our hearing this morning focuses on h r sixty two fifty eight the carbon capture and storage early deployment act which i've introduced in june along with a bipartisan group of members of this committee i want to mr towns and mr terry for their patronage of the measure the bill creates a non governmental fund operating under the auspices of the widely respected electric power research institute for the purpose of accelerating the early deployment of carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies it's a response to recommendations from a broad range of individuals and groups including the advanced co technology working group that congress created a carbon capture and storage early deployment fund the advanced coal technology working group to which i previously referred an advisory committee to the environmental protection agency is comprised of a broad cross section of energy and environmental stakeholders and their support of this measure is particularly noteworthy its final report issued in january of this year unanimously recommended the early creation of a c c s deployment and this legislation is in part of response to that recommendation carbon capture and storage is a two step process for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by capturing add and injecting underground the carbon dioxide that is amid it through the combustion of fossil fuels including petroleum natural gas and coal it w have its most prominent application in the electric utility sector where seventy two percent of the nation's electric power is generated through fossil fuel use fifty one percent of electricity is coal fired twenty percent is reliant on natural gas and one point six percent on petroleum given our extensive reliance on fossil fuels and the current on availability of sufficient alternatives to replace them their continued use is essential to our long term economic security the bill before the committee addresses this clear need by enabling facilities that use fossil fuels to continue to do so when a mandatory program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions becomes law and it is this committee's intention to produce that mandatory controlled measure under its terms power plants and industrial emitters of greenhouse gases will be required to lessen their c o two emissions in accordance with a schedule that is set in the statute as c o two constraints become ever more severe matters will turn to c methods in order to meet the c o two reductions scheduled while continuing to use the fuels upon which they are reliant and for which in the forseeable future there will be little in the way of affordable alternatives the c c s early deployment fund therefore is a necessary first step toward the passage and implementation of a cap and trade program to address the challenge of climate change when mandatory c o two controls go into effect greenhouse gas reduction of requirements will begin in the early years it is important that between the time when the first controls apply and the time when c c s becomes widely available the reduction of requirements be such that they can be achieved by fossil fuel based emitters without the necessity that they abandon their existing fuel use in those early years prior to the general availability of c cold users in particular would achieve c o two reductions that are approaches such as achieving new efficiencies making offsetting investments and activities such as forest protection and expansion and the shift  t l agriculture by farmers as well as by purchasing a mission allowances other emitters as soon as c c s technologies are forecast to be generally available the c o two reduction of requirements will become ever more stringent since the larger reductions can then be achieved by fossil fuel users without abandoning their fuel choice therefore the sooner c c s technologies are made available the sooner the more significant c o two reductions can be required under a cap and trade schedule the bill before the committee will accelerate the time when c c s becomes generally available while there are some commercial c projects in operation today they are small in scale and they are used for bene hansing oil recovery further research development and demonstration projects are necessary for the permanent storage underground of large quantities of c o two in storage media of various kinds and widely dispersed geographic locations around the nation there are simply not enough oil fields to meet the national need for large scale c o two storage in order to accelerate the deployment of c c s technologies the carbon capture and storage early deployment act authorizes the establishment of a carbon storage research corporation the nation's fossil fuel based electricity distribution utilities would be authorized to hold a referendum for the creation of the corporation if the referendum results in approval by representatives of two thirds of the fossil fuel based electricity delivered to retail consumers the corporation will be established it will assess these on distribution utilities for all fossil fuel based electricity that is delivered to retail customers the assessment will be applied to electricity generated from co natural gas and oil and will reflect the relative c o two emission rates for each fuel the assessment will total approximately one billion dollars annually and the legislation specifies that distribution utilities will be allowed to recover the costs of that fee from retail customers resulting in roughly a ten dollars to twelve dollar annual increase in residential electricity rates that can be viewed as a modest investment today by these electricity users and their long term ability to continue to purchase low cost electricity i would like to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for working with us as we structured the legislation and i look forward to our continued work together as we process it through this committee and through the full house the carbon capture and storage early deployment act enjoys bipartisan industry and labor support and will enable the continued use of our nation's most inexpensive and abundant resources for fuel generation when a mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reduction program is implemented for this country today's witnesses will provide valuable testimony regarding the legislation including some very productive comments on ways that it can be strengthened as the bill moves through the legislative process i welcome their testimony thank them for being with us this morning and at this time recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee on original co sponsor of the measure of the gentleman from michigan mr upton let saying it thank you mr chairman i certainly want to thank you for holding this hearing this morning on the carbon capture  storage early deployment act this is bipartisan legislation as you noted and is evident that the republicans and democrats indeed can work together towards common sense solutions to effectively combat climate change put both protect jobs and keep energy costs down i appreciate your willingness to work with members on our our site address this very important legislation and we certainly look forward to more bipartisan cooperation on these important issues down the road i see this legislation not as a first step but rather as a building block and what we've already done to cut greenhouse gas emissions the bill is yet another component of a no regrets approach to tackle the problem of climate change while simultaneously being mindful of our economy and domestic energy security along with advancing a renaissance in nuclear power if you combine this legislation what we've already done on lighting standards cafe appliance standards building standards and others we're talking about major emission reductions without cap and trade energy prices drive our economy as the price of gasoline has skyrocketed due in part to policies that limit access to american energy resources it is absolutely critical that electricity rates do not follow suit for decades opponents of american made energy of want to block domestic oil production and as a result we import nearly seventy percent of our oil and prices reach new highs almost every day the new target is coal america's most affordable and abundant energy resource and if we block american coal likely blocked american oil our electricity rates will soon match and exceed what we're paying for gasoline working american families cannot afford such irrational policies it is imperative that we continue to take advantage of our nation's vast coal reserves which have the promise to read produce clean and affordable power for generations in our quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect the environment we must promote exist exciting new clean coal technologies that will not only keep costs down for consumers but also foster new jobs in a strong economy these technologies exhibit great promise and encouraging investment in carbon cap will be able to responsibly fortify our nation's energy supply with american made energy and protect the pocketbooks of our nation's consumers as well and the added benefit of c c s is that it can be and currently is being conducted for enhanced oil recovery according to a deal sassaman conducted in ten known domestic oil basins not the entire us an estimated eighty nine billion barrels of additional oil could be technically recoverable by applying the state of the c o two technology this is truly i think a win win let's be honest our constituents are interested in what we are doing in congress to address record oil prices and enhanced our overall energy security global warming is lower on that list yet the legislation that we've examined prior to this hearing would not only send higher and would not only send energy prices higher but also make the u s less energy secure this legislation i think will protect the environment as well as our economy there are members of this committee who have introduced legislation that would block any new coal fired power plant without c c s my colleagues are serious about reducing emissions while keeping energy affordable i would ask them to join us sponsoring this legislation that we're disgusting that we're discussing today surprisingly none of the fifteen co sponsors of that bill have co sponsored this bill which would ensure c c s becomes available by ensuring carbon capture and storage we won't need to set arbitrary mandates that will send electricity rates through the roof in american jobs overseas by using the legislative approach in this bill we can avoid a costly cap and trade regime that will have no impact on emissions from the developing world instead we would ban c c s technology that will eight u s jobs and provide the opportunity to export u s energy security will be strengthened and will be able to help china and india came clean and affordable energy and working americans will be better off i would urge my colleagues to co sponsor the legislation again thank you for having this hearing today and i would yield back thank you very much upton the gentleman from pennsylvania mr doyle those who are recognized for three minutes thank you mr chairman i would like to begin my remarks by welcoming a constituent who's traveled here to washington t share his expertise with us dr edward reuben is a professor at carnegie mellon university in pittsburgh he has done extensive work on carbon capture and sequestration and we're all looking forward to his insights as we try to facilitate the rol of these critical technologies as congress moves forward to develop climate change legislation it is critical that we ensure that our energy portfolio is as diverse as possible as we attempt to address the dual concerns of global warming and energy independence we must develop new alternatives like solar wind and hydro power but we must also work to ensure that we were able to use the fuels that currently power our country in the most environmentally sustainable way possible today mr chairman over fifty percent of the united states and over sixty percent of the world is powered by coal pennsylvania alone has a two hundred fifty year supply of this cheap resource however despite its ample supply and cheap price tag the burning of coal as we use it today must be improved if we are ever going to address the threat of global warming over the past several decades various improvements have been made on carbon capture and sequestration technologies these technologies which allow for carbon to be removed from our smokestacks and instead injected back into the ground and are not new they have been in use for years in places such as texas in order to achieve enhanced oil recovery however these technologies have not been used at the scale which will be required if we are going to remove carbon from our industrial transportation or utility sectors simply stated the time is now for congress to act to encourage c c s advancement and deployment for this reason i'm pleased to join chairman vulture and ranking member barton in co sponsoring the carbon capture storage early deployment act why have a few concerns with the bill especially as it pertains to what role the national energy technology lab may have in the program i am strongly supportive of this committee's efforts i look forward to working closely with chairman boucher to improve this bill so that the final product we bring to the floor will be as effective as possible in facilitating the wide demonstration of carbon capture and storage technologies mr chairman i applaud you for your efforts here i will continue to do all i can to ensure that this nation continues to move forward with our energy policies you'll back the balance of my time thank you very much mr doyle and i very much appreciate your co patronage of this measure and strong support for it in the contributions you made to its construction the gentleman from kentucky mr whitfield is recognized for three minutes mr chairman thank you i also want to commend you for introducing the carbon capture and storage early deployment act which is vitally important to the economics  environmental health of this country we recognize that there's been a lot of talk by a lot of different groups about the importance of developing carbon capture seaquest ration projects and to develop them and yet i think that in dr ruben c'est mona he pointed out which i think is a fact that not a single large scale project at a coal plant anywhere in the world is in place today and as you well know our government canceled its future gen project in el annoyed just three or four months ago because the cost of escalated from eight hundred fifty million to one point eight billion so this legislation is vitally important it may not be in its perfect form but that's the reason we have hearings to have experts like this group of witnesses to help us look at ways to improve this so we welcome their expertise and advice i might also say that it's my understanding in the u s that the from electricity we're producing about one point five billion t carbon dioxide a year and that's my understanding will provide about one billion dollars a year to help develop a project which is vitally important if it is our most abundant resource it does give us the best opportunity to be competitive with other nations around the world for economic development and maintaining relatively low energy cost although obviously carbon dioxide capture will  be quite expensive we know that i look forward to working with you mr chairman and others as we continue our efforts in this area thank you very much mister the gentleman from michigan the chairman of the full committee mr dingell is recognized for five minutes mr chairman first of all thank you for holding this hearing it is most important and i want to commend you not only for that but simply work that you continue to change hearings that have been held by the subcommittee over the past few months a number of key themes have emerged but none more central than the following combating global climate change will require that we make deep cuts in our greenhouse gas emissions even as we meet our future energy demands united states currently generates more than fifty percent of its electricity through the use of coal fuel that much continue to be a part of our energy mix and i intend that that shall be so for that to be possible however had a carbon constrained world a robust carbon capture and sequestration program is necessary on a scale that does not exist today a survey of current carbon capture and sequestration or c c s technologies reveals that constituent elements of an overall strategy are not yet fully integrated or fully understood the first several promising capture technologies have been demonstrated on a small scale but have yet to be deployed at the commercial level because of concerns about cost and energy penalties second liquid c o two is transported in pipelines today but building additional infrastructure necessary for national c c s pipeline program represents a unique set of challenges finally c o two has been sequestered underground for decades during enhanced oil recovery and this is a valuable use for this resort but not on the massive scale needed for continued use of coal as a fuel source in a carbon constrained environment clearly a comprehensive strategy with an adequate and appropriate source revenue is needed today the committee will examine one it could also help facilitate a comprehensive deployment strategy in time to make the emissions reduction the size scientists have determined are needed to prevent further damage to this planet mr chairman again i commend you for holding this hearing it is most timely and i praise you for presenting a bold solution to this challenge i look more to look forward to learning more about the issue from our witnesses today sponsor of this bill thanks for your hard work the united states is basically electricity independent we can't say that about liquid fuels in this country and that's really the current major debate we're having on the floor about trying to decrease or reliance on imported crude oil but for electricity we are basically independent and when we are producing electricity and we're doing it independently that's american jobs both in our coal mines in  coal fired generation plants and that has to remain part fifty percent of all electricity that we generate today comes from coal that's one of the concerns i have with the current house leadership we may do a lot of work here but based upon a hill brief on june twenty fifth bush backed energy fund stalled by frank and pelosi citing concerns by house speaker pelosi that the international clean technology fund backed by the bush administration might be used to build coal burning power plants house financial services chairman barney frank postponed a markup on the bill on tuesday so that's why it's very courageous of you mr chairman to work with us to bring a bill that is a place for coal in the in the generation of electricity this country in the future and for that you should be applauded and that's why we're support we also support all the above we want to be encouraged with wind and solar and renewables but just to keep up with electricity demand by two thousand and thirty we're going to need seven hundred forty seven new coal fired plants fifty two new nuclear power plants two thousand new hydro electric generators and also add thirteen thousand new megawatts of renewable power china is building a new coal fired power plant every two weeks in fact there is a great announce in my district mr chairman i had a coal mine that was closing it is now reopening to sell only coal to china just making a point that i'd rather have that coal be used cleanly in this country to create low cost power to keep manufacturing jobs in this country so i thank you for holding this  hearing it's very important that we do something and not nothing and we move to deploy technology now so that we're prepared to debate the other options that we may have to debate in this succeeding congress and i know that my time thank you very much mr shimkus and thank you for your co patronage of the measure as well the general lady from california ms metz who is recognized for three minutes thank you mr chairman i'm very pleased to be here today and thank you for calling  hearing i'd also like to thank today's panelists for joining us this gus important subject of carbon capture and storage i look forward to hearing all of the expert opinions this committee heard only two weeks ago about the urgent repercussions that will face if we do not seriously address the issue of climate change we've also heard about the daunting scope of that task to tackle this enormous challenge we must have all the available resources at our disposal this is why i encouraged that we are looking into a wide variety of technologies to help us confront global warming from solar to biomass to where and today carbon storage this committee needs to fully investigate what is available and what will best reverse this troubling course we are heading down fossil fuels currently meet the vast majority of our energy needs so are not need we will not be able to abandon them immediately however we know that burning these the at more research is critically important improving and perfecting the technologies we will need carbon capture and storage pose great promise for reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases it could afford us the time we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels without destroying our planet in the process and show other countries or leadership the direly needed on this issue however we must use any new technology safely and effectively and carbon capture remains to be fully tested my home state of california has so many environmental issues so contaminated ground water to severe smog so i want to ensure that any new technologies we use do not adversely affect the health of our population while we must embrace new technologies we cannot do so expansive clean water clean air and our health as a mother and grandmother i'm constantly reminded of the importance of leaving a safe livable and sustainable planet to future generations that is why i am so pleased with the active and constructive evers this committee has been taking and i look forward to learning more about the issue recognized for five minutes thank you mr chairman i appreciate having an opportunity to be a regional sponsor of this legislation it may surprise some people but i do believe that we need to develop the technology to capture and store capture and convert c o two regardless of the outcome of the global warming debate i'm a believer in efficiency in technology advance and if we can use this vehicle to have the united states of america and our private and public institutions develop such technology it can be anything but a good thing for the for the world community so my guess is that this is the only bill that might actually become law this year we're pointing a pathway forward that members of regardless of their position or party affiliation can work together to do something that's good for the country the bill before us sets up a  assess the consumers of electricity in this country a small fee similar to what we did on the nuclear waste spawn thirty years ago approximately and use that money to develop the technologies that would captur store or capture and convert and i think the word converts very important because it appears to me that conversion technology may be much more cost effective than then storage technology hadn't had and worked hard and mr upton to to put this bill together so i hope we have a good hearing today i want to commend our witnesses most of whom i know personally for being here and  hopefully this will result in a markup and a bill going to the floor that can be supported and sent to the other body and i have a formal statement i'll submit for the record but again proud to be a sponsor and i look forward to perfecting the bill and open mark up and moving it to the floor mr barton thank you very much and i truly appreciate your call patronage and the many contributions you made to constructing this measure as it was being discussed at its early stages the gentleman from massachusetts mr markey recognized for three minutes thank you mr chairman and i thank you for convening this hearing to talk about solutions to climate change in the excellent panel which you have put together i believe that with successful carbon capture and storage that coal can be an important part of our energy future for that reason i support bonding for carbon capture and storage as part of a comprehensive  strategy to combat global warming but i do have reservations about a piecemeal approach and whether that's an effective way to achieve our shared goals of cutting global warming pollution and growing our  economy we need to provide a level playing field for all clean energy technologies to compete and we need assurances that our investments will curb global warming pollution the best way to do this is through economy wide climate legislation with mandatory emission cuts such legislation can fund investments in c c s renewable energy and other clean technologies while guaranteeing environmental results and protecting american bill raises a number of concerns the bill imposes a one billion dollar per year tax increase on americans for ten years no guaranteed environmental benefit now some of my friends across the aisle who last month complain the global warming bills will impose higher costs on consumers and now sponsoring this ten billion dollar tax increase that's fine but it's a different story line than we heard just a month ago and second i believe that we should advance c c s by replumbing and expanding the department of energy's existing programs which are subject to congressional oversight instead this bill takes ten billion dollars in tax payers money and handed over as a blank check to a new private corporation run by twelve industry representatives it allows that corporation to spend ten billion dollars however wants with no benchmarks success no review costs no public participation and no government oversight whatsoever i am not aware of any precedent was such a program c c s does have to be a big part of our future if we're going to solve the problem of the relationship between coal and global warming i look forward to working part of a comprehensive approach i thank you john thank you very much mr markey the gentle lady from tennessee ms blackburn is recognized for three minutes thank you mr chairman i appreciate your good work and for holding the hearing today i appreciate the work of the ranking member and i want to thank all of our witnesses who are here today i am one of those that still has some pretty serious concerns about congress mandating this technology and then spending lots of taxpayer money on developing it first the liability in environmental hazards are issues that i think still need to be addressed and currently scientist in utah are preparing to inject millions of tons of c o two into the ground and they state that carbon sequestration is low risk and safe but they can't guarantee that for the long term and then if you have a natural disaster and it's really into the groundwater or oil and gas reserves then who pays for the release in the contamination and the responsibilities they are there is another issue that is of concern to us and there's research out of columbia university that indicates the possibility is real and since carbon sequestration is likely to be located near cities that it could cause damage in case of earthquakes and it could be an inducer of earthquakes and memphis is in my district and of course that is near the new mantra at fault and if industries in th area have to use carbon sequestration then the concerns with something that would precipitate an earthquake certainly are very valid concerns in that fault zone and another issue is how fast carbon sequestration technology can be developed and how it cost its costs will be borne by the marketplace and mr chairman i've got a new york times study that talks about this and rather than quoting from it i would like to ask unanimous consent to place the new york times article on those reports in the record with my statement without objection and thank you mr chairman one of the most optimistic projection have is that some of this technology would be available by twenty thirty is still a long way away that we are also seeing that this can lead to raising electricity rates of course we know that is going to be borne by the american consumer and if this country decides to cap greenhouse emissions congress must avoid picking winners and losers there is available technology to capture c o two and convert it to fuel for transportation and electric power generation those deserve our consideration and deserve a review i thank you for the hearing and i'm looking forward to our witnesses and i yelled the balance of my time thank you very much ms blackburn the gentle lady from wisconsin  baldwin is recognized for three minutes thank you mr chairman i appreciate your holding this hearing and i know that a lot of your time and hard work has gone into crafting the language of the carbon capture and storage early deployment act and for that i am very appreciative it has already been established that climate change is real and that it poses serious threats to our economy our environment and our national security and clearly it is time for us to act  address this growing crisis one of the ways that we can begin to lessen the effects of climate change is through investments in research and development of carbon capture and storage technology a carbon capture and storage program is key t addressing our reliance on coal to produce electricity while finding a method for disposing of its harmful emissions in wisconsin we've begun to examine carbon capture technology  energies pleasant prairie power plant located in konoha wisconsin launched a ten million dollar pilot project earlier this year to capture a portion of the c o two produced as coal is burned the plant is the first of its kind in the united states and has the potential to capture ninety percent of the c o two emitted emits from one percent of the flue gas that they are currently capturing but as we all know the problem is what to do with the c o two once it has been captured and certainly we need more research into this issue while i appreciate the work that has gone into crafting the carbon capture and storage early deployment act i do have a couple of concerns first as i believe some of our witnesses will point out i'm concerned that the funds being collected coming from our ratepayers are slowly being used to back industry for carbon capture and storage but not also investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency and i'm concerned about the added cost that will be placed on all ratepayers perhaps without state regulatory oversight finally i have some questions about exactly how the funds will be used for instance will they apply to research into transportation of c o two and will they be used for research into liability issues my concerns a centrally stem from the knowledge that among other states wisconsin appears to lack the geological formations necessary for storage as a result we will likely need to transport c o two by a pipeline system to or oil and gas fields coal seams and deep sa not found in the illinois basin mr chairman i agree that a large financial investment in carbon capture and storage technology is necessary to make its full scale deployment a reality i appreciate your holding this hearing today to examine your bill and the larger issues at hand and i look forward to hearing from our panel of witnesses today thank you mr chairman i yield back thank you very much for those thoughtful remarks the gentleman from washington is recognized for three minutes thank you and i too want to add my appreciation of the chair moving the research and development effort forward and he has been most gracious working on this and i've been talking to the chair about a couple other issues that might dovetail if this bill advances and i appreciate him getting the congress to focus on r and d but i do with some my colleagues have some is successful and i support r and d for carbon capture and sequestration i think it's appropriate as one of the very large smorgasbord of technologies that we hope will work but if we do this and we spend several billion dollars perfecting a carbon sequestration technology for coal but if we never if if we never adopt a cap and trade system and there's no never any price on carbon nobody will ever use this wonderful technology and it is a little bit difficult to justify the expenditure of billions of dollars of taxpayers money for technology that the some of the supporters will never it will affect policies that will assure that it will never be utilized and i remember talking to president bush about this when he was gracious enough to come to our retreat last year who he was also pushing c c s research i just said this is great stuff but it will just sit on the shelf and never be used unless there's some price on carbon in the c o two cap so you know we're and i think that we need to address these issues together i may also add that if we do do a cap and trade system with an option the revenue source for this research will come from the polluting industries not from the consumers now there's a pass to the consumers as we know but i suspect given a choice our constituents would prefer an auction system where the polluting industries contribute to the resource base to pay for this is better than a surtax right on to the consumers bill so i hope that at some point we will address these things together i share my colleagues concern that if we're going to do a big r and d program by necessity has to include all of the technologies involved including when the deal we three weeks ago concluded dipper could provide twenty percent of our electricity and if you're watching c n n your old oil guy now run an ad saying listen we can do twenty percent of our system and more through wind solar thermal solar photovoltaic enhanced geothermal in the whole nine yards so i think we have some more work to do on this but again i want to thank the chair for his leadership on this you well thank you very much mr inslee and we look forward to working with you also as we refine this measure and hopefully will earn your support and let me just say for my part i certainly agree that we need to have a mandatory control on carbon dioxide emissions and that will be a necessary second step will be taken as soon as is possible the gentleman from utah mr matheson is recognized for three minutes well thank you mr chairman for your leadership on this issue i'm pleased to be a co sponsor of h r sixty two fifty eight i believe that one of the current challenges to implementing a cap and trade system to address climate change is a lack of ratably available technology among other innovations we need to see why recognize the carbon has already been captured and used in some circumstances in the enhanced oil recovery process there are clearly significant challenges regarding the deployment of full scale commercial carbon and sequestration i'm also concerned we don't know enough right now about the long term implications of storing all the carbon that we would need to house in a carbon constrained future geological variations across our nation for instance present significant challenges to storage if that's the case we need to be thinking about what to do with carbon emissions in parts of the country where storage is viable and developing these technologies will be necessary for the us to meet long term c o two reduction targets and i believe we should start this  intensive research and development process sooner rather than later however i also caution that this type of program must remain accountable and i believe that as the that as written the bill might benefit from stronger standards for ensuring that the public's money is being well spent on truly promising projects one of the questions i hope we answer today is how can congress the corporations sure that the public funds are used for projects that would not otherwise receive private sector funding how do we encourage the develop instead of just subsidizing the easy projects that would probably be funded by the private sector alone i'm also concerned about ensuring that this program is seed money for future technology development efforts i think what we're doing today should be part of a larger technology development strategy this program should not be depleted nor should it become a fund for pet projects i see h r sixty two fifty eight as an opportunity to jump start a necessary component of addressing climate change and finally i believe we should resolve issues such as the question of who would my time thank you very much mr matheson the gentleman from north carolina mr butterfield is recognized for three minutes thank you very much mr chairman first let me apologize for being late i just left a meeting and was unavoidably detained but thank you very much for convening this hearing today and thank you for your leadership on this issue mr chairman despite the what i view as irrefutable evidence there seems to remain a skepticism and doubt regarding the need for immediate action on climate change legislation and this will continue to delay us from our task of generating policies that will signal both public and private world that a green future is indeed inevitable despite this we can take meaningful steps to ramp up technological innovation and deployment such as the bill that we are considering today the authors of this legislation wisely understand that creating a green up theater will require a transition from our current energy and for structure to the next coal which is abundant and expensive in our country must be a part of that transition coal is responsible for over half of the electricity generated in the u s and is especially critical to the southeast it is prolific and its utility and carbon capture and storage will provide a useful to transitioning coal into a greener for years to come it is therefore imperative that we encourage development as well as its proliferation at a commercial level as soon as possible i'm proud of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their bipartisan support i hope that we can see this type of  continue to and address the important issue of climate change policy and it will require an attitude of compromise from all of us and i especially want to welcome all of our witnesses today and extend a special welcome to my fellow north carolinian james carr who is a commissioner with our utilities commission in north carolina jim was born and goes bar which is in my congressional district and i'm pleased that he has taken the time to join us today to offer his testimony on this registration thank you mr chairman yield back thank you very much mr butterfield the gentleman from georgia mr barrow is recognized for three minutes i thank the chair to one apologize for being late but as the chairman may know i am back and thousand back and forth between two hearings that  barrow we will add three minutes to your time for questioning our witnesses today since she waived an opening statement that completes the opening statements of the members present at this time we welcome our panel of this is i want to thank each of them for their carefully prepared and thoughtful testimony we welcome this morning mr michael morris the president the chairman of the chief operating officer of american electric power dr steven spector the president and chief executive officer of the electric power research institute mr eugene trust go counsel to the united mine workers of america dr edward reuben the alumni professor of environmental engineering and science at the carnegie mellon university in pittsburgh mr james carr commissioner of the north carolina utilities commission and mr michael good a former counsel to this committee who is the legislative director for climate at the national resources defense council without objection all of your prepared written statements will be made a part of the record we would welcome your oral summaries and ask that they be kept to approximately five minutes and mr morris will begin with you thank you very much mr chairman it's an honor to be here again to speak to this subcommittee particularly on a subject as important as this and seeing the bipartisan nature of it that you and ranking member upton brought to this very important piece of legislation is impressive to say the least having heard some of the comments of your colleagues on the panel ever i continue to be concerned about the likelihood of us taking this most important first step all of these issues cannot be handled in a single piece of legislation and the unknown is about what a single piece of legislation might yield for the country surely ought to be in the back of our minds all we have to do is think of biofuels in a larger sense so if we take this piece and think it through in a logical way you have heard for me before and many of my colleagues testify to this committee and the larger committee both here and in the senate on the un availability of the technology to ted de allowing coal to continue as a critical source of electrical generation in this country you don't need to look very much further than our own shores to see what happens to an economy when it runs out of baseload power generation south africa's economy has been affected in all of two thousand and eight china's economy where the story today in the wall street journal is being affected now with the lack of a slope our generation and it's clear that these kinds of challenges are not that far off for this country if we don't get about addressing the issue of allowing call to play near and long term the availability of this carbon capture and storage technology will allow coal to continue to play and i don't know that i heard from any of your colleagues any opposition to that because it's just plain true in this country is fifty percent electrically fuelled by coal the world in fact is fifty percent electrified by coal and that will continue no matter what we do in the halls of this congress so seeing the bipartisan nature and the support of what you put together is really quite impressive and we thank you for that does the bill have some points that could be addressed i'm sure that it does but i think my colleagues from the united mine workers so the international brotherhood of electrical workers and the utilities who have volunteered to come forward and employ this kind of an approach i think this is a logical way for us to go about doing it and with all respect and i mean this from the bottom my heart but as  participating participant in this democracy keeping the money out of the hands of the administrative arm of the federal government is one way to ensure that something happens and that's why you're seeing so much strong support for or this bill as it comes forward this is not tax money this is a fee on top of the electric rate that my five point one million customers pay and that quite honestly the many millions of customers the three hundred million plus customers in this country pay intended to address this very important issue in a very realistic way as i have said before this is not the clean air act amendments of one thousand nine hundred one nine hundred ninety where technology was available we didn't want to do it we as an industry i surely standing here on behalf of american electric power and our twenty thousand plus people on our five million customers are saying we would love to do this please let us pass this enabling legislation handle this very first piece so that we can bring you demonstrations that show carbon capture and storage is a viable technology because coal has to play in this endeavor as we go forward the congresswoman from wisconsin points to the way energy project that we're all part of my company and many of my colleagues it's the very first important step and it is a pure research project that's being directed by operate the electric power research institute which steve will surely speak on behalf  and will do so matter better than i will now is a great organization to do that work the concept in the construct of how this corporation will come together to allow these projects to come forward is exactly what we need to do it is  pinpointed toward carbon capture and storage it not all be pin pointed at solar and wind and efficiency we all believe in that and we're all working on that but you have created with your colleagues a very workable piece of legislation that will help us address this issue we can't solve whether we should go forward carbon capture and storage in a much larger bill of a cap and trade program that's a debate for another day this is not means in any way shape or form to know not have that debate and not see that legislation but all of that will be folly if we don't know if this technology works so i think for a one time in my career we have the cart and the horse and the appropriate alignment and we should go forward and pass this get it to the floor get a companion piece like this out of the senate and have a piece of legislation that says to the world to both candidates for the presidential election this november america's ready to lead and in fact this piece of legislation will allow us to do that i thank you very much for your creative activity and your steadfast support of the concept of let's do something thank you thank you very much pennsylvania i'm a professor in the department of engineering and public policy at carnegie mellon university my teaching and research focused on problems of energy and environment especially issues related to coal use environmental technologies and climate change over about the past three years i've also worked in a consulting role with the pew center on global climate change to look at alternative policies for accelerating the deployment of c o two capture and storage that work appears to influenced the bill we're discussing here today and i very much appreciate your invitation to comment on it so first let me say that i was extremely pleased to see this bill introduced with bipartisan support following the senate's failure last month to tackle the issue of climate policy it's clear that progress on that issue will require considerably more time no matter who the next president is the great virtue of h r sixty two fifty eight is that it can still allow our country to make urgently needed progress this year i'm a technology that will be critical to whatever climate policy ultimately emerges in the future so today i have three simple points to make the first is that to capture and storage is a critical technology for bridging the nation's energy and environmental objectives it's the only way we know to reconcile the realities importance of coal use with the need to dramatically reduce c o two emissions to climate change therefore we should not be laid demonstrating its application in the electric power sector which is the largest source of c o two in the us today my point too is that several full scale projects are needed urgently to ensure that c c s can be used safely effectively and reliably in power plant applications this need for full scale demonstrations is widely recognized but funding for such projects has not yet been forthcoming my estimate is that the full cost of building a c o two capture and storage system at a nominal four hundred megawatt power plant and operating it for five years is somewhere between seven hundred million and one billion dollars per project as best i've been able to tell there is today not a single large scale c c s project at a coal fired power plant anywhere in the world with the full financing needed to proceed at that scale and so in the absence of a strong policy mandate h r sixty two fifty eight would overcome this obstacle in a very creative and efficient way by spreading the cost of demonstrations over a broad set of stakeholders all of whom will benefit from the outcome of these projects ultimately all consumers of fossil fuel electricity would bear the cost under these bills but my estimate is that the cost to an average residential customer will be no more than a penny a day per household or about three to five dollars a year that's an even smaller amount than the committee's estimate of ten to twelve dollars a year which in fact i believe is an error and i provided details of that to the committee staff my point three is that several changes to the current draft i think are needed to make it  effective and more acceptable in my written testimony about lyme sic specific changes i would recommend most important i think is the need to define more explicitly and more narrowly the mission of the corporation  typically to a scale of several hundred megawatts each given that mission i would strongly urge that the language in section four b of the bill be deleted that language muddles and diffuse is the purpose of this bill it would put the corporation in the same business as a variety of other organizations whose mission is to support and carry out research and development principally the apartment of energy and the electric power research institute unquestionably is critical but it should not be the mission of this corporation that i would also suggest that the word research be dropped from the proposed name of the corporation instead following the title of the bill it should be called something like the carbon capture and storage deployment corporation or more simply the c c s deployment corporation finally i would recommend that the composition of the board of directors of the corporation be modified to include representatives of other key stakeholder groups this is necessary i think both to broaden the expertise and perspectives of the board and also to strengthen its external credibility and public trust while most board members should be drawn from electric power organizations i believe at least two members should be drawn from non utility industries and at least two from public organizations for example non utility industrial members might be drawn from segments of the oil and gas industry which today has the most experience and expertise and operations the public member should include at least one government representatives from the department of energy and one non governmental member such as from an environmental n g o s or even an academic organization with these modifications i believe sixty two fifty eight if enacted this year will indeed be a critical piece of legislation that will greatly facilitate future progress on climate policy energy policy and the reduction of c o two emissions and so i'm happy to offer my penny a day in support of this bill i brought along some additional extra pennies in case anybody else at the table would like to join me thank you mr chairman for your attention thank you very much dr reuben and for your endorsement of this measure dr specter thank you very much mr chairman  three points first every thirty five years experience as a collaborative public interest research development and deployment organization for the electricity sector makes us well suited to house the carbon storage research corporation it is the type of role that every is designed to perform second our proven governance and operating model well enable every to properly and efficiently stablished the needed structures and processes to launch the corporation third our extensive experience in helping lead large scale technology demonstrations provides confidence that we can successfully fulfill the  object of this legislation let me briefly expand on several of these points every single aberdeen governance model compares favorably to the governance and management structure that's proposed in the legislation our activities are shaped by advice from public as well as different private sector and government viewpoints our board of directors has thirty three members including representation from federal unison bull cooperative and investor owned utilities we also have six x terminal directors who are typically drawn from academia and the broader business community our management and our board draw upon the experiences and viewpoints of our advisory council which consists of thirty leaders from the environmental academic labor business and regulatory communities very importantly our charter requires that we include ten state public utility commissioners on our advisory council our advisory council helps us consider the impact of societal and public policy needs when we evaluate the direction of our various programs it's also important to note that every is not a trade association the i r s recognizes us as a five zero one c three tax exempt scientific research organization which is charted to operate in the public interest and for the public benefit and we take that obligation very seriously we conduct our activities with objectivity and scientific integrity our agenda is very simple find the most effective solutions to help solve the most important challenges associated with providing the public with a reliable affordable and environmentally responsible electricity regarding our experience we are recognized both in the u s and internationally as an organization that really lead large scale demonstrations we work closely with industry participants governmental agencies equipment manufacturers and you tell elise and in doing this have helped lead major programs let me give you a few examples demonstration the environmental control technology center which every constructed and operated from one nine hundred eighty nine to one nine hundred ninety nine demonstrated technologies for controlling solver nitric oxide and particularly donations from coal base generation a very important to the advance light water reactor program a one billion dollars public private partnership that operated for over a decade was coordinated by operate in cooperation with the s department of energy utilities and reactor suppliers most recently in the carbon capture and storage area we've been providing collaborative leadership for several important pre commercial carbon capture and storage demonstrations as i'd like to close with a couple comments on the scale of the funding proposed by this legislation the amount the one billion dollars per year is consistent with that are provided by the number number of independent studies the national cal dollars per year in addition our own work supports that we have a number of somewhere from seven hundred million to a billion dollars in that range per year for c c s in summary we support the need for a very focused demonstration and i'll emphasize the demonstration part of this is not research development primarily commercial scale demonstrations for the development of large scale projects to advance the commercial of a liability of s very importantly i agree with the previous speaker this is not there's no are in this this is not research this is large scale commercial demonstration of this technology we're honored to be asked to play a role in its success and look forward to the opportunity thank you thank you very much mr carr thank you mr chairman vice chairman butterfield ranking members barton my name is jim carr i'm a member of the north carolina utility commission media past president of a rig and i guess as a matter of full disclosure i am a member of the advisory council we thank the chairman and the sponsors for this important piece of legislation and for the opportunity to provide the perspective of the national association of regulatory utility commissioners nehru supports the policy goals of this legislation and the need for broad based funding mechanisms that match the resources committed to the magnitude of the challenge and a recall so supports the policy goals of legislation to expedite the commercial application of carbon capture and storage as one option to begin addressing the revolution in energy production and delivery technologies needed if the united states expects to make a serious effort to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in response to the threat of global climate change we strongly agree with the underlying assumption of the authors of this legislation that a solution to the technological and research and development challenges of greenhouse gas mitigation is an all budget mechanism that is supported formation and governance of the c s r see where trouble that there is no governmental role or regulatory oversight involved in the formation of the corporation or its ongoing operations despite the fact that the corporation is intended to be funded through rates paid by retail consumers who have no alternative but to pay the fees we believe that there should be a duty on the part of every written into the legislation to consult with regulators and other stakeholders before the referendum is conducted specifically the subcommittee could amend section three a of the bill to provide the distribution until it is voting in the referendum in favor of a stabbing the corporation certified to the independent audit infirm that their respective retail regulator support their vote with the knowledge that the fees imposed by the bill will be automatically passed through to their customers concerning the sees operations once form recommend the legislation be revised to specify a role for representatives of regulators and consumers this could be accomplished by amending section three c to include such wrappers in taishan on the c s r seaboard in addition to the industry representatives they are listed or back creating a separate advisory council for the c s r say modeled after the current every advisory council board of directors we also recommend that legislation specifically provide that the c s r see consult with representatives of regulators and consumers as it prepares its budget and research agenda under section four and that the legislation specifically required the corporation provide its annual report an audit each day commission with jurisdiction second we have strong reservations about the inclusion in the bill of section eight a on the cost recovery of the fees this section is problematic for a host of reasons as drafted the legislation would authorize utilities to vote to exempt exempt themselves from any regulatory oversight to recover calls from captive right payers this is unprecedented while congress has preempted state authority in other areas of energy and telecommunications policy in practice we know of no other example where has given private entities the ability to band together to exempt themselves from a lawful application of other was applicable state law in addition h r six to five a treats the consumer service investor owned utilities less favorably than customers of publicly owned utilities such as municipal cooperative utilities while section eight of the bill appears to apply equally to consumer survey distribution utilities public and private there is a significant difference because the regulators of municipal and cooperative utility systems are the publicly owned and managed utilities themselves their consumers have a say in how their utilities vote in the referendum to establish this the s r c and thereby become subject to the fees imposed by the legislation by contrast neither the consumers know the regulators of investor owned utilities have any say in whether the dish their distributors will subject their consumers to these same fees it may well be argued that because the fees established under h r six two five eight only amount to ten to twelve dollars per residential customer per year section eight is of little consequence however for retail regulators charged under a law to protect the interest of consumers who remain captive to the distributors this is an important matter of principle regardless of the amounts in question congress should not sanction a system where the monopoly providers of an essential service agree among themselves to charge consumers these that they cannot avoid from any regulatory oversight at either the state or federal level regardless of how worthy the purpose moreover we are deeply troubled by the press and this bill would establish for other utility fees and charges for other worthy purposes we are aware of bills pending that would mandate the recovery of calls for new investments in the electric transmission facilities compliance with greenhouse gas emission reductions and power purchase from unknowable technologies to name but a few but as a matter of principle in practical application we would strongly urge congress to let retail regulators do their jobs the sta commissions understand this responsibility and we last year passed a resolution endorsing the timely recovery of raise more prudently incurred calls frankly we expect that state commissions that would be most affected by these fees established in the bill would support recover these calls and write simply because of the benefit they as large consumers of fossil base electricity would reap from this legislation i would note to our knowledge no state regulators have refused to pass through the calls under the new the cost that nucular utilities contribute to the nuclear waste on which operates under a statute the nuclear waste policy act that notably has no provisions mandating that cost be passed on to consumers similarly we have seen little evidence that utilities that voluntarily contribute to efforts current research program have suffered by virtue of this allowances of their contributions third concerning the scope of the bill as i've noted beginning of the statement they would strongly support steps to vance research development deployment to meet the climate challenge accordingly while i understand the interests of the sponsors of h r six two five eight having carbon capture and storage the clearly other areas in the utility sector and beyond that cry out for greater commitment for research development and demonstration while it is not necessarily the burden of the authors of this bill to address other technologies and we look forward to working with this subcommittee our colleagues at africa and other stakeholders to fashion search agenda that enables the nation to reduce carbon emissions as quickly efficiently and that canonically and realistically as possible thank you and i'll be happy to answer questions thank you very much mr kerr mr trist will be happy to hear from  you thank you chairman boucher ranking member upton and members of the subcommittee i'm very pleased to be here today to testify on behalf of the united mine workers of america says support of h r sixty two fifty eight this bill provides an essential foundation for national climate change legislation by establishing a secure non budget source of financing for demonstrating the technical feasibility of carbon capture and storage technologies c c s technologies are the only means for assuring that domestic coal can continue to supply the majority of our electric generating needs in a carbon constrained environment the us supports national climate change legislation the union is mindful however that imprudent climate change legislation potentially represents the greatest threat to its membership and of the continued use of coal more than half of our nation's electricity is generated by coal principle and a large base load power plants intermittent renewables such as wind energy cannot replace baseload coal and usually are backed up with natural gas at the margin our gas supplies are imported from canada and from on stable foreign markets in the form of l i n g h r sixty two fifty eight represents a major step forward in advancing the technologies that will allow coal to be consumed in a carbon constrained environment it will help us once and for all to put to rest the myth of dirty coal in january two thousand and eight u s e p a s advance coal technology work group representing a boy rod a ray of stakeholders including the mine workers unanimously recommended that congress immediately enact legislation to create an early deployment fund to defray the additional costs and ris s technologies this recommendation was not tied to or in any manner contingent upon in ackman a broader climate change legislation the work group recommended raising approximately one billion annually through non budget mechanisms such as temporary fees on fossil fuel actress city h r sixty two fifty eight translates these recommendations to reality it calls for the creation of an industry operated carbon storage research corporation to assess modest fees on electricity from coal oil and gas reflecting the relative c o two emissions of each fuel type in short the bill embraces the polluter pays princip rexx that projects to be supported should be geographically diverse using a variety of coal and other fossil fuels and employing carbon capture technologies that could be used on new or existing power plants the bill also provides for research entities collectively supporting major projects that have the greatest promise of demonstrating the technical and economic feasibility of c c s moreover the us must take the lead in this stablish ing the technical viability of c c s for use both here and abroad the world's ability to stabilise future global c o two concentrations depends upon the willingness of major developing economies like india and china to accept meaningful commitments to reduce their future rate of emissions our leadership in c c s technologies is critical to the world's ability to use coal in an environmentally responsible manner as the e p a workgroup recognized we cannot depend entirely upon the appropriations process to deliver the magnitude of financial support needed to commercialize these technologies by providing a more stable form of long term support this bill can create the bases for independent private financing of coal based energy technologies that otherwise might never get off the drawing board mr chairman the u m w conveys its sincere appreciation for the leadership that you sir have taken in moving this bill forward to attract a broad bipartisan basis of support the union stands ready to work with you and the committee to do whatever it can to help make this program a reality thank you thank you very much mr tresco mr group german boucher and ranking member upton thank you for holding this hearing on h r sixty two fifty eight the carbon capture store and storage early deployment act my name is michael glue the climate legislative director for the natural resources defense council we appreciate the opportunity testif chairman boucher the introduction of this legislation marks yet another step forward in our search for the solution to the problem of global warming but we believe it must be part of a comprehensive package of measures i want to commend you for taking on and chairman upton and the other members of the committee who have co sponsored this bill for taking on directly one of the most important and toughest challenges in the global warming arena that is the role of coal combustion and we're trying to find ways to encourage early deployment of carbon capture and disposal technologies to help us stop global warming as soon as possible we really need your leadership in this area as a global warming debate has progressed too often we tend to focus on areas of disagreement and not enough on areas of agreement so i'd like to begin by emphasizing some of the things that i hope most or even all of us can agree on first urgent action to combat global warming is required immediately second that emissions of c o two from the burning of coal are a major source of global warming third for some time to come we will continue to use coal as part of our energy mix for since we will likely continue to use substantial amounts of coal we must ensure that appointment of technologies to capture and dispose of c o two from coal and fifth and perhaps most importantly it will always be cheaper to vent c o two into the atmosphere than to capture and store it these are things that i hope we can agree on but turning to something that i expect there will be less agreement but which is still true i wish to emphasize that we have the technology now to start to deploy the first wave of carbon capture and sequestration technologies i don't expect you steps at face value for me i'm an environmentalist so but i would also ask that you not accept that positions from people who have vested financial interests to the opposite in delaying limits on carbon capture and storage i don't expect you to believe me but you should listen to the words of the president chairman of b p america robert malone in testimony before congress this year and he said deploying c c s at scale is not as much a question of technology availability but of economic viability c c s is available today to play a significant role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change that's not my words those are his words so what is needed then is an appropriate economic incentive for deployment not further research and development that will serve as an excuse for a delay many companies already such as an argy to already acting now in anticipation of caps on global warming pollution and are building facilities to capture and dispose of their c o two they are not so much worried about the technology as they are about the economics the single most effective thing that one could do to encourage more early deployment of c c s technology is doing that cap and trade legislation that would provide a price signal to power producers using coal there is an old saying give a man a fish feed him for it for a day teach a man to fish feed him for a lifetime it's the same thing with c c s if we give you a c c s plant they'll be one they'll be two then maybe three c c s plants put a price cap in place there will be large widespread deployment of c c s technology immediately the industry will learn how to produce electricity and capture and control their carbon without a cap pushing c c s into the marketplace is like using a wet noodle to push a rock uphill it just doesn't work s and these include a fix feed in approach described in my testimony that would provide a substantial subsidy to the earliest adopters of c c s they would create a race to deploy c c s a low carbon generation obligation that functions like a renewable electricity standard and performance standard for coal fired power plants it's like what's already been adopted in california and with regard to the specifics of h r sixty two fifty eight we have some suggestions outlined in my testimony for further ways to improve it efficacy transparency and fairness to consumers which we would be happy to skip to discuss further mr chairman thank you again for your efforts in this regard and for inviting n r d c to testify we look forward to working with you on comprehensive global warming legislation on specific proposals to encourage early deployment of c c s technologies thank you very much mr du and thanks to all of the witnesses for your thoughtful testimony and also for your recommendations on ways that the legislation pending now before the committee can be strengthened we will consider very carefully all of those recommendations dr specker let me begin my questions with you and they are focused on your role as the chief executive officer of every you've made recommendations with regard to the level of funding that would be required for the near term deployments of c c s technologies and my first question to you is whether or not the funding levels required to demonstrate c c s on a large scale and that would be over a ten year period that that's over yeah we actually looked out over twenty five years this c c s in particular over the next ten about a billion dollars a year and when would you anticipate if we expend one billion dollars annually for ten years that c c s would be generally available widely dispersed and various kinds of storage media around the country and affordable for use by electric utilities we've set the aggressive target of twenty two on a for widespread deployment all new called plants beginning operation after two thousand and twenty that's an accelerated schedule but we think it's still doable you mentioned all the new bills after two thousand and twenty would that availability of storage also accommodate retrofit that would be applied to existing coal fired units that's certainly possible i think on the retrofit area is going to be a plant by plant situation the technologies that would be demonstrated for new plants could certainly be applicable to retrofit but th circumstances are going to be different at every plant well understanding that but let's assume that the utilities decide they want to retrofit perhaps to over control in order to achieve the mission allowances that would be tradeable in the market  or in order to meet their compliance they would be free to make those decisions but let's suppose they decide to do that would the storage capacity that is produced by ten years scheduled one billion dollars annually by tw twenty be sufficient to accommodate not only the new bills but also a measure of retrofits on existing facilities i would have to look more specific data data my my view right now would be that those storage locations used for the major demonstrations would have the capacity for some used by retrofit ok it certainly could not let me move on to another question to thank you you have an analysis that shows that the presence or absence of s by the year two thousand and fifty would make a dramatic difference in terms of what the retail electricity rates generally would be across the country your analysis as i read it shows that with c c s the rate would be about nine cents per kilowatt hour in the absence of c c s it would be a bow twenty one cents per kilowatt hour does that study take into account the fuel shifting to natural gas from cold that would occur in the event that electric utilities are required by the law to reduce their emissions at a time when c c s is not available and therefore would take the obvious economic option of defaulting to the next least expensive fuel which would be natural gas is that some dominant accounted for in your analysis yes it is and how much more natural gas capacity would you anticipate being built if those events transpire in that fashion again i don't have those ignore the exact numbers but it is a very significant expansion in the amount of natural gas and alan g that would need to be used over the next  thirty years and it would be that switch from coal to natural gas that would primarily account for this major increase in electricity prices yes that's that's a primary driver of the increase one of the things that i certainly would hope would occur and i know many other members have commented on this also is that assuming that the corporation contemplated by this legislation is created and every has a guiding roldan deciding how the investments  funds from this corporation will be applied to specific projects that the roadmap which has been developed by the department of energy in collaboration with its multiple regional partnerships  used in some fashion as a guide and that at a minimum deal we be involved in consultations with the corporation to make sure that the work the deal we has done which i think most people would would say has been quite effective is utilized and that the corporation to take those recommendations into serious account can you just talk a little bit about what's your relationship from an advisory perspective with the oh we would be yes we would certainly utilize and consult with the department of energy we work closely with them today we are very we have worked with them on the roadmap that is consistent roadmap with the what what every has developed and now would really be the template working with them as to how we decide to sort of the matrix of potential projects that are needed and again would be very comparable as we do today working closely with the department of energy thank you raising approximately one billion dollars annually through a non budget fund does the bill that is before us reflect that recommendation yes mr chairman it reflects the recommendation exactly and  moreover the specific assessments that are assigned in the bill for coal natural gas and oil generation that is mills for kilowatt hour derived  om a work paper that was discussed within the e p a bans coal technology work group and that that work paper used emission rates for the various fuels taken from a report by the international atomic energy agency thank you much as i was quote can you speak to the degree of consensus that existed among the working group at the initiatives it was a part time job mr trist go out my time is actually expired i'm looking for one word here and it starts with the you and it reflects the number of votes that were provided i'm trying not to ask a leading question that sarah knew about the number of votes that were provided among the working group members when the adoption of the recommendation occurred starts with the you it's pretty easy here you have a lead on  wasn't the word i had in mind you have led unavoidably to unanimous recommendation was made on a unanimous basis thank you very much for all stakeholders i have one other question mr trist go within that recommendation was there linkage among the recommendations or between the recommendations for this independent non governmental c c s fund on the one hand and the recommendation that a mandatory program to control greenhouse gas emissions be adopted on the other hand where those two recommendations linked was one made in any way contentions on the other no mr chairman other question  national resources defense council a member of the working group yes mr chang q thank you very much not time is expired the gentleman from michigan mr upton well thank you mr chairman and again i want to thank  particularly my colleagues on both sides look at mr simpkins to my left and to minister whitfield mr barton and our side that worked very diligently to to get this bill in shape that we could put our name on it and feel proud in and i would just encourage you based on the testimony that i have heard this morning that we have only eighteen legislative days left really probably in session and i would like to think that with such  broad bipartisan support that you and mr dingell might be able to get together with the speaker and see what we can do to to try and push the this bill through because it's it really is important to the future of the country i have made no bones about it that i am a supporter of increasing the supply of electricity whether it be nuclear whether it be renewable whether it be clean coal our energy needs as many of you know are going to increase by electricity needs are going to grow by nearly thirty to forty percent by the year two thousand and thirty and we have to be prepared for that mr shimkus made the point of increasing them for maint to maintain coal electricity at fifty percent seven hundred fifty new plants have to be on line last year was zero not one came on line i think we just got a new permit for one in this area virginia maryland last couple weeks nuclear hasn't happened in twenty five years we know that there are a couple that are pending including one in michigan that i'd like to see happen but we're all very troubled by the landscape of this usa today story  just a couple weeks ago utilities raising the price of power some increases in around the country by thirty to forty percent and mr morris you raised the story that i missed this morning and see it until you referenced it i'd like to put it into the record but today's wall street journal story about china power shortfalls this summer could be as high as ten gigawatts sixty percent of the disparity in some of the manufacturing hubs inventories are way down and in fact they expect a coal shortage that's likely to reach perhaps as many as twenty million tons this year trouble for sure sierra club i think i read earlier this year announced that their number one  great production in eleven states through the midwest can you what are your plans as you look to increase production for the needs that we have whether it's an expanding population the new utility needs that we have perhaps electric cars h d t v sets charging our blackberries and phones all those different things making up that thirty percent growth can you move new coal fired plant without this technology i know that when i was on wall street a couple weeks ago they and that many of the big finance folks said we're not going to do it we're not going to provide the financing unless this technology i place it needs to be proven where where do you see things coming and in that way congress enough then you put your thumb on the pulse of a very important issue to this country and quite honestly to the world china and other countries are facing these issues  and when we see that challenge in front of us we have four coal based power plants that were in the overall state regulatory process as all of this discussion began sometime in two thousand and seven to date we have received the authority from three states texas arkansas louisiana to build an ultra supercritical coal production facility in arkansas we are still awaiting our air permit you mentioned the virginia power plant but the air permit on the virginia power plant is on accomplishable so our friends at dominion energy still need to have another session to try to understand that our integrated gas it was for junior virgin appalachian power approved by the west virginia commission not approved yet by the virginia commission and we will continue to try and open a dialogue to see to it that that can happen as well our alter supercritical coal plant  oklahoma voted down because they wanted us to look at natural gas having heavy lobbying from a natural gas supplier who shut his gas wells in at seven dollars a million b to use because he thinks he's going to sell it for three tomorrow or ten to morrow our integrated gas plant ohio because of the legislative restructuring process in ohio is caught up in the cords by some who would not like to see a plant like that bill we are heading as a nation toward an electric shortage of baseload power that will change the environment in this country for a long long time shutting mauls down one or two days a week shutting production facilities down one or two days a week as they're doing in south africa as we sit here today you're doing in china and you look at it today to the answer that was given on the nine cents twenty one cents look at what germany did today again another wall street story they are now delaying the shuttering of their nuclear stations so they don't not become more dependent on imported natural gas from russia the world's largest surprise of natural gas in russia you would hate to be at the end of the pipelines that serve the european union when russia decides to show the ukraine that they're not paying the appropriate price for gas so this bill as i tried to say in my opening comments is so important if we don't have this technology and i do not agree with my friend at the end of the table deploying carbon capture and storage technology at a oil refinery is a thousand times different than deploying it at a power plant where you may lose as much as thirty or forty percent of the current gigawatt our production that's the equation we're trying to fill with the deployment that we're going through at we energies all to maidenly that will do at our mountain air station all of the way that will do it our northeastern station in oklahoma those are our challenges this funding this bill critically important to finally get going and do something that's constructive and as i said at the close my comments i hold you on high regard you and your colleagues for this bipartisan bill i know my kind of fire let me just close with one thought and i say this with a smile that my friend mr who i thought that was just the n r d c effort to say that we ought to drill more so we can have more capacity elsewhere around the country i take no guy you met with him that's what i figured was underlined thought i just you know that they went through the troubling debate  the senate and failed to get the cloture votes another ten senators democratic senators came out so that they would have voted against it had it come to the final passage it's clear that this debate is going to take a long long time this is a bill that we can do now we can have this in place within the next several years and we can get it done perhaps even in this congress without waiting for the debate that comes a point down the line so and i really believe it's disingenuous for someone to compare ten billion dollars raised over ten years by utility charges on the delivered kilowatt hour to a trillion seven a trillion dollar tax on the country which is what warner lieberman was i that's disingenuous and really unfortunate to hear those kinds of comments here this country if they just power to those of us from pittsburgh we could solve all these problems i don't think mr shimkus agrees with that though i have a question dr rubin in your heard me say in my opening remarks that i have some concerns with the way this program would work in regards to operations at the end more particularly the national energy technology lab and my basic concern is that we may end up duplicating or competing with work that's already being done there i noted in your testimony you recommend deleting section four b the bill because in your point you said i think your words was it puts the program in the same business as the department of energy what do you see as the role a t l india we have played a very critical role in the carbon sequestration program has provided leadership not only in this country but globally the regional partnership program has been a very important effort these efforts and the kinds of things that the p r i are doing the critical underpinnings of the longer term solutions but my notion of this cooperation in the purpose of this bill is to get in do a job that's critically needed to break the deadlock that we currently have and then go out of business in ten years i sure hope dealing and the p r i will not go out of business in ten years and i think the key issue the critical job of advancing and developing newer technologies bringing it to a stage where it's ready for that final step of scale up to a several hundred megawatt for syllabi that's the  handoff to this corporation by the time these kinds of projects certainly initially should go in place at a large scale need to be projects that have already been vetted tested and in which there is generally a high degree of confidence but you still have to take that next step because surprises happen when you scale up an order of magnitude is as critical as the p r i think in carrying that ball up to that point but i would in my mind handed off at that point to a different entity with a very focused mission and that's the way we will know whether it succeeded or not one more question  our friend michael say that deployment of technology that this could be deployed today that it's not a question of technology it's a question of economics and do you believe that we could today scale things up in order of magnitude but not very far from where we're sitting coal fired power plant that has been capturing it sequestering c o two using current technology at the scale of about forty or fifty mega cumberland maryland it's one of a couple of plants coal fired power plants in this country which are doing this it's smaller scale but until you go from fifty to five hundred and then to you link the capture operation with the transport and s operation you still do not have the confidence that you need i think to start doing this in a larger scale a lot of the problems personally i think the most critical ones that would be facilitated and resolved by this corporation whether downstream that last step the syquest ration step the storage step is perhaps where many of the issues that need to be resolved like most critically i'm personally much more confident we know how to engineer and do the first the first step but there are legal and liability and regulatory issues which are receiving a lot of attention but i don't know about your experience but in my experience for five minutes thank you mr chairman i want to ask dr rubin and mr morris to comment on carbon conversion technology all the testimony so far has been about carbon capture but i have seen some conversion technology on a pilot project at a power plant in my district that looks very promising and bill before us does allow for funding to research the conversion that was prominent in that study and there's a chapter in that report on it is the utilization of c o two it's an awfully appealing idea got if we could just do something useful with it and keep it out of the atmosphere and it received a lot of attention because it had a lot of political importance and an attraction but the bottom line is that one if we look at the amount of c o two used today and potentially useful it's trivial in comparison to the amount of c o two we we emit there is a lot of c o two being used that's used to make things like methanol and other chemicals and things can be done  processes potentially that can convert it into minerals but those processes are both a long way from commercial reality if you think normal capture processes which have been characterized as substance that has commercial value or is more easily i i do not foresee that being a significant player in reducing c o two emissions to the atmosphere it is a very appropriate and necessary thing to be is i'm encouraged by the opportunity to do that kind of activity i think it's again just wrong for this country to think that we're going to store c o two hundred ground for millennia without understanding all of the legal ramifications i'd much rather see more of these dollars go toward the research a piece of this would be on conversion technology we keep hearing that our friends in japan are doing something along those lines in a fuel cell technology application if that's true wouldn't it be great if we could also join in the whole point of this bill is not to dictate an outcome it's actually absolutely science based research to see what's possible and loosely the bill allows it it doesn't we don't have a preordained outcomes but i have seen a pilot project in my congressional district that the proponents claim is just the greatest thing since sliced bread course that the proponents of it and so that's why i'm with you i really believe that we ought to do that to add some of these dollars make sure they go to the conversion understanding it's a much better way than transporting and storing and and dealing with all those issues i want to ask dr carr mr carr a question i believe you represent yes one of the things that i have reserve the right to offer in the markup is is a you know amendment that would require some corporate contribution in terms of equity to the corporation as opposed to financing it totally with pay or surcharges we don't have consensus on the subcommittee about whether that's a good idea or a bad idea but in the future gen project which is somewhat similar to what we're setting up here not totally but somewhat we did require that the corporations put up equity money themselves that would the at risk from the shareholders as opposed to the right payers do you have a position or do you have a personal position where we should require some sort of a corporate contribution to the corporation equity capital in addition to the r surcharges they would never does not have a specific position on the more discrete issues i think are our fundamental position has been that technology is the key to the climate issue and the more dollars available the better we as in the support that we've given to this legislation recognize that right payers have a role to play but we think there are other participants in our energy economy that have  our potential sources my personal view is that that's something that ought to be considered amendment i think there are also other participants whether they be the culprit the production side of the business the well go to this is not should we make the investment it's not is this bill a good idea but it is that there there's got to be some level of protection for those nameless faceless consumers out there who more and more in the name of climate change more and more ideas are going to be financed on the back of individual right payers at the end of the line and so i think ideas like yours are certainly worthy of discussion this is my personal view but i also think that that's the point we're making about some level of regulatory actually take up where our ranking member left off here with mr care mr carr you had argued in your testimony that ne would have strong concerns about section eight a of the bill because in essence it's allowing the utilities to recover their costs by increasing rates for consumers without any regulatory oversight first you seem to think that the cost will amount to ten to twelve dollars per customer per year in the residential sector i wonder what estimate do you have about the cost impact in the commercial and industrial sector don't have any i think with the ten to twelve presidential was provided by the subcommittee and we except that subject jack ok but obviously it will be more than the ten to twelve dollars per residential cost what sort of president are we setting if we remove regulatory oversight for rate increases for monopolistic entities such as utilities well i mean we i think it's an important point to to distinguish you know and i feel like i'm a little bit of the one a wrench in the works here it's not really a question of are should these cost be recovered i mean we think if they are reasonable and they are prudently incurred they should be recovered under state law what we are concerned about as i just mentioned in responding to represent to ranking member barton is that there will be more and more ideas that the solution will be let's just decree in washington that they be passed through in a rising cost environment you know essentially you relegate state regulators to become the tax collectors for federal ideas and we think that that is a dangerous precedent we think that in a rising cost environment you ought to have more scrutiny of the costs that are incurred again i have every expectation just as with the nuclear waste gone and the three hundred million dollars a year that every receives which is largely ratepayer funding now these costs will be passed through and right but we certainly think that there needs to be state regulatory review of that to make sure that these costs are reasonable that they are going for the intended purpose that the program itself is yodeling benefits to right payers and under state law they will be recoverable but you ought not to decree as section eight a does that these calls are deemed reasonable and necessary and therefore shall be recovered because i'm frankly not sure how you would know that at this point and absent an amendment like the one that mr barton just think that the purpose or intent of the underlying bill would be diminished if the regulatory oversight was not preempted and so i asked the question when would the purpose or intent of the underlying bill that we're looking at  diminished if the regulatory oversight were were not granted no not at all and in my written testimony which was provided for the record we just last year as part of our task force on climate change adopted a resolution and they would say doing just what this bill does supporting these technologies and creating that reasonable important call shall be timely recovered so there really isn't a disagreement the question is whether it's necessary to intrusively step in and preempt states or whether you ought to go ahead  and pass the bill and then let the companies work with their regulators to ensure that those costs are recovered and i have every expectation they will be and similarly i think that if this technology is as important as it is being discussed today and it is and we agree with that the the  companies will support the bill without this language in it they should be turning to mr do as i mentioned in my opening statement studies seem to conclude  that in my home state of wisconsin we lack the necessary geological formations for storage as a result we would need to transport c o two by a pipeline system that currently does not exist and  n what are the concerns associated with transporting c o two and what are the lie that possible liabilities during transport and storage onsite well sirrah to is currently being transported many hundreds of miles there's actually about forty million tons of c o two that are transported today in the united states and in north america and that c o two is used for enhanced oil recovery over thousands of miles of pipeline right now so that's a mature technology that's already in place right now there are not people are doing that there is not a regulatory structure or a liability structure associated with that and we think that that can be done now immediately and we certainly don't need to wait for a complex liabilities fracture to be put in place so i understand that the currently existing c o two pipelines have quality standards that limit the amount of substances such as  hydrogen sulfide that can be mixed with the c o two are you aware of any movement or desires to change these standards and is that an area where we need to be careful it's certainly an area where we need to be careful i'm not aware of movement to change or adjust those standards but that's one of the things that we would do e p a is looking at a number of those issues and there can be standards and regular rule set for that when it starts to happen on an even wider even more wide been very good and i like to debate on conversion because that should be for a focus and that's what joe barton held out for discussion because of these issues that my colleague just addressed transportation and recovery mr goo real oil petroleum liquid feel model versus the three or four different type of hope our coal fired power plants are out there isn't it i don't think so i mean they're apples and oranges we're talking about we're talking about supercritical we're talking about gasification plants we're talking about emissions into the air versus capturing and storage for advanced oil recovery i we're all smarter than that  can use british petroleum in this debate and what they do on liquid fuel to electricity generation just well they they are they are familiar with the basic technologies to capture in liquid switching today which is a critical debate because that's what happened in the clean air act the coal mines of southern i only closed instead of moving the scrubbers we shipped in western coal to meet the regulations and  miners went to work in the united mine workers will testify that the market for natural gas and cutters probably a dollar fifty per cubic feet the united states is probably fifteen dollars if we fuel shift electricity generation it will it will make the debate for more drilling in the outer continental shelf because we will need massive more need for natural gas natural gas is used for transportation natural gas is used for manufacturing natural gas is used for farming and fertilizers and the cost if you want to understand what's driving up the cost of food it's energy cost it's fertilizer cost and all these energy input cost so that makes that makes the other part of this energy debate which is more supply even more carefully fuel shift to natural gas drilling exploration and recovery is even more critical that's why we want to that's why this all above strategy is i think a good way to go you know put all your eggs in one basket coal has to be a major put in this whole debate now it's only because of the great leadership of the chairman that it's hard to get republicans to agree as mr markey said for additional cost but i do it for my friends in the coal industry and my mine workers because we have to have the technology available if we go down this route to climate change and that's kind of what this debate this debate is about climate change but we know there is a risk i would rather you say like i say i don't support climate change until you show me there's not going to be a risk in my members losing their jobs and i'm waiting for you all i've been you guys are the guys who can make this happen because of your connection with the mostly you got some friends over on my side but you've got a lot of friends on the democrat side and they're in charge and so i would plead with you and the other folks you're looking for expansion of energy opportunities the operating engineers the electricians that they hold out for a good bill that they're not going to lose their jobs and flip your thing i'm not for caring about your nose i'm not for he's going to have to convince me that my folks don't lose their jobs and my manufacturers don't lose their jobs by high cost organization believe should be national are in the budget for the full portfolio including solar thermal solar photovoltaic engineer geothermal hydro kinetic  you name it can you give us any ballpark in your testimony you said be about a billion dollars seems in the ballpark a year for this particular technology can you give us any other ball or ballpark for the remaining other sources including w we've done some looking at this and i hesitate to put an exact number on it but but and i don't ask for an exact number probably heard or probably an order of magnitude more than a billion dollars a year at least ten billion and that is our billion dollars a year is really incremental to the research and development that's already going on on c c s billion dollars a year is very focused on large scale demonstration of c c s but if if you expand that that we collectively can afford we have to be very selective what i like very much about this legislation it's targeted i think we need to be very targeted work the whole portfolio renewables efficiency nuclear call but in targeted ways what we'd like to be targeted to do is to our own district that's our targeting your answer is music to my ears because i sure sure we've got to have orders of magnitude and you know right now about three billion dollars total national energy r and d for everything the whole portfolio we spend eighty four billion dollars a year in r and d for the for portfolio of weapons systems it seems to me we need to increase dramatically we spend less than one eight what we did in the original project and we need to get up in the fifteen in my view the twenty billion dollars a year investment that i believe at least my looking at it that is in the range of what can be usefully invested and so i appreciate your thoughts having said that is there any reason if we know these are good investments that if we are going to create a revenue source for investment is there any reason to do it for just one technology to me it seems very difficult to justify doing any particular we all have our favorites you know i have my favorites but is there any legitimate reason to to restrict our investment if we're going to create a revenue source to only one technology yes i believe there is first of all at every we have no favorites we work on all of them every every part of the portfolio but but from my view looking at the whole portfolio of technologies the biggest gap we have by far electricity sector we and others are working very hard on all the other technologies and i could go through all of those but the fact is today the one that we don't have confidence we can do on a large scale is c c s i it's the most critical technology to slowing stopping in reversing c o two emissions so i think there is a good reason to target c c s specifically let's assume you know we've only got one billion dollars but if i tell you that we had a ten billion dollar increase in the research and development budget of the federal i assume you're not suggesting we put all the ten billion into clean cohabit absolutely not i would suggest and i want to make sure i understand this because i think i'm going to get an answer i like but i'll find out i think you'd like to burgess to find a way to have a federal investment of somewhere in the order of magnitude of ten billion dollars for research and a full portfolio and allocate it with as much wisdom as we can muster amongst the various technologies would that be your preference your preferential course i certainly agree with that yes thank you i took a flyer on that you're not supposed to ever answer a question you don't know what you're going to get but i appreciate that and that's something that is a serious issue that we will be working on just one other question is there since this technology will never be used unless there is a cap and trade system or some price  carbon is there any reason people should advocate for this unless they believe there should be some restraint on carbon because they would be if they did that they'd be advocating for a total waste of taxpayer money would you agree that anyone who argues for this investment and i'm arguing for an investment should also support restraints on c o two emissions and some price on carbon ultimately that's an open question to the whole panel  well my answer would be we have to look at optionality an option this is an option we have to have seen but should anybody support this option unless they also support cap on c o two emissions why would anybody be up anywhere in the u s congress how could you forget congress how can you justify an expenditure of a billion dollars of taxpayers money unless you also support the conditions that will lead to its usage which is a need to restrain c o two is there any answer to that it's a rhetorical question and the fact of the matter is  program as we go forward the point that i think surely i have been trying to make in front of this committee on many occasions and my colleagues in the utility business have been trying to make is dates and grades are immaterial if you don't have this technology so do a before you do b or you're just creating something that won't happen it may feel good but it won't happen it will be a massive tax on the united states economy but will this ever be used unless there's some cap on c o two i don't know that it wouldn't i don't know that it won't i think it's too premature to come to that conclusion i would abuse we were capturing mercury at stations today and there is no federal legislation that requires that so there are states that already have programs reggie the west coast states i mean it will be used there's no question about that and again this is very very different it we keep talking about the taxpayer this is the fee on the electric customers of the country to the question from the congresswoman from wisconsin ten dollars a year for residential if you're  hundred thousand one hundred thousand kilowatts which would be a mcdonald's that's one hundred dollars a year if you're a mid size factory at a million kilowatt hours that would be ten thousand dollars a year if you're g m it would be one hundred thousand of these are very will look forward to that as well why the gentle lady from north carolina is recognized for minutes but i thank you mr chairman and i thank all the witnesses many extremely helpful to me to hear what you had to say this california ms harmon is recognized thank you mr chairman as i've said before it is a great pleasure to be part of a committee that tackles big problems in a serious and comprehensive way that's what this ho should be doing and one of the things i love about this committee is that to a greater extent than most parts of this house we operate in a bipartisan manner there are a few problems bigger than global climate change the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that we must make to have a meaningful impact on the problem are enormous as everyone on this committee knows and obviously these witnesses know there will be no silver bullets no easy fix turning the enormous supertanker that is the u s economy is a monumental undertaking and we will need all hands on deck that means we need to consider a wide range of technologies and varied collection of regulatory schemes to drive change in energy and climate policy in my view a cap and trade system that puts the cost of emitting carbon on the entities doing the emitting must be part of the solution and i surely hope that early in the next term of congress we tackle this effectively but there also need to be efficiency standards and incentives for the development of new technologies as we know and i i was very pleased that we were able to get a good efficiency bill out of this committee and it was signed into law late last year by the president i agree with you and many of our colleagues that we cannot afford to take coal off the table coal is of course a notoriously dirty fuel but it's too plentiful and too deeply enmeshed in our economy to ignore renewable source of energy may someday supplant coal as the central piece of america's energy portfolio but it's not realistic to expect that day will come any time soon coal is also the principal energy source for much of the developing world china in particular and that's not likely to change anytime soon so coal be with us we had better find a way to use call clean manner that likely means spending some money maybe a lot of money on research into carbon capture and storage technologies i think your bill is a good beginning and i applaud you for getting the conversation started but there are many ways to incentivize technology development and i'm always interested in listening to the the questions from some of our members about that and about where coal fits in the bigger picture of a comprehensive energy strategy that dr reduces carbon emissions so that hopefully we can save our planet so in that spirit let me thank you for what you're doing here let me just put a question to the witnesses because i do want to observe my time that is mr inslee was just asking you know if we had ten billion dollars that fell out of the sky which would be nice and we could spend it on investments in clean energy would you think that coal would be part of that picture obviously the answer to that was yes but let me ask you what else besides coal you think are the most promising clean energy technologies and just give you all a little bit of time to push some of those i certainly hope  you have that point of view if any of you disagrees with me and think coal is the only thing in our future speak up but i doubt that would be your view it surely isn't mine i think it's clear that to the utility industry we believe that energy efficiency is the first and most cost effective way for us to tackle this issue but to the larger common the comments and i just made the world is going to burn coal period this country may be one of the few countries that can develop this technology appropriately so it should stage well i hear you but what about other technologies what do you think are the most promising let me ask the rest of you technologies other than coal that we should be investing  the marshes comment about the importance of energy efficiency i don't think we hear enough about that most of the discussion tends to be on supply side issues there is not a single supply side issue be it fossil nuclear or renewable that i know of that very large scale doesn't have problems the one relatively may be totally problem free solution is in the written testimony that i have you have our full portfolio which has all the technologies what i would like to emphasize is electric transportation which is not often brought up in this context but to tackle c o two we must address transportation tremendous advances in battery technology that are occurring open up the opportunity to electrify certainly the light duty vehicles to a much greater degree and we think that's essential and it all links to having a low carbon source of electricity well this committee in our energy bill did authorize investments in new battery technologies we agree with you yet just wanted to add to that you said it yourself i think there's no silver and it's the most comprehensive course that i've seen put together for this country to move forward but you have to realize that there are regional differences in terms of the availability of different sorts of general generation there are also operational reliability differences i think in  response to mr inslee question about the need for the the the the the deployment research in this bill as a state regulator one of my chief concerns is reliability and one of the reasons you need to scale this up is the make sure that when when you have to have it which we're getting more more rapidly to that point given the growing demand that you can count on it and so different sorts of generation have different reliability and operational characteristics and that's another reason we need all of that they will be watching so that different regions can go in and tailor service to the customers in those regions in a reliable thank you back to mr chairman i've run over my time and i would just amend that last comment by saying all the available he is recognized for five minutes of thank you mr chairman very much mr chairman this bill imposes a ten billion dollar tax on american consumers and gives the money to industry run private corporation that corporation has a very good mandate to develop b c s technology but no requirement to deliver any specific results no strings attached and no meaningful government oversight can any of you identify any precedent for congress taking ten billion dollars from consumers and giving it to a private corporation for a research fund without congressional oversight misess yes congressman markey in fact one of the design elements of this bill is that it is modeled specifically upon the one nine hundred ninety six propane research act in that act congress authorized members of the propane association to vote to establish a research corporation to pursue research related to propane natural gas and to oppose impose a fee fifty cents per gallon on every gallon of propane so how much money old and how much money has that wo up in total less money them we're talking about here but it was a smaller entity overall but how much is the scale that we're talking about maybe it's a couple hundred million on a couple hundred million instead of a million something on that order but there is a precedent and what was the oversight mechanism over that two hundred billion two hundred million i don't believe there was a direct oversight mechanism provided in the bill that was not i see government subject to congressional appropriations and oversight overseen by the department of energy doesn't that make it different than what's being proposed here the nuclear waste project was to occur does make  difference and it is our position that something off budget would be preferable given the experience we've had with the nuclear waste on nucular nucular dependent nucular customers who receive part of their power from nuclear why not make the funding for this effort a surcharge on coals and coal is the main beneficiary well in essence that's what you're doing by having this as a fee charged and a carbon based fuel so the fee that call pays is larger than the fee the natural gas pays us not forget natural gas is also a carbon based technology and that's more than the fee that all oil would pay and it too is a carbon based fuel so i think that they've addressed that in the most appropriate way republicans in the senate have been blocking attempts to extend tax credits for wind and solar and geothermal are we sending the right message by talking about passing legislation to help coal technology while the republicans in the senate are blocking renewable of the of the tax breaks for wind and solar and geothermal and also blocking the renewable electricity standard that would also give an incentive to the we know senator mccain was the key vote in the senate so does this make any sense in terms of balance in terms of balance it does not make sense in terms of balance we should be pursuing renewable energy and these other types of technologies with equal if not greater zeal and bigger than we're pursuing c c s none the less in order to solve the climate problem we need to pursue c c s very rapidly and very aggressively so we need to do a crosses country who burn these fuel i mean i want to get going i mean out of existing this is a way to get it done in a more creative way in keeping with the first step of a carbon cap and trade program again congressman markey are you  with us when we had this conversation but without this enabling technology you can make all the cap and trade bills you want the world's going to burn coal it needs this techno i really need this is only great way to go about doing it the excellent way i agree the need the technology is just what is the mechanism by which we i would argue that utility use all across this country have for years and years and years invested our customers money and invested a very wisely i don't think we need government oversight well i think i will say this it does the government oversight and if anything is an example of something that is in need of it it's these energy projects in the thirty two years that i've been in congress if you don't keep a close watch on them they tend to run on and on and cost and return less and less in terms of a benefit to the public and i thank you thank you very much mr markey again i want to thank this panel of witnesses for what has been a very thoughtful discussion we have all learned a lot from the testimony you provided and the excellent answers you have posed to our questions i'm going to conclude with one suggestion i know that mr morris is concerned about making sure that whatever fees are imposed like to suggest that the two of you perhaps have a conversation assuming you're both willing to do that and see if a way can be found to your mutual satisfaction to make sure that both of your goals are met i know from your testimony both of you have suggested that potentially ways could be found to do it and that's what leads me to make this recommendation so mr morris mr card that be agreeable to you absolutely must always