this hearing of the select committee on energy independence and global warming is called to order yesterday president bush addressed the washington international renewable energy conference to once again say that the united states has to get off oil but this administration's rhetoric does not match the reality that it is continuing to defend big oil at the expense of american consumers our economy and the planet after nearly eight years of this administration's backwards energy policy the oil companies now have us over a barrel today after opec refused to answer president bush's plea to open the spigots oil prices broke yet another all time record rising above one hundred and five dollars per barrel up from thirty dollars a barrel when president bush took office and consumers are paying the price at the pump gas prices have now reached a nationwide average of three dollars eighteen cents more than doubling since the president took office the prospect of four dollars gas may be news to the president but it is not news to the american people who are being tipped upside down every time they fill up skyrocketing energy prices are also hurting the u s economy the department of labor reported that the economy lost seventeen thousand jobs in january the first monthly decline in four years but we have a new driver of economic growth and job creation waiting to be unleashed we are on the cusp of a renewable energy revolution last year we led the world by installing five thousand two hundred and forty four megawatts of new wind power roughly thirty percent of all new electricity generation installed in the united states solar photovoltaic installation also grew by more than eighty percent in two thousand and seven transitioning to a green economy has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of green jobs generating economic opportunity everywhere from the hearts of our cities to the heartland of our country an analysis by the clean tech venture network estimated that as many as five hundred thousand new green jobs could be created by two thousand and ten but the tax incentives that have driven this g renewable energy are poised to expire once again in recent years when these tax incentives have been allowed to lapse the impact has been dramatic for example new wind installation dropped between seventy seven and ninety three percent each of the three times that the production tax credit expired since two thousand if we do not provide certainty to investors by extending these tax incentives early this year we are likely to see the recent growth of renewable energy grind to a halt our economy and our planet cannot afford it if the tax credits for solar and wind expire this year it will lead to an estimated nineteen dollars billion in lost investments and one hundred and sixteen thousand lost job opportunities through two thousand and nine last week the house passed legislation that would repeal unnecessary tax breaks for the largest oil companies and use those funds to extend those vital tax incentives for wind solar and other renewable technologies but rather than join the overwhelming bipartisan majority supporting this bill that would begin to restore the long term health of our economy and our planet the bush administration is continuing to stand with big oil in opposition in april of two thousand and five president bush said quote with fifty five dollar a barrel oil we don't need incentives for oil and gas companies to explore well now with that price nearly double our economy on the brink of recession and our planet's thermometer rising it is time for this administration to finally back up its rhetoric and support incentives for wind and other renewables that will reduce global warming pollution not make it worse create jobs rather than hurt consumers and turn our economy green rather than technology must be a key part of any global warming or energy security policy and i am pleased that the chairman has scheduled this hearing today on renewable energy technology this week people came to washington from all over the world to talk about  energy president bush addressed the washington international renewable energy conference yesterday not to mention the scores of other government and business leaders who were here to examine the future of worldwide renewable energy production the reason that everybody's talking about renewable energy production is because its future role is a vital part of the world's economy traditional fossil fuels are and will remain a key source of worldwide energy production but just like a strong investment portfolio diverse group of stocks and bonds future energy portfolios should include a diverse array of energy technologies including fossil fuels renewable energy and nuclear power on that point i am happy that the chairman has also schedule a hearing for next week on nuclear energy technology nuclear power is safe clean and produces no greenhouse gases it too must be part of a diverse energy portfolio but diversity is the key when it comes to energy security or environment protection different energy technologies work better in different places each has its benefits and each has its drawbacks for example wind energy is a promising source of clean renewable power but the wind society has noted that the average population of common birds has declined seventy percent since one thousand nine hundred and sixty seven so placing wind farms in places that will harm bird operations bird populations does not advance the cause of renewable energy secretary kempthorne said and i agree in the right places wind farms will be a great source of renewable energy but the shoe doesn't fit every footprint likewise solar power is a great resource but mostly in areas where large tracts of land are available for use and the sun shines consistently these should be just two options in a diverse energy portfolio the energy information administration recently reported to the senate it projections for future energy production and the use of renewables in the u s will nearly double by two thousand and thirty but even then renewable energy won't produce as much electricity as nuclear power currently does the nuclear power only accounts for about twenty percent of the nation's electricity production that's why maintaining diverse energy resources is a top priority by focusing on energy technologies like renewables and nuclear combined with energy efficiency the u s can meet many of the principles i believe are vital for any global warming policy these technologies can help produce verifiable environmental benefits and development of these technologies can help create jobs and improve the  which everybody agrees is a good thing i thank the witnesses for coming to enlighten us about the status of these technologies i look forward to hearing more about them and yield back the balance of my time the chairman the gentleman's time has expired the chair recognizes the gentleman from oregon blumenauer thank you mister chairman in three hundred and nineteen days the united states will begin a new era where we will no matter who is elected president mr mccain ms clinton obama we will have a federal government that is no longer resisting working with the rest of the world on issues of climate change and global warming and there's strong signals that we will be moving more aggressively into a carbon constrained economy there are those that talk about the future i think our witnesses here today will demonstrate that that era is here now in terms of not just the promise of renewable energy but its practice and i had a chance to review some of the testimony i'm familiar with some of what's going on i think this is an important statement about where we are it is interesting that the era is here the federal government needs to catch up the federal government can learn from some of our witnesses about how to be a more sophisticated customer for energy the federal government as the largest consumer of energy in the world has an opportunity to change dramatically not just our carbon footprint but bring many of these things to scale we need to have a broad policy framework like a renewable portfolio standard that would help accelerate this in a way that the market last but not least we need to realign our massive array of tax subsidies the production tax credit you've referenced will be extended this year it's outrageous that it has taken this long and it is not something that is done on a multiyear basis rather than guessing year to year we clearly do not need to give as much of a subsidy to the large oil companies that have found a way to make a profit but there are some industries and technologies that are here today where a little bit of federal assistance could make a big difference with a fraction of that money i look forward to the hearing and appreciate your arraying it in this way  gentleman's time has expired the chair recognizes the gentleman from arizona mister chairman thank you very much for holding this hearing i would like to start by welcoming a very important witness here today ms barbara lockwood who is the manager of renewable energy at arizona public service company barbara is here to talk about a new project that i'm very proud of that arizona public service company has just announced it is the construction of the largest solar power plant in the world in my home state of arizona barbara thank you for being here i can't pass up this opportunity to tout the advertising campaign that is making arizonans aware of this project they take a weatherman he's not a real weatherman put him on camera and say you know here's the forecast for the next three days sunny hot sunny sunny sunny hot next week it'll be sunny hot sunny sunny hot and in june it will be sunny hot sunny if you're getting married in august however it'll rain he pauses and says no just kidding it'll be sunny and hot the arizona people are embracing that campaign and i am very excited about this project i want to compliment arizona public service obviously technology is a part of the path forward solar energy needs to be a part of the path forward and arizona is emblematic of this entire issue because in arizona we have tremendous growth the state is the second fastest growing in the nation the city in which i live and represent is one of the fastest growing in the nation and i am thrilled that we are moving forward both with technology in every area but also particularly with technology  vein i'd like to point out something that has become at least a little bit of a trademark of my own mister chairman i know yours is brilliantly funny opening statements you may recall that years ago we did a hearing on renewables in the co committee and i brought in the hydrologic cycle and i want to point out i took it out of a third grade text or a fifth grade text we were discussing at that time the issue of renewable energy and  in that particular piece of legislation hydro was not considered renewable energy and so i brought i went to one of my staffers whose wife taught grade school and i said does she happen to have a copy of the hydrologic cycle in a textbook and they said sure let's see if we can find one and they found this one and of course it shows you know rain evaporating up out of the ocean coming into the clouds the clouds move over the land and then come back down i would argue that we need to focus on the fact that  hydropower needs to be an important part of this entire discussion it is one of the single most efficient forms of renewable energy ninety percent of the available energy from a hydro power plant can be converted into electricity it it addresses the issue of a carbon footprint and i would urge my colleagues here as they look at renewable energy to focus on that there are new possibilities of in stream flow in the old days when we thought about hydropower we thought about you have to build a dam and put a turbine in the dam and then let the water out of the dam and there are environmental consequences we've actually gotten better since then we can now do in stream flow i just want to conclude with one fact today in arizona glen canyon dam is producing one third less power than it is capable of because of environmental damage downstream that is the equivalent of two coal or natural gas powered plants and their carbon footprint if we were more if we used technology to a greater degree we could create a second downstream downstream a second dam operate that solely for environmental purposes operate glen canyon dam for hydroelectricity purposes and eliminate gentlelady from california ms solis ms solis thank you mister chairman and thank the witnesses for being here this morning as well i too have another conflicting hearing that i'll have to leave to attend to but i just wanted to touch on the economic crisis that we're facing across the country but particularly in areas like mine we just heard from the department of labor in their recent reports that we've lost about seventeen thousand jobs in january in my district in east los angeles and southern california  unemployment has reached above seven point two percent and we still don't have an accurate figure for a lot of our youth that have also been unemployed we've seen high levels of poverty homelessness and the last thing that people want to talk about is  going to the gasoline station and having to fill up and putting in more than fifty dollars to fill up half a tank the prices there are outrageous above three dollars sixty cents per gallon a recent report that we know in the american solar energy society estimated back in two thousand and six that renewable energy and the energy sector generated however eight point five million jobs nearly a trillion dollars in revenue to the united states and jobs in these sectors as we know provide livable wages above the minimum wage and in many cases will not be outsourced they will be jobs that can stay here on our shores in this time of economic turbulence it's important that we support those sectors of our economy that are providing that incentive and i'm proud that last week the house passed the renewable energy and energy conservation tax act i heard personally from many of our medium and small sized businesses in los angeles at a recent event i held at the east la skill center where we're finding that individuals are getting involved in training segments of our society that would otherwise not have an opportunity to get involved in placement and development of solar panels and there were many people there as businesses that were pleading with me congresswoman when is the federal government going to provide relief so we can provide the kinds of funds the capital investment so that we can prolong these kinds of jobs my answer to them is i will do whatever i can as a part of a member of congress here and that serves on this committee but also ask them to also talk to our president and to the other side of the aisle because indeed this is something that affects all of us i look forward to hearing from you i know that we have a lot to do green collar jobs is an area that i've been working on the president did sign a bill that would allow for one hundred and twenty five dollars billion to be spent to create at least at a minimum three million jobs again those jobs are very important to us help us let's step up to the plate and i look forward to hearing from each and every one of you thank you  going to need to create green jobs the committee i'm on which also deals with housing and oversight for the department of housing and urban development we are now requiring that all new hud housing  contain or be built with architects by architects who create green houses and i think you're going to see more and more legislation containing components that will require the greening of however we are spending our federal dollars and so if we're going to do that it seems to me that we need to create people who can handle those jobs people who can put in solar  panels i live in a city one of the largest cities geographically in the country three hundred and twenty two square miles with more circumferential highways than any other city per capita in the united states we have one e eighty five service station example who can work on hybrids and e eighty five vehicles and so we are going to move into this new era and unless we make preparations now we're not going to have the workers who are going to be able to do the jobs to sustain the era we're trying to create and so hopefully you will be able to help provide us with some direction today that we might be able to use as we further  and this is obviously very important i look forward to hearing all the witnesses this morning especially my friend bianca jagger chair of the world future council bianca has fought for many years for human rights as a result renewable energy technologies lead to a higher number of jobs per unit of energy generated compared to conventional fossil fuels the construction manufacturing installation operation and maintenance jobs produced by a mega solar for example is seven to eleven times greater than the number of jobs generated by an equivalent amount of coal or gas generated electricity so we're talking about clean air we're talking about helping with global warming and we're talking about creating new jobs and driving economic growth it's certainly in my opinion the direction that our country should go in we ignore global warming obviously at our own peril and i believe that tax incentives for renewable energy is certainly the way to go and i'm glad as ms solis said that last week we passed a bill giving tax incentives renewable energy and the energy tax act i really believe potential to stimulate investment and job creation and the critical importance of government policy in realizing this potential ge energy is a power generation technology leader with more than one hundred years of industry experience our global team consists of thirty six thousand in over seven hundred sites and in more than one hundred countries our power generation business is a diverse portfolio consisting of thermal gasification nuclear and renewable energy technologies such as wind solar and b with energy demand increasing dramatically and growing worldwide pressure to address greenhouse gas emissions ge believes firmly that renewable energy must become an integral part of the st century energy mix supportive government policy has enabled the u s to become the global leader in new wind power installations last year the u s added over five thousand megawatts over twenty five percent of the world's total wind power and that's up from fifty five megawatts a decade ago so tremendous growth the us installed over forty five percent the installed base grew over forty five percent and now totals sixteen eight gigawatts in thirty four states and accounts for over one percent of the nation's electricity supply and powers over four five million homes from this resource wind power accounted for thirty percent of all nameplate generation capacity added in the united states last year second only to natural gas and the u s is on pace to surpass germany and become the nation with the largest installed base of wind power by the end of two thousand and nine the growth in w energy is creating real economic energy security and environment benefits according to the american wind energy association last year the industry spurred nine dollars billion in investment and created more than fifty zero new jobs much of this job growth has occurred in areas that have been hardest hit by manufacturing job losses the installed base for wind power also displaces three percent of the natural gas consumption and avoids the emissions of twenty eight million tons of carbon dioxide from traditional power plants  equivalent of taking six million cars off the road policy driven growth of the wind industry in the u s has helped ge expand its wind business revenues from less than one dollar billion in two thousand and four to more than six dollars billion this year over eight thousand of ge's one five meg turbines have been installed worldwide a number expected to exceed ten thousand by the end of this year since entering the wind industry in two thousand and two ge has invested over seven hundred dollars million in technology increasing its wind turbine production six fold and triple turbine assembly sites we've expanded capacity from about ten wind turbines per week to making thirteen a day and we've grown renewable energy jobs at ge to more than two thousand seven hundred ge has also tripled the number of its suppliers who now account for in excess two thousand u s jobs and cover fifteen states we see significant future job creation potential from wind energy and estimate that sustaining the growth rate we've seen over the past five years for the next five would triple the size of the industry and of the associated jobs to realize the potential for wind power we must meet three challenges technology supply chain and policy the cost of wind electricity has dropped eighty percent over the past twenty years and ge's technology investments in efficiency reliability and gri will continue to improve the competitiveness of wind power ge is also driving supplier quality in wind industry through its lean manufacturing and six sigma processes the most critical challenge facing the u s wind industry is policy uncertainty long term stable predictable incentives reward innovation and enable technology manufactures and suppliers to invest and expand capacity to keep up with the growing demand the current growth of the u s wind market is underpinned by the repeated extensions in two thousand and five and two thousand and six of the federal production tax credit that's set to expire at the end of two thousand and eight expiration of the tax credit would have a devastating impact on the domestic wind industry prior expirations at the end of one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine two thousand and one and two thousand and three reduced wind power installations in the following year by seventy three to ninety three percent a report estimates that failure to extend the credit this year would cause a ninety percent drop in wind installations resulting in eleven dollars fifty cents billion lost investment and seventy six zero job opportunities in seventeen states in two thousand and nine alone jobs that might have been created in the united states could shift instead to overseas areas like europe and china which are strengthening their wind policies in summary ge believes that the united states is well positioned to benefit from the growth of the renewable energy industry however continued growth of this industry is dependent on stable predictable policy we urge the u s congress to act immediately and extend the exiting production tax credit for wind energy opportunity to testify today we are very pleased to present our corporate perspective on the potential of the solar industry to create domestic jobs while at the same time providing an important solution to some of our most pressing energy and environment needs applied materials is a fortune five hundred company headquartered in silicon valley that employs approximately fourteen five hundred workers worldwide including nearly eight thousand here in the united states with additional production facilities i'm sorry our primary manufacturing facilities are in austin texas with additional facilities in germany and israel we sell more than eighty percent of our products outside the united states making us an important positive contributor to the u s balance of trade we recently celebrated our th year as a company and have a proud heritage  providing productivity enhancing nanomanufacturing tools and equipment to the semiconductor and flat panel display industries we have now extended this technology and manufacturing expertise to providing the tools for production of solar electric photovoltaic or pv modules we see considerable growth potential in the rapidly expanding solar market our technology and production scale helped reduce the cost of transistors by a factor of twenty million between one thousand nine hundred and seventy four and today similarly the price of flat panel displays has dropped by a factor of twenty in the past decade we fully expect to have the same impact on driving cost reductions for pv panel production by a factor of two to three which will put solar electricity prices on par with grid power prices for large areas of the world the key is getting to large scale manufacturing by creating large markets the sheer magnitude of our energy supply challenges meeting continued global demand growth while assuring economic prosperity domestic energy security and environmental quality dictates that we accelerate the development of all available energy resource options the question is not one of renewable resource availability but of the economics of deploying the technologies to exploit these resources and how rapidly industry can ramp up the manufacturing capacity to produce the technologies first to economics electricity generation from photovoltaics is currently anywhere from two to three times more expensive than electricity generation from conventional sources nevertheless global pv production has been growing at a rapid clip rising at a rate of more than forty percent per year over the past decade this growth is a direct result of governmental policies that have been established here in the united states and around the globe in the u s the energy policy act of two thousand and five established a thirty percent investment tax credit or itc for residential solar installations and raised the existing business energy itc from ten percent to thirty percent a reduction in the credit would absolutely send the wrong signal to the investment community that is so critical in providing the capital for solar industry expansion and so we commend the house of representatives for its recent action in passing h r five thousand three hundred and fifty one which includes extension of these tax credits and other important changes the other key element is domestic jobs and economic development the solar industry creates manufacturing jobs with labor that is readily transferrable from other manufacturing industr the united states is already a base for solar panel manufacturers and dozens of new startup operations applied materials itself now employs about nine hundred employees in its energy and environmental solutions group which is just two and a half years old while overall u manufacturing job numbers continue to decline renewable energy industries offer a whole new generation of manufacturing job potential however the fact that companies develop the technology here in the united states does not guarantee that they will also locate the production here in the united states achieving the job creation potential of the solar industry depends on continuing policy support to build the market the solar energy industries association of which applied materials is a member estimates that extending the current set of federal solar tax credits will create fifty five thousand new jobs in the solar industry and more than forty five dollars billion in economic investment conversely a recent study by navigant consulting estimated that failure to extend the credits will cost the country nearly forty thousand jobs and more than eight  investment just through two thousand and nine industry will locate where production conditions are most favorable and manufacturers are also likely to invest and locate close to where viable end markets exist however companies need to see a clear market growth pathway to commit the substantial resources needed to ramp production capacity and output unfortunately in the case of pv manufacturing many u s companies are increasingly looking abroad to expand their production in part because of the uncertainty over future policy support speaking from our own corporate experience one hundred percent of our solar factory orders have come from outside the united states so while our domestic business is advancing the opportunity for a much larger u s industry platform is idle in summary the pv industry is currently transitioning from one of component assembly operations to large scale manufacturing which will dramatically increase the scale and throughput of pv module production in coming years solar photovoltaics is following a well documented pattern of cost decline and with new technology  approaches is poised to create an accelerated cost reduction path with our abundance of solar and other renewable energy resources we are presented with the opportunity to manufacture our way toward domestic energy security and sustainability as a nation we need to seize this opportunity applied materials will do its part to make america competitive in this important and growing industry and we stand ready to work with policymakers to develop a sound policy framework that will enable us and other innovative u s companies to lead the way this concludes my prepared remarks and i look forward to your questions thank you again for the opportunity to speak before you today the chairman thank you mister swezey our next witness is mister bill unger from the mayfield fund and he is here technology companies since one thousand nine hundred and seventy i'm also a member of environmental entrepreneurs which is an organization a volunteer organization of eight hundred members across twenty five states who believe that good environmental policy is good economic policy i'd like to thank the chairman and members of this committee and the house for their work in passing the renewable energy and energy conservation tax act the extension of these incentives that provides an even playing field for all technologies is vital for our nation we also hope that the senate and the president will cooperate and pass this into law it's a critical step to solving our urgent and intimately related problems of dependence on foreign energy our economic growth and climate change for example today each ten gallon fill up at the pump has been calculated as adding an additional two dollars ten cents to as much as eleven dollars per gallon when the full cost of the tax incentives the fifty dollars billion cost for protecting shipping lanes of oil and health and environmental costs are fully loaded and this is exclusive of the cost of the war we add these dollars to our debt or pay in other ways to the tune of an additional twenty dollars to one hundred dollars per tankful that is not evident at that particular point also since the energy policy act of two thousand and five was passed which granted six dollars billion of incentives to the oil industry the oil industry has spent one hundred and twelve dollars billion repurchasing their shares on the open market we would like to see a more even playing field i appreciate th opportunity to discuss with you the benefits of investment in clean tech jobs economic growth and an improved environment the need to address climate change is immediate because of the magnitude of this challenge this new industrial revolution properly addressed could create more jobs more economic prosperity more personal investor corporate and public servant satisfaction than has ever been seen for any number of the exciting technological innovations of the past the venture industry is proud of its role in job creation and bringing new technologies to market in two thousand and six venture backed companies provided ten point four million u s jobs and these companies had revenues of two dollars thirty cents trillion and we are excited about cleantech the analysis it sounds like most of you familiar with from uc berkeley concludes the renewable energy sector generates more jobs whether it's measured on per megawatt of power installed per unit of energy produced or per dollar of investment than the fossil fuel based energy sector e estimate generated at our own national laboratories and our universities these are national resources really they're our treasures darpa and nih play a crucial role nurturing technology development until the venture industry which invests in product development becomes interested our tax dollars paid for much of the pioneering work in solar and wind technology at our national labs much of the basic work for the hybrid engines on the road today was done at stanford university yet we are not the leaders in these fields germany denmark taiwan and japan seized these opportunities and are prospering since the energy crisis of the s federal energy research spending is down significantly and is this important the market caps of ford and general motors are thirteen  each and they're encouraging their employees to find other work toyota has a one hundred and seventy six dollars billion market cap and they have record employment with an even playing field in terms of policy and federally funded r and d in a variety of technologies we can regain market leadership the semiconductor industry in the s regained world leadership from exactly this kind of public private partnership there's a high degree of technical knowledge spillover from the semiconductor and software industries to cleantech many of the entrepreneurs from these fields are now entering the cleantech industry their experience is an unmatched resource in the world so this is a great story cleantech investors love it in two thousand and six two dollars ninety cents billion was invested in  cleantech seventy six percent increase over the previous year cleantech is now the third largest venture investment segment the barriers that keep cleantech from growing fast enough to head off the climate crisis are inconsistent policy long term subsidies for conventional industries and trade barriers these have to be corrected a mandatory comprehensive national cap on greenhouse gas emissions a national renewable energy standard and increased r and d funding are necessary but these measures should not preempt states from going even further if they so choose the manhattan project the marshall plan the space program roosevelt's rural electrification program and eisenhower's interstate highway system are all examples of strong and visionary federal leadership and unlike the apollo program and the manhattan project we can do this with existing technologies we need to be the people the world have been waiting for we need to be the people our children will say made the right decisions to give their children a safer healthier  lockwood thank you mister chairman and members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to provide aps's perspective on the economic benefits of renewable energy as congressman shadegg mentioned arizona is the second fastest growing state in the country growing at three times the national average aps has more than a million customers who at their peak consume over seven thousand megawatts of electricity and that electricity demand is growing at a rate of hundreds of megawatts each and every year in arizona our most abundant renewable resource is sunshine and aps is looking for ways to put the sun to work providing electricity aps is committed to making arizona the solar capital of the world the focus of my comments today are on a particular type of solar technology called concentrating solar power or csp which is different than the photovoltaic systems or solar panels that you typically he about aps recently announced the solana generating station solana is a two hundred and eighty megawatt solar power plant to be located just outside of phoenix arizona aps has signed a long term contract with the project developer and owner for all of the electricity generated by this plant if operating today solana would be the largest solar power plant in the world the plant will use nearly three square miles parabolic trough mirrors and operating at full capacity the plant will provide enough electricity for seventy thousand homes one of the most important aspects of this technology is its ability to capture and store energy for later use by using large insulated tanks filled with molten salt heat captured during the day can be stored and used to produce electricity when the sun is no longer shining the value of this can't be underestimated because it can provide energy even after the sun has set this technology provides the maximum value and it also provides reliability for aps and its customers solana also provides significant economic benefits to the state of arizona the solana generating station will provide one thousand five hundred construction jobs and eighty five permanent operations jobs but that's not the total thirty percent federal investment tax credit without this tax credit solana is simply not affordable today i also need to be clear that a one or two year extension of the itc is not sufficient while it might not be preferable it is usually acceptable for small scale solar projects and for wind projects but large scale solar is different it takes about three to four years to permit and construct a plant like solana and we can't begin building it until we know when it's finished it's going to be eligible for the thirty percent investment tax credit if a long term extension of the investment tax credit is not granted solana will not be built if the itc is extended for a sufficient period of time there will be many more plants like solana in arizona and in the desert southwest developed in the next five to ten years if not the industry will lose its momentum and no large scale solar plants will be built the future of large scale solar depends on getting those first few plants into operation thank you mister chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity to share this here i have heard some very important testimony about renewable energy and what has been done in the united states perhaps i'd like to talk about the threat of global  disaster that is no longer out for debate and therefore renewable energy becomes a must and not just a question mark the majority of scientists are in agreement governments have not the most encouraging climate change is the defining challenge of our age how to meet that challenge while dealing with the already devastating consequences of floods droughts and rising temperatures remain the great important first step accompanied by research and investment into energy efficiency and renewable energy sources i used to believe that it would be enough to encourage more localized lifestyle reducing the need for overburden polluting transport networks but after reading the most recent scientific findings i have come to realize that even if we begin each of these practices in earnest tomorrow it is simply not enough the time has come to expose the myth that we can avert climate catastrophe by small measures and sticky plaster measures in the recent assessment by the highly respected climate scientist james hansen of the  point six fahrenheit is three times that agreeing to a three point six fahrenheit target does not avoid the possibility of catastrophe on top of this the apparently bold target of reducing emissions by fifty percent he describes how the ipcc report fails to take geological records into account and ignores the so called albedo flip property of water the albedo flip property of icewater provides a powerful population but would itself fuel further climate change since less ice means less heat reflected back into space the earth's climate is remarkably sensitive to global forcings positive an if we go beyond the point where human intervention can no longer stabilize the system then we precipitate unstoppable runaway climate change that will set in motion a major extinction event comparable previously experienced this clearly demonstrates what the world future council the organization i chair is advocating if we are serious about averting climate change catastrophe we must think in revolutionary terms and transform our way of life restoring rather than destroying life on earth we must embark upon a global renewable energy revolution if we are to achieve the necessary c passed we have experienced an industrial revolution we have experienced a technological revolution it will take a global renewable energy revolution similar in scale and consequence to those two to ave locally regionally and nationally the beginning of this movement may already be underway some nations have begun to act even finding great financial opportunities along the way in germany pushes toward energy efficiency and renew farms and ranches around the country we're here to say to you mister chairman and the members of the committee that rural america is ready willing and able to do its part to help our nation solve probably our biggest economic national security and environment challenge that we've ever faced we have some experience in renewable energy over the past three decades after the first oil embargo in the early s a lot of people started talking about renewable energy and what we could do we started out with a product called gasohol it wasn't very efficient both economically or energy wise but it took about thirty years worth of investment in technology in the industry mostly by farmers mostly by local people and we really didn't cross that threshold until the federal government stepped in with a renewable fuel standard with a mandate which gave us certainty for a marketplace we would hope that the same would happen in all types of renewable energy we think a renewable portfolio standard is past due last  did a study on the potential benefits to rural america and our nation if you adopted a twenty percent renewable portfolio standard for renewable electricity generation and the production of electricity from wind alone would result in about a half a billion dollars in payments to farmers in leases production electricity from renewable biomass would result in about twenty five dollars billion to farmers growing these new crops and forty three dollars fifty cents to sixty six dollars billion in capital would be invested in these new clean energy facilities in rural america the types of projects developed also play a critical role nrel study compared the benefits of local ownership versus outside ownership and found that locally owned wind projects generate two point five times more jobs and three one times more rural economic benefits than those with outside ownership our policy strongly encourages that any federal policies should provide incentives and foster the development of locally owned projects unfortunately tapping rural america's clean energy potential is not likely to occur without the support of governmental policies community based wind energy projects face additional hurdles because of limited capital access it's becoming increasingly difficult to produce wind generators and associated equipment for community wind projects due to the size of those projects and a shift towards large scale development processes not just in the cost but also in the infrastructure and access to the grid moreover because the ptc can only be used against passive income many community based projects are not able to fully utilize this provision most interested parties in these community projects are farmers and local citizens that own the land with the potential for wind development yet do not have sufficient levels of passive income necessary to utilize the tax break we believe it is critical for the federal policy to continue to foster the development of renewable electricity projects we support the extension of the ptc we would hope that it would be a longer term so we would get the market certainty and investment in the technology that's necessary thank you mister chairman i would be glad to answer any questions the chairman great thank you very much all time for statements by the witnesses has expired so now we'll turn to the question and answer period the chair will recognize himself mister abate you said how many new megawatts were installed for wind in two thousand and in the united states five thousand two hundred and forty four the chairman five thousand two hundred and forty four and that represented thirty percent of all new electricity installed in the country last year mister abate all new nameplate capacity thirty percent correct second to only natural market is long on turbines right now with the full confidence that the production tax credit will be extended the pro formas for these investors all have that in them so in two thousand and eight our production capacity if megawatts every year for two thousand and ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen and it could actually get larger huh so there could be one hundred thousand new megawatts of wind installed in the united states before the first one  projects public markets investment bankers and the like are very willing to fund wind projects very willing to fund geothermal projects willing to find biomass projects it doesn't appear to be an appetite today to fund nuclear projects the french are building  i think the most advanced nuclear technology plant in the world today it's two dollars billion and it's already years behind schedule so it's quite a bit of uncertainty in the construction cost before they can even come online and the generating costs which are higher than that of wind certainly don't include what we do with the waste so it creates uncertainty which investors are unhappy about and as he says if we have certainty about tax credits then we have certainty about tying up our money venture capitalists tie up their money for ten even being conservative mister unger he may be being conservative the nice thing about wind and solar is that you know we were having this conversation before some states are blessed with a lot of sun some are blessed with a lot of wind you can scale these plants but the kind of commercial plants we're talking about here are very very large but in rural america where there's you know fewer access to generation lines and the like you can also have smaller plants like this which create a lot of local jobs around local economies it's very difficult to do that with plant comes online after twenty five years so that's pretty big news in terms of what is happening out in the marketplace with an extension of the production tax credit for renewable business of prioritizing tax extenders to get something through the senate i'd like to ask each of you that's kind of in the business which two tax extenders would  think full value production tax credit would be number one for as long as that can work and get it through and as i had said because of the pro formas that our customers have counted on that's what's in their model so anything different than that would be a disruption in our view second is investment tax credit for some of the large capital projects you know wind is more of a production based the investment tax credit would be number two mister unger so if any of the tax credits exclude others then i think we're trying to play economic policy so r and d across the board would be good you know production tax credits across all technologies not to sandlin thank you mister chairman mister buis thank you for your testimony today and the study that the national farmers union has done chairman markey and i have discussed the issue of the transmission capacity in getting these wind resources out of the great plains and other parts of the country and we know how important that will be to fully maximize the benefits that the wind energy and the solar energy in certain areas across rural america have but i entirely agree with you as well about the importance of the local ownership and the local use of wind energy rather than just exporting these renewable sources out of the states that have the most abundant source so you have stated in a number of areas in your testimony the importance of that local investment the importance of altering the ptc to serve as an incentive for that local ownership and investment and development community based wind energy the community based energy development like we've seen in minnesota could you in just a little bit greater terms about where we need to make changes in federal policy as well as working with our counterparts in the state legislatures whether that's with net metering or other options available to assist farmers and ranchers  rural families not just in the lease payments they get for turbines on their land owned by larger wind farms and selling those to larger utilities but how we can do more to benefit those rural economies based on some of the statistics you gave in job creation thank you congresswoman herseth i think you captured a lot of what's really going on in rural america every farmer every rancher every local person i've met in the past two years are so excited about requirement for any renewable energy developed in that state ten percent has to be community owned and that's to carve out some local ownership you know we've seen in the past in the production of farm commodities when that ownership goes away the money follows it's taken out of those communities it's not reinvested in those communities and the beauty about ethanol has been its been local ownership the single largest owners and producers of ethanol today are not the big multinational grain companies it's farmers and local communities they own forty percent of the ethanol production that gets reinvested in the community you see boards coming off the storefronts instead of going up if we allow this whether it's ethanol or wind or solar to all be taken out of that local control where they're just paying for a footprint on a wind tower i think we'll lose those jobs we'll lose those benefits and we'll lose a tremendous opportunity ms herseth sandlin thank you and then the only other point i would make is the further work that we'll do with chairman and as many of you know i spent two decades of my career in the wind industry business and i understand exactly how the production tax credit affects the industry and how the cyclical pattern has put us way  we extend the production tax credit many more jobs will be created in the united states mister abate oh yeah seventy percent are landing here in the united states and a big part is i think as you have a production tax credit here more components more machines will land here if that changes our customers who land these pieces of equipment are looking to go to other parts of the world mister mcnerney so if you sell machines here you both produce them here and you create jobs in the we do source globally but a lot of the components due to their size blades will be here towers will be here you know components electronic components can be global but logistics make up about twenty percent of the cost of a wind project overseas and that has to do as i explained both in terms of the incentives for locating production but also the end use market the panels that our technology produces are five point square meter mean they're based on flat panel display technology on glass these are very large panels and it makes sense to try to locate these production facilities near the end  load and we believe that if we do have a clear consistent long term policy towards solar in the u s that we'll see more some of this manufacturing occurring in the u s for that reason because it will build the market the us market today is only ten percent of the entire global photovoltaic industry yet we generate twenty five percent of the global electricity so there's a disconnect there between how much we're doing here in solar and what the rest of the world is doing mister mcnerney thank you ms jagger what steps of european governments are most effective in your opinion in developing new energy technologies most effect and they have been able to produce about two hundred thousand between two hundred thousand and two hundred and fifty zero jobs so that's what i was talking about with congressman jay inslee together with the the gentleman's time has expired we appreciate that we have a series of roll calls on the floor and we're trying to ensure that each member who is here gets a chance to ask some questions mister engel is here as a special guest of the select committee we'll recognize him for engel thank you mister chairman it's good to be a special guest ms jagger in your testimony you said i was struck by your remarks that you used to believe that reduced energy consumption was an important first step and you used to believe that it would be enough to encourage more localized lifestyles but you now say you realize that that's not enough i also have come to that conclusion as have many members of congress and i think it's important to keep saying i'm embarrassed that  our country has not agreed to sign international agreements that would help with global warming but countries like india and china who have been exempted from these things i really believe that if there are new international agreements that countries like india and china which are now becoming more responsible for global warming need to be included kyoto plus treaty it is vital as well that the industrialized nations of the world realize that they need to come up with a reduction of co emission that is  realistic and not just simply what they think they can do because otherwise we will not be able to avert a climate change catastrophe with regard to india and china i think that it is very important that we supply and that we help them with providing renewable energy technology what is important as well to understand for certain countries is that we cannot make them accountable for what we in the developed world have been responsible therefore we have to keep that in mind that it will be totally unfair if tomorrow we ask from china india  lead us to have a humanitarian catastrophe because we will be using farm land that should be used for feeding people rather than for be used as fuel i mean one thing megawatts of renewable energy electricity in our country minimum and by the way there's only one hundred thousand megawatts of nuclear power in the united states today after fifty years of federal subsidies so no one should be embarrassed about the fact that we are going to give a relatively modest break to the competition to nuclear and other energy resources i think rural america is ready to go we have to solve the transmission issues if we get the tax issues right then we can have a clean energy revolution that produces fifteen twenty twenty five percent of the electricity in our country and sends a signal to the rest of the world that we are serious we thank all of you you're great leaders with that