[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                    THE CLEAN FUTURE ACT: POWERING A RESILIENT 
                           AND PROSPEROUS AMERICA

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

                            VIRTUAL HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                         SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             MARCH 24, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-18


     Published for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
     
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]     

                   govinfo.gov/committee/house-energy
                        energycommerce.house.gov
                        
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
46-694 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   
                        
                        
                    COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

                     FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
                                 Chairman
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois              CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
ANNA G. ESHOO, California              Ranking Member
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado              FRED UPTON, Michigan
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania             MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois             STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina    ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
DORIS O. MATSUI, California          BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
KATHY CASTOR, Florida                DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland           ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
JERRY McNERNEY, California           H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
PAUL TONKO, New York                 BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York           BILLY LONG, Missouri
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon                LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
TONY CARDENAS, California            MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
RAUL RUIZ, California                RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
SCOTT H. PETERS, California          TIM WALBERG, Michigan
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan             EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas                JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire         GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois, Vice       NEAL P. DUNN, Florida
    Chair                            JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California    DEBBBIE LESKO, Arizona
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia         GREG PENCE, Indiana
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware       DAN CRENSHAW, Texas
DARREN SOTO, Florida                 JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona              KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota
KATHLEEN M. RICE, New York
ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
KIM SCHRIER, Washington
LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
                                 ------                                

                           Professional Staff

                   JEFFREY C. CARROLL, Staff Director
                TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Deputy Staff Director
                  NATE HODSON, Minority Staff Director
                         Subcommittee on Energy

                        BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
                                 Chairman
SCOTT H. PETERS, California          FRED UPTON, Michigan
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania               Ranking Member
JERRY McNERNEY, California, Vice     MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
    Chair                            ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
PAUL TONKO, New York                 DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas                ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
KIM SCHRIER, Washington              H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado              BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina    LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
DORIS O. MATSUI, California          TIM WALBERG, Michigan
KATHY CASTOR, Florida                JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon                DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire         GREG PENCE, Indiana
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California    KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia         CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware           (ex officio)
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex 
    officio)
                             C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hon. Bobby L. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State 
  of Illinois, opening statement.................................     2
    Prepared statement...........................................     3
Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of 
  Michigan, opening statement....................................     3
    Prepared statement...........................................     4
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 
  State of New Jersey, opening statement.........................     5
    Prepared statement...........................................     8
Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Representative in Congress from 
  the State of Washington, opening statement.....................     9
    Prepared statement...........................................    10

                               Witnesses

Yvonne McIntyre, Director, Federal Electricity and Utility 
  Policy, Natural Resources Defense Council......................    11
    Prepared statement...........................................    14
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   182
Alison Silverstein, Independent Energy Consultant................    23
    Prepared statement...........................................    25
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   184
Karen G. Wayland, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, GridWise 
  Alliance.......................................................    36
    Prepared statement...........................................    38
    Questions submitted for the record \1\.......................   187
Eric Hofmann, President, Utility Workers Union of America Local 
  132, AFL-CIO...................................................    53
    Prepared statement...........................................    55
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   190

                           Submitted Material

Statement of the Window and Door Manufacturers Association, March 
  23, 2021, submitted by Mr. Rush................................   108
Letter of March 23, 2021, from Paul N. Cicio, President and Chief 
  Executive Officer, Industrial Energy Consumers of America, to 
  Mr. Rush and Mr. Upton, submitted by Mr. Rush..................   111
Letter of March 17, 2021, from Advanced Energy Economy, et al., 
  to Hon. Joe Manchin, Chairman, Senate Committee on Energy and 
  Natural Resources, et al., submitted by Mr. Rush...............   115
Summary, ``Additional Pipeline Capacity and Baseload Power 
  Generation Needed to Secure Electric Grid,'' National Energy 
  Technology Laboratory, February 20, 2020, submitted by Mr. Rush   118
Commentary of March 19, 2021, ``Department Of Energy Price Data 
  Spotlights Regressive Nature Of `Electrify Everything' 
  Effort,'' by Robert Bryce, Forbes, submitted by Mr. Rush.......   121
Commentary of March 19, 2021, ``Texas' Blackouts Blew In on the 
  Wind,'' by Wayne Christian, Wall Street Journal, submitted by 
  Mr. Rush.......................................................   127
Letter of March 11, 2021, from Dan R. Brouillette, Secretary, 
  Department of Energy, to Hon. John Hoeven, U.S. Senate, 
  submitted by Mr. Rush..........................................   130

----------

\1\ Dr. Wayland did not answer submitted questions for the record by 
the time of publication.
Report of March 12, 2021, ``Texas uses natural gas for 
  electricity generation and home heating,'' Energy Information 
  Administration, submitted by Mr. Rush..........................   132
Commentary of September 24, 2020, ``Closing two Illinois nuclear 
  plants is bad news for working people and a clean energy 
  future,'' by Lonnie Stephenson, Chicago Sun-Times, submitted by 
  Mr. Rush.......................................................   134
Letter of March 17, 2021, from Mrs. Rodgers, et al., to Mr. 
  Pallone, submitted by Mr. Rush.................................   137
Commentary of February 25, ``To Prevent Blackouts From Happening 
  Again, Texas Should Go Nuclear,'' by Mark P. Mills, The 
  Federalist, submitted by Mr. Rush..............................   139
Article of March 23, 2021, ``Why Biden's climate agenda might be 
  very, very `quiet,''' by Shannon Osaka, Grist, submitted by Mr. 
  Rush...........................................................   144
Article of March 18, 2021, ``Texas power crisis prompts Texas 
  House panel to advance several bills, including one requiring 
  plants to prep for extreme weather,'' by Erin Douglas, The 
  Texas Tribune, submitted by Mr. Rush...........................   152
Summary, ``2020 Long-Term Reliability Assessment,'' North 
  American Electric Reliability Corporation, December 2020, 
  submitted by Mr. Rush..........................................   156
Texas House Bill No. 11, submitted by Mr. Rush...................   164
Texas House Bill No. 12, submitted by Mr. Rush...................   167
Texas House Bill No. 13, submitted by Mr. Rush...................   173
Texas House Bill No. 16, submitted by Mr. Rush...................   177
Texas House Bill No. 17, submitted by Mr. Rush...................   178
Letter of March 19, 2021, from George Lowe, Vice President, 
  Governmental Affairs and Public Policy, American Gas 
  Association, to Mr. Pallone and Mrs. Rodgers, submitted by Mr. 
  Rush...........................................................   180
Report of Vibrant Clean Energy, ``ERCOT Winter Storm Uri Blackout 
  Analysis,'' by Christopher T M Clack, et al., February 2021, 
  submitted by Mr. Rush \2\

----------

\2\ The report has been retained in committee files and is available at 
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF03/20210324/111366/HHRG-117-IF03-
20210324-SD023.pdf.

 
   THE CLEAN FUTURE ACT: POWERING A RESILIENT AND PROSPEROUS AMERICA

                              ----------                              


                       WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2021

                  House of Representatives,
                            Subcommittee on Energy,
                          Committee on Energy and Commerce,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:07 p.m., via 
Cisco Webex online video conferencing, Hon. Bobby L. Rush 
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Rush, Peters, Tonko, 
Veasey, Schrier, DeGette, Butterfield, Matsui, Castor, Welch, 
Schrader, Kuster, Barragan, Blunt Rochester, O'Halleran, 
Pallone (ex officio), Upton (subcommittee ranking member), 
Burgess, Latta, McKinley, Kinzinger, Griffith, Johnson, 
Bucshon, Walberg, Duncan, Palmer, Lesko, Pence, Armstrong, and 
Rodgers (ex officio).
    Also present: Representative Fletcher.
    Staff present: Jeffrey C. Carroll, Staff Director; Waverly 
Gordon, General Counsel; Tiffany Guarascio, Deputy Staff 
Director; Perry Hamilton, Clerk; Mackenzie Kuhl, Digital 
Assistant; Kaitlyn Peel, Digital Director; Tim Robinson, Chief 
Counsel; Chloe Rodriguez, Clerk; Michael Cameron, Minority 
Policy Analyst, Consumer Protection and Commerce, Energy, and 
Environment; Nate Hodson, Minority Staff Director; Peter 
Kielty, Minority General Counsel; Mary Martin, Minority Chief 
Counsel, Energy and Environment; and Michael Taggart, Minority 
Policy Director.
    Mr. Rush. The Subcommittee on Energy is now in order.
    Today, the subcommittee is holding a hearing entitled ``The 
CLEAN Future Act: Powering a Resilient and Prosperous 
America.''
    Due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, today's 
hearing is being held remotely. All Members, all witnesses will 
be participating via videoconferencing.
    As part of our hearing, microphones will be set on mute for 
purposes of eliminating inadvertent background noise. Members 
and witnesses, you will need to unmute your microphone each 
time you wish to speak.
    Documents for the record can be sent to Lino Pena-Martinez 
at the email address that we have provided to staff. All 
documents will be entered into the record at the conclusion of 
the hearing.
    The Chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes for the 
purposes of an opening statement.

 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOBBY L. RUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Good afternoon again. Today, the Subcommittee on Energy 
will hold a legislative hearing as a continuation of the 
committee's work to address recent grid failures in the south-
central region of our Nation. This morning, the Subcommittee on 
Oversight and Investigations held a hearing to identify the 
nature of this problem. We now convene to identify policies 
that will relaunch a much-needed Federal grid investment in the 
wake of these tragic failures.
    In February, extremely frigid, Chicago-like temperatures 
spread across the south-central region, resulting in 
historically high energy demand and disastrously low energy 
supply. This sharp energy decline was a result of every single 
source of power supply underperforming during the same weather 
event.
    Further, every single source of supply underperformed as a 
consequence of poor planning, deregulation by States, and 
negligible weatherization practices. These widespread outages 
threatened the health and safety of millions of Americans, and 
particularly Texans, amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
    It is incumbent on this committee and this subcommittee to 
use its broad jurisdiction over national energy policy to 
identify Federal solutions to prevent a disruption in vital 
energy services from occurring again. This subcommittee has 
prioritized legislative solutions in response to these types of 
events under both Democratic and Republican majorities, and the 
outages in Texas are no exception to this well-established 
standard.
    Just last year, the Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing 
on the California wildfires. During the Republican majority, I 
might add, Democrats also participated in a bipartisan hearing 
to restore Puerto Rico's electric infrastructure after 
Hurricane Maria.
    And, in this same vein, the expert witnesses are called 
before us today to discuss policies to deeply decarbonize our 
economy and strengthen our infrastructure against threats like 
those posed by climate change.
    Federal investment to prevent these matters is of great 
importance considering the recent tragedy in Texas and the need 
to secure our Nation's energy system by and large. The CLEAN 
Future Act, which I introduced along with Chairman Pallone and 
Chairman Tonko, with contributions from every esteemed member 
of this committee, one by one and name by name, aims to upgrade 
and reinforce our energy infrastructure to those ends.
    Just for an example, the CLEAN Future Act establishes 
funding for a variety of grid resiliency measures, to include 
crucial equipment replacements, microgrids, and programs to 
provide distributed energy systems and solar power within 
underserved and disadvantaged communities.
    The bill also bolsters transmission infrastructure in order 
to deliver clean energy to areas with high electricity demand. 
Energy efficiency is also crucial and critical to a resilient 
and reliable grid.
    And, with that, I want to yield to my friend and colleague, 
the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Upton, for 5 minutes for the 
purposes of an opening statement.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Rush follows:]

                Prepared Statement of Hon. Bobby L. Rush

    Good afternoon. Today, the Subcommittee on Energy will hold 
a legislative hearing as a continuation of the committee's work 
to address recent grid failures in the south-central region of 
the United States. This morning, the Subcommittee on Oversight 
and Investigations held a hearing to identify the nature of 
this problem. We now convene to identify policies that will 
relaunch much-needed Federal grid investment in the wake of 
these tragic failures.
    In February, extremely frigid, Chicago-like temperatures 
spread across the south-central region resulting in 
historically high energy demand and disastrously low energy 
supply. This sharp energy decline was a result of every single 
source of power supply underperforming during the extreme 
weather event. Further, every single source of power supply 
underperformed as a consequence of poor planning, deregulation 
by States, and negligible weatherization practices. These 
widespread outages threatened the health and safety of millions 
of Americans--and particularly Texans--amid the ongoing 
coronavirus pandemic.
    It is incumbent on this committee to use its broad 
jurisdiction over national energy policy to identify Federal 
solutions to prevent a disruption in vital energy services from 
occurring again. This committee has prioritized legislative 
solutions in response to these types of events under both 
Democratic and Republican majorities, and the outages in Texas 
are no exception to this standard. Just last year, the 
Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing on the California 
wildfires and, during the Republican majority, Democrats also 
participated in a bipartisan hearing to restore Puerto Rico's 
electric infrastructure after Hurricane Maria.
    In this same vein, expert witnesses are called before us 
today to discuss policies to deeply decarbonize our economy and 
strengthen our infrastructure against threats, like climate 
change. Federal investment to prevent these matters is of great 
importance considering the recent tragedy in Texas and the need 
to secure our Nation's energy systems by and large. The CLEAN 
Future Act, which I introduced with Chairmen Pallone and Tonko, 
with contributions from esteemed members of this committee, 
aims to upgrade and reinforce our energy infrastructure to 
those ends.
    For example, title II of the CLEAN Future Act establishes 
funding for a variety of grid resiliency measures to include 
crucial equipment replacements, microgrids, and programs to 
provide distributed energy systems and solar power within 
underserved and disadvantaged communities. The bill also 
bolsters transmission infrastructure in order to deliver clean 
energy to areas with high electricity demand. Energy efficiency 
is also critical to a resilient and reliable grid. The CLEAN 
Future Act includes cost-effective, demand-reducing energy 
efficiency provisions that will lighten the load on our grid.
    Climate change poses a real, ever-present threat. Today's 
policy discussion is an important step in fine-tuning Federal 
solutions to secure a resilient and reliable energy system in 
the face of those threats, and I look forward to a productive 
conversation. And with that, I yield to my friend and 
colleague, the gentleman from Michigan, Ranking Member Upton.

   OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

    Mr. Upton. Well, thank you, my friend and chairman, for 
holding today's virtual hearing.
    As we know, this is the first legislative hearing in this 
subcommittee this Congress after a big bipartisan success--so 
credit to lots of folks on both sides of the aisle and in both 
sides of the Capitol--with the passage of the Energy Act of 
2020 just 3 months ago.
    You know, the Energy Act of 2020 is the most significant 
energy legislation in more than a decade, with substantial new 
regulatory policies and big increases in spending authority for 
energy efficiency, technology innovation, and certainly grid 
modernization, something that we all care deeply about.
    We passed demonstration projects for natural gas, carbon 
capture, nuclear energy storage, hydro--and the list goes on 
and on. We came together on these clean-energy projects and 
programs that the members of this committee have supported for 
years, and we pushed them over the finish line. It was hard 
work, it took some time, but that is what it takes to get 
signed into law with real bipartisan support.
    So the Energy Act of 2020 is our bipartisan roadmap for 
clean-energy innovation and the most recent reflection of 
bipartisan congressional intent now that we must turn to the 
implementation.
    So we have an aggressive timeline of new programs and more 
than a dozen large-scale demonstration projects that have to be 
funded in the next couple years. This committee must be focused 
on holding DOE accountable to the Energy Act of 2020 timeline, 
rather than rushing ahead, perhaps, with a new partisan bill.
    But, unfortunately, that is not the approach it looks like 
we are taking today. None of us on this side of the aisle are 
embracing the Green New Deal, which has been rebranded by some 
as the CLEAN Future Act.
    To sum it up, the CLEAN Future Act is a 981-page bill with 
hundreds of billions of dollars in American taxpayer giveaways 
to countries like China that control critical mineral 
production and cheap labor. It is a rush to green--no bad words 
to our Chairman Rush--but it is a rush to green and a radical 
transformation of America's workforce.
    The CLEAN Future Act could eradicate millions of great jobs 
in fossil, nuclear, and manufacturing while leaving energy 
workers behind. This CLEAN Future Act promises to remove good-
paying jobs, retrain workers, relocate them to new cities where 
they are going to have to make a new life for themselves. It 
will decimate our energy security and leave us hooked on China 
for cheap solar panels and batteries. That is not the future 
that those of us on this side of the aisle are looking for for 
America.
    Rather than jamming this CLEAN Future bill through the 
committee process, I would urge my colleagues to slow down, 
think about the damage that it will do to America's workers. 
And I look forward to using today's hearing to focus on these 
very real issues facing our workers.
    I would like to welcome Mr. Hofmann, president of Utility 
Workers Local 132, who is going to testify today on behalf of 
4,000 workers in southern California. They are on the front 
lines in the fight in California, which is the model that some 
Democrats want to focus on for the rest of the country.
    So, Mr. Hofmann, I look forward to your testimony on the 
importance of a balanced policy that protects workers and 
access to affordable energy.
    I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will 
abandon this aggressive, partisan approach in favor of an all-
of-the-above strategy that prioritizes energy security, 
reliability, and affordability.
    And I yield back the balance of my time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:]

                 Prepared Statement of Hon. Fred Upton

    Thank you Chairman Rush, for holding today's virtual 
hearing. This is the first legislative hearing in the 
subcommittee this Congress, after a big bipartisan success with 
the passage of the Energy Act of 2020 just three months ago.
    The Energy Act of 2020 is the most significant energy 
legislation in more than a decade, with substantial new 
regulatory policies and big increases in spending authority for 
energy efficiency, technology innovation, and grid 
modernization. We passed demonstration projects for natural 
gas, carbon capture, nuclear, energy storage, hydro, and the 
list goes on.
    We came together on these clean energy projects and 
programs the members of this committee have supported for 
years, and we pushed them over the finish. It was hard work and 
it took some time, but that is what it takes to get signed into 
law with bipartisan support.
    The Energy Act of 2020 is our bipartisan roadmap for clean 
energy innovation and the most recent reflection of bipartisan 
Congressional intent--now we must turn to implementation. We 
have an aggressive timeline of new programs and more than a 
dozen large scale demonstration projects that must be funded in 
the next few years.
    The committee must be focused on holding DOE accountable to 
the Energy Act of 2020 timelines, rather than rushing ahead a 
new partisan bill.
    Unfortunately, that is not the approach we are taking 
today. Sadly, it appears the Democrats are embracing the Green 
New Deal, which has been rebranded as the CLEAN Future Act. To 
sum it up, the CLEAN Future Act is a 981 page bill with 
hundreds of billions of dollars in American taxpayer giveaways 
to countries like China that control critical mineral 
production and cheap labor. It's a ``Rush to Green'' and a 
radical transformation of America's workforce. The CLEAN Future 
Act could eradicate millions of great jobs in fossil, nuclear, 
and manufacturing, while leaving America's workers behind.
    The Democrat's Clean Future Act promises to remove good 
paying jobs, retrain workers, and relocate them to new cities 
where they will have to make a new life for themselves. It will 
decimate our energy security and leave us hooked on China for 
cheap solar panels and batteries. This is no future for 
America.
    Rather than jamming this CLEAN Future bill through the 
committee process, I urge my Democrat colleagues to slow down 
and think about the damage this will do to America's workers.
    I look forward to using today's hearing to focus on these 
very real issues facing our workers. I would like to welcome 
Mr. Hofmann, president of Utility Workers Local 132, who will 
testify today on behalf of 4,000 union workers in southern 
California. They are on the front lines of this fight in 
California, which is the model the Democrats want to force on 
the rest of the Nation.
    Mr. Hofmann, I look forward to your testimony on the 
importance of a balanced policy that protects workers and 
access to affordable energy. I hope my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle will abandon this aggressive, partisan 
approach in favor of an all-of-the-above strategy that 
prioritizes energy security, reliability, and affordability.
    Thank you, I yield back.

    Mr. Upton. You have to unmute yourself again.
    Mr. Pallone. Bobby?
    I don't know if he can hear me or if any of you can hear 
me.
    Mr. Rush. I can hear you. Here I am.
    The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Pallone, the chairman of the 
full committee, for 5 minutes for the purposes of 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 Rush.
    Let me say, as much as I like Fred Upton, I totally 
disagree with what he just said about the CLEAN Future Act. I 
think that, if we don't want to be left behind by China and 
other global competitors, we have to move towards a green 
economy.
    You know, Fred, you mentioned China and solar panels. I 
mean, the mistake that has been made is that we did not 
manufacture and encourage the manufacture of solar panels and 
wind turbines, and so now the Chinese are way ahead of us.
    But we just can't continue to rely primarily on fossil 
fuels while everyone else, including China, moves ahead with, 
you know, with green initiatives and renewables, because they 
are just going to eat our lunch even more.
    And so the answer is not to ignore the reality of the jobs 
and the creation of jobs that come from a green economy but to 
embrace it, the way China and so many, you know, of the more 
developed countries have done. If we don't do that in this 
global environment, then, you know, our economy will lose out, 
the job creation that comes from renewables will pass us by, 
and we will just suffer.
    And so that is--it is just the opposite, I think, of what 
you said. And that is what the CLEAN Future Act is about. It is 
about the future and being competitive in the future.
    So this is our first legislative hearing on H.R. 1512 in 
this subcommittee, the Energy Subcommittee's first legislative 
hearing on H.R. 1512, the CLEAN Future Act. And this hearing 
will examine parts of the CLEAN Future Act that address 
resilience in the power sector, with an eye towards the recent 
Texas power crisis and policies to avoid a repeat of that 
tragic situation.
    This morning, as Chairman Rush mentioned, our Oversight and 
Investigations Subcommittee examined the Texas power crisis, 
and now this afternoon we are talking about solutions.
    The CLEAN Future Act contains numerous provisions to make 
our power sector cleaner, more reliable, and more resilient.
    First, the 21st Century Power Grid program, based on 
legislation introduced by Representative Sarbanes, invests $7 
billion over 10 years to improve the resiliency, performance, 
and efficiency of the electricity grid. This critical 
investment should help us avoid grid failures like we saw in 
Texas.
    The CLEAN Future Act also incorporates the Energy Resilient 
Communities Act, authored by Representatives Barragan and 
Clarke, which invests in clean-energy microgrids to increase 
climate-change resiliency.
    It also includes numerous provisions to boost energy 
efficiency in homes, buildings, and other facilities. Reducing 
energy demand can lessen stress on the grid and improve overall 
grid reliability.
    The bill also includes a suite of new provisions to enable 
responsible build-out of the electricity transmission system to 
increase reliability and achieve national clean-energy goals.
    And this increased resilience and reliability could have 
helped avoid some of the impacts of the extreme cold weather 
event in Texas which took a crushing toll on the lives of 
millions of Texans. Four million customers suffered without 
power for days in subfreezing temperatures. More than 14 
million people across Texas were under boil water notices, 
forcing them to wait in line at distribution centers just to 
get safe drinking water. And, tragically, at least 57 Texans 
died during the storm.
    As affected Texans try to piece their lives together, many 
of us are left asking, how could this happen? And that is why 
we held the O&I Subcommittee hearing this morning.
    I think one thing is clear: The Texas grid operator should 
have seen this coming. Texas and surrounding States have 
experienced multiple extreme cold weather events over the past 
40 years, and if you look at the reporting on these events, 
common themes emerge. First is a failure to properly winterize 
power generation facilities, natural gas production facilities, 
and other related energy infrastructure.
    It is also clear that natural gas facilities failed to 
perform as expected during extreme cold conditions. During the 
2014 polar vortex, natural gas represented over 55 percent of 
the total outages, and in a similar cold snap in 2018, natural 
gas generation represented at least 70 percent of the unplanned 
outages. In this recent storm, natural gas outages represented 
more than half of the total generation forced offline in 
ERCOT's territory.
    And as far back as 2011, one report found that the pattern 
of natural gas production declines during extreme cold events, 
indicating--and I am quoting--``the level of winterization put 
in place by producers is not capable of withstanding unusually 
cold temperatures.''
    While nothing--I think we all agree, and Chairwoman Diana 
DeGette said, that nothing could have completely prevented the 
devastation from the storm, it is still evident that at least 
10 years ago it was clear what needed to be done to prepare, 
and no action was taken.
    So these extreme weather events are only going to increase 
in frequency and severity because of climate change. The CLEAN 
Future Act is designed to get us to a 100 percent clean economy 
by no later than 2050 and improve the resiliency of our 
electric infrastructure.
    While no one piece of legislation could have prevented the 
devastation experienced from the storm, my hope is that the 
CLEAN Future Act will serve as a foundation for exploring the 
best solutions to our changing climate that could help protect 
people in the future from suffering similar experiences.
    So I just want to say, again, going back to what 
Congressman Upton said, look, we want--the CLEAN Future Act is 
what we have put forward as Democrats. We want input from the 
Republicans. We understand that there are a lot of things where 
we can have common ground, on things like resiliency, energy 
efficiency.
    As you know, both Chairman Rush and Ranking Member Upton 
came together at the end of last year with an energy package, 
the majority of which was actually incorporated in the end-of-
the-year omnibus bill. So we can work together. I don't want 
anybody to think that, you know, the CLEAN Future Act is the 
end and that is it. We want input. But I also think that we 
have to recognize that if we don't move towards a green economy 
we are going to be left behind.
    And I agree with our ranking member of the full committee, 
Mrs. Rodgers, that China is a huge threat. But the threat has 
to be, you know, hit head-on. And to just, you know, say we are 
going to continue to do things the old way while they move 
ahead and eat our lunch, that is not the answer.
    So I think there is a lot of common ground here, although 
you may not hear too much about it today.
    But thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]

             Prepared Statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.

    Today, the Energy Subcommittee is holding its first 
legislative hearing on H.R. 1512, the CLEAN Future Act, 
comprehensive and ambitious legislation to combat the climate 
crisis.
    This hearing will examine parts of the CLEAN Future Act 
that address resilience in the power sector, with an eye toward 
the recent Texas power crisis and policies to avoid a repeat of 
that tragic situation.
    This morning our Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee 
examined the Texas power crisis. And now, this afternoon, we 
are talking about solutions. The CLEAN Future Act contains 
numerous provisions to make our power sector cleaner, more 
reliable, and more resilient.
    First, the 21st Century Power Grid program--based on 
legislation introduced by Representative Sarbanes--invests $7 
billion over 10 years to improve the resiliency, performance, 
and efficiency of the electricity grid. This critical 
investment should help us avoid grid failures like we saw in 
Texas.
    The CLEAN Future Act also incorporates the Energy Resilient 
Communities Act--authored by Representatives Barragan and 
Clarke--which invests in clean energy microgrids to increase 
climate change resiliency.
    It also includes numerous provisions to boost energy 
efficiency in homes, buildings, and other facilities. Reducing 
energy demand can lessen stress on the grid and improve overall 
grid reliability.
    The bill also includes a suite of new provisions to enable 
responsible buildout of the electricity transmission system to 
increase reliability and achieve national clean energy goals. 
This increased resilience and reliability could have helped 
avoid some of the impacts of the extreme cold weather event in 
Texas, which took a crushing toll on the lives of millions of 
Texans.
    Four million customers suffered without power for days in 
sub-freezing temperatures. More than 14 million people across 
the State were under boil water notices, forcing them to wait 
in line at distribution centers just to get safe drinking 
water. And, tragically, at least 57 Texans died during the 
storm.
    As affected Texans try to piece their lives back together, 
many of us are left asking: How could this happen? That's why 
we held the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing 
this morning.
    One thing is clear: Texas grid operators should have seen 
this coming. Texas and surrounding States have experienced 
multiple extreme cold weather events over the past 40 years. 
And if you look at the reporting on these events, common themes 
emerge.
    First is a failure to properly winterize power generation 
facilities, natural gas production facilities and other related 
energy infrastructure. It's also clear that natural gas 
facilities failed to perform as expected during extreme cold 
conditions. During the 2014 polar vortex, natural gas 
represented over 55 percent of the total outages, and in a 
similar cold snap in 2018, natural gas generation represented 
at least 70 percent of the unplanned outages.
    In this recent storm, natural gas outages represented more 
than half the total generation forced offline in ERCOT's 
territory. And as far back as 2011, one report found that the 
pattern of natural gas production declines during extreme cold 
events indicated that ``the level of winterization put in place 
by producers is not capable of withstanding unusually cold 
temperatures.''
    While nothing could have completely prevented the 
devastation from the storm, it is evident that at least 10 
years ago, it was clear what needed to be done to prepare and 
no action was taken.
    These extreme weather events are only going to increase in 
frequency and severity because of climate change. The CLEAN 
Future Act is designed to get us to a 100 percent clean economy 
by no later than 2050 and improve the resiliency of our 
electric infrastructure. While no one piece of legislation 
could have prevented the devastation experienced from this 
storm, my hope is that the CLEAN Future Act will serve as a 
foundation for exploring the best solutions to our changing 
climate that can help protect people in the future from 
suffering similar experiences. Thank you, I yield back.

    Mr. Rush. The chairman yields back.
    And now the Chair recognizes the gentlelady from 
Washington, the ranking member of the full committee, Mrs. 
Rodgers, for 5 minutes for the purposes of an opening 
statement.

      OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, A 
    REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

    Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Our shared goal is cleaner American energy. Our shared goal 
is to make sure America continues to lead the world in energy 
innovation. We must make sure our Federal laws and policies 
will enable, not disable, the affordable and reliable delivery 
of energy and power.
    Keeping the lights on and heating and cooling our homes is 
vital to health and safety. We saw the heart-wrenching 
devastation when this goes wrong last month in Texas and the 
surrounding States. The massive winter freeze extending from 
the Plains into the south-central States created a record-
setting demand for power and heat. And, for a variety of 
reasons, the ability to deliver energy when people needed it 
most came up short. Energy managers had to cut off power for 
millions of people to prevent catastrophic failure of the power 
system.
    During this hearing today, which follows a related 
Oversight and Investigations hearing earlier today that I think 
is still going on, we will examine how the CLEAN Future Act's 
power-sector provisions may affect vital reliability issues. We 
must ensure that this bill protects energy reliability--it is a 
high expectation of all Americans--as well as protecting 
families and the jobs of workers from increasing energy cost 
burdens.
    We know an abundant supply of dispatchable, predictable 
baseload power, whether from fossil, hydro, or nuclear 
generators, is essential for providing power when people need 
it most. Yet the government-driven expansion of wind and solar, 
weather-dependent energy sources, coupled with electricity 
market designs that don't fully value reliability, has been 
driving out baseload generation. There are even dangerous 
efforts to remove renewable baseload hydropower that is in my 
district.
    The North American Electric Reliability Corporation 
continues to identify the growing reliability risk as a result 
of growing reliance on weather-dependent energy. It warned 
energy managers to take more action to address the risk in its 
most recent long-term assessment issued in December, including 
in Texas and California. Ladies and gentlemen, these outages 
are a reality check.
    The Department of Energy released studies last year of 
previous cold events in the Midwest and New England, finding 
that additional pipelines and baseload are needed to secure our 
grid. Yet keeping the lights on is not the central focus of 
this legislation.
    The CLEAN Future Act mandates massive electrification on an 
unprecedented scale and at an unprecedented pace with no regard 
for cost. How do you realistically do that without weakening 
reliability with the timelines in this bill?
    Considerations for people's household budgets is also 
absent. We have already witnessed how aggressive renewable 
policies in California can't keep the lights on. Those policies 
will be mandated nationally under this bill. That State's 
electricity prices have increased seven times as fast as the 
national average over the past 10 years--seven times as fast as 
the Nation's average.
    High rates squeeze household budgets needed to pay for heat 
and electricity, especially when people need it most. Just like 
we have seen in California and New York too: Add in the push to 
keep fossil in the ground and remove gas as a source of heating 
fuel, and the costs increase even further. This is a one-two 
punch of electric mandates that raise prices and undermine 
rewarding jobs in the energy sector.
    This is not the way to build prosperity. We should reset 
our focus. We should look at making improvements in our energy 
and electricity systems to place reliable, affordable delivery 
of energy and power back at the center of our energy policy. We 
can do this by unleashing innovation through regulatory and 
permiting reforms for the grid and for systems that use all 
energy resources.
    These are the reforms that the Republicans are leading for 
in the Securing a Cleaner America Energy Act, and we would like 
to work together to make it law.
    The United States of America is blessed with abundant 
energy. It is foundational to our energy security and our 
economic competitiveness. We also have tremendous technological 
know-how. There should be no reason we have to tell our 
constituents in an energy emergency that we don't have enough 
electricity to keep the lights on or the fuel to heat our 
homes. Let's focus on making sure we can keep that promise and 
win the future.
    And, with that, I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mrs. Rodgers follows:]

           Prepared Statement of Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers

    One of our most important jobs is to make sure our Federal 
laws and policies will enable--not disable--the affordable and 
reliable delivery of energy and power.
    Keeping the lights on is vital to health and safety. We saw 
the heart-wrenching devastation when this goes wrong last month 
in Texas and surrounding States.
    The massive winter freeze extending from the Plains into 
the south-central States created record-setting demand for 
power and heat, and for a variety of reasons the ability to 
deliver energy when people needed it most came up short.
    Energy managers had to cut off power for millions of people 
to prevent catastrophic failure of the power system.
    This hearing, which follows a related Oversight and 
Investigations hearing earlier today, seeks to examine how the 
CLEAN Future Act's power sector provisions may affect vital 
reliability issues.
    We should look at what the overall thrust of this bill 
means for energy reliability--as well as for energy burdens on 
families and jobs on workers.
    We know an abundant supply of dispatchable, predictable, 
baseload power--from fossil, hydro, and nuclear generators--is 
essential for providing power when people need it most.
    Yet the government driven expansion of wind and solar--
coupled with electricity market designs that don't fully value 
reliability--have been driving out traditional baseload 
generation.
    At the same time, increased opposition from the Left to 
traditional baseload and pipelines are serious problems.
    There are even dangerous efforts to remove renewable 
baseload hydropower that's in my district.
    The North American Electric Reliability Corporation 
continues to identify the growing reliability risks, as a 
result of growing reliance on renewable energy.
    It warned energy managers to take more action to address 
the risks in its most recent long-term assessment issued in 
December--including in Texas and California.
    The Department of Energy released studies last year of 
previous cold events in Midwest and New England finding that 
additional pipelines and baseload are needed to secure grid.
    Yet keeping the lights on is not the central focus of this 
legislation.
    The CLEAN Future Act mandates massive electrification on an 
unprecedented scale and pace, with no regard for cost.
    How do you realistically do that, without weakening 
reliability, on the timescales in this bill? Considerations for 
people's household budgets is also absent from this 
legislation.
    We have already witnessed how aggressive renewable policies 
in California can't keep the lights on. Those policies will be 
mandated nationally under this bill.
    That State's electricity prices have increased seven times 
as fast as the nationwide average over the past ten years. High 
rates squeeze household budgets needed to pay for heat and 
electricity--especially when people need it most.
    Just like we've seen in California and New York too.... Add 
in the push to keep fossil in the ground and to remove gas as a 
source of heating fuel, and the costs increase even further.
    This is the one-two punch of electrical mandates that raise 
prices and undermine rewarding jobs in the energy sector.
    This is not the way to build prosperity. We should reset 
our focus.
    We should look at making practical improvements in our 
energy and electricity systems to place reliable, affordable 
delivery of energy and power back at the center of our energy 
policy.
    We do this by unleashing innovation through regulatory and 
permitting reforms for the grid and for systems that use ALL 
our energy resources.
    These are the reforms Republicans are leading for Securing 
a Cleaner American Energy and they can become law if we work 
together.
    The United States has such incredible energy abundance. It 
has tremendous technological know-how. There should be no 
reason we have to tell our constituents in an energy emergency 
that we do not have enough electricity, or enough fuel.
    Let's focus on practical policies to make sure we can keep 
that promise.

    Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair would like to remind Members that, pursuant to 
committee rules, all Members' written opening statements shall 
be made part of the record.
    Now I would like to welcome our esteemed witnesses for 
today's hearing. Let me begin by introducing Dr. Karen Wayland, 
who is the chief executive officer for GridWise Alliance; Ms. 
Yvonne McIntyre, who is the director of Federal electricity and 
utility policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council; then 
Ms. Alison Silverstein, independent energy consultant; next we 
will introduce Mr. Eric Hofmann, president of the Utility 
Workers of America Local 132, Utility Workers of America, AFL-
CIO.
    Thank you for joining us for today's hearing, and we look 
forward to your testimony.
    And now it is my honor to recognize Ms. McIntyre for 5 
minutes for the purposes of an opening statement.
    Ms. McIntyre, you are recognized.

 STATEMENTS OF YVONNE McINTYRE, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL ELECTRICITY 
 AND UTILITY POLICY, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL; ALISON 
 SILVERSTEIN, INDEPENDENT ENERGY CONSULTANT; KAREN G. WAYLAND, 
  Ph.D., CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, GRIDWISE ALLIANCE; AND ERIC 
HOFMANN, PRESIDENT, UTILITY WORKERS UNION OF AMERICA LOCAL 132, 
                            AFL-CIO

                  STATEMENT OF YVONNE McINTYRE

    Ms. McIntyre. Thank you.
    Good afternoon, Chairman Rush, Ranking Member Upton, and 
members of the subcommittee, and thank you for the opportunity 
to testify at today's hearing on ``The CLEAN Future Act: 
Powering a Resilient and Prosperous America.''
    My name is Yvonne McIntyre, and I am the director of 
Federal electricity and utility policy at the Natural Resources 
Defense Council, NRDC. Founded in 1970, NRDC is an 
international nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers, 
and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public 
health and the environment.
    Prior to joining NRDC, I spent over 30 years in the power 
sector, working first as an electrical engineer and then in 
government affairs.
    Extreme weather events are posing increasing and more 
persistent threats to our Nation's energy infrastructure. And 
communities of color and low-income communities are typically 
the most negatively impacted by these disasters. A prime 
example is last month's cold weather catastrophe in Texas that 
led to dozens of deaths, untold suffering, widespread 
electricity outages, burst water pipes, and devastatingly high 
electricity bills.
    There were multiple causes of the crisis, but overall the 
Texas catastrophe was caused by lax government oversight. And, 
as we have seen time and again in our history, the poorest, 
most disadvantaged paid the highest cost of that failure. 
Effective government oversight is needed to ensure that the 
grid operates during times of stress.
    We need a 21st century power system that is responsive to 
the climate emergency we are facing today. This means utilizing 
clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency to curb our 
dependence on fossil fuels. That will cut emissions that are 
fueling climate change. It also means ensuring that our power 
system can withstand the extreme weather we are already 
experiencing by making our grid more resilient and responsive.
    The good news is that we have a historic opportunity now to 
make the investments that will create jobs, modernize our 
electricity grid, and cut climate pollution. The CLEAN Future 
Act is an important and ambitious framework for moving the 
Nation to a clean economy and tackling the climate crisis.
    It is a commendable effort but needs to do more to ensure 
our power system is more resilient and reliable in the face of 
the worsening climate crisis and extreme weather events like 
what happened in Texas. To enable a cleaner and more resilient 
grid, we recommend the Federal Government take a number of 
steps.
    First, we need to jump start transmission superhighways 
across and between regions.
    We also need to incentivize and expand energy efficiency, 
distributed solar, storage, energy-efficient buildings, and 
electrification.
    Third, we must unlock the benefits of demand flexibility 
and distributed energy.
    And, finally, it is imperative that we provide assistance 
and support to low-income communities and communities of color 
to reduce the burdens and negative impacts from climate-related 
disasters and harmful pollution.
    Each of these measures would also improve air quality by 
reducing locally harmful pollution. Congress can and should 
reduce the toll that pollution takes on communities of color 
and low-income communities.
    And Congress must also ensure that the investments made to 
transform the power system are targeted toward the communities 
facing the greatest risk from climate change and those 
disadvantaged by historic inequities, including paying the 
largest percentage of their income on energy.
    Taking these actions will not only improve the resiliency 
of the power grid and lead to a cleaner environment, it will 
also deliver jobs and economic development as well as lower 
costs for consumers.
    The CLEAN Future Act contains a number of provisions that 
address these issues, but in most cases it needs to go further 
to improve the resiliency of the electricity system and to 
drive investment in a diverse portfolio of renewable resources, 
efficiency, and demand flexibility.
    The bill should provide for stronger tools to consider 
climate change in transmission permiting decisions and to 
address its lack of planning authority. To take advantage of 
demand flexibility and enable greater access to distributed-
energy resources and electrification, we need major upgrades to 
our grid. Therefore, the level of CLEAN Future Act funding for 
such upgrades should be substantially increased.
    Building electrification and weatherization are key 
efficiency tools, but they are not addressed in the bill. There 
should be a stronger focus throughout titles II and III on 
providing benefits and support to, and engaging with, low-
income communities and communities of color.
    Further details on these recommendations are provided in my 
written testimony. NRDC looks forward to working with the 
committee to improve the bill to address these critical issues. 
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. McIntyre follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Rush. I want to thank Ms. McIntyre.
    And now, Ms. Silverstein, you are recognized for 5 minutes 
for the purposes of an opening statement.

                STATEMENT OF ALISON SILVERSTEIN

    Ms. Silverstein. Thank you, Chairman Rush, Ranking Member 
Upton, Chairman Pallone, and distinguished members of the 
committee. My name is Alison Silverstein. I am honored to 
appear before you today as a private citizen with personal 
experience with the Texas power crisis.
    First, about the Texas blackout: Generation on the ground 
and fuel stockpiled in the yard won't help us if the generator 
or its fuel supply freezes up. We need a diverse fleet of 
generation and storage sources that don't all fail at the same 
time due to common causes.
    Texas's critical facilities were not ready with backup 
power and on-site fuel. Texas's distribution utilities could 
not rotate outages among circuits and customers once they 
protected known critical facilities because the big circuits 
they were serving used up all the available power. Texas 
leaders didn't use several days of lead time to warn us to get 
ready for the storm ahead.
    But Texas energy uses and demand are also to blame. Too 
many Texas homes have minimal insulation, so residents can't 
stay warm in winter or cool in summer without wasting too much 
energy. Fifty percent of Texas homes use inefficient resistance 
heating that caused almost half of the ERCOT demand surge on 
February 14.
    This power disaster was an equity disaster. Poor people 
suffer from energy poverty and live in lower-quality, leaky 
housing in areas that are most likely to be shut off during a 
mass load-shed event. They are more likely to suffer misery, 
medical complications, or death from bad weather and power 
shutoffs.
    This was fundamentally a planning failure by ERCOT, by 
NERC, by our energy providers, and by regulators at every 
level. We consistently underimagine and underestimate the 
magnitude of what could go wrong, so we fail to plan and 
prepare adequately for very bad events.
    Deadly, costly extreme-weather events are hitting the U.S. 
with growing frequency and ferocity. We have to stop pretending 
that each individual extreme weather event is a low-probability 
occurrence and instead treat extreme weather collectively as 
high-impact, medium-frequency events.
    We also need to stop pretending that every type of extreme 
event is special and deserves its own special preparation. 
Almost every disaster that harms the grid has a common 
consequence: the power goes off. Customers don't care what 
caused it, and neither should we. We should protect our grid, 
our citizens, and communities against the common consequences 
of all of these disasters because we can't afford to harden the 
grid against every threat.
    Now, on to the CLEAN Future Act.
    On subtitle B, all credible analyses of a reliable, 
affordable clean-energy future recognize that we need to 
massively expand electric transmission. Current FERC and DOE 
authorities and processes aren't working to do that. Newer, 
stronger physical infrastructure will not appear without a 
stronger institutional infrastructure to facilitate that.
    Please improve our institutional infrastructure by giving 
FERC more authority over interregional transmission planning, 
routes and interconnection, benefits, and cost allocation.
    Create and fund a Federal transmission authority to manage 
national-scale transmission planning, design, and construction. 
This authority should work with others to build a robust 
interregional transmission network.
    Create a Federal funding program to finance much of the 
needed electric system expansion and improvements.
    Please modify the subtitle on infrastructure and resilience 
by requiring utilities to sectionalize their distribution 
systems into smaller circuits that can rotate the burden of 
load-shedding more fairly.
    Revise the microgrid provisions to offer standardized 
microgrid and backup power systems containing photovoltaics, 
battery storage, and backup generation. These could be deployed 
economically to critical facilities and used for both community 
resilience and grid emergency support.
    Also, standardize community solar projects to deliver more 
clean energy to communities using our taxpayer dollars.
    On title III, efficiency, don't just make the grid more 
resilient; make people and communities more resilient as well. 
To do this, we need to deliver much more energy efficiency to 
many more Americans at maximum speed.
    Last month, leaky homes and wasteful electric heating drove 
Texas demand very high and then leaked out all the warm air so 
homes froze and people died without power. We must make 
immediate, massive investments in energy efficiency and repairs 
to low-income and multifamily housing using weatherization and 
more efficient heat pumps and air conditioners. This will keep 
people safer during bad weather, reduce energy poverty, speed 
up decarbonization, and create many jobs. More efficient homes 
and businesses will also improve grid reliability and 
resilience.
    Thank you all for your service to our Nation, and thank you 
for the opportunity to testify.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Silverstein follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Rush. Now the Chair recognizes Dr. Wayland.
    Dr. Wayland, you are recognized for 5 minutes for the 
purposes of an opening statement.

              STATEMENT OF KAREN G. WAYLAND, Ph.D.

    Dr. Wayland. Thank you, Chairman Rush, Ranking Member 
Upton, and other members of the committee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to appear before you today to participate in this 
important hearing on how Congress can improve the resilience of 
the electricity grid and the CLEAN Future Act.
    My name is Karen Wayland, and I am the CEO of GridWise 
Alliance. The mission of GridWise is to champion the 
principles, policies, and investments needed to transform the 
electricity grid. Our members include investor-owned utilities, 
municipal utilities, rural electric cooperatives, grid 
equipment manufacturers and technology companies, vendors, 
National Labs, and others.
    The Texas power failure and last year's wildfires in 
California have focused public attention on the electric grid 
and emphasized the growing dependence of all sectors of the 
economy on reliable electricity. I know the other panelists 
have discussed in greater depth what happened in Texas and 
California. My approach is to use those blackouts as the driver 
for discussions about enhancing grid resilience across the 
country.
    We should not lose sight of the range of threats that could 
disrupt power supply at the local, regional, or national level. 
Every utility in every State faces resilient challenges, each 
requiring different risk management strategies. So let's talk 
about the threats to grid resilience.
    First, increasingly severe weather threatens power grids 
across the country. There were a record 22 weather events in 
2020 alone in which the cost of the damage exceeded $1 billion. 
The last two decades have seen a 67 percent increase in major 
power outages from weather events. Drought is increasing, and 
five of the worst wildfires in the U.S. history occurred in the 
last 4 years. Other natural risks are geological, like 
earthquakes, geomagnetic pulses, and sea-level rise.
    Cyber attacks are a constant, increasing, and evolving 
threat to the electricity system. The growing number of grid-
integrated devices and utility-operating technologies that are 
increasingly connected to utility information technology 
systems increases the likelihood that a successful cyber attack 
could significantly damage critical equipment and cause 
widespread power outages. This is a national security threat 
that policymakers must tackle, and I urge you to include cyber 
provisions in the CLEAN Future Act.
    Enhancing the resilience of the electricity grid is a 
multipronged approach encompassing planning, operations, and 
technology across a range of risks. It is as much about people 
as it is about the physical grid. Utilities have a suite of 
options to enhance resilience across the technology, 
operations, and people spectrum.
    On the operations side, trees are the leading cause of 
power outages. So utility vegetation management programs reduce 
flammable materials near power lines and remove trees at risk 
of fall. In the days leading up to an event, utilities will 
prestage trucks and equipment in advance.
    On the people side, utilities conduct practice drills and 
exercises throughout the year to prepare for disaster response 
and engage in mutual-assistance agreements with neighboring 
utilities.
    On the technology side, we have numerous hardening 
approaches and new grid technologies that can significantly 
increase resilience. And those are dealt well with in the 
sections of the 21st-century grid in the CLEAN Future Act.
    A few years ago, GridWise Alliance brought together experts 
from the utilities and grid equipment manufacturers to discuss 
grid resilience in the face of large-scale events like the 
Texas freeze and the California wildfires. The 20 utilities 
participating represented over 40 percent of the Nation's 
electric customers and came up with 4 significant lessons that 
the CLEAN Future Act touches on.
    First, grid-modernization technologies can prevent outages 
and decrease projected impacts. Second, distributed generation 
technologies, such as microgrids and DERs, can enhance the 
resilience of electric infrastructure. Third, information and 
communications technology infrastructure should be more 
resilient, reliant, and secure. And for the fourth lesson, from 
our workshop, enhanced emergency response planning processes 
can result in better deployment and coordination of human and 
other resources.
    I address a number of these recommendations in my written 
testimony, and I look forward to exploring these further with 
you.
    One final point on resilience: Planning for energy 
resilience is not the sole purview of the energy sector. Large-
scale disruptions will often affect multiple systems, as they 
did in Texas with water, and multiple States, affecting assets 
outside the utilities' footprint and control. Thus, planning 
must involve coordination between the public and private 
sectors.
    State and local governments are the first and second layers 
of response planning, and virtually all States have energy 
security plans for disaster response. Ideally, these plans 
should be updated at least annually, but the reality is that 
most States do not.
    Working with industry and other stakeholders, GridWise 
Alliance has developed a set of grid infrastructure priorities 
for an infrastructure package or in evaluating the CLEAN Future 
Act. Our policy framework includes over $50 billion in funding 
for programs across the Federal Government to support grid 
modernization, and our recommendations have significant overlap 
with the CLEAN Future Act.
    Federal funding for grid modernization will leverage 
private capital, accelerate grid-modernization plans, help 
derisk State public utility commission decisions, and put 
people back to work. If Congress makes investments in the 
Nation's grid in 2021, the electricity sector can be the engine 
to drive post-pandemic recovery.
    GridWise Alliance thanks the committee for the opportunity 
to provide feedback on how to enhance resilience of the 
Nation's electricity system, and I look forward to the 
discussion following. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Wayland follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Hofmann for 5 minutes for the 
purposes of an opening statement.
    Mr. Hofmann, you are now recognized.

                   STATEMENT OF ERIC HOFMANN

    Mr. Hofmann. Thank you, Chairman Rush, Ranking Member 
Upton, and all distinguished members of the subcommittee.
    My name is Eric Hofmann, and I am president of the Utility 
Workers Union of America Local 132, representing over 4,000 
unionized workers at SoCalGas, covering over 20,000 square 
miles of service territory and over 20 million customers.
    Now, our members work in every facet that you could 
possible imagine, from our welders and inspectors on the 
pipelines to our technicians that service appliances in low-
income and underserved communities. We represent our folks in 
the call center, men and women, many of them single moms. Every 
walk of life imaginable is who our members are.
    Climate change is real and no doubt caused by human 
activity. The question becomes, what do we do about it? We know 
we need to significantly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and 
that should be the goal. The goal should be to reduce 
greenhouse-gas emissions.
    How do we get there? We are going to need wind. We are 
going to need solar. We are going to need lithium ion battery 
technologies. But we are also going to need renewable natural 
gas. We are going to need hydrogen. We are going to need carbon 
capture, utilization, and sequestration. And we are going to 
need pyrolysis. We are going to need all of it.
    We are going to need to include workers who work in these 
spaces, who are the true experts on these energy systems. And 
they should have a voice and a seat at the table. They are the 
ones who are best served to explain to you all how to best move 
forward and get our energy systems dramatically decarbonized.
    When we talk about building electrification, building 
electrification presents some of its own challenges, 
particularly the solution on offer right now with heat-pump 
technologies. The heat pumps contain refrigerants, currently R-
410A, which is 2,100 times worse than CO2, 
particularly on the production side. There are other issues 
with these heat-pump technologies in the ducting and the other 
wiring and electrical components required in order to upgrade 
these systems.
    So, when we talk about decarbonizing, as far as UWUA Local 
132 is concerned, it does not mean mandating electrification. 
We need to get there, and the way we get there is by exploring 
every option available and keeping all of our options at our 
fingertips.
    One of the other big problems you are going to find with 
electrification is the renewable space that we currently have. 
In southern California, the largest solar field has a dedicated 
natural gas line in order to keep the panels heated during the 
night and in the cold, so when the sun comes up in the morning 
there is no condensation on the panels, so they are moving at 
full capacity.
    So we need to take all of these things into consideration, 
particularly with our housing crisis in California, and we 
cannot make things less affordable. We have to try to keep 
energy as affordable as it can possibly be. Energy should not 
be a luxury to only the affluent. Energy should be available to 
everyone.
    In closing, I will just say that, regardless of what letter 
you have in front of your name, it is not lost on me for what 
you guys do, and I am sure more often than not it is a 
thankless job. So let me just say thank you for what you do and 
your leadership. And I appreciate your line of questioning.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Hofmann follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Rush. I want to thank all of our witnesses.
    We have concluded our opening statements. We will now move 
to Member questions. Each Member will have 5 minutes to ask 
questions of our witnesses.
    And I will start by recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
    Ms. McIntyre, in recent years extreme weather events have 
posed a significant threat to our Nation's critical 
infrastructure. A recent GAO study suggests that climate change 
will have far-reaching impacts on our Nation's electric grid.
    Would you describe why you think it is important to swiftly 
invest in a 21st century energy system and, in particular, how 
this investment will allow us to respond to climate change?
    Ms. McIntyre. Thank you, Congressman.
    We definitely agree with GAO's assessment and certainly do 
believe that the extreme weather threats being caused and 
fueled by climate change are certainly, you know, causing more 
and dramatic impacts on our energy system.
    And so we believe--and, again, as I go into in my written 
testimony--that there are a number of steps, some that are 
included in the CLEAN Future Act, that will address and 
hopefully make the grid more resilient and reliable.
    But, you know, action needs to be taken now. And foremost, 
at the top of that list, is decarbonizing our grid. We need to 
move away from fossil fuels that are fueling the climate 
crisis, and so we need more access to renewable energy, energy 
efficiency, storage.
    We also need to expand our transmission grid and strengthen 
transmission interconnections--you know, take other efficiency 
measures, such as weatherization, electrification.
    And so, you know, a whole host of steps that, again, I go 
into in more detail in my written testimony.
    But the time is now. We can't continue to hold off on 
making these investments and transforming our grid. You know, 
we need to move away from fossil fuels now to, you know----
    Mr. Rush. Thank you very much.
    Ms. McIntyre [continuing]. Lessen the impacts of climate 
and----
    Mr. Rush. Yes. I only have a few more minutes. Thank you, 
Ms. McIntyre.
    Ms. McIntyre. OK. Great.
    Mr. Rush. Dr. Wayland, in your testimony you mentioned that 
we must not lose sight of the range of threats that could 
disrupt power supply at the local, regional, or national level. 
In addition, you mentioned that resilient grid infrastructure 
requires a range of risk management strategies.
    How might policies to enhance Federal investment in grid 
resiliency support a range of risk management strategies?
    Dr. Wayland. Thank you, Congressman.
    We believe that helping to accelerate grid modernization is 
one policy that the Federal Government can take to enhance the 
resilience of the electricity system. Deploying grid 
technologies actually gives the grid operators a greater 
flexibility in terms of dealing with a range of threats and 
also allows them to take more advantage of the demand-side 
assets--buildings, vehicles, water heaters, other things.
    And in the energy efficiency provisions in the CLEAN Future 
Act, we strongly support energy efficiency, but we would 
recommended that, if the bill passes, that would result in an 
enormous upgrading of buildings around the country, millions of 
buildings. And during that construction, those buildings should 
have advanced energy management systems installed that could be 
grid-integrated and allow those buildings to become assets to 
the grid that grid operators can use to provide additional grid 
services and manage loads better across the grid.
    I would also say that giving tools to utilities and to 
policymakers to value grid resilience is very important. And 
continued support for the Department of Energy and the National 
Labs' work with stakeholders on evaluation of grid resilience 
will be very critical to justify those resilience investments.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Rush. Thank you.
    Ms. Silverstein, communities like the First District of 
Illinois also experience extreme weather and summer weather 
events. Given your experience in both the national and Texas-
specific grid policies, would you describe how policies from 
the CLEAN Future Act might support Federal efforts to secure 
vital grid infrastructure in a variety of communities?
    Ms. Silverstein. Yes, sir. Thank you.
    The most important thing that I recommend is measures that 
work in Texas or in Chicago, in all of your States, and those 
are: Don't just protect the grid. Protect people, and make 
people more resilient.
    And what that means is taking the benefits of things like 
distributed generation and backup power systems and putting 
them at critical facilities so that they serve everyone and 
support the grid, and doing essential energy efficiency as 
widely as possible for as many people as possible.
    Because not all of the shiny things that Ms. Wayland 
advocates will work all the time, particularly given potential 
disruptions to communications and cyber attack. So I want to 
make sure that people are protected by safer homes and 
buildings that keep them safe, no matter what, wherever their 
weather happens to hit them.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Rush. That concludes my questions.
    The Chair now recognizes my friend from the great State of 
Michigan, Mr. Upton, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Upton. Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a number 
of questions.
    I appreciate all the testimony.
    Ms. Wayland, we--I have to say, all of us support grid 
modernization. We have had a number of hearings over the last 
good number of years, whether it be on cyber--obviously, what 
we saw in California and Texas is not where we want to be.
    How much do you think that we need to spend on grid 
modernization? And what would be the leverage that we would be 
able to get, do you think, from the utilities themselves to 
help out with the cost? What is a ballpark figure in terms of 
what we are going to need?
    Dr. Wayland. Ballpark, we are recommending a suite of 
recommendations for about $50 billion of Federal investment. 
But that is across a range of direct grid technology 
deployment, to resilience measures like microgrids, for 
cybersecurity and other things. And I am happy to share with 
you our Grid Investments for Economic Recovery proposal.
    You will get significant leverage from utilities in these 
investments. In fact, the investor-owned utilities don't want 
free money from the Federal Government. They need to be able to 
make their own investments here.
    But I do think that the Federal investments would help 
accelerate grid modernization. We have seen a number of public 
utility commissions take a very hard look at grid-modernization 
plans for a number of reasons but particularly because of the 
economic downturn of the last year. And so Federal funding 
would certainly help accelerate the regular investment plans 
that are out there for grid modernization.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Upton. And, you know, we have heard a lot over the 
years about the trouble in permiting for new grids, for new 
lines. Do you support any permit modernization or reforms that 
could be part of this package?
    Dr. Wayland. We do believe that there is a mismatch between 
the permiting for generation and the permiting for transmission 
and that we need to look at a range of policy options to 
accelerate our ability to both build new [inaudible] and to 
upgrade existing facilities to make them more efficient and to 
build their capacity.
    Mr. Upton. And for the record, can you provide some of 
those recommendations for us?
    Dr. Wayland. I--yes. We----
    Mr. Upton. Great. Thank you.
    Dr. Wayland [continuing]. Particularly around--sorry.
    Mr. Upton. That is the answer I wanted to hear. Thank you.
    Dr. Wayland. Yes, I will provide them for you.
    Mr. Upton. Great.
    And, Mr. Hofmann, you mentioned in your testimony that you 
represent thousands of utility workers. There are some 20 
million people in southern California.
    What are some of the greatest challenges for your workers? 
And what keeps you up at night as you prepare for yet another 
summer in California with a growing risk of wildfires and 
perhaps rolling blackouts? What can we do today to help your 
job a few months from now?
    Mr. Hofmann. Sure. So, you know, in regards to, you know, 
this summer and wildfires, you know, mudslides in the winter, 
earthquakes, all of these things that happen, these sort of 
major, catastrophic events, my members, quite frankly, they 
call it a Tuesday. And that is what they are up against.
    And, you know, when we talk about what can we do today, 
there is--and in terms of impacts on reducing greenhouse-gas 
emissions, we have a system of leaky pipes that we could be 
fixing right now. We could work on this.
    You know, Local 132 was the first of its kind to enact 
legislation here in California in SB 1371 to actually adopt a 
find-it-and-fix-it approach to natural gas leaks that have been 
deemed nonhazardous by the Public Utilities Commission in terms 
of their likelihood of ignition----
    Mr. Upton. And what is your backlog? I don't mean to 
interrupt, but what is your backlog on the find-it-and-fix-it?
    Mr. Hofmann. Well, you know, when--I am not certain, but I 
know that it is in the thousands.
    Mr. Upton. Thousands of individual leaks?
    Mr. Hofmann. Yes.
    Mr. Upton. Wow. That would do a lot.
    What is the reaction from your membership for those that 
say, ``Well, maybe we can find you another job in a different 
sector of energy, maybe at the same salary''? What level of 
skepticism is there as it relates to that?
    Mr. Hofmann. Off-the-charts high, quite frankly. When we 
hear the term ``just transition,'' quite frankly, it makes our 
skin crawl because we have not seen any example of anything 
that is that just.
    I worry about, you know, our newest member who signed up 
last week--you know, what does that mean for his career going 
forward? What about people that have 20 years? What about their 
retirements and everything else and their families? There is a 
lot for us to consider there.
    Mr. Upton. And let me just--is there a log for the find-it-
and-fix-it? Can we find out the specific number of cases that 
might be open in California that need to be addressed, through 
the public service commission or somebody else?
    Mr. Hofmann. Yes. The California Public Utilities 
Commission, certainly, yes. It is under SB 1371, Senator Leno.
    Mr. Upton. OK. Thank you.
    I yield back. Thank you for the time.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the chairman of the full 
committee, Mr. Pallone, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Rush.
    I wanted to ask some questions about transmission. One 
issue that the Texas energy crisis brought to the forefront is 
whether ERCOT would have benefited from having more 
transmission connections to the rest of the U.S. grid.
    And, during the storm, Southwest Power Pool, the electric 
market north of ERCOT, and the Mid-Continental Independent 
System Operator, the electric market to the east of ERCOT, were 
able to rely upon energy imports from the rest of the grid even 
though those markets still experienced some shortages.
    So let me start with Ms. Silverstein.
    How could ERCOT have benefited from greater transmission 
connections to the rest of the U.S. grid during this severe 
winter storm? If you will.
    Ms. Silverstein. Yes, sir. ERCOT could have benefited in a 
couple ways.
    One of them is, just because the other--there would have to 
be significantly bigger interconnections than exist today, of 
course. But just because another interconnection is wrestling 
with its own winter weather doesn't mean there is nothing left 
for them to share.
    And so there are significant benefits for potential 
additional flows and, more important, had ERCOT actually gone 
into black start, though it is much easier to restore a grid 
being able to import power from elsewhere than it is only to 
depend on your own internal resources. So we could have avoided 
a multiweek potential collapse of the entire Texas economy had 
Texas had interconnection to support black start.
    Mr. Pallone. Well, thank you.
    Now, the CLEAN Future Act contains a suite of new 
provisions that enable responsible build-out of the electricity 
transmission system. So obviously, you know, we think that that 
would help in terms of what you just discussed.
    But let me go to Ms. Wayland.
    Why is a robust transmission system so important for grid 
reliability and resiliency?
    Dr. Wayland. Well, a robust transmission system means that 
it is able to respond quickly to changes across a large 
geographical area. And so you are actually able to balance load 
and supply across, you know, areas with different geographical 
conditions.
    So, in an event like a storm, where you might have 
excessive demand, or extreme heat like we had in California, 
you can call on power from different parts of the country and 
actually balance it better than you would if you have a system 
that is not as expansive.
    So that is one way to think about a robust transmission 
system.
    Mr. Pallone. I mean, I know that even from listening to the 
debate this morning in O&I that, you know, many of our Texas 
members sort of pride themselves on the fact that Texas is on 
its own and, you know, can do everything on its own. And I 
understand that. Everybody has a sense of pride in their State, 
and certainly Texans do. But, I mean, I think that it is clear 
that if they were better hooked up to a national grid that 
there would have been a better opportunity to prevent this from 
happening, or at least it would have been lessened.
    Let me ask Ms. McIntyre, will we be able to achieve our 
clean-energy goals without building out the transmission system 
to access renewable energy sources?
    Ms. McIntyre. No, we will not. You know, having stronger 
and more expanded transmission provides more access to clean-
energy resources where they are generating electricity and 
being able to take that power to where it is needed.
    And so, you know, right now, like, Southwest Power Pool, 
actually, the majority of its generation is actually wind 
power. And so, you know, in an overabundance of wind power, you 
know, to have the ability to actually get that power to where 
it is needed, particularly in times of storm and severe 
weather, is going to be essential.
    It will also provide--expanded transmission will provide 
the balancing of intermittent renewable resources, again, 
because, you know, if you are experiencing, you know, low wind 
levels in one State, that doesn't mean that, you know, the same 
level of activity is happening in another State. So, if the 
wind is blowing in one State, you can move it to another State 
if you have stronger transmission ties.
    So I know there is a lot of concern that people raise about 
the intermittency of renewable resources, but, you know, having 
an expanded and stronger transmission system will allow the 
balancing to be enabled to provide renewable power throughout 
the country.
    Mr. Pallone. Well, thank you.
    Yes, I just want to stress, I know we have talked a lot 
about Texas today, but modernizing the grid and expanding 
transmission are important for reliability and resiliency in 
all the States. And I just think there are also critical 
activities we have to undertake to enhance the movement of 
clean electricity across the country to ensure a reliable 
source of supply and to meet our net-zero carbon energy goals.
    So thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the ranking member of the full 
committee, Mrs. Rodgers, for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Hofmann, I want to join in just saying thank you for 
being with us today and sharing your important perspective. I 
think it is really important that we get that on-the-ground 
perspective, especially from California and as someone that is 
working every day to ensure that we have safe and reliable 
energy.
    You talked in your testimony about, quote, ``working to 
optimize the natural gas and gas infrastructure, not minimize 
or eliminate it.'' And I think that we want to do the same 
thing. We want to build, not destroy. We want to improve our 
energy systems using all our resources and really looking at 
how we can make these resources cleaner. We want to do it 
sensibly, and it takes time for that innovation.
    My opinion is that the problem with the CLEAN Future Act is 
that, with the timelines and the one-size-fits-all mandates and 
the centralized planning, it makes no room for this.
    So, Mr. Hofmann, you state in your testimony that 
decarbonization does not mean building electrification. Would 
you just tell us why and why it isn't necessarily ideal for 
families and workers?
    Mr. Hofmann. Certainly.
    So, when you talk about, you know, building 
electrification, you know, it is, what is the goal? And if the 
goal is reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, then there are, 
quite frankly, more cost-effective, more efficient ways to get 
there.
    For example, you know, going into low-income and 
underserved communities and replacing their old, quite frankly, 
junky appliances with more state-of-the-art natural-gas/
electric appliances, you know, that will decrease your energy 
consumption. Therefore, you are reducing greenhouse-gas 
emissions.
    Talking about, you know, this whole prospect of making 
everything electric, you are going to leave a lot of people in 
the dark that can't afford to transition over. And I think from 
a sense of, you know, just cost-efficiency measures, we would 
all be better served, from our perspective, in repurposing and 
refurbishing rather than recapitalizing everything.
    Mrs. Rodgers. OK. I appreciate that.
    And another title is--and one that I think is actually 
pretty chilling in this legislation is the worker transition 
title, which makes plans for the loss of these energy and 
energy-intensive jobs expected from the bill.
    Would you speak to what goes into your work and what it 
means to you and your colleagues to build the skills that you 
have and perform the jobs that you do?
    Mr. Hofmann. Certainly. Thank you for that question.
    You know, we secured our first bargaining unit here at 
Local 132 in 1938, and it is a craft that we have been 
perfecting every since. I am a second-generation utility 
worker, and I am proud of it. And these skills that we have 
honed and perfected over, you know, decades and generations--we 
are not robots, and we can't just simply be reprogrammed to do 
a completely separate skill. It is just not realistic.
    And rather than, you know, focusing on things that are 
largely aspirational, from our perspective, it makes more sense 
to work on things that are actually achievable.
    Mrs. Rodgers. Yes. So what do you think when DC is talking 
about the other occupations that they can train you to do?
    Mr. Hofmann. You know, from what I have seen--I mean, I 
have seen, for example--you know, one example is that an 
environmental attorney is considered a green job. And, quite 
frankly, that is just not really an occupation that I see a lot 
of my members transitioning into.
    And, you know, there are other examples that I see real 
challenges with also. You know, even the aspect of the 
additional components needed on the electrical system, what 
would be required would not--they would not require all 4,000 
of my members and however many thousands of other gas workers 
in the State would be needed to come over on the electric side. 
It is just not realistic.
    Mrs. Rodgers. So another concern I have with California 
policies becoming our country's policies is the cost. And we 
know that California has seven times the cost of the national 
average.
    And now the Governor is proposing to eliminate the sales of 
light-duty, gasoline-powered vehicles. And that also is coming 
to DC, where the two California Senators are asking for that to 
happen nationally.
    Would you speak to working-class communities and if you 
think that they will benefit from the ban of these gas-fueled 
vehicles?
    Mr. Hofmann. It is kind of a difficult question. I mean, 
you know, considering that, you know, tailpipe emissions, cars, 
suggested that they contribute to, you know, roughly nearly 40 
percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions, I mean, that is 
probably the best sector to work in, but, again, you have a lot 
of things to consider. How are people going to afford these new 
technologies that, from what at least they are right now, they 
are very expensive?
    Not to mention the fact that, what would happen today if 
every single person who owned or drove a car in California 
plugged in their car at night? You know, there are some 
challenges there that I think a lot of people need to consider. 
And, you know, from our perspective, the best people to talk to 
are the ones who are actually going to have to do that work.
    Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you. I really appreciate you being with 
us.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Peters for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Peters. Thank you, Chairman Rush, for convening this 
hearing today.
    The Oversight and Investigations committee, as you 
mentioned, held a hearing this morning on the power crisis in 
Texas. And while the Texas grid failed for a combination of 
reasons unique to Texas, the extreme weather that triggered the 
near-gridwide blackout was not a unique event. We have seen 
grid vulnerabilities in other places, including my home State 
of California.
    That is why titles II and III of the CLEAN Future Act are 
so important and timely. And I am especially grateful to the 
committee chairs for including language from my bill, the POWER 
ON Act, which encourages the siting of new interstate 
transmission lines to increase overall capacity, reliance, and 
resilience and lower electricity costs to consumers.
    According to research from the Department of Energy's 
National Renewable Energy Lab, if we connect centers of high 
renewable resources with centers of high electric demand by 
building a macro grid--that is, an overlay of high-voltage DC 
lines--and optimize that grid for the Nation's best wind and 
solar, we can dramatically reduce carbon emissions while 
improving system resiliency and reducing wholesale power costs.
    And, Ms. McIntyre, I appreciate you referencing this 
concept in your testimony. And I would like to ask you and then 
maybe Ms. Silverstein: Electrifying everything is one key 
component to GHG emissions-reduction strategies. This would 
require additional transmission to bring clean energy from 
rural areas to our population centers.
    Would it be a good strategy or would it not be a good 
strategy to site transmission along highways and railways, with 
the aim of supplying charging infrastructure along the routes, 
while maximizing existing rights of way?
    And Ms. McIntyre and then Ms. Silverstein.
    Ms. McIntyre. Yes, I think that would be a good idea. You 
know, any different ways that we can expand and strengthen the 
transmission system to do exactly what you are saying, to help 
enable, you know, bringing more clean resources and lowering 
consumer costs, are good proposals to investigate. So thank 
you.
    Mr. Peters. Ms. Silverstein?
    Ms. Silverstein. It is a wonderful proposal, and I 
recommend that you supplement that with an extensive amount of 
storage. As folks who are not fans of renewables are quick to 
point out, the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't 
always blow. So the more that we can support renewables with 
not only large amounts of transmission but large amounts of 
storage, distributed in places like charging stations, the 
better we can support all of those uses.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Peters. Great.
    A background grid is also a key to integrating low-cost 
zero-emission resources. Given that Order 1000 interregional 
coordination is not a requirement for planning, and only listed 
pairs of Order 1000 planning regions, should we conduct 
interconnectionwide or nationwide planning outside of that 
process? Or does it make sense to reform that process to bring 
broader regions to plan together?
    And I will ask the same two individuals to comment, Ms. 
McIntyre and then Ms. Silverstein.
    Ms. McIntyre. We definitely think that FERC should be given 
the authority to improve the interregional transmission 
processes and have it be a requirement that utilities in the 
region be involved.
    Mr. Peters. OK.
    Ms. Silverstein?
    Ms. Silverstein. I concur.
    Additionally, though, I recommend that you not only give 
FERC more authority over that but that you additionally create 
a Federal electric transmission authority. Because we know that 
RTOs individually are incapable, it appears, of looking much 
beyond their boundaries effectively. And so we need much better 
definition of the benefits, we need much better cost 
allocation, as well as planning processes.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Peters. And, to be fair, that would be what you would 
expect out of RTOs, not necessarily to look nationwide. I think 
that is why----
    Ms. Silverstein. They are doing a great job at what their 
job is, but we need more than that.
    Mr. Peters. Exactly.
    And, finally, Ms. Silverstein, we are likely to see more 
and more of these extreme weather events, and that demonstrates 
we need to improve resilience. But someone on the other side of 
the aisle had been suggesting that the Texas energy crisis is 
an opportunity to cast blame for the California blackouts on 
renewables.
    Can you give me your perspective on that? What do you say 
to people who say they can't run a grid reliably and keep the 
lights on if we rely on an increasing amount of renewable 
resources?
    Ms. Silverstein. I think they are wrong. California was 
demonstrably not about the failure of renewables alone. 
California was about the failure of all kinds of resources and 
climate change. Texas was about climate change, an 
extraordinary weather event, and the failure of every kind of 
generation and every kind of customer demand problem. So, if 
there was a way to screw up this Texas event, we found it, and 
they all happened simultaneously.
    But every complicated weather event and every grid failure 
is going to have multiple parents and multiple causes. So you 
can't just say renewables were the cause of either of those 
events.
    Mr. Peters. Great.
    I really appreciate the testimony.
    Mr. Chairman, I know my time has expired. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Burgess for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Rush.
    So we all take it for granted that if you walk into a room 
or flip the light switch the lights will come on. But, as we 
learned in Texas and the recent blackouts in California, it 
certainly shocked, no pun intended, many of those constituents, 
and it caused many of us to realize just how fragile our 
electric system can be.
    We can all agree on cleaner energy production, and it 
should be a priority. But, when drafting Federal policies, 
Congress must not assume that every electron is as reliable, as 
affordable as the one before. The resource of electricity has 
positives and negatives--again, no pun intended. A diverse 
portfolio of energy generation is integral to achieve the 
competing priorities of energy reliability and environmental 
stewardship.
    I think Republicans on this committee are ready to work 
across the aisle to modernize our energy sector, to ensure 
reliable, affordable energy that is easily accessible, and to 
increase American energy exports. But the majority's CLEAN 
Future Act poses significant risks to those goals.
    I also would like to mention, just on the issue of 
transmission, Texas underwent a rather ambitious--they were 
called the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones. And the idea was 
to get the energy, the renewable energy, from the wind farms in 
west Texas to where the consumption took place in Dallas and 
Austin and points east.
    I know this because many of those transmission lines 
crisscrossed the district that I represent, and there was 
considerable angst at the time of their construction. It was 
about a $7 billion price tag that will be paid for by rate-
payers over the next several, several years. But it is like 
anything else: You start building a major electrical 
transmission line, even in a State as large as Texas, and you 
don't have to go very far before you bump up against someone 
who would just as soon not have it there.
    So, while I appreciate the comments that have been made 
about modernizing transmission, in fact, Texas--which many 
people have held up as not the best-case scenario--Texas made a 
significant investment in getting electricity from the wind 
fields of west Texas to the areas of consumption in the more 
populated eastern part of the State.
    But let me ask Karen Wayland just very briefly, does the 
CLEAN Future Act improve the resiliency of America's fuel 
infrastructure?
    Dr. Wayland. I believe it does. And when you talk about 
fuel, we think of fuel in a range of ways. It is not just--you 
know, I think you might be thinking of natural gas. We are 
thinking of fuel in terms of all of the energy sources that can 
generate electricity. And----
    Mr. Burgess. Yes. Texas is all-of-the-above, for a fact.
    Dr. Wayland. That is correct.
    And I think that, you know, we have been talking about the 
grid today, and we should be talking about the electricity 
system and then the grid. So, in Texas, the issue was not the 
grid, necessarily. It was the generation that is connected to 
the grid. And Texas didn't necessarily represent an engineering 
failure of the grid itself.
    So, you know, it was much more about a failure of 
generation capacity across all fuel sources, as well as, you 
know, as Ms. Silverstein has mentioned, market issues and the 
end-use issues of failure to really invest in the efficiency 
and the weatherization of the end use as well.
    Mr. Burgess. Well, Texas is a big State. As we learned in 
the other hearing, the weatherization--it is not that it didn't 
happen, it is that it didn't happen everywhere to the same 
degree that some people thought it should.
    Look, on the issue of Texas being its own system--and, 
again, I referenced this in the other hearing that we had in 
Oversight and Investigations--the electricity outage occurred 
at 1:00 a.m. on a Monday morning. Saturday, Texas was buying 
power from the Southwest Power Pool and was buying power from 
northern Mexico. I presume that is because Texas was paying a 
premium for that power. But when the weather got cold in Texas, 
it simultaneously got cold in those other places, and they no 
long had power to sell.
    So, again--it came up in the other hearing, and I do feel 
obligated to point out--there is a limit to how much energy you 
can import if everyone is using their system to the maximum. It 
is something that you want to be able to plan for, but you 
can't always plan for it. And as I asked the head of NERC in 
the last hearing, I said, ``Is there any system in the country 
that is completely weather-proof?'' And his answer was, ``No, 
there is not.''
    Thank you, Mr. Rush. I will yield back to you.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. McNerney from California for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. McNerney. I thank Chairman Rush for holding this 
hearing.
    And I thank the panelists for your testimony today, 
including the background on the situation in Texas.
    My colleagues across the aisle have attempted to identify 
the failures in Texas with those in California, but there are 
some similarities--namely, that climate change is making both 
situations worse--but they are really two separate challenges.
    This committee held a hearing on California blackouts last 
Congress, and we discussed the challenges the California grid 
faces. But my Republican colleagues seem determined to falsely 
blame the outages on renewable resources, but the real cause is 
the new normal of massive wildfires every season. Similarly, 
extreme cold was the immediate cause of the Texas outage. But 
the underlying cause in Texas was the unprepared utility 
system.
    Worse, these extreme events are--they are not going to 
stop. They are going to get worse year after year. This is the 
new normal, so we have to be prepared.
    Ms. Silverstein, what are the challenges unique to Texas in 
terms of making their grid more resilient? And what do we risk 
missing by not attempting to fully understand the Texas 
situation on its own?
    Ms. Silverstein. Texas is--I am going to get drummed out of 
the State for saying this--but Texas isn't as special as we 
like to think it is, and the challenges that we face in Texas 
aren't all that different from every other State. We deny risk. 
We underestimate what could go wrong. We are not creative to 
imagine how bad storms and other threats could be, and so we 
underinsure and underprepare.
    Texas, like everywhere else, is not investing enough in 
generation, we are not investing enough in transmission, we are 
not investing enough in flexibility capabilities, and we are 
just not ready to deal with all the stuff that is coming at us.
    Mr. McNerney. Well, that sort of sounds like what 
everyplace in the country ought to be doing.
    Ms. Silverstein. Exactly.
    Mr. McNerney. You know--and I know you already answered 
this question, but I want to hear it again. Are renewables the 
cause of what happened in California and in Texas?
    Ms. Silverstein. They absolutely are not. They absolutely 
are not.
    In Texas, every single resource failed.
    In California, they were just 500 megawatts short. 
Actually, they did outages in California because load was 
unprecedented high, not because resources were necessarily 
short, and they were following the rules about being careful.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
    Ms. Karen Wayland, one of the ways we can modernize the 
grid is by investing in smart grid technology. Can you please 
explain the importance of smart grid investments and how they 
can help in the context of grid resilience?
    Dr. Wayland. Yes. Thank you, Congressman. And thank you for 
cochairing the Grid Caucus with Congressman Latta. We 
appreciate interacting with you over the years at GridWise.
    You know, grid modernization is essential for increasing 
resilience. These new grid technologies have been proven to 
significantly increase resilience. Sensors can alert grid 
operators to downed lines. They can allow a more targeted 
response.
    We now have automated grid equipment that can sense and 
respond to conditions immediately, including rerouting power 
around downed lines and self-healing capabilities. We have 
remote sensing in the planning process. We can use remote 
sensing and NASA satellite imaging to better target vegetation 
management and to assess damage.
    I particularly am interested in modern utility 
communication networks that can improve operational speed and 
visibility for grid operators, and the kinds of smart energy 
management systems, both in the buildings and vehicles, so that 
they can become assets to the grid, and also the kind of data 
analytics that grid operators can use to kind of figure out 
what is happening on the grid, increase visibility, and improve 
their ability to balance electricity across the system.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
    With a ``yes'' or ``no,'' would authorization of the Smart 
Grid Investment Matching Program be helpful for increasing our 
grid utility resiliency efforts?
    Dr. Wayland. Yes.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
    I would be remiss if I didn't recognize Yvonne McIntyre. It 
is good to see you and that you are still in the energy sector.
    Yvonne, you said that the Texas power failures were caused 
by lax government oversight and regulations. Do you have 
specific recommendations on how to improve the situation so we 
will be avoiding future calamities?
    Ms. McIntyre. Thank you, Congressman McNerney, and it is 
good to see you as well.
    So the lax government oversight was a combination of, you 
know, State, local, and Federal Government oversight. And so we 
believe that there should be standards implemented at the 
Federal level through NERC for weatherization efforts and also 
taking into account in every step of the way the impact of 
climate change through permiting decisions and build-out of our 
energy infrastructure.
    I think that there should be greater standards for 
weatherization for building codes. You know, a lot of what 
happened in Texas could have been less dramatic if there had 
been less demand on the energy system through home and building 
energy demand.
    We believe that, you know, again, there should be stronger 
ties between Texas and the other grids. I know Congressman 
Burgess mentioned that there was power flowing between SPP and 
Mexico, but the problem is that they don't have strong 
transmission ties between the other grids. So, while, yes, some 
power can flow, the amount of power that was needed to help 
offset the outages in Texas were lacking. So stronger grids, 
stronger interconnection would have also helped Texas.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
    Well, I have gone way over my time, Chairman, and I yield 
back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Latta of Ohio for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thanks to our witnesses today for appearing before this 
committee.
    And before I get to my questions, I think it is important 
for us to call attention to the fact that the American energy 
renaissance we have experienced over the past 15 years would 
not have been possible without the millions of hardworking 
Americans who work in our energy industry. Workers in sectors 
like oil, natural gas, nuclear, coal, propane, solar, wind, 
hydro, and biofuels have put the United States in a position to 
lead the world in cleaner and more efficient energy production.
    My fear is that all this will go for naught and the 
livelihoods of these Americans will be threatened if we follow 
the majority down the path of increasing burdensome government 
mandates in certain sectors of our energy industry.
    The data has shown that we don't need to take this 
approach. For example, emissions have fallen by more than 20 
percent on a per-capita basis since 2005, the largest decrease 
in the world, thanks to the advancement of hydraulic fracturing 
and the emergence of American-produced natural gas as well as 
more energy-efficient products. This proves that we can pursue 
our goal of reducing current emissions while also preserving 
and growing jobs in the energy sectors.
    And I am also proud of the fact that I have First Solar in 
my district, and they are a global leader in solar panel 
production.
    Mr. Hofmann, if I could start my questions with you. In 
your testimony, you talk about that we shouldn't be looking at 
prematurely picking preferred fuels and technologies and that 
physical and commercial structures that link sources and sinks 
risk setting us back in reaching our decarbonization.
    And you go on to state that, you know, you advocate for a 
policy to optimize the use of natural gas and gas 
infrastructure, not minimize or eliminate it.
    Could you talk a little bit about that, please?
    Mr. Hofmann. Certainly. Yes, thank you for that question.
    You know, here at Local 132 our perspective is that we are 
better served in achieving reductions of greenhouse-gas 
emissions by optimizing the existing natural gas 
infrastructure. You know, energy moves in the space of 
molecules or electrons. And so, you know, when we talk about 
our natural gas system, that infrastructure is already there.
    And by introducing blends of hydrogen, advancing more 
optimizations levels in renewable natural gas, carbon capture, 
utilization, and sequestration, these are the spaces in which 
that infrastructure, for the most part, is already in place. 
And we can dramatically reduce the carbon outputs, all the way 
to the burner tip, by implementing and having greater emphasis 
in these spaces.
    And as far as achieving those climate goals, from our 
perspective we are better served repurposing and refurbishing 
that, rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water and 
saying everything just has to be all electric. From our 
perspective we don't think you can get there without these 
other spaces.
    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you.
    Dr. Wayland, I want to switch gears and talk about grid 
security and cyber threats, as you and I have discussed before, 
and about the threats to the grid from cyber attacks. And that 
is why I have worked with my friend and colleague, Mr. McNerney 
from California, on two bipartisan bills to address this issue, 
the Cyber Sense Act and also the Enhancing Grid Security 
Through Public-Private Partnership Act.
    Given the threat to grid resiliency, shouldn't more 
attention be paid to cybersecurity and solutions like these two 
bills that tackle the problems we might be facing?
    Dr. Wayland. Yes, absolutely. And I understand that there 
are jurisdictional issues that complicate Congress tackling 
cybersecurity, but it truly is a national threat. We know every 
day that our utilities, not just electricity but water and gas, 
are being probed by, not the guy sitting in the basement but 
hostile, you know, states. And this is a really critical, 
critical issue for Congress to tackle, and we urge you to do so 
and are happy to help you in any way to make that happen.
    Mr. Latta. Well, let me just follow up with you again. You 
know, I talk with a lot of power companies, and, you know, 
protecting the grid from cyber attacks is so important. Do you 
think that that is an item that the general public understands 
out there, how much the grid is subject to attack?
    Dr. Wayland. I don't think they do.
    And I also don't think they understand that as we 
increasingly add digital equipment that can interact with the 
grid that we are actually increasing the threats even further. 
So, you know, as we plug things into the grid, we are 
increasing the access points for cyber attacks to disrupt the 
grid, from the distribution system all the way up to the 
transmission system.
    So I don't think the public fully understands. But I do 
think that the SolarWinds attack and other things have started 
to capture the attention of the public.
    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much.
    And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time, and 
I think I have run over, but thank you very much for your 
indulgence.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the chairman of the Environment 
Subcommittee, Mr. Tonko, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Chairman Rush.
    Dr. Wayland, I want to echo your support for Federal 
investment in grid modernization, but I also want to ask you 
about the role for distributed generation. Thinking back to the 
experiences in my home State of New York, in some places 
distributed generation was able to keep the lights on during 
situations like Superstorm Sandy.
    How can distributed generation contribute to the resilience 
of our energy system, especially around critical facilities?
    Dr. Wayland. Yes. Well, there are a couple ways.
    One is that, obviously, if you have your own capacity to 
generate if something happens on the grid, then you are able to 
power your home.
    And there are a couple of things that are going to be 
critical there which we should consider in the CLEAN Future 
Act. One is that, you know, storage, individual storage, has to 
be a component of distributed energy resources. And the other 
thing is that, if the power goes out, for many people who have 
solar on their rooftop, their solar power is not going to power 
their house, because, without a smart inverter, that power 
would go out into the grid and it automatically shuts off so 
that it doesn't electrocute line workers. So, if we really want 
resilience for individuals who have solar power, we have to 
talk about storage and inverters as well.
    And then microgrids and distributed generation, distributed 
generators, mobile generators, are also critical for--and those 
are less likely to be, you know, in an individual's home, but 
around large critical facilities like hospitals, like 
universities and schools that can become shelters. So those are 
critical aspects of resilience as well.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
    The CLEAN Future Act includes a bill that I worked on 
during the 116th Congress to develop a national standardized 
model permit that local governments could adopt to streamline 
distributed generation build-out.
    So, Ms. McIntyre, do you think this is a good idea? Are 
there things we can do to lower the existing barriers to 
distributed generation deployment, including reducing permiting 
costs?
    Ms. McIntyre. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Tonko. And, definitely, 
we believe that those measures that have been included in the 
bill would be beneficial for enabling access to distributed 
generation, and resources are much needed to provide this 
transformation, so thank you.
    Mr. Tonko. Well, thank you.
    And while I support an increased role for distributed 
generation in our energy mix, in order to achieve the ambitious 
goals in the CLEAN Future Act, we are going to need a lot more 
utility-scale renewables. These projects are often 
geographically constrained, and we are going to need new high-
voltage transmission infrastructure to maximize the potential 
of our Nation's low-cost renewable resources.
    So, Ms. Silverstein, your written testimony mentioned that 
all of the benefits of high-voltage transmission are rarely 
acknowledged. Can you discuss what these are? I am guessing it 
is a combination of emissions reductions and reliability and 
resilience, perhaps?
    Ms. Silverstein. It is those things. It is also lowering 
costs and increasing access to preferred resources. Many 
customers prefer renewable resources and low-carbon resources, 
and they can't get them.
    It is creating much stronger connections between 
interconnection and between regions to enable more power flow. 
This is what improves the reliability of the grid overall and 
lowers the costs for delivered energy to all Americans, not 
just to those who sit right next door to a renewable 
generation.
    It also allows the benefits of generators like nuclear and 
others to support each other and to reach more broadly than 
their next-door neighbors.
    So there are many benefits. And the current reliability 
rules and FERC rules do not allow all of those benefits to be 
recognized and incorporated in grid planning.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
    And can FERC and RTOs do more to account for these benefits 
in transmission planning and cost allocation processes?
    Ms. Silverstein. Absolutely. Transmission planning is now 
run according to very limited definitions of benefits and 
fairly locally negotiated cost allocation rules. And we need a 
much bigger, national-scale recognition of all of these 
benefits and the ability to assign costs more broadly, not just 
according to the, quote, ``narrowly defined beneficiaries.''
    Mr. Tonko. And some of these high-impact projects will need 
to cross State and RTO boundaries. So, Ms. McIntyre, do you 
have any recommendations for how we can improve interregional 
transmission planning to make certain these projects are being 
properly considered by each region involved?
    Ms. McIntyre. Yes. We believe that FERC needs to be granted 
greater authority for transmission planning and siting. And, 
again, the CLEAN Future Act does provide a good start in 
providing some of these authorities, but we think that they 
need to be strengthened.
    Mr. Tonko. Good. Thank you so much.
    And, with that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the amazing gentleman from West 
Virginia, my friend Mr. McKinley, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. McKinley. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And please 
give Paulette a hug from me, OK, as one friend to another.
    Listen, Mr. Chairman, the Boston Consulting Group has 
concluded that, with just a modest increase in the electronic 
vehicles by 15 percent by 2030, our grid will require a 25 
percent increase in generation capacity. Now, that may seem 
doable, but within the same timeframe this particular 
legislation calls for the abandonment of all fossil fuel 
plants, coal and natural gas, by 2035 unless the utilities can 
miraculously find a solution to this elusive technology of 
carbon capture. Remember, fossil fuels make up 60 percent of 
our existing power supply.
    So, Mr. Hofmann, my question to you: Do you think it is 
realistic to undertake a massive build-out of our grid without 
including fossil fuels?
    Mr. Hofmann. I don't see a space in which you don't explore 
avenues to make existing fossil fuel supplies renewable and 
clean them up where you can without getting----
    Mr. McKinley. We will talk about that in a minute. We are 
going there in a minute, so don't get ahead of me on this 
thing. I am going to feed you another question.
    But let's go into this transition into perspective. 
According to our energy consultants, if just a modest 1,000-
megawatt fossil power plant were to close--that is modest--the 
utility company would need to have the equivalent of 
approximately 70,000 electric vehicle batteries for backup 
power when the wind and solar aren't available.
    So let's keep in mind, according to the Journal of Power 
Sources and the Manhattan Institute, for 1 electronic vehicle 
battery--not the 70,000, just for 1 battery--they would need to 
excavate approximately 250 tons of earth to harvest the 
minerals necessary for just 1 battery. And that is just for one 
power plant alone. That would be enough--just for one power 
plant alone, that would be enough dirt to fill a convoy of 
dumptrucks from New York to San Francisco and back again, 
bumper to bumper. Imagine this conversion if we are going to 
close down 300 to 400 coal and natural gas power plants.
    And my other question would be: How long are countries 
going to tolerate us ripping up their back yards in our heavy 
pursuit for lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and copper? 
Wouldn't it make more sense to continue burning our abundant 
supply of fossil fuels using carbon capture?
    This is precisely the legislation Kurt Schrader and I have 
been working on for several years. It is a bipartisan, 
innovation-based approach to use our resources--existing 
resources--first. So wouldn't that be a more environmentally 
sound approach, compared to alienating other countries by 
ravaging their countryside just to satisfy the hungry needs we 
have in America?
    So let me just pose this question to you: If utility 
companies have to compete with the electronic vehicle 
manufacturers for the same critical minerals, won't prices 
increase, as they did for PPE during the early days of the 
pandemic? So, Mr. Hofmann, where am I wrong on this?
    Mr. Hofmann. So I will say--I can certainly say this, that 
it is certainly my understanding that there is no invisible 
force field against the other unintended consequences of when, 
you know, all these mining approaches and other countries who 
don't have the stringent regulations that we do in term of 
modernizing and cleaning our energy systems, that those impacts 
will--the reason why--I mean, climate change is not restricted 
to any set boundaries. It is a world challenge.
    And that is, from our perspective, why we maintain that 
advancing technologies in renewable natural gas, hydrogen, 
pyrolysis--particularly here in California--carbon capture, as 
you mentioned, utilization and sequestration, these are the 
pathways on how we can drastically reduce greenhouse-gas 
emissions without putting people who can't afford energy as a 
luxury out in the cold.
    Mr. McKinley. Well, I thank you. I think that is a good 
approach, because I think what people are doing, they are 
ignoring the impact this could have on jobs and what impact it 
is going to have on people, the economy. I think we can use the 
infrastructure we have within our power grid, and we just clean 
it up and use it that way. I think that is a more practical 
approach than taking this alternative and just throwing out our 
natural gas and coal-fired power plants. We ought to be able to 
use that.
    So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of 
any time I have.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. Schrier for 5 minutes. She is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Schrier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    As we have discussed, we are living in a time where extreme 
weather events are no longer extreme or rare, and States will 
have to transition to this new reality and prepare accordingly 
for cold snaps, hurricanes, and other extreme events.
    Ms. Silverstein, your testimony succinctly says we need to 
stop pretending that each extreme weather event is low 
probability and instead start planning and investing as though 
extreme weather collectively is a high-impact, medium-frequency 
event. And part of the solution here is infrastructure, like 
more robust investments in weatherization programs.
    In Washington State, we have an absolutely fantastic 
program operated under the Department of Commerce. The 
Weatherization program, in combination with the Weatherization 
Plus Health program, preserves existing affordable housing and 
protects the health and safety of vulnerable populations by 
making them safer, healthier, more comfortable, more energy 
efficient.
    And these are all interrelated. For example, Mr. Shaw is a 
disabled, low-income senior citizen with chronic respiratory 
illness in Pierce County, my district. And his home had become 
dilapidated and in desperate need of repair. So, through a 
unique collaboration between the Weatherization Office and the 
Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, Mr. Shaw was able to 
receive home repairs and weatherization services, also asthma 
and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, education and 
care plans. And ultimately this led to improved quality of 
life, better health, energy efficiency, and fewer doctors 
visits.
    And this is a common theme. This joint health-
weatherization program has consistently reduced medical 
expenses, emergency room visits, and missed days from school 
and work. As a pediatrician, I am always seeking ways that we 
can address public health issues holistically, particularly 
when it comes to meeting needs of seniors and low-income 
individuals and families.
    So, to that end, Ms. Silverstein, some of your testimony 
really caught my eye. On page 11, you state that changes are 
needed to subtitles C and D to deliver massive energy 
efficiency retrofits for low-income and multifamily housing.
    So could you just take the remainder of the time here to 
expand on this point, tell us what you have in mind and how we 
can improve this bill?
    Ms. Silverstein. Thank you.
    And what I have in mind is that the benefits that your 
constituent, Mr. Shaw, received shouldn't be limited to him and 
to your other constituents alone. There are, gosh, probably 15 
percent of Americans who are in energy poverty or energy 
insecurity, and they are responsible for and suffering from an 
extraordinary amount of damage and harm--food loss, health 
loss, stress from bills--just under ordinary circumstances, and 
the amount of economic benefit that they could receive and 
human benefit that they could receive from these kinds of 
repairs is impressive.
    It is shocking that we have not done more. None of the 
current programs that we have in place--LIHEAP, Weatherization 
Assistance, other things--are able to do the kind of work that 
the particular program you describe did. And the ability to do 
that would create just a massive increase in decarbonization as 
well as in economic growth to all the communities that are 
affected, and it will start to address equity issues for all of 
these communities of color and for lower-income citizens.
    We have, at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient 
Economy and organizations like the Texas Energy Poverty 
Research Institute and others, have made very clear the degree 
to which energy efficiency can massively reduce energy usage 
and carbon emissions.
    And so we will never be able to achieve the goals of 
decarbonization at ambitious scale without doing a moonshot 
level of retrofit work for low-income households and 
multifamily housing, which are the hardest to change on just 
regular energy efficiency programs. So we need to do something 
special, and we need to do it fast.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Schrier. Thank you very much. I appreciate your 
comments.
    And I yield back. Thanks.
    Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the greatest 
State in the Nation, Mr. Kinzinger, for 5 minutes.
    [No response.]
    Mr. Rush. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Griffith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 
appreciate it.
    In O&I this morning, or early afternoon, Republicans 
recognized that in Texas all fuel systems failed, nuclear being 
the least. But for a more resilient system, we will continue to 
need baseload power, we will need storage of power, and, as Ms. 
Silverstein says, more transmission capabilities.
    And I quote from her testimony on page 5: ``All credible 
analyses of a highly reliable, resilient, affordable, clean 
energy future recognize that we need to massively expand the 
continent's high-voltage electric grid.''
    Ms. Silverstein: Now, with the regulations of local, State, 
and Federal governments and the lawsuits that come from that, 
building of the high-voltage electric grid that you envision 
that we will need--and I agree with you--that will take 20 to 
30 years at a minimum, won't it, yes or no?
    Ms. Silverstein. Yes.
    Mr. Griffith. I appreciate that.
    And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield the 
remainder of my time for questions to my good friend, Dr. 
Burgess of Texas.
    Mr. Burgess. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
    Mr. Hofmann, let me ask you a question. It sort of came up 
in your answer to a different question about the pipeline 
system. We talk about the resiliency of the grid in a number of 
ways. In Texas, of course, we have abundant natural gas in the 
Permian Basin, but sometimes we lack the pipeline 
infrastructure to get it to where it is necessary, where the 
consuming public is.
    So, in the energy workers' world, is there an opinion as to 
whether or not a more robust pipeline network would facilitate 
the movement of that product from where it is created to where 
it is needed?
    Mr. Hofmann. Yes, I don't think there is any question that 
the more options you give yourself to be able to move energy 
from point A to point B, the more responsive that system is 
going to be able to react to, you know, the needs of the local 
geographic regions that are hardest hit by whatever weather 
events come their way. Yes.
    Mr. Burgess. Well, and it is not even just the extreme 
weather events. It is a normal product of commerce from 
producing the natural gas in the Permian Basin, like, needing 
to get it to centers of consumption or even centers from where 
it would be exported.
    We do seem to forget that literally just a year ago the 
United States was a net exporter of energy. I hope to get back 
to that position in the near future, but we won't do it without 
things like a robust pipeline network. Is that not correct?
    Mr. Hofmann. Absolutely. And, you know--yes, you are 
absolutely right. And any system that needs to deliver--the 
other advantage of having more of it is that, when systems 
become compromised in any way, the more opportunities you have 
to move that energy to other places and isolate that specific 
problem, the less impacts there will be to the consumers on the 
burner end.
    Mr. Burgess. Very good.
    And your union is primarily people who work in the oil and 
gas industry. Is that correct?
    Mr. Hofmann. Our local union is specific only to workers at 
SoCalGas.
    Mr. Burgess. Right. And the workers in, say, the nuclear 
energy field, they have their own professional association?
    Mr. Hofmann. That is correct.
    Mr. Burgess. And they are not really interchangeable, are 
they?
    Mr. Hofmann. I have no idea. I wouldn't know anything about 
nuclear.
    Mr. Burgess. Right. The skill set is entirely different, 
from what you do and a nuclear worker does.
    Mr. Hofmann. There is no question. There is no question.
    Mr. Burgess. And the hazards inherent in your----
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman's 
time has expired.
    The Chair now recognizes----
    Mr. Griffith. He still had 50 seconds, Mr. Chairman. He 
still had 50 seconds.
    Mr. Burgess. So, Mr. Hofmann, the workers in oil and gas, 
the skill set is different from workers in nuclear energy 
because the hazards are different.
    But I only bring that up to illustrate that the 
interchangeability with someone in the solar and wind industry 
is likewise going to be problematic. For people in your 
profession to go to the solar and wind sector is going to be 
problematic, is it not?
    Mr. Hofmann. It would be indeed.
    Mr. Burgess. And, again, same reasons are going to be 
safety considerations. There are aspects of your training that 
are unique to your field. And we thank you very much for what 
you do and what you provide to the country, and we hope to not 
damage you too much in the interim with this legislation.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Griffith. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, 
Mr. George Kenneth Butterfield, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Butterfield. Shhh. Don't tell everything you know, Mr. 
Chairman. Thank you so much very, Mr. Chairman, for your 
friendship. And thank you for being patient with me today. I am 
testing out a new headset this afternoon, and so we will see 
how this goes.
    Mr. Chairman, this is a very, very important hearing. I 
want to thank you for your leadership, not only on this 
committee but in the energy space. It has been phenomenal.
    And to the witnesses, your testimony today has been very, 
very valuable, and I appreciate you as well.
    Let me begin with Dr. Wayland.
    Dr. Wayland, the CLEAN Future Act creates a $250-million-
per-year loan and grant program for solar installation in low-
income and underserved communities, which will lead to 
increased construction of solar-generating facilities to serve 
multifamily affordable housing. These funds will also create 
many, many good jobs in low-income communities.
    Could you please elaborate on how these types of Federal 
investments into low-income communities can enhance our overall 
effort to strengthen grid resiliency and modernization?
    Dr. Wayland. Yes, I think that is a great question, 
Congressman, and there are two set of benefits. One is the 
benefits to the low-income communities that get the benefit of 
clean, affordable electricity just like everybody who can 
afford to put rooftop solar on their houses do. And the second 
benefit is that those facilities should make those communities 
more resilient in the face of energy disruptions, as long as 
they are well-designed in order to be able to provide power 
when the grid itself cannot.
    So I commend you for including not just the program for 
low-income solar, but, across the bill, there are provisions to 
address the needs for low-income communities in weatherization, 
energy efficiency, and microgrids and other provisions. They 
are critical to----
    Mr. Butterfield. Thank you.
    Now let me go, please, to Ms. Silverstein. I think Mr. 
Griffith referred to you as Ms. ``Silverstine.'' I am not sure 
which it is. But, in any event, you stated in your testimony 
that we need to go beyond the traditional block grants such as 
LIHEAP and weatherization assistance programs and recommend a 
more enterprising approach to energy efficiency measures that 
include delivering energy efficiency retrofits for low-income 
and multifamily affordable housing.
    Here is the question: Could you elaborate on how adoption 
of your more comprehensive energy efficiency approach can 
benefit low-income communities and communities of color?
    Ms. Silverstein. Yes, sir. Those are the very communities 
who need this most, because traditional energy efficiency 
programs only do energy efficiency, they don't do home repair. 
They are relatively narrow in their funding, and they don't 
serve enough people quickly enough.
    And that is where the need is the greatest, in terms of 
citizens who need help with better energy and better budget 
control. And so having greater energy efficiency and improved 
housing quality will do a great deal for their health, for 
their wallets, for economic development, and for community 
quality overall.
    Mr. Butterfield. Thank you.
    And let me conclude with Ms. McIntyre.
    Ms. McIntyre, the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment 
Act, or ARRA, as some of us call it, created a cost-share 
program to finance investments in advanced metering 
infrastructure. Electric co-ops--and I have several in my 
State--such as those in my district, use this cost-share 
program to establish smart meters, which improve efficiencies. 
They decrease costs for consumers and benefit the environment.
    Section 230 of the CLEAN Future Act directs the Secretary 
to establish a program that will provide funding to partners 
such as electric co-ops to modernize the grid. Can you discuss 
the benefits of providing funding for partnerships aimed at 
improving the grid?
    Ms. McIntyre. I am going to have to admit that I am not 
that familiar with that section and what it does, so----
    Mr. Butterfield. All right.
    Ms. McIntyre [continuing]. I will get back to you with an 
answer on that. But, again, any partnership that helps, you 
know, fund these important programs is a good thing.
    Mr. Butterfield. Absolutely.
    Ms. McIntyre, would you--not McIntyre. Would Ms.--is it 
``Silversteen'' or ``Silverstine''?
    Ms. Silverstein. ``Silverstine,'' please. Thank you.
    Mr. Butterfield. OK. Well, Mr. Griffith is right then. Can 
you take a chance on this question? Are you able to help us 
with it?
    Ms. Silverstein. Yes. Thank you.
    The benefit of public-private partnerships is that, usually 
utilities and their regulators are not willing to spend as much 
money as many of these projects take. And so the benefit of 
Federal matching funds is that it brings additional attention 
and opportunity and important investment matching to projects 
that wouldn't be undertaken if the utility had to pay for it 
all on its own.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Butterfield. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. 
Johnson, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Johnson. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    You know, in listening to the testimony, one of our 
witnesses, Mr. Hofmann of the Utility Workers Union, he 
mentioned one of the values his workers hold in especially high 
regard, and that is the importance of not cutting corners. This 
is crucial in the day-to-day work of safely maintaining the 
infrastructure that delivers natural gas to millions of 
customers every day. As policymakers, we must also take great 
care when considering legislation that would dramatically 
impact industries that so many American livelihoods depend on.
    I keep hearing from my colleagues on the other side again 
and again, they make their proposed climate solutions sound so 
simple: Transmit solar and wind energy electricity across the 
continent when needed; electrify everything and hope for the 
best; and my personal favorite, the fossil fuel workers can 
just go build solar panels. But this isn't how the real world 
works.
    Going from A to B like this with nothing but government 
mandates and bags of taxpayer cash is going to result in a lot 
of cut corners along the way, a lot of jobs lost, and a lot of 
hardworking men and women with diminished livelihoods.
    Has anyone wondered what would happen if this doesn't go as 
planned, the unintended consequences? I fear with this rush to 
green, our committee, this committee, is ignoring serious 
warning signs about future grid reliability, energy 
affordability, and national security.
    Mr. Hofmann, we have seen localities across the country 
taking action to ban new gas lines into homes in the name of 
fighting climate change to fully electrify home functions like 
cooking and heating. In your expertise, can you speak to the 
immediate risks and the cost of such mandates?
    Mr. Hofmann. Well, the immediate risks are really pure and 
simple, that they are directly impacted workers. So when all 
new building construction is mandated, it can only be geared 
for electric.
    What happens to the other side of that system that is not 
new? As utilities face the added cost of maintaining and 
updating their system without those additional new revenue 
streams to sort of spread across everybody, you know, more 
equally, it is going to put an extra burden on people who can't 
afford to pay for things to go all electric. And regardless of 
what system you use or how clean it is, the system has to be 
safe first and foremost.
    Mr. Johnson. OK. Well, continuing with you, Mr. Hofmann, in 
my district in eastern and southeastern Ohio, the oil and gas 
industry has been a lifeline providing good jobs, many of them 
union jobs, in an Appalachian region that has long prided 
itself on keeping America's lights on.
    Can you speak briefly to the dignity of work, the efforts 
of proud Americans doing their jobs like their parents and 
grandparents did in places like Appalachia Ohio, or your 
community in southern California? How do you believe your union 
membership would receive the news that they are out of work 
because politicians demanded it instead of letting the free 
market control it?
    Mr. Hofmann. Well, I can tell you that they have already 
responded, you know. In November of 2019, you know, prior to 
the pandemic, we had over--we had close to 2,000 of our members 
show up on a Saturday to voice their concerns about this push 
for mandated electrification.
    So we are a prideful craft and trade. As I mentioned, I am 
a second-generation utility worker, and I am proud of it. It is 
a craft that we have been perfecting for a very long time, and 
we just--we are not the problem. We feel as utility workers 
here in southern California, we are part of the solution to 
solving this climate change crisis.
    Mr. Johnson. OK. Well, thank you very much.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back an entire 25 seconds.
    Mr. Rush. The Chair certainly thanks the gentleman for 
yielding back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from California, 
Ms. Matsui, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 
you very much for the hearing today. And I want to thank all 
the witnesses for being here too.
    Last year's devastating wildfire season and this year's 
deadly Texas winter storm are testaments to the catastrophic 
impacts of intensified natural disasters due to the climate 
crisis. These events expose the deep vulnerability of our 
energy infrastructure and underscore the need to prioritize 
grid resiliency and improve energy efficiency to combat climate 
change and protect our communities, especially low-wealth and 
communities of color who are on the front lines on the climate 
crisis.
    Energy efficiency investments not only create jobs and save 
money for consumers, it can also cut national energy use and 
greenhouse gas emissions by about 50 percent by 2050. Earlier 
this year, I wrote a letter to the administration encouraging 
the establishment of a national program to include indoor air 
quality and HVAC energy efficiency in our Nation's schools.
    Dr. Wayland and Ms. McIntyre, how would a dedicated program 
to revamp HVAC systems and similar grants for school energy 
efficiency improvements, like the ones included in the CLEAN 
Future Act, help grid resilience and reliability? Dr. Wayland?
    Dr. Wayland. I will start. Well, there are a couple ways 
that upgraded HVAC systems could help. First is improving the 
heat efficiency of the building and reducing energy costs. As 
you mentioned, there are significant indoor air quality 
benefits for upgraded HVAC systems. In fact, in areas where air 
quality has improved because of either filtration or HVAC 
systems, students actually learn better, significantly better. 
So it has so many benefits beyond just energy efficiency.
    For the grid, if those HVAC systems--and in larger 
buildings like schools, those HVAC systems, actually when 
aggregated, can become quite a resource that grid operators can 
use to help provide grid services. So to the extent that we can 
make sure that when upgrades happen that those investments also 
encourage the integration with the grid, we get additional 
benefits for grid resilience.
    Ms. Matsui. That is great.
    Ms. McIntyre?
    Ms. McIntyre. [Inaudible.] And I agree with everything 
Karen said. Certainly, upgraded HVAC systems would help reduce 
demand on the grid, but also, when you do the upgrades, if you 
include benefits of demand flexibility. So, you know, when in 
times of crisis, if that HVAC system has the ability to be 
controlled externally to, again, reduce the demand during that 
crisis, then it improves the resiliency of the grid.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. And both of you again, what additional 
energy efficiency initiatives should Congress prioritize to 
help reduce the burdens and negative impacts from disasters and 
harmful pollution on disadvantaged communities?
    Dr. Wayland. Well, I think that Ms. Silverstein and Ms. 
McIntyre both touched on this, that the communities with the 
greatest energy burden have the least ability to invest in 
improving their building stock, and so it is incumbent on the 
Federal Government to help with that. And so I think that to 
the extent that we can move resources into that energy 
efficiency bucket, it will be very critical for protecting 
those low-income communities as well as a very significant 
contributor to reducing greenhouse gas emissions overall.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. Ms. McIntyre, any comments?
    Ms. McIntyre. And I agree. And I mentioned it before, the 
Weatherization Assistance Program needs to be expanded and the 
funding needs to be increased for that. So, again, going in and 
helping people insulate their homes, weatherize their homes 
will, again, decrease energy demand. And so that is a very 
important component of energy efficiency that needs to be 
strengthened.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. How can electric utility companies, 
environmental stakeholders, and local, State, and Federal 
governments work together to bring forth solutions that work 
for our communities? Either one of you. Ms. Wayland, Ms. 
McIntyre?
    Dr. Wayland. Well, I think that addressing climate change 
and building resilience is not the sole function of any one 
component of our economy. So, for example, utilities have the 
responsibility to make investments that protect reliability and 
affordability.
    But as I mentioned, the States and local governments also 
have a responsibility for energy assurance planning, and the 
CLEAN Future Act does include a provision that would require 
States to submit to the Secretary of Energy an annual updated 
energy security plan, which I think is a good way to really 
address that, and that goes to those plans are developed in 
conjunction with a whole broad range of stakeholders.
    Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much. And I have run out of 
time, so I yield back. Thank you.
    Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. 
Bucshon, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Bucshon?
    All right. I don't see Mr. Bucshon.
    The Chair will move on and recognizes the gentleman from 
Michigan, Mr. Walberg, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Walberg? Mr. Walberg is not answering.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Duncan for 5 minutes.
    The Chair now recognizes the Representative from----
    Mr. Walberg. Mr. Chairman? Walberg here. It is turned on 
now. Can you hear me?
    Mr. Rush. Yes. OK. Mr. Walberg, you are recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Walberg. I apologize for that technological problem, 
but--I am not only from Michigan, but I grew up in your 
district, so it is good to be recognized by you.
    I want to thank the panel for being here today. I want to 
give a special shout-out to Ms. McIntyre, who I understand is 
from--originally from southeast Michigan and started her career 
with Detroit Edison, now DTE, so welcome especially to her. I 
would also like to especially welcome Mr. Hofmann of the UWUA 
Local 132.
    Not many of us in Congress understand what it is like to 
work with our hands every day, but I grew up in a union 
household. My father was a machinist and union organizer for 
part of his career. And upon graduating from high school, I 
went to work at the U.S. Steel South Works, the same place that 
my dad worked for a time. The lessons I learned from my father 
and my own experience helped shape my understanding of what 
really is a dignified, family-sustaining job that can be 
produced here in America and produces things for America and 
the devastating impact of those jobs being taken away.
    Mr. Hofmann, I understand your union heritage--second 
generation, proud of what you do--and I appreciate that. It is 
not all that common that we get a witness outside of the 
Beltway that can talk about real-world impacts of policies we 
are considering here today.
    Mr. Hofmann, it should be clear to everyone that the goal 
of my Democrat colleague friends with this so-called CLEAN 
Future Act is really ultimately to eliminate jobs for utility 
workers like those you represent. They even have a section in 
their bill called ``worker and community transition'' to pay 
off what they are calling dislocated workers who lose their job 
due to the closure of a major employer. In fact--and you can 
all look at it--on page 949 in the bill, the bill lists a whole 
range of jobs that it will terminate.
    How does it make you feel, Mr. Hofmann, to hear politicians 
demonize an entire workforce supporting clean and in some cases 
even renewable natural gas?
    Mr. Hofmann. I thank you for the question. I think it is 
sort of--to be honest, it is a little--it is kind of 
irresponsible in a way to sort of--we have got to move past 
this overly simplified set of assumptions and presumed outcomes 
of what our energy mix is going to be, you know, a decade from 
now, two decades from now, three.
    We need--you know, this is not a Democratic or a Republican 
problem. This is an issue that--a phase that impacts every 
American, and we have got to really find ways to work together 
to make sure that no worker gets left behind and that we--that 
energy does not become a luxury for just only the affluent. And 
we have got some real work to do, and we are happy to partner 
with all of you in any way we can.
    Mr. Walberg. We appreciate your work. I have the privilege 
also of serving on the Education and Labor Committee in 
Congress here, and I am constantly hearing from employers about 
the struggle to find well-trained workers to meet the growing 
demand in skill trades. I call them professional trades or 
technical fields.
    Mr. Hofmann, can you tell me about your members, the 
different types of jobs available in your industry, and the 
skills you learned and now use to help train the next 
generation for a career like yours?
    Mr. Hofmann. Sure. So, like I said, you know, we cover here 
wall to wall, all sorts of different aspects, from our 
experienced welders on the pipelines for our mains and services 
to our appliance technicians who go into people's homes and 
help get their gas appliances burning more efficiently and 
clean and effective. We have fleet mechanics that work, you 
know, on our fleet, you know, our vehicles. We have got 
facility mechanics that keep our buildings and everything up to 
speed. You know, we have our admin clerks. We have our call 
center reps.
    I mean, we cover a very broad range of literally every walk 
of life you can imagine. And these workers, they are incredibly 
skilled and they are a resilient bunch, and it is pretty 
impressive to watch.
    Mr. Walberg. It certainly is. And I guess in my remaining 
time, I would just like to respond, when we hear that it is 
Republicans standing in the way of these renewable jobs and 
renewable sources of energy, it is not the Republicans that are 
doing the demonstrations; it is the left are to stop mining, 
manufacturing of those resources that produce the alternatives. 
But we need what you produce, Mr. Hofmann, and thank you for 
the work you do. I hope we can see you do it for a long time.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Florida, Ms. 
Castor, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Castor. Well, Thank you, Chairman Rush, for holding 
this very important hearing today on the CLEAN Futures Act. It 
comes at a critical time when we must act with urgency to 
tackle the increasing costs and risks of the climate crisis and 
do it in a way that creates jobs and economic opportunity, 
especially in our underserved communities.
    You know, after 2 years of work on the Select Committee on 
the Climate Crisis, listening to experts and labor unions and 
scientists and some of the folks who are here today, I have 
learned that there are many ways to increase the resilience of 
our energy systems and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at 
the same time. And the Select Committee made a number of 
recommendations to the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I 
want to thank you for incorporating many of them into the CLEAN 
Futures Act.
    Let's go over a couple of them. Provide incentives to help 
States and local communities to site interstate transmission 
lines, to clear out interconnection queues to bring more 
renewable energy and storage onto the electric grid. We suggest 
that we direct FERC to work with, not against, States' efforts 
on clean energy and energy efficiency to help lower the cost 
for businesses and families alike, and invest in community 
solar to ensure equitable access to clean distributed energy, 
and ensure environmental justice communities have equitable 
access to the benefits of clean energy, workforce development, 
jobs, and then of course work on the resilience of the electric 
grid that has become such a hot topic after the catastrophe in 
Texas.
    So we have had a good discussion here today, but I wanted 
to ask our witnesses to comment on some of those 
recommendations, especially the grid-enhancing technologies. 
Some of the folks on the other side of the aisle think this is 
pie in the sky, and what I have learned is these are 
technologies that are available today, American-led innovative 
technologies that can help build the macrogrid we need in 
America.
    Dr. Wayland, let's dive a little bit deeper. You have 
suggested some grid investments for economic recovery. Where 
would you target our innovative investments to create jobs and 
at the same time build that resilient macrogrid for the U.S.?
    Dr. Wayland. Well, I am glad that you mentioned that we 
have the technologies today, because I think that is what the 
21st century grid provisions in the CLEAN Future Act do that is 
different from what was in the Energy Policy Act of 2020. And 
we do believe that the grid provisions in the bill that you 
passed in December were very important and critical. But in my 
reading of the difference between the two, the Energy Policy 
Act really focused on the research and development and 
demonstration of grid technologies, and it appears to me that 
the 21st Century Act focuses in on deployment.
    And I think that is really critical because we have a range 
of technology deployment across the country. We have some 
utilities that have, over the course of the last 10 years, have 
invested hundreds of millions of dollars in grid modernization, 
and we have some utilities that don't even have the most basic 
advanced meters and SCADA systems.
    And so we would recommend a suite of investments to build 
out the flexibility and the resilience across the country and 
recognize that different business models--so whether it is an 
investor in utility, a municipal utility, or a rural co-op, all 
have different business models, and so in order to deliver 
incentives that would help them accelerate their grid 
modernization programs, we probably have to look at different 
ways to deliver that aid.
    Ms. Castor. And we learned from a number of studies that 
have come out over the last year, this is enormous opportunity 
to create jobs. Are you kidding me? Utility workers are going 
to be at the top of the list. The number of new jobs here, we 
are going to struggle, I think, to train and employ everyone if 
we move forward with the macrogrid and community solar.
    So, Dr. McIntyre, talk to us for a little bit about 
equitable access to reliable clean energy.
    And then I want to ask, Ms. Silverstein, what do we do with 
States that are roadblocks to clean energy deployment? I may 
not have time to get to that one, but so I will ask you to come 
back with that.
    Ms. McIntyre.
    Ms. McIntyre. Thank you, Congresswoman. As we have 
mentioned, you know, typically the low-income communities and 
communities of color have had the most impact from the climate 
disasters, pollution, and, you know, high energy cost due to a 
lot of issues with, again, their homes being uninsulated and 
whatnot.
    So I think a lot of the provisions in the CLEAN Future Act 
do go pretty far in trying to provide greater access to those 
communities and provide benefits and assistance to ensuring 
that they receive the benefits of a more resilient and reliable 
grid.
    Ms. Castor. Thanks so much.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair wants to inquire as to whether Mr. Kinzinger or 
Mr. Buschon is on the line or on the Zoom.
    Hearing otherwise, the Chair now recognizes the gentleman 
from South Carolina, Mr. Duncan, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Duncan?
    The Chair recognizes Mrs. Lesko from Arizona, the 
Representative from Arizona, for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Debbie Lesko here. Can 
you hear me?
    Mr. Rush. Yes, Mrs. Lesko.
    Mrs. Lesko. Can you hear me? Hello?
    Mr. Rush. You are recognized.
    Mrs. Lesko. OK. Fantastic. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    My first question is for Mr. Hofmann. Mr. Hofmann, do you 
think that greater use of carbon-capture technology, creating 
jobs that potentially could be built on the skills that many of 
your workers use, like if we use carbon-capture technology?
    Mr. Hofmann. Yes, absolutely. You know, CO2 
pipelines is a pipeline, and it is molecules. It is what we do. 
And to be honest, in order for us to meet our goals, my opinion 
is that we are going to need to in order to get there.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Hofmann. Mr. Hofmann, I have 
another question for you, if you know the answer: Do you think 
there is an opportunity for hydrogen production and its 
potential for safety reliability and affordability to help us 
to fully optimize our existing energy infrastructure? What do 
you think of using hydrogen?
    Mr. Hofmann. I absolutely believe that it is something that 
we need to do. We need to do it sooner than later.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you.
    And my next question is the same question for Ms. 
Silverstein: What do you think about investing or using more 
hydrogen technology? My understanding is that some of the 
natural gas facilities could be utilized then.
    Ms. Silverstein. I cannot give you an informed answer on 
that, ma'am.
    Mrs. Lesko. OK. And, Ms. Silverstein, I have another 
question for you. Earlier this week, in a different Energy and 
Commerce Committee hearing, former Energy Secretary Moniz said, 
if I am not mistaken, that to install one offshore wind turbine 
would take 1 ton of critical minerals to make it, to produce 
it.
    And so I am concerned on our reliance on China for 
processing a lot of our critical minerals, not only for wind--
production of wind turbines, but for the lithium needed in 
battery storage, whether that is battery storage for 
electricity or whether that is electric vehicle batteries. 
Would you support more domestic mining and processing of 
critical minerals here in the United States?
    Ms. Silverstein. I have not studied that issue deeply. I 
cannot give you a good answer. Thank you.
    Mrs. Lesko. Can any of the witnesses answer that for me?
    Dr. Wayland. Well, I am actually a geologist by training, 
so--and I am sitting here in Nevada where we actually are--
there are a number of lithium mines. There is currently a 
lithium mine in Silver Peak, Nevada. It is a lake bed brine 
facility, and there are a number of investors that are looking 
around the State and also in California at building out lithium 
mines.
    So I think we will see an increase in domestic production, 
not just of lithium but some of the other critical minerals. 
And if I am not mistaken, there is a provision in the CLEAN 
Future Act that requires an evaluation of critical minerals. I 
know the Defense Department has done that several times over 
the last few years, because many of those critical minerals are 
important for defense equipment as well. So I think there is a 
lot of attention being paid to, not only where the sources of 
critical minerals are, but recycling and alternatives as well.
    Mrs. Lesko. Yes. Thank you, Ms. Wayland. I appreciate that. 
I too, as you guys know, previously--I think this is a really 
critical factor, because what I read is that most of the 
processing of lithium takes place in China, where they use 
coal-fired plants to process the lithium.
    So it doesn't make sense to me, if we are going to 
promote--and we should, to an extent--electric vehicles, we 
need to look down the road. Like, how are they going to be 
made? Are we going to have enough lithium? And if we have other 
renewables, are we going have enough critical minerals? And so 
we need to be less reliant on China and possibly other foreign 
hostile countries.
    Mr. Hofmann, I have 27 seconds left. Do you have anything 
you would like to add?
    Mr. Hofmann. Just that we are going to need everything at 
our disposal, whether it is hydrogen, wind, lithium, ion, 
solar. We are going to need everything.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, sir.
    And I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Rush. I want to thank the gentlelady. Please accept my 
sincere apologies, Mrs. Lesko.
    All right. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
Vermont, Mr. Welch, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Welch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 
for the hearing. And I want to thank the witnesses for a 
wonderful hearing.
    I have been working on this committee with many of my 
colleagues, both sides of the aisle, on energy efficiency 
measures. It is the cheapest form of power, saves money, 
reduces carbon emissions, creates local jobs.
    Ms. Silverstein, I wanted to ask you, as we continue to 
electrify our power sector, how could a national energy 
efficiency resource standard that sets utility-level 
electricity and natural gas efficiency requirements help us 
meet national environmental goals and improve the resiliency of 
the national grid?
    Ms. Silverstein. That is a great question. Thank you, sir.
    With respect to improving the decarbonization, everything 
that we do for efficiency will--is one of the cheapest ways to 
reduce carbon emissions from across the board. The level of 
waste in fossil fuel burning, not all of the energy that goes 
into production of electricity comes out as--a lot of it goes 
up as carbon and as waste and doesn't get into our homes and 
businesses to provide meaningful services. So the more that we 
can save electricity, the more that we can save carbon, and it 
is often the cheapest way to do so.
    With respect to grid reliability of resilience, energy 
efficiency, by reducing the amount of load that we have to 
meet, it means that there is less burden on the grid 
operationally----
    Mr. Welch. That is great.
    Ms. Silverstein [continuing]. And there is less burden for 
all of the services and the peak loads and operationally, hour 
to hour, minute to minute.
    Mr. Welch. Great.
    Ms. Silverstein. So it is incredibly efficient.
    Mr. Welch. Thank you so much.
    Ms. McIntyre, Representative McKinley and I have been 
working to improve model building codes. And I want to ask you 
this: How do model building codes help State and local 
governments achieve energy and climate goals? And, importantly, 
how can model building codes improve resilience in safety in 
the face of weather and climate disasters?
    And I want you to answer that in the context of a lot of 
folks don't want codes. They fear that they will increase cost. 
Mr. McKinley and I think if you have codes and it sets a 
reasonable standard, everyone has to compete to that standard 
to get the benefit of the energy savings that would occur.
    Thank you.
    Ms. McIntyre. Thank you, Congressman. And I commend the 
work that you and Congressman McKinley have done on this issue. 
Again, building energy codes are one of the key policy tools 
that State and local governments have at their disposal to 
address energy use and climate impacts of new buildings.
    Buildings are responsible for about 40 percent of all 
carbon emissions in this country, and it is cheapest and 
easiest to reduce building emissions at the time of 
construction. So constructing new buildings to be efficient and 
decarbonized from the start means lower energy bills for 
homeowners and businesses who use those buildings, and prevent 
the need for expensive retrofits in the future.
    So it can lower the cost, obviously, of energy use, and if 
you do it from the get-go, you know, you are saving the money 
from having to do retrofits in the future. So they are very 
critical to have these codes and implemented. And, again, the 
CLEAN Future Act does recognize the importance, and we 
encourage there to be strengthened provisions in there on 
building codes.
    Mr. Welch. What do you say to some of the builders--they 
are always concerned about cost, and I respect that--who say 
that, if you have any codes, that is going to lead to higher 
cost?
    Ms. McIntyre. If you have the codes, again, from the 
beginning and, as you said, you know, you have competition 
among the developers to, you know, drive the most efficient 
buildings, you know, again, once you----
    Mr. Welch. Right.
    Ms. McIntyre [continuing]. Build those buildings, you 
decrease the energy cost and the cost of----
    Mr. Welch. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman does yield back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. 
Pence, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Pence. Thank you, Chairman Rush and Ranking Member 
Upton, for holding this hearing.
    Like my colleagues on this committee, I support a diverse, 
all-of-the-above strategy for energy production. But like my 
peers on the Republican side, I am concerned that the one-size-
fits-all mandates in the CLEAN Future Act far outpaces the 
current state of technology, leaving consumers to foot the bill 
for higher costs on everything from electricity prices in 
heating their homes to the appliances they will need to buy 
from the department store.
    All the while, power generation will not have the security 
of baseload supply from natural gas or coal, resulting in a 
less reliable grid, as we have recently seen. The provisions 
for clean energy standards, microgrids, and distributed energy 
systems, while good in academic theory, all rely on the 
adoption of technology that is still bridging the gap between 
basic research and commercialization.
    In a mere 2\1/2\ years, starting in 2023, zero-emission 
electricity requirements will begin straining the budgets of 
our power sector. Even if they started this very afternoon, 
public power agencies, electric car co-ops, and utilities in my 
district will be hard pressed to incorporate even more 
renewable energy generation or carbon mitigation equipment into 
their already robust portfolios. These entities will have no 
other choice than to raise prices on their ratepayers, my 
constituents.
    This bill disregards critical things like permiting reforms 
that will be necessary to meet its own timeline for 
infrastructure construction. Carbon-capture equipment alone may 
take 5 years to be fully operational. To find out who will pay 
for these programs, look no further than to the provisions on 
electric vehicle infrastructure buildout.
    To support the extensive electric vehicle network this bill 
envisions, the language acknowledges expected price increases 
and gives a green light to pass these costs on to utility 
customers as a whole.
    Since electric vehicles will be best suited for urban 
centers and densely populated areas, rural customers like those 
in my southeast Indiana will still have to foot the bill. 
Companies that will likely take advantage of these electric 
vehicle charging stations will look to the highest rate of 
return on their investment, meaning they will look toward 
cities and not the rural and hard-to-reach parts of our 
country.
    Even without these extensive subsidy programs that will 
have been packed into this bill, auto manufacturers operating 
in the free market are already moving in this direction. 
Companies throughout Indiana's Sixth District are leading the 
way to produce innovative batteries, hybrid engines, and 
alternative transportation fuel vehicles.
    But until this technology can sustain the mileage 
requirements for those beyond densely populated areas--and 
recently I have heard complaints about suburbs and the ability 
to run around--this bill will benefit urban centers at the 
expense of rural America.
    Lastly, I am concerned about the implications this bill 
will have on pensions that are tied to the companies this bill 
seeks to put out of business. What happens to hardworking 
Hoosiers nearing the retirement age, as we have talked about? 
What will happen to local taxpayers that are investing their 
savings in anchor institutions in the community that will go 
under when this bill is signed into law? I don't think my 
Democratic colleagues are prepared for the extensive 
implications this will have on our communities.
    Mr. Hofmann, this bill would implement an untested 
transition program for energy workers. The provisions in this 
bill would even target the manufactured sector for light- and 
heavy-duty vehicles adversely affecting our workers' earnings 
as well. As the crossroads of America, these programs will 
directly impact hardworking Hoosiers who have stable, good-
paying jobs producing the necessary transportation equipment 
that our country currently relies on to move goods along our 
highways.
    I got into Congress because I have watched for decades the 
long destruction of the middle class in Indiana as great-paying 
manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas, leaving Hoosiers 
with few options to provide for their families.
    My question to you, sir, will the transformative measures 
of these bills continue a similar assault on the middle class 
in my and communities across this country, in your opinion?
    Mr. Hofmann. I would caution those who think that these 
systems are simple. These systems are very complex, and they 
require a lot of attention and detail. And there needs to be a 
great consideration and reverence to the workers who make these 
systems go and who overall maintain these systems, and that is 
the best way I could answer that.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time is expired.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. 
Schrader, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Schrader. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I really 
appreciate this hearing. Looking forward to continuing our work 
to address climate crisis and, in particular, to achieve deep 
decarbonization of our power sector by enhancing grid 
resilience, supporting our energy and utility industries and 
the workers around the country that keep our lights on.
    And shout-out to Mr. Hofmann. Folks like you kept the 
lights on in Oregon. While Texas had its deep freeze, we had a 
big deep freeze in my district, in the Willamette Valley. And 
the overtime work, the extra mile that the utility workers did 
to get us back online, I just really appreciate that and want 
to thank you and all your folks for that.
    And for my colleagues that are worried about the world 
ending with the CLEAN Futures Act, I have got the answer for 
it. Congressman McKinley alluded to it earlier. We actually 
have a bill that would fit nicely into subtitle E, the clean 
electricity generation portion of the CLEAN Futures Act. It is 
agnostic as to the source of power, but it does drive deep 
opportunities for us to reduce energy usage and, frankly, 
decarbonize.
    Our legislation--we introduced it last year, we are 
reintroducing it this Congress--would commit significant 
resources to energy innovation, not just on the renewable side 
but also on the fossil fuel side, to get to the decarbonization 
that many of you have alluded to here today. That is real. It 
will happen. And I think the best way to make it happen is by 
partnering, as Dr. Wayland referred to, with private industry, 
matching dollars, matching opportunities, and not just in, you 
know, research but in applying the technology going forward.
    We could have--and coupled with that innovation is an 
actual clean energy, clean electricity standard that would 
drive that decarbonization with timelines, put in statutes so 
that the utilities, so that environmental groups, so that 
Americans can make investments based on a defined statute that 
would stand the test of time no matter what administration 
walks into the White House every 4 years.
    I guess I would just urge my colleagues to really look 
closely at this. We have talked to the chairman of the full 
committee. We are going to be talking with committee staff 
later this week, trying to, you know, frankly, explain what our 
options are here. This could be a great opportunity to bring 
our committee together, bring America together, not lose jobs 
but, to the testimony we have also heard today, actually 
increase jobs going forward.
    It is inclusive as to the energy sources. It is not some 
carbon tax proposal that would raise prices. It is a more 
innovative and the only bipartisan solution that is out there 
at this point in time. So I would really urge all my 
colleagues, Republican and Democrat, take a close look at this.
    I would encourage the Natural Resources Defense Council, 
Ms. McIntyre, I would like to get your feedback on this, and 
GridWise's feedback also, Ms. Wayland--or Dr. Wayland. That 
would be very, very helpful for us.
    We see this as a path forward, along with the efficiencies 
that we see in this bill and some of the innovations. And, 
again, it would be nice to have a great bipartisan approach to 
driving our power sector emissions to down almost 95 percent by 
2050. And we are open to the timelines going forward.
    And with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so 
much.
    Mr. Rush. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Dakota, 
Mr. Armstrong, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Armstrong. Well, I would start with saying, Congressman 
Schrader, I hope you keep it as a stand-alone bill because I 
want to be able to support it, and if it goes into subsection E 
here, I might have a little trouble.
    But this is just kind of a yes-or-no question because we 
are talking about interoperability and reliability and 
resiliency of the grid, and I am all in on boning up that 
infrastructure. I did the FAST Act permiting, looking for help 
with that on any other side of the aisle. Hopefully, we can get 
some bipartisan solutions moving forward so companies who 
divest their capital can see a return and not deal with some of 
those issues. But the grid is only reliable as the energy that 
is being put on to the grid.
    So just really quickly, yes or no, Ms. McIntyre: Under 
current technology, should we consider wind and solar baseload 
power?
    Ms. McIntyre. No.
    Mr. Armstrong. OK. Ms. Silverstein?
    Ms. Silverstein. No. But let's be clear that coal and 
nuclear are not baseload power all the time either.
    Mr. Armstrong. Well, all the time--well, they are 
dispatchable, though, correct?
    Ms. Silverstein. Yes, but dispatchable and baseload are not 
the same thing.
    Mr. Armstrong. I understand that, because in some places we 
are dealing with that, but--and just since we are there now, 
right, I mean, the one problem with wind and solar is they 
can't ramp up, they can only ramp down.
    Ms. Silverstein. That is true, but increasingly there is 
hybrid storage attached to those that makes them dispatchable 
and rampable.
    Mr. Armstrong. Well, hybrid storage, as it exists now and 
as the technology will advance in the future, are very 
different things. I agree technology is going to advance. I 
don't agree that we should regulate and legislate on technology 
that doesn't exist yet.
    Ms. Silverstein. It does exist. It is on grids today, sir.
    Mr. Armstrong. OK. Not at the scale we are going to need to 
replace solar, wind--or natural gas, wind, and nuclear.
    But do we produce any lithium--Mr. Hofmann, do we produce 
any lithium in the United States?
    Mr. Hofmann. I am not aware of that.
    Mr. Armstrong. Do we produce any cobalt in the United 
States?
    Mr. Hofmann. Again, not my area of expertise.
    Mr. Armstrong. Do any of the witnesses know if we produce 
any lithium or cobalt in the United States?
    OK.
    Dr. Wayland. I do believe--I do----
    Mr. Armstrong. Oh, go ahead.
    Dr. Wayland. Yes. I do believe we produce lithium, and I do 
believe that there are a number of lithium mines in the process 
of being developed.
    Mr. Armstrong. We don't produce any lithium. We had a mine 
in Nevada. There may be some in development.
    Does anybody know if we place any environmental conditions 
on the countries we import lithium from?
    Does anybody know if we place any environmental or human 
rights conditions on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 
where we get our cobalt from?
    Sometimes it is hard to do this when you have to wait hours 
to do this, but early on the chairman of the full committee 
said we don't produce these things here. And I just want to say 
that Republicans in the private sector are not the ones 
preventing the manufacture of more solar panels. We actually 
produce solar panels in North Dakota--or not solar panels, wind 
turbines. But we are not the ones stopping more solar panels, 
wind turbines, and batteries in the U.S.
    Environmental groups, their lawyers, cheap foreign labor, 
better environmental and regulatory conditions are the reasons 
that we don't have the mining, extraction, or processing, or 
manufacturing capacity that is necessary to onshore even a 
small portion of these supply chains, which is why, with the 
last minute, I would like to go back to Mr. Hofmann.
    And when they talk about repurposing your members--and not 
just yours, but union workers all across the country--I mean, 
all the pipe laid in North Dakota is laid by union workers, 
come from all over the country. We love to have them there. 
They shop at our restaurants. They do all of those things. They 
are great citizens when they are there.
    But when you hear people talk about this, one, the jobs 
don't exist; two, your members aren't trained for this. We talk 
about these issues from a national security issue and we talk 
about it from a reliability and resiliency issue, but can you 
just expound on the human level of where that ends up with your 
members and so many like that across the country?
    Mr. Hofmann. I don't think there is any question that a 
greater level of reverence needs to be recognized to the men 
and women who make these systems work. No question.
    Mr. Armstrong. I mean, when people just say ``We will 
retrain you,'' do you know of--I mean, do those jobs exist at 
any scale? Is there any place right now that, if they were out 
of work in the next 3 days, is there somewhere they could go 
now in the renewable field where those jobs exist at any kind 
of the same capacity?
    Mr. Hofmann. What I can say is, in my hometown I am not too 
far away from the Palm Springs Windmills, and you will see lots 
of things out there, but one thing I have never seen is an 
employee parking lot.
    Mr. Armstrong. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from New Hampshire, 
Ms. Kuster, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Kuster. Thank you very much, Chairman Rush, and thank 
you for convening today's hearing on the CLEAN Future Act. We 
have great jobs right here in New Hampshire, from solar and 
wind and lots of renewable energy, so I am happy to share that 
with the committee.
    Climate change poses an existential crisis to humanity, and 
the most important thing we can do to prevent not only our 
country but the world from experiencing the worst effects of 
climate change, including the dramatic weather patterns such as 
the storm that hit Texas this winter, is by eliminating carbon 
emissions. By putting the U.S. in a viable pathway to achieving 
that goal, the CLEAN Future Act is a significant milestone, and 
I look forward to working with my colleagues to getting it 
signed into law.
    The CLEAN Future Act provides a historic investment to 
upgrade the resilience of our grid. And I am particularly 
excited about the clean energy microgrid grant program 
spearheaded by my colleagues, Representative Barragan and 
Clarke, which would help communities around the country create 
microgrids, units that are able to insulate themselves during 
times of crisis from the broader grid.
    So, Ms. Silverstein, this question is to you: Would the 
grant program created by the CLEAN Future Act to install more 
microgrids for critical infrastructure help mitigate the impact 
of future large-scale blackouts like we saw in Texas? And how 
can we improve these grants to help more communities realize 
the benefits of microgrids?
    Ms. Silverstein. Great question. Thank you very much. Yes, 
it is a wonderful idea, and, yes, it can make a huge difference 
to protect communities and critical facilities and community 
cores from future disasters of all kinds, including grid 
failures. But I believe that you can do better.
    We have been working on microgrid technology for almost two 
decades now, and yet today almost every single microgrid grant 
is for an individual science project. There isn't enough 
interoperability, there isn't enough replicability, there 
aren't enough standard packages. And, frankly, most of these 
situations aren't as different as they appear.
    The more that you could do to get common instructions, 
engineering programs, packages of equipment put together in 
advance by doing an investment with DOE and the labs and 
research, the more that you can produce packages that are 
quickly replicable, that are economic, that are easier to 
evaluate and install, and put more of the money into 
communities quickly rather than into one-at-a-time studies that 
don't really add value to the rest of the industry quickly.
    Ms. Kuster. Terrific. Thank you so much.
    Switching gears, I want to brag for a minute on some of the 
great work that is happening in renewable energy right here in 
New Hampshire. One of our public housing authorities in my 
district, Keene Housing, has utilized power purchase agreements 
to install solar panels on the roofs of many of their 
multifamily housing units. These solar panels are reducing 
electric bills and carbon emissions. These savings will allow 
Keene Housing to improve the quality of life for residents, and 
long term could free up capital to build new units and serve 
more Granite Staters.
    Now, this won't surprise you, the biggest hurdle they faced 
installing these solar panels was cost. Ultimately, they were 
able to find creative ways of covering the expense, but this is 
an obstacle.
    In your testimony, Ms. McIntyre, you mentioned the CLEAN 
Future Act should increase funding to install distributed 
energy sources. My bill, the Clean Energy Savings Program Act, 
which I was proud to introduce last year with Senator Merkley, 
would provide no-interest financing for exactly this type of 
project.
    Can you explain how increasing funding for distributed 
energy sources would help more individuals and nonprofits 
around the country realize the benefits of solar energy? And I 
might add, it is a win-win-win, not only lower energy costs, 
save the planet, and their jobs for installation.
    Ms. McIntyre. Thank you, Congresswoman. And, you know, I 
really commend the work and the programs that you have going on 
in the State and the legislation that you have introduced.
    And I agree, you know, being able to bolster the ability of 
particularly low-income communities and communities of color to 
have access to distributed energy resources by providing 
funding will help both them achieve the benefits of cleaner 
power sources, lower energy costs, as well as, again, enabling 
greater resiliency of the grid.
    Having these resources--and, again, the impacts of any 
disasters that could happen, you know, being able to have 
access to distributed energy resources helps the power keep 
going if those resources are--if the crisis is going on, but 
also helps reduce demand from the grid in those times of 
crises.
    Thank you for your work.
    Ms. Kuster. Well, thank you so much. My time is up, but I 
look forward to working with this committee on this important 
bill.
    And I will yield back to the chair.
    Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. 
Palmer, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Palmer, are you online? All right.
    Now the Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, 
Ms. Barragan, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Barragan. Thank you, Chairman Rush, for holding this 
important hearing on the energy resilience, grid modernization, 
and energy efficiency sections of the CLEAN Future Act.
    We have seen the deadly costs of extreme weather events 
influenced by climate change and the challenges they cause our 
grid. While there is no silver bullet to preventing these 
outages, investments in clean energy microgrids can help to 
keep the lights on in our most critical facilities.
    The CLEAN Future Act includes the Energy Resilient 
Communities Act, legislation I have proposed with 
Representative Clarke, to provide funding and technical 
assistance for microgrids with priority for low-income and 
communities of color. It is critical that we center energy 
justice for these communities at the heart of the clean energy 
revolution.
    Dr. Wayland, Black, Latino, and indigenous communities 
suffer the most from poor air quality and are hit hardest by 
climate-fueled weather disasters. These frontline communities 
have the most to lose if we fail to take decisive climate 
action.
    How can investments in clean energy and energy storage, 
including microgrids, reduce the damaging climate and health 
impacts of fossil fuels to these communities?
    Dr. Wayland. Well, thank you for the question. I think 
there are two ways that investing in these technologies that 
you mentioned would address some of the harms that these 
communities face. The first is by reducing not just greenhouse 
gas emissions but the air pollution that some of these 
communities are disproportionately affected by.
    And the second is by making them more resilient in two 
ways. One is by reducing their energy burden. As Ms. 
Silverstein has mentioned, you know, when we can reduce the 
energy burden, we actually improve the kind of social 
resilience of these communities.
    And the second is by helping to insulate them from 
disruptions in the energy supply. So microgrids, for example, 
in areas near public housing, in shelters where these 
communities might have to go if their power is out, these are 
critical for helping the resilience of those communities in the 
event--during the event that might disrupt power.
    Ms. Barragan. Thank you, Doctor. And a followup. In 2019, 
546 microgrids were installed in the United States. Of these, 
86 percent were powered, at least in part, by burning fossil 
fuels. Do you agree this trend will make it difficult to reach 
the CLEAN Futures Act's goal of 100 percent clean energy by 
2035, and that the legislation's grant funding for clean energy 
microgrids can help reach the bill's goal?
    Dr. Wayland. I agree with you. It is great that you 
mentioned the fact that so much of micro--I mean, the basic 
microgrid is a diesel generator, and that is certainly not 
clean. And, you know, microgrids that are powering hospitals, 
that is an essential service that the microgrid provides right 
now, and most of those are run in part with diesel generators.
    So I think that moving forward, what we need to do is make 
sure that we are building out microgrids that have a more 
diverse source and that is solar or clean hydrogen. So there 
are other ways of powering microgrids, and I agree with you 
that we are going to have to address that in order to meet 
climate and air quality goals.
    Ms. Barragan. Great. Thank you.
    Ms. McIntyre, one of the recommendations in your testimony 
is to give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission tools to 
consider climate change when assessing the impacts of 
transmission projects in implementing national transmission 
policy goals. Can you talk about what these legal tools are and 
how they would help to improve the reliability of the electric 
grid?
    Ms. McIntyre. So currently there is uncertainty whether or 
not FERC has the explicit authority to consider the climate 
change impacts of various energy products, including 
electricity transmission. So we would like to give them--have 
Congress give them the explicit authority to take that climate 
impact into account. This will then help--and also to take in 
climate considerations in the buildout of transmission.
    So if you take in the climate considerations as you are 
determining which transmission projects should go forward and 
where they are needed, that means that you are looking at where 
is the best path for a transmission project to either bring in, 
you know, renewable energy where it needs to come from and is 
accessing, you know, the clean energy that we need and taking 
it to where it needs to go.
    And so currently, without having those explicit 
authorities, you are just not being able to--not giving FERC 
the tools it needs to ensure that we are addressing and 
building an electricity system that is going to be able to 
withstand the worsening climate crisis.
    Ms. Barragan. Right. Thank you very much.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Delaware, Ms. 
Rochester, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling 
this important hearing on the CLEAN Future Act. And thank you 
to all of the witnesses for your testimony today.
    The recent extreme weather event in Texas and parts of the 
Midwest exposed the need for a more resilient energy 
infrastructure, and as we all know climate change is fueling 
extreme weather across the country and we need to work together 
to fix the vulnerabilities in our energy system and better 
prepare for future disasters.
    A safer, cleaner, and more resilient energy system is 
possible with smarter planning and better decisions, which is 
why I am proud that the CLEAN Future Act includes the Open Back 
Better Act, which I recently reintroduced.
    The Open Back Better Act invests in retrofits to public 
buildings, such as hospitals, libraries, and community centers, 
making them more energy efficient and more resilient against 
future threats. It creates good-paying jobs and prioritizes 
upgrades to low-wealth communities and communities of color, 
which are so often disproportionately burdened by the impacts 
of public health emergencies and natural disasters. And as we 
work to rebuild our Nation's economy in the wake of the COVID-
19 pandemic, we need to work toward a more resilient and clean 
energy economy.
    Ms. McIntyre, during natural disasters and national 
emergencies, it is our mission to ensure safety of all 
Americans. How can more energy efficient and resilient public 
facilities enhance our ability to protect the public during 
times of crises?
    Ms. McIntyre. More energy efficiency buildings will, again, 
help provide insulation, weatherization for buildings, and in 
particularly, you know, low-income housing and better to be 
able to withstand the impacts of the weather-related events. 
So, you know--and Texas was a prime example of very inefficient 
buildings. And so, you know, the impacts of the cold weather 
were felt much more by those communities, and again, 
inefficient buildings cause more stress on the grid. And so, if 
you provide more efficiency and weatherization of buildings, 
then you enable lower energy demand and, again, then have less 
of an impact from the weather events on the electricity system.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. The Open Back Better Act prioritizes 
upgrades to low-wealth communities and communities of color. 
Can you talk about how we can ensure that these communities are 
active partners in building a more resilient energy system?
    Ms. McIntyre. So that is one of the concerns that we have 
with some of the provisions in the CLEAN Future Act, is while 
it has provisions to take into account communities of color and 
low-income communities, it does not provide any guidance as how 
to meaningfully interact with those communities and include 
those communities in the decisionmaking of where funding is 
going, where the needs are the greatest. And so, you know, 
there needs to be, you know, stronger provisions to actually 
direct how the government can work with those communities and 
get their input.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you.
    And Dr. Wayland, following up on Representative Welch's 
question, can you talk about incorporating energy efficiency 
retrofits in public buildings and how that makes the community 
more resilient against future threats?
    Dr. Wayland. Yes. That is a great question. We are strongly 
supportive of addressing the inefficiencies in public 
buildings, from schools to city town halls and city buildings. 
And similarly to what Ms. McIntyre described in terms of the 
effects on the residential communities, you are going to lower 
the energy burden of the local governments. You will then make 
them more resilient in the face of any kinds of disruptions 
that happen to power. And many of those public buildings are 
the places of respite during those events for low-income 
communities and communities of color. And so making sure that 
those buildings are clean, efficient, and have backup power is 
really critical for equity issues in the face of climate 
change.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. And in my last 30 seconds, how can we 
ensure that the grid--that grid resiliency efforts protect 
against multiple threats, such as hurricanes or cyber attacks?
    Dr. Wayland. Well, that is a great question. And I think 
that, you know, we have to make sure that we are addressing, 
taking a multihazard approach when we are looking at the 
investments that utilities are asking to make in upgrading the 
grid. So as Ms. Silverstein mentioned in the very beginning, we 
have to assume that these events are going to happen, and so we 
shouldn't just plan for the last thing that just happened. We 
should be looking at the full range of hazards that will 
confront a community.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you so much.
    And, Mr. Chairman, thank you for the time. I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. 
O'Halleran, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. O'Halleran. I want to thank the chairman and the 
ranking member for their--putting this committee together 
today, the panel, and the panel for the great discussion we 
have had today.
    You know, today's hearing comes at a critical time for our 
Nation's energy transformation. Our natural disasters are not 
new. Their impacts on electrical grid are raising important 
questions about the reliability of our electric grid.
    Arizona's grid infrastructure already faces constant 
threats from extreme heat waves, creating increased demand for 
electricity, and wildfires threatening these same valuable 
assets. I am thankful we are having today's hearing to examine 
how the CLEAN Future Act and other Federal policies can make 
our electric grid more resilient against threats posed by 
natural disasters and cyber attacks.
    My first question goes to Ms. Silverstein. Section 218 of 
the CLEAN Future Act would establish a DOE program to help 
State, local, and Tribal governments with evaluation permitting 
and siting of interstate transmission lines. Your testimony 
highlights how over 700 gigawatts of rural generation projects 
have been unable to interconnect to the grid due to, in part, 
to delays in necessary transmission not being built.
    Could you comment how improving the transmission siting and 
approval process will support rural economic development, 
decrease electric costs for consumers, and increase overall 
grid reliability?
    Ms. Silverstein. Yes, sir. Thank you. The reason that so 
many new projects cannot get access to the transmission grid is 
because there is not enough transmission for them to hook up 
onto. So the more that we--because all of the transmission is 
full with the generators that are already using it. The only 
way to bring more generation onto the system is to build more 
transmission, frankly, and to make marginal improvements in the 
care and capacity of the transmission that we have. We are 
trying to do both.
    But in order to build--to really bring on and free up all 
of the capability of this new generation, we need much more 
transmission. That means much faster permiting. It means better 
siting. It means much more coordination and identification of 
the benefits. It also means, by the way, that one of the things 
we need to do is stop the old assumptions that the cheapest 
transmission is the best transmission to build. The cheapest 
transmission today is the transmission that we can get built as 
big and as quickly as possible, which means that if you need to 
take a dogleg, if you need to big it builder--build it bigger--
excuse me--those are the right things to do because it creates 
more value for the Nation faster.
    So with more transmission, we can have more generation and 
storage added. We can have better reliability. We can reduce 
delivered economic costs and allow that new generation is out 
in rural areas. And so by building transmission to open up 
generation in those rural areas, we add tax base. We add the 
ability to bring new generation and new jobs into those 
regions.
    Thank you.
    Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you. And I have a couple of other 
questions, but I would like to ask everyone on the panel: How 
long do you think our grid system has been in this crisis 
situation over the last number of years?
    Starting with anybody.
    Ms. McIntyre. I will start. You know, we have been facing 
these weather events for decades. And what has been happening 
is, because of the climate crisis, those events are becoming 
more severe and creating even more damage to our systems. And 
so this is not necessarily new, but the severe impacts of them 
are becoming greater.
    Dr. Wayland. I will say that in addition to severe weather 
we face a number of threats that are growing. And in 
particular, this committee has talked about cybersecurity. That 
is a growing threat. And the changing nature of the grid in 
terms of it becoming more connected and more digitized only 
makes the threat even greater. And so cyber is something that 
we really thought about in terms of protecting personal 
information, you know, the front office kind of thing, and not 
necessarily cyber that will damage the operating systems, you 
know, of our grid, and that is changing and can lead, you know, 
not just to having an identity stolen but to having massive 
damage inflicted on the grid.
    So there are a number of other things in terms of aging 
infrastructure in our workforce that are putting pressure on 
the grid, but I think that cybersecurity is a new thing that 
requires attention.
    Mr. O'Halleran. And my time is up, and I yield. Thank you 
very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. DeGette from Colorado. I don't 
see her on the line.
    Then the Chair will proceed and recognizes Mr. Veasey from 
Texas.
    Mr. Veasey, are you on the line? I don't see Mr. Veasey.
    We will move on and recognize Mr. McEachin from Virginia. I 
don't see Mr. McEachin from Virginia.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Texas, Mrs. 
Fletcher.
    Mrs. Fletcher, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Fletcher. Well, thank you so much, Chairman Rush. 
Thanks to you and Ranking Member Upton for holding this hearing 
and for allowing me to be part of it. And I thank the witnesses 
for taking time to testify today.
    I have had a day focused on these issues, starting with 
this morning's oversight hearing on the catastrophic failures 
here in Texas during the winter storm and the challenges to our 
grid system and the need for diverse fuel sources, and then of 
course this afternoon's hearing on the CLEAN Future Act and the 
things that we can do to build a more resilient grid system and 
power generation and delivery system across the country.
    A lot of the comments today that I have heard are focused 
on some of the partisan and other divisions, but I think there 
is a lot of room for agreement, maybe more than it might appear 
from the hearing, and I really urge my colleagues to continue 
working together to address the challenges and opportunities 
before us.
    As the Representative--or a Representative from the energy 
capital of the world and as somebody who witnessed firsthand 
the devastating impacts of the loss of power during the Texas 
winter storm from my home here in Houston--where, like people 
across my community, we had no power and no water in our home 
for days--I am hopeful that our witnesses can help shed a light 
on what we can do going forward to ensure that extreme weather 
hitting the grid doesn't result in grid events with a large 
loss of life and huge economic costs like we are seeing here in 
Texas right now.
    So I want to start with Ms. Silverstein. In your testimony, 
you talk about how the required infrastructure of the next 
century will not appear without significant improvements in 
institutional infrastructure. And can you talk a little bit 
about or tell us what new authorities the FERC and DOE would 
need to realize this goal?
    Ms. Silverstein. Thank you. As I have said, I think that it 
is necessary for FERC to have greater authorities--Ms. McIntyre 
talked about that--and to be able to do permiting and planning. 
It is very clear that current planning [inaudible] structures 
and processes are not working effectively, and those need to be 
changed. Cost allocation needs to be changed hugely. DOE is 
working on a variety of planning capabilities and technologies 
that need to be changed.
    And, frankly, one of the biggest challenges is the way we 
now assign cost to beneficiaries means that you never recognize 
all the beneficiaries, because everyone in the Nation would 
benefit from a macrogrid and from many of these improvements. 
But it is very difficult using current definitions and 
processes to identify beneficiaries and assign cost to them 
when they are not inside the little box that you are working 
within. So all of those things need to be improved.
    We also need to, frankly, change institutional 
infrastructure with respect to how we organize and manage 
distribution systems, because all of the--all of us sat in the 
dark because the distribution systems, once you take up all the 
critical facilities, there is no power left for everybody else. 
And if we had much smaller circuits and much--the capability to 
sectionalize and cut up a distribution system, you could 
actually rotate power outages fairly among many more people.
    The last institutional thing we need to do is to make 
critical facilities stand up and protect themselves in order to 
protect us. And it is just infuriating that all of the critical 
facilities don't have the kinds of clean backup power systems 
with battery and PV and combined heat and power or other stuff 
that can keep them up for a couple of days, including, by the 
way, compressor stations and a lot of wellhead production 
systems. If they think they are that critical, they should 
start acting like they are critical instead of just lying low 
and whining later on.
    Thank you.
    Mrs. Fletcher. Thank you for that. And I agree. I mean, one 
of the challenges that we have heard here is that there needs 
to be not just investment at the generators but throughout the 
entire supply chain to make sure that we can get the power when 
we need it. And so that definitely resonates, as does the idea 
that we can roll the outages, which certainly we saw here. And 
there is a huge difference between having 2 or 4 hours without 
power and having 3 or 4 days without power, and those are 
really dramatic differences. So there those are helpful.
    I am already running out of time, which is amazing. So I am 
just going to direct my last question to you and some 
additional questions for the record for our other wonderful 
witnesses. But can you just talk a little bit more about how 
the transmission and distribution circuits are designed and how 
that more precise approach that you were talking about can help 
in response to winter storms?
    I will put the rest of my questions in for the record, and 
thank you all so much.
    Ms. Silverstein. Thank you. Yes, circuits are designed very 
large, and you can use sectionalization devices to make them 
smaller and cut them up and reroute power. And we have been 
doing that a lot in California in order to do the wildfire 
shutoffs protections. But we don't have that in Houston. We 
don't have that in Austin. We don't have it in a whole lot of 
places across the country. And we need to be able to do that so 
that, for instance, sea level rise doesn't take out one part of 
a town and force the rest of the town to go down as well. That 
is what would have kept most of our homes from freezing and 
having pipes blow up.
    Mrs. Fletcher. Well, thank you so much. I have gone over my 
time, and, rather ironically, I have someone here working on 
fixing my pipes today. So, certainly, we are continuing to live 
with these challenges, and it is something we can learn from. I 
thank all of you for your time.
    And, again, Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for allowing me 
to participate. And I yield back.
    Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
    I want to return to the roster and ask these Members who 
didn't have a chance to ask questions. I don't see them on the 
camera, but I am going to ask are they present.
    Is Mr. Bucshon present?
    Is Mr. Duncan present?
    Is Mr. Palmer present?
    Is Ms. DeGette present?
    Is Mr. Veasey present?
    Is Mr. McEachin present?
    So, seeing that they are not present, the committee staff, 
both the Republicans and the Democrats, are--well, let me just 
say to conclude the hearing, that concludes the witness' 
questions. And I would like to thank each and every one of our 
dear, respected, and beloved witnesses for their participation 
in today's hearing. We want to thank you for your durability 
and for your endurance for this hearing. Thank you very much 
for your contributions to our Nation's energy future.
    I want to remind Members that, pursuant to committee rules, 
they have 10 business days to submit additional questions for 
the record to me, answered by the witnesses who have appeared 
before us. And I ask each witness to respond promptly to any 
such questions that you may receive.
    Before we adjourn, I don't know--we are awaiting the 
staff's review of the unanimous consent request, and as they 
are reviewing that, we want to take a moment to allow them to 
finish their review so that we can be prepared for a UC 
request.
    So I will ask the ranking member, Mr. Upton, are you aware, 
are they--are they--have your side and the minority side agreed 
to the UC request?
    Mr. Upton. I am not aware of any, but if not--if so, I will 
come back to you.
    Mr. Rush. OK. All right. Well, we will await. I will ask 
the witnesses--allow the witnesses to depart, and then Mr. 
Upton and I and whoever the other members of the subcommittee 
will remain online until we get the staff concurrence with the 
UC request.
    So I don't want to keep the witnesses. So you are free to 
leave at this moment. And, again, thank you each and every one 
of you for your outstanding testimony. Thank you.
    Voice. Thanks, everybody.
    Mr. Rush. So, Fred, you and I and Mr. Armstrong are still 
on the video. And so we just have to bide our time, but while 
we are waiting, I like that little snide remark that you made 
about my name. Yes. I am going to start calling you Downton as 
opposed to Upton.
    Mr. Upton. I got a lot of nicknames.
    Mr. Rush. The minority staff signed off.
    And so I request unanimous consent that the reference and 
testimony and other information be entered into the record en 
bloc, and then there are about 20 documents. So I am 
requesting, then, unanimous consent that the documents be 
entered into the record en bloc.
    Without objection, so ordered.
    [The information appears at the conclusion of the 
hearing.\1\]
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    \1\ One document, a report from Vibrant Clean Energy, has been 
retained in committee files and is available at https://docs.house.gov/
meetings/IF/IF03/20210324/111366/HHRG-117-IF03-20210324-SD023.pdf.
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    And at this time, the subcommittee stands in adjournment. 
Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 5:27 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
    [Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    

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