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POWERING AMERICA: DEFINING RELIABILITY IN 

A TRANSFORMING ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 14 & OCTOBER 3, 2017 

Serial No. 115–56 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

Chairman 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Vice Chairman 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILL FLORES, Texas 

SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana 

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma 

RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

Ranking Member 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

BEN RAY LUJA ́ N, New Mexico 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III, Massachusetts 

TONY CA ́ RDENAS, California 

RAUL RUIZ, California 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan7 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

Chairman 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

Vice Chairman 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILL FLORES, Texas 

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma 

RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio) 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

Ranking Member 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III, Massachusetts 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey (ex 

officio) 

(II) 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017 

Page 

Hon. Pete Olson, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 2 

Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of 

New Jersey, prepared statement ........................................................................ 31 

Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of Oregon, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 44 

WITNESSES

Neil Chatterjee, Chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ................ 3 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 46 

Patricia Hoffman, Acting Assistant Secretary, Office of Electricity Delivery 

and Energy Reliability, Department of Energy ................................................. 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13 

Additional information for the record ............................................................. 42 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 62 

Gerry W. Cauley, President and Chief Executive Officer, North American 

Electric Reliability Corporation .......................................................................... 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 20 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 77 

OCTOBER 3, 2017 

WITNESSES

Marty Durbin, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, American 

Petroleum Institute .............................................................................................. 89 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 91 

Paul Bailey, Chief Executive Officer, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity ..................................................................................................................... 113 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 115 

Maria G. Korsnick, Chief Executive Officer, Nuclear Energy Institute .............. 126 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 128 

Thomas C. Kiernan, Chief Executive Officer, American Wind Energy Association ........................................................................................................................ 134 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 136 

Steve Wright, General Manager, Chelan County Public Utility District No. 

1, on Behalf of the National Hydropower Association ...................................... 150 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 152 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 292 

Christopher Mansour, Vice President, Federal Affairs, Solar Energy Industries Association ................................................................................................... 185 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 187 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 296 

Kelly Speakes-Backman, Chief Executive Officer, Energy Storage Association 203 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 205 

John Moore, Senior Attorney and Director of the Sustainable FERC Project, 

National Resources Defense Council .................................................................. 221 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 223 

Page

IV 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Statement by Susan F. Tierney, Senior Advisor, Analysis Group, September 

12, 2017, submitted by Mr. Olson ....................................................................... 272 

(1) 

POWERING AMERICA: DEFINING RELIABILITY 

IN A TRANSFORMING ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY, PART 1 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2017 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY, 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in room 

2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Pete Olson (vice chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Olson, Barton, Shimkus, Murphy, Latta, McKinley, Kinzinger, Griffith, Johnson, Long, Bucshon, 

Flores, Cramer, Walberg, Walden (ex officio), Rush, McNerney, 

Green, Doyle, Castor, Tonko, Loebsack, Butterfield, and Pallone (ex 

officio). 

Staff present: Ray Baum, Staff Director; Elena Brennan, Legislative Clerk, Energy/Environment; Karen Christian, General Counsel; Wyatt Ellertson, Research Associate, Energy/Environment; 

Adam Fromm, Director of Outreach and Coalitions; Tom 

Hassenboehler, Chief Counsel, Energy/Environment; Jordan 

Haverly, Policy Coordinator, Environment; A.T. Johnston, Senior 

Policy Advisor, Energy; Mary Martin, Deputy Chief Counsel, Energy/Environment; Alex Miller, Video Production Aide and Press 

Assistant; Brandon Mooney, Deputy Chief Energy Advisor; 

Annelise Rickert, Counsel, Energy; Dan Schneider, Press Secretary; 

Jason Stanek, Senior Counsel, Energy; Madeline Vey, Policy Coordinator, Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection; Andy Zach, 

Senior Professional Staff Member, Environment; Priscilla Barbour, 

Minority Energy Fellow; Rick Kessler, Minority Senior Advisor and 

Staff Director, Energy/Environment; John Marshall, Minority Policy Coordinator; Alexander Ratner, Minority Policy Analyst; Andrew Souvall, Minority Director of Communications, Member Services, and Outreach; and Tuley Wright, Minority Energy and Environment Policy Advisor. 

Mr. OLSON. The hearing will come to order. 

Good morning and welcome. We find ourselves this morning with 

a bit of a challenge on the House floor. Votes may start within 5 

minutes, multiple roll call votes, may be up to 11⁄2 hours voting on 

the House floor. 

I had a great opening statement written by my Texas constituent 

Annelise. I will not give it but ask unanimous consent to put that 

in the record. 

2 

Without objection, so ordered. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Olson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. PETE OLSON

Today’s hearing is part one in the committee’s efforts to address reliability of the 

Nation’s electricity system. Today we have the opportunity to hear from the regulators in charge of the reliable delivery of electricity to millions of Americans. 

I want to start by sending my thoughts and prayers to the family of former Senator Pete Domenici. He was a dedicated public servant and a titan on energy policy. 

He will be missed. 

I also want to take a minute to acknowledge all those affected across the United 

States by both Hurricane Harvey—like the people of my district—and Hurricane 

Irma. These natural disasters have left the electric industry with one of the largest 

and most complex power restoration efforts in United States history. 

To that end, thank you, Acting Assistant Secretary Hoffman, here today, for working with my staff in the days after Hurricane Harvey to give us an update on gasoline supply in Texas. My district is trying to get back on its feet, and it will take 

a united Government to help. Given how much energy Texas contributes to the 

American economy, I hope you will continue to work on post-Harvey issues in the 

weeks and months ahead. 

Electricity is a fundamental and essential part of our everyday lives. A system 

failure impacts our health, wealth, and national security. These impacts were felt 

firsthand in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. 

The electricity sector is experiencing significant change—driven by fuel costs, decreases in electricity demand, advances in technology, and evolving consumer preferences. These changes present new challenges and opportunities. 

Our Nation’s electricity is supplied by a diverse mix of fuel sources- natural gas, 

coal, nuclear, wind, hydropower, solar, and other technologies. Each of these have 

attributes that help system operators protect reliability. Harvey and Irma highlight 

the importance of a reliable grid that is not too dependent on one source of energy. 

It also showed the importance of being prepared. This committee was instrumental in passing H.R. 3050, the Enhancing State Energy Security Planning and 

Emergency Preparedness Act. Our bipartisan bill gives States the flexibility they 

need to address local energy challenges. H.R. 3050 reauthorizes the Department of 

Energy’s State Energy Program. It strengthens our energy emergency planning and 

preparedness efforts. States need all the tools in the tool box to address fuel supply, 

infrastructure resilience, energy security, and emergency preparedness. 

The second part of this important hearing, which will be held at a later date, will 

include a panel of witnesses representing different kinds of resources and technologies. These witnesses will provide helpful insight into differences on our grid, 

but also how sources of energy are working together. 

I want to extend a warm welcome to our panel of witnesses. This is the Energy 

Subcommittee’s first Government panel this congress. Chairman Chatterjee, we are 

happy to have you join us. We are breathing a sigh of relief now that FERC has 

quorum. I want you back at your desk ASAP. I also want to thank you, Mr. Cauley 

and Assistant Secretary Hoffman, who are joining us despite all the work being 

done at NERC and DOE this week. On behalf of the committee, we truly appreciate 

you being here. 

Mr. OLSON. Mr. Rush, would you like to speak, or put your statement for the record? 

Mr. RUSH. For the record. 

OK. Guys, moving forward, we have three witnesses here. We 

have Mr. Chatterjee, Ms. Hoffman, and Mr. Cauley. 

You guys have 5 minutes for opening statements. 

Mr. Chatterjee, the head of FERC. You have 5 minutes. 

3 

STATEMENTS OF NEIL CHATTERJEE, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL 

ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION; PATRICIA HOFFMAN, 

ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY, OFFICE OF ELECTRICITY 

DELIVERY AND ENERGY RELIABILITY, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY; AND GERRY W. CAULEY, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NORTH AMERICAN ELECTRIC RELIABILITY CORPORATION 

STATEMENT OF NEIL CHATTERJEE 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Rush, members of the subcommittee, for the opportunity to be before you today. Before I begin my remarks, I just want to very 

briefly reflect on the passing of Senator Domenici who passed away 

yesterday, former chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, who 

was a leader in this space. And he will be remembered. 

I would like to start by taking a moment to acknowledge all of 

those impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The loss of life 

and widespread devastation wrought by the storms has been absolutely heartbreaking to see. I know I speak on behalf of those in 

the room and for Americans across the country when I say that our 

thoughts and prayers are with those affected at this difficult time. 

We know the road ahead will not be easy, but we will be with you 

every step of the way. 

It was good to see Congress act swiftly to begin providing some 

of the resources that are needed to those relying on it. We at the 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are ready to do our part as 

well. 

It is times like these that also remind us how important the reliability and resiliency of the electric grid is in our day-to-day lives. 

Rebuilding from these storms is going to take time. But I have 

been inspired by the way that the brave men and women of the 

utility industry have already stepped forward to help. 

Crews from all over the country are assisting in this effort. In 

addition, FERC and NERC have issued a joint statement to encourage mutual assistance and assure companies that they won’t be penalized for helping restore service. FERC also granted an extension 

on filing deadlines so that people and companies could focus on 

what is most important: recovery. 

And finally, in response to the loss of refineries due to the 

storms, the Commission issued an emergency pipeline waiver to accelerate the delivery of much-needed fuel and to help ensure the 

continued flow of gasoline to the Northeast. We will continue to 

keep all those affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in our prayers as they work to rebuild their homes and lives. 

While this is a transformational and exciting period for the electric power industry, we must be mindful that developments not 

threaten the robustness or security of the electric grid. FERC supports the reliability and the resiliency of the grid in several ways. 

Congress entrusted FERC with the responsibility to approve and 

enforce mandatory reliability standards for the grid in 2005. FERC 

relies on NERC to develop and propose new or modified reliability 

standards for FERC’s review. These standards include both physical and cybersecurity standards. 

4 

Much of this is covered in my written testimony. So, in the interest of time, I am going to speed ahead and just say that a reliable 

and resilient grid requires the development of needed energy infrastructure. FERC supports that development through its statutory 

responsibility to authorize the construction of certain energy infrastructure, such as interstate natural gas pipelines, liquefied natural gas terminals, and non-Federal hydropower generation. While 

the lack of a quorum has rendered the Commission unable to act 

on applications for such projects for much of this year, I am pleased 

to report that FERC is now addressing the backlog and will continue to make steady progress in the coming weeks and months. I 

am proud to report that, since the restoration of the quorum, we 

have put out 62 orders and will continue to do that. 

Certainly, FERC’s efforts in all of these areas covered in my written testimony will continue to involve cross-sector, interagency, and 

public-private coordination. Working with our Federal partners, 

State colleagues, relevant industries, and other stakeholders, 

FERC will continue to seek ways to ensure the reliability and resiliency of the electric grid. 

I am committed to working with the subcommittee to continue 

these efforts, and I would like to reiterate my appreciation to the 

chair and ranking member for holding this critical hearing. Thank 

you for allowing me the opportunity to be with you today. I apologize for the abbreviated remarks, and I would be happy to answer 

any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Chatterjee follows:] 

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Mr. OLSON. Thank you, Chairman Chatterjee. 

The Chair now calls upon Ms. Patricia Hoffman. She is the Acting Under Secretary for Science, the Acting Assistant Secretary of 

the Office of Electricity at the Department of Energy. 

You have 5 minutes, ma’am. 

STATEMENT OF PATRICIA HOFFMAN 

Ms. HOFFMAN. Chairman Upton, Vice Chairman Olson, Ranking 

Member Rush, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, I 

appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you electricity reliability 

issues in a rapidly transforming electricity industry. The U.S. electric sector is in the midst of sweeping changes. Looking ahead, I 

see little reason to expect that this process will slow down or that 

we will reach new equilibrium any time soon. Accordingly, I think 

the fundamental challenge is now to understand this process and 

manage it so that our Nation’s electric infrastructure remains reliable, affordable, and resilient. 

Before I discuss any further details, I would like to echo the comments by Chairman Chatterjee and that our thoughts and prayers 

are there for those that are affected. Our organization also provides 

energy-related expertise to FEMA and the administration as part 

of our emergency response activities. We have been actively engaged in the response, recovery, and rebuilding efforts from Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. The actions that the departments have taken are in support of a whole-of-Government response to these disasters and includes deploying 26 people to State 

emergency operation centers, Regional and National Response Coordination Centers. We have authorized up to 5.3 million barrels 

of oil for exchange from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We have 

supported State and regional fuel waivers under the jurisdiction of 

EPA and hosted coordination calls with DOE and emergency response personnel in the electric sector, the oil and natural gas sector, and State energy offices. 

As Secretary Perry has noted on numerous occasions, America is 

blessed to have the incredible energy systems and resources we 

have today. The millions of dedicated men and women who work 

in the electric industry and are providing response activities to restore power, to move fuels, and to repair infrastructure are doing 

a tremendous job and should be recognized for their dedication and 

service. 

Over the last several months, DOE, led by my office, has explored numerous issues central to protecting the long-term reliability and resiliency of the electric grid. We are seeking to inform 

policymakers of the facts and trends in the electric sector and provide a common focal point of discussion for all affected stakeholders. 

In addition, we do research at our national laboratories with our 

industry partners. We have focused on new technologies for operating, planning, and monitoring and protecting the grid. The Department announced on Tuesday up to $50 million to national laboratory-led teams focused on resilience and cybersecurity. 

In order to keep my comments short, I just want to say, in conclusion, Secretary Perry and our DOE team look forward to a 

thoughtful conversation focused on reliability, affordability, and reVerDate Mar 15 2010 11:57 Feb 09, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\115THCONGRESS\115X56PARELIABILITY\115X56PARELIABILITYWORKING WAYNE
12 

silience in the electric system. The implications are profound, and 

we have one electric grid. And we are more dependent on it than 

ever for our economic well-being and national security. The grid 

must function, and it must function well in that it must meet a 

number of competing technical and economic requirements. 

And, for me, managing this change means we must think about 

the grid holistically in a single interactive set of policies; we must 

monitor the grid’s characteristics and performance; we need to develop a more systematic way of looking ahead; and, finally, we 

must manage change with new processes and practices for collaboration that requires coordination between the Federal and privatesector partners. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hoffman follows:] 

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Mr. OLSON. Thank you, Ms. Hoffman. 

The Chair now calls upon Mr. Gerry Cauley. He is the president 

and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. 

You have 5 minutes, sir. 

STATEMENT OF GERRY W. CAULEY 

Mr. CAULEY. Thank you, Vice Chairman Olson, and Ranking 

Member Rush, and the members of the subcommittee. Thank you 

for conducting this timely hearing as we face a period of rapid 

change in the electricity industry. Driven by an abundance of natural gas, public policy, advances in technology, market forces, and 

customer preferences, this transition is altering our understanding 

of base load power and how generating resources are dispatched. 

As the Electric Reliability Organization, NERC is focused on the 

emerging challenges presented by the Nation’s rapidly changing resource mix. With appropriate policies, careful planning, and strong 

actions, I am confident the electricity sector will continue to accommodate these changes and enhance reliability and resilience. Even 

with the changes already under way, the bulk power system remains highly reliable and resilient and shows improved performance each year. This record demonstrates the strong commitment 

to reliability by all stakeholders. But reliability requires constant 

vigilance now more than ever. 

Let me take a moment to describe NERC’s role in identifying 

emerging reliability risks before they become bigger problems. Each 

year, we conduct a long-term reliability assessment that looks at 

the reliability of a system 10 years out. Annually, we also provide 

a state-of-reliability report that looks at the grid performance over 

the previous year. We conduct special assessments focused on challenges, such as the integration of renewables and distributed energy resources and the increased reliance on natural gas infrastructure. 

We analyze system events, such as the unexpected loss of power 

from solar farms in California during the Blue Cut fire in August 

of 2016. 

Over the past 6 years, the 50 largest events impacting the grid 

were caused by severe weather, leaving NERC to focus on resilience as a priority going forward. Through our studies, we are able 

to provide risk-informed recommendations to continuously improve 

reliability and resilience. 

Next, I would like to turn to how the change in resource mix will 

affect reliability. The grid is highly interconnected and depends on 

having the right combination of resources and transmission. It is 

important to maintain a continuous supply of essential reliability 

services in the right locations on the system. As just a few examples, these include inertia, frequency response, voltage control, stability, and ramping to meet changes in demand and variability of 

renewable resources. Conventional base load units with relatively 

high availability rates and onsite fuel have historically provided 

these essential reliability services. When these units retire, new resources coming on to the system must replace these essential reliability services that are being lost. As more resources move behind 

the meter, it is also increasingly important for the system operators to have visibility into those resources. As our power supply beVerDate Mar 15 2010 11:57 Feb 09, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\115THCONGRESS\115X56PARELIABILITY\115X56PARELIABILITYWORKING WAYNE
19 

comes increasingly dependent on natural gas, we must ensure this 

just-in-time fuel is as reliable and secure as the power plants that 

need the fuel to operate. 

Many issues and recommendations identified by NERC are reflected in DOE’s staff report on electricity markets and reliability. 

Both NERC and the DOE study agree on the need to maintain essential reliability services, promote resilience, coordinate gas/electric issues, and collaborate with Canada and Mexico on reliability. 

More specifically, I would like to highlight several recommendations of my own. FERC, States, and markets should review the economic and market factors driving base load generation into early 

retirements and provide tangible incentives for maintaining a diverse and resilient resource mix. All new resources should have the 

capability to support essential reliability services. Markets should 

explicitly value and price capacity, essential reliability services, 

and enhanced resilience through fuel diversity. Policymakers 

should evaluate alternatives for ensuring adequate capacity of gas 

pipelines and storage to meet electricity production needs during 

extreme conditions and ensure that gas infrastructure is as secure 

from cybersecurity and physical security threats as the grid that it 

supplies. 

Markets should incent and, as needed, require all resources, including demand response, ensure those resources will perform in 

both normal and extreme conditions. 

And finally, policymakers should seek alternatives to streamline 

siting and permitting of transmission. 

To address the challenges and benefits of a more diverse resource 

mix, industry stakeholders and policymakers must understand and 

plan for the risks of our rapidly changing resource fleet. NERC 

plays a critical role as an objective and independent expert organization, and I appreciate the opportunity to share our thoughts and 

expertise with you here today. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cauley follows:] 

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Mr. OLSON. Thank you, Mr. Cauley. 

The Chair now calls upon the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Pallone, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I will just submit my statement for 

the record because my understanding is that there are going to be 

votes. And I will just submit it for the record. I will ask unanimous 

consent. 

Mr. OLSON. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today’s hearing to explore how we define 

electric reliability in today’s world. This is the first of two hearings that we will be 

holding on electric reliability as part of our bipartisan hearings on the electric sector. I appreciate the way the chairmen and the Republican committee staff have 

worked with us and our staff to move this series forward in a very constructive way. 

I want to start by welcoming Chairman Chatterjee: we appreciate your willingness to come before us so soon after taking the reins at FERC. I also appreciate 

the flexibility of Mr. Cauley and Ms. Hoffman in making themselves available today. 

I’m particularly pleased to have Ms. Hoffman, not just because of her long service 

and deep knowledge, but also because her presence represents the first time in eight 

months that the Trump Administration has provided this subcommittee with a witness. That is unique and unfortunate, and I hope that Ms. Hoffman’s presence today 

marks a change for the better. 

I firmly believe that it is time to start looking at reliability in new and different 

ways. If there is one thing we have learned in the past two weeks -a period that 

has left nearly 8 million without power-it is that climate change is having devastating effects on our communities and we must modernize our electricity system 

to make it more resilient. A recent study of FEMA disaster declaration records 

shows that over the last 20 years four times as many counties were hit by disasterscale hurricanes, storms and floods than during the two decades before that period. 

While the regulatory standards for what constitutes reliability seem not to have 

changed much in the past few decades, the technology by which we can achieve reliability certainly has transformed dramatically. In the past, things like redundant 

transmission lines may have been the only way to guarantee reliability, but that’s 

hardly the case today. 

We can now make our system more reliable and more resilient by incorporating 

technologies to manage demand and by generating and storing power closer to 

where it is consumed, through use of batteries and distributed generation resources 

including renewables like rooftop solar. These assets can be connected by microgrids 

and isolated from the transmission and main distribution system. 

While climate change is producing stronger storms more frequently that can damage every part of the grid, in most storms it is the distribution system that is the 

most vulnerable part of the grid, and not the larger transmission system or generating assets. In a grid characterized by large, centralized power production, if the 

distribution lines are down, it doesn’t matter how many transmission lines we have 

because the power can’t get to the consumer. While we are awaiting an assessment 

of the impact of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, I know that in my area, Superstorm 

Sandy showed us that centralized power, carried by lines over great distances, does 

not guarantee reliability or a resilient grid. After its experience with Sandy, New 

Jersey’s largest utility said, ‘‘reliability remains fundamental but is no longer 

enough now that extreme storms have become increasingly common.’’ This is an important distinction that is playing out in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. 

To encourage the innovation we need to make our grid more reliable and resilient, 

we also need to reexamine the way we calculate rates and how utilities make 

money. In many ways, traditional rate setting encourages utilities to make money 

just by building new transmission lines. Those new lines could also have the effect 

of locking in a market for older, fossil fuel generation that accelerates climate 

change while crowding out cleaner and less expensive options for generating power 

and ensuring reliability. Utilities should be able to make money, but I’m concerned 

that the old rate-making model may encourage utilities to continue building too 

many of yesterday’s capital facilities that do not maximize reliability and resiliency 

when better options are available today. 

32 

As our committee discusses the grid, we should carefully reexamine the old approaches to reliability, resiliency and ratemaking to seriously consider whether our 

long-term interests are better served by charting a new course. 

Again, thank you for holding this hearing, and I look forward to hearing from our 

distinguished witnesses. 

Mr. OLSON. And I thank you all for your testimony. 

And now we begin the question-and-answer portion of this hearing. 

I will begin with a question and recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

Hurricane Harvey hit my home State twice, but we never lost 

power at my home in Sugar Land. Some people are still without 

power in Texas, Louisiana. A lot of people in Florida don’t have 

power because of Hurricane Irma. Without power, there is much 

greater damage: mold, even death, as we saw in Florida. 

My first question is for you, Ms. Hoffman. I know that DOE has 

been very busy assisting with Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane 

Irma recovery efforts. We applaud that. But can you talk a second 

about the programs DOE has in its place not only to recover but 

to also prepare for storm events in the future? 

Ms. HOFFMAN. Yes, Vice Chairman. Thank you very much for the 

question. The Department has been actively engaged with utilities 

through our R&D program to look at advanced technologies that 

we have helped support the industry, test out on the grid, such as 

automated switching, rerouting of power, the ability for utilities to 

do outage management, to really take a look at and be proactive 

in the response characteristics for identifying where the outages 

are. If you remember, customers usually have to call the utility to 

let them know their power is out. Now the utilities have been able 

to automate a lot of those systems. 

In addition, we have been working with the States and the regions to really exercise and understand—each hurricane is different. The damage is significant. And we have been helping the 

States prepare for this. 

Mr. OLSON. Well, thank you. 

What has been the role of the ESCC, the electricity subsector coordinating council, during hurricane preparations and response? 

Ms. HOFFMAN. The Electric Sector Coordinating Council has had 

a significant role. It is the focal point of coordination between the 

Federal Government and CEOs, the leaders in the electric utility 

industry. This allows for continuity of message and activities, so 

that we are all on the same page of what the priorities are and 

what the activities and the needs are by industry to the highest 

level of the Federal Government, as well as industry, in supporting 

a coordinated, but most importantly an effective, restoration process. 

Mr. OLSON. And back home, the people say it is working very 

well. Glad to hear it is working well on your side. 

My final question, Ms. Hoffman, is, a few months ago, we passed 

a bill out of this committee, H.R. 3050, that helps improve State 

energy assurance planning. How does an energy assurance plan 

help a State deal with extreme weather events, like Harvey, Irma, 

and more hurricanes? 

Ms. HOFFMAN. So energy assurance planning is an important activity that the States undertake to really take a hard look at sceVerDate Mar 15 2010 11:57 Feb 09, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\115THCONGRESS\115X56PARELIABILITY\115X56PARELIABILITYWORKING WAYNE
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narios of potential events that could impact their State but also 

look at how this affects the energy resources. So it allows us to look 

at contingency, and it really thinks about, how do we build in resilience in partnership with the States? 

Mr. OLSON. Thank you. 

My last question is for you, Chairman Chatterjee. In order to 

have a reliable electricity system, we must protect our grid from cybersecurity threats. For example, I understand you participate in 

the grid exercises. How do these types of exercises make the electricity system more reliable? And what else are you doing in terms 

of cybersecurity? 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. Thank you for the question, Vice Chairman. 

The Commission and I myself take cybersecurity and protecting 

our grid from cyber attacks very seriously. FERC is focused on ensuring reliability in the face of some of the cyber challenges that 

we have. We also have an Office of Energy Infrastructure Security 

that is trying to stay ahead of potential threats to the grid and participate in some of these activities. There is no question that 

threats to our system of electricity generation distribution, whether 

from hurricanes or from cyber attacks, are of the utmost concern 

to the Commission, and I will continue to work with you all and 

my colleagues to ensure the safety of our grid. 

Mr. OLSON. Thank you. That is all my questions. 

The Chair now calls upon the gentleman from Illinois, the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Rush, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RUSH. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to ask all three of you the first question. In your professional opinion, do you anticipate that climate change will continue 

to play a significant role in threatening the Nation’s energy infrastructure due to more frequently occurring superstorms, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, including heat waves, droughts, 

fires, and floods? Each one of you, I would like for you to respond, 

beginning with you, Mr. Chatterjee. 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. I think it is important, as we confront these 

storms and the impacts that they have had on our grid, that we 

ensure that, as our grid transforms for the future, that we ensure 

that we can bounce back from these types of events and have a 

really reliable and resilient grid. 

As the vice chairman mentioned, when the power goes out, people really suffer. I was on an ESCC call with Secretary Perry in 

which he talked about the fact, after a couple of days, you are hot, 

you are tired, you are wet, and if you don’t have power, you start 

to get upset. And it is important that, in response to these weather 

events and challenges, that we have a reliable and resilient grid. 

And I think the role of the Commission will be to look that, as we 

are in this transformational period, that we ensure that the reliability, the world class, second-to-none reliability that our country 

has enjoyed can be maintained going forward. 

Mr. RUSH. Ms. Hoffman. 

Ms. HOFFMAN. I would echo the chairman’s comments, that I believe it is the duty and responsibility of the electric industry to be 

forward leaning and to think about different scenarios and events 

that will happen, build it off of the knowledge base we have experienced, and look about how do we build in resilience moving forVerDate Mar 15 2010 11:57 Feb 09, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\115THCONGRESS\115X56PARELIABILITY\115X56PARELIABILITYWORKING WAYNE
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ward; what can we do to our infrastructure to continue to support 

an effective restoration process, to getting the lights on as quickly 

as possible? 

Mr. CAULEY. So, understanding climate change is outside of my 

expertise or my organization’s expertise, but we do see, in recent 

years, in my time as 8 years as CEO, it seems as we are seeing 

an increase in the magnitude and severity of events, flooding, and 

storms. And it is something, as the other two panelists mentioned, 

I think we have to think about in the design of our systems and 

our preparations to think about, how do we prepare for more extremes than we have seen historically? 

Mr. RUSH. Each of you, do you feel as though there is a sense 

of urgency that is apparent in the Congress or in both administrations or in the administration, be it Republican or Democrat? Is 

there a sense of urgency about greater reliability in the event of 

severe weather challenges? 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. I laid out in my opening remarks some of the 

steps that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took immediately to respond to the devastation that was wrought by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. And I can say that we most certainly view 

the reliability and resilience of our grid with the utmost sense of 

urgency. 

Ms. HOFFMAN. With two Cat 4 hurricanes impacting the mainland of the United States, there is definitely a sense of urgency. 

Secretary Perry, former Governor of Texas, recognizes the devastation to life and the economic development and human safety. So it 

is definitely forefront on our radar. 

Mr. CAULEY. I sense that there has been a strong focus on resilience of the grid through both of the most recent administrations. 

And we are working hard on that. 

And the reason is, in my opening remarks, I mentioned the 50 

most significant events we have seen in the U.S. in the last 5 years 

are all weather related. So it says we can invest more in hardening 

and protecting our system. 

Florida Power & Light, in Irma, had recently invested $3 billion 

on hardening using concrete poles, steel poles, elevating substations, and the equipment that was hardened performed significantly better than the equipment that had not been hardened yet. 

So it was a good demonstration. 

Mr. RUSH. I have just a short period of time now. I want to ask 

Chairman Chatterjee and Mr. Cauley, according to the cybersecurity firm Symantec Corporation, there has been an uptick in activity by a group of hackers code-named Dragonfly 2.0 within our domestic energy networks after years of seemingly being inactive. Are 

FERC and NERC monitoring this activity? And are you both confident that you have the tools to address this issue in order to prevent this group from sabotaging our electric infrastructure? 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. Thank you for the question, Congressman. We 

are aware of the Symantec report and have been coordinating 

closely with other Federal agencies, as well as the NERC ISAC, 

and industry to assess and address this matter as appropriate. If 

it would be helpful to members of the subcommittee, we could seek 

to coordinate with other agencies to provide additional information 

in a nonpublic setting. 

35 

Mr. CAULEY. Dragonfly has been around for 3 or 4 years. We 

have been aware of it and communicating with the industry. This 

new reincarnation of Dragonfly 2 is recent. And it has characteristics that would make it operative within control systems, within 

substations, and so on. So it is of interest. The instances that we 

have seen have not gotten into those systems. They were picked up 

through traffic between the utility systems and information going 

offshore. So it has not done any harm. It has not infiltrated the 

systems yet. But it is there, and it is active. 

Mr. RUSH. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLSON. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now calls upon the gentleman from Texas, the vice 

chairman, Joe Barton. 

Mr. BARTON. 

I ask all Members, please adhere to the 5-minute time. Please, 

please, please. We have got so many people and questions that we 

are running out of time. 

Chairman Barton, you are up. 

Mr. BARTON. Because of what you just said, Mr. Chairman, I am 

going to ask one question, and then I will yield to anybody on my 

side. 

Many, many States are adopting renewable portfolio standards, 

and some of them are fairly aggressive. They want to have at least 

50 percent—and there might be even a few States that are above 

that—of their electricity generation with renewables. My question, 

I guess, would be to Mr. Cauley, who is head of NERC, is it possible to meet the same reliability standards if you go to a generation system that is predominantly renewable? 

Mr. CAULEY. I think, from what we are seeing, it is technically 

feasible, but there are a lot of reliability challenges. I gave the example of August a year ago, in California, there was a wildfire that 

caused a transmission wire to trip. When 1,200 megawatts of solar 

panels saw that, they thought it was the system collapsing, so they 

all shut down at the worst time. And so there has to be coordination. 

Wind and solar do not inherently come with the controls to provide frequency response, voltage response. They just want to put 

out megawatts; they want to put out power. But, technically, we 

have been working with the vendors to show them some of those 

weaknesses and things that need to be done. 

Mr. BARTON. In the short term, the answer is no; it is not possible. But in the long term, with some battery research and other 

things, it is, perhaps, possible? 

Mr. CAULEY. Well, I think the technology is there today. It just 

requires a lot of coordination. 

Mr. BARTON. I would yield to Mr. Shimkus. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Joe. 

And because it is on the same line, this is to Mr. Chatterjee. 

We had the qualifying facilities, the PURPA hearing last week 

or 2 weeks ago. So just a couple questions that kind of segue right 

into what Joe was saying. One is: Some of the electricity markets 

talked about how that there may be an opportunity to curtail the 

QFs to make sure they continue to keep the reliability of the grid. 

You have any comments object that? 

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Mr. CHATTERJEE. I want to be careful, Congressman, as we 

have——— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. I don’t want you to be careful. 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. As you know, Congress enacted PURPA in 

1978. I think we have heard from numerous stakeholders that 

there is an interest in reviewing potential reforms. Significant 

changes to PURPA would require congressional action. There are 

steps that FERC can take with respect to PURPA implementation 

on minor issues. And we held a technical conference on this. But 

I think we——— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Let me just go at it this way: You understand that 

there is a concern that maybe some of these projects are located for 

the benefit of the investors over the grid reliability? 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. It is certainly something that we are looking 

at. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And let me follow up with this: The one-mile debate, hopefully you listened or saw part of the testimony——— 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SHIMKUS [continuing]. Where some of these qualifying facilities were able to break down the parcels to game the system. Is 

that part of your review and discussion? 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. It absolutely is. And it is something that we 

would review to see whether that is something that the Commission could handle within its purview, potentially not require a statutory change from Congress. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Great. Thank you. 

And I yield back to Chairman Barton. 

Mr. BARTON. I would be happy to yield to any other Member. 

If not, Mr. Chairman, I yield back to you. 

Mr. OLSON. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair calls upon the ranking member of the full committee, 

Mr. Pallone from New Jersey, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield my time to the 

gentlewoman from Florida. 

Ms. CASTOR. Well, I thank the ranking member, Mr. Pallone, 

very much. 

And thank you to our witnesses for being here today. 

I want to thank the utility workers all across the country who 

have flooded into Florida—and I know they did into Texas—to help 

get the power back on after millions and millions of my neighbors 

in Florida lost power. So my hats off to them on behalf of the citizens of the State of Florida. They still have some work to do, but 

they are making good progress. 

But I think these extreme weather events, these two hurricanes, 

in addition to the other events we have seen just in the past few 

years, require a modern, dramatic response to what is happening 

with the cost of the changing climate. These disasters are very expensive. And it is time to make a dramatic investment in a modern 

grid, something that is more resilient, something that serves the 

need of our citizens in a better way. We have the brightest minds 

here in America, and we need to put them to work, and we need 

to put the technology to work, whether that is burying lines that 

we haven’t invested in before, a greater distributed energy grid, 

building in the renewables over time. I agree they are not the anVerDate Mar 15 2010 11:57 Feb 09, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\115THCONGRESS\115X56PARELIABILITY\115X56PARELIABILITYWORKING WAYNE
37 

swer in the short term. But in the long term, these distributed 

grids, building in renewable energy, is going to help us reduce the 

cost of the changing climate. 

We have to do more on-demand management. That has been a 

battle in the past, and there are some challenges. But we have got 

to do this. The business models, in many States, simply do not 

match the challenges ahead of us. And I hear that the Department 

of Energy wants to be proactive on this. But I don’t know how we 

do that when we have seen such tremendous proposed cuts from 

the Trump administration in resilience, in research. We have got 

to rethink that. And I am calling on all of my colleagues who understand the challenges ahead. We can’t simply cut our way and 

think we are going to be able to address these costs and these challenges ahead. 

Ms. Hoffman, certainly these cuts, proposed cuts, to research and 

development and resiliency are going to put us further behind. How 

do we keep up in an era where we need to be investing more in 

a modern grid to ensure we don’t have the power outages, and we 

are addressing the costs of the changing climate? 

Ms. HOFFMAN. Thank you, very much, for the question. 

The administration is focused in its fiscal year 2018 budget on 

early-stage research. And we really are concentrating on maximizing the effectiveness of work at the Department of Energy. We 

did provide a budget to Congress for fiscal year 2018, and I know 

it is under deliberations for the House and Senate. And we look 

forward to what Congress provides back for what the Department 

will implement as part of our fiscal year 2018 appropriations. 

Ms. CASTOR. You are right. And it is back on the Congress in a 

lot of ways. And I hope that they are listening and understand the 

huge cost if we do not address this. Look at what we are facing already in emergency aid packages, flood insurance, rising property 

insurance, property taxes because local governments have to raise 

taxes to harden their water/wastewater infrastructure and everything they are doing, just the loss of life that we are seeing. 

So my message this morning, on the heels of these disasters, is 

let’s do more working together, everyone in the utility industry, the 

scientists we have out there, and take this on. This is a real call 

to action. And I share Mr. Rush’s sense of urgency, as he put it. 

So, thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. OLSON. The gentlelady yields back. 

The Chair now calls upon the gentleman from North Dakota, Mr. 

Cramer, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CRAMER. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman. 

And thank you, witnesses, for your service and for being with us 

today. 

I am going to ask of the Chairman first, Chairman Chatterjee, 

as the policy leaders here, we need to respond to establish a path 

for base load generation, especially coal. North Dakota is a big coalproducing State. It is mine mouth. It is low cost. It is efficient. And 

I worry about the early shutdown, the forced shutdown, frankly, of 

base load generation, especially with plants that have useful life 

left in them. And it really doesn’t do anything, in my view, to protect America’s future energy position while also increasing the cost 

of electricity for consumers. 

38 

And, of course, again, speaking to my State, most of these plants 

belong to vertically integrated utilities, which I think has a special 

concern about this, where the consumers pay for the facilities 

whether they are running or they are not running. I think this gets 

lost a lot of times. 

Can you elaborate, from a FERC perspective a little bit, on any 

strategies that you could deploy that would help adequately compensate base load generation? 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. Thank you for the question, Senator—sorry, 

Freudian slip. 

Mr. CRAMER. It happens a lot lately. 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. It has a nice ring to it. 

Thank you for the question. Obviously, being from Kentucky and 

having grown up in Kentucky, I have seen firsthand the importance of coal-fired generation and what coal-fired generation means 

for the delivery of not just affordable but reliable electricity. And, 

certainly, growing up seeing that, I have an appreciation for the 

role that coal-fired generation plays in our marketplace. 

In terms of what strategies or path forward, the Commission is 

fuel-neutral. And we will look to ensure that, as our grid undergoes 

this transformation, that we ensure that we evaluate the attributes 

of fuel sources to see what values they provide and see if there is 

a demonstrated need for reliability, whether or not those things 

can be compensated. 

I believe the Democratic nominee for the vacancy on the Commission testified to this last week. And he said that, while currently, 

per the DOE report, he believed that there were not threats to reliability, even he admitted that we had to closely monitor this and 

watch this. And I think I would echo those remarks. We are going 

to closely watch and monitor whether, in fact, transitions in the 

grid do lead to vulnerabilities and threats to reliability and resilience, and whether, in fact, we would need to take steps to ensure 

that that need is met. 

Mr. CRAMER. Thank you for that. 

Along the same lines, as you know, a lot of States, they have 

taken some steps to try to work around market solutions to preserve these plants and their benefits. But, in most cases, these efforts have been challenged. Understandably, they have been contested on the basis that they undermine your authority or FERC’s 

authority. How can we deal with this? How should we deal with 

this? Or is this just going to be litigation or regulation by litigation? Is there a way to deal with the States? 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. Certainly, it is within the State’s purview, and 

I believe in States’ rights. And States, it is their prerogative to determine their sources of generation and their generation mix. When 

it affects interstate commerce and potentially does have threats to 

reliability, I think FERC has the authority to weigh in there. I 

think that it will be something that we will look at closely and 

carefully, build a record, adhere to the science and engineering and 

technology of the grid, and make those careful determinations. 

Mr. CRAMER. Thank you, and congratulations, by the way. 

In my remaining minute, Ms. Hoffman, I want to talk about the 

role of coal going forward, again, especially with new technologies, 

the R&D that is being developed for cleaner coal, of fuel emissions, 

39 

carbon capture, sequestration, utilization, all of those technologies 

that are very promising but, at this point, not quite to marketability, while at the same time—I guess my question is, how can 

DOE, both through its R&D and in its advocacy, find ways to build 

that bridge using the existing tools or maybe expanding on them, 

especially considering we have tax reform coming up? Do you see 

any way for DOE and Congress to work to build a bridge to that 

ultimate future of cleaner coal? 

Ms. HOFFMAN. So, Congressman, I would love to continue to 

work with you in exploring additional ideas. Through our research 

program, we will continue to invest in advancement in coal technology, utilization of coal, looking at job growth and looking at opportunities to continue to support the coal industry. 

Other things that we would like to be able to recognize is the 

value that coal brings, as the study brought out, and can it be compensated for the services it provides, frequency support, frequency 

response, fuel diversity. 

Mr. CRAMER. Thank you. And good report. I appreciate it. 

Thanks all of you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLSON. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now calls upon the gentleman from California, Mr. 

McNerney, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I thank the chairman. 

And I thank the witnesses. 

I just want to bring to Mr. Cramer’s attention: North Dakota has 

the biggest wind potential resource of any State in the country. So 

don’t discount alternative energy in North Dakota. 

I want to follow up a little bit on Ms. Castor. Yes, we need to 

build more resiliency into our electric grid. We need to acknowledge 

climate change because that is one of the drivers. But it is not the 

only driver: cyber issues, physical threats, other drivers. And as cochair of the bipartisan Grid Innovation Caucus with Mr. Latta, a 

Republican, our mission is to move forward in that to get the Congress excited about grid innovation and resiliency. So let’s keep 

that line of communication open. 

Ms. Hoffman, I want to start out with a question about the disaster. When disasters strike, like the hurricanes that we just saw, 

there are utilities sharing resources. But what I want to know, are 

there barriers to the sharing of resources between utilities that we 

could address here? 

Ms. HOFFMAN. Thank you, Congressman, for the question. I 

think that the biggest barrier is allowing the resources to get to the 

location of where they need to be as quickly as possible. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Physical barriers? 

Ms. HOFFMAN. Physical movement. 

Other barriers and other things that we are trying to do is accelerate the assessment time period, which goes down to information 

sharing as part of the public-private partnership so that we understand exactly what the damage is so we can effectively move resources to respond. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you. 

Again, Ms. Hoffman, cyber attacks are becoming greater threats, 

including State-sponsored attacks, such as the potential connection 

40 

between Dragonfly and Russia, on attacks on our electric grid. So 

we must continue to focus on cybersecurity to build our grid cyber 

resiliency. So, in addition to FERC’s Order 829 related to supply 

chain management, are there additional steps that DOE is or 

should be taking with regard to supply chain management to the 

bulk power system? 

Ms. HOFFMAN. Congressman, absolutely. It is one of the areas 

that we all should be focusing on is supply chain management. 

What the Department is doing is partnering with the supply-chain 

sector that supports the electric industry, helping them look at 

vulnerabilities, look at mitigation solutions, but also look at ways 

to get ahead of the game and really identifying ways to monitor 

any sort of intrusions that come on the system, but also be able to 

look for abnormal behaviors. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. OK. Good. And we are looking at some legislation that might actually enhance your capabilities in that regard. 

Also, there are several traditional reliability and resiliency 

framework tools, including CAIDI, SAIDI, and SAIFI, if you know 

what those are, and the interruption cost estimate calculator, is 

there room for improvement on those tools? Should they be upgraded regularly? 

Ms. HOFFMAN. Yes, Congressman. We always should take a look 

at any tools for new technologies and capabilities to advance the 

utilization. It will help us, in the long term, define, what does resiliency mean, and what are the cost-effective investments that we 

should focus on? So all those tools are valuable in establishing a 

baseline but also helping identify priorities. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. In the interest of courtesy, I will yield back. But 

I am going to submit questions for the record. 

Mr. OLSON. I thank my friend. 

The Chair now calls upon the gentleman from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, very much, Mr. Chairman. 

In the interest of time, I will submit some questions that I had 

for the record that I had for some folks. And I will try to abbreviate 

my questions as much as I can. 

Chairman Chatterjee, you have said that the existing coal and 

nuclear fleet need to be properly compensated to recognize the 

value they provide the system. Regardless if one agrees or not, it 

is clear that some States do agree and are taking action within the 

jurisdiction to compensate generation resources for attributes that 

are not being properly recognized in the wholesale markets. 

Given the current backlog of issues at FERC, how high of a priority do you see FERC placing on the issue of proper compensation 

in wholesale markets? And as a part of that, let me just say, because of time, I would love to get an extended answer, but for purposes of today’s hearing, so that folks at home know, high, medium, 

or low? 

Mr. CHATTERJEE. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. 

I would say high. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. High. OK. I appreciate that very much. 

Ms. Hoffman, the recently released DOE staff report found that 

the uncertainties surrounding New Source Review requirements 

has led to a significant lack of investment in plant and efficiency 

41 

upgrades. And I look to the question I just asked where we have 

acknowledged that coal and nuclear fleets are important for grid 

reliability across the country. And so we have that lack of investment in plant and efficiency upgrades and that the New Source Review program has impeded or resulted in the cancellation of 

projects which would maintain and improve reliability, efficiency, 

and the safety of existing energy capacity—and a lot of times that 

is coal, but it is other things as well. That is why I have authored 

two bills to modernize and streamline the New Source Review Program. Can you provide a brief overview, again, looking at another 

date for a longer answer perhaps, but can you provide what DOE 

plans that there are to ensure that this burdensome permitting 

program does not further impact grid reliability? In other words, I 

am working on the legislative end. What are you doing on the administrative end? 

Ms. HOFFMAN. Thank you, Congressman. We are working diligently to streamline the review and permitting process that is in 

the jurisdiction of the Department of Energy. We are looking, on 

the transmission side, pre-application process. I would be more 

than glad to have an in-depth conversation on all the list of activities that we are working on. 

[Additional information submitted by Ms. Hoffman follows:] 

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Mr. GRIFFITH. And I do appreciate that, anything you provide to 

our office. I do apologize that, because of hurricanes earlier in the 

week and now our compressed voting schedule today, that I can’t 

get a lengthier answer. 

And, Mr. Chairman, those being the two most vital of my questions—others were important, but those were the two most important—I yield back. 

Mr. OLSON. The gentleman yields back. 

Seeing no further Members wishing to ask questions, I would 

like to thank all the witnesses for being here today. And I want to 

personally apologize for exposing you all to a good old-fashioned 

Texas goat rope because of the floor votes. I appreciate your patience. 

Pursuant to committee rules, I remind Members that they have 

10 business days to submit additional questions for the record. I 

ask that witnesses submit the response within 10 business days 

upon receipt of those questions. 

Without objection, the subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:47 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN

As you are aware, this hearing was originally scheduled for the beginning of this 

week but was postponed due to the destruction caused by hurricane Irma. I would 

like all of those effected by hurricane Irma to know that we are thinking about them 

and we are doing what we can to hasten the recovery efforts, especially as it pertains to restoring power to the region. Both hurricane Irma and hurricane Harvey 

have highlighted concerns and challenges that this committee is working to address 

and which we will be talking about this morning. 

As we continue our ‘‘Powering America’’ hearing series today, we will be examining the U.S. electricity system through the important lens of reliability. If there 

is one thing that we can all agree upon, it is the fact that this country must have 

an electricity system that provides reliable power to every corner of the country. Everyone in this room understands that electricity is a crucial component in the lives 

of all Americans and serves as the backbone of the U.S. economy. For these reasons, 

this committee has always paid special attention to the issue of reliability, which 

can be seen through our extensive record of hearings and legislation related to the 

electricity sector. 

As noted in previous ‘‘Powering America’’ hearings, the United States electricity 

system is going through a significant period of transformation which is being driven 

by several factors ranging from a changing generation fuel mix to the deployment 

of new energy technologies located at the edge of the grid. 

Clearly, the transforming grid is creating exciting new opportunities and benefits 

for consumers across the country, which is demonstrated by low electricity prices 

and the deployment of new consumer-focused energy technologies. However, along 

with the benefits that accompany an evolving grid, there are of course some associated challenges that are causing many stakeholders to rethink how we should go 

about regulating and operating a 21st century electricity system. Chief among these 

challenges is improving how we address and ensure grid reliability. 

Given the importance and far reaching impact of the grid, multiple entities and 

stakeholders are working together to make sure that electricity is generated and delivered reliably. Joining us today, we have three entities—the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy, and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation—who each play a crucial role in overseeing our electricity system. I look forward to hearing from them. More specifically, I am particularly interested in hearing how these entities are implementing market rules and standards 

to ensure not only a reliable grid today but to make sure that we have a reliable 

grid 10 or 20 years from now. 

I should also mention that at a later date, we will be hearing from a separate 

panel of witnesses representing the various types of power producing technologies 

that generate the Nation’s electricity supply. These witnesses will help us understand how various generation resources are working together, under the direction 

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of grid operators, to generate adequate power and to offer essential grid reliability 

services, such as frequency regulation and voltage support. 

As Americans, we have always been incredibly fortunate to have access to reliable 

electricity at all times of the day and in every region of the country. To maintain 

this reliable electricity system going forward, we must continue to promote adequate 

system planning, smart energy policies, and robust technology standards, while still 

providing electricity-sector participants with the flexibility they need to bring about 

innovation and sustain low electricity prices. With this goal as a backdrop, I look 

forward to the remainder of this hearing and would like to thank our witnesses for 

their patience and flexibility with rescheduling this hearing. 

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POWERING AMERICA: DEFINING RELIABILITY 

IN A TRANSFORMING ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY, PART 2 

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2017 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:07 p.m., in room 

2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Fred Upton (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Upton, Olson, Shimkus, 

Latta, Harper, McKinley, Kinzinger, Griffith, Flores, Mullin, 

Cramer, Walberg, Walden (ex officio), Rush, McNerney, Peters, 

Green, Castor, Sarbanes, Tonko, Loebsack, Schrader, Kennedy, and 

Butterfield. 

Staff present: Ray Baum, Staff Director; Allie Bury, Legislative 

Clerk, Energy/Environment; Kelly Collins, Staff Assistant; Zack 

Dareshori, Staff Assistant; Wyatt Ellertson, Research Associate, 

Energy/Environment; Theresa Gambo, Human Resources and Office Administrator; Tom Hassenboehler, Chief Counsel, Energy/Environment; Jordan Haverly, Policy Coordinator, Environment; A.T. 

Johnston, Senior Policy Advisor, Energy; Mary Martin, Deputy 

Chief Counsel, Energy/Environment; Drew McDowell, Executive 

Assistant; Alex Miller, Video Production Aide and Press Assistant; 

Brandon Mooney, Deputy Chief Energy Advisor; Mark Ratner, Policy Coordinator; Peter Spencer, Professional Staff Member, Energy; 

Jason Stanek, Senior Counsel, Energy; Madeline Vey, Policy Coordinator, Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection; Evan Viau, 

Legislative Clerk; Hamlin Wade, Special Advisor for External Affairs; Everett Winnick, Director of Information Technology; Andy 

Zach, Senior Professional Staff Member, Environment; Michelle 

Ash, Minority Chief Counsel, Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection; Jeff Carroll, Minority Staff Director; Lisa Goldman, Minority Counsel; Dino Papanastasiou, Minority GAO Detailee; Caroline 

Paris-Behr, Minority Policy Analyst; and Tim Robinson, Minority 

Chief Counsel. 

Mr. UPTON. Good afternoon, everyone. This is Part II of 

‘‘Powering America: Defining Reliability in a Transforming Electricity Industry.‘‘ 

And so we have already done our opening statements. We did 

them a couple days ago, so we are going to turn to you. I just want 

to welcome all of you for joining us here today, and thanks again 

for your flexibility in rescheduling this very, very important hearing. 

Today, we are going to reconvene with Part II of the Energy Subcommittee’s hearing entitled ‘‘Powering America: Defining Reliability in a Transforming Electricity Industry.‘‘ 

The second panel of witnesses will provide their insight into how 

the different attributes of generation resources help system operaVerDate Mar 15 2010 11:57 Feb 09, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00092 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\115THCONGRESS\115X56PARELIABILITY\115X56PARELIABILITYWORKING WAYNE
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tors protect the reliability of the electricity grid. Especially in light 

of Friday’s announcement this hearing is particularly timely. We 

are anxious to hear your thoughts. 

As you know, your statements have been made part of the record 

in their entirety and so, if you would take no longer than 5 minutes 

each, and then we will do questions from the subcommittee. 

Mr. Durbin, we will start with you, the executive VP and chief 

strategy officer of API, American Petroleum Institute. Welcome. 

STATEMENTS OF MARTY DURBIN, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER, AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE; PAUL BAILEY, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AMERICAN COALITION FOR CLEAN COAL ELECTRICITY; MARIA G. KORSNICK, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE; THOMAS C. KIERNAN, CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AMERICAN WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION; STEVE WRIGHT, GENERAL MANAGER, CHELAN COUNTY PUBLIC UTILITY DISTRICT NO. 1, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL HYDROPOWER ASSOCIATION; CHRISTOPHER 

MANSOUR, VICE PRESIDENT, FEDERAL AFFAIRS, SOLAR ENERGY INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION; KELLY SPEAKES– 

BACKMAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ENERGY STORAGE 

ASSOCIATION; AND JOHN MOORE, SENIOR ATTORNEY AND 

DIRECTOR OF THE SUSTAINABLE FERC PROJECT, NATURAL 

RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL 

STATEMENT OF MARTY DURBIN 

Mr. DURBIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, and thanks for the opportunity to testify today on the 

reliability of our electric grid. 

Increased use of natural gas in electric power generation has not 

only enhanced the reliability of the overall system, it’s also provided significant environmental and consumer benefits. 

The abundance, affordability, low emissions profile, and flexibility of natural gas and natural gas-fired generating units make 

it a fuel choice. 

There is no question, however, that the bulk power system will 

continue to rely on multiple fuels including natural gas, nuclear, 

coal, hydro, wind, solar, et cetera. 

For those who believe diversity—fuel diversity is important for 

grid reliability, the good news is that the Nation’s electric power 

generation portfolio is far more diverse today than it was a decade 

ago, largely due to the increased use of affordable reliable natural 

gas. 

Government forecasts show that that diversity will be maintained for years to come. However, it’s important to remember that 

fuel diversity in and of itself does not equal reliability. 

Reliability is derived from a diversity of attributes and generation, not just the diversity of fuel sources. PJM’s March 2017 report, ‘‘Evolving Resource Mix and System Reliability,‘‘ notes ‘‘more 

diverse fuel portfolios are not necessarily more reliable.‘‘ 

That said, in every meaningful way, the inherent attributes of 

natural gas fuel generation including dispatchability, security of 

fuel supply, shorter start times, frequency response, quicker ramp 

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rates, and lower minimum load level, to name a few, make the electric grid more reliable and resilient. 

It’s important, however, that market rules remain fuel neutral by 

assigning value to performance-based attributes that contribute to 

the reliability and resilience of the grid, rather than any particular 

fuel or technology. 

Looking ahead, as the committee examines how best to ensure 

the long-term reliability and resilience—— 

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Durbin, even though I can hear you fine, can you 

just move the mic a little bit closer to you? 

Mr. DURBIN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. UPTON. Great. Thank you. 

Mr. DURBIN. As the committee examines how best to ensure the 

long-term reliability and resilience, five factors are essential. 

First, as I said a moment ago, natural gas generation enhances 

the flexibility of the electric grid by providing flexible and fast 

ramping, which can cycle off and on in a short period. 

This helps maintain stability and reliability of the grid as it accommodates an increase in variable renewable energy resources. 

Second, Government and private-sector experts are in agreement 

that natural gas will remain an abundant and affordable fuel for 

decades to come. 

Third, because natural gas-fired power plants are one of the most 

cost effective forms of generation to build and operation, wholesale 

electricity costs have been significantly reduced. 

As an example, since 2008 average annual wholesale power 

prices in PJM have decreased by almost 50 percent. 

Fourth, the increased use of natural gas and power generation 

continues to drive emissions reductions. In 2016, carbon dioxide 

emissions for electricity generation were at nearly 30-year lows and 

EIA attributes 60 percent of the power-related CO2 emissions reductions since 2005 to a greater use of natural gas. 

Finally, the geographic diversity of the natural gas system, 

where it is produced, and how it is transported makes it a reliable 

and resilient fuel source. 

Market forces and public policy are driving the ongoing shift in 

our Nation’s power generation mix. Natural gas generation is an 

important and growing part of that mix. 

Collectively, the environmental advantages, reliability, and affordability of natural gas and natural gas generation have allowed 

it to earn its market share in the power generation space because 

it provides and will continue to provide reliable low-cost fuel for 

electricity generation and cost savings to consumers. 

The natural gas industry stands ready to work with all stakeholders to ensure our Nation’s electric grid is reliable, safe, and resilient. We were pleased to join more than a dozen other energy 

trade associations in a letter to this committee supporting competitive market rules that promote a diverse portfolio through fuel-neutral policies. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and I look forward 

to these questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Durbin follows:] 

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Mr. UPTON. Thank you. 

Mr. Bailey, president and CEO of American Coalition for Clean 

Coal Electricity, welcome. Nice to see you. 

STATEMENT OF PAUL BAILEY 

Mr. BAILEY. Chairman Upton, members of the subcommittee, we 

want to commend you for holding the hearing today and for allowing us the opportunity to testify. 

ACCCE represents America’s fleet of coal fuel power plants. 

Through the first half of this year, the fleet supplied 30 percent of 

the Nation’s electricity needs. 

In 2010, the coal fleet represented more than 300,000 megawatts 

of electric generating capacity. Unfortunately, more than 100,000 

megawatts of coal fuel generating capacity have either retired or 

announced plans to retire. 

These retirements represent one-third of the fleet that existed 

just 7 years ago. A secure electric grid is vital to the Nation’s wellbeing. This means the electric grid must be both reliable and resilient. 

The coal fleet provides many attributes that help ensure both reliability and resilience. These attributes include fuel security and 

many other essential reliability services. 

It is important to keep in mind that reliability and resilience are 

not the same thing. Reliability refers to resource adequacy and the 

security of the bulk power system to withstand sudden disturbances, according the NERC. 

Reliability is a well-defined term with agreed upon metrics and 

attributes. For example, my written testimony lists more than a 

dozen reliability attributes. The coal fleet scores well against these 

attributes. Some of the other resources represented on this panel 

also score well on reliability attributes. 

On the other hand, there are no agreed upon resilience criteria 

or metrics. Resilience means maintaining a reliable grid in the 

event of a high-impact low-frequency events or, put another way, 

low probability disturbances that have catastrophic consequences 

such as a polar vortex. 

Fuel security is critical to both reliability and resilience. Over the 

past 5 years, the coal fleet has maintained an average on-site 

stockpile of 73 days of sub-bituminous coals and 82 days of bituminous coal. 

Several recent reports, including those by the National Academy 

of Sciences and PJM, cite the importance of the coal fleet’s on-site 

fuel supply that contributes to grid reliability and resilience. 

Despite its contribution to reliability and resilience, the coal fleet 

faces a number of challenges. These include environmental expenditures, low natural gas prices, mandates and incentives for renewables, out-of-market subsidies and market rules that do not properly value the attributes of the coal fleet. 

Market rules are important because almost two-thirds of the coal 

fleet serves also electricity markets. Last week, DOE took an important step by proposing a rule that directs FERC to adopt certain 

electricity market reforms. 

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The rule would require RTOs and ISOs to adopt market rules to 

ensure that fuel security, reliability, and resilience attributes such 

as those provided by the coal fleet are fully valued. 

Although we are still evaluating the proposal, it represents a 

major step towards achieving at least some reforms in wholesale 

electricity markets. 

However, to achieve DOE’s goal and prevent more premature 

coal retirements, these reforms must be adopted quickly. FERC 

must provide strong leadership and act expeditiously and grid operators must adopt these and other reforms as soon as possible. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bailey follows:] 

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Mr. UPTON. Thank you. 

Next, we are joined by Ms. Maria Korsnick, president and CEO 

of NEI. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF MARIA G. KORSNICK 

Ms. KORSNICK. Thank you very much. 

For many decades, the Americas’ fleet of nuclear reactors have 

served this Nation by providing clean base load power and support 

for local infrastructure. 

Today, those same plants, which support over 475,000 jobs across 

America, are being threatened by energy markets which do not 

value nuclear’s attributes. 

This practical and public policy issue must no longer be ignored. 

I thank Chairman Upton and Ranking Member Rush for holding 

this hearing. We need an open and honest conversation about what 

should be done to maintain these important assets. 

Last week the U.S. Department of Energy, under the leadership 

of Secretary Perry, issued a directive ordering FERC to take swift 

action to address U.S. electrical grid resiliency. 

This action is a result of DOE’s recent report highlighting the 

impact that market and regulatory policies are having on base load 

power plants including our Nation’s nuclear reactors. 

Additionally, the IHS Markit issued a report valuing diversity at 

$114 billion a year. It’s essential this committee encourages FERC 

and the RTOs to work together to create the market rules for the 

diverse portfolio that we need. 

Unfortunately, current market designs fail to compensate the 

unique and beneficial attributes of nuclear generation and here is 

what I mean. 

First, nuclear produces reliable base load power while not emitting harmful air pollutants or carbon dioxide. It produces large 

quantities of electricity around the clock safely and reliably, operating over 90 percent of the time for the past 15 years. That’s higher than any other generation source. 

And we provide ancillary services such as voltage, frequency, and 

reactive power support to the grid. Our reactors are secure hardened facilities which have the fuel to run for 18 to 24 months, 

avoiding reliance on just-in-time fuel delivery. 

This is essential when natural disasters and catastrophic events 

occur and we help create the fuel and technology diversity that is 

a bedrock characteristic of a reliable, resilient electric sector which 

helps create affordable and stable rates for consumers. 

Let’s talk about some real examples. During the 2014 polar vortex, nuclear generators performed than all other forms of generation, operating with an average capacity factor of 95 percent. 

More recently, despite Hurricane Harvey’s devastating impact on 

the region, the two south Texas nuclear plants continued operating 

at 100 percent power during the storm, providing much-needed 

electricity to police stations, hospitals, and shelters. 

And Hurricane Irma ravaged Florida, the St. Lucie Nuclear 

Plant on Florida’s east coast, operated a reactor at 100 percent 

power to provide what remained of the grid much-needed power for 

critical services. 

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The DOE study did a good job laying out the challenges facing 

the electricity system and among these are unprecedentedly low 

natural gas prices, low electricity demand growth, and increased 

use of variable renewable energy due to regulation and mandates 

at the State and Federal levels, which are creating unintended consequences for all electricity generators but particularly base load 

plants. 

Although DOE found that the markets have met short-term reliability needs at low cost, DOE determined that FERC must reform 

the markets to address system resilience and long-term grid stability. 

Comprehensive reform must resolve two pressing problems. The 

markets are not functioning well when prices are negative. Reactors are, in fact, forced to pay grid operators to take their power. 

And second, market designs fail to compensate nuclear generation with a unique set of attributes that I’ve discussed. These attributes play an important role in creating affordable electricity for 

our consumers. 

As we’ve awaited Federal action, State solutions have preserved 

seven reactors and saved thousands of jobs in New York and Illinois and are helping bridge us towards a secure energy future. 

I cannot overstate the need for FERC and the RTOs to expeditiously implement solutions. Since 2013, three nuclear reactors 

have prematurely retired due to market conditions and another 

eight reactors are scheduled to prematurely retire for market or 

policy reasons. 

Now, some of these plants will shut down more than a decade 

before their operating licenses expire, and when a nuclear plant 

shuts down, the Nation irrevocably loses a reliable source of continuous generation and electricity prices and air emissions both increase. 

I did not paint a rosy picture today but I painted an accurate 

one. America’s nuclear fleet and all the value it brings to our Nation is in clear and present danger without your action. 

As China and Russia aggressively attempt to replace our Nation 

as the world’s leader in nuclear technology, it’s now more imperative than ever that this committee take action. 

I applaud your leadership in holding this series of hearings and 

I look forward to working together to find ways to fix the current 

market flaws and to ensure America’s nuclear fleet not only survives but thrives as part of our Nation’s diverse and reliable system. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Korsnick follows:] 

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Mr. UPTON. Thank you. 

Next, we are joined by Mr. Tom Kiernan, CEO of American Wind 

Energy Association. 

Tom, welcome back. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS C. KIERNAN 

Mr. KIERNAN. Thank you very much. 

Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Rush, and other distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you very much for 

the opportunity to testify on behalf of the diverse membership of 

the American Wind Energy Association. 

AWEA represents the entire supply chain of the wind industry, 

from family-owned construction companies in Minneapolis, to some 

of the country’s largest utilities, to Fortune 500 companies that are 

increasingly buying our product, wind energy. 

The wind industry welcomes the focus on reliability and resilience and we have consistently supported more rigorous reliability 

standards at FERC and NERC. 

Now, this should not be surprising, given our advanced technology, that some of you may not be aware of, now enable wind to 

provide many if not most of the essential reliability services needed 

for the grid. 

As NERC has noted, reliability and resilience of the grid are good 

and increasing and that wind energy contributes to providing these 

reliability services and resilience of the grid. 

Wind is not only capable of delivering these services but also has 

demonstrated a strong track record of doing so and I’d like to share 

six brief examples, if I may. 

First, during the 2014 polar vortex, wind energy was resilience 

to cold weather and helped keep the lights on while 13,000 

megawatts of coal and 1,400 megawatts of nuclear were forced offline in PJM alone despite having onsite fuel. 

Second, and similarly, during the 2011 Texas cold snap, wind energy received accolades from the grid operators while over 3,000 

megawatts of coal went offline, despite onsite fuel. 

Third, and more recently, most wind plants along the Texas coast 

continued producing energy as Hurricane Harvey came ashore and 

were producing as long as the grid was up. 

In contrast, two coal units were forced offline and stayed offline 

due to flooded onsite fuel. 

Fourth, grid operators in Texas and Colorado now regularly dispatch the output of wind plants up and down to provide frequency 

response and balance electricity’s supply and demand with a degree 

of speed and accuracy that exceeds most conventional power plants. 

Fifth, during several summer droughts coal and nuclear plants 

have been curtailed due to inadequate cooling water, again, despite 

having onsite fuel. 

And lastly, Iowa and Kansas now produce more than 30 percent 

of their electricity from wind, South Dakota and Oklahoma more 

than 25 percent, and this last year down in Texas, the main operator produced over 15 percent of their electricity from wind, and reliability is at an all-time high, with wind providing some of the essential reliability services such as reactive power and frequency response. 

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I would now like to offer four recommendations for electricity policy makers. In summary, first, rely on competitive markets; second, 

focus on reliability services, not generation sources; third, do not be 

distracted by perceived problems; and fourth, promote transmission 

infrastructure. I will go quickly through each. 

First, rely on competitive markets—competitive markets enable 

a cost-effective division of labor among energy sources. Each energy 

source will deliver the reliability services it can provide best and 

at the lowest cost, resulting in a cost-effective delivery of a stable 

grid. 

Secondly, focus on reliability services, not generation sources. 

Grid operators should seek to identify and compensate for reliability services and not some fuel characteristics such as whether 

a resource as onsite fuel. 

In other words, focus on the services that the power system 

needs like flexibility, disturbance ride-through capability, frequency 

in voltage support, and actual energy production in times of high 

demand and not the fuel type of the generator. 

FERC RTOs and NERC are well equipped to define the services 

needed. 

Third, do not be distracted by perceived problems. I’ve seen frequent mention of the supposed harmful effects of negative pricing. 

As the DOE notes in their recently released grid study, negative 

crisis ‘‘have had almost no impact on annual average day-ahead or 

real-time wholesale electricity prices,‘‘ and are also often caused by 

fossil or nuclear power plants. 

And fourth, promote transmission infrastructure development. 

Building a more robust transmission system is the single most effective tool for improving resiliency. 

A strong integrated power grid would provide the same vast benefits as our interstate highway system has in allowing the most 

competitive businesses to deliver their low-cost products to consumers. 

So, in sum, we support the objectives of maintaining reliability 

and resilience and urge that they be promoted through free and 

open markets with a focus on reliability services, not generation 

sources, and a program to promote transmission infrastructure development. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kiernan follows:] 

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Mr. UPTON. Thank you. 

Next we are joined by Steve Wright, GM for Chelan Public Utility District on behalf of the National Hydropower Association. 

Welcome to you, sir. 

STATEMENT OF STEVE WRIGHT 

Mr. WRIGHT. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, thank you for the 

invitation to appear to today. My name is Steve Wright and I’m the 

general manager at Chelan County, Washington Public Utility District. 

Chelan has roughly 2,000 megawatts of hydropower. I’m also representing the National Hydropower Association. 

From 2000 to 2013, I was the administrator and chief executive 

officer of the Bonneville Power Administration, serving under three 

presidents. 

My duty today is to describe the value that hydropower provides 

supporting reliable service to our Nation’s electric consumers. 

This should be one of the easier assignments given to any congressional witness, given the vast array of reliability, cost, and air 

emission benefits hydropower provides. 

It’s important to understand that maintaining reliability involves 

many complex products and services. These include energy, peak 

capacity, regulation or frequency response, spinning and non-spinning reserve, voltage control, black start capability and inertia, and 

particularly important in a world increasingly reliant on variable 

energy resources, there is a need for flexible capacity. 

Many generating resources can provide multiple characteristics 

necessary for reliability. But hydropower is best positioned to provide them across the board. 

In life we usually have to face a trade-off between quality and 

cost. Not so with respect to hydropower. Hydropower is generally 

the least-cost resource available in the marketplace. 

Hydropower also produces zero air emissions and represents a 

least-cost path to meeting both our reliability and emissions national objectives. 

The key challenge for hydropower in the coming decade is the 

lack of policy attention it has received. Hydropower is, for the most 

part, taken for granted in the marketplace. 

This results in significant potential missed opportunities for both 

refurbishment and new construction. There is a need for a massive 

reinvestment in what is an aging fleet. 

Most hydropower capacity in this country was built from 1930 to 

1975. For the most part, the engineering on these projects was excellent and the projects are outliving design life. 

We are, however, already entering a period where there is a need 

to refurbish tens of thousands of megawatts of hydropower capacity. 

The decision whether to invest in hydropower refurbishment can 

be described simply. The cost of refurbishment is compared against 

other alternatives, taking into consideration prices for energy, capacity, and environmental attributes. 

In today’s market, energy prices are currently quite low, in part 

due to the Federal tax policy. Capacity markets are not providing 

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prices commensurate with what’s necessary for refurbishment or, 

in some cases, even maintenance of existing plants. 

This is in part due to the difficulty of establishing markets and 

regulatory regimes for issues such as resource adequacy that address the specific services and actions necessary to maintain reliability. 

And the environmental attribute markets are not providing pricing commensurate with aggressive goals or emissions reductions. 

New hydropower resources and even many refurbishment 

projects face a challenging investment environment, given today’s 

pricing. And while low prices sound good for consumers, it would 

not be if it leads to shortage, price volatility, and reliability problems. 

Unfortunately, I lived through the West Coast energy crisis when 

we experienced fundamental imbalance between supply and demand. Our policy should be developed to assure there is adequate 

supply to achieve high reliability and reduce the risk of extreme 

price excursions. 

NHA’s Jeff Leahey provided testimony before the Senate Energy 

Committee that identified Federal policy that needs to evolve in the 

following ways to support hydropower. 

We need relicensing reform. The, roughly, 10 years required for 

relicensing does not compare favorably against the permitting requirements for other generating resources. It needs similar tax 

treatment to other zero-emission-generating resources and we need 

further support for research and development. 

And I would add to that list support for adequate capacity prices 

to encourage cost-effective investment. The fundamental problem 

addressed last week by the Department of Energy is despite best 

efforts in various regions, markets to this point have not been 

structured to provide adequate compensation for the various services necessary to assure long-term resource adequacy, reliability, 

and resiliency. 

Underlying Federal or State tax and other incentive policies tend 

to make robust market design even more difficult. The capacity reliability challenge will vary by region, though. 

For example, in the West, with our plethora of variable energy 

resources, our biggest challenge is providing flexible capacity. 

Because it is complex, it will be difficult to address in an expedited process or with a focus as limited as the concept of base load 

resources. But at the same time, the problem of price formation 

being inadequate to address reliability needs is real. 

Policies that assure adequate resource supply for reliability deserve the attention of policy makers. 

So in conclusion, hydropower is the Nation’s premier generation 

source for reliability, cost, and emissions perspective. 

Due to its quiet long history and relative success, it has been 

taken for granted in Federal public policy debates. Given what is 

at stake, hydropower deserves more focus. 

Thank you for the time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wright follows:] 

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Mr. UPTON. Thank you. 

Mr. Mansour—Christopher Mansour, VP, Federal affairs, for 

Solar Energy Industries Association. 

Welcome. You need to hit that button. 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER MANSOUR 

Mr. MANSOUR. There we go. And members of the committee, I 

am Christopher Mansour, vice president for Federal affairs at the 

Solar Energy Industries Association. Thank you for inviting me to 

appear here before you today. 

Before I begin, just let me say that our president and CEO, Abby 

Hopper, regrets being unable to attend the committee today. She’s 

at the U.S. International Trade Commission that’s right now having its remedy hearing for the solar trade case. Further information on this trade case and the threat it poses to our industry is 

available in my written testimony. 

I am testifying today on behalf of SEIA’s almost 1,000 member 

companies and the 260,000 Americans employed in the U.S. solar 

industry. Solar is a strong driver for the American economy. 

In fact, one out of every 15 new jobs created in the United States 

in 2016 was a solar job. While California leads the way in solar 

jobs, States like Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Texas, and North Carolina each employ over 7,000 solar workers. 

2016 was also a record year for solar deployment in the country. 

We added 15 gigawatts of solar capacity, double the amount installed in 2015. Solar capacity in the United States now exceeds 47 

gigawatts. Solar firms invested nearly $23 billion in the United 

States in 2016. 

Solar was also the number-one source of new generating capacity 

in the United States in the last year. In the first quarter of 2016, 

our country hit an important milestone of installing solar panels on 

1 million American homes. 

Our industry will double that number to 2 million by 2018 and 

double it again to 4 million homes by the end of 2022. 

Solar is a growing part of our electricity mix, delivering 1.4 percent of the Nation’s total electrical usage. This is expected to grow 

to 4 percent by 2020. 

Solar has been and will continue to be deployed in a manner that 

adds to the viability and security of the grid. 

Regarding the Department of Energy’s recent staff study on grid 

reliability, we appreciate the willingness of the secretary and his 

team—Secretary of Energy, Mr. Perry, and his team—to listen to 

our concerns with and our suggestions for the report. 

We believe that many of comments were reflected in the final 

product. In particular, we agree with one of the findings in the report that stated, quote, ‘‘While concerns exist about the impact of 

widespread deployment of renewable energy on the retirement of 

coal and nuclear power plants, the data do not suggest a correlation,‘‘ closed quote. 

Last week, the secretary sent the FERC a proposed rule to address grid resiliency through cost-based payment mechanisms for 

certain coal and nuclear power plants. 

The secretary cites the need to, quote, ‘‘protect American people 

from the threat of energy outages that could result in the loss of 

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traditional base load capacity,‘‘ and specifically identifies the ability 

to provide voltage support, frequency services, operating reserves, 

and reactive powers benefits that such generation resources bring 

to the grid. 

SEIA agrees with the secretary that FERC should continue its 

important work on price formation. We also agree with the assertion that generators—all generators—should be fully compensated 

for the energy, capacity, and ancillary services that they provide to 

the grid. 

Where we do not agree with the secretary is that this rushed 

rulemaking is the right way to achieve those ends. FERC can and 

should define any reliability services or products that are missing 

from the marketplace in a technology-neutral manner. 

Healthy competition will yield the most innovative solutions at 

the lowest prices for consumers while protecting ratepayers from 

having to shoulder unreasonable and unnecessary additional costs 

for little benefit. 

In my written testimony, you’ll find evidence of solar’s contributions to grid reliability under both normal operating conditions and 

during unusual events. 

During the recent solar eclipse, grid operators accurately predicted diminished solar output and adjusted generation sources accordingly with no subsequent blackouts or brownouts. 

Solar also withstood the past month’s multiple hurricanes. Based 

on what our member companies have told us, very few panels— 

solar panels were actually damaged during these storms. 

Moreover, studies by NREL and others cited in my written testimony consistently demonstrate that not only can our regional grids 

accommodate high penetration of solar and other renewable 

sources but that solar projects have the ability to provide important 

services to the grid such as regulation, voltage support, and frequency response during various operating modes. 

In closing, we support Federal energy policies that promote reliability, security, and fuel diversity. Increased investments in transmission will bring greater reliability and access to more diverse 

sources of generation. 

We look to FERC to ensure that well-functioning wholesale electric—electricity markets thrive. In parts of the country without 

RTOs and ISOs, FERC must guarantee open access and nondiscriminatory treatment for independent renewable generators. 

Finally, incentivizing significant investments in energy storage 

deployment on the transmission and distribution grids will increase 

grid reliability and promote another important resource to systems’ 

operators. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mansour follows:] 

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Mr. UPTON. Thank you. 

Next, we are joined by Kelly Speakes-Backman, CEO of Energy 

Storage Association. 

Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF KELLY SPEAKES–BACKMAN 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. Chairman Upton, Ranking Member 

Rush, on behalf of ESA, thank you very much for your time today. 

I would like to begin my remarks by level setting our understanding of the terms reliability, resilience, and flexibility. 

Our electric system today is bound to a simple reality of physics. 

Supply must match demand at every moment everywhere. If it 

doesn’t, then the result is equipment damage, service disruption, or 

blackouts. 

So what we call reliability is really the ability to maintain that 

match of supply and demand during normal operations, even if 

they are variable or unpredictable. 

What we mean by resilience is the ability to maintain service or 

restore supply during and after a disruptive external event. Flexibility is critical to both reliability and resilience to ensure uninterrupted power is delivered to consumers whenever and wherever 

they need it. 

Energy storage technologies enable energy to be generated at one 

time and saved for another time. It is pretty simple as that. The 

concept enables an enormous amount of capabilities for the grid, be 

it supplying backup power, reducing peak system demands, relieving stressed grid infrastructure, enabling higher penetrations of 

variable generation sources, or maintaining the optimal function of 

inflexible generation sources. 

These capabilities ensure that supply and demand reliably match 

during normal operations and make that balance resilient to a 

greater range of threats. 

When most people hear the words energy storage they think of 

batteries, and for good reason. Batteries are everywhere. They’re in 

our phones. They’re in our computers, appliances, our cars, and, increasingly, in our electric grid. 

There are a variety of storage technologies including mechanical 

and thermal, and each has its own performance characteristics and 

best-suited applications. But all do the same simple job of storing 

energy, effectively decoupling time—the element of time from supply and demand. 

For today, I’m focussing on batteries. There is 800 megawatts of 

battery storage installed nationwide in—at grid megawatt scale in 

21 States. 

Storage technologies, primarily lithium ion, are declining rapidly 

in cost, dropping by 50 percent every 3 to 4 years and projected to 

continue at this rate. 

Driven by these cost declines, the U.S. is forecasted to quadruple 

its installed storage capacity in just 5 years, representing $3 billion 

in annual sales. 

But more importantly, these sharp cost declines also mean that 

storage will get larger and perform at longer durations, increasing 

their range of applications. 

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Storage is uniquely flexible compared to all other grid resources. 

Number one, it promotes the reliability and resilience at all levels 

of the grid and onsite locations. 

It could be owned by utilities, third party providers, or consumers for a variety of services and cost-saving applications—the 

only grid resource that can be used both as supply when discharging and demand when charging. 

It’s capable of near instantaneous response and precise control, 

ramping to full charge or discharge in milliseconds. It’s capable of 

near—sorry—a single installation can perform multiple functions, 

even interchangeably over time, and it can be deployed quickly at 

megawatt scale within six months. 

I provided several examples in my testimony that you can ask 

me questions about or what have you. But they include maintaining power quality, onsite power, backup power of solar plus storage 

during the recent hurricanes, locational grid support, demand response with chillers and water heaters, black start capability to enable other generators to return to normal operations, response to 

short-run grid fluctuations, avoiding outages from system imbalances, transmission and distribution system support during 

multiyear upgrades, contributions to resource adequacy meeting 

peak demands, and quick deployment for broader plant failures. 

Now, we have a lot of values that we can bring to the grid and 

with all of these capabilities you would think that storage would 

be much more prevalent in the market today. 

But I will tell you, I think it’s still hindered from full deployment. Policy and regulations today focus on what we want from 

technologies rather than performance. 

Because of this, they can’t keep pace with the innovation and the 

changing role of the consumer. We see four general themes to improving the performance characteristics of grid reliability and resilience, which can be competitively and cost-effectively met by storage. More details of these recommendations can be found in my 

written testimony. 

And in closing, I’ll just say that energy storage is here, and it’s 

growing fast. We support market-driven pursuit to improve reliability and resilience. 

And I thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Speakes-Backman follows:] 

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Mr. UPTON. Thank you. 

Last, we are joined by Mr. John Moore, Sustainable FERC 

Project, Energy & Transportation Program from the NRDC. 

Nice to see you. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN MOORE 

Mr. MOORE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Rush, and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate 

the opportunity to testify here today. 

One thing I think I can say after listening to everyone else on 

the panel is that we all agree that reliability and resiliency is critical as our grid continues to transform and that we need to have 

the ability to maintain a secure system and then quickly recover 

whenever extreme weather, physical attacks, or cyberterrorism attack on the grid. 

I think, though, that if Hurricanes Irma and Harvey proved anything, it is that no resource actually is perfectly resilient or reliable, and actually some resources have more vulnerabilities than 

we might think. 

In point of fact, several nuclear units suffered during Irma and 

Harvey and didn’t return to service until days afterwards. We’ve 

already heard from Mr. Kiernan. 

Saturated coal piles forced the power plant to switch over to natural gas, and then distribution and transmission systems also can 

create havoc with reliability and resilience as we’ve seen in Puerto 

Rico and parts of Florida as the grids were knocked offline. 

The key question—and now I’m going to turn to the DOE study 

because that’s the topic of the day—the key question is whether 

massive subsidies of the type that the DOE proposes to—proposes 

for the grid would have made any of these power plants more reliable or resilient and better able to withstand natural forces. 

No. It actually might have made the problem worse by undermining markets and freezing out other equally reliable and less 

costly resources. 

We can achieve the same level of reliability at a lower cost by 

first defining reliability services and then deciding—and then designing markets around those needs. I think you have already 

heard a couple of witnesses testify to that fact. 

Now, to our specific concerns about the Department of Energy’s 

proposal, it would send billions of dollars each year to outdated 

technologies without any evidence that these payments are necessary. 

It would supplant FERC’s competitive electricity markets with 

an anticompetitive command and control system that decides what 

plants open and close by direction of the Federal Government. 

You know, I wonder what’s happened here to States’ rights to 

choose their own resource—to make their own resource adequacy 

decisions. 

Illinois, for example, restructured in 1997 and made the decision 

to link to FERC’s market design. Now the Department of Energy 

is telling them too bad, we are going to make your customers pay 

billions of dollars more for something that they don’t want or need. 

That, to me, is resource adequacy masquerading as resiliency. 

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Third, I am very concerned that this would politicize an independent agency in a way never before seen. FERC’s independent 

system of competitive markets to channel customer dollars towards 

the cheapest generators able to meet customer needs would be replaced with a more arbitrary system marked by market crashes 

and peaks that could change with every administration. 

In this reliability the goal of DOE’s proposal could be compromised as politics, not technical assessments, would govern payment for grid services. 

So in conclusion, if we want a truly resilient electric grid, moving 

to a low-carbon future will help us get there by reducing the risk 

of extreme weather and other disruptive events fueled by climate 

change. 

Focus on grid reliability in resiliency services and next-generation market designs coupled with smartly planned transmission 

needed to deliver high levels of clean renewable energy to market, 

and protect States’ rights to make their energy choices. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Moore follows:] 

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Mr. UPTON. Thank you all, and now we will move to questions. 

I want to be relatively quick on these first two. So last week— 

Friday—DOE issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to FERC with 

a 60-day timeline. FERC then re-docketed the notice of proposed 

ruling with a 20-day deadline for initial comments. I would note 

that a typical FERC proposed rulemaking has a 180-day deadline. 

If you were king, what would that number be for this order that 

came out Friday? And Mr. Durbin, we will start with you, just 

to—— 

Mr. DURBIN. Well, we joined several of the groups here and others around town making a motion to FERC asking for a 90-day. 

Mr. UPTON. Ninety-day. Mr. Bailey? 

Mr. BAILEY. Being king, I don’t have a number for you, Mr. 

Chairman. I honestly don’t. 

What we have said is that this needs to be done very, very quickly. That’s all I can say to you. 

Mr. UPTON. Of course. I probably should have said queen or king 

for the day. Sorry. 

Ms. KORSNICK. That’s OK. I am good with king. 

Mr. UPTON. OK. All right. 

Ms. KORSNICK. I think the most important thing is that we allow 

for the appropriate conversation to play out, and at the same 

token, as we said, there is a sense of urgency. 

So I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 to 90 days is appropriate. 

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Kiernan? 

Mr. KIERNAN. We support the 90-day approach, as Mr. Durbin 

mentioned. I’ll also just emphasize this needs to be thoughtfully 

considered. 

Obviously, the wholesale power markets—extraordinarily important and complex, and there needs to be a good healthy thoughtful 

deliberative process so that we end up with a competitive market 

that works. 

We worry about some rush to judgment that might support one 

fuel source or another. That is not the right approach. 

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Wright? 

Mr. WRIGHT. NHA doesn’t have an official position on number of 

days. But I think it’s pretty clear, I hope, from my testimony that 

trying to figure out how you get to reliability requires you to provide all those different services that are necessary and that is a 

complex conversation. 

And then in addition to that, it’s a regionally based conversation 

because we have different issues in different parts of—— 

Mr. UPTON. You’re sounding like a politician. 

Mr. Mansour? 

Mr. MANSOUR. Mr. Chairman, actually, with the notice that we 

filed along with some of the other groups here, it was 90 days for 

the initial comment period plus another 45 for responses. 

So and actually, 90 days is probably not sufficient in any case. 

This is an extremely large undertaking. It’s a huge change in the 

way markets would work and FERC should take their time and 

they should hold a technical conference on this. They should allow 

for a maximum amount of public comment and input from a range 

of stakeholders. 

241 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. I will—well, first, to answer your question I would say—directly I would say 90 days is—would be sufficient for us to be able to rush through and answer. 

But I will also—I would also like to add that especially based on 

the DOE staff report, we believe that resilience should really encompass much more than just fuel supply and so—and resilience 

is a—is a large issue and a large problem that we need to consider. 

It’s a lot more complicated than simply the fuel supply, and for 

that reason we think there needs to be more time given to this. 

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Moore? 

Mr. MOORE. Sure. It probably doesn’t surprise you to—for me to 

say that if I were king I’d probably put it in the trash can because 

I don’t think it meets minimum standards of due process in the Administrative Procedure Act, along with the fact that other RTOs 

like PJM and ISO New England where many of these plants are 

located are working diligently on this now, in all seriousness. 

Mr. UPTON. The DOE staff report found that FERC should expedite its efforts regarding its price formation efforts. Additionally, 

DOE has recently filed a notice of proposed rulemaking with 

FERC, as we know, directing FERC to accurately price generation 

resources necessary to maintain reliability and resiliency. 

Yes or no, do you support FERC implementing DOE’s filed NLPR 

as written? Some of you talked about that in your testimony but 

some of you did not. 

Mr. DURBIN. If it is yes or no, the answer is no. I, again, think 

that this was the—what they asked for on Friday was totally inconsistent with what—with the study they put out in August. 

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Bailey? 

Mr. BAILEY. Yes, sir. With a huge caveat, we are still looking at 

it. If the two answers are yes or no, I would—I would say yes. 

Mr. UPTON. Ms. Korsnick? 

Ms. KORSNICK. We think it’s a good baseline but we think additional conversations need to be had through the rulemaking process. 

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Kiernan? 

Mr. KIERNAN. No, we do not, and I would just add an example. 

The technological advances of wind energy show that you want to 

allow the markets to compete and evolve and not pick one fuel 

source over another. 

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Wright? 

Mr. WRIGHT. No on the process. Yes on the substance of it’s a 

good idea to address price formation. 

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Mansour. 

Mr. MANSOUR. It would have to be no on the process and no on 

the NOPR itself. Let the markets run. 

Mr. UPTON. Ms. Speakes? 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. No as written. 

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Moore? 

Mr. MOORE. I think majority wins. No. 

Mr. UPTON. OK. My time is expired. 

I yield to the ranking member of the subcommittee, my friend, 

Mr. Rush. 

Mr. RUSH. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

242 

Mr. Moore, in your written testimony, you state that the Nation’s 

power grid to continue to transform towards a low-carbon future 

that will improve reliability and resilience by helping to prevent 

and reduce outages caused by the increase in extreme weather and 

other disruptions—events. 

You also say that efforts to ensure reliability and resilience during extreme weather should focus largely on the distribution system rather than on any particular type of generation system. 

Can you briefly discuss some of the issues learned this historic 

hurricane season regarding reliability and resilience issues? 

Also, can you explain why policymakers should be looking at lowcarbon resources and focus on distribution rather than sources of 

generation? 

Mr. MOORE. Certainly. First of all, distribution system failures 

represent far and away the highest number of outages that cause 

blackouts in the country. 

There is no—absolutely positively no question about that, and 

that if you can’t deliver power from any resource to the customer 

it’s just as good as no power at all. So that’s number one. 

And number two, as I implied, reducing the carbon—reducing 

carbon pollution reduces the risk of the high-intensity types of 

events that we have seen like the hurricanes last year. 

Mr. RUSH. Ms. Speakes-Backman, yesterday Bloomberg reported 

that Sonnen, a generation—a German, rather, energy storage company is planning to install 15 micro grids in Puerto Rico in order 

to provide electricity to emergency relief centers. 

Additionally, it is reported that Tesla, Incorporated will be sending hundreds of its overall power wall battery systems, and 

Sonoma, Puerto Rico’s largest rooftop solar provider, plans to install batteries to complement its system. We have been told that 

it will take months to fully restore the island’s electricity grid. 

But in the meantime, can you discuss how we might utilize these 

small CO micro grids systems which can be installed quickly to restore power to a few buildings at a time that will help power hospitals, fire stations, relief shelters, and other emergency shelters 

during these most difficult times? 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. Thank you, sir, for the question, and I 

believe, sir, that you have the answer. You gave it in your question 

and I appreciate that. 

Solar plus storage and storage plus many resources, as a matter 

of fact, depending on the location, especially if you’ve got distributed energy resources, can be a holdover, if you will, while you rebuild the grid to a more resilient phase. 

And so this is why we have been cooperating and collaborating 

with SEIA. Just recently, on Friday and then on Monday, both 

SEIA and the Energy Storage Association announced a joint effort 

to request members supply and donate their resources, donate their 

expertise, and donate their dollars to support the efforts in Puerto 

Rico, to build micro grids of solar and storage to get us through 

this difficult time. 

Mr. RUSH. Do you think that the Department of Energy is—could 

do more in terms of helping to encourage and assist in these micro 

grid efforts? 

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Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. Sir, I think that the Department of Energy has continued to serve as an excellent resource for us in research and in working to commercialize batteries for storage. 

I think, certainly, there are always things that we can do more 

to help—to help understand the applications that can be made and 

help to extend the duration periods of storage. 

Mr. RUSH. So do you also feel as though these micro grid systems 

are something that we should seriously consider in terms of the future? 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. Absolutely. It meets many of the requirements that were laid out in the DOE staff report for resilience beyond fuel—beyond fuel supply. 

So the ability not only to withstand external forces, whether they 

be weather or other external forces of calamitous events but also 

with respect to bringing the grid back on and to work within small 

communities to become islands of refuge, if you will, to be able to 

supply consumers with the refrigeration for their medicines, for 

their food, to be able to charge your batteries for your phone and 

your appliances and your computer to communicate with loved 

ones. 

It’s a very important aspect of reliability and resilience both. 

Mr. RUSH. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. UPTON. Thank you. 

The Chair would recognize for 5 minutes the gentleman from 

West Virginia, Mr. McKinley. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Speakes, let me 

just start with you. Thank you for making the definition of reliability. I think so many on the panel have played around with that 

word. 

They use it to fit their definition. Yours was very specific and I 

appreciate that. Others used it for their own purpose in their definition. 

Mr. Wright, I got to you. My concern is shared with you and that 

is if we—and as we proceed with the tax reform, one of the concerns is that the tax credit for hydroelectricity at 1.8 cents—I think 

it goes up to nearly three quarters of a million dollars per plant 

to be able to subsidize that—I am concerned that that type of tax 

credit could be lost with that. 

So we are going to be spending some time on research and make 

sure that we have those reliability on that. So thank you for bringing that as your point, because I’ve seen several in West Virginia 

located there. 

Third is on gas reliability. I am, obviously, sitting in the center 

of the Utica-Marcellus. We are big proponents of it. There are three 

power plants that are considered in West Virginia to be open. 

But my concern has been, and we have been talking again about 

this tax credit, is how we can do more research into making sure 

that the gas is the reliable source that Ms. Speakes was talking 

about because we have had too many outages with gas. 

We want it to be—I can see the tremendous future using gas as 

a source. But when we see that we have had nearly—from 2014 to 

the first quarter of this year, there were 4,000 outages with gas because of the lack of supply—4,000 times that they’ve had to shut 

down, not the least of which came out through the polar vortex. 

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But I think we can—with research and the R&D we can salvage 

a lot more of that and bring it more in line. Because in my frame 

of mind, where I am coming from, nuclear is the most dependable, 

and I would say gas—excuse me, coal would be the next and then 

we would get into some of the others—fall down through that. 

I want to bring gas up to a much more dependable source. But 

we have got to do the research to make sure that we can get that 

so that we don’t have these outages. 

And the last I want to turn to is Mr. Bailey. We had—Gerry 

Cauley was here, the CEO of NERC, and he testified here before 

one of our hearings that, quote, ‘‘Markets should review the economic and market factors driving base load generation into early 

retirement.‘‘ 

Now, that, I think, is the crux of much of this. Are we moving 

too fast into this arena when we’ve—about national security when 

we don’t have power? 

We can all talk about—we have all got our talking points about 

what happened during the polar vortex and we saw the numbers 

of plants shut down. Twenty-two percent of PJM shut down that. 

So back on what NERC has been challenged—what FERC has 

been challenged to do following along what NERC has talked 

about, is this—if we are going to be serious in Congress about fuel 

security, don’t you think this concept that has been proposed by 

DOE and over to FERC—is that a reasonable approach that they 

should be taking? 

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. McKinley, so right now we are facing the prospect or likelihood of another 40,000 megawatts of coal retirements 

over the near horizon. 

We have had 60,000 in the past. We face another 40,000. We 

agree with DOE that the markets are distorted. Now, there are a 

couple things that could be done and they are not mutually exclusive. 

One, you could take the approach of DOE to address merchant 

generation. That’s about 60,000-something megawatts as a coal 

fleet that would be affected—we are guessing right now—an educated guess—that could benefit from this. 

There is a large part of the coal fleet that’s not covered that 

serves wholesale electricity markets. It’s not merchant generation. 

So we have, in effect—I am trying to simplify this—we have a 

DOE rule that helps merchant coal and nuclear. There are other 

market reforms that could be undertaken to help those other fuelsecure coal-fired generating units. 

The problem we have and the reason DOE set an aggressive 

schedule—and I’ll come back to my non-answer to Chairman Upton 

earlier—is that we have talked to a couple of the grid operators 

that have the most coal-fired generation in their regions and we 

simply asked them how long it would take them to undertake market reforms—for market reforms that would help base load generation. 

One of them told us 2 years. The other one told us 3 years. The 

one who told us 2 years said no, the guy who said 3 years is probably right. 

So we do need to have a sense of urgency about this. Ms. 

Korsnick spoke to it, and I would say the same thing also. 

245 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Yield back. 

Mr. OLSON [presiding]. Gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair now calls upon the gentleman from Saratoga Springs, 

New York, Mr. Tonko, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Thank you to the witnesses also for the insightful testimony this 

afternoon. 

Mr. Moore, your testimony noted that electrical distribution systems are responsible for over 90 percent of total electric power 

interruptions. 

You’re sharing the panel with a number of generation resources. 

Rather than picking winners and losers in generation, can more be 

done to harden distribution and transmission infrastructure? 

Mr. MOORE. I think you—yes, I think utilities, especially in New 

York in the wake of Sandy and starting in Florida a few years ago 

started to do exactly that kind of hardening and those are the 

kinds of utility-focused actions that can be done outside of market 

design. 

PJM actually developed some generation-specific, I would call 

them, hardening or resilience standards after the polar vortex that 

weren’t embedded in the markets though had some common sense 

ideas like making sure your burners worked in the coal—for the 

gas plants and things like that—winter preparation. 

So those are the kinds of things that I think customers on the 

ground would actually, you know, see fast and immediate benefits 

and would—actually could be done at relatively low cost. I think 

we can’t forget the consumer in all this. 

What we want to make sure is that we are not gold-plating the 

system in different ways. But we—I think some—I think utilities 

do recognize that our distribution system needs, you know, continuous improvement. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you. 

And Mr. Kiernan and Mr. Mansour, do you agree that there are 

reliability benefits that can be gained through additional transmission estimates? 

Mr. KIERNAN. I think that’s a great question. Yes, transmission 

absolutely will improve reliability on the grid, resilience on the grid 

and, frankly, I think supports, you know, virtually all of our 

sources of electricity. 

So it just makes sense to figure out ways to enhance and 

strengthen and extend our transmission grid for the benefits of the 

grid and to benefit, frankly, for us to be able to compete in providing low-cost reliable resilient electricity. 

Mr. MANSOUR. We agree, Mr. Tonko. Absolutely. The more transmission—reliable transmission that you have in place gives you a 

range of possibilities to reel in power from various different sources 

and uses the diversity of fuel that we already have on the grid to 

the greatest extent possible. 

And to answer to your other question on the distribution grid, we 

feel distributed generation from solar on rooftops is, obviously, a 

very positive benefit and provides a lot of that hardening, and 

when you marry it with storage either in a person’s home or in 

their hardware store or in their Wal-Mart, it certainly does inVerDate Mar 15 2010 11:57 Feb 09, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00249 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\115THCONGRESS\115X56PARELIABILITY\115X56PARELIABILITYWORKING WAYNE
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crease the ability of the distribution grid to maintain that kind of 

services. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you. The R Street Institute’s response to last 

week’s DOE notice of proposed rulemaking seems to agree with 

that sentiment. They say, and I quote, ‘‘A resiliency initiative 

should prioritize mitigating transmission and distribution damage 

and accelerating restoration.‘‘ 

Mr. Moore, R Street also suggests that DOE’s proposal seeks to 

take emergency action on, at best, a low to medium level resiliency 

issue. Do you agree? 

Mr. MOORE. I think that it is nowhere near the crisis that some 

parties have portrayed it to be. So yes, I generally agree that there 

are other things we can do like that transmission integration that 

would go a lot further towards improving the resiliency grid. 

Mr. TONKO. Is DOE’s proposed rule likely to raise cost to consumers without commensurate resiliency benefits? 

Mr. MOORE. Sure, so far as I can tell, because it’s very hard to 

predict the full extent of the costs, but our initial calculations say 

that at least $15 billion a year just from the operating and maintenance costs reflected in the units that could be covered by the rule. 

That doesn’t include the higher rates of return and—return on 

equity, excuse me—and other things and the additional higher 

market prices that we would have. 

So I think a lot of work is going to be gone—is going to be put 

into figuring exactly how bad this would be for the consumer. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you. And much of the discussion today has focused on reliability and resiliency. But I want to bring up another 

important consideration. 

I believe that a modernized grid must also be flexible. Flexibility 

allows for rapid response and smooth integration of variable resources. 

So Mr. Durbin and Ms. Speakes-Backman, can you explain why 

we should not be overlooking flexibility and how does gas generation and storage’s flexibility reinforce grid reliability and resiliency? 

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Tonko, if I could, I think—because I laid it out 

in the written testimony as well—it’s one of the higher-valued attributes that natural gas brings to the table here and the flexibility 

to be able to provide that, that quick ramping flexibility, being able 

to follow a load, being able—you know, as variable sources come in, 

on and off of the grid, you know, a natural gas plant can be up and 

running in minutes rather than in hours or days. 

So, again, I think you can’t overlook the need for flexibility as the 

grid is now integrating additional types of generation sources and 

technology. 

Mr. TONKO. Ms. Speakes-Backman, please. 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. Yes. On the—on the side of resilience, 

certainly, there is frequency response. There is micro grid 

islanding. There is black start service so that the centralized generation can come up. 

And storage operates from zero to 100 percent in milliseconds 

and so it’s able not only to provide resilience in the—in times of 

major outages but it’s also able to ride through regular normal operations of frequency regulation. 

247 

The important thing to note, though, is there is multiple attributes to resiliency. So I could list those out—they are in my testimony—but it’s important that they all be accounted for, not just 

one part of resiliency because, for example, let’s say we do have all 

the 90-day—90-day fuel source on hand. 

If transmission and distribution is unavailable that’s not helpful. 

You can’t get the power to people, and so you need a more distributed resource in that time. 

The whole point, frankly, of resiliency is to plan for the unexpected. And so you have to have multiple solutions available and 

online and ready to react regardless of what you think the solution—what you think the problem is going to be. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you. 

Mr. Chair, thank you for generous time. 

Mr. OLSON. Gentleman’s time is expired. 

The Chair now calls upon the chairman of the full committee, 

Mr. Walden, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to welcome our panelists. Mr. Wright, good to see you 

again in this capacity. 

Last week, I explored the panel of witness—I asked them whether the wholesale power markets were working to respond to and 

engage changes in consumer behavior driven by new technologies 

and other lower cost generation options. 

And the answer from most of the panel was to embrace competitive markets and to ensure that the markets do not have a technology bias. 

So this week, I want to ask the same question of this distinguished panel. I understand the DOE issued an order on Friday on 

reliability and resiliency that is certainly helping to get the conversation started and one which we will be actively overseeing. 

But I also understand how complicated these issues are and we 

shouldn’t consider any one issue in a vacuum. There are market 

forces, economics at play as well as consumer preferences, new 

technology, jobs, subsidies, regulations affecting environmental 

externalities and carbon and regionally preferred resources. 

So is reliability the only attribute not getting properly valued in 

these markets and, hypothetically—let me underscore, hypothetically, if we were able to design the wholesale electricity markets fresh from a blank sheet of paper, what would you recommend? 

Who would like to start that? And then I just want to go down 

the panel. It’s the only question I have for you today. Who wants 

to tackle that first? I am going to get to all of you so—— 

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Walden, I’ll go ahead and start. 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you. 

Mr. DURBIN. Again, with a clean sheet of paper, I think we still 

need to look at what is it that’s brought the value of the grid we 

have today. 

Mr. WALDEN. Right. 

Mr. DURBIN. I think we do have a very—an effective and efficient 

grid certainly in need of improvement. But I think we can’t lose 

sight of the fact that we certainly look in the last, you know, 8 to 

248 

10 years—some of the benefits that we are really seeing, certainly, 

from the consumer price perspective. 

So consumer benefits or the flexibility of attributes that we just 

talked about before, that’s being driven by market forces. You 

know, I understand that, you know, natural gas—— 

Mr. WALDEN. We also have State regulation coming in. You’ve 

got subsidies involved in the markets. I am not saying that any of 

that’s bad but—— 

Mr. DURBIN. No question. No, I am not—— 

Mr. WALDEN [continuing]. Things are changing. 

Mr. DURBIN. I am not denying that there are—there are other 

forces that I think those are some areas we need—we need to look 

at and see are they distorting, you know, the market. 

But I think, you know, certainly from a natural gas perspective 

the fact that we’ve had market forces allow natural gas—— 

Mr. WALDEN. Right. Enormous change. 

Mr. DURBIN [continuing]. To play a much bigger part, and wholesale prices dropped by 50 percent in PJM. So I think more than 

anything else that’s got to be the focus to allow for market-driven 

fuel neutral policies, going forward. 

Mr. WALDEN. All right. I’ve only got 2 minutes for all of you to 

respond, so to the extent you can. And if you have other thoughts 

past this, please get them to me. 

Yes, sir. 

Mr. KIERNAN. I’ll jump in. Tom Kiernan, American Wind Energy—the process I would suggest, first, trust the experts—FERC 

and NERC and the RTOs—to establish the specific reliability and 

resilient services as opposed to other bodies or DOE saying, here’s 

the fuel source we prefer. 

Let the experts pick the exact services and then allow us to compete for it, and the reason being, obviously, technologies are moving forward. Each of our technologies are advancing, and wind a 

number of years ago might not have been able to compete well for 

some technology, but right now, I think, we are the best—— 

Mr. WALDEN. Very competitive. 

Mr. KIERNAN [continuing]. At disturbance ride-through capability 

because of our power electronics. And you want the market to be 

rewarded for those innovations and advancements. So trust the experts and allow competition. 

Mr. WALDEN. Good. And I know when Mr. Wright was in a previous position we talked about the ebbs and flows of wind energy 

in the Northwest, where a thousand megawatts within an hour 

could come and go, and so then how do you balance that out and 

make the grid work. 

So we heard last week battery storage didn’t count in one RTO 

because it didn’t have a flywheel. I mean, so we’ve got some legacy 

regulation to deal with. 

Mr. Wright, do you have a comment on how we might do this—— 

Mr. WRIGHT. Specifically, to your question, first of all, I want to 

strongly endorse technology neutral. I think that is the key. 

And then the question is what are the attributes that we want 

out of our power system. If we want reliability then we would go 

through the characteristics that are necessary—the services and 

249 

products that are necessary in order to produce reliability and then 

let’s make sure that we are providing value associated with that. 

If we want environmental attributes out of our power system 

then we should be clear about what are those environmental attributes that we want out of it and then make sure that we have 

incentives associated with that. 

That clarity around the outcome that we want would be the most 

useful thing that we could do in terms of better defining what will 

produce the outcome that consumers want. 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. Hi. I would just like to underscore what 

Mr. Wright said in that if we focus on the performance rather than 

the technology I think we can get there a little bit faster. 

The FERC is—has a couple of rulemakings that are working toward looking at resilience. States are doing some work but I’ll tell 

you, there is a big—there is a big difference between when we talk 

about the difference between reliability and resilience. 

Because at the State level, as a former regulator I can tell you 

we had lots of cost-effectiveness training and cost-effectiveness 

tests to ensure reliability but not on the resilience. There were always the out clauses for those major storms. 

Well, these major storms are happening more—more often and 

with more severity. And the tools aren’t necessarily there at the 

State level to be able to value that. 

Mr. WALDEN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MOORE. Sure. Yes, technology neutral, performance focused—I think FERC has done a very good job of recognizing regional variations and so that needs to continue to occur. 

Clearly, I think energy markets have to—have to move beyond 

just fuel-based pricing and what we are doing now, I think, you 

know, focus more on congestion pricing as a bigger component of 

this and move away from a one-size-fits-all capacity market design. 

I am really concerned about the money we are putting into capacity markets. Do we need to put all that money into that market? Can we do something else? 

And last, just aggregate—smaller resources need to be able to 

participate in the market now. We have many more resources. It 

doesn’t do anyone any good if they’ve got a nest thermostat or a 

smart meter if they can’t access the markets shaping the price for 

the day. 

Mr. WALDEN. All right. I know I am way over my time, but this 

is an important topic, obviously, for the committee. The chairman, 

the vice chairman, the staff have done a great job, I think, teeing 

up these issues as we look at the future of the electricity grid. And 

so we very much value your input. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. OLSON. The chairman of the full committee is never out of 

time. You always yield back. [Laughter.] 

Chairman calls—— 

Mr. WALDEN. I’ve come a long way since I was Mr. Wright’s driver, but we will explain that later. 

Mr. OLSON. The Chair now calls upon the gentleman from Iowa, 

Mr. Loebsack, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

250 

I am very proud of my State for a lot of reasons, but Mr. Kiernan 

knows particularly wind, but I’ll get to that in a second. 

You know, actually Iowa is quite varied in terms of the sources 

of power that we have. We saw built not that long ago a natural 

gas plant. We, of course, have a lot of coal. We are exploding on 

the solar front. 

I think we have tremendous potential for hydropower, especially 

in small streams and small rivers if we can get there at some 

point. I think they have tremendous potential. 

But, clearly, I am very proud of Iowa’s wind energy story and its 

place as a national leader in wind energy production. 

And Mr. Kiernan knows it very well—he mentioned Iowa and 

Kansas a little bit earlier. My wife and I actually took a little bit 

of time away, about a week in August, and we drove up through 

northwest Iowa. 

I can see some of the old lattice-style turbines. They are not very 

pretty, actually, compared to the newer ones. But and then we 

went to South Dakota and North Dakota and just saw the tremendous growth in wind energy up in those two States as well. 

I have been fighting for a strong wind energy sector in my State 

since I’ve been in Congress. I think it’s—not, again, to take away 

from the other sources of energy but, you know, it’s cost effective. 

It’s been—it’s been a good cost-effective source of energy in Iowa 

and creates great jobs, continues to—we continue to work for job 

growth in this sector. I just think it’s real important. 

We are upwards of 36, 37 percent of our electricity in Iowa generated by wind. Again, we are growing in these other—in solar in 

particular as well. 

Well, I really only have one or two questions at most, and for Mr. 

Kiernan, when it comes to reliability, we have seen this tremendous growth in Iowa. 

Have there been particular problems in Iowa when it comes to 

reliability and other States as well where we have seen this tremendous growth in wind energy? 

Mr. KIERNAN. Well, thank you for the question. But first, also 

thank you for your leadership. You’ve been an extraordinary champion out there for all different sources but very much for wind and 

we appreciate that. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. By the way, I forgot—we have a nuclear power 

plant at Palo too. I forgot about that. 

Ms. KORSNICK.: Thank you for that honorable mention. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Sorry about that. It’s not my district anymore. 

That’s why I overlooked it. I apologize. 

Mr. KIERNAN. But as we are 36 and well on the way to 40 percent in Iowa, there have not been any reliability concerns. And as 

I mentioned earlier with our newer technology that a lot of folks 

may not be aware of, we are able to provide most of the essential 

reliability services. So we have not had a problem on that front at 

all and I think the grid operators speak to that on a regular basis 

and I believe Mr. Cauley from NERC last week spoke to that as 

well. So wind is a very reliable part of a resilient grid and we are 

quite proud of that. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. And that was my next question about the grid operators, and there hasn’t been any particular issues at this point? 

251 

Mr. KIERNAN. Not that I am aware of, and actually grid operators, whether it’s PJM, SPP, but also DOE’s NREL have done studies showing that—NREL came out with a study that we could do 

well over 50 percent renewable without any issues. 

PJM had 35 percent wind energy in one study and then extended 

it up to 80 percent in another study. So all these studies are showing that we keep blowing past these artificial ceilings people think 

for wind or wind and solar. 

We are just—because of the innovation of America, we are just 

blowing past any perceived barriers and doing it reliably and, 

frankly, cost effectively for consumers. 

As you mentioned, in Iowa and other States, the costs have been 

flat or coming down as we have added cost-effective wind energy 

on the grid. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Great. That’s all I have. Thank you very much, 

and I will yield back the remainder of my time. Thank you, Mr. 

Chair. 

Mr. OLSON. Gentleman yields back. The Chair now calls upon 

the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Shimkus, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for you all 

being here. 

So I am listening and the question is why are we here—what’s 

brought us to this time. Everyrone has mentioned reliability, resilience, flexibility as a key component. 

But we have also had a tremendously changing market from not 

just historically of regional monopolies in States. Mr. Moore, you 

mentioned Illinois. We went to competition. 

But we also had a FERC that really allowed a changing of the 

transmission and the buying and selling across State lines without 

a change in the actual statutory language by the Federal Power 

Act. 

Everybody would agree with that, right? I mean, we had a hearing last year with—talking about this and the Federal Power Act 

was so kind of vague it just—and some people were applauding 

that because it allowed this transformation that really did not have 

the guidelines of a legislative input. 

And so now we have new entrants into the market, some—and 

they get more competitive but some were incentivized by public policy also, and we are trying to struggle with this new entity that 

we have and I think public policy folks—we just have to decide how 

do we keep focused as some of the commentaries were, what is our 

goals and our objectives in the future. 

But I don’t think—I don’t think we should dismiss and in essence 

maybe penalize a major generation that helped get us here. 

When I first became a Member of Congress we had three main 

generation capacities. We had coal, we had nuclear, and we had 

hydro. Natural gas was too high and wind and solar wasn’t—wasn’t 

there yet. Wasn’t in the competitive world. 

So now, again, I think our biggest challenge is making a definition without—everybody knows where I stand. A major nuclear 

power State. We do have some wind. We have big coal generation. 

But I find even in this discussion between the DOE’s language, 

PJM’s language, NERC language is a difference in what I used to 

understand is the term of base load, because my base load debate 

252 

came out of regional monopolies serving at set area and what was 

the demand and who could provide that. 

Now base load has some different definitions based upon who 

you’re asking. So whether that’s stacked generation or—so I am 

going to do what Chairman Walden did, go down the table real 

quick. 

What is your definition of base load or is there a definition of 

base load and should there be a definition of base load? 

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. DURBIN. I would suggest that the traditional definition of 

base load is no longer relevant. I think base load—you know, the 

traditional base load plants that we have there are—continue and 

will continue to provide an important source to the electric grid. 

But I think the grid has now moved to a place because we have 

now got such advances in technology, that we have got these more 

flexible, you know, sources there. We have got—got the, you know, 

both from a performance, cost, and, you know—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Let’s go quickly. So I want to get down. So—— 

Mr. DURBIN. So my answer is I don’t think the traditional definition—it no longer—we have got to stay focused on the attributes 

that are necessary to make the grid reliable. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Bailey? 

Mr. BAILEY. You know, the material I’ve read recently says, you 

know, the term base load is outmoded. Maybe the term is. Maybe 

it isn’t. 

To me, the discussion now is, you know, about reliability, resilience, flexibility, that sort of thing. So I’ve personally sort of moved 

away from it. But it’s a good—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Let me just—we won’t ever get through everybody 

so let me just say—— 

Ms. KORSNICK. I am ready. I am ready. 

Mr. SHIMKUS [continuing]. In a regional transmission organization they had—they still have a base load that they have to, in essence, the demand that they have to meet. Is that true? 

Ms. KORSNICK. That’s true. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. An RTO? 

Ms. KORSNICK. Yes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And do we or should—and that was from—Maria 

answered that—and should we—is there—part of the elephant in 

the room is do you incentivize those who can provide big percentages of a base load in an RTO? Maria. 

Ms. KORSNICK. Well, I go back to your first question on what’s 

base load and let’s say, you know, you can be there 7 days a week, 

24 hours a day. Somebody needs to be there all the time and I 

think there is a, you know, a value for that base load power. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. That’s part of the discussion and debate and I am 

over my time. I’ve probably put more questions than I probably 

should have in the whole mix but that’s what the hearing is for. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. OLSON. Thank you. 

The Chair now calls upon the gentleman from California, Mr. 

McNerney, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I 

want to thank the witnesses. 

253 

You know, it’s interesting the different perspectives that you all 

are bringing to this. But I think one thing that was in common was 

that you all felt like the real solution is in true valuation of the 

different sources of power. 

And I am wondering how would we go about achieving a true 

valuation. I know we’d want to have metrics defining resiliency 

that would work. 

Mr. Moore, could you take a crack at that? 

Mr. MOORE. Sure. FERC has already, you know, started down 

this road by creating technology-neutral markets for frequency response, inertia services, voltage support, and things like that—the 

whole range of ancillary services. 

So there is already a track record. I think the work to be done 

is on what additional reliability or resiliency metrics we might 

need to do. 

So I think there is a lot—there is more work to be done. I know 

that we are already transforming the grid in some places more 

than other in this country, you know, and doing fairly well. 

So I think as new resources come into the market like energy 

storage, let’s look at if there are barriers, as we have already 

heard, that might exist in some markets. 

I can just say that I have not heard one RTO, for example, say 

that we need a base load unit to meet reliability and resiliency 

needs of the future. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So it does require some Federal involvement 

then to get there? 

Mr. MOORE. I think—I think FERC and the RTOs are looking at 

this, yes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So if that were to come about, would the increased penetration of intermittent renewables cause reliability 

problems? 

You can go ahead, Mr. Kiernan. 

Mr. KIERNAN. If I can jump in. No. I mean, we have got wind 

and solar that are reliably being added to the grid. We do think 

base load is kind of an older concept but I will say some grid operators refer to wind as the new base load. 

Base load is often—it used to be referred to as the lowest cost 

out there and, frankly, in many parts of the regions or the country, 

on an unsubsidized basis wind is the lowest cost source of new generation. So that’s a way a number of folks are thinking about wind. 

It’s just affordable. 

Mr. MANSOUR. I would just use the example of California. Yesterday at noon, California got 45 percent of its electricity from renewable sources. 

Now, that includes solar, wind, who are intermittent, but then 

some others who are not like geothermal and some others. But 

California, as you know, serves the sixth largest GDP in the world. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, I mean, that’s the thing. The Nation has 

different characteristics and I think all of the different sorts of generation will be more preferable in different regions. 

So, I mean, there is tremendous new technologies and entrepreneurs that are entering the market. I hear about them all the 

time on the Grid Innovation Caucus. Mr. Latta and I are cochairs 

of that caucus, by the way. 

254 

How will this impact the reliability of resilience and flexibility— 

this new technology and the new entrepreneurs that we are hearing from? 

Mr. Moore? You’re kind of the neutral—you’re the only one that’s 

really neutral here today. 

Mr. MOORE. I’m trying to be as neutral as possible. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. As possible. 

Mr. MOORE. No, I think that innovation really is a driving force 

here, as you said, and that, you know, FERC’s standard is just and 

reasonable rates without undue discrimination. 

As someone has already said, it’s a pretty general principle but 

it’s been foundational and really important and it gives FERC and 

the RTOs the flexibility to change market rules to strike down barriers to new entry and that—and if they do so in a way that those 

resources and those new services can meet grid needs more 

affordably and cheaply, then so be it. That’s what’s beautiful about 

the FERC market design. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Would it be a good idea for Federal policies to 

encourage deployment of the new technologies. 

Mr. MOORE. I think—I think we strongly encourage research and 

development in that area along with next-generation market designs. 

I think NREL and the labs have done terrific work on exactly 

that kind of work in the past and I think to maintain our Nation’s, 

you know, leading role in the next-generation modernized grid we 

need to keep the foot on the accelerator on those initiatives. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. One of the technologies that I’d like to see a little more is carbon sequestration. 

Mr. Bailey, could you address where we are, what the future 

looks like in terms of carbon sequestration? 

Mr. BAILEY. Trying to think of a simple answer to this. You 

know, carbon capture sequestration is still under development. It 

is—it is still very important. The U.S. will probably need it at some 

point in time. The rest of the world, certainly, is going to need it 

longer term. 

Obviously, we are going to continue work on fossil fuels. The last 

time I looked at the figures on carbon capture and sequestration 

was 2 or 3 years ago, and everyone knows that it is prohibitively 

expensive. We hope it will not be. 

A new coal unit, for example, would be somewhere in the range 

of $2 billion, and adding carbon sequestration and storage to one, 

this is—this is probably badly out of date but it’ll give you sort of 

a scale of magnitude—it was about another billion. 

Now, that suggested we had a lot more work to do on carbon capture and sequestration. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Yes. I just want to finish by saying to my Republican colleagues please embrace carbon sequestration for your 

own good—for your own districts’ goods. 

With that I yield back. 

Mr. OLSON. Gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now sees the gentleman from Michigan showed up. 

The Chair calls upon Mr. Walberg for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALBERG. It’s called—thank you, Mr. Chairman—it’s called 

Michigan sequestration here. 

255 

Thanks to the panel for being here. It’s important to continuation 

of the issue we look at for energy. 

Mr. Wright, you may or may not know, but we have a fairly 

major pumped hydro storage facility in Michigan—in western 

Michigan, connected to CMS Energy from my district. 

Interesting process for me to comprehend. How are pumped 

hydro storage facilities helping integrate intermittent forms of renewable energy into the grid? 

Mr. WRIGHT. Mr. Walberg, I am familiar with that. I am actually 

a graduate of Central Michigan University and Farmington Hills 

Harrison High School. So from your area. 

Mr. WALBERG. Hey. 

Mr. WRIGHT. The pump storage makes huge contribution because 

what we are trying to do—there is really radical change happening 

to the operation of the electric power system today and we 

shouldn’t underestimate the impacts of that change. 

We can deal with those impacts if we have time, money, and 

foresight, and one of the ways that we deal with that is through 

finding ways to be able to take energy from times when it is being 

produced and it doesn’t produce highest value for consumers and 

move it into periods when it does. 

Pumped storage creates that capability to be able to move the energy in a time when it creates highest value. 

Mr. WALBERG. I’ve been interested to watch that as I’ve learned 

more about that and absolutely correct, it is a way of in my mind, 

of producing something that would be produced naturally at many 

places with hydropower but using it in a way that makes sense to 

add to that as well and be creative in its usage. So thank you. 

Ms. Korsnick, can you explain how onsite fuel contributes to the 

reliability of the electric grid? 

Ms. KORSNICK. Yes, certainly. For a nuclear plant, for example, 

we put all the fuel that we need for 18 to 24 months in the—in 

the reactor core. So we are not depending on any sort of fuel delivery. 

And so you can just imagine through what we just mentioned, on 

some of the recent hurricanes or any sort of catastrophic event 

you’re assured that your fuel is there ready to go. 

In the case of a nuclear reactor it’s already in that core ready to 

produce the much-needed power any time that it’s needed. 

Mr. WALBERG. I think hardened is a good word that we need to 

remember relative to nuclear power. Nothing is hardened against 

everything, I suppose, but it’s significantly hardened when we 

think about nuclear and I think of our plant, DTE Fermi plant sitting on Lake Erie. Fortunately, no tsunamis do we expect there. 

But the hardening that’s gone on is encouraging, plus, as you’ve 

talked about, the ability to store the necessary fuel to have the 

power. 

Go and talk to us about nuclear power support of voltage control. 

How does it do that and, significantly, what do we see there? 

Ms. KORSNICK. Certainly. I can actually reflect on my times as 

an operator in the control room at a nuclear plant and, you know, 

you’d get a call from the—— 

Mr. WALBERG. I wondered why you were glowing. [Laughter.] 

Bad joke. Bad joke. 

256 

Ms. KORSNICK. You’d get a call from the transmission operator, 

and just based on the fact that the power plant produces the power 

that it does, you have the ability to adjust voltage in support of the 

grid and you also can adjust what’s called reactive power in support of the grid. 

And so, you know, this is as a result of the size of the power 

plant and one of the attributes, quite frankly, that nuclear brings 

to the grid is these ancillary services. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. OLSON. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair calls upon the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank both 

the chairman and the ranking member for holding the hearing 

today. 

Grid reliability and resiliency is something we often take for 

granted. With Secretary Perry’s directive to FERC for a proposed 

rulemaking for a grid resiliency pricing rule, this issue deserves a 

lot of discussion. And when Secretary Perry was Governor of Texas 

that’s when we expanded our wind power dramatically and it’s part 

of our grid in ERCOT. 

I am afraid the latest move may artificially tip the scale and 

that’s something, I think when he comes before our committee we 

need to talk about. 

The secretary has issued a directive to combat what he calls immediate dangers. In the North American Electric Reliability Corp. 

report from earlier this year made no claim of a grid in crisis from 

the retirement of coal power plants. 

The CEO of NERC testified in June that the state of reliability 

in North America remains strong and the trend line shows continuing improvement year upon year. 

In its 2017 report, NERC did highlight that transition to gas and 

renewable generation requires new strategy to ensure voltage control, power ramping capabilities, and frequency support. 

Storage capabilities are key as those new fuel sources expand 

their share of the power generation. I want to ask the panel in 

terms of these newer fuel sources of gas, solar, and wind: What 

changes have we seen in terms of storage capabilities in the last 

few years, and where is the industry going, and how does this address the issue of reliability and resiliency when it comes to fuel 

sources? 

We will start at this end, if you could—as brief as you can. 

Mr. DURBIN. Thank you. Thank you for the question. 

Mr. GREEN. I am not a Senator. They only give me 5 minutes. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. DURBIN. From the natural gas standpoint, one of the 

strengths that it brings is the robust nature of the entire system. 

So you’ve got geographic diversity as far as where we are producing 

and how it’s transported around the country—300,000 miles of 

pipe. 

You know, storage facilities all around the country so you package all that together with the—with the—and then delivering it to 

the—you know, to the end user—to the generator. You’ve got a 

257 

powerful portfolio that they can then pull from to provide that reliability. 

Mr. GREEN. Anybody else? Yes. 

Mr. KIERNAN. Just from wind’s perspective, I mean, we welcome 

storage on the grid. Obviously, it brings some services that are 

helpful to the grid. 

But to be clear, wind energy does not need storage per se because 

the grid itself in a way is one large storage system in which the 

grid operators are compensating one for another. You know, if wind 

is a little low, they kick in more gas, et cetera. So we welcome storage but it’s not needed to add more wind. 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. I will just add and echo that, that energy 

storage on the grid it likes all resources from solar and wind and 

hydropower to natural gas, coal, nuclear. It spans the entire spectrum of energy. 

It addresses short term in fluctuations and it addresses longterm issues of transitioning of the grid. For example, the ability to 

put storage in a specific location to offset peak periods during the 

times of transmission and distribution upgrades or to even offset 

the costs of those upgrades. 

And so I would say that while storage can enable more generation from variable resources, it also supports the grid in those socalled base load resources as well. 

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Durbin, one of the criticisms of gas-fired electrical generators, especially in the Northeast, that they often have 

trouble getting deliveries of the commodity during cold months and 

due to pipeline bottlenecks and being put in line behind gas providers for pipeline capacity. 

Are there fixes to the existing market rules that would increase 

your liability when it comes to natural gas or do you see an infrastructure problem? 

Someday we may get a pipeline across New York to serve the 

Northeast. But I think Congress may need to get into that business—that States can’t just stop someone from going across. 

But anyway, is there something we can do with that problem? 

Mr. DURBIN. Yes. First of all, I completely agree with you about 

New York and happy to help in any way we can. 

But I think when you’re talking about the Northeast it is both. 

Yes, there is a constriction—there is not enough infrastructure in 

place. I mean, need more pipelines to serve the demand in the 

Northeast region. There is a reason why they pay more than 50 

percent more for electricity than any other region of the country. 

Having said that, there are market fixes that can be made and 

you have generators who, in large part, you know, have interruptible contracts, you know, for their gas. The fact is nobody—even 

during the polar vortex, no one who had a firm contract for gas 

didn’t get their gas. Everyone got their gas. 

And so, you know, any outages we referred to was more—it was 

contractual outages because they didn’t have—you know, they had 

interruptible contracts. But I do think that there are things that 

could be done to allow for generators to enter into. 

Sometimes they are not allowed to enter into those types of contracts. The answer is yes, there are solutions. 

Mr. GREEN. And I know I am out of time. 

258 

But, Mr. Chairman, let me just mention, when we had Hurricane 

Harvey coming in, a lot of our problems were there but the nuclear 

power plant southwest of Houston stayed and—stayed and continued producing electricity. 

So, I mean, that’s why we need all the above and have a market 

that has many different sources. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLSON. Gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair now calls upon the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. 

Kinzinger, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. KINZINGER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to 

thank everybody for being here and thank you for your time. The 

hearing is particularly timely. 

This question I am going to actually ask to Ms. Korsnick. As I 

mentioned, the hearing is timely because DOE filed a notice of proposed rulemaking for FERC to accurately compensate generation 

resources like nuclear, which is extremely important in my district 

and in my State necessary to maintain reliability and resiliency. 

The secretary cited events like the 2014 polar vortex, which, in 

Illinois and throughout PJM, could have been much worse if it was 

not for our nuclear fleet. 

What challenges does the nuclear industry face when it comes to 

participation in wholesale electricity markets? 

Ms. KORSNICK. One of the challenges, for example, and it actually occurs in your States—some of the other technologies make 

money besides just from what they get from the market, so, say, 

from tax credits, for example. And as a result of that, they are interested in putting their power on the grid and it can even be at 

a low price. 

It could be zero. It could be even less than zero, and they are still 

going to make money because they are going to get that tax credit. 

So I think we are all a fan of fair markets. We would just share 

that the markets in fact are not fair today and that’s an example 

in this case where it’s not fair to both sides and in this case when 

the prices go negative and the nuclear plant is operating, essentially they have to pay the grid operator to take their power. 

Mr. KINZINGER. And let me ask you, if this DOE’s rulemaking is 

put into place, if it’s implemented, how would that affect the existing nuclear generation fleet? 

And let me—I guess I’ll follow on—if the markets aren’t reformed, do you anticipate this trend of early plant retirements will 

continue and how would that affect grid reliability? 

Ms. KORSNICK. Absolutely. I’ll take your second question first. 

But if this trend were to continue, yes, you will see more premature closures of nuclear plants and, again, from a nuclear plant 

perspective, once that decision is made to close that plant, that decision isn’t reversed. Once people no longer are licensed, et cetera, 

and you start going through the decommissioning process, it’s not 

something that you turn around and change. 

So these decisions are once and done decisions, which is why we 

want to be very careful that as a nation we are not making some 

strategic decisions based on some market challenges that we will 

later regret. 

259 

And so, as you mentioned, the notice of proposed rulemaking 

from Secretary Perry, one of the things that it does is it recognizes 

some of the attributes that nuclear does bring to the market in the 

area of resiliency. 

Specifically, they are focused on that 90-day fuel supply as one 

of the examples that they use for resiliency and some of the other 

ancillary services like voltage support, et cetera, that can be offered 

by a nuclear plant. 

So it goes to valuing some of the attributes that nuclear is bringing to the market today that aren’t being recognized. 

So yes, it would be helpful. 

Mr. KINZINGER. As well as carbon neutral, I think it’s important 

to note. 

In your testimony you discuss that China and Russia are aggressively working to export nuclear technology around the world. It’s 

a big concern of mine. Can you discuss that effort and provide your 

perspective on how this could actually affect our national security? 

Ms. KORSNICK. Absolutely. There is 58 reactors being built 

around the world today. Two-thirds of those are being built by Chinese and Russian design. 

The Russians know very well what it is that you get when you 

build a reactor in somebody’s country. You start a 100-year relationship with that country, by the time you design it, build it, operate it, and decommission it. 

So they strategically look at the building of these facilities in 

terms of establishing that relationship, and if you look at the 

United States, quite frankly, as a result of us allowing our nuclear 

fleet to begin to atrophy, we are ceding our leadership at the national—at the international table, quite frankly, on nuclear issues. 

That means we have less of a voice on operational excellence. 

That means we have less of a voice on nonproliferation issues, because all of that comes with the package, if you will, when we build 

American reactors around the world. 

And so, quite frankly, we just need to look strategically at the 

messages that we are sending, and by shutting down our fleet at 

home it does not put us in a leadership role internationally and 

that affects our national security. 

Mr. KINZINGER. Yes, and it’s hard to take a leadership role when 

you have less skin in the game than your competitors I think is important to note. 

So thank you all for being here. Thank you for participating and, 

Mr. Chairman, I’ll yield back. 

Mr. OLSON. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now calls upon the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. 

Schrader, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SCHRADER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it very 

much. Just to preface my remarks, I am one of those all-of-theabove energy guys. I think that’s an important—you have made 

that crystal clear, I think, in your testimony to not get locked in 

on just one source of energy. 

Focusing a little bit on the hydro, if I may, with Mr. Wright. You 

know, some discussion about base load. I do want to make sure 

that we have—our lights go on, our heat work, or whatever as time 

goes on. 

260 

Seems like hydro is never talked about as base load. Could you 

give me your perspective on that? 

Mr. WRIGHT. Sure. I think—I think base load actually is two 

components. It’s a pricing component and it’s an availability component. 

So, historically, the lowest cost—lowest variable cost resource on 

the system operated as much as you could possibly operate it and 

those tend to be nuclear and coal plants, and it was also available 

all the time. 

Now what we are finding with variable energy resources—those 

lowest variable cost resources tend to be solar, wind, and hydro— 

are all operating and we compete, candidly, for market share at the 

points when lows are low and then we also are operating as much 

as we can when loads are higher. 

So what you really need is to be able to combine those two. You 

want the lowest cost resources operating but you want to make 

sure that you have the availability to meet all loads at all times. 

And so it’s going to take a new concept, I think, beyond—a new 

word, because the word that we’ve been using for our history in the 

electricity industry, the industry has changed too much—— 

Mr. SCHRADER. I know. 

Mr. WRIGHT [continuing]. And we are going to have to come up 

with a new way to describe this. 

Mr. SCHRADER. Could you also comment on long-term versus 

short-term focus on energy sources? You know, natural gas is a 

great resource—very low cost now, total disruptor in the market 

place putting pressure on our nuclear friends and, frankly, our 

hydro friends and I think pretty much everybody in the marketplace—coal, you name it. 

So how do we—how do we deal with that sort of disruption? I 

know out in my neck of the woods in the Pacific Northwest people 

are talking about really having trouble coming to grips with longterm BPA contracts—our Bonneville Power Administration, which 

have historically been the backbone of energy up there. 

What—get a comment maybe from Mr. Wright and maybe Mr. 

Durbin, if that’s all right, or anyone else? 

Mr. WRIGHT. First of all, we go through cycles in electricity markets. We went through cycles in the late 1990s when prices were 

really low and then we had the West Coast energy crisis and prices 

got really high. 

And what we struggle with is how do we go through those periods when prices are low and make sure that we maintain the resources that will create best value for consumers for the longest period of time. 

In this moment, I think what we are seeing is, as I said in my 

testimony, low energy prices and low capacity prices. To the extent 

that we can find ways to be able to think long term—what is it 

that will create best value for consumers over the long term both 

from a cost perspective and an environmental perspective and then 

we make sure that we have pricing regimes that will support those 

resources for the long term. 

The difficulty that I see right now is that we—in the market formations that have been put together so far they are too focused on 

the short-term. You know, they are too much looking at the next 

261 

couple of years as opposed to how do we be positioned for the 

longer term. 

Mr. SCHRADER. Mr. Durbin? 

Mr. DURBIN. Sure. I, certainly, acknowledge that natural gas and 

power generation has been a disruptive force. But I would also 

argue it’s been a very positive disruptive force from consumer benefits on the costs of power, wholesale costs of 50 percent, environmental benefits, and emission reductions—you know, greater reliability to the system itself. 

So do we—are there—are there ways that we can look at the 

market rules that are out there to catch up, if you will? Yes, absolutely. But I think, again, we have got to go back—go back and 

make sure that what’s being valued are the reliability attributes 

and do that in a fuel-neutral and technology-neutral basis. 

Mr. SCHRADER. All right. Very good. 

Last question, if I may, I think, is large-scale battery storage. 

How closer are we to that? I mean, is it going to happen in the next 

year or two, or is it 10 years off, or can you give us a prediction, 

please? 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. It’s happening today. It is happening 

today. There are—there is currently—the largest scale battery storage is 100 megawatts for 4 hours of riding through on the grid 

scale, and that’s in North America. 

Exponentially, our market is growing. It’s grown at the grid scale 

level by 70 percent in the last eight—sorry, the costs of grid scale 

storage has gone down 70 percent in the last 8 years on the grid, 

and commercial and industrial level, those costs have gone down 80 

percent in the last 2 years. 

So we are seeing steep, steep drops in the cost. We are seeing 

States and Federal agencies begin to understand the valuation of 

storage, both on its supply into the grid and its taking off the grid 

of excess resources and beginning to consider, at least, being able 

to value that. 

And so I say that that time is now. We are able to encourage 

more penetration of low and no-carbon resources. We are able to 

take additional power off the grid for those base load resources that 

are inflexible and can’t ramp up and down very easily, thereby extending the life of those resources. 

So I think this is happening now. 

Mr. SCHRADER. Thank you very much, and I yield back, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. OLSON. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now calls upon the Texan with the patience of Job, the 

gentrifying Aggie from College Station, Texas, Mr. Flores, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. FLORES. You’ve misstated the patience part. 

But I am an all-of-the-above resilience and reliability guy. I just 

noticed my solar system at my house was producing 21⁄2 times 

what I was consuming at this point in time. But then it just 

dropped offline because it got cloudy a few minutes ago. 

So for you three at that end of the table, I am glad you’re here. 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. You should have storage. 

262 

Mr. FLORES. I am working on it. That’s the next. I am waiting 

for the exponential price decreases that you’re talking about. But 

I plan to do that. 

We have talked a lot today about reliability, resilience, emissions 

characteristics, inventory, and fuel on board. One of the things we 

haven’t talked about too much is the land environmental impact of 

the different types of energy. 

So I have a question for Mr. Durbin and Mr. Bailey and Ms. 

Korsnick about if you—if you could, and you can use whatever metric you want to, but if you have a, let’s say, a typical 500-megawatt 

plant, how many acres does it take of your respective power 

sources vis-a-vis solar, vis-a-vis wind? 

Do you all have those numbers off the top of your head? If you 

don’t, just pass and we will go to the next one. 

Mr. DURBIN. I don’t have them with me. We do have them. I’d 

be happy to provide them for you. 

Mr. FLORES. OK. All right. Mr. Bailey? 

Mr. BAILEY. Pass. 

Mr. FLORES. OK. Ms. Korsnick? 

Ms. KORSNICK. I would just say, roughly, you know, a square 

mile is what you would need for—you said 500 megawatt. It could 

be a 1,000-megawatt—— 

Mr. FLORES. OK. 

Ms. KORSNICK [continuing]. Nuclear plant. I guess wind and 

solar—— 

Mr. FLORES. So it—OK. What would it be for wind? 

Mr. KIERNAN. If I can jump in—— 

Mr. FLORES. Sure. 

Mr. KIERNAN [continuing]. It’s interesting. For a wind farm it’s 

actually less than 2 percent of the land is used for turbines and 

foundations. The rest is continued to be used for farming and 

ranching and other sources at the land—or other activities the 

landowner wants. 

Mr. FLORES. It takes a certain footprint to make that work, 

though. 

Mr. KIERNAN. But that is just 2 percent. The foundation or the 

access roads—you aggregate that all, it’s still just 2 percent and 

cattle, they don’t seem to mind, and the wheat does seem to grow. 

So it’s a wonderful multiple use of the land. 

Mr. FLORES. OK. How about the birds? OK. We will come back 

to that later. Go ahead. 

Mr. KIERNAN. Happy to—— 

Mr. FLORES. No, go ahead, Mr. Mansour. 

Mr. MANSOUR. From the standpoint of solar, you know, a 500- 

megawatt solar facility would probably be somewhere in the range 

of eight to nine square miles. 

Mr. FLORES. OK. 

Mr. MANSOUR. So it is taking up a lot of room. You’ll see those 

bigger ones, though, on mostly public lands and they are lands 

that, for the most part, nobody else has any desire to use or, you 

know, either in the—now or in the future other than for—— 

Mr. FLORES. And I won’t talk about batteries because, I mean— 

do you have a—you had an answer for that? 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. Yes, I do, actually. 

263 

Mr. FLORES. OK. 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. There is no direct air, water, or—air or 

water impacts and it’s got a minimal footprint. You can put a 30- 

megawatt battery storage in the—in the space of a—spare space of 

a substation. 

Mr. FLORES. OK. Very good. 

Mr. MOORE. And, Mr. Flores, can I just add, I think I’ve got the 

proxy for energy efficiency at the meeting today and energy efficiency takes zero additional land resources. 

Mr. FLORES. I like your answer. That’s good. Yes. I’ve gone almost all LED in my home. 

In terms of the—there’s—we have talked a lot about resilience 

and reliability and one of the things that got my attention a few 

weeks ago is that there was a large-scale failure in eastern Australia because there was a weather disruption that knocked the 

wind offline. 

They didn’t have enough spinning reserves backed up. And so 

that implies to me that there is a relationship between the base 

load terminology that we have used and then also the other nonbase-load power. 

So my question for this, and I am going to ask this of our three 

base load folks, if I can, although I guess hydro is sort of base load 

from time to time—if you have one megawatt of base load, with 

your three technologies what would it—let me—if you have a megawatt of solar or wind, what does it take in terms of reserves to back 

that up in your three technologies for base load? No? You want to 

start first, Ms. Korsnick? Mr. Bailey? Mr. Durbin? 

Mr. BAILEY. I should turn the mic on them. I think the capacity—you probably ought to ask solar and wind what the capacity 

factors are. But they are less than 50 percent, as I recall. 

Mr. FLORES. OK. And then—— 

Mr. BAILEY. Maybe 30, 20 percent—something like that. 

Mr. FLORES. OK. I have a question for—how many were against 

the FERC proposal, by a show of hands? 

Mr. DURBIN. The the DOE proposal? 

Mr. FLORES. The DOE. Excuse me. The DOE request of FERC. 

I am sorry. OK. Against. OK. All right. 

And so you would essentially be against putting in pricing characteristics because of fuel resilient or fuel supply for resiliency purposes. 

How do you feel about getting rid of all subsidies for all technologies to have a truly economically neutral technology solution? 

We will start with wind. 

Mr. KIERNAN. I’m happy to address that. Thank you. 

The production tax credit is being phased out, as you well know, 

and I am pleased to say the wind industry proposed that, supported that, and as we say, we kind of have tax reformed ourselves. 

So that’s phasing out. We are good with that, and honestly, we do 

call on our colleagues let’s level the playing field and not have subsidies across the board. 

I would also, if I may—you mentioned birds earlier. It’s actually 

only .03 percent of all human-caused bird deaths are wind turbines. 

Mr. FLORES. OK. That’s cool. 

264 

Mr. MANSOUR. With solar, again, we are in the same kind of situation. Not exactly the same ramp down for the investment tax 

credit but with the extension in 2015, you know, Congress gave us 

an extension with the ramp down in the out years. And our company is—nobody is excited about having their tax credit go down. 

But our companies are willing to go along with that. 

I would say I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any of the technologies represented up here who haven’t received some sort of 

help from the Federal Government since their inception with the 

possible exception of Energy Storage, which really deserves some. 

Mr. FLORES. I am into spending R&D for the battery parts. So 

anyway, I’ve run out of time. I wish I could go longer. I yield back. 

Mr. OLSON. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now calls upon the gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Castor, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. CASTOR. Thank you, Mr. Olson, for yielding and thank you 

to all of the witnesses for a very interesting discussion. And at the 

outset, I want to say thank you to Mr. Rush for continuing to raise 

the important issue of rebuilding or building a new resilient modern grid in Puerto Rico. In the U.S. Virgin Islands we have a once 

in a lifetime opportunity to do so and I look forward to the bipartisan efforts to protect the taxpayer in the future from another catastrophe. 

And I guess Chairman Upton kind of set the tone at the outset 

with his questions relating to the Department of Energy’s notice of 

proposed rulemaking for their so-called grid resiliency pricing rule. 

I’d say, first off, that the time frame set by the DOE is extraordinarily too short for such a transformative impactful type of shift 

in Federal policy that is going to impact all consumers across the 

country and all businesses, likely shifting huge costs onto the folks 

we represent at home. So that’s—hopefully, smarter heads will prevail on that time frame. 

And then—but to the heart of the matter, for the DOE to cite 

economic and national security as the guiding principle for this notice of proposed rulemaking really turns that on its head. 

It’s—especially looking at it now through the lens of the most destructive hurricane season that we have had probably in our lifetimes. Maybe Katrina standing alone. 

Even Katrina standing alone probably will not rise to what we 

are going to have to do for the three hurricanes that have hit this 

year and the other extreme weather events. 

What they have put forward at the Department of Energy is a 

policy for 50 years ago based on the fuel MECS of 50 years ago. 

It is not a policy for resiliency and modernization for 2017 and the 

changing energy mix that is out there. 

And when they—when I hear the talk of costs, I always like to 

remind everyone, yes, they are the finite energy costs that we analyze. 

But if you’re a person in Texas or Florida or just about anywhere, what you’re seeing right now—rising air conditioning costs 

because of higher temperatures, your flood insurance is going up, 

the emergency aid package that all taxpayers will pay, that’s going 

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265 

ment, property taxes, not even to mention the increased cost of carbon pollution. 

So this is quite a misguided effort that they need to take back 

to the shop and work on it. And I’ll give you one example. In the 

Tampa Bay area just last week the Tampa Electric Company, now 

owned by Emery, that has been primary—primarily natural gas 

but the Big Bend plant is a longstanding coal-fired power plant, 

they’ve just announced the largest investment in solar power in the 

history of the State of Florida. 

The so-called Sunshine State—we are not quite there when it 

comes to solar power. They are able to do this because not just consumers are demanding it but it makes sense for their bottom line. 

This is what the market is telling them. 

Solar is much more inexpensive now, and I think this is just 

going to be the first step. You’re going to—Duke Energy has already said they are going to do this. Other utilities are going to do 

this. 

But, Mr. Mansour, with a so-called resiliency pricing rule like 

this, don’t you think if you’re favoring certain fuel sources that’s 

going to have a chilling effect on other low-carbon fuels of the future? 

Mr. MANSOUR. Congresswoman Castor, we share your concern 

both with the timing—the speed with which this is going forward— 

and actually the intent in general. 

We feel very strongly that the grid itself right now, yes, it needs 

improvement. Those improvements should come as a result of market forces that look at and value some attributes in the way that 

they should be. We think—— 

Ms. CASTOR. And this is in a State that does not have a renewable portfolio standard, no renewable goals. So there is not that argument either that we are tipping the scale somehow. 

Mr. MANSOUR. And we share your concern with transfer of lots 

of money from ratepayers to basically subsidized certain types of 

generating capacity. 

Ms. CASTOR. Mr. Moore, you’ve said that you anticipate this 

would be extraordinarily expensive for consumers and businesses, 

and you threw out a multibillion-dollar number. 

Do you see the chilling effect, as well, and we will add in those 

costs, too? 

Mr. MOORE. Sure. I see it in numerous ways and I think that to 

simply pick one attribute over all others and reward that one attribute without any evidence to back it up, those mean that is diverting, easily, billions of dollars a year directly and indirectly, 

chilling market design and, you know, taking away good dollars 

that could have been—you know, the consumers could have held on 

to those dollars. 

Ms. CASTOR. So I would say that the true threat to resiliency is 

the Trump administration’s allegiance to the policies and the fuel 

MECS of 50 years ago. 

Clearly, they are favoring fuel sources that are less competitive 

today. This is going to cost consumers dearly. I cannot believe that 

in—while we are still recovering from hurricanes there is no mention of mitigating transmission or distribution damage in a resilVerDate Mar 15 2010 11:57 Feb 09, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00269 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\115THCONGRESS\115X56PARELIABILITY\115X56PARELIABILITYWORKING WAYNE
266 

iency rule or how we accelerate restoration after an extreme weather event. 

So I trust that the comments to the DOE and FERC will reflect 

all of these concerns. Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. OLSON. The gentlelady yields back. 

The Chair now calls upon the gentleman from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate 

it greatly. I find some of the comments today somewhat interesting. 

I, too, am an all-of-the-above kind of guy but, you know, let’s 

take a look at history as we see it in reality as opposed to just with 

our particularly viewpoint. 

I confess up front, my district has a lot of natural gas and a lot 

of coal. With that being said, Mr. Moore said we don’t want to get 

into a situation where we have, you know, one administration coming in and then another administration coming in. 

But in fairness, that’s exactly what we have seen because the— 

if we would have gone to the market policy, say, 10 years ago that 

many have advocated today, wind and solar and even battery storage would be in a lot different position because the market kings 

would have been those forces that have recently been characterized 

as being 50 years old, and to now have those particular fuel sources 

castigated to the trash heap of history without recognizing the 

huge investments that our ratepayers have put into those and recognizing that that is at least for the next 10 or 15, maybe 20 years 

a big part of our grid reliability creates some interesting issues. 

We are where we are. We need to move forward. I understand 

that. But it is nice to note that sometimes you have to look at history. 

For example, the great State of Florida talks about air conditioning. You know, 125 years ago, before coal was discovered in my 

district, the people came to the mountains to get out of the heat, 

and they spent months in the summertime getting out of Richmond 

and Washington and coming to the mountains of Virginia. 

It was a big economic source. We have shifted from that to coal 

and now we are shifting again. But I don’t know that we should 

do it as rapidly as some people want without, I think, risking our 

reliability. 

Mr. Bailey, I got to—I got to say, you know, I was listening. I 

wasn’t in the room when you actually said it but I was listening 

on the TV as sometimes we want to do when we are trying to do 

five things at one time. 

And could you tell me again those numbers? Seventy-two days I 

think I heard that we have—able to stockpile certain types of coal 

and 80 something for another kind. Could you go over that again? 

Because it was just nice to hear. 

Mr. BAILEY. I would be pleased to. Over the past 5 years, average 

coal stockpile at a power plant has been 72 days for bituminous 

and 83 days for sub-bituminous. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Yes. Over—since you ask, over the last 9 years, 

the low has been a little over 40 days and the high has been a little 

over a hundred days. 

267 

So while there may be some difficulties with other things, you 

can put a lot of coal in the back 40 if you need it to be there for 

reliability purposes. 

Mr. BAILEY. There is—there is a lot. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Yes. I do appreciate that. 

Look, we have got some interesting things going on. I am curious, Ms. Speakes-Backman, if you all consider from your industry 

standpoint pump storage hydro to be batteries, because that’s kind 

of the way I’ve been looking at it, and we are looking at putting 

some of those, hopefully, into some abandoned coal mines to generate some economic development in our neck of the woods and 

store that. 

They are even talking about using some renewable sources— 

wind or solar—to pump it up in the nonpeak periods and then have 

the water ready to flow down to the lower levels of the mine at the 

appropriate time when it’s peak. Do you all consider that a part of 

your mission? 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. Absolutely. Absolutely, 100 percent. 

You know, hydro is one of the early storage technologies. It 

helped to offtake the oversupply from base load resources back in 

the day when it was beginning to be installed. 

So we absolutely consider storage as or hydro—pumped hydro 

storage as part of our storage infrastructure. Mr. Wright has represented the hydro storage industry quite well and so I focused on 

batteries today. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And I appreciate that very much and do appreciate Mr. Wright’s testimony as well. 

In closing, I have to say it’s not politically necessarily a positive, 

but as a conservative Republican I am also a bird watcher. So I am 

concerned about wind killing birds. 

I recognize that it may not be a huge percentage. Clean windows 

on big office buildings does a lot of damage to birds as well. But 

I once had a bill on that and tried to solve that problem at least 

for Federal buildings as we renovated as well. 

But I do hope that the wind industry and the solar industry will 

recognize that we have some obligation to make sure we are not 

whacking or frying the birds as they go over or near our energy facilities. 

Mr. KIERNAN. Thank you for bringing that up, and I very much 

share your concern as a former executive with New Hampshire Audubon. 

I, as well, am out there birding on a regular basis and I will say 

the wind industry takes very seriously our strategy to reduce bird 

take. 

And I appreciate the Department of Energy. Actually some of 

their grants have gone to helping advance new technologies that 

are being commercially tested as we speak. 

So we are hopeful that we can take our low impact and make it 

even lower. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you very much, and I yield. 

Mr. MANSOUR. Let me just add, on behalf of the solar industry, 

we also work very hard to mitigate the impact on wildlife whether 

it is avian species or some of the terrestrial ones, as well. 

268 

So our companies spend tens and tens of millions of dollars per 

project to try to mitigate those kind of impacts. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And I appreciate that, and thank you very much 

and yield back. 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. For the record, we don’t kill any birds. 

[Laughter.] 

We are pretty good on that front, too. 

Mr. OLSON. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now calls upon himself for 40 minutes, 5 per witness. 

[Laughter.] 

OK, you guys passed the test. 

This is an important hearing, and that importance was reinforced this week by the Department of Energy’s proposal to FERC 

on valuing base load generation. 

But most importantly, it gives Texans like me a chance to do 

what we like best—brag about Texas. Unlike many States, Texas 

has a very diverse power grid. 

We think we have the most diverse one in America. Mr. Durbin, 

natural gas is number-one for power production in Texas. 

Mr. Bailey, it was coal until 2 years ago. Coal is number 2 very 

closely. Ms. Korsnick, we have Comanche Pass and south Texas, 

two nuclear plants. My colleague, Gene Green, mentioned about 

south Texas. 

Harvey hit in Corpus Christi. The worst part of the hurricane is 

the northeast side. That part hit Bay City in south Texas. Not one 

blip of power lost, despite a category four hurricane hitting a nuclear reactor. 

Also, we have exploding solar. Mr. Mansour, Army bases—Fort 

Hood and Fort Bliss, the biggest ones in the Army are now using 

solar to power the base. They actually export that to the power grid 

there locally. 

We are number one, Mr. Kiernan, in wind power. Texas is number one for wind. And last spring, as you know, almost half of our 

power grid was supplied by wind power—one half for one day. 

And back home in my district, a place called Thompsons, Texas, 

I wish Mr. McNerney was still here because we have what’s called 

the Petro Nova Project. It’s NRG’s Parish Power Plant and this is 

a true carbon capture sequestration for enhanced oil recovery that 

works. 

Working with a Japanese company, we have technology that 

grabs 98 percent of the CO2 coming from one coal generator. That’s 

viable because about 65 miles southeast is an old oilfield. There is 

a pipeline that comes by. 

So they grab that CO2, put it in that pipeline—like fracking 

fluid, repressurized. Hey, they are making money by carbon capture sequestration. But that’s rare. 

But this diversity does not make the coast immune to problems. 

In the winter of 2013, we had a big cold snap. Lost two of our coal 

generators. Had rolling brownouts and blackouts all across the 

State. 

Some days there is not enough wind, and then during Hurricane 

Harvey, we had way too much wind. The turbines went offline. And 

these problems aren’t hypothetical and they show that there is not 

one perfect energy source. 

269 

And my question just to the entire panel, I’d like to go down the 

line for the different sources here and I’d like you to describe 

what’s the common cause of unplanned outages where you can’t 

provide power and then talk about how you are addressing those 

issues. 

Mr. Durbin, you’re up. Natural gas. 

Mr. DURBIN. Thank you for the question. As I mentioned to Mr. 

Green—as we talked about it, and Mr. McKinley had raised the 

issue of outages—for natural gas and power generation, any outage 

is being caused not by a lack of supply or a lack of availability but 

by contracts that—you know, they are interruptible contracts. 

So these are all things that can be addressed, can be—can be resolved with the natural gas to continue to provide that reliable 

service. 

Mr. OLSON. Mr. Bailey—coal, sir. 

Mr. BAILEY. Yes, sir. 

Well, we talked about the amount of fuel onsite at fuel plants. 

We think that makes the coal fleet very reliable and subject to very 

few outages, frankly. 

Mr. OLSON. Ms. Korsnick, nuclear power, ma’am. 

Ms. KORSNICK. As I stated, if you look at the nuclear fleet in the 

United States, we have had greater than a 90 percent capacity factor for 15 years. So I would say in general nuclear has fewer unplanned outages. 

We do have a refueling outage every 18 to 24 months on our 

plants. 

Mr. OLSON. Mr. Kiernan, wind power, sir. 

Mr. KIERNAN. If I can start with a contextual observation. Gerry 

Cauley of NERC a week or two ago commented about the reliability 

on the grid is good and getting better. 

So I just, first, want to observe that this is an important topic. 

But we don’t have an urgent problem. We just need to work it. 

As to wind, it’s fascinating because we have wind turbines that 

are relatively small—1, 2, 3 megawatts—and they are geographically dispersed, while there might be a few that go down because 

the winds are too high in one part of Texas, there are a bunch in 

another part of Texas that are still rolling along. 

So actually our geographic diversity gives us tremendous resiliency that we are adding to the grid. 

Mr. OLSON. Mr. Wright, solar power, sir. I am sorry. 

Mr. WRIGHT. Water. 

Mr. OLSON. Water guy—hydro. That’s not much for Texas but, 

please, what’s your biggest challenges for the Nation? 

Mr. WRIGHT. My colleagues from the large public power council. 

So you have hydro power in Texas as well. The—what I would 

say is, look, anybody that has hydro resources, run them, son, as 

much as they can because it’s the low-cost resource. It’s the most 

reliable resource. It’s the air emission-free resource. 

The biggest challenge in the hydropower industry is that it’s an 

aging fleet and we need to make investments in that fleet in order 

to make sure that we continue to be able to get the output from 

it. 

Mr. OLSON. Mr. Mansour, finally. 

Mr. MANSOUR. Yes, sir. 

270 

Mr. Chairman, I am going to totally ignore your question. But I 

am going to follow your lead by bragging on solar in Texas. 

We got 1.6 gigawatts right now. We are going to go to another 

almost 5 gigawatts over the next 5 years, and a lot of that is because the way ERCOT and the Texas market is set up. 

Mr. OLSON. Keep talking. 

Mr. MANSOUR. Yes. I am not sure. I think it was Mr. Green that 

talked about some of the work that former Governor Perry did with 

the CREZ lines. 

Yes, that incentivized a lot of wind. Basically, it was the classic 

build it and they will come. So, you know, the people of Texas put 

out I think it was $10 billion or more to build these CREZ lines 

or some—these transmission lines. 

Wind was the first to respond because they were a little bit 

ahead of us. But solar is catching up and we already employ over 

9,000 people in the State of Texas and we are going to be growing 

in your State. 

Mr. OLSON. Ms. Speakes-Backman, concentration type stuff. 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. I love this question because we are here 

for reliability and resilience, and for all of these resources along the 

table. 

In fact, Texas has quite a few batteries in place on the grid and 

just pointing that out. Duke has batteries providing frequency regulation. AEP has batteries that have extended the transmission 

and distribution life with another 20 megawatts being built colocated with wind, as a matter of fact. 

Fort Bliss was among one of the first locations to build micro 

grid with mission insurance as its—as its objective. So we are here 

for everybody. We are kind of like the bacon of the grid. We make 

everything better. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. OLSON. You know what Texans like to hear? The bacon of 

the grid. Mr. Moore? 

Ms. SPEAKES-BACKMAN. I grew up in Ohio. I love bacon. 

Mr. OLSON. Your comments, Mr. Moore. 

Mr. MOORE. Sure. Just that people come from all over the world 

to see how Texas integrates large amounts of renewable energy 

onto the system. 

ERCOT has done a terrific job with it and I think a key reason 

for the success, to echo another speaker, is the incredible amount 

of new transmission to pull the grid together. 

So given that most outages are caused to the distribution transmission system with the, you know, wires and poles, let’s focus on 

smart design for the system. 

Mr. OLSON. All those praises for Texas. So join me: [singing] 

‘‘The stars at night ...’’ 

[Laughter.] 

And seeing no further Members wish to ask questions, I would 

like to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. 

And there is one document for the record. I ask unanimous consent that written testimony of Dr. Susan Tierney in a summary— 

she was supposed to be here, but she could not be here—be entered 

into the record. 

Without objection. 

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[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. OLSON. And pursuant to committee rules, I remind Members 

that they have 10 business days to submit additional questions for 

the record and ask the witnesses to submit their response within 

10 business days upon receipt of the questions. 

And without objection, this committee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:23 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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