on energy as part of the global response to climate change it is important to see this hearing in the larger context in his first address yesterday to the united nations president obama highlighted the unprecedented investment in american renewables as a concrete sign of american progress on global warming china's premier hu jintao also made an important announcement at the u n stating china's commitment to draw more to come last week the speaker and i met with mister wu who is the chairman of the standing committee of the national people's congress he had just arrived from arizona where they had signed to cost nearly five dollars billion but it is only a small part of a nearly twelve thousand megawatt renewable energy park that is planned there as well thankfully after years of neglect america is no longer just watching other countries racing ahead we are now making real strides to reclaim a leadership role in a technology that was invented on our shores the bureau of land management has received more than one hundred and fifty large scale solar plant applications with a projected capacity of ninety seven thousand megawatts of electricity mostly in the sunny southwest imagine that we have healthy competition for clean energy technology between the barren steppe of inner mongolia and the hot desert of nevada and arizona in just over seventy days the nations of the world will convene in copenhagen to commit to solutions for the common good here in the united states the need to position american industry for new areas of long term growth is also urgent as americans across the country can attest pink slips at work can be as personally devastating as the threat of melting ice caps rising seas and more frequent floods droughts and hurricanes the climate and the economy  two challenges facing our country that will impact us globally and locally clean energy technology will be a clean solution to both the global transition to clean energy presents an opportunity for job creation in all areas of the country solar power in the west and southwest wind turbines in the plains and texas and offshore in new england and the mid atlantic biomass in the south and northwest all areas of the country have energy resources that can be made and be used that are plentiful clean renewable affordable and made in america and that is a statement that cannot be said about most of the oil which we consume because  that comes marked with made by opec we have taken the first step in assuring that these clean energy jobs stay in the united states and unleash a global energy revolution in june the house passed the  clean energy and security act when enacted this bill will cap the carbon pollution causing global warming require the widespread deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency and invest two hundred dollars billion in energy technology the clean energy revolution will not happen magically we need to put in place the policies that will accomplish that goal i am pleased that we have such a distinguished group of panelists that will be testifying today the chairman let me turn now and recognize the ranking member of the committe the gentleman from wisconsin mister sensenbrenner mister sensenbrenner thank you very much mister chairman there is no good or evil with energy sources because every energy source carries distinctly different positives and negatives developing a new energy system from the ground up is proving to be an impossible task for policymakers while solar power promises to deliver an endless supply of clean energy high costs and other environmental concerns are raising significant problems state mandates like california's renewable portfolio standard have led to small amounts of growth in the solar energy sector but that growth is already being hindered by environmental concerns last week brightsource energy was forced to give up its plan build a five thousand one hundred and thirty acre solar farm in the mohave desert after democratic senator diane feinstein responded with plans to make the area a national monument interior secretary ken salazar has met similar resistance with his plan to fast track solar development on federal lands because of concerns that the development will disturb the habitat of federally protected  wildlife these issues stem from mandating the use of an energy source before the ramifications are fully understood spain's experience with renewable energy should serve as a cautionary tale president  a has frequently argued that we should look to spain as an example of how taxpayer subsidies for renewable energy projects will create so called green jobs but economics professor d rey juan carlos university examined the spanish policies and advises against adopting their approach professor calzada's study questions the effectiveness of pumping massive subsidies into renewable million last year while the spanish government argues that its subsidies created two hundred thousand jobs doctor calzada found that for every job the subsidies created they eliminated up to two point two more furthermore only one in ten of the newly created jobs proved to be permanent most were created to build infrastructure but were no longer needed once it was done i have often argued that there is no free lunch in our response to climate change calzada's study confirms this he found that each newly created job in the solar industry cost the spanish government and its taxpayers eight hundred and fifty five thousand dollars solar energy did initially thrive in response to spain's massive government investment however in two thousand and eight spain withdrew the subsidies with the subsidies gone the solar bubble burst and many of the new jobs were eliminated in other words the green jobs created by the subsidies proved to be anything but sustainable the subsidies have also introduced market volatility professor calzada found that spain's subsidy of solar energy was five hundred percent higher than the market price while these subsidies thus far only cause modest rises in electricity prices spanish government officials are already warning that prices might suddenly jump as the true cost of these renewable energy projects reach consumers i am not against solar power i am in favor of an all of the above approach to energy production that includes solar power along with wind coal hydropower nuclear power and increased energy efficiency but i am also opposed to government policies that pick winners and losers based on popular sentiments and i am opposed to policies that will increase our energy prices spain's massive use of government subsidies is not  all of the above approach but rather an attempt to choose winners and losers and the one last thing to consider before following spain's lead on green jobs spain's unemployment rate is currently eighteen  growing i look forward to hearing from today's witnesses about both the positive and negatives about relying on solar power and i thank the chairman for the time chairman and i appreciate my good friend from wisconsin laying out a fundamental difference in approach you know it is ironic all american energy sources have been heavily subsidized at one point or another throughout their development we have a long history of the federal government subsidizing everything from jet aviation semiconductors computers the internet global positioning systems laser technology m is extensive that has developed into major job engines in the united states i find it a little frustrating that our friends have chosen not really to engage the issue directly of the hearing but the ignoring information provided by established credible experts and pull out of right field a single report that uses unproven theories unaccepted assumptions lacks basic statistical analysis to show that a program that only does not exist in the united states and is not being proposed by anyone did not work in my home state of oregon we are watching even though it rains all the time we are watching an emergence of a solar energy industry we are watching in new jersey the garden state where they have some climate issues the second largest state of installations we are moving in an era where it is expected that th solar photovoltaic will soon achieve grid parity and in an era when the united states unlike what happened in the technology explosion mister chairman that you were involved in and actually our ranking member has been deeply concerned with where the united states was an innovator and a global leader in energy technology today the united states has only four of the top thirty countries the rest of the world is moving on i think our witnesses here today can help give a picture of where the world is going and i appreciate your having this hearing because i think it is an important part of the picture to round out i thank the gentleman very much time for opening statements of members has been completed the chairman we will turn to our panel our first witness is steve kline vice president for corporate environmental and federal affairs for the pacific gas and electric company we welcome you and electric company to offer some thoughts on this very important subject as pg and e's chief sustainability officer and vice president of corporate environmental and federal affairs i lead pg and e's climate change strategy programs as well as our habitat conservation planning programs investments in renewable resources including solar resources create jobs reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and move us toward a low carbon economy vitally important is the support and role of the federal government in expanding the development of solar energy including policies related to federal lands that could help or hinder renewable energy development the federal government in the economic recovery package has made important investments to support and lay foundation for expanding renewable energy resources including financial and program support but there is an opportunity and a need to do more square mile service area in northern and central california we deliver some of the nation's cleanest energy on average approximately one half of the power that we deliver to our customers is carbon free in two thousand and eight approximately twelve percent of the electricity delivery mix was from california eligible renewable resources and we forecast that to rise to fifteen percent this year are actively pursuing a diverse portfolio of renewable generation resources on behalf of our customers and i think the critical word there is portfolio since two thousand and two we have signed more than sixty six contracts with existing and new facilities or plan to use wind geothermal biogas biomass and solar as their fuel solar energy is an especially attractive source for us because it is available when power is needed most in california during the peak midday summer period our portfolio includes both solar pv and solar thermal technologies since early two thousand and eight we have entered into fourteen solar contracts five using solar pv technology and nine using solar thermal or concentrated solar power technologies in addition we have a five hundred megawatt photovoltaic program pending before the california public utilities commission to help stimulate immediate renewable energy development through both distributed utility owned generation and power purchase agreements with third parties given the current state of the capital markets we strongly recommend further extending tax credits grant programs and loan guarantees to help assure that we will have the renewable energy resources we need to meet california's rps and we assume soon a federal rps obligation we also exploring the possibility of developing commercial scale projects ourselves in addition we support exploration of a green bank to provide longer term certainty and expanded options for financing renewable energy  programs establishing a clean energy deployment administration as is being discussed in both the house and the senate would assist in reaching those goals we are encouraged by the department of interior's actions to facilitate large scale  public lands in the west this study will capture twenty four solar energy study areas to expedite technologies that are ready for deployment at utility scale given the dual imperative reducing greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and of bringing renewables on line while protecting natural and cultural resources we believe that federal agencies and their state agency analogs must proceed along two parallel pa one path in the short term is identifying and permitting the solar projects most likely to be shovel ready in time to be eligible to receive stimulus funds the other path is longer term namely developing a process to manage solar development on public lands in a more orderly and comprehensive fashion clearly a great deal is being asked of blm staff in connection with this effort which we strongly support to get more renewable energy generated on line to consumers it is critical that blm have sufficient resources to ensure that these efforts can move forward in a timely and efficient manner while ensuring robust environmental review a significant challenge and it won't be a surprise to this committee that what we face in bringing renewable energy on line is the lack of transmission lines located where resources are located across the west thousands of miles of transmission lines will be needed to significantly expand renewable energy production and link those remote resources to areas where electricity is needed most where people live including paths on or around federal lands it would be no exaggeration to say that only with increased transmission capacity can the benefits of renewable resources be fully realized one way to facilitate that would be through better coordination among agencies in addition to better coordination streamlining the reviews required by state and federal rosa he is the chief executive officer of nextlight renewable power we welcome  thank you for the opportunity to speak about the progress and the challenges we face in developing large scale solar generation nextlight renewable power is a developer financing construction and operation of power plants we apply the technologies to our projects so as to provide the best products to our utility customers nextlight has approximately one thousand megawatts of solar generation in development and permitting in the west in arizona california nevada and the other western states that is sufficient to meet the needs of approximately two hundred thousand residential homes it would create about  construction jobs and one hundred to two hundred permanent jobs during operation i have three main points today first is to restore the two  billion that was transferred to cash for clunkers back to the doe loan guarantee program the second is to extend the itc grant beyond the december two thousand and ten expiration date and the third is to establish the green bank now why do we need these programs our biggest obstacle in developing these projects is the upfront capital cost of renewable energy generation without carbon costs explicitly included when a utility looks at their supply portfolio they see renewable generation as more expensive than fossil if we can close that gap utilities would gladly procure more renewable generation and more generation would get built without impacting electric rates these three measures go a long way to close the gap at little taxpayer expense by reducing the financing costs of these projects so very briefly the loan guarantee program two dollars billion would accelerate twenty dollars billion of renewable generation the itc grant was enacted to address the current shortage of tax equity but the fact is that the itc grant is more efficient than the investment tax credit every dollar of the grant goes to a project as opposed to the investment tax credit where we need to bring in tax investors who require more than a dollar for a dollar of tax offset and it requires a substantial structuring transaction cost to do these very complicated financing arrangements we estimate a fifteen green bank which was passed by this house and is in the senate here like the export import bank the purpose would be to lend to renewables at rates basically at federal rates and if you  compare say a five percent rate long term debt rate under something like the green bank to the eight or nine percent interest rates in the market today that translates to about four cents a kilowatt hour reduction in the cost of renewable generation that is a lot that is enough to close the gap between renewables and fossil generation so it is the most cost effective way to build renewable generation with minimal impact on electric rates or on the federal budget so in conclusion our biggest obstacle is the upfront cost of these very capital intensive culver she is the senior counsel at the wilderness society she has many years of experience in environmental law we welcome you thank you chairman markey and members of the committee and thank you for pronouncing my name correctly wandering around the southwest with a name like this has been a challenge i work in the public lands campaign of the wilderness society our mission is to protect wilderness and inspire americans to protect our wild places for more than seventy years we have worked to ensure that land management practices are sustainable and based on sound science i lead a part of the organization called the blm action center which tracks land use planning and policy and is dedicated to helping the public effectively engage and participate we appreciate the leadership that chairman markey and others on the committee have demonstrated in seeking clean energy solutions to the impacts of climate change to recently passed legislation you have asked us to present testimony today regarding how public lands can contribute to these solutions through large scale solar energy development my written statement lays out in a lot of detail the key considerations for the wilderness society today my testimony is going to focus on our optimism regarding the direction that secretary already leading us in our wildlands in our communities are threatened by global warming and our reliance on fossil fuels we see solar energy development and other sources of renewable energy as an important part of responding to these threats and the public lands have a role to play secretarial order three thousand two hundred and eighty five set the stage for a new approach to energy development on the public lands focusing on development and transmission of renewable energy from appropriate areas this thoughtful approach is reflected in the ongoing efforts of the department on solar energy and we hope honestly to see it applied to other types of energy development the key elements of this strategy are identifying the places that are most appropriate for large scale development while protecting places that are not appropriate or needed and providing the financial tools needed to incentiv development and proactive involvement of other interested and knowledgeable parties a robust program in this model would be able to increase the likelihood of timely approval of projects and decrease the unacceptable environmental impacts and the resulting controversy and opposition to projects that come with that secretary salazar has committed the department to identifying and prioritizing the specific locations in the united states best suited for large scale production this is really the centerpiece for responsible development locating it in the right places and with the right programmatic environmental impact statement for solar energy and is designating solar energy zones that will be prioritized these zones are being designated with important criteria both for proximity to of terrain and potential for energy but also by from the start excluding sensitive resources from consideration resources like the blm's national landscape conservation system and critical habitat solar energy development involves long term use of land damaged natural resources and really effectively precludes other uses it is extremely important for it to be directed to lands that do not have other sensitive resources and for example nextlight's silver state north and south projects in nevada are being sited to avoid blm areas of critical environmental concern in lands proposed by citizens for wilderness protection another key element of the strategy is that once energy zones are identified development is limited to those lan this stands in stark contrast to the department's approach to oil and gas development which has been to make all lands available for leasing without considering other values or strategically prioritizing these lands this has resulted as we have all seen in significant controversy and precluded thoughtful management of the public lands focusing on lands that don't have sensitive resources and are close to transmission will minimize environmental damage and loss of other uses that is honestly associated with large scale solar development an important siting option is found on brownfields and other already disturbed lands like abandoned mines or fallow agricultural lands these are found on both public and private lands both the epa and the national renewable energy lab have estimated that these types of lands could provide up to nine hundred and fifty thousand megawatts of utility scale solar these sites are close to population centers and transmission and they are already zoned for industrial uses they actually improve communities by reducing blight they were in place already in colorado at fort carson and in my home state of new jersey a landfill has recently approved a brownfield as well both the epa and arizona blm have active brownfield programs and these really could and should be expanded and incentivized including through a renewable electricity standard onsite and offsite litigation measures based on credible science and take into account the many other uses and values of the public lands things like wilderness values wildlife habitat and recreation everything from backcountry hunting and mountain biking should be accounted for a new transmission is needed but again this must be done with a thoughtful approach to protect the environment and avoid further contributions we would also encourage that while the department of interior is hard at work simultaneously developing a program identifying zones and analyzing many pending applications including those receiving stimulus funding they will need to be assisted with additional resources so that they can actively manage this program similar funding was assigned in the prior administration to fund oil and gas permitting and the blm will need similar funding from this administration they have a unique opportunity although a challenge to develop this from the ground up in conclusion we believe that we can move forward with large scale solar energy development while protecting and valuing other resources i just wanted to chairman and chief executive officer of dow corning she is the recipient of the two thousand and eight commercial development marketing association award for executive excellence we welcome you ms burns thank you very much good afternoon and thank you chairman markey and representative sensenbrenner for extending an invitation to join today it is an honor and a pleasure to be here as you know america is at the dawn of a new energy era a transformation that will provide us with more clean energy producing options like solar wind and other renewable energy sources dow corning is one of the world's leading producers of polycrystalline silicon which powers the solar industry i know firsthand that america's energy transformation is inexorably linked to our nation's economic and manufacturing future such a transformation will require that we forge a new path forward through federal leadership the investment and innovation of private industry and integrated policy prescriptions that address each step in the renewable energy value chain from education and workforce development to raw material and end product manufacturing to deployment and market readiness with forward thinking leadership and management this transformation could bring with it a whole new set of industries hundreds of thousands of new jobs a sustainable source of economic growth and a reduced carbon footprint that is good for our country and for our global environment other nations have enacted aggressive policies to support the growth of the renewable energy industry for example china as you mentioned india and germany offer large subsidies for solar manufacturing facilit as a result the u s global market share of solar manufacturing has dropped from about forty five percent to only seven percent in twelve years it is time for america to enact policies that will keep the solar industry here and at home with that in mind let me thank you for including the alternative energy investment credit in the american recovery and reinvestment act this credit is a significant first step towards establishing new clean energy technology manufacturing jobs here in the u s and encouraging companies such as dow corning to manufacture solar and other renewable energy related materials in america with the potential to create more than three hundred and fifteen thousand jobs in construction engineering science skilled trades and others i hope that this credit can be made permanent in an energy bill now under development or in any other tax extender packages as it will propel america into an era of sustained renewable energy use and help put americans back to work dow corning is already leading by example we are one of the only companies in the world that is able to provide advanced silicon base materials and services throughout the entire solar value chain from solar cell and panel manufacturing to modular assemblies right on through the panel installations and we are making significant progress earlier this month we announced the commercial availability of a breakthrough solar cell encapsulation technology that improves performance of solar panels and effectively lowers the cost for a kilowatt hour of solar power making solar power less expensive to silicon production creating one thousand eight hundred construction jobs and more than one zero permanent jobs in the months to come all of this to be put in america and we have begun construction on a new manufacturing facility for  in thin film solar production which will produce even more solar related jobs and help attract other supply chain investments to the u s this is a start but in order to truly implement the transformation which is before us dow corn proposes a four point plan to address the technical legislative regulatory manufacturing and workforce related factors america's ability to develop a thriving domestic renewable solar power depends on this first we encourage congress and the obama administration to enact new federal policies and regulations that will encourage the rapid growth of a viable renewable energy industry and consumer adoption of renewable energy through federal tax incentives  domestic manufacturing a robust federal renewable electricity standard and federal interconnection and net metering standards second we advocate increased federal funding for research and development to accelerate solar technology innovation in advanced solar manufacturing jobs third we support the need to develop a green collar workforce by supporting training programs like the programs dow corning has cosponsored with local colleges in michigan and in tennessee fourth we need the federal government to lead by example in the implementation of clean technologies through procurement of onsite generation building retrofits for energy efficiency and new green building standards finally but certainly no less important congress must ensure that new policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon tax or cap and trade do not inadvertently discourage growth in the manufacturing and production of renewable energy resources  closing as i said earlier america is at a dawn of a new energy era my company is doing its part to encourage a climate of collaboration creativity and commitment to greener energy security it is more than just smart business is an associate professor in the department of economics at king juan carlos university in spain he is also the author of the report study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources we energy production spain as you know has become a world leader in the production of solar and renewable energy thanks to a mix of political determination and a huge amount of subsidies in the year two thousand and waiting lists we have a large waiting list from spaniards wanting a license to produce solar energy and related to this a lot of corruption you may have read in the newspapers a lot of corruption arose because nobody wants to be at the end of the installation of those so if you want to keep those jobs you cannot maintain a level of subsidy you have to increase it you have always to increase it because you have to keep them working so it means you have to keep them producing new plans but if they bubble nobody knows exactly how to solve the problem another big question is who pays for this all these billions the first thing a spanish politician did is look to the consumer but they thought this was not a good have to pay these very high primes to the producers of renewables but you government set the very low price in the electricity that we have to sell we will go bankruptcy and the government immediately said don't worry what we will do is that we will repay you we promise we repay you in fifteen years in fifteen years from now when i am not going to be here anymore another politician is going to repay you and they encouraged the companies to do have been created however if you take into account the huge amount of resources that i just mentioned that has been taken away from the rest of the economy and put into this sector you can see that for every job that has been created these same resources and the rest dealing with our current tax policies and as a member of the ways and means committee i am very interested in our being able early in the game to extend the investment tax credit  working with you and welcome any suggestions or assistance to make sure that investment funds that include tax exempt entities are in fact eligible so we can dramatically increase the pool of investment that is available which seems to me to be very common sense and would have effectively no economic impact as far as the federal government is concerned but open up a pool of capital i was interested and mister de rosa or others might have some information for us about the effectiveness of the various tax credits as opposed to using a direct grant you mentioned the effectiveness where you are not paying a premium to other investors you are not having as much complication in terms of accountants and attorneys some of whom are my best friends i have nothing against them but if there would be a way that you might be able to help us clarify the impact and i am not expecting that you have something here that you can pull out of your briefcase but if you could help us just generate information about what the difference is for projects that you are involved with with the grant versus tax credit at a minimum maybe some suggestions that we might simplify the tax credit application as we move forward i would appreciate it i do appreciate doctor burns notion about the federal government leading by example as the largest consumer of energy am listening to your comments and i am looking at information that we have been provided we find that the united states national renewable energy lab which we think is pretty reputable and straightforward repudiates your report suggesting it lacks transparency in reporting statistics fails to compare renewable energy technologies with comparable energy industry metrics it fails to account for issues such as the role of government in emerging markets fails to account for the success of renewable energy exports in spain fails to account for the fact that renewable energy deployment creates additional indirect jobs in communities where renewables are being deployed and produced i am from a community that benefits from one of your renewable energy companies that has its american headquarters in portland oregon but i would like to focus on one element that concerns me an account of your report in the wall street journal says and i quote the study doesn't actually identify those jobs allegedly destroyed by renewable energy spending could you elaborate on specifically what jobs were destroyed and provide the committee with a list of them have criticized they criticize us for using consensus economics about the crowding out effect they criticize us for not speculating about this year or future years but it turns out that this year has been very bad for  many have been fired they criticize us for not speculating about hypothetical export sales when the reality is that we have taken them into account we have incorporated them we looked at what is and what was but an export was expired i would appreciate it if you would provide to the committee i don't want to put you on the spot and limit you just to a minute or two if you could provide to the committee a list of the jobs in spain that were destroyed by virtue of this we would appreciate it thank you very much mister calzada congressman you will have to ask this to the spanish trade unions or to the spanish government i can provide you with what has happened with what has been the reality how many jobs this is standard economic recognizes the gentleman from washington state mist having a no net loss policy on a variety of characteristics on federal land for habitat for recreational activities those kind of things i just wonder if you could address to what extent you think we are doing that in the current permitting process and how you would suggest we move forward to in fact effectuate that idea ms culver i don't think it has been explicitly laid out in the permitting process i think it has been happening it  may be happening in an informal way more of the permitting process to date has focused on the siting issues where we have been able to have input about relocating or redesigning projects it is coming up more in california already i would say where we are having more anticipated losses of habitat that we can quantify so i haven't seen it happening to date the blm has some internal guidance on both onsite and  that is very broad and allows them to design offsite mitigation policy that can take into account a myriad of ways to as long as they identify the values that are being lost be it habitat or recreation opportunities they can design ways to do the mitigation it could be done through a fund that was created as part of a project it could be done by identifying additional lands that could be acquired for the agency to manage it could also be done at a level of identifying similar areas that could be protected or managed specifically for a lost resource one of the analogies that i had heard was for instance when ferc permits dams they also require an are not doing it at this point that i have seen but i talk to them a lot and they are thinking about how best to do it and they could use some direction about how to move forward with using this very broad this side of the water but we will use this name because it is one you have used for the moment suggesting that it was unwise for us to pursue that since spain had had this bubble developed and  am not the total expert on the spanish system but i think that our proposal has learned from the spanish experience we have in our proposal incorporated some measures that would prevent a bubble one a step down of the price to take into consideration the economics of the situation i think our proposal has a more realistic time frame as far as the rate of acceleration i would characterize the spanish acceleration as you have to some degree as precipitating a bubble that was unsupportable and just the rate of acceleration was too great and in our legislation we have sought to learn from that experience build in some safeguards and i think looking at the german experience we can succeed in this the spanish experience i don't think should be taken as you know convicting a feed in tariff for all time and should never be pursued it is just that you need to design it correctly that is what i would take from the spanish experience so if you want to comment on that feel free is that really what the lesson should be we should show some care when we design a feed in tariff system this regard and i think they have concluded that your research although i am sure sincere was not necessarily the gold standard on evaluating this issue and we are going to be following their conclusions and going to be moving forward with this by the way  chinese are now looking they have indicated they will be adopting a similar policy this has been spectacularly successful in many places in the world not the least of which is germany and i hope that we will be able to pursue this thank you i found myself voting against that even though i think it is probably a nice thing to do but tripling that program when we didn't know what we were penalizing gave me pause i am wondering if you have some thoughts about how we rebalance the equities in terms of replacing that money do you have any targets as subsidies for other types of energy anything come to mind to put the money back in the bank rosa i appreciate the question i have not looked into that we would be happy to look into it and see if we can come up with some ideas for your consideration  areas of economic activity globally which the majority of us on the committee think is critical to the survival of the planet the way that we know it and our economic competitiveness   but trying to promote sustainable evolution particularly of emerging important technologies for the future burns i would just support the concept that you are putting forward i mean we sell our starting material to almost all of the manufacturers in the value chain  over sixty five percent of what we make goes offshore to someone in asia or europe or someplace else to convert into the finished module then it comes back onshore and these guys install it and i think anything we can do number one to grow the market demand for solar and renewables in america shift from fossil to incentivizing this growth and secondly attract the solar manufacturers in the value chain to this country those two things to me are a winning combination mister blumenauer any further thoughts mister kline i would offer sir that just one way of thinking about it that of all of the alternatives out there to reduce carbon emissions the one that is most proven is renewables p m mister de rosa and we are just starting in things like thank you i am very appreciative of the emphasis to make sure we get this money taken out of a renewable account restored i know the speaker is totally committed to this i think we all up here are committed to this i spoke to the chief of staff of the white house last week they are committed t are going to be diligent in making sure that happens i have a question about the cost of solar power has declined on a real basis with increase in volume in a fairly consistent level and gradient is there any reason to believe that that will not continue at that same gradient per volume is there some hope that it will actually go down faster can you give us any predictions in that view of it is a linear line what will help is if we do increase demand and that increases significantly and exponentially then those costs should go down even greater than the linear line today because you are going to start to get some efficiencies of scale and more investment in new technologies you have seen this in the electronics industry as we become more and more efficient in semiconductors and other things so i anticipate leader i want to get the parochial local plug in that regard one of the attractions of the feed in tariff i think is that it has an incentive that is appropriate to the state of a given technology a renewable energy portfolio we have is a great tool we are going to adopt it but it is really sort of a one price for all technologies and technologies are at different levels of development so it really is an incentive for the next most affordable renewable energy not the second most affordable energy right now frankly wind is still cheaper in most places than solar one of the benefits of a feed in tariff is that it provides an incentive for multiple technologies appropriate to the level of maturation of that particular technology and this has been successful in places that have done that by the way governments have been successful in ramping down that price i was talking to a solar cell manufacturer in dresden germany last year and he was tearing his hair out because the german government was forcing down the price that was appropriate to do with increasing scale and decreasing cost is that a fair assessment is that a virtue we should pay attention to steve kline can speak to this is we have had a competitive process where we have an rps and people like us bid competitively to meet that demand  i think that that has been slower than people's expectations and so something like a feed in tariff carefully drafted i think could address that inslee let me tell you here is my concern my concern is if we rely exclusively on the renewable energy standard it will develop ultimately the next technology in line for cost quite effectively which frankly is wind at the moment in most places but it will not in a time sensitive manner develop the second third and fourth technologies in line of maturation and it is clear to me that we are going to have to have technologies three four and five to get to that eighty percent reduction by two thousand and fifty that we need so i believe that it is imperative that we adopt another tool that will jump start numbers two three four and five that i believe this is really the best mechanism for doing that the alternative is to continue with our res and ten years from now we will get to technologies two three four and five but we don't have ten years to wait in that regard we have to start now on all of these so i will be looking to your advice on how to pursue that and i hope that we do so thank you the chairman the gentleman's time has expired the chair will recognize himself for a round of questions and first i ask unanimous consent to have included in the record correspondence with the department of the interior and the department of energy on solar development and ask for unanimous consent that these letters be included in the record without objection so included the chairman and i also ask for unanimous consent to have a report from the u s national renewable energy laboratory responding to the spanish jobs report study also be included in the record at the appropriate point without objection that also is so ordered  meaningful telecommunications company in the united states was over copper wires and then we broke up at and t as a nation and the first call that went from m went to corning to use your materials that corning of new york was putting into these new fiber optic technologies using light as a means of transmitting  information and that is where the fiber optic revolution began using your materials ms burns yes the chairman and it seems kind of funny that you look back and you say well alexander graham bell who invented the phone one hundred years before by the way using lights but he couldn't figure out a way of dealing with weather and other circumstances so he was kind of waiting for the kind of materials that you w developing so that it could be transmitted in a way that wouldn't be subject to weather and other sources so all of a sudden alexander graham bell up until one thousand nine hundred and eighty three is actually still able to recognize the phone system because it was the way he invented it it is the way a phone call had been moving all those years and in a lot of ways that is really what we are talking about over here with the smart grid the smart grid makes it possible for us to use the telecommunications revolution to bring in the sun and the wind from the deserts and the prairies off of the ocean off of people's rooftops and to begin to integrate it more into the totality of the grid that we have in our country it makes it a lot more affordable of course it took the dow corning revolution in fiber optics in order to make all of that possible so ultimately we could move to a broadband technology but now we have this next revolution and people are arching an eyebrow and saying well could we have the same kind of revolution here in energy that we had in the telecom sector so my question to you is this you have heard the conversation doctor burns about solar and you talked about a thin film solar technology which dow corning has could you expand a little bit upon that and what your hopes are for thin film solar and especially in terms of its price point as each year goes by and maybe using tw kind of an outside year in terms of what you believe the price of solar generated electricity can be using thin film solar ms burns well first of all i think there is going to be a lot of different located and how much sunshine you get et cetera et cetera but these solutions are moving more and more efficiently and the chairman now when you say grid parity are you talking about equating the cost of generating electricity from now and certainly at grid parity during peak use hours the chairman yeah so that is a big news story people don't talk in those terms people still think of solar as some distant and could be in place within five years competing effectively with coal so where do you think that would be possible that is in what percentage for example of american consumers do you think could benefit energy contribution that should be up in the five to seven percent over time and i don't know how much time that is going to take but that is a huge expansion in solar power as a source of electricity the chairman we had doctor emanuel chairman that is just amazing because again people focus so much as mister inslee said on wind and even in our deliberations on the bill we spent so much time on biomass and other issues but this solar issue really has a capacity with the proper funding and public policy ms burns exactly the right investment in research policies to grow the market and policies to encourage manufacturing chairman and do you believe that your technology at dow corning is at the cutting edge in terms of thin film solar ms burns i think our specialized silicon based materials are at the cutting edge there are put up to place money on this bet ms burns or large public companies who are choosing to invest as part of their portfolio we do have some smaller companies coming and working with us and to echo some of the issues that were raised here they do have an issue with access to capital and ability to get the loans that they need to make their investments the chairman so as you use two to five years as the horizon to extent to which we use wise land planning and are able to actually take advantage of areas where there is great solarity and secondly on building the transmission the chairman i guess we are talking about two different technologies you are talking about the cost and then the question becomes where are we going to put it how quickly can we do it and how do we raise the capital in order to ensure that we do it in a way that we capture the benefits here in the united states so then we come back let me go to ms culver if i may for a second we will go over here to our bureau of land management expert let me ask this what  leases out to the oil and gas industry for its ms culver i believe at last count we were well over forty million the chairman so forty million acres of public land under the control of the capacity yes thank you for that clarification but yes so i am just trying to tell a story here so the people can have an idea of the ballpark we are in it is fenway park it is not yellowstone park but just so people are in the conversation and they can understand the scale of what we are talking about again going back to ms culver forty four million acres for oil and gas industry and over here we are looking for some policy that allows for wind and space acres square miles that you think pg and e is going to need in order to generate the solar that you are going to need to late at night and until we get a means of storing that energy and being able to use it when we need it the beauty of solar for us is that it is right at the time we need it absolutely the most chairman and again that is why we put so much money into the stimulus package for battery technology and why we will continue to fund battery technology again the good news here is that if we c the electricity generated from wind and solar and then use it when we need it and have battery technology massive battery technology which makes that possible then we have really got a good thing going and the good news here is that are not talking about putting a man on the moon and sending them up there by the way that was forty nine years ago president kennedy was talking about that can you believe that and we put a man on the moon and brought him back eight years after the president challenged our nation to that and by the way they were up there all alone it was tough up there they were riding around remember they were riding around in their vehicle up there and whatever was powering that probably some renewable energy was definitely powering that vehicle as they were bouncing around on the moon and then they figured out how to get back in that thing without houston ground control right next to them and they came back so we are not actually challenging people to do that we are just asking people to build a better battery it seems like even broader than batteries i mean there is a whole assortment of compressed air and other technologies that we and others are experimenting with so i think the beauty is again we have technologies competing against each other it may be batteries it may be compressed air the chairman yeah but again once you say there is going to be a renewable electricity explosion in california and across the country you give a huge incentive to private sector companies to start investing in the storage technology because those companies are going to become very very wealthy whoever can provide the storage capacity to all fifty states and to every utility in the country that is now going to be generating electricity so again one revolution begets the next so the telecom revolution creates the fiber optic broadband revolution that then makes the electricity internet possible because all it is a broadband management of electricity and then that revolution begets  the smart grid revolution starts to beget the battery revolution and other revolutions because you have to now private sector companies can see the opportunity as to where they are going to make a fortune maybe become wealthiest people in the history of the world whoever can develop the battery technology competing of course with the people who become the thin film solar leaders in the world they might everyone is going to be in a race here to pass bill gates as the wealthiest person in the world it is whoever makes the breakthrough patents it and starts selling it to everyone else and you have to believe this in order to move in this direction but again we are not talking about putting a man on the moon we are talking about things that are technology efficiency but there will be cost reductions for the other half of the cost which is the construction of these facilities the construction of it the balance of plant is half of the cost and those  economies are just getting started i think the obstacle we face now is and i agree with doctor burns we are going to need all the applications we are going to need the smaller rooftop have not been built yet and so it is not a technology question it is a financial it is a financing question we need to demonstrate to the people who are going to put up the money that they will get their that they will get their money back the chairman what are the financial people concerned about right now mister de rosa lenders equity investors are they are cautious of investing in something that hasn't been done before the chairman so are they most concerned about dr burns talked about kind of the incredible advances made in the technology you have as well is it the technology that they uncertain about or is it the blm regulations the ability to get access to the land the guarantee that it is a predictable investment tax policy could you go down the list of the things that you generation we want to get that first generation in first and we need to deliver to investors a project with four corners around it that does not have environmental problems that has its permits that  is not just our company there are many companies out there developing utility scale and we all think that is what we need to meet our goals even though one could say well it is just two hundred and thirty times the one project but it if you are the one putting up the money there is a lot of questions that you ask and you ask about supply chains and you ask about construction process and all of those things and so that is  of the appropriations committee did promise that the money would be completely restored so that was all part of that very same day debate that included the cash for clunkers in this room so the commitment was made the floor debate at that time so i think you can pretty much take that to the bank so let me come back to you again ms culver the interior department estimates that there are two point nine million megawatts of solar potential in the southwest on public land we have in the whole country right now we have one million  and the department of interior has estimated again that there are two point nine million megawatts of solar potential in the southwest on public lands so that would be almost three times the total electrical generating capacity over the whole country today it is a fantastic number so the department of interior including b lands equals about five hundred million acres so talk a little bit ms culver about kind of the regulatory tensions that exist here between the preservation of the environment and the installation of these that has not quite come to bear we have of course had a few conflicts over project siting but the solar energy study areas that were recently identified and where the comments have been pouring into the bureau of land management are looking at  hundred and seventy thousand acres that have been identified as close to existing transmission not having a lot of environmental conflicts and being very much suitable for solar energy development at the utilities scale in terms of both the potential it would generate and the terrain so i think at the first stage that the tension has the tension is interesting for people to write about but the tension in the actual process itself has not been quite as high and we are talking about two hundred and sixty million acres as we just talked about of that the blm's national landscape conservation system which is basically the crown jewels of the wilderness wilderness study areas national monuments conservation areas it is about twenty six million acres of the two hundred and sixty two million acres of the bureau of land management's lands approximately twenty six million a little bit more has been added in the last omnibus but of those are dedicated to the national landscape conservation system which incorporates wilderness wilderness study areas national monuments national conservation areas wild and scenic rivers and national and historic trails so we do not have a situation where the vast majority of the lands are somehow locked up and we are going to have to do that is not being farmed anymore because there is not enough water so it is fallow land it is a great location great site for solar because as we would describe it it is previously disturbed land it has been cultivated before so that are remaining in terms of the construction of that project mister de rosa it is financing the chairman financing and the financing is contingent upon again if you can just say the words the confidence of the private sector and they are waiting credit market is in pretty sad shape if you can't rely upon this rock of gibraltar which is pge it is not going anywhere it has a state law saying they have to buy renewable electricity you are going to be able to produce it and if you get it the technology is there it is moving along she has got the materials she is willing to sell to anyone and she is guaranteeing improvements as the years go by ms culver is saying there is public land available ninety percent of it that would be usable for solar technology and that it is out there and wouldn't have a lot of environmental or regulatory problems in using it mister de rosa is saying that he believes that utility scale technology is the way to go and that  if you can have a marketplace and california is building it here with the mandate that the utilities have to come we have to receive a high percentage of their electricity from renewables that and with the doe loan guarantee and ten is the december of two thousand and ten is the deadline for the investment tax credit grant and that is an important component in the financing because it makes the financing just that much more streamlined it eliminates the need for this complicated tax equity investor in the projects the chairman so the combination of state renewable electricity standards and the existing and the existence of an investment tax break is going to put a lot of pressure on investors to kind of close the deal to get the benefits mister de rosa we are spending millions of dollars at risk  developing these projects and i think the investors and lenders would be eager to invest with that combination the chairman that is great you know what i am going to do i am going to ask each one of you to give us your summary of one minute of what you want  i would say that when you look at the new investments especially when there are technologies that are not ready now you should have the feet in the air and look at past experience and of what i was already putting in process here of getting the final statements just to say to you doctor calzada that yes jimmy carter did say that and he was putting the policies in place to do that he did not predict that he because he did not want any national planning for energy policies and while there was a beautiful analogy there between doctor dentist james edward and the drilling that he republican control of the house and senate for twelve years did not accommodate that technology either and so if you look backward you can learn from history but you have to understand that sometimes history does not repeat itself and here it is not going to repeat itself okay we are actually on day one at eight a m of the obama administration it is going to last at least four years the states now have in the absence of federal action put their own renewable electricity standards on the books  and last year there was nine thousand new megawatts of wind and solar installed in the united states and nine zero new megawatts of natural gas and only one five hundred new megawatts of coal so the revolution is on okay  world and while i love the carter focus on these issues that was thirty years ago and we did miss a huge opportunity we should have already completed the revolution now but we were focusing too much on drilling and not enough on relatively promising i encourage us to put in policies and regulatory practices that grow demand because we are on the precipice of achieving energy efficiency and parity i think we should do more to attract manufacturing investments i think it is a crime that most of the manufacturing is done offshore for our needs and i can tell you green jobs are real i look them in the face every day with the chairman and just to follow up here on doctor burns china is already the leading exporter of solar technology so it is no longer just jimmy carter talking about the united states china is now industrialized india is industrializing germany has targeted solar as one of their principal long term manufacturing sectors so we no longer have the luxury of just sitting on the sidelines here otherwise we will end up importing it all anyway because we are going to have all these state and national requirements that we have renewable electricity and the only question now is where is it going to be manufactured here or overseas because these laws are not only not going to go away they are going to get strengthened as the green generation of young people come along and demand that they be strengthened as every year goes by so that is the challenge for us it is to make sure that dow and other companies are producing the jobs here ms culver ms culver well on the blm lands we do have under forty four million or so acres under lease for oil and gas and we don't have large scale solar projects so what this really shows is we are starting from the ground up it is an opportunity there is a challenge but there is an opportunity and i really want to encourage us to learn the lessons that some of us have learned from the oil and gas program and to embrace this opportunity the program that is being built right now is a revolution of its own in management and i think we need to support it and go forward with this approach of actually identifying and prioritizing and targeting the right lands for development and acknowledging that there are lands that are not appropriate for development right from the start what we have been seeing here is a very different approach where we have multiple opportunities for participation from the public and from the state and local experts so we have people who know and people who care and some of us actually both know and care and we are getting a chance to  improve the projects and to be able to support them so i think if we continue down this path we are going to be able to achieve some development the chairman and ms culver do you know how many acres  i think dramatic acceleration of solar energy development that the market demand is there we have heard today the technologies are there today with even more impressive technologies coming in the future we have a determined department of interior and bureau of land management to utilize federal lands for renewable development and we have a doe loan guarantee program we have an itc grant let us keep those in place and let us pass the green bank so that this isn't just a first wave but it is a sustainable development of solar energy the chairman and the green bank that you are referring to is the provision in the waxman markey bill which will leverage upwards of seventy five dollars billion worth of investment in advanced technologies not just solar and wind but nuclear first mechanisms to create scale nationally as doctor burns suggested that is some form of a national res that is a very well carefully constructed feed in tariff it is something that creates very helpful it will be on the record and it is going to help us a lot over these next several months to ensure that we put the right permanent policies on the books to ensure that we complete this revolution thank you al