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U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION 

ADMINISTRATION REPORT: 

ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACTS OF 

THE EPA’S CLEAN POWER PLAN 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT & 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

June 24, 2015 

Serial No. 114–26 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan 

STEVE KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts 

DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

MARK TAKANO, California 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT

HON. JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma, Chair 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

JOHN MOOLENAAR, Michigan 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

MARK TAKANO, California 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

HON. RANDY K. WEBER, Texas, Chair 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

STEVE KNIGHT, California 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

June 24, 2015 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Jim Bridenstine, Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House 

of Representatives ................................................................................................ 7 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Statement by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Minority Member, 

Subcommittee on Enviorment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................... 9 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Statement by Representative Randy K. Weber, Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ........................................................................................................... 12 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 13 

Statement by Representative Alan Grayson, Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 

House of Representatives .................................................................................... 14 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 15 

Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 16 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 17 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .... 18 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 19 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Howard Gruenspecht, Deputy Administrator, U.S. Energy Information 

Administration (EIA) 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 20 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 23 

Mr. Stephen Eule, Vice President for Climate and Technology, U.S. Chamber 

of Commerce 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 36 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 38 

Dr. Susan Tierney, Senior Advisor, Analysis Group, Inc. 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 52 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 54 

Dr. Kevin Dayaratna, Senior Statistician and Research Programmer, The 

Heritage Foundation 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 75 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 77 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 86 
Page

IV 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Howard Gruenspecht, Deputy Administrator, U.S. Energy Information 

Administration (EIA) ........................................................................................... 120 

Dr. Susan Tierney, Senior Advisor, Analysis Group, Inc. .................................... 128 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Report submitted by Representative Jim Bridenstine, Chairman, Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 

U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................................ 150 

Documents submitted Representative Gary Palmer, Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .................................... 165 
(1) 

U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION 

ADMINISTRATION REPORT: 

ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACTS OF 

THE EPA’S CLEAN POWER PLAN 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT & 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim Bridenstine 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment] presiding. 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The Subcommittee on the Environment 

and the Subcommittee on Energy will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of 

the Subcommittee at any time. 

Welcome to today’s hearing titled ‘‘U.S. Energy Information Administration Report: Analysis of the Impacts of the EPA’S Clean 

Power Plan.’’ I recognize myself for five minutes for an opening 

statement. 

Today’s hearing focuses on the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and the 

tremendous costs that it will place on the economy and the American people upon final implementation. I am particularly concerned 

about how this regulation will affect access to affordable and reliable electricity, and in fact, today the House will be voting on H.R. 

2042, the Ratepayer Protection Act of 2015, which would prevent 

states from having to implement a state plan, or be subject to a 

federal plan, in order to comply with the Clean Power Plan if the 

Governor determines that such a plan would negatively affect ratepayers through increased rates. I am a cosponsor of this bill, and 

I anticipate its passage later today and encourage my colleagues to 

support the bill. 

I would like to thank Chairman Lamar Smith for requesting that 

the Energy Information Administration conduct this very important study at the heart of today’s hearing. I look forward to hearing 

from the EIA about what their analysis reveals about the impacts 

of the Clean Power Plan. 

A few weeks ago, this Committee heard from industry groups on 

what will happen should the Clean Power Plan be finalized. We 

learned that the total compliance costs of the rule could be as high 

as $366 billion by 2030, according to a study by NERA Economic 

Consulting. 

Additionally, the regulation is projected to cause steep electricity 

price increases in 43 states including my own State of Oklahoma. 

Moreover, the Committee also heard testimony that the EPA is 

using questionable legal authority to promulgate the Clean Power 

Plan under section 111 of the Clean Air Act. In fact, Laurence 

Tribe, a leading environmental and constitutional law professor 

and a mentor to President Obama, recently referred to the method 

by which this rule was enacted as ‘‘burning the Constitution.’’ 

I understand that some of our witnesses here today have analyzed the supposed benefits of the EPA claims—some of the benefits that EPA claims the rule provides and have actually found that 

the costs outweigh the benefits. Additionally, the EPA’s analysis of 

the benefits of the Clean Power Plan rely heavily on the ‘‘social cost 

of carbon,’’ a value determined by the government to be the cost of 

carbon in the atmosphere. The social cost of carbon, as we will hear 

today, is a value determined without transparency with a very 

questionable economic model. The fact that this Administration 

would rely so heavily upon the social cost of carbon for its rulemaking calls into question the entire purpose of these rules. So we 

have a rule that will be extremely costly, relies on dubious assumptions, and this Committee has also heard testimony at previous 

hearings that the results in reductions in carbon emissions and 

global temperature decreases which, according to the EPA’s own 

models, will be negligible on a global scale. So according to the 
8 

EPA, the results of this will be negligible on a global scale, according to the EPA’s own models. This is a continuation of this Administration’s war on the poor. 

I will once again remind my colleagues that while we might be 

able to absorb electricity rate increases, many of our constituents 

do not have that ability. This is especially true in my home State 

of Oklahoma, which relies heavily on coal for electricity generation 

and as a result enjoys electricity prices which are far below the national average. Coal, and to an extent even natural gas, are the 

sources of fuel this rule will phase out, and this is the true intention of this Administration’s agenda. This rule will impose tremendous costs on the American people with very few benefits, and it 

is my hope this hearing highlights how misguided the Clean Power 

Plan truly is. 

I thank all of our witnesses for testifying today and specifically 

thank the Energy Information Administration for conducting this 

important report. The Clean Power Plan and the impact that it will 

have on the American people is an important matter that this 

Committee should investigate. I look forward to the testimony of all 

of our witnesses as we examine the implications of this regulation. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Bridenstine follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT

CHAIRMAN JIM BRIDENSTINE

Today’s hearing focuses on EPA’s Clean Power Plan and the tremendous costs 

that will placed on the economy and the American people upon final implementation. I am particularly concerned about how this regulation will affect access to affordable and reliable electricity, and in fact today the House will be voting on H.R. 

2042, the Ratepayer Protection Act of 2015, which would prevent states from having 

to implement a state plan, or be subject to a federal plan, in order to comply with 

the Clean Power Plan if the Governor determines that such a plan would negatively 

affect ratepayers through increased rates. I am a cosponsor of this bill and I anticipate its passage later today and encourage my colleagues to support the bill. 

I would like to thank Chairman Smith for requesting that Energy Information Administration conduct this very important study at the heart of today’s hearing. I 

look forward to hearing from the EIA about what their analysis reveals about the 

impacts of the Clean Power Plan. 

A few weeks ago, this Committee heard from industry groups on what will happen 

should the Clean Power Plan be finalized. We learned that the total compliance 

costs of the rule could be as high as $366 billion by 2030, according to a study by 

NERA Economic Consulting. Additionally, the regulation is projected to cause steep 

electricity price increases in 43 states. 

Moreover, the Committee also heard testimony that the EPA is using questionable 

legal authority to promulgate the Clean Power Plan under section 111 of the Clean 

Air Act. In fact, Laurence Tribe, a leading environmental and constitutional law 

professor and mentor to President Obama, recently referred to the method by which 

this rule was enacted as ‘‘burning the Constitution.’’ 

I understand that some of our witnesses here today have analyzed the supposed 

benefits that EPA claims the rule provides and have found that the costs outweigh 

these benefits. Additionally, the EPA’s analysis of the benefits of the Clean Power 

Plan relies heavily on the ‘‘social cost of carbon,’’ a value determined by the government to be the cost of reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The social 

cost of carbon, as we will hear today, is a value determined without transparency 

with a very questionable economic model. The fact that this Administration would 

rely so heavily upon the social cost of carbon for its rulemaking calls into question 

the entire purpose of these rules. 

So we have a rule that will be extremely costly, relies on dubious assumptions 

and, as this Committee has also heard testimony at previous hearings results in reductions in carbon emissions and global temperature decreases which, according to 

EPA’s own models, will be negligible on a global scale. 
9 

This is a continuation of this administration’s ‘‘war on the poor.’’ I will once again 

remind my colleagues that while we might be able to absorb electricity rate increases, many of our constituents do not have that ability. This is especially true 

in my home state of Oklahoma, which relies heavily on coal for electricity generation and as a result enjoys electricity prices which are far below the national average. 

Coal—and to an extent natural gas—are the sources of fuel this rule will phase 

out, and is the true intention of this administration’s agenda. 

This rule will impose tremendous costs on the American people with very few benefits, and it is my hope this hearing highlights how misguided the Clean Power Plan 

truly is. 

I thank all of our witnesses for testifying today and specifically thank the Energy 

Information Administration for conducting this important report. The Clean Power 

Plan and the impact that it will have on the American people is an important matter that this Committee should investigate. I look forward to the testimony of all 

of our witnesses as we examine the implications of this regulation. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. I now recognize the Ranking Member, 

the gentlewoman from Oregon, for an opening statement. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you to our witnesses for being here today to discuss the EPA’s 

Clean Power Plan and the Energy Information Administration’s 

analysis of the proposed rule. 

Just at the outset, I want to explain I have another hearing 

today. It does not indicate my lack of interest in this very important subject but I’ll be coming and going. 

So the mission of EPA is simple: to protect human health and 

the environment. The goal of the Clean Power Plan is equally simple: to cut carbon emissions from the largest source, the energy sector, so that we can lessen the effects of climate change on our 

states, our country, and on our planet. 

The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is broadly accepted, 

and the consequences of inaction recognized, including in public 

comments on the proposed rule submitted by 14 states, including 

my home State of Oregon. In those comments, the states highlight 

the negative effects they are experiencing from the changing climate. They outline the harm of increased wildfires, severe drought, 

heatwaves, rising seas, and more severe weather events. They state 

that these impacts are directly harming the health and welfare of 

residents in our states and causing significant economic damage. 

These 14 states are supportive of EPA’s Clean Power Plan, indicating that the proposed rule represents the most significant component of our national effort to reduce carbon emissions throughout 

our economy. And the good news is that they have not been waiting 

for the federal government to take action. In 2007, in fact, when 

I was in the Oregon legislature, the Oregon legislature set an ambitious goal of reducing statewide emissions 75 percent below 1990 

levels by 2050. A companion bill set the goal of having up to 25 

percent of energy generated through renewable sources by 2025. 

I’m proud to say that in 2010, Oregon achieved its first milestone. 

It stopped the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and began cutting carbon pollution. 

Some contend that environmental regulations might hurt the 

economy, and we heard that in the opening statement. This hasn’t 

been the case in Oregon. Through the implementation of energy efficiency and renewable energy policies, Oregon has produced more 

than 2,000 full-time jobs, added more than $2 billion to the state’s 

economy, and customers have saved on their energy bills. 
10 

Fortunately, Oregon does not stand alone in its success of cutting 

carbon pollution and strengthening its economy, and I’m looking 

forward to learning more from Dr. Tierney about her examination 

of the states involved in RGGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. 

Turning back to the focus of today’s hearing, EIA’s analysis of 

the Clean Power Plan, we find additional support for the idea that 

we can achieve meaningful carbon reductions with a minimal effect 

on the economy. EIA’s analysis shows that under the Clean Power 

Plan, carbon pollution will be reduced by 34 percent by 2030 and 

we will reach the same level of GDP just 15 days later than we 

would if the proposed rule was not implemented. Furthermore, the 

EIA’s analysis does not take into account the health benefits associated with the proposed rule. If those values, the EPA estimates at 

between $49 and $84 billion in 2030, were factored in, we’d likely 

see increased expansion of the economy. 

EIA’s analysis also highlights the important role that renewable 

energy technologies will play in cutting carbon emissions. Again, 

contrary to the opinion that regulations harm the economy, new 

and innovative technologies are born from regulatory incentives, 

and are a key component of achieving reductions in carbon emissions. 

The Clean Power Plan provides flexibility to states. I’m looking 

forward to learning more about how states can meet their obligations under the proposed rule. Additionally, I’d like to get a better 

understanding of the assumptions EIA used in its modeling and 

what additional information their model can and cannot tell us 

about the potential to reduce carbon emissions under the EPA’s 

Clean Power Plan. 

Finally, I’d like to end by reiterating that past attempts to undermine environmental regulation with inaccurate and exaggerated 

claims have been proven wrong time and time again. We were told 

the lights would go out and that the economy would crash. We’ll 

likely hear those arguments again today, but since the passage of 

the Clean Air Act in the 1970s, the United States’ economy has tripled in size. 

The Clean Power Plan represents a critical first step in our efforts to reduce harmful pollution and combat the harm we’re seeing 

because of climate change. American ingenuity will allow us to be 

global leaders in these efforts and in the creation of the clean energy economy. We can and must do better for current and future 

generations. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again thank you to our witnesses 

for being here this morning, and I yield back the balance of my 

time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bonamici follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

MINORITY RANKING MEMBER SUZANNE BONAMICI

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today 

to discuss the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and the Energy Information Administration’s analysis of the proposed rule. 

The mission of EPA is simple—to protect human health and the environment. The 

goal of the Clean Power Plan is equally simple—to cut carbon emissions from the 
11 

largest source, the energy sector, so that we can lesson the effects of climate change 

on our states, our country, and our planet. 

The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is broadly accepted, and the consequences of inaction recognized, including in public comments on the proposed rule 

submitted by 14 states, including my home state of Oregon. In those comments, the 

states highlight the negative effects they are experiencing from the changing climate. They outline the harm of increased wildfires, severe drought, heatwaves, rising seas, and more severe weather events. They state that ‘‘these impacts are directly harming the health and welfare of residents in our states and causing significant economic damage.’’ 

These 14 states are supportive of EPA’s Clean Power Plan, indicating that the 

‘‘proposed rule represents the most significant component of our national effort to 

reduce carbon emissions throughout our economy.’’ And the good news is that they 

have not been waiting for the federal government to take action. 

In 2007, Oregon set an ambitious goal of reducing statewide emissions 75 percent 

below 1990 levels by 2050; a companion bill set the goal of having up to 25% of energy generated through renewable sources by 2025. I’m proud to say that in 2010, 

Oregon achieved its first milestone—it stopped the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and began cutting carbon pollution. 

Some contend that environmental regulations might hurt the economy. This 

hasn’t been the case in Oregon. Through the implementation of energy efficiency 

and renewable energy policies, Oregon has produced more than 2,000 full-time jobs, 

added more than $2. billion to the state’s economy, and customers have saved on 

their energy bills. 

Fortunately, Oregon does not stand alone in its success of cutting carbon pollution 

and strengthening its economy, and I’m looking forward to learning more from Dr. 

Tierney about her examination of the states involved in the Regional Greenhouse 

Gas Initiative (REGGI.) 

Turning back to the focus of today’s hearing, EIA’s analysis of the Clean Power 

Plan, we find additional support for the idea that we can achieve meaningful carbon 

reductions with minimal effect on the economy. EIA’s analysis shows that under the 

Clean Power Plan, carbon pollution will be reduced by 34 percent by 2030 and we 

will reach the same level of GDP just 15 days later than we would if the proposed 

rule was not implemented. Furthermore, the EIA’s analysis does not take into account the health benefits associated with the proposed rule; if those values, which 

EPA estimates at between $49 and $84 billion in 2030, were factored in, we’d likely 

see increased expansion of the economy. 

EIA’s analysis also highlights the important role that renewable energy technologies will play in cutting carbon emissions. Again, contrary to the opinion that 

regulations harm the economy, new and innovative technologies are born from regulatory incentives, and are a key component of achieving reductions in carbon emissions. 

The Clean Power Plan provides flexibility to states, and I’m looking forward to 

learning more about how states can meet their obligations under the proposed rule. 

Additionally, I’d like to get a better understanding of the assumptions EIA used in 

its modeling and what additional information their model can and cannot tell us 

about the potential to reduce carbon emissions under EPA’s Clean Power Plan. 

Finally, I’d like to end by reiterating that past attempts to undermine environmental regulation with inaccurate and exaggerated claims have been proven wrong 

time and time again. We were told the lights would go out and that the economy 

would crash. We will likely hear those arguments again today, but since the passage 

of the Clean Air Act in the 1970s, the United States’ economy has tripled in size. 

The Clean Power Plan represents a critical first step in our efforts to reduce 

harmful pollution and combat the harm that we are seeing because of climate 

change. American ingenuity will allow us to be global leaders in these efforts and 

in the creation of the clean energy economy. We can and must do better for current 

and future generations. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again thank you to our witnesses for being here 

this morning. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. I thank Ms. Bonamici for her opening 

statement. 

With unanimous consent, I’d like to submit for the record the report, the Energy Information Administration report titled ‘‘Analysis 

of the Impacts of the Clean Power Plan.’’ Without objection, so ordered. 
12 

[The information appears in Appendix II] 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. I’d now like to turn it over to the Ranking—or I’m sorry, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, 

Mr. Weber from Texas. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to today’s 

joint Subcommittee hearing examining the EPA’s regulation for existing power plants, known as the Clean Power Plan. 

Today, we will hear from the Energy Information Administration 

regarding their recent analysis of the EPA’s plan, as well as a 

panel of expert analysts with experience assessing EPA regulations. So to our expert analysts, I want to say thank you for being 

here. 

The Energy Information Administration, or EIA, is housed at the 

Department of Energy, and provides economic analysis on energy 

use around the world. EIA was designed to serve as a nonpartisan 

analytical organization so policymakers could make sound decisions 

based on reliable economic data. 

Accordingly, after the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan 

was released, Chairman Lamar Smith requested that the EIA conduct economic modeling to determine the impact the rule would 

have on the American economy if it was fully implemented. The 

EIA’s analysis shows that the EPA’s rule could cause significant 

damage to the economy, increasing electricity prices, causing job 

losses, and limiting economic growth long into the future. And 

might I add, at a time when the President is pushing for TPP in 

an effort to get on top of the world economy, this seems to be antithetical that we are actually going to hurt our own economy. By increasing the cost of electricity, the Clean Power Plan would make 

it harder for the American people to start a business or make ends 

meet. A family of four could see thousands of dollars in increased 

costs per year as the Clean Power Plan is implemented, with costs 

peaking in 2025 when the average family will see an increase in 

cost of over $1,700 per year. Now, folks, where is that money going 

to come from? It is a little less than 150 bucks a month. They’re 

not going to spend it in other sectors of the economy. 

You know, the Obama Administration admits that these regulations will not stop climate change. Data produced by the EPA show 

that the Clean Power Plan would eliminate less than one percent 

of global carbon emissions. Let me repeat that: Data produced by 

the EPA show that the Clean Power Plan would eliminate less 

than one percent of global carbon emissions. But what the EIA’s report and many other independent assessments of the Clean Power 

Plan confirm is that eliminating affordable, reliable power will increase the energy prices for who? The American people. Higher energy prices will increase costs across the Nation from electricity to 

gasoline to food. To echo my colleague’s comments earlier, the other 

Chairman of the Environmental Committee, that’s going to hurt 

the poor. Higher costs will drive companies out of business, kill 

good jobs, and leave even more Americans unemployed. 

The Obama Administration claims these regulations will lead to 

new, innovative energy technologies but innovation simply will not 

occur in an overregulated, lagging economy. And might I add that 

where the permits lag, the economy even lags worse. Driving the 
13 

American economy over a cliff is not going to kick-start energy innovation. It’s just not going to do it. 

I want to thank Dr. Gruenspecht and all of our witnesses for testifying to the Committee today, and I look forward to a review of 

the impact of EPA’s proposal. From our witnesses’ prepared testimony alone, it’s clear that the EPA’s Clean Power Plan will have 

a significant impact on the American economy, and not in a good 

way. We simply cannot afford to hijack economic growth by regulating affordable energy out of business. Instead, the federal government should focus on investing in research and development, 

and breaking down the regulatory barriers that stop the development of innovative technology in its tracks. Getting the federal government out of the way will make more affordable, reliable power 

available to America’s job creators and thereby grow our economy. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Weber follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

CHAIRMAN RANDY K. WEBER

Good morning and welcome to today’s Joint Subcommittee hearing examining the 

EPA’s regulation for existing power plants, known as the Clean Power Plan. Today, 

we will hear from the Energy Information Administration regarding their recent 

analysis of the EPA’s plan, as well as a panel of expert analysts with experience 

assessing EPA regulations. 

The Energy Information Administration, or EIA, is housed at the Department of 

Energy, and provides economic analysis on energy use around the world. EIA was 

designed to serve a non-partisan analytical organization, so policy makers could 

make sound decisions based on reliable economic data. 

Accordingly, after the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan was released, 

Chairman Smith requested that the EIA conduct economic modeling to determine 

the impact the rule would have on the American economy if it was fully implemented. 

The EIA’s analysis shows that the EPA’s rule could cause significant damage to 

the economy, increasing electricity prices, causing job losses, and limiting economic 

growth long into the future. By increasing the cost of electricity, the Clean Power 

Plan would make it harder for the American people to start a business or make ends 

meet. 

A family of four could see thousands of dollars in increased costs per year as the 

Clean Power Plan is implemented, with costs peaking in 2025 when the average 

family will see an increase in cost of over $1700 per year. 

The Obama Administration admits that these regulations will not stop climate 

change. Data produced by the EPA show that the Clean Power Plan would eliminate 

less than one percent of global carbon emissions. 

But what the EIA’s report and many other independent assessments of the Clean 

Power Plan confirm is that eliminating affordable, reliable power will increase the 

energy prices for the American people. Higher energy prices will increase costs 

across the nation —from electricity to gasoline to food. Higher costs will drive companies out of business, kill good jobs, and leave even more Americans unemployed. 

The Obama Administration claims these regulations will lead to new, innovative, 

energy technologies. But innovation simply does not occur in an overregulated, lagging economy. 

Driving the American economy over a cliff is not going to kick start innovation 

in energy technology. I want to thank Mr. Gruenspecht and all our witnesses for 

testifying to the Committee today, and I look forward to a review of the impact of 

EPA’s proposal. 

From our witnesses prepared testimony alone, it’s clear that the EPA’s Clean 

Power Plan will have a significant impact on the American economy. 

We can’t afford to high-jack economic growth by regulating affordable energy out 

of business. Instead, the federal government should focus on investing in research 

and development, and breaking down the regulatory barriers that stop the development of innovative technology in its tracks. 
14 

Getting the federal government out of the way will make more affordable, reliable 

power available to America’s job creators and grow our economy. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Well, I’d like to thank the Chairman of 

the Subcommittee on Energy for his words at this joint hearing of 

our two Committees. 

I’d like to now recognize the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Energy, Mr. Grayson, for his opening statement. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Thank you, Chairman Bridenstine and Chairman 

Weber, for holding this joint hearing, and thank you to our witnesses for agreeing to participate this morning. 

Today, we will be discussing the Energy Information Administration’s recent analysis of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 

Clean Power Plan. We’ve been hearing already before the witnesses 

start to testify about economics, the economy, the American economy, what effect this will have on jobs and so on. Let’s talk about 

some basic economic principles. 

These power plants that we have now are generating our power 

that are not renewable are creating pollution. Pollution is an externality. It’s basically like dumping your trash in your neighbor’s 

backyard. That’s what these plants are doing right now. 

Now, they could be dumping their trash in their own backyard. 

That’s often what the Clean Power Plan will require them to do 

through carbon sequestration and so on. But right now they’re 

dumping their trash in the neighbor’s backyard. Why? Because 

they don’t want the trash in their backyard, and it would cost 

money to them to make any other arrangement except to dump it 

in the neighbor’s backyard. 

What is the effect of that? Enormous. Carbon pollution causes 

tremendous difficulties, not only the traditional well-known difficulty called global warming, climate disruption, and so on, but 

also impacts on our health and impacts on our immediate environment, the neighborhoods. We see heatwaves, we see droughts, we 

see smog, we see extreme hurricanes and flooding more and more. 

We have more ticks and mosquitoes in our neighborhoods spreading Lyme disease and West Nile virus. Already, 126 million Americans live in areas where pollution is so bad that it doesn’t meet the 

government standards established 43 years ago. Forty-three years 

ago. 

So I don’t think we need to be asking ourselves what can we do 

to make it possible for industry to dump more trash over the fence 

into the neighbor’s yard. I think we should be asking ourselves 

what do we need to do to internalize those externalities? What do 

we need to do to make sure that industries that pollute, that damage the environment are forced to clean themselves up, and there’s 

no study that I can picture that will tell me otherwise because 

we’re talking about basic logic and basic principles here. 

Now, fundamentally, the Clean Power Plan seeks to protect the 

health and safety of our citizens while fostering the growth of new 

and emerging sectors of our economy. The Clean Power Plan 

incentivizes the development and deployment of innovative new energy technologies, and seeks to reduce respiratory illnesses and the 

onset of disease resulting from air pollution. According to 

Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s recent Global Trends report, an 

estimated 103 gigawatts of renewable power capacity, including 
15 

large hydropower projects, were built in 2014 alone. Furthermore, 

renewables were 48 percent of the net power capacity added worldwide in 2014 alone. In total, the world invested $270 billion in renewable technologies. And if we’re speaking about the economy and 

jobs, this is an economic opportunity that America should seek to 

capture, not shun. 

Clearly, the world is pursuing clean energy technologies with us 

or without us. Any effort to undermine those investments, including by stopping the Clean Power Plan from moving forward, is incredibly short-sighted and short-changes our workers and our 

health. America needs new energy solutions, and it should position 

itself as an industry leader in pursuit of these technologies. We 

know that the electricity and power system is changing even as we 

speak. America faces a future with low, or even negative, growth 

in electricity demand, resulting in a negative impact on utilities 

that count profit by the volume of electricity sold. But that simply 

means that Americans don’t need as much. That’s what that 

means. It doesn’t mean that jobs are being lost that cannot be recovered. 

More people are generating their own electricity, their own energy on their own rooftops, and the entire system is shifting from 

central power generation to different combinations of centralized 

and distributed power generation. Predictive models, such as the 

Energy Information Administration’s, provide an important tool for 

us to explore the possible impacts of different scenarios and what 

our energy future will look like under each. These models don’t define the future, but they do help us to identify actions we can take 

that will have meaningful impacts. These insights can be used to 

focus efforts to address the energy industry challenges that are 

happening with or without the Clean Power Plan. 

I thank each of these witnesses for being here today, and please 

keep in mind that we’re talking about pollution. I hesitate to think 

that any of my colleagues would come out and say they’re pro-pollution, but that’s essentially what it means when you say that 

you’re against clean power. 

I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Grayson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

MINORITY RANKING MEMBER ALAN GRAYSON

Thank you, Chairman Bridenstine and Chairman Weber, for holding this joint 

hearing, and thank you to our witnesses for agreeing to participate this morning. 

Today, we will be discussing the Energy Information Administration’s recent analysis of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. 

Fundamentally, the Clean Power Plan seeks to protect the health and safety of 

our citizens while fostering the growth of new and emerging sectors of our economy. 

The Clean Power Plan incentivizes the development and deployment of innovative 

new clean energy technologies, and seeks to reduce respiratory illnesses and the 

onset of diseases resulting from air pollution. 

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s recent Global Trends report, an estimated 103 gigawatts of renewable power capacity, excluding large hydropower 

projects, were built in 2014. 

Further, renewables were 48 percent of the net power capacity added worldwide 

in 2014. In total, the world invested 270 billion dollars in renewable technologies. 

This is a financial market America should seek to capture. 
16 

Clearly, the world is pursuing clean energy technologies. Any effort to undermine 

those investments, including by stopping the Clean Power Plan from moving forward is short-sighted. 

America needs new energy solutions, and it should position itself as an industry 

leader in the pursuit of these technologies. 

We know our electricity system is experiencing a transformative moment. America 

faces a future with low, or even negative, growth in electricity demand, resulting 

in a negative impact on utilities that count profits by the volume of electricity sold. 

More people are generating their own energy, and the entire system is shifting from 

central power generation to different combinations of centralized and distributed 

power generation. 

Predictive models, such as the Energy Information Administration’s, provide an 

important tool for us to explore the possible impacts of different scenarios and what 

our energy future will look like under each. These models don’t define the future, 

but they do help us identify actions we can take that will have meaningful impacts. 

These insights can be used to focus efforts to address the energy industry changes 

that are happening with, or without, the Clean Power Plan. 

I thank each of our witnesses for being here today, and I look forward to hearing 

more about how EIA’s analysis will impact the discussion surrounding America’s energy future. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my remaining time. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Mr. Grayson. 

I now recognize the Chairman of the full Committee, Mr. Smith. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also I thank 

the other Chairmen who are here as well, Mr. Bridenstine and Mr. 

Weber. 

The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to pursue the 

most aggressive regulatory agenda in its 44-year history. One of 

the many regulations the agency looks to promote is the so-called 

Clean Power Plan. The President’s power plan is nothing more 

than a power grab to give the government more control over Americans’ daily lives. These regulations stifle economic growth, destroy 

American jobs, and increase energy prices. That means everything 

will cost more, from electricity to gasoline to food. 

Today we will hear from witnesses who have analyzed the costs 

and benefits of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Their analysis clearly 

demonstrates that the costs far outweigh any minor environmental 

benefits. The EPA claims their regulations will slow global climate 

change and reduce carbon emissions. But heavy-handed regulations 

and arbitrary emission targets will do lasting damage to our economy, all for little environmental benefit. In fact, EPA’s data show 

that the Clean Power Plan regulation would eliminate less than 

one percent of global carbon emissions and it would reduce sealevel rise by only 1/100th of an inch, the thickness of three sheets 

of paper. Even if all of the carbon emissions in the United States 

were reduced to zero, world temperatures would decrease by only 

.2 degrees Celsius, and the temperature increases avoided as a result of the Clean Power Plan would be only .003 degrees Celsius, 

only three thousandths of a degree. 

These measures will impose tremendous costs on every American. The Clean Power Plan will have an even greater impact on 

those who live on fixed incomes, such as the elderly and the poor, 

who are the most vulnerable to price increases for some of our most 

basic necessities like food and electricity. 

I thank the Energy Information Administration for conducting its 

analysis of the impacts of the Clean Power Plan, and for testifying 

before the Committee today. This important study shows what 

many have said since the regulation was proposed: that regulating 
17 

carbon emissions in the manner put forward by the Administration 

will raise the cost of electricity and negatively impact our Nation’s 

economy. 

Today, the whole House will consider H.R. 2042, the Ratepayer 

Protection Act. This bill allows states to decide whether the socalled Clean Power Plan is in the best interest of the state, given 

the tremendous costs it will impose on American families. 

Our panel this morning includes experts who have conducted extensive analysis of the costs and benefits of EPA’s regulations. I 

look forward to all our witnesses’ testimony on how the Clean 

Power Plan will affect the American people. 

The EPA should not saddle the American people with extensive 

and burdensome regulations, especially if the regulations have little environmental impact. 

Mr. Chairman, also let me apologize to the witnesses. I’m a member of the Judiciary Committee, and our markup of a bill that I cosponsored began 30 minutes ago, so I’m going to need to excuse 

myself to head over there, but I hope to be back, and certainly this 

will be a very informative and necessary hearing to have. I yield 

back. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

CHAIRMAN LAMAR S. SMITH

Thank you Chairman Weber and Chairman Bridenstine for holding today’s hearing. 

The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to pursue the most aggressive 

regulatory agenda in its 44 year history. One of the many regulations the agency 

looks to promote is the so-called Clean Power Plan. 

The president’s ‘‘Power Plan’’ is nothing more than a ‘‘Power Grab’’ to give the 

government more control over Americans’ daily lives. These regulations stifle economic growth, destroy American jobs, and increase energy prices. That means everything will cost more—from electricity to gasoline to food. 

Today we will hear from witnesses who have analyzed the costs and benefits of 

EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Their analysis clearly demonstrates that the costs far outweigh any minor environmental benefits. 

The EPA claims their regulations will slow global climate change and reduce carbon emissions. But heavy-handed regulations and arbitrary emission targets will do 

lasting damage to our economy, all for little environmental benefit. 

In fact, EPA’s data show that the Clean Power Plan regulation would eliminate 

less than one percent of global carbon emissions. And it would reduce sea level rise 

by only 1/100th of an inch, the thickness of three sheets of paper. 

Even if all of the carbon emissions in the United States were reduced to zero, 

world temperatures would decrease by only 0.2 degrees Celsius. Also, according to 

an analysis conducted by NERA Economic Consulting, the temperature increases 

avoided as a result of the Clean Power Plan would be only 0.003 degrees Celsius: 

three one-thousandths of one degree. 

These measures will impose tremendous costs on every American. The Clean 

Power Plan will have an even greater impact on those who live on fixed incomes, 

such as the elderly and the poor, who are the most vulnerable to price increases 

for some of our most basic necessities like food and electricity. 

I thank the Energy Information Administration for conducting its analysis of the 

impacts of the Clean Power Plan, and for testifying before the Committee today. 

This important study shows what many have said since the regulation was proposed: that regulating carbon emissions in the manner put forward by the Administration will raise the cost of electricity and negatively impact our nation’s economy. 

Today, the whole House will consider H.R. 2042, the Ratepayer Protection Act. 

This bill allows states to decide whether the so-called Clean Power Plan is in the 

best interest of the state, given the tremendous costs it will impose on American 

families. 
18 

Our panel this morning includes experts who have conducted extensive analysis 

of the costs and benefits of EPA’s regulations. I look forward to all our witnesses’ 

testimony on how the Clean Power Plan will affect the American people. 

The EPA should not saddle the American people with extensive and burdensome 

regulations, especially if the regulations have little environmental impact. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I now recognized the Ranking Member of the full Committee for 

a statement, Ms. Johnson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thanks 

to all of our witnesses for being here this morning. 

EPA’s Clean Power Plan, like the rest of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, is the bold step forward our Nation needs to address the impacts of climate change. Severe drought, record temperatures, and an increase in heavy rain events are just a few examples of what Americans are confronting now and can expect to 

see more frequently in the coming years. The scientific evidence 

confirms that we need to act now to lessen these impacts. 

Leaders in the faith community—and I recently met with all the 

heads of the conventions of the African American Baptist, Methodist and Evangelical sectors of the religious community—that are 

crying out for attention to address climate change and they are 

starting a national movement. The recently issued encyclical by 

Pope Francis notes that climate change represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity and that the poor will be disproportionately affected by its impacts. We know now, and it has 

been said this morning, that the poor and elderly will be greatly 

impacted except that the cost that was mentioned, I’m talking 

about the healthcare that they will suffer these effects. Pope 

Francis also states that there is an urgent need to develop policies 

so that in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and 

other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced. 

I hope that we, in Congress, will stop obstructing EPA’s efforts— 

they’re only functioning to protect the American people’s health— 

and instead listen to our scientists, to our religious leaders, and to 

the American people by supporting policies that will cut carbon pollution. To that end, power plants are the largest source of carbon 

pollution, and cutting emissions from this sector will be the key to 

any solution. That is why I support the Clean Power Plan. 

It sets reasonable limits that take into account the characteristics of each state. It is based on strategies already in use such as 

improving energy efficiency and encouraging the deployment of renewables. And finally, it provides the states with flexibility. EPA 

is not prescribing a specific set of measures. States will choose 

what goes into their plans, and they can work alone or as part of 

a multistate effort to achieve meaningful reductions. 

Today we will be discussing the Energy Information Administration’s analysis of the Clean Power Plan, and I suspect that some 

Members and witnesses will be making the same old argument 

that EPA regulations are killing the economy and jobs. On the contrary. We know that this just isn’t true. It isn’t what EIA’s analysis 

shows. Rather, as history has shown us time and again, stricter 

pollution limits have invariably led to innovation and to the creation of new technologies that end up creating jobs while protecting 

our environment. I am confident American industry will continue 
19 

this record of innovation and job creation as new environmental 

standards like the Clean Power Plan are adopted. 

The bottom line is that the costs and risks of inaction are too 

high for us to continue to drag our feet or put our heads in the 

sand. I’m looking forward to today’s discussion and hearing more 

about how we achieve the carbon targets in the Clean Power Plan. 

I thank you, and I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

RANKING MEMBER EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here this 

morning. 

EPA’s Clean Power Plan, like the rest of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, 

is the bold step forward our nation needs to address the impacts of climate change. 

Severe drought, record temperatures, and an increase in heavy rain events are just 

a few examples of what Americans are confronting now and can expect to see more 

frequently in the coming years. 

The scientific evidence confirms that we need to act now to lessen these impacts. 

Leaders in the faith community have also been calling on us to address climate 

change. The recently issued encyclical by Pope Francis notes that climate change 

‘‘represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity’’ and that the poor will 

be disproportionately affected by its impacts. Pope Francis also states that ‘‘there 

is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission 

of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced.’’ 

I hope that we, in Congress, will stop obstructing EPA’s efforts and instead listen 

to our scientists, to our religious leaders, and the American people by supporting 

policies that will cut carbon pollution. 

To that end, power plants are the largest source of carbon pollution, and cutting 

emissions from this sector will be the key to any solution. That is why I support 

the Clean Power Plan. 

It sets reasonable limits that take into account the characteristics of each state. 

It is based on strategies already in use such as improving energy efficiency and encouraging the deployment of renewables. And finally, it provides the states with 

flexibility. EPA is not prescribing a specific set of measures. States will choose what 

goes into their plans, and they can work alone or as part of a multi-state effort to 

achieve meaningful reductions. 

Today we will be discussing the Energy Information Administration’s analysis of 

the Clean Power Plan, and I suspect that some Members and witnesses will be making the same old argument that EPA regulations are killing the economy and jobs. 

We know that this just isn’t true, and it isn’t what EIA’s analysis shows. Rather, 

as history has shown us time and again, stricter pollution limits have invariably led 

to innovation and the creation of new technologies that end up creating jobs while 

protecting our environment. I am confident American industry will continue this 

record of innovation and job creation as new environmental standards like the Clean 

Power Plan are adopted. 

The bottom line is that the costs and risks of inaction are too high for us to continue to drag our feet or put our heads in the sand. I’m looking forward to today’s 

discussion and hearing more about how we achieve the carbon targets in the Clean 

Power Plan. 

Thank you and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 

Now I’ll introduce our witnesses, and then after introducing all 

of you, we’ll just go to your testimonies. 

Our first witness today is Dr. Howard Gruenspecht, Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Before 

joining EIA, Dr. Gruenspecht served as Director of Economic Electricity and Natural Gas Analysis in the Department of Energy’s Office of Policy. Dr. Gruenspecht received his bachelor’s degree from 

McGill University and his Ph.D. in economics from Yale University. 
20 

Our second witness is Mr. Stephen Eule, Vice President for Climate and Technology at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute 

for 21st Century Energy. Prior to joining the Chamber, Mr. Eule 

was the Director of the Office of Climate Change Policy and Technology at the Department of Energy. In addition, he has served as 

a Subcommittee Staff Director here at the Science Committee. Welcome back. Dr. Eule received his bachelor’s degree in biology from 

Southern Connecticut State College and his master’s degree in geography from George Washington University. 

Our third witness today is Dr. Susan Tierney, Senior Advisor for 

Analysis Group, Inc. Under the Clinton Administration, Dr. Tierney served as the Assistant Secretary for Policy at the DOE. Dr. 

Tierney received her bachelor’s degree in art history from Scripps 

College and her master’s degree and Ph.D. in regional planning 

and public policy from Cornell University. 

Our final witness is Dr. Kevin Dayaratna, Senior Statistician 

and Research Programmer for The Heritage Foundation’s Center 

for Data Analysis. At CDA, Dr. Dayaratna instituted the Heritage 

Energy Model to quantify and help policymakers understand the 

long-term economic effects of energy policy proposals. Dr. 

Dayaratna received his bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics 

from the University of California at Berkeley and his master’s degree in business and his master’s degree and Ph.D. in mathematical statistics from the University of Maryland. 

In order to allow time for discussion, please, I would ask that you 

limit your testimony to five minutes, and your entire written statement will be made a part of the record. 

I now recognize Dr. Gruenspecht for five minutes to present his 

testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. HOWARD GRUENSPECHT, 

DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, 

U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION (EIA) 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Chairmen Bridenstine and Weber, Ranking 

Members Bonamici and Grayson, full Committee Ranking Member 

Johnson, Members of the Subcommittees, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to provide testimony on the Energy Information Administration’s analysis requested by Chairman 

Smith of the proposed Clean Power Plan rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in June of 2014. 

By law, EIA’S data, analyses and forecasts are independent of 

approval by any other federal officer or employee. Therefore, our 

views should not be construed as representing those of the Department of Energy or other federal agencies. 

So EIA’s analysis considers the proposed Clean Power Plan rule 

starting from several baseline cases with varying assumptions regarding economic growth, electricity demand, and fuel prices. It 

also includes several policy sensitivity cases. Consistent with EIA’s 

statutory mission and expertise, our report focuses on implications 

for the energy system and the economy and does not consider any 

potential health or environmental benefits. It is not a cost-benefit 

analysis. EIA also recognizes that there’s considerable uncertainty 

and many challenges involved in projecting the impacts of the pro-
21 

posed Clean Power Plan. So the final rule may differ from the proposed rule in material ways. 

The proposed rule applies to individual states. However, the electricity system doesn’t respect state boundaries. EIA’s modeling generally uses 22 regions in our framework as compliance regions for 

the analysis. Actual compliance mechanisms will be defied by state 

compliance proposals and may have different characteristics than 

what we’ve done. 

The long-term projections system used for this analysis does not 

contain a power flow model or assess the reliability of bulk power 

transmission systems in detail. And lastly, because of the shift 

away from coal towards intermittent renewables and natural gas 

generation in our analysis, natural gas-fired capacity will increase 

in importance for providing grid reliability. The analysis does not 

consider how deliverability of natural gas to power plants might be 

impacted by extreme cold conditions in regions where natural gas 

is used for heating during the winter months. 

So let me now turn briefly to some key results. So the proposed 

Clean Power Plan would reduce projected power sector carbon dioxide emissions. Reductions range from 484 to 625 million metric 

tons relative to baseline. That’s a reduction of about between 29 

and 36 percent relative to the 2005 emission level of the power sector. 

Switching from coal-fired generation to natural gas-fired generation is the predominant compliance strategy as implementation begins but renewables play a growing role in the mid-2020s and beyond. That’s shown in figures 1 and 2 of the testimony. 

The Clean Power Plan has a significant effect on projected retirements and additions of electric generation capacity, shown in figures 3 and 4. Projected coal plant retirements over the 2014–40 period, which were 40 gigawatts in the reference case, and that’s 

mostly before 2017, increase to 90 gigawatts, nearly all by 2020 in 

the base policy case. 

Turning to additions, projected renewable capacity additions increase in all cases with the proposed rule. Under favorable natural 

gas supply conditions, the proposed rule also increases additions of 

natural gas capacity. Nuclear capacity is also added in the sensitivity case where new nuclear receives the same treatment as new 

renewables in compliance calculations. So coal production is significantly reduced by Clean Power Plan implementation as shown in 

figure 5. 

Retail electricity prices and expenditures rise under the Clean 

Power Plan, as shown in figure 8. The price increases mostly occur 

in the early 2020s with national average prices averaging three to 

seven percent higher from 2020 to 2025 in the Clean Power Plan 

cases versus respective baseline cases. 

Electricity bills, which reflect both the electricity price and the 

amount of electricity purchased, also rise with Clean Power Plan 

implementation but those increases are smaller in percentage 

terms than the price changes as a combination of energy efficiency 

programs pursued for compliance purposes and higher electricity 

prices tend to reduce electricity use. Economic activity indictors including gross domestic product, industrial shipments and consumption are reduced relative to baseline under the Clean Power Plan. 
22 

Across the cases that start from the reference case, the reduction 

in cumulative GDP—that’s over all the years, 25 years—ranges 

from .17 percent to .25 percent with the higher end reflecting a 

tighter policy beyond 2030. 

So let me conclude, while EIA does not take policy positions, its 

data analysis and projections are meant to assist policymakers in 

their deliberations. 

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Subcommittees, 

this concludes my testimony, and I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Gruenspecht follows:] 
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Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Dr. Gruenspecht. 

Mr. Eule, you are recognized for five minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. STEPHEN EULE, 

VICE PRESIDENT FOR CLIMATE AND TECHNOLOGY, 

U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 

Mr. EULE. Thank you, Chairmen Bridenstine and Weber, Ranking Members Johnson, Bonamici and Grayson, and Members of the 

Subcommittees, as the 17th French mathematician Blaise Pascal 

famously observed, ‘‘The justest man in the world is not allowed to 

be a judge in his own cause.’’ 

Chairman Smith is to be commended, therefore, for requesting 

EIA to take an independent look at the impacts of EPA’s Clean 

Power Plan. 

The study just issued by EIA is the most recent contribution to 

a growing list of analyses that tell a very different story from the 

one EPA has been telling. The details are in my written testimony, 

but in short, using the Administration’s own numbers and methods, EIA’s analysis shows that over the 2020–2030 compliance period, the Clean Power Plan will, one, cost the economy well more 

than $1 trillion in lost wealth, an amount that exceeds the Administration’s own estimated social cost of carbon benefits; two, cause 

consumers and businesses to spend hundreds of billions of dollars 

more for electricity; and three, jeopardize reliability of the Nation’s 

electricity system, all for no discernible environmental benefit. 

While the United States is supposed to be cutting its emissions, 

China, India, and other large economies will continue to burn fossil 

fuels with abandon. With well over a billion people still lacking access to electricity, who can blame them? 

As much as EPA might like to think otherwise, its new rule 

won’t change this reality but it could put U.S. industry at a severe 

competitive disadvantage. Even green Europe is learning that skyhigh energy prices, largely policy-driven, are ruining its competitiveness and turning energy-intensive industries into endangered 

species. Now EPA wants to do the same thing here. 

Let’s start with the economy. After nearly 400 pages of analysis, 

EPA’s economic analysis amounts to this: compliance costs of the 

Clean Power Plan will be less than $10 billion a year. End of story. 

What EPA fails to address is the rule’s impacts on the broader 

economy. This is really an inexcusable oversight. EIA’s analysis 

provides needed contact. It estimates that the cumulative economic 

costs to achieve the emissions cuts proposed by EPA will reach $1.2 

trillion, or about $110 billion each year. That works out to a cost 

of about $200 for each ton of CO2 reduced, an astonishing amount 

when you consider that today you can buy a ton of CO2 in Europe’s 

carbon market for about 8 bucks. The Administration argues that 

the environmental value of these emission cuts would turn such 

economic losses into gains. Does it? EIA’s analysis shows the answer is a resounding no. Even when taking into account the alleged 

social costs of carbon benefits the U.S. would receive, the net drag 

on the economy over the compliance period slips hardly at all from 

$1.23 trillion to $1.16 trillion. In short, the Clean Power Plan fails 

and fails badly. The Administration’s own test is a climate policy. 
37 

EPA also boasts that while the price consumers pay for electricity may increase under its plan, by 2030, the electricity bills 

would be about eight percent lower than otherwise. EIA’s analysis 

does not support this claim, finding instead that large rate increases will leave consumers with bigger electricity bills. As a result of these rate hikes, consumers will pay an additional $140 billion more for electricity over the compliance period. With no environmental benefits to speak of, the Clean Power Plan would place 

entirely needles economic burden on businesses and families, especially low-income families struggling in the sluggish economy. 

One area where EPA and EIA agree is that in just five years, 

the Clean Power Plan will wipe out about 30 percent of the Nation’s current coal-fired generation fleet. Such a draconian shutdown of existing generating capacity is unprecedented and raises 

serious concerns about the ability of the electric power system to 

handle such a rapid loss of baseload generation. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation recently concluded that replacing this lost capacity would present a significant reliability challenge. And as Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Member 

Phillip Moeller recently pointed out, grid reliability should not be 

left to an agency, EPA, with limited expertise on the subject. Thirty-two states echo these sentiments in their comments to EPA. In 

light of all this, EPA’s continued refusal to look more closely into 

grid reliability is extremely troubling. 

In conclusion, no matter how one slices and dices the data, EIA’s 

analysis leaves little room for doubt that EPA’s Clean Power Plan 

is fatally flawed as a climate policy and as an energy policy, even 

on the Administration’s own terms. Maybe the idea of hijacking 

well-established state authority, turning the entire U.S. electricity 

system on its head, jeopardizing the reliability of the grid, raising 

energy costs on struggling families, and causing a trillion-dollar 

loss in wealth is appealing to EPA. For the rest of the country, it’s 

a decidedly bad deal. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Eule follows:] 
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Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Mr. Eule. 

Dr. Tierney, you’re recognized for five minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. SUSAN TIERNEY, 

SENIOR ADVISOR, ANALYSIS GROUP, INC. 

Dr. TIERNEY. Good morning, Chairmen Bridenstine and Weber, 

Ranking Members Johnson and Bonamici, it’s great to be here 

today, and thank you very much, Members of the Subcommittee. 

I want to talk for a minute about the EIA’s model and give you 

several points about the context in which policymakers can take its 

results into consideration. 

First, as you know, the EIA’s model is not a comprehensive macroeconomic model of the economy; it is an energy model. It does not 

incorporate the costs associated with public health. It does not incorporate the costs associated with addressing climate change for 

many—for all of the communities around the country. It does not 

address impacts on human health. Therefore, it can’t be viewed as 

an assessment of the Clean Power Plan’s impacts on the economy. 

Second, EIA’s longstanding practice is to look at environmental 

laws only that are in final form. As a result of that, there are many 

aspects of the changing outlook for the economy which are not reflected in this, including the EIA’s overstating in its base case the 

emissions from coal plants and understating the power generation 

contributions from natural gas, nuclear and renewable energy. 

Therefore, in some ways the EIA’s Clean Power Plan policy assessment could be considered the baseline as the Nation moves to address greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector. 

Third, like many long-term assessments, EIA’s method does not 

do a particularly good job of addressing innovation and disruptive 

technologies. Based on historical experience, we know that before 

the fact estimates of environmental compliance programs have consistently under—overestimated the cost associated with such compliance. Once environmental regulations are in place, the ingenuity 

of the American economy kicks into gear and delivers those results 

much more economically than anticipated. 

Additionally, we know that disruptive technologies occur. In the 

Chairman’s State of Oklahoma, we know that EIA did not anticipate the effect of fracking and its lowering of costs of natural gas, 

so we know that EIA’s outlook understandably does not anticipate 

disruptive technology changes. Those always introduce changes 

into the cost of energy, and we can expect them here associated 

with such things as renewables, storage, and smart grid technology. 

EIA’s assumptions about energy efficiency understate its value in 

mitigating cost impacts of the Clean Power Plan. In practice, we 

have seen that in the ten-state region of the Northeast that adopted the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, energy efficiency was a 

core strategy that enabled customer bills to go down as a result of 

adopting a carbon-control program in that area. I’m happy to talk 

more about how that occurred. 

Just several other points. The EPA’s proposed regulation will 

allow flexibility that states will use to address impacts on consumers. It is entirely reasonable to expect that EIA’s final rule will 
53 

be more flexible and lower the cost compared to what the proposal 

has been. 

As a former state utility regulator, I know that states are very 

well equipped to address the cost impacts and to use a variety of 

tools to encourage utilities to minimize costs and to protect low-income consumers. That’s part of their core job and they do it well. 

Third, market-based mechanisms including multistate map-based 

approaches are ones that we can count on for reducing the cost of 

compliance. States are looking at how to adopt such approaches. 

They work seamlessly with the electric industry’s structure. They 

can be adopted without the reliability changes that many have anticipated. 

Let me just mention that last point. People have identified reliability as a problem. I have just written three different reports on 

different parts of the country analyzing the implications of the 

Clean Power Plan for reliability. Clearly, this industry is equipped, 

well equipped to use its normal tools, its day-to-day tools to assure 

that the lights will not go out as a result of this. Many of the reliability concerns that some observe are based on worst-case scenarios and assume that no one will take action to address issues 

before problems occur, and there is absolutely no historical basis 

for that. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Tierney follows:] 
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Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Dr. Tierney. 

Dr. Dayaratna, you are recognized for five minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. KEVIN DAYARATNA, 

SENIOR STATISTICIAN AND RESEARCH PROGRAMMER, 

THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Chairman Bridenstine, Ranking Member 

Bonamici, Chairman Weber, Ranking Member Johnson, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss 

the Clean Power Plan. 

My name is Kevin Dayaratna. I’m the Senior Statistician and Research Programmer at The Heritage Foundation here in Washington, DC. The views I express in this testimony are my own and 

should not be construed as representing any official position of The 

Heritage Foundation. 

For years, it has been a primary goal of the Obama Administration to fundamentally expand regulations across the energy sector 

of the economy. The Administration’s primary justification for 

doing so is to limit carbon dioxide emissions as they believe that 

such emissions contribute to global warming. 

There is broad economic consensus that any governmental policies to limit carbon dioxide emissions will have detrimental impacts 

throughout the economy. These negative impacts have not only 

been discussed by myself and colleagues at The Heritage Foundation but also notably by other experts in Washington, D.C., on both 

sides of the aisle. 

As you know, the EIA’s analysis of the Clean Power Plan is 

based on their use of the National Energy Modeling System. Likewise, over the course of my work at The Heritage Foundation, I’ve 

used the very same National Energy Modeling System to rigorously 

conduct a variety of simulations looking at similar policy proposals. 

Unfortunately, their policies will almost surely do far more harm 

than good by killing jobs, stifling the American economy, while 

having only negligible environmental benefits. 

Let’s take a closer look at these negative impacts. First, the plan 

kills jobs. Now, just using the results that the EIA has published, 

one can see the significant disruption that a Clean Power Plan will 

have on American jobs. According to their very own study, the 

economy would begin to lose jobs shortly after the plan’s implementation and over the course of the following decade. The results also 

admit that by 2025, the plan will kill nearly 150,000 manufacturing jobs as well as nearly 200,000 jobs nationwide including in 

many of your own districts. I’ve conducted similar simulations of 

other policy proposals and have found that in many cases, all districts suffer, especially the Midwest. 

Second, the plan stifles the American economy, hitting ordinary 

households quite hard. Because of the plan’s regulations limiting 

the use of the least expensive and most efficient forms of energy, 

the mix of energy sources used would change dramatically toward 

more expensive and less efficient forms. As a result, the plan would 

increase annual electricity expenditures by up to $70 per household 

and perhaps by even more in coal-dependent areas of the country. 

In terms of GDP, if you take the report’s own computations and 

calculate the average income for a typical family of four, you notice 
76 

a significant impact. By the middle of the next decade, the Clean 

Power Plan would cost a family of four nearly $2,000 in a single 

year, which is close to a full semester’s worth of tuition at a local 

junior college. 

Third, the plan has only negligible environmental benefits. The 

whole goal of this plan is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. 

What’s interesting, however, is that by using the EPA model for 

the assessment of greenhouse gas-induced climate change and 

making the unjustifiably optimistic assumption of eliminating all 

carbon dioxide emissions from the United States completely, the result will be a reduction of around .2 degrees Celsius in global temperatures. As a result, even if the plan to actually meet the Administration’s goals for CO2 reduction, the impacts on global temperatures would be undeniably negligible. So all together, the negative 

impacts of the Clean Power Plan are significant, and the impact on 

the climate is trivial. 

Thank you. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Dayaratna follows:] 
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Chairman BRIDENSTINE. I’d like to thank all the witnesses for 

their testimony. Members are reminded that Committee rules limit 

questioning to five minutes. The Chair recognizes himself for five 

minutes. 

Dr. Gruenspecht, you talked about the retirement of coal-fired 

electric generation units. When you talk about the retirement, is 

that different than just shutting them down? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. I think those are synonyms in this context. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. So we could claim that this does shut 

down coal-fired power plants, which of course is happening in my 

State of Oklahoma. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, yes, and it’s happening—I mean, again, 

we had some retirements of coal-fired power plants already—— 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Right. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. —in part because of the mercury and air 

toxics standard, in part because, you know, simple aging in some 

cases and unwillingness to make the investments required to allow 

those plants to go forward, competing them against—economically 

against other technologies. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Got it. Your analysis found that under 

the base case scenario, 40 gigawatts of coal-fired electric generation 

capacity would retire mostly before 2017. Are the 40 gigawatts of 

retirements in the reference case a result of EPA regulations that 

are currently in the implementation stage, the 40 gigawatts, are 

they—— 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. I think it’s fair to say that the mercury and 

air toxic standards which, you know, would—the operators of these 

plants have to make decisions, do I want to invest in the technologies required by that standard, and they look forward and decide whether that’s a worthwhile investment. In some cases, it is; 

in some cases, it’s not. In the cases where it’s not, they decide to 

close that plant. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. So that is—so the answer would be yes, 

it is based on the current implementation of—— 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, and it also reflects the market situation, 

that natural gas prices have an effect on this as well. It’s not the— 

EPA doesn’t get natural gas prices. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. How many additional gigawatts of retirements did EIA project as a result of the Clean Power Plan? 

How much additional on top of the 40 gigawatts? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, it varies across the different cases that 

we carried out but I think maybe 50 to 60 gigawatts additional. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. So we’re talking about 90 gigawatts 

being taken, basically being shut down, and based on the implementation of current regulation and then this new rule? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. And the market. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Okay. When did your projections indicate that most of these additional retirements would occur as a result of the Clean Power Plan? When would they occur? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, the proposed Clean Power Plan rule 

takes effect in 2020, so most of these occur in that time frame. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. EIA also analyzed the potential for the 

Clean Power Plan to affect the heat rate or efficiency of coal-fired 

power plants. Is that correct? 
87 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Yes. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. And EIA’s analysis found that under the 

Clean Power Plan, that coal-fired power plants would be able to improve heat rates by approximately 1.9 percent. Is that correct? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. I think that’s on average what they actually 

achieved so, again, there are technologies available to improve heat 

rates. They cost something. Those are considered in the context of 

other options to comply, and we did find that improvement in heat 

rates. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Are you aware that the EPA believes 

that coal-fired power plants can improve efficiency by as much as 

six percent? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Right. So we—you know, in our analysis, we 

did not try to reconstruct their building blocks. I mean, as far as 

we’re concerned, we thought our assignment and I think proper assignment for EIA is to take the standards as given and so EPA had 

a methodology for coming up with the standards for each state that 

might have included that assumption, but at some point the states, 

as I understand it, take the standards as given and then there’s 

a ‘‘how do we meet it.’’ So we looked at the ‘‘how do we meet it.’’ 

We didn’t second-guess the building blocks. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. So the six percent, you didn’t assume— 

you’re saying 1.9 percent is probably more accurate than the six 

percent that the EPA claims? My question is, if you could save six 

percent, why would they not already be doing it? Because they 

could actually be more efficient, right? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, that’s the classic economist question of a $20 bill on the floor, why didn’t somebody pick it up, it can’t be 

on the floor. But no in our analysis, we get something between one 

and two percent, and some of that is just the change in the heat 

rate. Some of that has to do with actually investing in these technologies. I think about a third of the plants that remain invest in 

these technologies. Some of it just reflects the fact that some of the 

plants that retire or shut down, depending on your choice of words, 

you know, maybe the less efficient ones tend to be the ones that 

shut down. So there is some actual investment in heat rate improvement but some of it is just a changing mix. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Okay. I’m out of time. I thank you, and 

I’d like to recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Bonamici, for five 

minutes. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you to all of our witnesses. 

Dr. Tierney, I especially appreciate how you pointed out that the 

EIA analysis doesn’t fully reflect innovation and disruptive technologies. I think back a couple years ago, Oregon had a feed—in 

tariff pilot program that sold out in 1five minutes, and there is so 

much potential out there with new innovations to reduce costs and 

make a big difference, so thank you for pointing that out. 

I wanted to also focus on the fact that it’s clear that the EIA 

analysis does not consider potential health or environmental benefits from reducing CO2 emissions. Dr. Gruenspecht actually said 

that in his testimony. But beyond the economic costs associated 

with changing climate, there are very serious public health risks 

related to increases in global temperature—longer heatwaves, what 
88 

just happened in India—changes in water and air quality, 

foodborne and insect borne disease, in my state, the risks of fire. 

Climate change also has the potential to exacerbate existing health 

conditions such as asthma and adversely affect vulnerable populations like children and the elderly. 

So this cost to public health is unavoidable if we do nothing to 

address the present threat of climate change, so can you please 

talk a little bit more about what is the effect of improving human 

health and lowering healthcare costs on the U.S. economy? How 

does that affect the economy? And might there be some other costs 

that are borne by the public if we do not implement the Clean 

Power Plan? 

Dr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much for the question. Clearly, the 

kinds of health benefits that you just described, avoiding asthma, 

avoiding respiratory illnesses, especially in vulnerable populations 

like the poor is particularly important. That shows up in the economy in lower healthcare costs around the country. That has economic effects that are quite direct in consumers’ pockets but also 

in local economies that don’t have to have the burden of higher 

healthcare costs. Importantly, additionally, the fact that communities will not have to incur the burden of so many costs associated 

with addressing the impacts of a changing climate. You described 

drought, fire, extreme weather events. I didn’t love the 112 inches 

in Boston of snow that we had. It had a cost on people’s roofs that 

we avoid—that we can avoid by avoiding some of the effects of climate change. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. And—thank you very much. 

Dr. Gruenspecht and Dr. Tierney, Dr. Gruenspecht, you stated in 

your testimony that EIA’s analysis does not consider the potential 

health or environmental benefits from reducing carbon pollution 

under the proposed rule. It’s not a cost-benefit analysis. So can you 

confirm that that’s correct? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Yes. 

Ms. BONAMICI. So is it fair to say that the NEMS model that the 

EIA uses for its annual energy outlook and for its analysis of the 

Clean Power Plan is not a comprehensive model of the U.S. economy? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, there is a pretty comprehensive macro 

model in NEMS but it’s an energy economy model and it definitely 

doesn’t address benefits I think it is fair to say. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. 

And Dr. Tierney, if the EIA’s analysis does not include the health 

benefits, how should we interpret the GDP impacts that are presented by the EIA report? 

Dr. TIERNEY. I would caution anyone from taking those home to 

the bank. They are one side of the ledger, and there are a number 

of co-benefits that will occur to the economy that are not reflected 

in the EIA’s results. 

Ms. BONAMICI. And Dr. Tierney, you know, critics of this rule 

and many other EPA rules claim that the economy and the American consumers will suffer as a result of the agency’s efforts to 

make our environment cleaner. Now, this is contradicted by the 

fact that the U.S. economy has tripled in size since the adoption 

of the Clean Air Act. One of the concerns often raised by opponents 
89 

is that the Clean Power Plan will cause electricity prices to increase dramatically, but you state in your testimony that the impacts on electricity rates will be modest in the near term and can 

be accompanied by long-term benefits in the form of electricity 

bills. Can you please describe how the likely impact that the proposed rule will have? How will it affect electricity rates and bills? 

Dr. TIERNEY. Well, let me use an example to explain the kinds 

of impacts that we have actually observed in states that have 

adopted carbon control programs for the power sector. If you look 

at the states of the mid-Atlantic and northeast region, that for now 

six years have had a cap on the amount of emissions that come 

from power plants, if you look at where the money flows after 

power plant owners buy an emissions allowance and that money 

flows into the hands of state governments, those state governments 

then have turned those around and invested in energy efficiency 

programs, allowing customers to reduce their overall energy use 

and have lower customer bills over time. 

We analyzed extremely carefully the flow of dollars around the 

economy in those ten states for the first three years of the program. We found there were $1.6 billion to the good for those economies. Consumers got lower customer bills in the form of $1.3 billion, reflecting those programs during the first few years. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Terrific. Thank you very much. My time is expired. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Thank you. 

I’d like to recognize Chairman Weber from Texas, Boomer Sooner. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you to the gentleman from the north Texas 

suburb of Oklahoma. 

Dr. Tierney, you said in your testimony that some of the analyses 

did not take—and it was an interesting term. You said disruptive 

innovations. 

Dr. TIERNEY. Like hydraulic fracturing. 

Mr. WEBER. That is in fact what you said, and that’s where I’m 

going. Thank you for saying that. She’s ahead of me, folks. That’s 

fracking weird. 

At any rate, was that fracking technology described as disrupting 

the environment by some when that happened, when it became 

prevalent? 

Dr. TIERNEY. I’m sorry. I don’t understand your question. I was 

talking about disruptive technologies from an economic point of 

view. 

Mr. WEBER. A lot of people said that fracking was also bad for 

the environment. Would you—a lot of people said that it was bad 

for the environment and was going to affect the water supply and 

so on and so forth. 

Dr. TIERNEY. There’s a wide debate. Having been a member of 

the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Committee on shale gas issues, 

I know that there are a wide variety of indicators—— 

Mr. WEBER. I’m just—— 

Dr. TIERNEY. —of air pollution. 

Mr. WEBER. I know, but you recognize that that discourse did 

take place? 
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Dr. TIERNEY. Of course. 

Mr. WEBER. Absolutely. So it’s interesting to me that you call innovations disruptive. 

Dr. TIERNEY. All economists would call technologies that are 

game-changing—— 

Mr. WEBER. I got it. 

Dr. TIERNEY. —disruptive technologies. 

Mr. WEBER. I’ve got you, and I’ve got a specific question. I’m 

going to get there. 

So the EIA study did not take into account disruptive innovations. Did it take into account the possibility of disruptive regulations? 

Dr. TIERNEY. I don’t understand the phrase, ‘‘disruptive regulations.’’ 

Mr. WEBER. You understand the phrase ‘‘disruptive innovations,’’ 

though? 

Dr. TIERNEY. Sure. They are game-changing technologies—— 

Mr. WEBER. Right. 

Dr. TIERNEY. —that reduce the cost associated with some activity. 

Mr. WEBER. So you might agree that there are also regulations 

that are game-changing as well? 

Dr. TIERNEY. Yes, and in fact, that may occur but this is a relatively modest effect. 

Mr. WEBER. Would you call those disruptive as well? 

Dr. TIERNEY. I would not call it disruptive. 

Mr. WEBER. You wouldn’t? That’s interesting bias, in my opinion. 

Let me move on. 

Dr. Gruenspecht, the EIA analyzed the impact the Clean Power 

Plan would have on electricity prices across the country. Now, I’m 

from Texas. The gentleman from Oklahoma has already lauded 

that. What impact would the Clean Power Plan have on electricity 

prices in my home State of Texas under the EIA’s analysis? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, our model is not a state-by-state model 

but Texas being a big place and having its own region in our model 

you could look at Texas. So in the base in 2020, the modeling results are 7.3 percent above baseline, in 2030, about .7 percent 

above baseline. 

Mr. WEBER. It’s going to cost our consumers money. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. There are positive impacts in Texas, yes, positive price impacts. 

Mr. WEBER. I got you. So Texas has been a great model for success. We’ve created more jobs in the last 10 or 12 years than all 

the other 49 lesser states, and so we don’t necessarily want to impact that in a negative way. Let me move on. 

The EPA’s regulatory impact analysis claims that while the price 

of electricity will rise—you just said electricity costs for consumers 

will decrease due to lower demand because of ‘‘enhanced demandside energy management,’’ what I might call disruptive regulations. 

EPA backs up this statement by assuming states can meet a target 

of 1.5 percent annual improvement in energy efficiency, which 

would theoretically lead to a decline in demand for electricity over 

time. But the EIA’s report projects a more modest role for demandside energy efficiency with the increase in electricity prices from 
91 

the Clean Power Plan far outweighing, using the percentages you 

just gave for Texas, far outweighing any decrease in demand. Remember, a decrease of 1.5 percent but you just said seven percent 

higher prices. Given the analysis of your report, doesn’t this directly contradict the EPA’s claim that the prices will be higher but 

Americans’ electricity bills will be lower? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. I think on average, but again, you know, like 

they say in the television commercials, your results may differ than 

the average, but on average, we show higher electricity bills even— 

but not as much as the increase in electricity prices. Again, it kind 

of goes back to an earlier question. We tried to build in efficiency 

and have it compete with other options, and we found that we got 

a lot of renewable generation that was sort of a cheaper compliance 

approach than some of the investments in efficiency. There are disputes about the costs of efficiency—— 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. I’m running out of time. The answer is yes, 

it does dispute the prices. 

Mr. Eule, would you agree with that? 

Mr. EULE. Yes, I would. My analysis shows that people will be 

spending $140 billion more over the compliance period. 

Mr. WEBER. Got you. And how about you, Dr. Dayaratna? You’re 

agreeing with it too? Turn your mic on, please. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. That the cost of electricity will rise, correct? 

Mr. WEBER. Right. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Correct. 

Mr. WEBER. And it disputes the EPA’s findings that the price 

will go up but the demand for electricity will actually be lower. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. I’m not familiar with what the EPA—— 

Mr. WEBER. I got you. Well, I’m out of time. Thank you for your 

input. I appreciate that. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman yields back. 

The Ranking Member from Florida is recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Thank you. 

Dr. Tierney, earlier this week EPA released a report titled ‘‘Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action.’’ The 

report describes some of the benefits that we’ll see within the century if we take action to reduce emissions, for instance, approximately $3 billion in avoided damages from poor water quality, $11 

billion in avoided damages in agriculture, and an estimated 12,000 

fewer deaths from extreme temperatures in the 49 major U.S. cities. 

Dr. Tierney, do you believe it’s important to keep these long-term 

economic and public health costs of inaction in mind if we continue 

to promote policies that keep the United States at the forefront of 

addressing the global threat of climate change? 

Dr. TIERNEY. Without a doubt, those are real costs that would be 

avoided if we are taking steps today to control emissions of greenhouse gases from the power sector. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Dr. Gruenspecht, Mr. Eule’s testimony states that 

EIA’s analysis demonstrates that the economic costs exceed the climate benefits from this rule. Are you in a position to agree or disagree with that assessment? 
92 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Again, we only looked at the energy and economic side, not the benefits side, so our study doesn’t really speak 

to that. 

Mr. GRAYSON. So to be specific about this, did EIA calculate the 

economic benefits associated with the implementation of the Clean 

Power Plan? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. The health benefits? 

Mr. GRAYSON. No, the—well, let’s start with the economic benefits and then discuss the health benefits. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. So we looked at the energy system and the relationship of the energy system to the economy, and we did not 

look at the benefits in line with our—you know, which is our expertise and our mission. 

Mr. GRAYSON. All right. So what kind of benefits other than 

health, which you mentioned, are not included in that analysis? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Again, there are no—there’s no discussion of 

benefits in the analysis that we did. 

Mr. GRAYSON. All right. So then you’re left disagreeing with Mr. 

Eule’s conclusion that somehow the EIA analysis demonstrates 

that the economic costs exceed the climate benefits because you 

didn’t weigh one against the other? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, I think Mr. Eule should speak for himself but I think he did further work, you know, using a social cost 

of carbon or something. We didn’t do any of that. So I’m not saying 

I agree or disagree. We just didn’t address it. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Eule, last month there was an independent 

peer-reviewed scientific paper published in a journal called Nature, 

Climate Change. The lead author was Charles Driscoll. Are you familiar with that? 

Mr. EULE. No, I’m not. 

Mr. GRAYSON. All right. Well, among other things, the research 

concluded that according to the article, the power sector policy 

that’s been proposed with the great health benefits have the potential to prevent an expected 3,500—3,500 avoidable deaths in the 

United States each year and more than 1,000 heart attacks and 

hospitalizations each year from pollution-related illness. Did your 

analysis take any of that into effect? 

Mr. EULE. Not having seen the study, no. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Well, with regard to health consequences in general, did your analysis consider any of those? 

Mr. EULE. My analysis concerned the climate benefits. EPA in its 

regulatory impact assessment does monetize co-benefits, and I anticipated a question like this and I have taken a look at the monetized co-benefits that EPA has calculated, and when you run the 

numbers, the costs still exceed the co-benefits. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Well, we can only deal with what you actually report to us. Did your report include any analysis of the health benefits I just described, yes or no? 

Mr. EULE. No. As I said—— 

Mr. GRAYSON. Okay. Then the answer is no. Thank you. 

Dr. Dayaratna, what about you? Did your analysis consider any 

of the health benefits that come from controlling pollution including quite dramatically the 3,500 annual deaths that would be 

avoided in the United States from this pollution? 
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Dr. DAYARATNA. Well, like I mentioned, I’ve run the National Energy Modeling system myself over the past few years at The Heritage Foundation, and this analysis that I presented today was simply based on the EIA’s report. I didn’t rerun their simulations. But 

let me just say one thing. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Well, how about answering the question? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Yeah, I will. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Let’s answer it now. I’m running out of time. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Okay. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Go ahead, answer it. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Okay, I’ll answer it. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Yes or no? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Did I do it? 

Mr. GRAYSON. Yes, did you do it? I asked you—— 

Dr. DAYARATNA. My analysis—— 

Mr. GRAYSON. —whether you did it. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. My analysis was regarding just looking at what 

the EIA did in their report, the analysis of the report. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Okay. So then your answer too seemingly very reluctantly is no, you did not consider any of the health consequences 

of pollution in the United States? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. In this—in my analysis that I discussed today, 

no. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Thank you. I’ll yield back. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Mr. Hultgren from Illinois is recognized 

for five minutes. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all for being 

here. 

I do—I’m worried about the President’s proposed new and existing source performance standards for a number of reasons, my 

chief concern being the arrogance of which preordained policy solution is shoved down the American people’s throat after they flatly 

rejected it at the ballot box. 

I came to Congress after this House rushed through a cap-andtrade bill, which was thankfully stopped in the Senate. I find it 

cynical for EPA to then try enacting a regulation that essentially 

mandates a technology which this Administration has undercut in 

CCS or requires the implementation of a state-based cap-and-trade 

system, which the Pope even disagrees with. 

My constituents deserve their voice to be heard, and it’s voter 

disenfranchisement to ignore them because they don’t agree. 

Dr. Gruenspecht, what impact do you find this rule to have on 

electricity costs above the baseline? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Again, over the 2020–2025 period, three to 

seven percent increase in electricity prices. 

Mr. HULTGREN. So Dr. Gruenspecht and Mr. Eule and Dr. 

Dayaratna maybe as well, what populations and demographics are 

most affected by increased electricity rates? Dr. Gruenspecht? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Do you want me to go for it? All right. Okay. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Go ahead. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Populations all across the board, demographics 

and populations all across the country, all across the board, especially those in low-income communities, those are particularly in-
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cluded, and they will suffer the most, especially people on fixed income as I think Chairman Smith was alluding to earlier. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Help me understand, and I’m sorry I missed 

Chairman’s Smith questioning. My understanding is that low-income communities are going to be hit, some already spending more 

than ten percent of their income on energy certainly carry a higher 

burden for increased energy costs. Would you agree with that, and 

is that what your research has—— 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Absolutely, and in fact, what the analysis illustrates is that average income goes down and their electricity prices 

go up, so things become even more difficult for these people than 

just electricity prices going up. 

Mr. HULTGREN. This is another thing that I find so ironic about 

this Administration and this regulation. If the EPA were a lender 

and their housing risk analysis disproportionately harmed low-income communities, populations of color and seniors on a fixed income, they’d be stuck in disparate impact litigation for so long that 

they’d probably choose to get out of that business, but I guess we 

can’t even get the Justice Department to go after the most egregious cases involving this Administration. 

Mr. Eule and also Dr. Dayaratna, what is the potential impact 

of the Clean Power Plan on grid reliability? 

Mr. EULE. Well, I think any time you have about 30 percent of 

your baseload power sources coming off the grid at once, I think 

that poses a very significant challenge to reliability of the grid. 

This is something that NERC has agreed to, that FERC has agreed 

to. It’s an issue that EPA really hasn’t done enough on, and a number of states, 32 states, as a matter of fact, have pointed to reliability issues in their comments to EPA. So this is a concern that’s 

all the way across the board, and unless we do something, we’ll 

probably see more brownouts and blackouts, although EPA might 

call these unanticipated energy conservation events, but we all 

know that they will be blackouts. So I think that this is an issue 

that EPA needs to slow down on and take more time to consider. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Dr. Dayaratna, do you have any thoughts on how 

the Clean Power Plan will impact grid reliability? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. I actually have not looked at that question myself but I’m happy to look into it further. 

Dr. TIERNEY. Mr. Hultgren, I have examined this very carefully, 

and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has written all 

five members, Republicans and Democrats, have written to the 

EPA saying that the tools we have in place today are adequate to 

handle the reliability issues. The grid operators who have analyzed 

the retirement scenarios indicate that those will take place over a 

period of time. It can be handled by the grid operators. That’s true 

in the Midwest, that’s true in your part of the country, that’s true 

for both PJM and the Mid-Continent ISO. There is no historical 

basis—— 

Mr. HULTGREN. I’ve got last question—— 

Dr. TIERNEY. —for identifying the reliability issues. 

Mr. HULTGREN. If I could reclaim my time, there’s clearly a disagreement on that issue. Some are questioning the reliability there. 

I certainly am hearing concern from my constituents. 
95 

Mr. Eule, if I can wrap up my last 30 seconds, does the EPA rule 

recognize technology and its limitation in both the short and longer 

term? 

Mr. EULE. I’m not sure. Could you repeat the question? 

Mr. HULTGREN. Does the EPA rule recognize technology and its 

limitation in both the short and longer term? 

Mr. EULE. I think the EPA makes assumptions about technologies and technology deployment that many states find unreasonable. That’s something we found in our survey of the state comments to EPA. Many states have pointed out that the technology 

assumptions that EPA assumes just cannot be met. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you. My time is expired. I yield back. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Thank you. 

I’d like to recognize the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the 

panel. Obviously this Committee, we agree on a lot of things, and 

then there are some places where we are in absolute disagreement, 

and this may be one of those areas, and I do want to thank my 

friend, Mr. Hultgren, for bringing up the Pope because the most recent encyclical says let’s do everything we can to reduce pollution 

going into the atmosphere to avoid any further climate change. So 

I appreciate him bringing up the Pope. 

I would like to address a couple things to you, Dr. Dayaratna, 

and so just I understand, I think I heard in your testimony you 

think that at its peak at some point, there would be potentially a 

loss of 200,000 jobs a year. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. By 2023, a total of 200,000 lost jobs. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. A total by 2023? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Yes. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. So if I am not mistaken, and you’re a mathematician, statistician, right? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Correct. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Are you familiar with how many jobs we were 

losing at the end of the Bush Administration per month? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Um—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. About 800,000. I’ll help you on that, okay? 

About 800,000 jobs a month in 2008 and 2009. So total is 200,000 

jobs by 2023. Is that your testimony? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Yes, including probably some in your own district actually. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Well, my guess is that there would be some, 

but on the other hand—— 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Including manufacturing jobs. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. On the other hand, we’re gaining under the 

Obama Administration at least 200,000 jobs a month, not 200,000 

jobs by 2023 are lost, 200,000 jobs a month, 13 million jobs since 

the Obama Administration took office. 

Now, you had a very interesting statement right at the beginning, and I almost thought you were working for the Obama Administration because you said it with such authority: ‘‘For years it 

has been a primary goal of the Obama Administration to fundamentally expand regulations across the energy sector of the econ-
96 

omy.’’ Is that written down someplace where the Obama Administration has said they fundamentally want to expand regulations, or 

is that your opinion? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. I haven’t—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Is that your opinion, sir? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. It is my opinion. Throughout a variety of things 

that I’ve seen over the past few years, I have noticed that this 

seems to be the primary goal—one of the primary goals of this Administration. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. So it is your opinion? Yes or no? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. I haven’t seen it written down anywhere. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. Thank you. 

So you, I understand, have taken a lot—— 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Let me just say this, though—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. No, it’s my time. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. All right. Go ahead. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. You’ll get a chance to respond however you 

like later on. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Okay. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. So you took information from the Energy Information Agency to determine some of your statistics, correct? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Correct. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Can I have the EIA’s solar projections put up 

there, please? So did you in coming up with your analyses that 

there would be this job loss, did you take into consideration the 

growth factor of solar that the EIA has continually underestimated? Did you look at—are you familiar with this chart? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. I am not familiar with that chart specifically but 

I am familiar with the fact that this—these jobs are net jobs overall. So saying that this plan is going to create jobs is essentially 

like saying minus five plus two is a positive number. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Minus five plus two, so that would be minus 

three. Is that right? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Yes. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I mean, I’m not a statistician but I’m just trying to do the math. 

So—but you did not take that into consideration in doing—— 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Unless the model—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. —your analysis? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Unless the model did. I just used the EIA results from their annual—yeah. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Can we put up the other one, the levelized 

costs of energy chart? So this is EIA information too comparing the 

costs of different kinds of energy technology, and first I’d like to 

ask, is The Heritage Foundation agnostic when it comes to what 

kind of energy this country has or is it coal-centric? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. I—well, my testimony does not reflect the views 

of The Heritage Foundation so I’m not going to comment on anything in that regard. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. But when I look at your testimony, it starts off 

with ‘‘The Heritage Foundation.’’ You do it on Heritage letterhead. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Well, if you actually look at the first paragraph, 

it specifically says that my views do not reflect the views of The 

Heritage Foundation. 
97 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. But you used their letterhead. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. There is letterhead on my testimony, correct. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. All right. Well, in looking at the chart, 

levelized costs of energy, shows the most bang for the buck is energy efficiency. Would you agree with that? I mean, a BTU saved 

is a BTU earned, right in the middle, so the red sort of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources is blue, fossil fuels. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. I’m not sure about the data that’s used in this 

chart so I’m not sure I want to comment on it. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. All right. So you don’t remember this chart or 

this data? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. This chart and this data? Off the top of my 

head, no. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. Well, my time is expired. I have many 

other questions if we get to another round. I thank you, sir. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman from California, Mr. 

Knight, is recognized. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

It seems like a lot of folks have used their own states so I’m 

going to use mine in my testimony. Have we used California as 

kind of a model in any of this with the recent legislation that 

they’ve passed, the recent RPS standards, the AB–32 passage? 

Looking at what California has done when we had the five dirtiest 

cities in 2010, and now that we’ve passed all this legislation, we 

have the six dirtiest cities in 2015, can anyone comment on what 

has happened in California? Have we used this as a good model or 

is it something that we shouldn’t use? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, we don’t give policy advice of what you 

should do or shouldn’t do, but we do incorporate the California programs into our energy outlook. That I will say. 

Dr. TIERNEY. One aspect of the California program that is relevant here is that it uses a mass-based approach. It puts a cap on 

the amount of emissions. California’s model is actually economywide. The Clean Power Plan would ask each state to adopt its own 

approach in the power sector. Many states are looking at joining 

together voluntarily to choose an approach that would do a 

multistate mass-based approach. The studies have indicated consistently that that type of approach is the most efficient way to deliver carbon reduction or air pollution benefits, and we’ve seen that 

in wide literature on this topic. 

Mr. KNIGHT. And I won’t speak countrywide, I’ll just use California as an example of the things that have happened. Over the 

last five years, we have gone through AB–32 and RPS and we have 

tried to lower the standards. We have continually been the highest 

electric rates in this country, and we have risen by the highest percentage over the last five years in electric rates. Those are facts of 

legislation that has been passed in California. Those are facts of 

what has happened in California. Again, we’ve gone from the five 

dirtiest cities in this country to the six dirtiest cities in the country 

with very, very little impact by the legislation that we’ve passed. 

But I guess my question would be more on some of the power 

that we address in these standards and what we’re trying to do, 

and I’ll just go straight down the line. Would we agree that nuclear 

power is a clean energy that we could use to lower the impacts of 
98 

carbon in the air and pollution in the air? And I’ll start right with 

you, Dr. Gruenspecht. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Yes. It’s just expensive to build new plants 

but definitely clean in terms of carbon. 

Mr. EULE. Yes. 

Dr. TIERNEY. Yes, and I hope that the EPA presents a rule that 

will allow us to retain safely operating existing nuclear reactors. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Correct. 

Mr. KNIGHT. I knew that would be a quick answered question. 

Again, I’ll go back to what we have decided in California that 

that is not a clean energy and we are trying to get rid of those energy sources, so I’m glad that we would agree that that would be 

a very clean energy, that that would lower the carbon standards 

and our carbon footprint, and we could continue on with that. 

And with that, I will yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman yields back. 

I recognize Mr. Veasey from Texas, Boomer Sooner. 

Mr. VEASEY. They weren’t saying that at the TCU game last 

year, that’s for sure. 

I did have a question that I wanted to ask about affordability. 

Dr. Tierney, you know, one of the things that I know that you’re 

aware of is that critics of the proposed rule of the EPA claim that 

American consumers will have to pay more because of the changes. 

One of the specific concerns highlights that the Clean Power Plan 

will cause residential electricity prices to increase dramatically, 

and also it states that residents in certain areas of the country will 

see higher rates of increase, and one of those regions is in Texas 

that I represent, and residents in the district that I represent, I 

represent a very urban area in Dallas and Fort Worth, and it 

would be really tough for the constituents that I represent for them 

to see any increases in their utility bills. I’ll be very frank with you 

on that. Which is why I was actually encouraged to see that you 

disagreed with the report’s conclusion on this based on the analysis 

completed by EIA. Can you please describe in more detail the likely 

impact of the proposed rule and what it will have on electricity 

rates and bills? 

Dr. TIERNEY. Sure, and I think there are two parts to your question that I’d like to address. One of them is, in a place like California and in other parts of the country where electricity rates may 

be higher than other parts of the country, the consumers’ total 

bills, total electricity bills, in those parts of the country are lower 

than other parts because of energy efficiency. The amount of consumption that a poor person in a low-income housing building, 

they’re going to end up paying less per month on total for electricity as a result of this fact that electricity rates may be slightly 

higher but you’re going to spend much less on your total bill. So 

we’ve seen that. We’ve seen that around the country. We’ve seen 

that in California. The parts of the country that have invested the 

most in energy efficiency are places where there is a much bigger 

economic gain per dollar spent on energy by consumers and by the 

total economy. So this—the fact that people talk about rates just 

clouds the fact that in fact what customers do each month is write 

a check for their bill. 
99 

And the second part that I want to address is that those same 

consumers that are paying for electricity out of one pocket, in a situation where they’re going to have lower healthcare costs and 

lower taxes as a result of their communities not having to address 

climate change impacts so much, they’re going to be paying less out 

of that other pocket. So the customer or the person living in that 

community is going to be positively benefited by the kinds of things 

that are underway here. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you very much. I’m glad that you talked 

about that. I think that’s important, and I think that’s left out of 

the discussion too often, and for people that do represent, you 

know, areas like I do, that’s a huge concern when we have these 

particular debates. 

Another issue that is very important to the state and the district 

that I represent is the impact that the rule will have on jobs. A 

recently released study found that the CPP would result in an increase of 263,000 civilian jobs by 2030, and I understand that you 

helped analyze the economic impact of a similar regional rule, the 

RGGI rule. Can you describe the economic impact that RGGI had 

in its region? And also, can you relate those results to the Clean 

Power Plan? And what I mean by that is, that you believe the effect on the economy would be similar? 

Dr. TIERNEY. Let me address the report that I think you were referring to that has recently been published by the Economic Policy 

Institute, and there’s another one recently published by Industrial 

Economics. Each of them uses a macroeconomic model, and what 

they do is look at what happens when consumers may end up 

spending less on electricity or they might spend a slightly higher 

amount for electricity but that local economy is hiring people to put 

lighting fixtures, insulation in homes, new windows, a variety of 

different things that are job-producing effects. Well, those folks 

who get those kinds of jobs are then spending their own dollars in 

the local economy associated with clean energy investments and 

those are producing jobs that offset some of the other things that 

may be associated with shutting down a power plant just like we 

all shut down our cars from time to time when we think that 

they’re old and inefficient. We’re seeing here the modernization 

that’s going to lead to jobs in local economies. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. My time 

has expired. Mr. Chairman, go Frogs. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman from California, Mr. 

Rohrabacher, is recognized for five minutes. 

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

And going over some of the things that have been said here I find 

quite disturbing, I—let me just note that the CO2 impact on health 

has been—we continue hearing CO2 is a pollutant, CO2 is a pollutant, and that some people believe that a pollutant actually has to 

hurt human health in order to be a pollutant and there is great— 

well, there’s not any controversy at all. CO2 has no direct impact 

on human health. 

I’d like to ask Dr. Tierney, you mentioned that asthma is created 

by CO2. Could you give us any type of journal, medical backing for 

that? 

Dr. TIERNEY. I didn’t say that. 
100 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, you did. 

Dr. TIERNEY. No, excuse me, I did not. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. I’m taking back my time. 

Dr. TIERNEY. I did not say that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I’m taking back my time. You just said you 

didn’t say it. 

Dr. TIERNEY. I didn’t. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The record will indicate whether or not you 

noted that asthma was a relationship from CO2. 

Dr. TIERNEY. Of the—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You—— 

Dr. TIERNEY. —other emissions associated with fossil fuel combustion. I did not say they were from CO2. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Oh, well the record will—— 

Dr. TIERNEY. Excuse me. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The record will—you used the word asthma 

and then you went to health impact. I don’t know if you’re trying 

to get your message through without being responsible for the message that’s actually being delivered but—— 

Dr. TIERNEY. I will say it very clearly—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I think I just—— 

Dr. TIERNEY. —I did not say that CO2—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman—— 

Dr. TIERNEY. —directly is a health problem. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam, Madam, we have a certain length of 

time here. Your disregard for that is arrogant and disruptive. Let 

the members of this committee have their right to ask you questions without you utilizing our time so you won’t have to answer 

more detailed questions. All right? 

Let me note that the CO2—from what I have heard today, the 

CO2 health impact comes directly because of what it does to climate change. We’ve also heard from our opponents today that climate change caused by CO2 causes droughts, causes floods, causes 

this rain to—causes more rain, causes less rain, causes things to 

be colder, causes things to be hotter, has more hurricanes, more 

rising ocean levels. Let me just note that every single malady that 

you can think of in the climate is caused by an increase in CO2 according to what we have heard today from our colleagues on the 

other side of the aisle. 

I, and I believe science, rejects that notion, that CO2, plugged 

as—by the way, CO2 does not itself have a health impact on human 

beings. We had other testimony here from other witnesses in the 

past, very—on the other side of this issue who also refused to say 

that CO2 actually has a direct impact on people’s health. So this 

idea that there’s any savings whatsoever by these CO2 standards, 

that that savings is based on the fact that there are health-related 

benefits by having lower levels of CO2 is totally inaccurate. 

Let me suggest that in terms of—you heard it from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, that the pipeline—in the past 

we heard—when talking about exaggerated claims, we heard the 

pipeline in Alaska was going to eliminate the caribou. We heard 

that temperatures were going to increase dramatically unless we 

had something about CO2 and reduce the CO2 levels, that the tem-
101 

peratures were going to climb. Well, the temperatures haven’t 

climbed for 17 years. 

We have basically heard that the polar bears would be extinct by 

now and they’re not. We have heard that—again, we’ve heard 

about more droughts, and even—I—I’m not sure if this is your testimony; I’ll go back and check—something about more hurricanes. 

We haven’t had more hurricanes. There have been no more—and 

the climate is not more aggressive than it was in our time of growing up. 

Now, all of these things that supposedly cost money could be put 

into an equation to show that increasing the electricity bills is actually going to have a positive impact. It’s like saying if we break 

windows, you know, you break the windows of a house, that we’re 

going to benefit by that because you’re going to have to hire somebody to fix the window. Well, that makes no sense economically at 

all. It may seem like it does because there’s now a job there, but 

if that job of fixing the window wasn’t there because you didn’t 

break the window, that money would be spent hiring somebody for 

a job that needed to be done that increased the level of wealth in 

our society. 

I find—it’s a good hearing today. Thank you very much. And let 

me just note we only have five minutes to ask questions, and when 

someone tries to filibuster that, they’re taking away from the validity of the hearing and I resent that. I’m sorry if I lost my temper 

actually, but we have—we all have a right to—I’d give you an extra 

ten minutes if I could but I can’t. I’ve got five minutes, so thank 

you very much. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. I’d like to thank the gentleman from 

California. 

I would remind all the folks on our panel—and I do—we’re going 

to stick around for a second round at the request of Mr. Perlmutter. I’d remind everybody that our witnesses are here at our request, and as respectful as we can be even when we disagree, that’s 

what we ought to do. 

I’d like to recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Babin, for 

five minutes. 

Mr. BABIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. 

And I’ll say it for you, Boomer Sooner. 

Well, I live in Texas, District 36. We have more power plants, petrochemical facilities than any other district in the country. And 63 

percent of our electricity is created in coal-fired plants, which is 

strange and it was a surprise to me when I found this out because 

the price of natural gas is cheap and very plentiful and being produced readily in my State. 

But I had a group of utility folks come to see me last year and 

complained that if this Clean Power Plan is implemented, that they 

are coal-fired plants, 63 percent of our electricity is going to be endangered with the—whether you call it retirement or whether you 

call it just simply closing them on down. 

This, according to some of the testimony I’ve heard today, would 

increase our utility bills by up to $70 a month and cost the average 

family of four $2,000 a year in the years to come because of the 

Clean Power Plan. The EIA analysis projected that coal production 

would decline under this plan. How much of a reduction in coal 
102 

production would occur according to your analysis, Dr. 

Gruenspecht? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Roughly 30 percent. Almost all the coal produced in this country is produced for electric power generation—— 

Mr. BABIN. Yeah. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. —so 30 percent reduction generation, 30 percent reduction in coal production. 

Mr. BABIN. Does EIA have any projections on the impact of the 

reduction in coal production—and you may have said this earlier 

and I just happened to miss it—with regard to employment in the 

future? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. I don’t think we addressed that in our report. 

It would depend on—— 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. —productivity, trends in the industry. You 

know, coal employment has been falling for quite a while. But— 

and then rising very recently. But 30 percent, you might look at 

30 percent of whatever the projected employment would be would 

be a good guess since it goes across all regions. 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. Dr. Dayaratna, did you have a statistic on 

that? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Excuse me, on what? 

Mr. BABIN. In regards to employment, the impact of rising coal— 

reduction in coal production with regards to employment. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. I—based on the analysis of the Clean Power 

Plan, I suggested in my written testimony there’s some overall impact on employment. Beyond that, I have not conducted any further analysis. 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. What would be the impact of the United 

States, American GDP with regard to coal production reductions? 

Can anyone answer that one? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, I think that’s included in our basic 

framework of the .17 to .25, you know, reduction in cumulative 

GDP over the 2015 to 2040 period. So again, there are losses in 

coal, there are gains in other things. 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. Well, let’s switch over real quick and talk 

about natural gas because this is a big part of our economy, and 

especially in my district. The EIA analyzed the impact of the Clean 

Power Plan on natural gas prices, and found that natural gas 

prices would not rise significantly as a result of the rule. Does this 

lack of price increase depend on the availability of domestic natural 

gas? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. It does take account of that but it also reflects 

the extensive use of renewables for compliance. There is a pop in 

gas prices right around 2020, but over time, renewables become 

more important to compliance and natural gas sort of—we view as 

returning to our baseline view. But the view of natural gas is a 

very important part of this thing. 

Mr. BABIN. Right. Yeah, Mr. Eule. 

Mr. EULE. Just to make one comment about natural gas, EPA’s 

plan really doesn’t take into account the infrastructure that would 

be needed to deliver the gas for its building block two, which would 

increase dispatch from natural gas plants to the electricity grid. 

This is a very, very big concern. Siting and permitting is very, very 
103 

slow in this country and if we’re going to expect to use more natural gas to meet EPA’s goals, then we need the infrastructure to 

deliver that gas to where it’s needed. And right now, that’s a very 

time-consuming process. 

Mr. BABIN. Absolutely. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman yields back. 

I’d like to recognize for five minutes Mr. Westerman from Arkansas. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I will add a 

woo pig sooie to that. 

I’d like to thank the panel for coming today. 

I’ve got kind of an interesting background as it relates to this 

topic. Before I was in Congress, I’m an engineer and I designed industrial manufacturing facilities, including renewable energy facilities. Even the renewable energy facilities had to go by the EPA 

guidelines for permitting. And another interesting thing, even renewable energy facilities take into account their pro forma analysis 

of electrical cost and whether to build the facility or move somewhere else where electrical costs are lower. 

Also, I did graduate work at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, which is a leading institution in environmental responsibility, so I’ve got a pretty good grasp and understanding of that as well. 

In my State of Arkansas we have a wide variety of energy 

sources. We have coal, natural gas, hydro, nuclear, and we’ve got 

a variety of renewables there. We’re a relatively small State. We’ve 

only got about 16,000 megawatts of total electrical generating capacity and we do export electricity out of Arkansas. 

About 40 percent of our power comes from coal. We happen to 

have the most efficient, low-emission coal plant that can be built. 

It’s the Turk Plant. And thanks to research and technology and 

better materials, we’re able to use ultra-supercritical process. It allows higher temperatures and pressures and makes that facility 

about 40 percent system-efficient versus 30 percent for a traditional coal-fired facility. 

Now, when we look at renewables in my State, we are blessed 

with an abundance of biomass. That’s our largest source of renewable energy there. Our state forestry economists said that we’ve got 

right now in excess of 18 million tons per year of growth in our 

state. That’s timber and biomass growth that’s not being utilized 

right now. If every bit of that could be harvested and put into a 

renewable energy facility making electricity, it would make less 

than 1/10 of the 16,000 megawatts that are produced that we have 

in generating capacity right now. We’re talking about cutting millions and millions of acres of timber and putting it all in a power 

plant to make 1/10 of our needs currently. 

These regulations create a Catch-22 for a coal-fired plant in my 

State. They say you have to have an efficiency rate of X, you’ve got 

to have an emission rate of Y. When you put the control technology 

and to get the efficiency rate or to get the emission rate, you lower 

the efficiency rate, so you’ve put this coal-fired plant in a position 

where it can’t succeed. If it closes down in the real world it’ll make 
104 

electrical rates for consumers drop to—or rise to 20 to 40 percent 

more than they currently are. 

So, Dr. Dayaratna, I’ve got a question for you. In your testimony 

you indicated that you’ve used the same economic model as EIA to 

calculate impacts of the Clean Power Plan. Your analysis has determined that households will see a loss of $2,000 of income as a 

result of this rule, so what are some of the real-world impacts of 

a loss of $2,000 of income as a result of the Clean Power Plan? 

And also, are the impacts of the plan even greater for families 

that are on fixed incomes because I’ve got a lot of families on fixed 

incomes in my district. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Yeah, thank you for your question, Congressman. 

The—I just want to correct something. This is based on the—I 

didn’t rerun the dissimulation myself. This is based on their results 

that are online. But I have used the National Energy Modeling 

System myself many times before. So, yes. I suggested in my testimony that during the course of the next decade, as a result of the 

impacts on GDP, this would cost—the Clean Power Plan will cost 

a family of four nearly $2,000. And that is roughly the cost of like 

a full semester’s worth of tuition at a local junior college, which 

is—which isn’t trivial at all. 

And furthermore, unemployment will increase, jobs will be killed, 

and this will significantly harm people. It’ll make it difficult to 

move up the ladder in this country. And it will harm people on 

fixed income. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. All right. And moving along, Dr. Gruenspecht 

and Mr. Eule, can you give us just a brief overview of the cost of 

electricity produced from different fuels? Like what is the lowestcost electricity and what is the highest cost if you look at nuclear, 

Hydro, coal, natural gas? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, this is a good question and you have to 

be really careful about this. And it came up in an earlier question 

by one of your colleagues. You have to distinguish between the cost 

going forward, so like a coal plant, very expensive to build, you 

probably wouldn’t build it today given natural gas prices, but the 

cost of running that coal plant is very cheap, you know, relatively 

cheap, on average across the country, the fuel cost would be $24 

a megawatt hour, 2.46—— 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Let me just move on because I’m almost out of 

time. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Yes. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Is it—have we fully developed renewable technologies or—to make them cost-competitive with traditional fuel 

sources? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. I think they’re very competitive if you need 

new fuel capacity. But the issue here is replacing existing generation from existing capacity with new generation from new capacity, 

and that’s the issue. It’s not the comparison of the levelized cost 

that was shown earlier. It’s the operating cost of what you have 

now versus what you will bring in to replace it, which will have 

to cover not only its operating costs but it’s capital costs of building 

it. 
105 

Mr. EULE. May I add onto that? Renewables are also intermittent so they need backup. Oftentimes, when you build renewables, 

you have to build the transmission lines because where the renewable power is generated isn’t where the people live so you have to— 

the expense of building additional transmission lines. There are a 

lot of costs involved in—of very rapid build-out of renewable energy 

that have to be considered. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Where I was leading with that was would it be 

better to invest more in research to make renewables fit into their 

place better and utilize the low-cost traditional fuels that we have 

in place today? 

Mr. EULE. And I think the better approach, instead of making 

cheap energy expensive, it’s probably better if we try to make expensive energy cheap. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman yields back. 

The gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Abraham, is recognized for 

five minutes. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank the witnesses for being here. 

Mr. Eule, I’ll start with you and then I’ll follow up with Dr. 

Dayaratna. 

This Administration, Obama Administration, has been increasingly relying on the social cost of carbon in order to justify all these 

regulations that they’re throwing out there. Can you please explain 

the social cost of carbon and some of the controversy surrounding 

the analysis to measure the supposed benefit of this Clean Power 

Plan? 

Mr. EULE. Sure. I mean the social cost of carbon is a tool that 

folks use to measure the alleged benefits of producing CO2 emission. This could be benefits as far as agriculture go, there are some 

health benefits involved, some benefits to forestry, a whole host of 

things that go into the social cost of carbon. 

It’s very controversial. The models that they use, if they’re 

tweaked a certain way, can actually come up with a negative social 

cost of carbon. So no one quite knows what the level is but that 

hasn’t stopped the Administration from certainly making an attempt to come up with a number. And they have. And when you 

employ that number and use it compared to the GDP losses that 

EIA identifies in its model, you wind up still with a negative net— 

a net cost in GDP to the country. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Okay. Dr. Dayaratna, let me refer to you on this. 

Would you explain how the models used to calculate the costs are 

flawed? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Excuse me. You’re asking me to—can you repeat 

the question? 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Well—— 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Yeah. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. —Mr. Eule just said that, you know, there’s some 

controversy—— 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Yes. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. —and I guess my question would you please explain how the model is used that he was referencing used to calculate the social cost of carbon are actually flawed? What—— 
106 

Dr. DAYARATNA. How are they flawed? That’s the question. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. How—exactly. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. All right. Okay. Well, the issue is, firstly, and 

a variety of issues that I’ve looked at these in my own research, 

that there are three integrated assessment models that the EPA 

has used to compute the social cost of carbon, the DC. model, the 

FUND model, and the PAGE model. We looked at two of these 

three models in my research, and the larger issue is that there are 

extremely sensitive to choices and assumptions. 

And when you tweak the assumptions slightly ranging from the 

discount rate to the ECS distribution to the end year, these models 

end up trying to make projections 300 years into the future, which 

is just completely ridiculous. And if you even tweak that to make 

it say an unrealistic end year, say 150 years into the future, you 

get vastly different estimates of the social cost of carbon. And in 

some cases, as Mr. Eule suggested, you can even get negative estimates of the social cost of carbon, suggesting that there are even 

benefits to carbon dioxide emissions primarily due to like issues 

like fertilization. So with the results all across the map, their—the 

tool is just completely unreliable for these purposes. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Okay. Thank you very much. 

And I’m going to follow up with you again, Dr. Dayaratna. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Sure. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Your testimony indicated that even if all the carbon emissions were brought to zero in the United States, the global 

temperature would decrease by 2/10 Celsius. Does that mean, then, 

that the Clean Power Plan represents only tremendous costs without measurable benefits? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Exactly, yes. The Clean Power Plan will—it’s 

just—it’s an extremely expensive way to approach an issue that 

will provide, you know, negligible impact and it will just kill jobs 

and stifle the American economy for years to come. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman yields back. 

I’d like to recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, 

for five minutes. 

Mr. PALMER. To continue the theme, ‘‘roll tide,’’ and I guess ‘‘war 

eagle’’ since my kids went to Auburn. But anyway, I want to get 

into these questions real quick. 

You know, there is a lot of talk about how the Clean Power Plan 

is going to impact the economy and impact job growth. And, Dr. 

Tierney, you talked about how it’s going to lower heating costs, and 

I think you said something about—that heating costs have gone 

down in Boston. I think the fact of the matter is is that it’s gone 

up 37 percent and last year was particularly tough on families of 

the Northeast. 

Dr. TIERNEY. You don’t have to tell me that. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. 

Dr. TIERNEY. I don’t know that. 

Mr. PALMER. Here’s something I want to point out. Now, this is 

the interesting thing about this is you talk about how this green 

technology is going to lower energy costs and everything. In December 2005 when the State of Maryland began implementing their 

plan for going over to renewables, the cost of natural gas was 
107 

$13.05 per million BTUs. Do you know what it was in December 

2014? 

Dr. TIERNEY. It was probably 1/3 of that because of disruptive 

technologies of hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling that 

combined were applied— 

Mr. PALMER. Well, you’re close. You’re close. It was $3.48. Now, 

the interesting thing is is that over that same period of time, 

household energy costs went up 61 percent. Now, when you start 

talking about disruptive technology, that’s pretty disruptive. 

And I also want to point out, you know, Mr. Rohrabacher got a 

little emotional there and I think he got off topic, but he was talking about asthma rates. And you also made this point that our 

GDP has tripled since the passage of the Clean Air Act. Since 1980 

it’s grown 460 something percent. At the same time, vehicle miles 

driven have gone up 90 something percent, energy output has gone 

up 32 percent, the population has gone up 38 percent, yet emissions have gone down 50 percent. 

Now, the interesting thing about that is is that we’ve had an explosion of asthma cases. That doesn’t quite compute from a health 

benefit perspective when the air is demonstrably cleaner today 

than it has been in the last 50 or 60 years, yet asthma rates have 

gone up. And the other interesting thing about it is is that it’s related to income, the problem with asthma. There’s a study out of 

UCLA that indicates that the preponderance of asthma cases in 

California are among the low-income households. 

Now, I want to get into how this new Clean Power Plan is going 

to impact that. You talked about that one of my distinguished colleagues mentioned that employment has gone up. Well, actually it 

hasn’t. And there’s a new report—an article by the CEO of Gallup 

talking about the big lie, you know, we’re reporting that our unemployment rate is below six percent when in fact it’s—I’ve got the 

numbers here—it’s over—thank you. Ignore the buzzer. 

The unemployment rate in reality is about 15.8 percent. And the 

way this was calculated is the reported unemployed U.S. workers 

is 9 million, involuntary part-time workers is 6.8 million, the marginally attached to the labor force work is 2.1 million, and then the 

additional unemployed workers with 65 civilian labor force participation rate is 7.—almost 8 million. That’s 26 million people who 

are either unemployed or underemployed or just quit looking. 

So I want to point out that when you take into account what’s 

going on with these renewables and the regulatory environment 

that’s been created and the impact on the economy, it’s devastating 

and it’s going to have a very negative impact on people’s health. 

Mr. Eule, I think you wanted to say something. 

Mr. EULE. Yeah, the employment numbers you pointed to, very 

interesting. If you take a look at the employment numbers since 

the end of 2007 for the rest of the economy other than the oil and 

gas industry, employment has been essentially flat. In other words, 

it’s about returned to the place where it was at the end of 2007. 

Employment in the oil and gas sector, because of the disruptive 

technologies, fracking has gone up about 40 percent. So the energy 

revolution that’s underway now in the United States has really 

been a driver of employment. 
108 

Mr. PALMER. That’s the only thing that’s really saved us and 

kept us to this point. Also—— 

Dr. TIERNEY. But, you know, renewables are cheaper in some 

parts of the country than a fossil fuel technology. Recently in Minnesota, for example, there was a request to have offers from different suppliers. Natural gas-fired power plants did not beat the 

price of a renewable project. 

Mr. PALMER. If I may reclaim my time, Mr. Chairman, I just 

would like to point out, though, that there’s an offset here and the 

offset is far more negative than the positive. 

So I yield the balance of my time. Thank you. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman yields back. I think we— 

is there anybody that hasn’t been heard? I think we’ve been 

through the list on both sides so we’re going to go into a second 

round of questions. 

Was that a call for the votes, by the way, that—Okay. Okay. 

So we’re going to go into a second round of questions as we have 

time here. 

I’ve been—I obviously—you guys have heard me say Boomer 

Sooner to my Texas friends on the panel on both sides of the aisle. 

In full disclosure, I actually went to Rice University in Houston, 

Texas, which is in Texas, and my constituents are aware of that 

so I’m going to be okay there. 

But one of my good friends Chuck McConnell is the Executive Director of a department at Rice University called Energy and the 

Environment. He was in the Obama Administration from 2011 to 

2013. He was the Assistant Secretary of Energy at the Department 

of Energy from 2011 to 2013. He wrote an op-ed that was in The 

Hill recently. He says this: He says ‘‘I just spent a day in Washington last month testifying before the House Science, Space, and 

Technology Committee on the Environmental Protection Agency’s 

recently released Clean Power Plan, specifically the EPA’s 111(d) 

rule. I was honored to be asked to testify and came away simply 

amazed at the misdirected political rhetoric around climate change 

that dominated the hearing. I was often offered an insightful and— 

I was often offered as insightful and concerned inputs about jobs 

and our environment, was completely disconnected from what this 

proposed policy would achieve and absent any connection to fact. 

This clean carbon plan does not’’—and then he says ‘‘let me repeat, the plan does not impact CO2 levels or climate change at any 

relevant or impactful way.’’ This is a former, you know, Administration official. ‘‘Discussion about implementation and policy and 

economic impact abounds, but the fundamental truth is that this 

rulemaking does not reduce CO2 or greenhouse gas to affect the climate. So how disingenuous is it to talk about climate change, jobs, 

our future, implementation, et cetera? We’re acting as if meaningful discussion for our citizens—we’re acting as if it is meaningful 

discussion for our citizens and it masks the facts. 

These are the facts for EPA 111(d) if fully implemented.’’ He says 

this: ‘‘Number 1: a .18 percent reduction in global CO2 output,’’ .18 

percent reduction of—he says ‘‘The resulting .01 degrees Celsius 

impact to global temperature,’’ .01 degrees Celsius impact. And if 

I remember from his testimony, I think these facts were from 

EPA’s own models but I’d have to go back and check that. ‘‘A re-
109 

sulting impact of the lessening of global sea rise by an amount 

equal to 1/3 the thickness of a dime,’’ 1/3 the thickness of a dime, 

and again, I think that’s from the EPA’s own models. 

‘‘Can we be serious that this is meaningful, relevant, and 

impactful? EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’’—this is from 

Chuck McConnell—‘‘EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has already answered that question in testimony to the House of Representatives in 2013. That answer was and is today ‘‘no.’’ McCarthy 

admitted this fact but added that the United States needed to take 

this action to gain ‘‘political leverage’’ in the world and show ‘‘climate change leadership.’’ This is from one of the Obama Administration’s own officials who is now at my alma mater Rice University. 

Mr. Eule, you prepared testimony. You referenced the EIA’s projection of cumulative reduction of CO2 emissions by 6.2 gigatons in 

2030. How does this reduction compare to global carbon emissions, 

6.2 gigatons compared to global carbon emissions? 

Mr. EULE. That is 6.2 gigatons saved over 11 years, so it’s a very, 

very small amount. And you get an idea of how small. In 2030 Chinese emissions will offset that 6.2 gigaton reduction in a little over 

7 months. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. So it’s—your quote was very, very small. 

Mr. EULE. Very, very small. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. What about emissions from China specifically? Do you have information on that? 

Mr. EULE. Information—emissions from China, depending on 

which model you use, emissions from China, carbon dioxide emissions, not talking about total greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide emissions in 2030 could be anywhere from nine to ten billiongigatons so—— 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Got it. The EIA describes the impact 

from the Clean Power Plan on GDP as ‘‘equivalent to changes of 

a few tenths of one percent from the baseline given the magnitude 

of GDP and disposable income accumulated over the 2015 to 2040 

period.’’ Can you elaborate on this generalization, Mr. Eule? 

Mr. EULE. It’s a significant amount of money, and the way that I calculate it, it’s a cost of about $1.2 trillion over 11 years. Even 

in Washington, that should be considered real money. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Dr. Dayaratna, what is the value to a 

family of four of that GDP impact? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. So as I—— 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Will you turn on your microphone? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. As I said in my—I was alluding to in my testimony, by the middle of the next decade it would cost a family of 

four nearly $2,000. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Okay. That’s good information. Now 

that I have made the blood boil of my good friend from Colorado, 

Mr. Perlmutter, I would like to recognize him for—now that my 

time is expired, I’d like to recognize him for five minutes. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Thanks, Mr. Chair. 

And, Dr. Dayaratna, I want to apologize. I got a little aggressive 

with you and I’ll tone it down. I do want to start with a question 

for you going back to—you know, for me I’m agnostic as to the energy source or energy efficiency, that we just continued—you know, 
110 

the title to our committee is Science, Space, and Technology, technology being the key here as to disruptive technologies that continue to provide more energy at less cost with innovation and invention, okay? 

So would you be opposed—there’s a company in Boulder, Colorado, called Zolo Technologies. And what they’ve done is they’ve 

taken the ability—these guys are rocket scientists actually from 

the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and they’re improving the burners 

of coal-fired power plants to get more power per ton from coal. 

Would you have any opposition to that in—— 

Dr. DAYARATNA. In terms of letting innovators do what they want 

to do in terms of the free market, no. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. So I mean that kind of efficiency is something 

you would embrace? You know, you’re saying if there’s a regulation 

that forces that, you won’t embrace it, but just on its own, you 

would embrace it? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. I mean I would have to see the details of that. 

I mean I came here to discuss the impacts of the Clean Power 

Plant itself. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Right. So—but you wouldn’t object to more efficient power production, would you, just as a general proposition? 

Dr. DAYARATNA. I mean, again, so I would have to see the general details of what you’re describing. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. You’re going to get me more aggressive here as 

we go through. You would have to see it. I agree. Okay. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. So—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. So, I mean, yeah. I do want to—— 

Dr. DAYARATNA. The devil is in the details. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. —you to know you have a friend up here who 

said you’re a good guy and for me not to be so harsh on you. So 

I will not be harsh and I will turn to Dr. Tierney and I won’t be 

harsh on her. I’m going to try to be not a trial lawyer cross examining you all. 

Dr. Tierney, I had a slide up there—if we could put the one up 

on the solar projections—that shows how the EIA has projected 

solar usage over the last few years, and based on this chart, they’ve 

underestimated the construction and the building of new solar generation. Can you comment on that, please? 

Dr. TIERNEY. Yes. In fact, if you were to take those annual energy outlooks for many years before 2010, which you’re showing on 

this chart, and look over the past decade, each of the outlooks that 

EIA has used looking forward to the amount of installed renewables—I’ll put it solar, wind, other renewable technologies all combined, they have undershot what has actually happened in the real 

world in part because the cost reductions of these technologies is 

moving forward at such a clip that they are coming in at lower cost 

on an installed basis. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. So based on the cost piece solar is coming in, 

you know, less per kilowatt hour, wind is coming in less per kilowatt hour, natural gas coming in because of changes through 

fracking and innovation in the oil and gas industry, less per kilowatt hour, right? 

Dr. TIERNEY. Yes. I mean what we saw for natural gas was over 

a period from mid-2007 to 2012 we saw dramatic increases in elec-
111 

tricity generation. Those have kind of flattened off in some sense 

because we have not continued to see the declines that we saw over 

the last year when technology was first being introduced. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. Dr. Gruenspecht, you wanted to comment? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, thank you so much for recognizing me. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. You’re—— 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Since we seem to direct questions about EIA 

to everybody but EIA, I think it might be useful—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. You want me to cross examine you? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. No. I welcome it actually. It’d be very interesting. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. But I do want to point out, you know, we do 

pay careful attention to renewables in our projections. I’ve been 

reading a lot of press articles. You know, actually there’s a publication called Politico that ran something this morning, an appropriately named publication. It should not be called Analytico for 

sure. The top of this things says in 2009 the federal government’s 

EIA made a forecast for the next two decades wind power would 

reach 44 gigawatts in 2030 and then just six years later U.S. wind 

capacity is already up to 66 gigawatts and kind of basically this 

guy has these interesting tweets and he says we’re idiots pretty 

much. He didn’t use that word. 

But I would say this, our projections are appropriately developed 

based on current laws and regulations given EIA’s role. You are the 

policymakers. You and the people at the other end of Pennsylvania 

Avenue are the policymakers. We don’t guess what you’re going to 

do. 

I would say that in 2009 this body met and passed something 

called ARRA, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a very 

important piece of legislation. We came out in April of 2009 with 

an update to our reference case of our Annual Energy Outlook, and 

in that reference case we had a projection for wind energy for 2014. 

It was, guess what, 65 gigawatts. These projections are not always 

going to be right, but it is exactly what the capacity at the end of 

2014 was. 

So, you know, we can play these games and put up charts like 

this and pretend it’s all about technology progress, and there are 

surprises and there are disruptions, but a lot of what goes on 

here—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I’m going to reclaim my time because I 

wasn’t—— 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. It doesn’t—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I was not putting this up there as a cheap 

shot. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Okay. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I was putting this up there to show that there 

have been improvements. I don’t mind that you’re conservative in 

your estimations and your predictions. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Thank you. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. You know, the future is always kind of a fuzzy 

thing for most people. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Right. That’s not what I said. 
112 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. So I was not taking a cheap shot by putting 

that up there. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. I say you’re not. I’m saying the policy matters 

so that, yes, there are improvements in technology, yes, there are 

improvements, but things like a 30 percent tax credit, things like 

a production tax credit, those are the things that have driven this 

thing, because in April of 2009, after taking account of the ARRA, 

we projected the wind capacity at 65 gigawatts, which is exactly 

what it is in 2014. 

You read the article in Politico, which I know you didn’t write 

so you don’t have to take credit for it, but—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I don’t read Politico. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. You shouldn’t. It’s a waste of time. But I—you 

know, but basically I say—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I take it back. I do read Politico from time to 

time. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, you—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I don’t want to—yeah. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. You had extra time then. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. All right. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. But all I want to say is this—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Let’s—— 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. —it’s policy as well as—you know, we tell the 

story and it’s legitimate about, you know, unanticipated advances, 

this and that, but a lot of what happens is driven by policy, and 

to talk about how off EIA projections are that don’t take account 

of policies, when we take account of the policies like our update 

after you passed the ARRA, the projections are actually—turn out 

to be quite good. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. So again—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Thank you very much. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. You’re very welcome. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. And I yield back my time—— 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Thank you. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. —and whatever may exist of it. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. I appreciate Mr. Perlmutter from Colorado—— 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. And I appreciate him. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. I’m glad I’m on the side of the table and 

not on that side of the table. 

I would say, Dr. Dayaratna, you mentioned earlier that the 

Obama Administration has fundamentally expanded regulations 

across the energy sector, and I know Mr. Perlmutter got on your 

case about that. I would just say this: When the President was 

asked in 2008 as he was campaigning—they asked him at the San 

Francisco Chronicle, they said are you going to shut down coal? 

And he said, no, I’m not going to shut down coal; I’m just going to 

make it so expensive that they won’t be able to operate. 

Dr. DAYARATNA. Yes. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. So I would say that your testimony is 

accurate. 

I’d like to recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, for 

five minutes. 
113 

Mr. WEBER. I want to note that the preceding editorial comments 

about Politico were not necessarily reflecting the views of the management or any other living Member for that matter. 

And the President did say, by the way, while he was running to 

the Chairman over here to my right that under his energy plan 

electricity prices would of necessity skyrocket, his words, not mine. 

Find the YouTube. So you’re absolutely on track with that. 

Dr. Gruenspecht, in your bio here that was along with our notebook, it’s written that you were the Economic Advisor to the Chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission 1988 to 1990. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. I think that’s accurate. 

Mr. WEBER. You think that’s accurate? Well, I’m glad that at 

least some of the information we have is accurate. So you kept up 

with international trade obviously. So following this energy debate, 

once we shut down coal prices or, as the President said in San 

Francisco, make it too expensive for them to operate, do you think, 

based on your experience with the U.S. International Trade Commission, that other countries are going to follow suit or is this 

going to put us at a—the United States had a comparative disadvantage? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. I can’t speculate on that. I have no— 

Mr. WEBER. Fair enough. You don’t want to say, that’s fine. You 

have to have an—I would think you’d have an opinion. 

Furthermore, in your testimony you basically say on page three 

of it that ‘‘there is considerable uncertainty and many challenges’’ 

or—and I’m reading from your testimony—‘‘many challenges are 

involved in projecting the impacts of the proposed Clean Power 

Plan.’’ 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Yes. 

Mr. WEBER. You did make that comment? So in your estimation, 

your opinion, is it worth that kind of uncertainty, all of the downturn in the economy that we’ve talked about with the minimal uptick on good stuff? Do you know what I’m saying? Do you think it’s 

worth that risk? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, again, I’m—I mean we did our best job 

on this thing. We take our role pretty seriously— 

Mr. WEBER. Yeah. Okay. How about you, Mr. Eule? You think— 

with the considerable uncertainty, you think it’s worth that risk? 

Mr. EULE. The numbers don’t indicate that it is. 

Mr. WEBER. They don’t. Let me just follow with what Dr. Babin 

said earlier about the coal industry. I looked it up on Google real 

quick and there was 174,000 jobs in the coal industry, so I think 

the figure thrown out there was 30 percent reduction. So, you 

know, do the math. That was 174,000 direct jobs. So—and then 

there was a lot of indirect jobs that—a lot of jobs that were supported indirectly by the coal industry. It’s not worth that risk. 

Let me move on here. You also said in your testimony, Dr. 

Gruenspecht, since you wanted to be cross examined—— 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. I was getting a little bored. 

Mr. WEBER. You were getting a little bored? You looked a little 

sleepy there for a minute. You said that the construction of new 

generation to comply with the Clean Power Plan may necessitate 

upgrades and expansion of electric power transmission systems. We 

would call that infrastructure. Okay. 
114 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. That’s right. 

Mr. WEBER. Additional costs. So you’re actually—there’s another 

factor in here that we don’t know what that would require that’s 

going to be the additional cost, which would further increase the 

price of electricity possibly. Now, on page five of your testimony— 

I’m sorry, on page three of your testimony, again you said in the 

last paragraph ‘‘NIMS does not consider how deliverability of natural gas to power plants using that fuel might be impacted.’’ And 

there at the very bottom you said because of the shift away from 

coal toward ‘‘intermittent’’ renewables, is intermittent another 

word for unreliable? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Intermittent is a—means that you can’t dispatch them. You can’t just order them to turn on when you want 

them. 

Mr. WEBER. So when you want them and they’re not there, would 

you say that—would you admit that that’s unreliable? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Well, it’s not available. You have to do something else. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Well, to me when energy is not available 

when you want it, that seems pretty unreliable, not that I’m putting words in your mouth. Okay. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. You’d have a hard time doing that. 

Mr. WEBER. You know, I can believe that. 

Now, let me just tell you, you also said earlier that we were 

the—just in your recent exchange with the cross examiner over 

here to my right—— 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. My friend. 

Mr. WEBER. Your newfound friend, your BFF, that we are policymakers along with the gentlemen at the other end of Pennsylvania 

Avenue or something like that. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. That’s right. We’re located right in the middle. 

Mr. WEBER. In theory, that’s supposed to be true but the truth 

of the matter is when the EPA unilaterally under the President’s 

direction decides to implement these kinds of policies, that actually 

takes Congress out of the policy decision-making chair. So I just 

want to opine on that. 

Finally, I own an air-conditioning company, 34 years. I can tell 

you about power. I can tell you about SEERs, seasonal energy efficiency ratings. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Yeah. 

Mr. WEBER. I can tell you about the number of amps compressors 

draw on. I can tell you about the number—the houses and the cooling bills and what they use in Texas in the way of energy. And I 

will just tell you that when you take a family on a low income and 

they need a new air-conditioning system and the standard efficiency is going to cost them 4, 5, 6, $7,000 to put that new system 

in their house but a high-efficiency—let’s say $5,000—but a highefficiency system is going to cost $8,000, trust me, based on 34 

years’ worth of experience in the Gulf Coast of Texas, they’re going 

to opt for the lower efficiency equipment. So when you drive energy 

prices up, they’re not only not going to be able to take advantage 

of them, they’re going to have less money in their pockets even to 
115 

buy high-efficiency equipment. And so I take this very seriously 

when we start increasing their price. 

Mr. Chairman, I’m going to yield back. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman yields back. 

I do need a new air-conditioning unit in my home so I’ll probably 

be giving you a call. 

Mr. WEBER. 281–4859. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. I’d like to recognize the gentleman from 

California, Mr. Rohrabacher, for five minutes so long as he commits to not yell at the witnesses. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Well, I think if my colleague from 

Colorado can be so gracious as to apologize for being too combative, 

I, too, can be that gracious and apologize for being too combative 

with Dr. Tierney. 

And as I said, I would give you the time if I had it and I do have 

the time, so I’m going to yield one minute and a half to Dr. Tierney, who has got lots of comments and hasn’t been able to make 

them because we’ve had witnesses on the side, whatever you’d like 

to put into the record now about what you gleaned from this hearing. 

Dr. TIERNEY. Congressman, that was so generous. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. 

Dr. TIERNEY. And I apologize in turn for stepping on your own 

words, so thank you very much. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. 

Dr. TIERNEY. I appreciate that. 

I think the one thing that I want to say is with regard to this 

question of whether or not acting through the Clean Power Plan 

will make a difference in the emissions that contribute to climate 

change, in the world, 1 out of every 15 tons of omissions anywhere 

in the entire globe comes from the United States’ power generation 

sector. Reducing ten percent, reducing 20 percent, reducing 30 percent of that would—is equivalent to the tons of emissions that are 

produced by scores of countries around the world. This will make 

a difference and it will be affordable by the United States. 

It does—global warming is causing tremendous impacts around 

globe. I’m not a Catholic person—I mean I’m not a Catholic. That 

sounds crazy what I said. I am not a member of the Catholic 

Church. I am so impressed that we have a global leader who has 

written and is cyclical who has talked about the impacts of a 

warming globe on the poorest of the poor around the world. 

We can make a difference here. It is worth doing. We are not 

going to kill jobs. The economy will come out in a robust fashion. 

We are Americans and we can do this. Thank you very much. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Well, thank you. And let me—— 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Try not to yell. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me just note that we—there are fundamental differences in the analysis of what the science says. And as 

I say, when I have heard over the—my lifetime, I remember when 

Jacques Cousteau when I was a young reporter told me that the 

oceans would be black goo within ten years. And I’m a surfer and 

I can tell you that oceans are not black goo. I was just out on a 

surfboard last weekend. I actually had a word that we had 66 peo-
116 

ple on one surfboard in Huntington Beach and I’m very proud of 

that. 

Dr. TIERNEY. So I used to do body surfing at the Wedge growing 

up as a girl, so I know this well. I was raised in Redlands, California. I’m going out with you. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You know what, we probably were body surfing at the Wedge together. It was my favorite spot when I was 

younger. 

Dr. TIERNEY. Me, too. It was awesome. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. There you go. 

Now—but with that said, people who are benevolent people can 

disagree and disagree aggressively. I certainly disagree with the 

idea that CO2 is causing any change in the climate, especially manmade CO2, which is only ten percent of the CO2 that’s in the air. 

And all of the CO2 that we’re talking about, the minimal amount 

that this draconian regulation is going to have on our society, even 

that tiny bit is just what mankind or what Americans of mankind 

are contributing. We’re talking about a microscopic impact if there 

is any impact on CO2 at all on our climate. 

But the cost, and then again here we go into the cost that we’re 

being said is a—compensates for this is going to be that our health 

benefits are going to be better or because people—if indeed the climate is better, fewer people will get sick, there’ll be less people 

dying in India because of the heat waves or Boston because of the 

snow in the winter time. It just doesn’t pencil out. And when it 

doesn’t pencil out, it means there’s less wealth in the society. 

Efficiency through better technology does mean there’s more 

wealth in society. But efficiency that’s generated by regulation, as 

we have heard here, is most often accompanied by mandatory controls and/or, I might add, tax supplements which cost the federal 

government revenue that could go into education and other type of 

programs for today. 

So when you’re consuming wealth in order to promote technology 

that would not otherwise be implemented, that wealth is not available for the other things government has to do. And if we take it 

out of somebody’s pocket, personal pocket, then they don’t have the 

money to pay for their kids’ junior college education. So there’s 

really a cost that we may disagree on that and I don’t believe that 

the health benefits that will derive from changing the climate—and 

of course we don’t believe the climate will change on this—but 

those health benefits in some way are going to offset the cost of 

what we’re—of what’s being imposed by these regulations. 

And thank you very much for understanding. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman yields back. That was 

actually quite nice. And I think I might like the other Dana Rohrabacher better. 

The gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Abraham, is recognized for 

five minutes. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It won’t take that 

long. 

Just one quick question to follow up on—Dr. Gruenspecht, I’ll direct it to you. What’s the total estimated loss to the GDP in dollars, 

not—we’ve been talking about tenths of percent and that type of— 
117 

on the Clean Power Plan, but the estimated cost in dollars yearto-year is analyzed by the EIA. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. It’s cumulative over 2015 to 2040—— 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. Will the gentleman turn on his microphone? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Excuse me, sir. Cumulative over 2015 

through 2040, it’s 1 to 1–1/2 trillion—3—depending on how you—— 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Three with a T? 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. Trillion with a T. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Okay. 

Dr. GRUENSPECHT. So again, there are two figures, figures 38 

and 39 that show the same information. You know, it’s all a question of framing. Different people want to frame this in different 

ways. We try to frame it pretty neutrally. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Okay. That’s all I had, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Chairman BRIDENSTINE. The gentleman yields back. This is the 

end of our hearing. I thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the Members for their questions. The record will remain 

open for two weeks for additional comments and written questions 

from the Members. 

The hearing is adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the Subcommittees were adjourned.] 

(119) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Howard Gruenspecht 
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Responses by Dr. Susan Tierney 
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Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
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EIA REPORT SUBMITTED BY REPRESENTATIVE JIM BRIDENSTINE
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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED BY REPRESENTATIVE GARY PALMER
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Æ