump's Infrastructure Plan Puts Burden on
State and Private Money,'' Earthjustice, February 12, 2018,
submitted by Mr. Rush.......................................... 142
----------
\1\ The committee did not receive a response to Mr. Ross's
submitted questions for the record by the time of printing.
STATE OF THE NATION'S ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE
----------
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2018
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Energy,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
room 2322 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Fred Upton
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Upton, Olson, Barton,
Shimkus, Latta, Harper, McKinley, Kinzinger, Griffith, Johnson,
Bucshon, Flores, Mullin, Hudson, Walberg, Duncan, Walden (ex
officio), Rush, McNerney, Peters, Green, Castor, Sarbanes,
Tonko, Loebsack, Schrader, Kennedy, and Pallone (ex officio).
Staff present: Mike Bloomquist, Staff Director; Daniel
Butler, Staff Assistant; Kelly Collins, Legislative Clerk,
Energy/Environment; Jordan Davis, Director of Policy and
External Affairs; Wyatt Ellertson, Professional Staff, Energy/
Environment; Margaret Tucker Fogarty, Staff Assistant; Adam
Fromm, Director of Outreach and Coalitions; Jordan Haverly,
Policy Coordinator, Environment; Ben Lieberman, Senior Counsel,
Energy; Milly Lothian, Press Assistant & Digital Coordinator;
Mary Martin, Chief Counsel, Energy/Environment; Brandon Mooney,
Deputy Chief Counsel, Energy; Mark Ratner, Policy Coordinator;
Annelise Rickert, Counsel, Energy; Dan Schneider, Press
Secretary; Austin Stonebreaker, Press Assistant; Madeline Vey,
Policy Coordinator, DCCP; Hamlin Wade, Special Advisor,
External Affairs; Priscilla Barbour, Minority Energy Fellow;
Evan Gilbert, Minority Press Assistant; Tiffany Guarascio,
Minority Deputy Staff Director and Chief Health Advisor;
Caitlin Haberman, Minority Professional Staff Member; Rick
Kessler, Minority Senior Advisor and Staff Director, Energy and
Environment; John Marshall, Minority Policy Coordinator;
Alexander Ratner, Minority Policy Analyst; and Andrew Souvall,
Minority Director of Communications, Outreach and Member
Services.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Upton. Today's hearing, the ``State of the Nation's
Energy Infrastructure'' will provide members with the
opportunity to explore the challenges and the opportunities
related to the maintenance, modernization, and development of
energy infrastructure. Two weeks ago, the White House unveiled
its framework for rebuilding infrastructure across the country.
Citing the need to maintain our country's global
competitiveness and improve our citizens' quality of life, the
President's plan seeks to stimulate at least $1.5 trillion in
new investment over the next decade.
And while the President's plan touches all sectors, from
roads and bridges to airports and hospitals and dams, this
hearing will focus on the state of the Nation's energy
infrastructure and how we can make meaningful improvements.
Joining us today is a panel of witnesses who can speak to the
needs and challenges of a changing energy landscape.
Since the start of the 115th Congress, this committee has
held dozens of hearings related to infrastructure and the House
has already passed legislation on interstate pipeline siting,
hydropower licensing, and the development of cross-border
energy infrastructure. That being said, this committee's
infrastructure efforts are ongoing as there is no question that
more needs to get done and more projects need to get built, for
to deliver our nation's abundant energy resources to consumers
in a reliable, efficient, and cost-effective manner, new
electric transmission lines and natural gas pipelines have got
to be constructed.
And as we have heard during our series of Powering America
hearings, the Nation's electrical grid faces enormous
challenges as needed infrastructure is not getting built fast
enough in some areas of the country. Additionally, we have got
to face the fact that much of our existing infrastructure is in
fact aging. The average age of a coal-fired power plant in the
U.S. is 40 years old and the country's fleet of nuclear
reactors isn't much younger. Many of these power plants are now
facing retirement due to their inability to compete
economically in a market-based environment. Notably, the Oyster
Creek Nuclear Station in New Jersey, which is the oldest
reactor in the country, recently announced that it will retire
later this year after nearly 50 years of service.
So we can't afford to have the energy infrastructure that
does not meet America's needs or reflect the evolution of our
energy markets. Instead, we have got to modernize our outdated
system by encouraging innovative developments and state-of-the-
art technology such as battery storage and advanced
transmission devices. I should recognize that much is already
being done on this front with private capital largely funding
these improvements. In fact, electric utilities and independent
transmission developers spent an estimated $23 billion in 2017
on new transmission infrastructure alone; while the natural gas
utilities invested a record $25 billion last year across its
industry.
Though these private sector investments are critical in a
highly capital-intensive industry, we should be mindful that
none of it will get built if we don't have a trained workforce
that is capable of innovating, designing, and constructing this
new infrastructure. Not only do we need skilled linesmen and
women and pipefitters but we also need the engineers to power
systems in nuclear technologies in many other trades. The
challenge associated with developing a skilled workforce may be
greater than the challenge of siting and constructing
infrastructure projects. So that's an important part of this
conversation.
I am glad we have some of the folks who can speak to us on
that issue, and with that, I want to welcome our panel for sure
and yield the balance of my time to Mr. Olson.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Fred Upton
Today's hearing, the ``State of the Nation's Energy
Infrastructure'' will provide members with the opportunity to
explore the challenges and opportunities related to the
maintenance, modernization, and development of energy
infrastructure. Two weeks ago, the White House unveiled its
framework for rebuilding infrastructure in America. Citing the
need to maintain our country's global competitiveness and
improve our citizens' quality of life, the President's plan
seeks to stimulate at least $1.5 trillion in new investment
over the next 10 years.
While the President's plan touches all sectors, from roads
and bridges to airports and hospitals, this hearing will focus
on the state of the Nation's energy infrastructure and how we
can make meaningful improvements. Joining us today is a panel
of witnesses who can speak to the needs and challenges of a
changing energy landscape.
Since the start of the 115th Congress, this committee has
held dozens of hearings relating to infrastructure, and the
House has already passed legislation on interstate pipeline
siting, hydropower licensing, and the development of cross-
border energy infrastructure. That being said, this committee's
infrastructure efforts are ongoing as there is no question that
more needs to get done and more projects need to be built. If
we are to deliver our nation's abundant energy resources to
consumers in a reliable, efficient, and cost-effective manner,
new electric transmission lines and natural gas pipelines must
be constructed.
As we've heard during our series of Powering America
hearings, the Nation's electrical grid faces enormous
challenges as needed infrastructure is not getting built fast
enough in some areas. Additionally, we must face the fact that
much of our existing infrastructure is aging--the average age
of a coal-fired power plant in the U.S. is 40 years old and the
country's fleet of nuclear reactors isn't much younger. Many of
these power plants are now facing retirement due to their
inability to compete economically in a market-based
environment. Notably, the uclear station in New Jersey, which
is the oldest reactor in the country, recently announced that
it will retire later this year after nearly 50 years of
service.
We cannot afford to have energy infrastructure that does
not meet America's needs or reflect the evolution of our energy
markets. Instead, we must modernize outdated systems by
encouraging innovative developments in state-of-the-art
technologies such as battery storage and advanced transmission
devices. I should recognize that much is already being done on
this front with private capital largely funding these
improvements. In fact, electric utilities and independent
transmission developers spent an estimated $23 billion in 2017
on new transmission infrastructure alone; while the natural gas
utilities invested a record $25 billion last year across its
industry.
While these private-sector investments are critical in a
highly capital-intensive industry, we should be mindful that
none of it will get built if we don't have a trained workforce
that is capable of innovating, designing, and constructing this
new infrastructure. Not only do we need skilled linemen and
pipefitters, but we also need engineers in power systems and
nuclear technologies, and in many other trades. The challenge
associated with developing a skilled workforce may be greater
than the challenge of siting and constructing infrastructure
projects. This is an important point in this conversation, so
I'm glad that we have some folks with us who can speak to this
issue.
With that, I'd like to thank this entire panel of
distinguished witnesses for appearing today and I look forward
to your testimony.
Mr. Olson. I thank the chair, and welcome to our six
witnesses.
Having a Texan on the panel gives me a chance to do what
Texans love to do and that's to brag about my home state. The
greater Houston region has some of the best technical colleges
in the country and Texas-22, who I worked for, has the best of
the best. Schools like Houston Community College, Texas State
Technical College, Alvin Community College, Wharton County
Junior College, who actually built a new campus in Matagorda
County to meet the needs of retiring workers at the South Texas
Power Plant. But the top gun at home is San Jacinto College and
that's because of their chancellor, Brenda Hellyer. We are
honored to have you here, Chancellor Hellyer.
When America's largest petrochemical complex has a need,
they turn to Dr. Hellyer and San Jac. One example is their new
maritime technological training center. It simulates all 51
miles of the Port of Houston Ship Channel and it's so real. I
was down there a year ago right by the Harbor Bridge. It snowed
heavy snow--blizzard. The waves started rocking my little
tugboat. I got seasick in a simulator. It's real, and that's
San Jacinto Junior--San Jacinto College. Welcome, Dr. Hellyer.
Glad to have you.
I yield back.
Mr. Upton. Gentleman's time has expired.
The chair recognizes the ranking member of the
subcommittee, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Rush.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOBBY L. RUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Mr. Rush. Mr. Chairman, I am at a loss for words on that.
But I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
important hearing today on the energy infrastructure.
As you know, investing in the Nation's aging infrastructure
is a top priority for members on both sides of the aisle and it
is my hope that we can address this issue in a bipartisan
manner.
Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, the proposal put forth by the
Trump administration leaves a lot to be desired and, frankly,
is a poor starting point, from my perspective. The President's
infrastructure plan fails to provide adequate Federal
investment in the Nation's antiquated energy infrastructure.
But, rather, it attempts to short circuit environmental
regulations and it places the vast majority of the funding
burden on cash-strapped states and local municipalities. In
fact, under the administration's proposal, states will be
prohibited from receiving more than 10 percent of the total
grant fund and 80 percent of new investment must come from non-
federal sources.
Mr. Chairman, this proposal resembles less of a national
infrastructure plan and instead will simply pick winners and
losers where only a limited number of states, localities, and
affluent communities will actually benefit from the president's
plan.
Instead, Mr. Chairman, I want to urge this subcommittee to
look at a more serious alternative outlined in H.R. 2479, the
Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow's America, or LIFT America,
Act introduced by Ranking Member Pallone, myself, and the rest
of the minority members of the Energy and Commerce Committee
back in May 2017. This bill offers thoughtful recommendations
that will surely benefit all Americans including providing
provisions that would invest in cleaner water infrastructure,
clean energy infrastructure, more resilient broadband,
brownfields redevelopment and, last but not least, health care
infrastructure.
Additionally, Mr. Chairman, I have also sponsored a bill
that would strengthen the Nation's workforce by investing in
initiatives to train minority women and unemployed coal workers
to compete for good-paying energy and manufacturing jobs and
careers. Mr. Chairman, it is not enough to simply curtail an
environmental protection and pass the funding for immersion
onto the same.
I look forward to hearing from our esteemed witnesses and I
look forward to working with the majority.
Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield my time to my good friend,
also from the great State of Texas, Mr. Green.
Mr. Green. Mr. Chairman, members, I thank you Ranking
Member for yielding to me today.
First of all, I want to say that this is the first
committee hearing we have had that Pete Olson hasn't talked
about the Astros. So Pete, I want to tell you how proud we are
on this side about the Castros.
Mr. Olson. It's coming. It's coming.
Mr. Green. But, more importantly, I want to welcome our
panel and particularly our chancellor from San Jac North. I've
worked for many years with San Jacinto College in training.
In East Harris County, we could have every union
electrician in the country come to Houston and we'd still need
more electricians because the expansion of our industries in
East Harris County because of the Eagle Ford and now with
Permian Basin. So we have refineries, chemical plants, and
things like that.
But I am a native Houstonian and you all have heard a lot
of times I've never not lived on a pipeline easement in
Houston, Texas. No matter where I've lived, I have a pipeline
easement there and I get all these nice letters during the year
making sure I know what happens if there is an accident.
But our infrastructure is so important. It's not just
highways and rails and airports but it's also pipelines, and
because of the success we are having in some of the states, I
think we need to have that infrastructure on energy pipelines,
too.
And with that, I'll thank my colleague. I know I've used up
the time he yielded to me.
Thank you.
Mr. Upton. Gentleman's time has expired.
The chair will recognize the chairman of the full
committee, the gentleman from the good state of Oregon, Mr.
Walden.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Mr. Walden. I thank the gentleman, and we are having a lot
of talk about aging infrastructure and I don't think that's
fair to Adam Kinzinger just because it's his 40th birthday
today, speaking of aging infrastructure.
[Laughter.]
Happy birthday. Today's hearing explores the state of the
nation's energy infrastructure. It's another important step in
our commitment to putting the needs of consumers first. Energy,
truly the driving force in our economy and our country, and our
hearing today is focused on ways to expand and improve and
modernize our infrastructure so we can deliver energy to
consumers more safely, reliably, and cost-effectively.
So this morning we have an excellent panel of witnesses who
are going to share with us some challenges and opportunities
that the country faces and you all face to modernize our
infrastructure in the energy realm. We will gather your
perspectives and we will learn more about what we need to do in
public policy. Just for the record, our committee has been very
active in this area. A lot of work has gone into our
legislative initiatives on the nation's infrastructure.
We know there is a lot more that needs to be done. This
hearing marks our forty-seventh hearing on infrastructure just
in this session of Congress alone. We have 24 energy bills and
environmental bills that have passed the House already and have
gone over to the Senate. They address pipeline infrastructure,
hydropower relicensing, brownfields, air quality standards,
energy efficiency, drinking water improvement, and nuclear
waste storage. All this work is incredibly important for my
district. These bills will have a direct positive impact for
our local economies and our communities both in Oregon and
across the country, and now we look forward to continuing our
work with the United States Senate and the White House to get
these measures signed into law.
I applaud President Trump for not only recognizing the need
to improve all facets of our nation's infrastructure but also
for demonstrating the leadership needed to push forward this
major initiative for our country.
While there are many difficult details to work out, I
believe there is support for a broad infrastructure bill. Just
the other week I participated in a bipartisan, bicameral
infrastructure meeting hosted by the President at the White
House where we talked about our shared priorities for
rebuilding our nation's infrastructure from roads and bridges
to pipelines and for broadband in our un-served and underserved
areas of the country.
While much of the conversation around infrastructure has
focused on ways to increase federal spending, we should be
mindful that most of the nation's energy infrastructure is
privately owned and operated.
We all know that financing is a crucial aspect of any
infrastructure plan so we are thinking outside the box to see
where we can make the most progress with the limited federal
money that is available. We are focused on fixing the
regulatory environment, encouraging public-private
partnerships, and strengthening our workforce.
Our nation's energy infrastructure--the traditional base
load power plants, windmills, solar panels, hydroelectric dams,
pipelines, power lines, fossil fuel production facilities, and
import-export terminals, they make up the real backbone of
America's economy. With innovation and technological
advancements driving change at a rapid pace it's our
responsibility as members of this committee to understand the
challenges and the opportunities associated with keeping these
energy systems operating safely and reliably.
So we have got a lot of work to do but we are moving in the
right direction, and with that, I want to thank our witnesses
for appearing before us today.
I look forward to your testimony and the work going forward
in this matter under Chairman Upton's leadership.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, unless anyone else wants the
remainder of my time, I'd be happy to yield back and hear from
our witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Greg Walden
Today's hearing exploring the ``State of the Nation's
Energy Infrastructure'' is another important step in our
commitment to put the needs of consumers first. Energy is truly
the driving force powering our economy. Our hearing today is
focused on ways to expand, improve, and modernize our
infrastructure, so that we can deliver energy to consumers more
safely, reliably, and cost-effectively.
This morning, we have an excellent panel of witnesses who
will testify on the challenges and opportunities to modernizing
our nation's energy infrastructure. We'll gather perspectives
from the people on the front lines--those who train our workers
and design, build, and operate our energy infrastructure. My
hope is that their stories can help us identify policy gaps and
propose solutions to attract investments to update and build
new energy infrastructure.
This committee has been hard at work on ways to modernize
our nation's infrastructure, but there's more work to be done.
This hearing marks our forty-seventh hearing on infrastructure
this Congress alone. Twenty-four energy and environment bills
have passed the House already, addressing pipeline
infrastructure, hydropower licensing, Brownfields, air quality
standards, energy efficiency, drinking water, and nuclear waste
storage. All of this work is incredibly important for my
district in Oregon. These bills will have a direct, positive
impact for local economies and communities in my state and
across the country. Now that these bills are with the Senate,
we're working with our colleagues and the administration to get
them moving and signed into law.
I applaud President Trump for not only recognizing the need
to improve all facets of our nation's infrastructure, but for
also demonstrating the leadership needed to push forward this
major initiative.
While there are many difficult details to work out, I
believe there is support for a broad infrastructure bill. Just
the other week, I participated in a bipartisan, bicameral
infrastructure meeting hosted by President Trump at the White
House to discuss our shared priorities for rebuilding our
nation's infrastructure.
While much of the conversation around infrastructure has
focused on ways to increase federal spending, we should be
mindful that most of the nation's energy infrastructure is
privately owned and operated.
We all know that financing is a crucial aspect of any
infrastructure plan, so we're thinking outside the box to see
where we can make the most progress with limited federal funds.
We're focused on fixing the regulatory environment, encouraging
public-private partnerships, and strengthening our workforce.
Our nation's energy infrastructure--the traditional
baseload power plants, windmills, solar panels, hydroelectric
dams, pipelines, power lines, fossil fuel production
facilities, and import/export terminals--make up the backbone
of our economy. With innovation and technological advancements
driving change at a rapid pace, it's our responsibility as
members of this committee to understand the challenges and
opportunities associated with keeping these energy systems
operating safely and efficiently.
We've got a lot of work to do, but we're moving in the
right direction. With that, I want to thank the witnesses for
appearing before us today and I look forward to their
testimony.
Mr. Upton. Gentleman yields back.
The chair recognizes the ranking member of the full
committee, the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Pallone, for an
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Upton.
Revitalizing and modernizing our nation's crumbling
infrastructure should be an area where Democrats and
Republicans can find common ground. Unfortunately, the plan
President Trump unveiled 2 weeks ago barely mentions energy
and, as a whole, represents another cynical bait and switch.
After promising for more than a year to invest over a trillion
dollars in America's infrastructure, the President's plan does
not offer any new funding for infrastructure.
This anemic proposal calls for $250 billion in federal
spending but even that is offset by $200 billion in cuts to
vital existing programs. Worse yet, the 80 percent match
requirement will do little to help towns, cities, and counties
all across this country that simply cannot afford this kind of
spending. In fact, the Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania where President Trump attended college provides a
withering criticism of his so-called infrastructure plan,
stating that it really won't leverage funds and that ``There
will be little to no impact on the economy.''
To call the Trump plan worthless isn't partisan. It's the
reality. In stark contrast, Democrats actually have a real
plan, a better deal for investing and rebuilding America. This
plan includes important parts of the committee Democrats' bill,
the LIFT America Act. This legislation would create jobs and
boost the economy by putting real money towards infrastructure
like replacing drinking water pipes, cleaning up brown field
sites, supporting energy efficiency and clean energy, extending
broadband service and revitalizing our hospitals and health
care infrastructure.
Democrats are committed to delivering a better deal for
Americans, providing cheap clean energy for consumers and
modernizing our aging energy infrastructure so that it's
secure, efficient, and resilient. We will make key investments
that will transport our energy infrastructure into the 21st
century energy economy while creating jobs of the future that
lessen our carbon footprint. We do this by expanding renewable
energy and by investing in energy efficiency programs that will
lower Americans' monthly bills and these programs are good for
the environment and good for consumers.
The Democrats' LIFT America Act is a bold proposal that
will revitalize our infrastructure, grow our economy, and
create new jobs, and to ensure good family-sustaining wages for
workers we are committed to maintaining Davis-Bacon community-
based wage standards and other worker protections. We will
invest in workers through robust training, provide job
opportunities for veterans, and level the playing field for
small businesses including women and minority-owned businesses.
And what we won't do is buy into the false choice between a
strong economy and a healthy environment. President and
Republicans keep pushing this outdated false narrative, but the
reality is that a clean and safe environment supports a strong
economy.
Environmental safeguards are not the obstacle to
infrastructure improvements. The real obstacle is the lack of
funds. President Trump spared no expense and required no
offsets for tax breaks to fuel profits on Wall Street, but when
it comes to helping Main Street all he's offering is Monopoly
money. And we can and must do better. I hope my colleagues on
the other side of the aisle agree and will work with us to
invest in America and truly make our infrastructure great
again.
And I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from
New York, Mr. Tonko.
Mr. Tonko. And I thank the ranking member of the standing
committee for yielding.
It's my pleasure to thank Chair Upton and Ranker Rush for
hosting this hearing, which is going to enable us to better
understand the full range of possibilities of energy
infrastructure that should be considered.
So I welcome the panel here this morning and in particular
want to offer my welcome to one of the mayors of the
communities that I represent in the 20th Congressional District
of New York, the Honorable Gary McCarthy, mayor of the great
city of Schenectady, New York, in the 20th District. And I
thank the mayor for being here. He's a great friend, a super
colleague, and a very thoughtful leader, a progressive leader,
and one who has brought great vision to leading the city of
Schenectady, which is dubbed the electric city, as it opened
its gates to Thomas Alva Edison at one time, and we have great
heritage as it relates to energy development.
But I want to bring attention to the city of Schenectady's
report under the tutelage of Mayor McCarthy, the 2017 Smart
City Report, which is just filled with all sorts of wonderful
ideas and has enabled Gary McCarthy to be a national leader in
Smart City demonstration projects. I encourage members to check
out this report. It offers many opportunities that, when
proven, could be replicable around the country and will hold a
number of type of projects that are possible to improve energy
efficiency, public safety, and internet access. It's a
tremendous report. I thank the mayor for his leadership and I
thank him for being here with the rest of the panel here this
morning.
So thank you, Mayor McCarthy, and welcome.
Mr. Upton. Well, we are grateful for all the witnesses
today.
We are joined by Brian Slocum, the VP of operations for ITC
Holdings, Jim Ross, the Director of International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers, Brenda Hellyer, Chancellor of San
Jacinto College, John Devine, Senior VP for HDR, Inc., Jennifer
Chen--I think--is that right, Chen--Sustainable FERC Project
Attorney, Natural Resources Development Council, and the
Honorable Mr. McCarthy, Mayor of Schenectady, New York.
We welcome you all. Your statements are made part of the
record in their entirety. Thank you for submitting them early,
and each of you will be given 5 minutes to summarize that
testimony.
And Mr. Mayor, we will start with you. Welcome.
STATEMENTS OF THE HONORABLE GARY MCCARTHY, MAYOR, CITY OF
SCHENECTADY; JOHN DEVINE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, HDR INC.;
BRIAN SLOCUM, VICE PRESIDENT, OPERATIONS, ITC HOLDINGS
CORPORATION; JIM ROSS, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF
ELECTRICAL WORKERS CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE DEPARTMENT;
JENNIFER CHEN, ATTORNEY, SUSTAINABLE FERC PROJECT CLIMATE &
CLEAN ENERGY, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL; BRENDA
HELLYER, CHANCELLOR, SAN JACINTO COLLEGE
STATEMENT OF GARY MCCARTHY
Mr. McCarthy. Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Rush,
distinguished members of the committee and, of course, New
York's 20th District Congressman Tonko, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today.
While I am the mayor of the city of Schenectady and serve
in the leadership of the New York Conference of Mayors, I want
to make available to you the resources and staff of the U.S.
Conference of Mayors.
Under the capable leadership of Conference President New
Orleans' mayor, Mitch Landrieu and Executive Director Tom
Cochran, the conference team is ready and able to assist you in
research, identifying problems and opportunities in the
adoption of a national energy infrastructure policy and the
appropriate budgetary support to ensure the successful
implementation of that policy.
We live in an exciting time, one of rapid change, a time of
disruptive technologies, a time of great opportunity. The city
of Schenectady has a long and proud history of innovation in
the creative use of technologies. Congressman Tonko pointed out
Thomas Edison founded the General Electric Company in our city
over 125 years ago. The x-ray was developed in Schenectady. The
first television broadcast occurred in the city of Schenectady.
Many of the world-changing products and technologies we use
today have their roots in Schenectady.
Today, some of the most valuable real estate in Schenectady
and communities across the country are our light poles. The
conversion of conventional street lights to LED fixtures is
happening everywhere. It makes sense. There is an immediate
savings of over 50 percent in electrical costs. But what we are
doing in Schenectady and in some communities across the country
is looking at the opportunity to add additional features.
Sensor-based technologies to the light pole when the conversion
to LED fixtures is happening, environmental sensors measure
temperature and precipitation, device-based utility-grade
meters that will allow different owners to place devices in a
light pole and pay for the electricity that's used just by
their device, optical sensor providing deterrence and
documentation for policing, traffic and pedestrian analytics,
dimming controls for additional electrical savings, acoustical
sensors, Wi-Fi, and cellular communication protocols are just a
few of the possible additions to a standard light pole. These
devices will better enable a more cost-effective delivery of
municipal services, the valuable exchange of data and
information, improved educational opportunities within our city
school district, and help with cost containment in providing
health care.
Schenectady is partnering with National Grid, our local
utility, in implementing a REV demonstration project in our
city. REV is reforming the energy vision, a program with New
York Governor Cuomo's comprehensive energy strategy to build a
clean and more resilient affordable energy system. We are
working with National Grid, GE, AT&T, Cisco, Presidio, CIMCON
Lighting, and other local partners to do a citywide deployment
of Smart City technology as we do the conversion to LED lights.
We hope the National Grid project in Schenectady will create a
replicable model for utilities in other communities across the
state and, hopefully, the country.
The ongoing efforts of Schenectady to further invest in
infrastructure by leveraging convergent technologies including
distributive generation resources, intelligence services,
buildings in the electrification of transport will not only
make the city more energy productive, economically and
environmentally sustainable, but will assist New York State in
its individually adopted economy wide target of an 80 percent
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, commonly
referred to as the 80x50 Program.
The 80x50 challenge is a significant goal and will require
fundamental changes, which means that the early cost savings
and sustainable applications of Schenectady and National Grid's
initiatives could serve as a model for other communities and
utilities. This type of project has the potential to transform
communities and has clear implications for the global
competitiveness of this country. But it's based on a stable and
an adaptable electrical grid. There are many components of the
Smart City or Smart Grid projects that are self-financing.
Conversion to LED light fixtures is a clear example. Some lend
themselves to partnerships between utilities, communities, and
companies--public Wi-Fi in commercial areas is an example.
Others, like the upgrading of utility resiliency to deal with
physical and cyber-attacks, the possibility of electromagnetic
pulses, economic warfare, or proof of concept for emerging or
yet to be developed concepts or technologies will likely
require 100 percent funding from the federal government.
Mr. Chairman, again, I thank you for the opportunity to be
here and look forward to the committee's questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McCarthy follows:]
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Mr. Upton. Thank you very much.
Mr. Devine, welcome.
STATEMENT OF JOHN DEVINE
Mr. Devine. Good morning, Chairman Upton, Ranking Member
Rush, and members of the subcommittee.
I am John Devine, a past president of the National
Hydropower Association, and I am here today on behalf of NHA to
share my thoughts about the value and needs of hydropower's
part of this nation's infrastructure.
My engineering career spans 45 years focused on water
resources and hydropower, working both in the public and the
private sector. That also makes me part of the aging
infrastructure, I might say.
I was also a founding member of a hydropower consulting
firm that started with two people in Portland, Maine, and grew
into a practice with over 250 professionals with offices in six
states. I hope this provides a small example of the jobs that
hydropower can create.
I will emphasize three points today. First, investment in
new and existing hydropower projects produces economic benefits
and creates jobs. Second, policies that support hydropower
deserve to be part of any infrastructure package Congress
develops, and third, in order to preserve investment in
hydropower, I believe changes in federal policy, particularly
in the licensing process, will be necessary.
So to my point one, investment in hydropower infrastructure
doesn't just create jobs. It creates the kind of jobs that
require skill and education and are therefore valued, meaning
in demand and well paid. We are talking about many field
technicians, electricians, highly-skilled mechanics, biologist,
hydrologists, computer modelers, suppliers of all kind in
virtually every field of engineering.
Hydropower is also often a cornerstone part of multipurpose
projects that provide water for irrigation and natural resource
protection, water supply for millions of people, drought
mitigation, flood control, and other benefits. Which leads me
to my second point. Ensuring more investment in hydropower
should be a piece of any national infrastructure plan.
Hydropower is a key part of the national infrastructure. Just
consider the role played by hydropower in pulling the Northeast
and the upper Midwest out of the 2003 blackout that affected 45
million people in the U.S. Hydropower's black start capability
did that, and isn't that the very definition of important
infrastructure?
Consider our federal hydropower system. The average federal
hydropower facility is over 50 years old. While this
demonstrates reliability and durability, it also highlights the
potential to increase efficiency and add capacity, therefore,
more renewable energy from the same plant and more jobs. This
leads me to my third point. I report to you today as a
practitioner in the field of federal hydropower licensing. Here
is what I can report to you from the field.
First, the federal licensing and relicensing process is
broken but maybe not for the reasons that you're thinking. It's
not because of Congress passing the EP Act of 2005. Congress
took a significant step to bring efficiency, transparency, and
accountability to agency decision making. This committee in
particular has done yeoman's service in support of hydropower.
It's not because of FERC. In its promulgation of the integrated
licensing process, FERC made a bold attempt to bring order,
efficiency and better fact-based decision making to the
process.
In general, in my opinion, FERC is performing its role as a
neutral arbiter of the facts. So how is it broken? It is broken
today because many federal and state resource agencies do not
adhere to the basic ground rules of the federal licensing
process.
Here are three examples that I can share with you. First,
what I am seeing is that all too frequently the scientific
studies conducted as part of the licensing process are being
ignored by resource agencies when the study results do not
comport with the agency's notions of a project's environmental
impacts. This is despite the fact that these studies are
performed for the express purpose of informing development of
license conditions. Such disregard can lead to agency
conditions which are not considered with the available and
therefore are likely not to be effective.
Second, state and federal resource agencies'
recommendations for license conditions including mandatory
conditions which FERC cannot balance are often made without due
consideration of their full impacts and are only focused on
narrow agency goals.
Third, in many cases, the federal licensing process can
drag on for years, even a decade or more after the filing of a
complete application, while the applicant waits for the various
federal and state agency decision making processes to be
completed. Together, these provide a very chilling effect on
investment.
To conclude, hydropower offers many benefits to society. IT
supports the grid and, as I mentioned, literally keeps lights
on. It integrates other renewable generation. It supports clean
air for our communities. These values are being eroded and U.S.
hydropower has much more to offer, but only if it is given the
policy support to unlock its potential.
I thank the subcommittee for allowing me to testify and I
look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Devine follows:]
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Mr. Upton. Thank you very much.
Mr. Slocum, welcome.
STATEMENT OF BRIAN SLOCUM
Mr. Slocum. Thank you, Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Rush,
and the distinguished members of the subcommittee.
As you know, my name is Brian Slocum. I am the Vice
President of Operations for ITC Holdings, Corp., and I
appreciate the opportunity to speak before you today.
ITC is the largest independent electricity transmission
company in the country and we own and operate electric
transmission assets that has a footprint that expands to eight
Midwest and Great Plains states. We have no geographic
constraints and we invest in the grid and we do that to improve
reliability, to expand access to markets, and lower the cost of
delivered energy to our customers.
We also allow for diverse and new generating resources to
interconnect to our transmission systems. At the conclusion of
today's hearings, I hope to leave the Committee with two very
clear takeaways--first, that investment in the transmission
grid is needed now, and secondly, the private sector utility
industry, which we are a part of, are ready to make these
investments if we are provided with the right regulatory and
planning environment.
While there have been some efforts made by the Trump
administration and Congress to reform the existing regulatory
process for electric transmission, additional reforms in
federal permitting and environmental review processes are
needed. We also need to continue to take proactive steps to
reform procedures for planning the transmission system to
ensure that we are examining the full value of the transmission
investments.
I would like to highlight the growing importance of
transmission infrastructure to our economy. In the earliest
incarnations of the grid, the transmission lines were built for
a single purpose and that was just to move electricity from
generating plants to homes and businesses. It was usually
within a single utility footprint.
Things have certainly evolved as FERC and individual states
have opened up electricity markets to competition and
transmission lines became more than just a one-way delivery
system for individual utilities. Today, the transmission grid
serves as a non-discriminatory regional platform for connecting
consumers to energy markets. As customer expectations have
increased, so too have the drivers for new investment in
transmission infrastructure.
Whatever the energy future may bring, let's be clear that
we need a modern transmission system to provide the optionality
to facilitate that future. Moving forward, the story is clear
as well. Our economy is becoming more and more dependent on
reliable and affordable access to electricity and the
transmission grid becomes more stressed as that occurs.
Planning the grid to address these demands requires
consideration of many complex factors including potential
threats to the system.
We now understand that the redundancy that we planned into
the transmission system--in other words, the different ways and
pathways that we can connect to consumers--that offers a pretty
strong protection against adverse events that can impact
generation resources or the transmission system itself.
Investing now will ensure the resilience of the grid and the
resource diversity while keeping electricity prices low for
consumers and for businesses.
I would like to emphasize that, theoretically, no federal
dollars are needed to strengthen the grid, increase resilience,
and create jobs. The private sector which we are a part of is
ready to make these investments, provided that regulatory and
planning environment is conducive to the investment.
We applaud the efforts by Congress to streamline the
permitting process for new infrastructure. Even still today,
permitting for a major transmission line can take nearly a
decade to secure a range of federal, state, and local permits.
In order to ensure that the NEPA process can be completed
in a reasonable amount of time while maintaining the strong
commitment that we have to environmental stewardship that we
all share this commitment, then Congress could consider a
number of options including requiring concurrent NEPA analysis
and environmental reviews by all the permitting agencies
involved, requiring those agencies to use the information
that's already contained in the lead agency's NEPA document as
the basis for their reviews, and then, finally, setting some
firm deadlines for the NEPA process.
To make the necessary investments in transmission
infrastructure that we are ready to do, we need a supportive
regulatory environment and to use the latest and most
comprehensive methodologies to plan and approve new
transmission lines. Planning the grid proactively requires that
benefits of a potential investment be viewed more
comprehensively by integrating a range of project benefits and
planning drivers into criteria for approving projects.
Finally, we need also to support the construction of new
transmission lines that connect RTOs and ISOs in various
regions which, as of today, are still highly separated.
More interregional connections will increase system
flexibility and resilience against potential threats while
still allowing regional flexibility and approaches to joint
planning.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify before the
committee and I look forward to answering any questions you
might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Slocum follows:]
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Mr. Upton. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ross.
STATEMENT OF JIM ROSS
Mr. Ross. Thank you.
Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Rush, and the Members of the
Committee, on behalf of our president, Lonnie Stephenson, thank
you for inviting me here today to participate in this important
discussion.
Energy generation and power distribution is an $800 billion
a year business. With 775,000 active members and retirees, the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers--the IBEW--
represents approximately 400,000 workers employed in
generation, transmission, distribution, construction, and rail
jobs all in some way related to the electrical grid. The IBEW
supports a diverse balance and resilient energy portfolio that
includes renewables like wind, solar, and hydro while
preserving key base load energy's sources like natural gas,
coal, nuclear power. These base load power sources are
extremely important to the United States security and vital to
future planning. The need to upgrade is getting its rightful
attention these days.
But left out of the recent conversation is that the United
States has not made meaningful upgrades to its energy
infrastructure since the 1970s. Unfortunately, our current
electric distribution system, which functions on a regional or
localized basis, is outdated and inefficient and the permitting
and approval process for large-scale transmission projects is
more than burdensome. It's an outright barrier to construction.
The large-scale solar installation in the desert of
California, a massive new hydropower generation project in
eastern Canada, and a wind farm in the plains--these are major
renewable energy development projects the members of the IBEW
have been proud to help construct in recent years.
But these generation projects of the future are only as
good as the transmission network they will rely on. Their value
is diminished if there is no infrastructure to take power from
the source to the demand for electricity.
New investment in the transmission network is a necessary
component of these renewable energy projects and the good news
is that plans exist and, in some cases, are years into the
necessary permitting and approval stages. In fact,
approximately $140 billion in private capital is awaiting
permit approvals for aging transmission system overhauls and
development of new clean lines to move more renewable sources
to market.
One important method of financing infrastructure projects
is through bonds and regulatory decisions can dramatically
impact the bond market. Congress can also play a key role in
project financing by expanding access to private activity
bonds. Your support for legislation that encourages market
predictability and stability will foster job creation.
It is also important to support legislation that would
streamline permitting and siting processes. There are plenty of
energy infrastructure projects across the United States that
have been involved in the permitting process for years.
An example of a project pending approval is the 192-mile
Northern Pass project which will build high-voltage
transmission lines through New Hampshire, carrying clean
hydropower from Canada to New England. It would create 2,600
jobs during peak construction and many of these would be
skilled IBEW construction linemen. Recent storms and frigid
temperatures have challenged the ability to the region to meet
demand for heating and electric generation. As a result,
wholesale gas prices spiked more than 10 times the 2017 average
price and oil-fueled turbines were employed, triggering a
release of greenhouse gases and pollutants into the atmosphere.
Northern Pass will relieve the massive imbalance of supply
and demand in New England and introduce necessary renewable
diversity into its energy portfolio. Another 750-mile high-
voltage clean line project will deliver 4,000 megawatts of
wind-generated power to major load centers in the Midwest and
the East Coast, enough to power 720,000 homes. Both of these
projects bring economic and job growth, preserve local
communities, and grow the tax base. A regulatory resistance
from state and local jurisdictions has effectively stopped them
before they could get off the ground. For this reason, we need
to empower federal authorities to approve large-scale projects
of national importance that cross state lines and local
government jurisdictions.
With all due respect to local authorities, we need a new
approach that trims unnecessary red tape and streamlines the
rules created by numerous regulatory authorities. Additionally,
the Federal Government should take responsibility for right
sizing by incentivizing development of capacity in excess of
current market demands.
Accounting for future demand avoids the possibility of
under building and encourages future development renewable
electricity sources because there will be a market case to make
to investors, providing that they can move their generation to
major markets.
Lastly, we are encouraged by recent one-agency one-decision
proposals which will reduce the time line for federal
environmental reviews and permitting processes. We do not
support efforts to diminish current environmental protections.
We simply need an efficient process. We cannot afford to
continue postponing the necessary upgrades.
The United States lags behind China and Brazil, Germany,
and many other countries in transmission infrastructure
investment. With the Federal Government taking a decision
making lead, market predictability will improve as well as the
IBEW's ability to plan for training the next generation of
construction linemen. It takes 3 years to train a journeyman
lineman to perform transmission line construction and
maintenance, and we anticipate the need for approximately
50,000 new power linemen over the next 10 years.
While projects are held up, we are losing valuable training
time. By the way, our privately-operated apprenticeship
training programs invest approximately $200 million annually to
equip students with the skills the markets demand. For more
than 70 years, the IBEW and our employer partners, the National
Electrical Contractors Association, have been the largest
private sector trainer of electrical workers in the Nation.
Together, the IBEW and NECA operate hundreds of training
centers in communities across the country. Our training
programs guarantee a steady stream of skilled electrical
workers necessary for the important work of modernizing and
expanding our grid.
We ask for your leadership on making our modern electrical
grid a reality. We remain a ready partner with our employers
and elected officials from both sides of the aisle.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify here before you
today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ross follows:]
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Mr. Upton. Thank you.
Dr. Chen.
STATEMENT OF JENNIFER CHEN
Ms. Chen. Good morning, Chairman Upton, Ranking Member
Rush, and members of the Committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am Jennifer
Chen, an attorney with the NRDC. I am also a board member with
the Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, a coalition including
transmission owners and developers. We are jointly working to
achieve a modern, efficient, and clean consumer-friendly
transmission grid.
NRDC supports a range of infrastructure modernization
projects that deliver economic, social, and environmental
benefits. We support programs promoting energy efficiency and
distributed energy resources, and we need to ensure that
transmission planning counts for them to avoid overbuilding.
Today, I will focus my comments on the main barrier to
transmission infrastructure improvements most needed to
modernize the electric grid--a severely fragmented transmission
planning process and how we can overcome that barrier.
But first, I want to emphasize that environmental laws are
not driving a delay in modernizing our grid and President
Trump's infrastructure plan that would severely undermine these
protections is not the solution. As DOE noted in its
quadrennial energy review on energy infrastructure, the
environmental review and permitting requirements are
accomplished effectively and efficiently. This is due in large
part to progress made by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of
2005 as well as by the last two administrations.
NEPA is only triggered if there is a federal nexus like
when a project receives federal funding. NEPA and federal
permitting requirements are important components for smart from
the start planning. They disclose a project's impact to the
public and provide opportunities for input including alternate
solutions. Early robust public engagement is also key through
reducing conflicts and mitigating impacts. Such input has
resulted in better outcomes and stakeholder engagement helps
avoid protracted legal battles, bad publicity, and protests.
On the other hand, President Trump's plan to short circuit
environmental projections and public processes would be
counterproductive because experience has shown that
insufficient public engagement breeds local opposition that can
delay projects. It's far better to fix the disjointed planning
process we can all agree is a barrier to something a wide range
of stakeholders wants. We want our nation's transmission
backbone to be able to deliver clean low-cost electricity from
the windy heartland and sunny states to more densely populated
regions. Importantly, that kind of grid modernization effort
will create jobs, improve the efficiency of our electricity
markets, promotes emissions-free electrification of our economy
that is key to addressing climate change, and produce billions
of dollars in benefits to electricity consumers.
The problem is our transmission planning process is too
small scale to produce a robust transmission backbone needed to
accomplish these goals. Currently, interregional transmission
planning proposals are dying on the vine, if proposed at all,
far in advance of the environmental review stage. This is
largely due to mismatched planning between neighboring regions.
Smaller regional projects, on the other hand, have seen
more success. FERC tried to facilitate interregional project
development by requiring neighboring grid planners to
coordinate with each other. But that's not the same as
requiring them to jointly plan for transmission because
neighboring regions use different methods in their planning.
Asking them to simply coordinate has not facilitated these
interregional projects. FERC sought public input in June of
2016 to revisit this issue but it has not acted on it since.
Interregional transmission planning, not just coordination
between regions, must be FERC's next priority.
As a next step, Congress could encourage FERC to use
existing authority to implement a rule on interregional
transmission planning and to truly modernize the grid, Congress
could encourage FERC to require planning that anticipates the
impact of public policies and the falling costs of wind and
solar power.
FERC should also require planning that accounts for
technologies that facilitate environmentally responsible
siting, reduces energy loss along the wires, and maximizes the
use of existing transmission lines and other infrastructure.
Infrastructure is long lived and expensive, but it's an
investment and it's important to get it right. And to do so,
it's critical to take steps now to improve the planning
process. President Trump's plan to circumvent environmental
protections would encourage rushing to solve the wrong problem.
Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Chen follows:]
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Mr. Upton. Thank you.
Dr. Hellyer.
STATEMENT OF BRENDA HELLYER
Ms. Hellyer. Good morning, Chairman Upton, Ranking Member
Rush, and Vice Chair Olson and members of the subcommittee.
My name is Dr. Brenda Hellyer and I am Chancellor of San
Jacinto College, and I am pleased to testify this morning on
the role that community colleges and San Jacinto College
specifically can play in contributing to the Nation's energy
infrastructure and developing the workforce and the talent
pipeline that's necessary to support that infrastructure.
San Jacinto College is located in East Harris County, the
Gulf Coast region of Texas, and serves approximately 45,000
credit and non-credit students each year. Last year, the
college was recognized as an Aspen Rising Star Award,
representing as one of the top five community colleges in the
country for community college excellence.
We are located in the heart of an energy industry. Our
service area incorporates the Houston Ship Channel, home to the
Nation's largest petrochemical complex, and we also support the
NASA Johnson Space Center, Ellington Airport, and the Port of
Houston, which is ranked number one in U.S. ports for foreign
tonnage.
In my written testimony, I outline some of the workforce
challenges in the Houston region. Briefly, Houston's skills gap
has reached critical proportions among the middle skilled
jobs--those that require more education and training than a
high school diploma but less than a four-year degree. Of the
3.6 million jobs in Houston, 1.4 million, or approximately 40
percent, are middle skills jobs. The best way to address this
need is through collaboration and partnership.
We have taken a national state and regional approach. No
one entity or group can fix this challenge alone. From a
regional standpoint, we engage area economic development
corporations, our school districts, our universities, and our
industries to build the pipeline for future workers.
We are at the table together, addressing this issue from
multiple angles. I am going to give you some examples of that--
San Jacinto College invites 6,000 sixth graders each year to
gain hands-on experience in STEM experiments. This is through
an event called Mind Trekkers. It's supported and it's
sponsored by industry partners.
We offer summer camps to kickstart students so they
understand the jobs that are available in STEM, petrochemical,
and maritime. We also have a speakers' bureau that's a
grassroots effort--community colleges, our economic development
group, and our industry partners going in to our high schools
and our eighth graders talking about the careers and the jobs
in our area. Last year, 12,000 students and their parents were
contacted and spoken with about these jobs.
We partner with industry to understand the types of
employees they need, the skill sets required, and we adjust our
curriculum to meet those needs. To that end, we are building a
145,000 square foot center for petrochemical energy and
technology. This facility is being built based on the input
from industry. It's for industry by industry and it's funded
from taxpayer dollars and also private donations.
More than a dozen industry leaders serve on a petrochem
advisory council working directly with me to guide the project.
This facility will house an exterior glycol unit. It'll have
programs in process technology, instrumentation, electrical,
non-destructive testing, the craft trades, and it'll also build
on our construction management program. All of the programs
will emphasize and build on a safety culture. The program will
replicate a day in the life of plant operators and technicians.
The programs are designed not only for the new worker coming
into the field but also to upgrade the skills of the incumbent
worker.
Our partnership in providing a skilled energy workforce is
enhanced through our work with you, the Federal Government. We
understand that a well-educated technically trained energy
workforce is essential to advancing the President's America
First energy plan and growing the Nation's energy
infrastructure. To that end, community colleges have been
working on the development of new legislation for energy
workforce training Centers of Excellence. Two bills have passed
and we encourage the enactment on funding of this type of
legislation. We also encourage Congress to continue investing
in America's labor force through grants with the Departments of
Labor, Education, and Energy.
San Jacinto College is working with the Federal Government
to provide workforce training programs through the Ready to Act
workforce grant, the Carl Perkins Grant, the Trade Adjustment
Act. All of these are designed around building that workforce
and they're critical to the citizens of my region but they're
also critical to the 1,100 community colleges throughout the
country that provide the critical workforce training.
While this committee doesn't oversee Pell, I would be
remiss if I didn't mention the impact of Pell and how that
really can define how we are going to continue to feed the
workforce and make sure that we build that workforce. There's
2.7 million community college students using the Pell system,
which is building our workforce.
In conclusion, San Jacinto is working collaboratively in
the Gulf Coast region to increase the number of students
looking to go into these careers and workforce training, STEM,
and the fields that really build this infrastructure. These
programs improve the lives across our region. In the Gulf Coast
region we are actually driving the economy of the Nation also.
And so I can tell you from San Jacinto's perspective this
program, how we really are going to help support the
infrastructure is critical. But it's also critical that we have
the support for all community colleges.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hellyer follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Upton. Thank you all for your testimony. At this point,
we'll move to questions from our subcommittee.
Mr. Devine, I appreciate you being here for sure and from
my perspective I want you to keep your job. I believe in an
all-of-the-above strategy.
Renewables are a big part of that. In Michigan, we've got a
minimum mandate. Hydro is part of that. Not as much in Michigan
as it is particularly in the Northwest, but as you may know, we
have passed with a number of Democrats a hydropower licensing
bill that moved through this committee and has passed in the
House now and is waiting for action in the Senate.
You talked about a number of hydropower facilities that are
more than 50 years old. We need to add capacity. This is a
renewable piece that most Americans would like but with,
obviously, no carbon emissions, basically, from that source of
power. If our legislation became law, went to the President's
desk, how would this help the hydropower industry in terms of
dollars invested in kilowatts generated?
Mr. Devine. Well, Chairman Upton, I think that improving
the timelines involved in the licensing process will reduce
some of the perception of the risk in the process.
Risk is anathema to investment. So I think that aligns very
well with increasing investment in hydropower. There are many
opportunities for upgrades and improvements and increasing
energy at existing hydropower facilities and at non-power dams,
and I think it's viewed as from these have to be financed and
the financing is susceptible to risk and reward effects. So the
proposals that increase the efficiency of the process and will
help in terms of improving the overall investment opportunity.
Mr. Upton. So I am one who believes that there ought to be
an energy title within the infrastructure bill that, hopefully,
moves through the Congress this year.
Dr. Hellyer, as you know, the President had many of the
Nation's governors here for the last couple days. A whole
number of different issues were discussed. One of them was
infrastructure.
I had the opportunity last night to have dinner with my
Michigan governor, Rick Snyder. He told me, he said, ``You
know, if there's one thing you can really do to help create
jobs and move on infrastructure is to expand Pell to make sure
that it's involved in community colleges and job training.''
In my district, we've got two nuclear plants. We've got a
new LNG plant that they're almost ready to break ground on,
which will, as I am told, double the tax base for that
particular community. It's a couple years away from being
complete but they're ready to break ground, I believe, this
spring.
As I meet with my IBEW folks, they have a very active group
in Michiana, as we say--Indiana and Michigan. I've been to a
number of their events over the years and they are very proud,
rightly so, of the work that they do creating the jobs, the
internships.
I am fascinated with what's happened in Houston and the
leading role that you play because I do believe that that
skills gap and worker training out of be part, again, perhaps,
of an infrastructure bill creating the jobs that we want,
knowing that we are going to improve the infrastructure across
the country.
How do you both see perhaps an expanded role as it relates
to worker training, working through our community colleges
which, again, in my view, is so important?
Maybe Mr. Ross, start with you and come back to Dr.
Hellyer.
Mr. Ross. We are always looking for skilled craftsmen or
top-rated individuals that come out of the community colleges
because we love getting those individuals directly out of the
community college because that makes our job easier--transition
them right into our apprenticeship program. At least for
linemen it's a 3-year program--our inside program for a
journeyman wireman like myself is a 5-year program. So any
advanced training they get it gives them a leg up on someone
trying to apply for our program and get in our program.
So we work directly with community colleges. I know where I
am from, from West Virginia, we work directly with our
community colleges there to get those individuals. I would go
out and visit those community colleges, encourage them to take
an application for our program. I know throughout the country
IBEW always works with the community colleges.
Mr. Upton. And Dr. Hellyer, I would just say we've got a
lot of really great community colleges in my district.
One of them is Kalamazoo Valley--KVCC. They actually have a
wind turbine school training folks and they have jobs right
away as they graduate.
Ms. Hellyer. So there are a couple of things I think could
be done. Right now, the Higher Education Reauthorization Act is
being looked at.
There are some talks about making it where Pell can be used
for short-term programs. For us, that could be very helpful,
especially with programs like commercial truck driving that
don't qualify right now.
As far as working with IBEW, apprenticeship, programs, we
do that quite often. I was in Austin yesterday for a meeting
around a new program in trying to take high school students and
move them into apprenticeship and going into licensing for
plumbing, electrical, and one of the comments came up how do
they use their Pell dollars for that.
So I think there needs to be some more flexibility built
into the program and because some of these programs are going
to take longer than what you have Pell dollars available and so
how do you leverage that.
So you need short-term but then you also need some of the
long term where students are going out and working and then
coming back.
Mr. Upton. I know Virginia Foxx would like me to say that
that looks like additional jurisdiction for this committee.
With that, I yield to the ranking member of the
subcommittee, Mr. Rush.
Mr. Rush. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ross, I really want to commend the IBEW Local 134 in my
city and my state. They're doing a remarkable job rebuilding
the--in terms of a grammar school--a closed grammar school and
they're turning that into a union hall--really, really nice--
right next to another of our vocational high schools. And so
they're in the forefront of really taking CTE students and
giving them skills and training and I really want to commend
your union for that. They're wonderful people.
Dr. Hellyer, the city of Houston has a number of
comprehensive workforce development strategies that includes
training and in K to 12 levels, community college levels,
university, and vocational educational levels. This decision
allows candidates to be trained and developed throughout all
stages of the educational spectrum.
My workforce development bill attempts to run this model to
a national level and is aimed at training minorities, women,
veterans, and unemployed energy workers for good-paying jobs
and careers.
First of all, I want to commend you on your leadership in
San Jacinto College and I hope that you will work with my
office to help make my bill a reality as part of a broader
infrastructure package. I think that you have shown tremendous
insight into the needs of our nation by what you're doing at
San Jacinto and I also want to commend you. I think that your
leadership is surely and truly inspirational, notwithstanding
the comments of my friend Chairman Upton's subcommittee.
Mayor McCarthy, you are on the forefront on trying to
reconcile the needs and priorities of your constituents with
the budgetary restraints so many of our states and cities are
facing. What are your thoughts on the administration's proposal
asking states and local municipalities to cover 80 percent of
new funding for infrastructure projects?
Is this realistic, in your view? Are you concerned with the
Federal Government's attempt to shirk its responsibility of
investing in a serious and meaningful way in our nation's aging
energy infrastructure?
Mr. McCarthy. Thank you, sir.
I approach it that the 80/20 funding formula that's
proposed is really oversimplistic. There are, again, many
components that could be financed within the revenue streams
that exist today. But some of the emerging technologies are
new. You have to do the proof of concept. They're going to
happen. They're happening in other countries. You're seeing
things in South Korea. You're seeing things in the Mideast
where they're developing and deploying technologies faster than
we are doing here in the United States.
And so how do you build that resiliency into the grid and
at the same time create a platform that really positions not
only our communities but the country as a whole to take
advantage of it and go forward so that you're creating jobs,
you're creating economic opportunities, and you're improving
just the quality of life and, hopefully, in your deliberations
that you will look at those formulas and create the regulatory
environment that allows things that are self-financing to go
forward but at the same time look at those things that are new
and emerging that we need assistance and are going to need some
subsidy or large amount of financing from the federal
government to ensure that they're developed, deployed, and
continue to allow this country to lead in a global environment.
Mr. Rush. My second question to you, Mayor, is the
administration--under this administration the agencies that had
been previously preparing plans to increase resilience to
climatic events for access under their purview are now
forbidden from even uttering the phrase ``climate change,''
much less preparing for its consequences and its symptoms.
Do you see the need for significant federal investment in
local energy assurance plans to advance resiliency efforts
including proposals to combat climatic events? Do you----
Mr. McCarthy. I am sorry. Directed to me again?
Mr. Rush. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCarthy. Climate change is happening. There's debate
in terms of what's causing that but it's happening. And so we
have to take that into account in terms of public policy and
how do you look to reduce greenhouse gases.
Most of the scenarios that are out there also allow for
cost savings, improved efficiencies, and job creation when you
do the reduction in greenhouse gases so that you're improving
the environment at the same time creating opportunities for
some of these emerging technologies and emerging skill sets
where we have to have a work force--and some of the other
panelists have talked about--that are able to provide these
skill sets that we need for services that people demand.
Mr. Rush. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olson [presiding]. The gentleman's time has expired.
The chair now calls upon the chairman of the full committee
from the Beaver State, Mr. Walden, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Walden. I thank the gentleman. As an Oregon Duck, I
don't always refer to it as the Beaver State, although that is
our mascot.
[Laughter.]
So, Mr. Ross, thank you for being here. To all of our
panelists, again, thank you for your testimony on this very
important set of issues.
I know I've worked closely with IBEW out in Oregon--Local
48 and 659, I think--and toured the apprentice operation there.
It's very impressive. Where's the gap? What do we need to be
doing? I know we don't directly have that jurisdiction but this
is important because we can help streamline projects without
diminishing the environmental piece of this.
We can do a lot of work here to get pipelines and power
lines and broadband going. But if we don't have the skilled
workforce necessary to do the work, we got a problem.
So can you talk about your apprenticeship programs and
where you're at and what we need to be thinking about?
Mr. Ross. Well, we need a lot more, quite frankly. We are
doing our level best to try to attract individuals into our
programs. For our outside program we have approximately 4,600
registered apprentices for the line side and around 32,000 for
our inside program and we certainly could use a lot more. But
what you run into, we are unique in construction and for most
people it is familiar--we work ourselves out of a job. So we
are always looking for the next one.
So good steady work forecasts certainly helps our
apprenticeship programs, certainly attract individuals into our
programs but also keeps them working. So it's hard for a local
union to accept a bunch of apprentices if they don't have a
place for them to work.
Mr. Walden. Right. Right.
Mr. Ross. So that's our dilemma. It's kind of a catch-22.
So we are always looking at the next job, and we certainly went
through a major recession in 2007 and '08.
Mr. Walden. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ross. We would call it depression for our industry.
Mr. Walden. I would, too.
Mr. Ross. We had tremendous unemployment. Most of the
locals weren't taking apprentices in because they couldn't keep
them working.
So we are trying to get caught up because we are in an
economic boom for construction right. We are having some skills
shortage. That's why we are working with community colleges and
different groups trying to get those individuals help.
Mr. Walden. Yes. I know in the town of my birth, The
Dalles, there's Columbia Gorge Community College, actually, in
both Hood River and The Dalles and they started a wind energy
program a long time ago, teaching safety and some of the
electrical skills as well.
I would like to touch on too when I did a series of town
halls last spring we got some development underway or proposed
in Oregon and some who tried to block this sort of development
ridicule these jobs as temporary jobs. I heard it a lot at the
meeting, and it kind of perplexed me because while my wife and
I have never constructed our own house, I think if we ever did
when the carpenters were done I wouldn't want them to move into
one of the bedrooms. I would want them to move on to the next
house. But this is an argument and it's an argument on the
left, and I heard it a lot. Can you speak to those temporary
jobs and are they not worthy? That's a rhetorical question.
Mr. Ross. It is rhetorical, yes. Like I said, we are always
looking for the next project no matter how short. I am an
electrician by trade, OK. I just happen to be working in
Washington, D.C. now. But I've taken projects that were only
supposed to last 3 weeks and be there 2 \1/2\ years.
So I think it's a pretty sad state of affairs, because all
our jobs are temporary in construction. Quite frankly, if you
didn't work yourself out of a job you wouldn't get the next
job----
Mr. Walden. That's right.
Mr. Ross. Because the idea is to get the job done on time
and on budget. So----
Mr. Walden. As you know, we are spending a lot of time here
trying to streamline the permitting process. Again, we get
criticized that somehow we are diminishing the environmental
nature of it. But that's not what we are up to.
I have a tiny little community in central Oregon that I
think spent years trying to get four power poles on Bureau of
Land Management land to go through the permitting process, and
I know others say, ``Oh, it never slows you down.'' It does.
Half of my district--more than that--is federal land. So we
encounter this everywhere we go, and it took them 3 or 4 years
to get these four power poles sited so that they could get
three-phase power into Mitchell, Oregon for the first time.
Do you run into--these permitting delays?
Mr. Ross. Well, I kind of addressed that in my testimony.
But yes, we will run into those issues all the time.
Unfortunately, some of these projects would put a lot of people
to work. Most of them have been through the siting permitting
process and are just sitting there basically to get done but
being held up through someone on the other side doesn't want, I
get where people don't want a power line in their back yard. I
get that.
Mr. Walden. Sure.
Mr. Ross. But in some cases----
Mr. Walden. They do want the power to come on when the
switch is thrown, though.
Mr. Ross. Exactly. When people's lights go out they want
their power back on. They don't really care what they look
like.
Mr. Walden. Well, I thank you and I thank all our witnesses
for your input.
And Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Olson. Gentleman's time has expired.
The chair now calls upon the gentleman from the thirteenth
largest city in California--Stockton, California--Mr. McNerney,
5 minutes, sir.
Mr. McNerney. Well, thank you for that little statistic,
Mr. Chairman, and I thank the panel for coming and testifying
this morning.
The U.S. clearly needs to modernize our electrical
infrastructure. The technology exists today to do that. We can
make our grid resilient and responsive. We can meet consumer
demands that are changing by the day. We can meet the demands
of intermittent resources, physical and cyber-attacks, and the
changing weather patterns that are brought on by climate change
that have brought down the grid in Puerto Rico, in Texas, in
New York, New Jersey, and in California.
So we have the capabilities to do that and, fortunately, my
good friend, Bob Latta, and I have formed a Grid Innovation
Caucus to make people aware of what's available and the need to
move forward on that. So I just wanted to make that clear.
Mr. Devine, I worked on the Hydropower Modernization Act
and one of the things that struck me was definitely how long it
took to get permits, how expensive it was to get permits.
Could you say a little bit about how much hydropower we
could expect if that was improved?
Mr. Devine. I would hate to guess in terms of the total
amount of capacity involved but it's thousands of megawatts.
It's very significant.
As I mentioned to Chairman Upton, the view of the risk in
the amount of time it takes to improve even somewhat
straightforward projects is very difficult for investors to
accept. So I think there is a considerable amount of available
upgrade potential and power to be added to existing dams that
have no power and I think it's in the thousands of megawatts.
I am working on a project right now where we have an
upgrade potential of something on the order, of an existing
station, something on the order of 20 or 30 megawatts. Now,
that may not seem large but that's just one station in
location. That's a significant amount. We are now in our
seventh or eighth year of licensing. It's not the only issue,
of course, but the licensing process can hold up these upgrades
and these improvements for a considerable amount of time.
It's very difficult for the investors to wait that long in
order to realize a return on that.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
Mr. Ross, you mentioned private activity bonds. Could you
expand on that a little bit? I've done some legislative work on
that. How important would that be in terms of municipal bonds
and other tools?
Mr. Ross. I am going to have to take a pass on that one and
get our political department or someone get you an answer to
that, OK?
Mr. McNerney. Dr. Chen, you mentioned pretty pointedly that
we would require regions to coordinate transmission planning.
Could you go into that a little bit? How would that work? How
would that speed up our process? How would it make it more easy
to put in transmission?
Ms. Chen. All right. So there are two parts to that and I
appreciate that question.
So first, in the transmission planning process, the
different ISOs and RTOs plan separately and they're required to
coordinate by FERC for interregional projects. But,
unfortunately, that's not really producing any projects. So
what we really need to see is a full joint interregional
planning process. FERC can use its existing authority to extend
order number 1000 to require this and Congress could write
letters to FERC, hold a hearing for FERC to ask how they can
move forward in that process.
Separately, in terms of siting, especially some of these
long lines, coordinating between state and federal processes as
well as locals and other stakeholders--landowners--would be
greatly helpful. We've seen great success and, for example, in
the Department of Energy and Department of Interior working
together with the State of California to site 9 megawatts of
solar in just 9 months by coordinating together, doing as much
of the environmental review concurrently and jointly, and that
sped things up a lot.
There is a great example about a Midwestern project,
CapX2020, that I can go into further. But a University of
Minnesota report highlighted a lot of successes that arose out
of the coordination there as well.
Mr. McNerney. Very briefly, does anyone have anything to
say about ARPA-E? Would the elimination of ARPA-E, is that
going to set us back in terms of our electrical infrastructure
development? Anybody on the panel.
Mr. Devine. In terms of the, Congressman McNerney, the
renewable portfolio standards that you're referring to?
Mr. McNerney. No, ARPA--that's the advanced renewable
energy or advanced energy research based on DARPA.
Ms. Chen. Very briefly, I think that would set us back.
Mr. Olson. The gentleman's time has expired. The chair now
calls upon the gentleman who was the former chairman of the
full committee, the current vice chairman of the full committee
and a proud Texas Aggie, Mr. Barton.
Mr. Barton. Well, we thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
that introduction.
This is a difficult hearing for me to get my arms around
because we are trying to put a government spin, apparently, on
private sector investment in infrastructure.
I do believe there's a legitimate public interest certainly
in the permitting and licensing part of these big
infrastructure projects. We certainly need to protect our
environment.
And I think you could argue that if you look at public
sector infrastructure--highways, bridges, ports--compare it to
private sector infrastructure--pipelines, refineries,
transmission lines--the private sector has done a better job.
We seem to be more up to date in our private sector
infrastructure than our public sector infrastructure. So, I
think while it's important to look at permitting reforms and
things like that, if it's not broke don't fix it.
I guess one question I have to the mayor of Schenectady--
it's always good to have local officials here--you're closer to
the problems.
There's been an ongoing problem for decades in the Midwest
and the Northeast. When you need power, electricity, natural
gas it's hard to get the permits for the transmission lines or
the pipelines to get that power or that product to your part of
the country.
Do you have the solution on how to balance the legitimate
needs of the state and local government against the public good
and interstate commerce of getting the product from point A to
point B if it cross state lines?
Mr. McCarthy. I don't, Congressman.
Mr. Barton. That's an honest answer.
[Laughter.]
Mr. McCarthy. Even though I think the opportunity is out
there, as you see some of the emerging technologies where you
had centralized points of generation and the distribution
network was, clearly, in one direction that is changing.
So where you have solar and wind that are being added to it
that can provide supplemental points of generation and the
ability to balance the load so that you don't get the peak
demand anymore, those will take some of the pressure off the
need to have the central points of generation at the same time
will hopefully be able to allow it to be done in a cost-
effective manner for the consumers who will take advantage of
some of the newer concepts and products that are out there.
Mr. Barton. That's actually a very good answer. If you
eliminate the need to cross the state line, you have solved the
problem and so more of these alternative energy projects that
are on site. Those eliminate that need. But I think you're
still going to need to somehow figure out a way to move natural
gas or oil from Texas to New York or Chicago. There are going
to be occasions where you still need to cross state lines. But
your solution is----
Mr. McCarthy. And I agree with that. I don't have a
solution, though, for the regulatory environment or the ability
to make sure that adequate capacity is there.
Mr. Barton. This last question is a little bit off subject
but it is infrastructure related and that's who should be the
lead and who should pay to protect our infrastructure, our
power plants and things like that against cyber-attacks? So OK,
Mr. Slocum, just----
Mr. Slocum. Yes. We own quite a bit of that infrastructure
and we certainly do a lot to protect especially our most
critical facilities and our critical systems that we use to
operate the bulk electric system from cyber-attacks. So we
cover those costs and ultimately those go to our ratepayers
today. But I do think there is a need for a discussion about at
what point does that stop for private industry and what point
does the government help to do that in areas where we are
getting into even acts of war and things of that nature.
So I have a concern that private industry not have to be
burdened with those costs. But we are certainly ready to work
together with government to meet those needs and make sure
their infrastructure is protected.
Mr. Barton. I see my time has expired.
Final question--are you any kin to the former football
coach who's my great friend, R.C. Slocum of Texas A&M?
Mr. Slocum. I can't say that I am but it's not the first
Slocum I've been asked if I am related to. So thanks.
Mr. Barton. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olson. Gentleman's time has expired.
The chair now calls upon a friend who rooted against the
L.A. Dodgers in the World Series and for our Houston Astros,
Mr. Peters, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Peters. Thank you. I always enjoy hearing what my
introduction is going to be, Mr. Chairman. So thank you very
much. Thanks for being here. I want to ask Dr. Chen a couple
questions.
Dr. Chen, I have to say I read your testimony and we hear
all the time from businesses and investors that regulatory
system can cause uncertainty and the length of delay can cause
projects not to get built or be more expensive or result in
investors not wanting to take these risks. The citations in
your testimony to the Department of Energy's own statistics,
the Center for American Progress, I understand that people
argue that it isn't a problem. But we hear from people who are
actually doing the investing that it is a problem and I just
don't think that we do ourselves any favors on this side of the
aisle by not thinking about what we could do to improve the
process to achieve high standards and yet do it more quickly in
a way that's more certain for people.
What happens, I think, when we don't do that is that we get
the kinds of things that President Trump has proposed, which is
an evisceration of the regulatory system that doesn't get us
high standards.
So I wanted to just ask you about a couple things that Mr.
Slocum suggested which seem, to me, reasonable and see if you
have an issue with them.
Could Congress require concurrent NEPA analysis and
environmental reviews by all permitting agencies? Is there an
issue you have with that?
Ms. Chen. No. So, certainly, there are a lot of provisions
in place that enable a joint review so----
Mr. Peters. Could it be required?
Ms. Chen. It could be. I haven't----
Mr. Peters. OK. How about requiring concurrent NEPA
analysis--well, that's the same thing--requiring cooperating
agencies to use the information already contained in the lead
agency's NEPA document as the basis for their permit-related
reviews?
Ms. Chen. I think it's something to consider. I think there
are a lot of efficiencies that can be explored. But our main
issue is eliminating or curtailing environmental protections.
Mr. Peters. I understand, too, and I think that's not where
I want to get to. The other thing is whether we should set a
deadline, and I got to tell you I was shocked when I got on
this committee and heard that hydropower which is, basically,
clean base load energy--takes 10 years to get a permit for.
And the thing that we learned is something you suggested,
too, in your references to success stories. In the success
stories you have these people who are remarkably talented and
well-motivated to work together and they get it done in 9
months. That's a really ad hoc kind of cross-your-fingers
approach to permitting, I think, because you might not get
people who are so willing to work together. You might get
opponents who are more vociferous.
And for me, it would be much more comfortable if we could
find a way to get these decisions made in the right way, in a
way that protects the environment but also gives an answer.
I've always said no is the second best answer. Let people know.
And I was just actually looking at Twitter because there is
some downtime in these hearings, believe it or not, and NRDC is
opposing a pipeline very vociferously right now on Twitter, and
that's fine. But I just don't think there's any excuse for not
getting this done in a quicker way. And so I would like to work
with you.
By the way, you went to the finest law school in the United
States of America. I would like to work with you, as a former
alum of the same school, to see if we can't come up with better
responses to the concern that we are hearing from the economy
that this permitting process is in the way. It's too
inefficient. I think we can do it in a way that's useful.
Mr. Devine, I wanted to ask you, just in case we haven't
covered it, you said in your testimony that you didn't think
that Congress was at fault for the length of time it takes to
do hydropower.
So you tell me if there's anything Congress should do to
address the situation out there.
Mr. Devine. Yes. Thank you, Congressman Peters.
I think there is, definitely. Let me do it by example,
possibly. So I think what FERC tried to do with the integrated
licensing process was try to bring some order and some
efficiency to that process. It was a collaborative rulemaking
process, which meant that all of the agencies and all
conservation groups and the industry was involved in coming up
with that process. And yes, it's still a long process but it's
very structured and you go through the process and FERC, I
think, has brought some efficiency in their effort to bring to
the federal hydropower licensing process.
The difficulty that we have in the process is you get to a
certain point and and there are other federal and state
licensing processes that then interact with that process and
they don't have any sort of schedule particularly and I think
the courts have actually said--I am not an attorney--that FERC
is not in a position to force those agencies to meet any
particular deadlines. So that means there is no deadline.
Mr. Peters. So we should look at action-forcing, perhaps?
Mr. Devine. Yes, I think so.
Mr. Peters. All right. Thank you. My time has expired. I
really to appreciate all the witnesses being here.
I yield back.
Mr. Olson. Gentleman yields back.
The chair now calls upon himself for 5 minutes.
My first question is for you, Dr. Hellyer, and again, it's
so great to have you here this afternoon. You are the best of
the best.
As we both know, incredibly, I think kids these days still
think they have to get a 4-year Bachelor's degree to be
successful in America. But as San Jac shows, there are
incredible opportunities and jobs related to American energy
and infrastructure for kids without a B.A.
Can you please tell me a little about what draws your
students to your programs and how you're actively in the
community to raise the profile of energy industry courses?
Ms. Hellyer. Excuse me. I think it comes down to our
relationship across all the sectors--with our K through 12
partners, with our university partners, but mostly with our
industry partners--and we tackle that together.
As I mentioned, we bring 6,000 sixth graders onto campus.
That is based on hands-on experiments so that they can be
working with industry partners at the table, seeing what
happens in our petrochem facility, seeing what's happening in
the maritime industry. Then we also reconnect with them again
as they're going through eighth grade and we give those
teachers experiments so they can refresh that in the classes.
And in ninth grade, there is the speakers' bureau where we are
going out into the high schools with, again, industry partners
talking about the jobs.
We had had many years where we weren't really focusing on
the jobs in our region, and when you can become a process
operator making $100,000 a year with an Associate degree, you
start to look at that differently when you can be a welder and
making $75,000 a year.
And so we are really putting that marketing campaign
together but that marketing campaign is for students, it's for
parents, and it's also for teachers and counselors in our high
schools because they don't necessarily understand all the
pieces of our region. But then having industry really engaged
in our programs, having internships, having apprenticeships
where they can get hands-on training and then being involved in
that interview process. So it's across the board partnerships.
Mr. Olson. I would just ask you to brag. Can you talk about
how you work with employers and local high schools to help
students transition into industry?
We've heard some confirm this--one day in May every year
some young men and women walks across the stage, gets his high
school diploma, spins around, puts on a different cap and gown
and walks by and gets an AA from San Jacinto.
Please explain that success you had with merging the
education sector with your work there at San Jacinto College.
Ms. Hellyer. So we have eight early college high schools
and these are early college high schools designed for high
school students to be earning an Associate degree at the same
time as they're getting their high school diploma.
So they will actually earn an Associate degree 2 weeks
before they graduate from high school, and it's a great
program. It's an intense program and people say, ``Well, how
are those kids ready?'' It's because of the screening process.
It's because of support systems. And where do those go to? I
can tell you I've had students going to Princeton, UT, Penn
State--just all across the country they're going to the top
colleges after they graduate from us. But we also have a
similar program for career and technical education. So, again,
they're getting their career and technical process tech degree
or a welding degree so they can go into the workforce right
away.
So at our graduation the youngest graduate can be 17
earning an Associate degree and in December the oldest was 72.
So we serve everybody.
Mr. Olson. That includes my alma mater Rice, Mr. Flores'
alma mater Texas A&M, along those litany of UT and other
schools?
Ms. Hellyer. Yes. Our top five transfer universities, A&M
and UT, are right there, and then all the University of Houston
universities.
Mr. Olson. Thank you.
One question for you, Mr. Slocum. We know that building a
new transmission line, especially longer ones across the state
lines or electricity markets is remarkably complex. You said a
decade, in some cases, in your opening statement.
What is the largest driver for these delays? Is there
anything Congress can do to make this move faster?
Mr. Slocum. Yes. I would say the largest delays that we
have--we have an example of a project between Iowa and
Wisconsin that we got approval for I believe back in 2011, if I
have my date correct, and we don't expect to complete that
project until 2023.
So we plan the project and we stand ready to build the
project. But it's getting that permitting process done in the
middle. And so I agree with a lot of what's been said today,
that there are ways that we can more efficiently move through
that process such that we can get to the point where we are
building the lines, building the projects and those benefits
are flowing to consumers rather than waiting and going through
a serial permitting process.
Mr. Olson. Thank you.
One final question for you, Dr. Hellyer. My dear colleague,
Mr. Green, in his opening statement mentioned I've not talked
about the Houston Astros, and that's true. I didn't do that
because I knew you could talk about the Houston Astros for me.
[Laughter.]
They went to the World Series in 2005 for the first time in
the Astros' history. Two star players were on that team--Hall
of Famers--Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte.
Where did they start playing there all beyond high school?
What school was that?
Ms. Hellyer. San Jacinto College.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Olson. Thank you. I yield back and yield to the
gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for
allowing me to testify or to ask questions, rather.
I was shocked because one of the successes of San Jacinto
College, Andy Pettitte--a great baseball player but he comes
back every year and has a great golf tournament that supports
San Jacinto College. And I am not a very good golfer. I haven't
had a chance to play but I will at least go to the reception.
So thank you, and thank all our witnesses for being here. I
have a very urban district in Houston and one of the campuses
of San Jacinto College is there and I have students from our
district who go to the other two campuses. And I just want to
thank Dr. Hellyer and the leadership both of the board of
trustees but over the years at San Jacinto College because I
was a state senator before I got to Congress I saw San Jacinto
College doing some of the things that are so important today.
Dr. Hellyer, can you elaborate on the partnership with
local industry--the college heads and the Center for Petroleum
Energy and Technology?
I am interested in sharing more about how the industry
guidance towards the curriculum is getting students ready for
those real jobs today and not just generalized certificates,
because I've been there and seen that partnership between the
industry--the people who hire our constituents and the college.
Ms. Hellyer. So one of the things with industry we have 90
petrochemical plants right there around us and it really is how
do you partner. And so I make it very clear I want the good,
bad, and the ugly around our programs and we are going to fix
the bad and the ugly, and that's what the conversations are.
And so, for example, our electrical program, as we've dug
into that, it was too focused on residential. We have
redesigned it where it has a commercial and industrial phase.
Industry has come to the table and gotten us almost $2 million
in donations so that we can really have the program that they
need. We have built in the kind of testing they want, the kind
of components they feel are so critical, the safety components,
and we are just constantly revising our programs.
One of the things that we needed to do was hire somebody
from industry to run the program and so we have hired a man
named Jim Griffin who has been a plant manager or in the
industry for about 30 years and he's retired to work with us.
He has the respect of industry and he is working with us on how
we continue to develop and develop our faculty around that.
It's the same approach we took with our maritime programs.
But it really is creating the environment where you're
having the conversations and then you're responding and you're
bringing the resources to the table as partners.
Mr. Green. I want to ask a question of Mr. Ross.
Mr. Ross, when I was going to college I didn't play
football well enough to get a scholarship so I did my
apprenticeship as a printer while I was going to school.
Can the IBEW or other trades partner with programs like San
Jacinto College? How hard is it to get college credit, for
example, for what may be the standard apprentice program for
IBEW or plumbers or pipefitters or anything like that?
Mr. Ross. Well, as I stated earlier we certainly work with
community colleges in an attempt to try to steal their
graduates and to get them into our program, definitely. Second,
our 5-year inside apprenticeship program we work with community
colleges for those individuals once they complete our program
to get an Associate's degree. So once they graduate they work
with the community colleges to get their Associate's degree. So
they--our program is accredited for--toward an Associate's
degree. So that's what we do.
Mr. Green. And I think that's important because most folks
getting out of high school want to earn a living and they may
not be able to afford a college and go to college and they also
may not want to take out loans so they could actually both get
a job and do an apprenticeship. And I always remember my third
year in my apprenticeship I actually started making decent
money and I was able to get a business degree. And, so that's
why I would like to see if we could structure that with our
trades and also our community colleges. That's really important
in my area in Houston and San Jac is part of it.
And I know you're getting competition from some of our
other community colleges. I am trying to get them to realize
that trades skills are really important and, frankly, I
remember when I was graduating from college I had an offer of
$600 a month--1971 dollars, by the way--and I explained to
those companies that offered me that--I said, ``Well, I am
making $850 now and so I think I will stay in Houston and help
manage this printing business.''
So that can be done but mine was just lucky. I would like
to see it structuralized so whether they be in our district or
anywhere else they can get that training and if they want to go
on and get an electrical engineer's degree, that's great. But
they can at least support their families.
So Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and you and I both are
Astros fans and I know we'll be at the White House next week.
Mr. Olson. Yes, we will. Gentleman yields back.
The chair now calls upon the gentleman from the
Commonwealth of Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and since
you always like to talk about sports I would be remiss, coming
from the Commonwealth of Virginia, if I didn't mention the
number-one basketball team in the country is UVA. But we are
particularly proud in my district of the fact that our Virginia
Tech Hokies beat the number-one team a couple week back and
last night dispatched with the number five Duke team. So we are
very proud of that.
The district is one that has a lot of assets. We are a coal
mining district. We have natural gas. Last week, I attended a
meeting with a solar company in district. But, Mr. Devine, we
also have a lot of water and hydropower is an essential
component of an all-of-the-above strategy, which I have always
supported, and I believe should be included in any
infrastructure package that passes through this committee.
I had a bill earlier or last fall--earlier in the session--
H.R. 2880, which streamlines the licensing process for the
construction of closed-loop pump storage hydropower projects. I
see those as giant batteries that are very energy efficient. I
enjoyed reading your testimony where it talks about how hydro
is the number-one ``clean energy source in the country,'' and I
was wondering if you could explain to folks exactly how closed-
loop pump storage hydro projects provide to our grid.
Mr. Devine. Thank you. Be a pleasure to do so.
So one of the aspects about pump storage is that it does
help to bring in other renewable energy sources. It helps to
regulate the grid in being able to incorporate those other
renewable energy sources. The closed-loop part of pump--
basically, what pump storage is is that during periods--
historically, during periods of high demand an upper reservoir
would throw water down to the lower reservoir and generate
electricity in doing that. And then during periods of lower
demand, base load stations like nuclear or coal would use
energy to pump that water back up to use it at a more peak
time.
I think the role of pump storage is now changing. It's
changing significantly, because it's now very critical to bring
stability to the grid during the--and incorporating the other
renewable energy generation opportunities into the grid and
keeping stability to the grid.
So the closed-loop part of this would be that while some
pump storage projects are using water from, say, a river system
that--in flowing by that would pump up water to the upper
reservoir and then release it back to the river. A closed-loop
system basically brings water into the system for one time and
then is just constantly moving that water back and forth
between the upper and lower reservoir. It only takes a little
bit of water then to make up for some evaporation losses. So
that closed-loop system, once built, basically operates by
itself alone without any additional water flow or impact to the
environment once built.
Mr. Griffith. And as a result of that, do you agree that
that warrants expedited consideration by FERC and with some
relaxed regulations because we are using the same water over
and over again so that we don't have as much impact on the
environment?
Mr. Devine. I do, and one of the main reasons is because
oftentimes what's indicated to be the primary issue with
respect to those is the effect of the river, where the water is
being flowing into and pumping out of--fishery impacts,
sediment impacts, other related potential impacts. With a
closed-loop system, once you have built and filled these
reservoirs and take care of that in the original licensing, you
don't have that potential issue any further.
So I do believe that it deserves that more efficient
process and expedited licensing process.
Mr. Griffith. And we've been interested in--because we hear
all the time from folks who oppose coal that you all need to
transition, we've been interested in maybe putting one of these
inside an abandoned coal mine because then there's really
virtually no impact to the environment. Would you agree with
that?
Mr. Devine. Yes. I think there's opportunities with a lower
reservoir potentially to be inside old mining facilities. I
think there have been several of those in the past proposed and
some actually moved through the--back in the '80s I think it
was, or early '90s, move through the processing and were not
able to get the financing, not able to get built at that point
but moved through the whole process of permitting and were
closed-loop systems and using old mines for the lower
reservoir.
Mr. Griffith. We have a lot of people who are very
interested in this and anybody that is interested in investing
in the 9th Congressional District for doing one of these we've
got plenty of water to put into the system.
Mr. Slocum. I will just quickly mention ITC may be
interested in that and we do have a project just as--exactly
what you just mentioned in northwest Arizona that we've
proposed and we've submitted that to FERC. And so I agree with
everything that was just said. Thanks.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you, and appreciate it and yield back,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olson. Gentleman yields back.
The chair now calls upon the gentlelady from Florida, who
is a huge fan of the chancellor of University of Houston--Dr.
Renu Khator, just like Dr. Hellyer and myself, Ms. Castor, has
5 minutes.
Ms. Castor. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I do have great respect for the University of Houston
Chancellor Dr. Khator and I am sure she was as excited as you
that her old alma mater, the University of South Florida,
defeated the University of Houston in women's basketball last
week.
But thank you for giving me time to be ready with that one.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. Many of you
have cited in your testimony the importance of modernizing
America's electrical grid and how that would be a very
important piece of an infrastructure plan for the country, and
I agree.
Many of you have cited benefits of modernizing our grid.
There is creating higher-paying jobs, building in greater grid
resiliency, greater efficiency for our businesses and electric
utilities and so much more. Many of you know that the
Democratic colleagues on this committee have drafted a piece of
legislation called the LIFT America Act. My contribution to the
LIFT America Act has been to promote a modern grid that
includes clean energy distribution and really trying to bring
the most modern technology that we have developed to bear in an
infrastructure plan. I think it's clear that if we were to make
a real investment in clean, reliable, and cost-effective energy
resources, the country would reap huge benefits.
Ms. Chen, in your testimony you highlight the importance of
technological innovations like expanded grid technology, smart
meters, energy storage as part of upgrading the nation's power
infrastructure. Can you elaborate on your vision for a more
modern electrical grid with expanded distribution and greater
technology and what would we need to build that?
Ms. Chen. Sure. That response--I probably don't have enough
time to fully flesh that out. But I think the number-one thing
to think about here, especially when we talk about more clean
innovative technologies on the distribution system is being
able to integrate it with the larger bulk transmission grid so
that that way whatever savings in electricity that you don't
have to purchase from the bulk electricity system you can reap
through fewer requirements on the transmission grid
infrastructure, lower requirements on generation infrastructure
that could be very costly for your consumers. But at the same
time, if you integrate these distributed energy resources like
storage, demand response, energy efficiency, solar panels, you
can also allow them to recover revenues from the wholesale
electricity markets.
So one of the great things that FERC recently did was
finalize the storage rule that enables storage, at least, to
compete in the wholesale electricity markets. What it left
behind is the distributed energy resources. There's a component
to that rule that would have enabled those resources to also
participate in the wholesale electricity markets.
So FERC is going to convene a proceeding to investigate it
further and we would love to see distributed energy resources
to be able to participate in the bulk electric transmission
system. So that kind of integrated system would be the overall
large framework picture that we have for the modern grid.
Ms. Castor. So you would encourage the Committee to urge
FERC to move forward on that along with greater planning in
advance across regions to help save money and become more
efficient and put all those technological tools to use?
Ms. Chen. Right. Absolutely.
So this all goes hand in hand in the transmission planning
process and the regional operators' load forecasting process.
They have a lot of planning that goes on. Sometimes it's not
holistic enough to account for everything that's on the
distribution system.
So, certainly, including these distributed energy resources
in those plans would ensure that we don't overbuild and, again,
it would ensure that if they can participate in the markets
they could reap some of those revenues.
Ms. Castor. And I just want to close by saying that I think
there was bipartisan concern that President Trump's
infrastructure plan, when it was released, included nothing in
regard to modernizing America's electrical grid, just simply no
mention, and I think that was a real absence of vision. Just
like the plan included no mention of broadband expansion across
the country, and I think this committee has a responsibility to
take up that charge on a bipartisan basis with the matters that
are in our jurisdiction and help lead the way.
We can't do infrastructure and create these high-paying
jobs and take our country to the next level unless
infrastructure also means a modern electrical grid and greater
broadband.
So I yield back my time. Thank you.
Mr. Olson. The gentlelady yields back and the chair wishes
to inform the gentle lady that she publicly called Dr. Khator--
her new home getting defeated by her old home. I've sent her a
text message about the statement so be prepared for a response
if it hasn't come already.
The chair now calls upon the gentleman from Indiana, the
Hoosier State, Mr. Bucshon, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Earlier this Congress, the House unanimously passed my
bill, H.R. 2872, the Promoting Hydropower Development at
Existing Non-powered Dams Act. H.R. 2872 would promote
hydropower development at existing non-powered dams by
establishing an expedited licensing process for qualifying
facilities that will result in a decision on an application in
2 years or less. The bill also requires FERC, the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, and the Department of the Interior to
develop a list of existing non-powered federal dams that have
the greatest potential for non-federal hydropower development.
Developing hydropower generation at over 50,000 suitable
dams across the country has the potential to have 12 gigawatts
of clean energy to the grid, create good-paying jobs, and bring
billions of dollars of investment. In fact, in the 8th District
of Indiana, which I represent, there are six suitable dams that
can benefit from this expedited permitting process. This
legislation modernizes our existing infrastructure and I
believe should be included in any infrastructure package passed
out of Congress.
So Mr. Devine, in your testimony you state that enacting
legislation like this, and you quote, ``in a way to move
investments in hydropower infrastructure forward without major
cost to the U.S. government.'' Can you speak to the impact H.R.
72 and other hydropower legislation but specifically this would
have on hydropower development across the country as well as
its role in our country's infrastructure?
Mr. Devine. Yes. Thank you, Congressman Bucshon.
I think it's an excellent example of trying to improve the
investment picture for small hydropower and hydropower in the
country.
It's also an example of moving forward hydropower at
existing dams recognizes that the main aspect of these dams are
usually run-of-river dams. Run-of-river dams are known to have
very minor impacts, generally, to the water resources of the
river. Therefore, a 2-year expedited process in this is not
incongruent with protecting environmental resources.
I think it's also an example of an expedited process which
also continues to protect the environment because these
environmental analyses will be done and completed in a
reasonable time frame and fully evaluated from the scientific
perspective.
I think it also combines the expedited time frame for the
licensing process and is a good example of not trying to
rescind any environmental laws or regulations.
I think it's a fine example of encouraging new investments
in hydropower and recognizing that some of these projects have
minimal environmental effects and could move forward
expeditiously.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you very much.
I just want to point out this bill was passed unanimously
out of the House with bipartisan support. We worked with both
parties to develop language that people were comfortable with
and, again, I want to reiterate that the environmental review
process is still there in place.
We are just getting federal agencies to move the process
more quickly rather than 10 years or 12 years to a process that
would be over a 2-year period, which the potential for
expanding this form of clean energy is tremendous.
And I look forward to our Senate colleagues taking this up
and I do think there's a lot of interest over there and I think
in a bipartisan way. I am hoping to get this type of
legislation to the president's desk.
So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Olson. The gentleman yields back.
The chair now calls upon the pride of Schenectady, New
York, right behind Thomas Edison, as we learned this morning--
Mr. Tonko, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the pride may be
the mayor of Schenectady. But that's up for discussion.
Mayor, again, I want to thank you for a very comprehensive
report. It is so innovative and it allows us to go into the
next stage of energy resources, and I thank you, again, for the
vision that, obviously, will lead many people down a path of
sound energy policy.
Schenectady has, I believe, over 5,000 street lights and
what is considered when a city decides to make a major
infrastructure investment such as converting to LED
streetlights?
Mr. McCarthy. Again, there's approximately 5,000 street
lights in the city of Schenectady, 500 of which the city owns.
Forty-five hundred, approximately, are owned by the utility. So
the 500 that the city owns are fairly easy to deal with.
Where you get utility-owned streetlights it becomes a more
complicated process to either buy those or purchase the
residual value of the fixtures that had been installed and
that's why we are trying to work with New York Public Service
Commission to come up with a model that would allow that
transition to the LED lights. When you're doing that it's not
to miss the opportunity to put some of the other available
technology on the light pole, which will, again hopefully help
the utility, help the city, then help the residents and
businesses within the community take advantage of some of the
emerging and wireless and sensor-based technologies.
Mr. Tonko. So as you convert to LED, what are the potential
savings for the city when adopting a smart lighting system?
Mr. McCarthy. The initial savings--our number is just under
$400,000--about half of our electrical costs.
Also, when you put the optical sensors on the poles that
you can then pick up additional savings when you dim the lights
further when there's less activity on the street.
When you put either a Wi-Fi or cellular communication
protocol on the pole it might be able to extend that savings to
residents or businesses so that your control is on the sensor
on the street but you would enable homeowners or businesses to
be able to dim their either porch lights or advertising on
their buildings or other fixtures that they might have when
there's no activity--you could dim that.
When there is activity you'd be able to turn them up. So it
becomes really an integrated deployment where, hopefully,
everybody will benefit from it.
Mr. Tonko. Tremendous. In addition to lighting, Schenectady
has developed other clean energy and efficiency projects. Among
them a few years ago the city installed a CHP system--a
combined heat and power system--at the wastewater treatment
facility and more recently installed a solar array, I believe,
at that facility.
Mr. McCarthy. Yes.
Mr. Tonko. What are the benefits of these types of
projects?
Mr. McCarthy. Our wastewater treatment plant, the co-gen
facility there, saves us approximately $30,000 a month in
utility costs, capturing the methane gas and burning it on site
and then our solar deployment at the time was the largest
municipal solar array in New York State. It's done on top of an
enclosed reservoir. The Bevis Hill Reservoir supplies
hydrostatic pressure for the water system within the city.
Mr. Tonko. So there's, obviously, long-term benefits there
to the city with these projects?
Mr. McCarthy. Correct. It was just really unused land and
so now we get 711 kilowatts of electricity generated there that
we use a remote metering package to offset the costs of some of
our higher utility bills of the municipal--primarily city hall
and some of our fire stations.
Mr. Tonko. Right.
Just make mention here for the record that the city
established a smart city advisory commission chaired by Mark
Little, the former chief technology officer and director of GE
Global Research, which includes businesses and important
institutions from around the area. So it's really pulling in
the private sector-public sector partnership.
Back to those public sector partnerships, are there--
earlier you were quizzed about the 80/20 match with Ranker
Rush. But are there opportunities for public partnerships at
the state and federal level that you would encourage?
Mr. McCarthy. I believe everybody has to look at the
emerging technologies. Things are changing so fast. I was here
at a NIST event 3 weeks ago and they talked about that 90
percent of the data that exists in the world today had been
created in the last 36 months. I went back and used that
statistic at an event at our community college. Somebody came
up to me and corrected me. He said, ``Mr. Mayor, that's wrong.
Ninety percent of the data that exists in the world today has
been created in, roughly, the last 24 months.''
So there is so much information out there that, if properly
managed, it will allow us to do predictive analytics. It will
enable us to drive better outcomes, whether it's government
services, products that are produced in business, and
educational opportunities within our communities.
But, again, it's happening so fast that we have to have
policy standards and an environment that allow those things to
be fully utilized and taken advantage of in a rapid manner.
Again, it's really our global competitiveness is a key
component of that because other countries are moving faster in
some areas.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you very much, again, for the vision. And
I agree, the challenge to us now is to determine how we utilize
the great compilation of data that we acquire.
And with that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Olson. Gentleman's time has expired.
The chair now calls upon the Motorcycle Riders Foundation
2017 Legislator of the Year, Mr. Walberg, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Walberg. Wow.
[Laughter.]
Tell you what, always wondering what in the world you do to
get all of the research done with all of our members here. It's
impressive, Mr. Chairman. Impressive.
Thanks to the panel for being here. Mr. Ross, I certainly
appreciate the work the Brotherhood does in training people to
do jobs whether it's at my Fermi plant--the DTE Fermi plant--or
down Lake Erie a bit at the big coal-fired plant or in all of
the consumers' gas-powered plants, et cetera to get the
electricity to the lines and ITC and others. We appreciate the
work you do.
I want to ask you to give us some examples, if you could,
or ideas how we can expand access to apprenticeships. But I
would preface it by saying I was greatly excited with what our
governor was proposing in Michigan last week called the
Marshall Plan for talent and, specifically, as he talked about
pushing means toward short-term certification programs,
education programs, whether it's the community college level or
apprenticeships, et cetera.
The PROSPER Act that we passed out of the House Education
and Workforce Committee just a couple months ago that
reauthorized the Higher Education Act has a one-loan one-grant
one-work study program that can be done for that very purpose--
those Pell grants, et cetera, that can go towards short-term
training opportunities as well in the professional trades, as
we are calling now in Michigan. I know they're skilled but
they're professional as well and we want to give that idea out
to our students that could look to fill spots that can be an
asset to what we have.
The SKILLS Act we passed several years ago and was signed
by President Obama, again, pushed education for real-world jobs
back to the states and the local communities and private
entities like yourself. So we want to build on that.
What would be the best way to do this, to expand recruiting
and apprenticeships for the next generation of electric workers
as well as how can the U.S. encourage more individuals pursue
these programs?
Mr. Ross. I think we should start by introducing the trades
earlier on in school. When I came through school you were
introduced in shop class or you had to go to electrical class
just to introduce individuals to those programs, and there's
not much vocational training, at least I haven't seen much, in
the high schools anymore. They've gone away from that and
certainly guidance counselors have gotten away from trying to
push individuals to our industry--the trades.
Unfortunately, not everyone is cut out for college or even
community colleges, in some cases. We take individuals with
basically a high school education, at a minimum, and for an
electrician basically high school algebra is a bare minimum for
us and we train them to be electricians.
We certainly need to do a better job of promoting that
program to individuals out there and, quite frankly, we need to
do a lot better than what we have been.
And I think reintroducing them in the high schools would
certainly be a starter--even earlier in junior high--to get
them exposed to what the trades are--have them hands-on. We
also have pre-apprenticeship programs out there that our
electrical training alliance has developed to put high school
graduates into those programs. It gets them exposed to what's
expected of them when they become selected as an apprentice. So
some of those programs we are trying to promote.
Mr. Walberg. That's great. The push to encourage people
toward their sweet spots--it would be a waste of time for some
to go the university or 4-year college route.
We would waste the skills and the talents that they have,
and if we think about professional skills these are jobs like
you're talking about that are careers--that are good paying and
can continue to expand. I wish you well on that. We need the
juice.
[Laughter.]
We need the electricity to our homes.
Mr. Slocum, earlier this Congress with the help of this
committee we passed H.R. 1109. This was legislation that was
introduced to reduce red tape on both industry and FERC to free
up resources and lower utility bills. This made a simple fix to
Section 203 of the Federal Power Act and harmonized the
language in that particular section.
We know there needs to be serious permitting reform. Simple
or technical fixes such as 1109 that Congress can pass to
remove red tape and reduce burdensome paperwork--other low-
hanging fruit ideas as well. What would you have to move us
forward to get past this red tape and bureaucracy?
Mr. Slocum. Thank you, Congressman, and we appreciation the
work that was done there to make things more efficient with
respect to that 203 process.
And I think, as mentioned in my testimony, I talk about
some changes that could be made to the NEPA process that seems
to have a level of agreement and seems to make some
straightforward sense as far as making sure that we can get
through the permitting process in a timely manner but we can do
that efficiently. And so that would be one of the biggest
things that I would see that would be a low-hanging fruit type
opportunity.
Mr. Walberg. My time has expired. I yield back.
Mr. Harper [presiding]. Gentleman yields back.
The chair will now recognize the gentleman from West
Virginia, Mr. McKinley, for 5 minutes.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This now is the thirteenth we've had out of those--2 hours
ago we heard this is the forty-seventh hearing we've had on
infrastructure and this is the thirteenth dealing with grid
resiliency regarding the infrastructure. We've heard a lot of
good solutions over those 47 and, clearly, we have a growing
problem with the adequacy of our energy infrastructure and the
grid being at risk.
But, unfortunately, I can tell you, I am not sure the
messages are being heard because just a few years ago we had
with the Polar Vortex we came within just minutes of having a
blackout through the PJM. PJM was reporting that. And now ISO
is just--New England has just come out with a very well-
documented report that says the possibility of the power plants
in the New England area won't have or be able to get the fuel
they need to operate, and their quote was, ``This is the
foremost challenge to a reliable power grid in New England.''
And then further in the report it says New England has a
better than 80 percent chance of a blackout in the next bad
weather storm. But in the meantime, New England is becoming
increasingly reliant on Russian LNG to be able to satisfy their
energy demands instead of using American energy.
So if we are truly committed as a country for energy
dominance, what are we doing about it? Are we listening to the
hearings that have been taking place?
And then one that particularly disturbs me is that New
England is apparently importing subsidized Canadian electricity
at the expense of American jobs--80--or 73 gigawatts of power
coming in from Canada. I've got to think that the impact of
that--instead of having the jobs that we could have as a result
of that, nearly a hundred coal-fired or nuclear or wind or
solar--the equivalent of power plants, we could have those in
America instead of importing from overseas or from Canada.
I don't understand why the governments in the New England
area are withholding permits to be able to build pipelines so
that we could use American resources to be able to do that. As
a result, we seem to be prematurely closing a lot of our coal
and nuclear power plants unnecessarily so. So I think we have
to be careful and I hope that these hearings will underscore
that because what we've talked about is a couple weeks ago we
passed a 45Q, which was a tax credit.
We need to give more people the chance to use that 45Q to
find out if we don't get carbon capture with this tax credit
that we were able to pass. And then working with Congressman
Tonko, we keep pushing the efficiency idea with turbines. We
have capabilities of doing this but it doesn't look like
there's a commitment to do it.
The fuel security is, I believe, a national security and
that's what these two reports are saying. So if government is--
both sides of the aisle--really serious about all-of-the-above
energy resources instead of just empty rhetoric, isn't it about
time that we paint or get off the ladder? Think about that.
So Mr. Ross, I know you have got a connection back to
Parkersburg. What's your response to the fact that we are
importing electricity from Canada rather than creating American
jobs and using American ingenuity and American efficiency and
American clean environment?
Mr. Ross. I hate to say too much to our brothers in the
north because we represent IBEW members out there. So the
powerline I talked about earlier on would be done with IBEW. So
I understand where you're coming from. There's plenty of
resources here in the United States we can use if we could just
get the permitting process sped up and create the national grid
that we need.
Mr. McKinley. Can any of you explain why the pipelines are
being held up so that we can use American resources to create
American jobs?
Mr. Slocum. I will just say I can't speak to pipelines but
certainly with the electric transmission infrastructure I think
it's a lack of that interregional planning where you can get
buy-in to a project and the reasons for the project and then
from there you can move forward with the permitting and get
something that's actually an interregional project built.
Until you have the impetus behind the project, it becomes
very difficult to cross state lines, especially multiple state
lines, where there's going to be winners and losers between
those two areas unless you have a project that has some sort of
ultimate approval that's going to proceed and move forward.
Mr. McKinley. I know my time is over. But I find it just
offensive that, according to this Bloomberg article that we are
importing natural gas from Russia instead of using our own
supplies, especially with all the gas that we have discovered
in America that makes us such a large producer. I hope that we
can reverse that.
I yield back.
Mr. Harper. Gentleman yields back.
The chair will now recognize himself for 5 minutes.
And Dr. Hellyer, I would like to ask you a few questions
and certainly you know very well how the energy landscape of
the United States is constantly changing. And according to the
U.S. Department of Labor, the average age of the U.S. energy
workforce is over 50 and the energy sector will need more than
100,000 new skilled workers by 2024 just to replace those
retiring workers, and by some estimates more than twice as many
workers are expected to retire as are currently involved in the
apprenticeship or certificate programs, and degree completion
and engineering has remained relatively stagnant since the
1980s.
So from your perspective, what incentives are needed to
expand community college access and apprenticeship programs?
Ms. Hellyer. One of the conversations we had mentioned
earlier was around Pell, and Pell is an important component for
all students of higher education, specifically community
college students. And there are 2.7 million community college
students using Pell. From our standpoint and in my community,
75 percent of the students are first generation to college.
About 75 percent are also going part time, and if you dig into
our ISDs they are about 70 percent economically disadvantaged.
And so Pell does play a critical role. I think it's what
Mr. Ross said earlier also is that awareness around those jobs,
which is something that we have really done well in our region
trying to build that awareness much younger and then putting
that all together and allowing the resources to be put in
place, the industry partnerships to build the apprenticeships.
We have registered approved apprenticeships at San Jacinto
College and we have unregistered programs and, again, designing
them based on what the industry partner needs but realizing
that it's a combination that's going to be needed.
Mr. Harper. So how do you communicate to these students
that these are the types of jobs in the energy and
manufacturing sector that they can have a good life, support
their family on? How is that communication made to the
students?
Ms. Hellyer. In our region what we are doing is first we
are engaging in sixth graders, bringing them onto campus and
seeing hands-on around what happens in our petrochemical
plants, what's happening in the maritime industry so having
that hands-on, reengaging them again in eighth grade.
In eighth grade in Texas, students decide an endorsement--
an area of study--and so we are engaged with them around that
process. Again, how does this tie back to the jobs in our
community, and then we also have a speakers bureau, which is
led by industry with community colleges going in to the eighth
grade and then the high schools.
Those conversations are directed at parents, teachers,
counselors, and students. You need that broad awareness and, to
be honest, just as Mr. Ross said, there hadn't been that kind
of awareness in our communities for a lot of years and so we
are building that pipeline.
But when you can talk that a process operator will make
$100,000 or a welder $70,000 with the proper credentials, that
starts speaking. And those students need to hear it from people
that are younger than me. They need to hear it from people who
went to their high school and that are reengaging and that's
what industry has done.
They bring in those people working in their plants back
into the high schools where they can get a role model and then
get their questions answered. And then it's us putting in place
the support systems at the college--having industry partners at
the table, being real clear what the expectations are, defining
how's the safety culture built in--what's the work ethic and
reinforcing that in all your programs. Our industry partners at
the table with us are the critical factors.
Mr. Harper. That's great. What we observed is students just
by nature, when they're in high school, the earliest time that
they are able to opt out of math and science classes they try
to do that and get it done and then you lose those skills.
So are you seeing any connection with that to where you're
seeing more and more students maintain the STEM curriculum in
high school so they don't opt out of those possible job
opportunities?
Ms. Hellyer. So, again, it's working with our high schools
and with the industries but also with the universities because
some of those jobs do require university and so how do you have
that pipeline. And then for us in higher education we can
redesign math a little bit. We are not directing all students
to college algebra.
If you're moving in to a business degree you're doing more
statistics. If you are going into process technology it's more
of a technical math and showing how that reinforces with what
you're going to do--welding, more geometry. And so we try to
redefine some of that.
We take the same approach with English. Our operators need
English. They need the math skills. They need more of a
technical English and so how do you redesign that and being
very prescriptive again, take math early, take the sciences
early because it does reinforce the rest of the courses in your
degree program.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, all of you, for being here. It's
provided a lot of important insight to the committee. And
seeing that there are no further members wishing to ask
questions I would like to thank all of our witnesses again for
taking the time to be here today.
Before we conclude, I would like to ask unanimous consent
to submit the following letters for the record: One, the
Utilities Technology Council letter, and the second is the
American Public Gas Association.
[The information apears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Harper. Without objection, those are so entered and I
will ask if Mr. Rush has any similar documents.
Mr. Rush. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the unanimous consent
to enter into the record different letters, one from the Center
for American Progress, these are statements, one, and the
American--the Center for American Progress has a statement
debunking the false claims of the environmental review
component. Additionally, there's the Center for American
Progress statement on Trump's infrastructure scam that will gut
the environmental protection to benefit corporate polluters.
And we have a series of others--BlueGreen Alliance entitled,
``The Right Way to Repair America's Infrastructure''--the Earth
Justice statement, which is entitled, ``Congress Should Support
an Infrastructure Plan that Builds Infrastructure, Not Gut
Health and Environmental Protection.'' And lastly, a New York
Times article that's entitled, ``Trump's Infrastructure Plan
Puts the Burden on State Environment Money.''
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Harper. Without objection.
Pursuant to committee rules, I remind members that they
have 10 business days to submit additional questions for the
record and I ask that witnesses submit their response within 10
business days upon receipt of the questions.
Without objection, the subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:24 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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