[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REVIVING OUR ECONOMY: COVID-19'S
IMPACT ON THE ENERGY SECTOR
=======================================================================
VIRTUAL HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 16, 2020
__________
Serial No. 116-113
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
govinfo.gov/committee/house-energy
energycommerce.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54-855 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Chairman
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois GREG WALDEN, Oregon
ANNA G. ESHOO, California Ranking Member
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York FRED UPTON, Michigan
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
DORIS O. MATSUI, California CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
KATHY CASTOR, Florida BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland PETE OLSON, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PAUL TONKO, New York GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York, Vice BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
Chair BILLY LONG, Missouri
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon BILL FLORES, Texas
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
Massachusetts MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
TONY CARDENAS, California RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
RAUL RUIZ, California TIM WALBERG, Michigan
SCOTT H. PETERS, California EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas GREG GIANFORTE, Montana
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
DARREN SOTO, Florida
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
------
Professional Staff
JEFFREY C. CARROLL, Staff Director
TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Deputy Staff Director
MIKE BLOOMQUIST, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Energy
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
Chairman
SCOTT H. PETERS, California FRED UPTON, Michigan
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania Ranking Member
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
JERRY McNERNEY, California, Vice CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
Chair PETE OLSON, Texas
PAUL TONKO, New York DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, BILL FLORES, Texas
Massachusetts RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas TIM WALBERG, Michigan
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hon. Bobby L. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, opening statement................................. 2
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Michigan, opening statement.................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Hon. Robert L. Latta, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Ohio, opening statement..................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Washington, prepared statement.................... 92
Hon. Greg Gianforte, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Montana, prepared statement................................. 92
Witnesses
Ernest J. Moniz, President and Chief Executive Officer, Energy
Futures Initiative............................................. 11
Prepared statement........................................... 14
Answers to submitted questions............................... 128
Gregory Wetstone, President and Chief Executive Officer, American
Council on Renewable Energy.................................... 34
Prepared statement........................................... 36
Answers to submitted questions............................... 136
Richard J. Powell, Executive Director, Clearpath................. 39
Prepared statement........................................... 41
Answers to submitted questions............................... 143
Submitted Material
Fact Sheet from the National Mining Association,``The Impacts of
the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Coal Industry,'' submitted by Mr.
Rush........................................................... 93
Letter of June 16, 2020, to Mr. Pallone, et al., from Anne
Bradbury, CEO, American Exploration and Production Council,
submitted by Mr. Rush.......................................... 94
Letter of June 16, 2020, to Mr. Rush and Mr. Upton, from Louis
Finkel, Senior Vice President, Government Relations, National
Rural Electric Cooperative Association, submitted by Mr. Rush.. 98
Letter of June 15, 2020, to Mr. Pallone et al., from Arlen
Orchard, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager, SMUD,
submitted by Mr. Rush.......................................... 101
Letter of June 12, 2020, to Mr. Rush, from Paula R. Glover,
President and CEO American Association of Blacks in Energy,
submitted by Mr. Rush.......................................... 104
Letter of June 16, 2020, to Mr. Pallone and Mr. Walden, from Chet
M. Thompson, President and CEO, American Fuel and
Petrochemical, submitted by Mr. Rush........................... 108
Letter of June 15, 2020, to Mr. Pallone, et al., from Karen
Harbert, President and CEO, American Gas Association American
Gas Association, submitted by Mr. Rush......................... 110
Letter of June 16, 2020, to Mr. Pallone et al., from Joy Ditto,
President and CEO, Public Power Association, submitted by Mr.
Rush........................................................... 112
Letter of June 16, 2020, to Mr. Pallone, et al., from
Biotechnology Innovation Organization, submitted by Mr. Rush... 117
Letter of June 11, 2020, to Mr. Rush and Mr. Upton, from Leslie
Beyer, President Petroleum Equipment and Services Association,
submitted by Mr. Rush.......................................... 121
Letter of June 15, 2020, to Mr. Rush and Mr. Upton, from Geoff
Cooper, President and CEO, Renewable Fuels Association,
submitted by Mr. Rush.......................................... 122
Statement of June 15, 2020, from International Association of
Drilling Contractors, submitted by Mr. Rush.................... 126
REVIVING OUR ECONOMY: COVID-19'S IMPACT ON THE ENERGY SECTOR
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 2020
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Energy,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 12:02 p.m., via
Cisco Webex online video conferencing, Hon. Bobby L. Rush
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Members present: Subcommittee chair Rush, Sarbanes,
McNerney, Tonko, Loebsack, Butterfield, Welch, Schrader,
Kennedy, Veasey, Kuster, Kelly, Barragan, McEachin, O'Halleran,
Blunt Rochester, Pallone (ex officio), Upton (subcommittee
ranking member), Latta, Rodgers, Olson, McKinley, Kinzinger,
Griffith, Johnson, Bucshon, Flores, Hudson, Walberg, and
Duncan.
Also present: Representative Burgess.
Staff present: Jeffrey C. Carroll, Staff Director; Adam
Fischer, Policy Analyst; Catherine Giljohann, FERC Detailee;
Waverly Gordon, Deputy Chief Counsel; Tiffany Guarascio, Deputy
Staff Director; Rick Kessler, Senior Advisor and Staff
Director, Energy and Environment; Brendan Larkin, Policy
Coordinator; Jourdan Lewis, Policy Coordinator; Elysa Montfort,
Press Secretary; Joe Orlando, Staff Assistant; Kaitlyn Peel,
Digital Director; Tim Robinson, Chief Counsel; Medha Surampudy,
Professional Staff Member; Tuley Wright, Energy and Environment
Policy Advisor; Mike Bloomquist Minority Staff Director; Jordan
Davis, Minority Senior Advisor; Theresa Gambo, Minority Human
Resources Office Administrator; Tiffany Haverly, Minority
Communications Director; Peter Kielty Minority General Counsel;
Ryan Long, Minority Deputy Staff Director; Mary Martin,
Minority Chief Counsel, Energy and Environment and Climate
Change; Brandon Mooney, Minority Deputy Chief Counsel, Energy;
Brannon Rains, Minority Policy Analyst; Peter Spencer, Minority
Senior Professional Staff Member, Environment and Climate
Change; and Callie Strock, Minority Press Secretary.
Mr. Rush. So good to meet with everybody this morning.
Everything is all well in Chicago. I hope that all is well at
your home. And we are meeting now, so we will bring the
subcommittee hearing to order. I have my gavel here, as you can
see. So the Subcommittee on Energy will now come to order.
Today, the subcommittee is holding a hearing entitled,
"Reviving our Economy: COVID-19's Impact on the Energy Sector,
being COVID-19 public health emergency. Today's hearing is
being held, as you and I can see, and you are expressing, it is
being held remotely. And all Members and witnesses will be
participating via video conferencing. As far as our hearing
microphone, it will be set on the mute for purposes of
eliminating any emergent background noise. Members and
witnesses, you will need to unmute your phone each time you
wish to speak.
The documents for the record can be sent to Adam Fischer at
the email address that we provided to staff. All documents will
be entered into the record at the conclusion of this hearing.
And we will begin. The Chair now recognizes himself for 5
minutes for the purposes of an opening statement. And again, I
want to welcome everybody to the hearing.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOBBY L. RUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Today, the Subcommittee on Energy convenes for a hearing as
a continuation of the committee's work to address the impact of
COVID-19 on our Nation, our Nation's economy, and most
importantly, our Nation's communities. Historically, tragedies
encountered by this great Nation of ours have resulted in a
deeper understanding of its essential needs. The novel
coronavirus pandemic is no exception to this rule.
As a demonstration, this pandemic has further demonstrated
the need to eliminate the injustices suffered by minorities,
low-income, and other vulnerable communities. That is why I am
pleased to join Chairman Tonko for a recent hearing on the
unjust impact of pollution and COVID-19 on these very same
communities.
Today, it is the Subcommittee on Energy's intent to examine
the impact of this pandemic on our Nation's most essential
sectors. The effect of COVID-19 on the energy sector is broad
and sweeping. At present, the sector has lost a total of 1.3
million jobs, and stay-at-home orders have stunted electricity
demand and pending projects.
The clean energy industry, which employs more people than
any other industry within the energy sector, continues to
stagger, while enduring the sharpness of the pandemic's blows.
At its recent height, the clean energy sector employed over
3.4 million Americans, growing 70 percent faster than the
overall economy. According to recent data, this industry, which
includes energy efficiency, energy storage, renewable energy,
alternative vehicles, and more, have lost over 600,000 jobs
since March. Further, without intervention, forecast suggests
that one out of every four clean energy workers may soon lose
their jobs as a result of COVID-19. To put this in perspective,
that is nearly 1 million hard-working Americans who will be out
of work.
As chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, it is my firm
belief that sustaining and strengthening the clean energy
industry is essential to the recovery of our economy and our
community. The foundation for that belief lies within the
successful further investment of $90 billion in this very
industry as in the Great Recession.
That is why I am proud to join Chairman Pallone and my
colleagues in ongoing efforts to bring clean energy
infrastructure legislation to the floor. However, this does not
mean that the clean energy industry and the energy sector as a
whole should go on without change.
According to U.S. Energy and Employment Report, diverse
groups are frequently underrepresented in the energy workforce.
For example, African Americans account for merely 8 percent of
energy efficiency working people. Initially, the energy
information administration reports one-third of U.S.
households, most of whom are minority households, several can
afford paying their energy bills, and have little access to
energy efficiency and clean energy technology.
We know that there is more work that clearly remains to be
done. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Therefore, if
knowing is truly half the battle, then immediate action is now
required. I look forward to today's hearing.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rush follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Bobby L. Rush
Good morning. Today, the Subcommittee on Energy convenes
for a hearing as a continuation of the Committee's work to
address the impact of COVID-19 on our nation, its economy, and,
most importantly, its communities. Historically, tragedies
encountered by this nation have resulted in a deeper
understanding of its essential needs. The novel coronavirus
pandemic is no exception to this rule.
As an illustration, this pandemic has further demonstrated
the need to eliminate the injustices suffered by minority, low-
income, and other vulnerable communities. That is why I was
pleased to join Chairman Tonko for a recent hearing on the
unjust impacts of pollution and COVID-19 on these communities.
Today, it is the Subcommittee on Energy's intent to examine
the impact of this pandemic on one of our nation's most
essential sectors. The effect of COVID-19 on the energy sector
is sweeping. At present, the sector has lost a total of 1.3
million jobs and stay-at-home orders have stunted electricity
demand and pending projects.
The clean energy industry--which employs more people than
any other industry within the energy sector--continues to
stagger while enduring the sharpest of blows. At its recent
height, the clean energy industry employed over 3.4 million
Americans--growing 70 percent faster than the overall economy.
According to recent data, this industry--which includes
energy efficiency, energy storage, renewable energy,
alternative vehicles, and more
has lost over 600,000 jobs since March. Further, without
intervention, forecasts suggest one out of every four clean
energy workers may soon lose their job as a result of COVID-19.
To put this into perspective, that is nearly a million
hardworking American's who are out of work.
As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, it is my firm
belief that sustaining and strengthening the clean energy
industry is essential to the recovery of our economy and our
communities. The foundation of my belief lies within the
successful federal investment of $90 billion in this very
industry after the Great Recession. This is why I am proud to
join Chairman Pallone and my colleagues in ongoing efforts to
bring clean energy infrastructure legislation to the floor.
However, this does not mean that the clean energy industry,
and the energy sector as a whole, should go on without change.
According to the U.S. Energy and Employment Report, diverse
groups are frequently underrepresented in the energy workforce.
For example, African-Americans account for merely eight percent
of the energy efficiency workforce.
Additionally, the Energy Information Administration reports
one-third of U.S. households--most of which are
minorityhouseholds--struggle to afford paying their energy
bills and have little access to energy efficient and clean
energy technologies.
We know that there is clearly more work to be done. To be
forewarn is to be forearmed. Therefore, if knowing is truly
half the battle, then immediate action is now required. I look
forward to today's discussion. And with that, I yield to my
friend and colleague, the gentleman from Michigan, Ranking
Member Upton.
Mr. Rush. And with that, I yield to my good friend and
colleague from the neighboring State of--great State of
Michigan, the gentleman from Michigan, Ranking Member Upton for
5 minutes for the purposes of an opening statement.
Chairman Upton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Upton. I am there.
Mr. Rush. You are there, here, and everywhere.
Mr. Upton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's good to be back to
work in DC with my colleagues. I am on the third floor of the
Rayburn Building with several of our Republican members, and we
look forward to the day when you can join us . You know, the
last three months have been a real challenge for all Americans
as COVID has taken its toll. Tragically, we have had over 2
million cases and, of course, we had nearly 120,000 lives lost
across the country. With nationwide lockdowns in place, we have
been stuck at home, while business, construction projects and
manufacturing plants have been shuttered, and as a result,
massive disruptions have rippled throughout every sector of our
economy. Twenty million jobs evaporated in the blink of an eye.
Demand and for many, goods and services plummeted just as
quickly, and markets wield from the shock.
So, the economy has not been spared. And with fewer
vehicles on the roads and planes in the air, consumption of
petroleum fuels declined dramatically, punishing our domestic
energy producers. These same American companies were hit with a
double whammy as Russia and Saudi Arabia battled each other in
a price war over the necessary production cuts. And
unbelievably, oil prices actually went negative for a short
period.
The steep decline in domestic energy production has had
real negative consequences--not just for our economy, which
relies on the jobs and investment--but certainly for our
national security. Thanks to the leadership from the U.S., we
were able to push OPEC and Russia to agree to a historic
production cuts. And the worst now, hopefully, is behind us as
the economy begins to reopen.
Unfortunately, significant damage has been done to the
domestic industry, especially in small- and medium-sized
companies that support many of our local and State economies.
Not only will this threaten our position as the world's leading
oil and gas producer, but it is also going to make us more
dependent on on dirtier foreign oil and rollback the progress
we have made toward energy independence.
The pandemic exposed the security and strategic risks from
ceding leadership on oil and gas, and also reminded us of the
important role American nuclear technology serves both here at
home and abroad. We're fortunate this essential industry
managed fairly well through this crisis, but there have been
costs, and we should look at the role of nuclear as we seek to
accelerate our economic rebound.
Another unfortunate casualty of the pandemic may be
investment demand for innovative new technologies to reduce
emissions, such as carbon capture and its infrastructure.
The electric sector has also suffered significant upheaval
over the past few months, with a big drop in demand from
commercial and industrial users combined with record numbers of
customers who are unable to pay their utility bills.
Congressman Rush, you are on mute.
Mr. Upton. We did that inside America.
OK. Where was I? OK. Well, we have had real challenges in
all 50 States and regulators and utilities have suspended
disconnections for nonpayment. While the CARES Act included a
big increase in LIHEAP, expandeds unemployment payments and
programs to help individuals and businesses pay their bills
most states and utilities have programs that go even further to
protect their most vulnerable customers. All of this plays a
significant burden on our local electric utilities.
Undoubtedly, the strain on our utilities will have long-
lasting impacts on business plans and investments which again
could set us back. So as we begin to reopen our economy. We
need to stay laser focused on ways to maximize growth and
economic expansion. We need to get Americans back to work, our
economy back to historic levels of prosperity. And the next
couple of months are going to be critical to stimulate our
economy to dig out of that hole.
In particular, let's focus on projects that create jobs
right away, and restore U.S. energy sector leadership here and
abroad. So we ought to be leveraging the money the government
is spending with the private sector looking for the best return
on investments for taxpayers.
If there are regulatory obstacles that ought to be removed,
we need to hear about them. We need to build on the CARES Act
program and make changes. We need to hear about that, too. But
as we look to the future, I also want to focus on making our
energy sector more resilient to the shock so we can respond to
all hazards and future disruptions, whether caused by a
pandemic, wildfires, severe weather, cyber security threats, or
national security emergencies.
With that, I look forward to our witnesses. And I yield
back to my good friend and chairman, Bobby Rush from the good
State of Illinois. Please be safe over there.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Fred Upton
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's good to be back to work in DC
with my colleagues. Several of our Republican members are here
with me in our hearing room, and we look forward to the day
when you can join us.
The last three months have been a real challenge for all
Americans as the COVID pandemic has taken its toll. Tragically,
we have had over 2 million cases and over 113,000 lives lost in
the United States. With nationwide lockdowns in place,
Americans have been stuck at home while businesses,
construction projects, and manufacturing plants have been
shuttered. As a result, massive disruptions have rippled
throughout every sector of our economy. 20 million jobs
evaporated in the blink of an eye. Demand for many goods and
services plummeted just as quickly, and markets reeled from the
shock.
The energy sector has certainly not been spared. With fewer
vehicles on the roads and planes in the air, consumption of
petroleum fuels declined dramatically, punishing our domestic
energy producers. These same American companies were hit with a
double whammy as Russia and Saudi Arabia battled each other in
a price war over the necessary production cuts. Unbelievably,
oil prices actually went negative for a short period. The steep
decline in domestic energy production has had real, negative
consequences--not just for our economy, which relies on the
jobs and investment--but for our national security.
Thanks to leadership from the United States, we were able
to push OPEC and Russia to agree to a historic production cut
and the worst seems to be behind us as our economy starts to
reopen. Unfortunately, significant damage has been done to our
domesticindustry--especially the small and medium sized
companies that support many of our local and state economies.
Not only will this threaten our position as the world's leading
oil and gas producer, it could also make us more dependent on
dirtier foreign oil and rollback the progress we have made
toward energy independence.
The pandemic exposed the security and strategic risks from
ceding leadership on oil and gas, and also reminded us of the
important role American nuclear technology serves both here at
home and abroad. We're fortunate this essential industry
managed fairly well through this crisis, but there have been
costs, and we should look at the role of nuclear as we seek to
accelerate our economic rebound.
Another unfortunate casualty of the pandemic may be
investment demand for innovative new technologies to reduce
emissions, such as carbon capture and its infrastructure.
The electric sector has also suffered significant upheaval
over the past few months, with a big drop in demand from
commercial and industrial users combined with record numbers of
customers who are unable to pay their utility bills.
Despite these challenges--in all 50 States--regulators and
utilities have suspended disconnections for non-payment. And
while the CARES Act included a big increase in LIHEAP, expanded
unemployment payments, and programs to help individuals and
businesses pay their bills, most states and utilities have
programs that go even further to protect their most vulnerable
customers. All of this has placed a significant burden on our
local electric utilities.
Undoubtedly, the strain on our utilities will have long-
lasting impacts on business plans and investments, which again
could set us back toward meeting our goals of cleaner and more
efficient options for consumers.
As we begin to reopen our economy, we need to stay laser
focused on ways to maximize growth and economic expansion. We
need to get Americans back to work and our economy back to its
historic levels of prosperity. The next few months will be
critical to stimulate our economy and dig out of this hole. In
particular, let's focus on projects that can create jobs
immediately and restore U.S. energy sector leadership here and
abroad. We should be leveraging the money the government is
spending with the private sector--looking for the best return
on investment for taxpayers.
If there are regulatory obstacles that should be removed,
we need to hear about them. If we need to build on the CARES
Act programs or make any changes, we need to hear about that
too. As we look toward the future, I also want to focus on
making our energy sector more resilient to shocks, so we can
respond to all hazards and future disruptions, whether caused
by a pandemic, wildfire, severe weather, cybersecurity threats.
or a national security emergency.
With that, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.
It's good to see Secretary Moniz back in the chair, along with
Mr. Powell. We appreciate your contributions to the discussion.
Thank you, I yield back.
Mr. Rush. Well, thank you ranking member. The Chair now
recognizes the chairman of the full committee, Chairman Pallone
for 5 minutes for the purposes of an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Rush. And this is a very
important hearing in our committee's effort to address the
COVID pandemic by assessing its impact on the energy sector.
And we have a great group of witnesses, including former Energy
Secretary Moniz, who I was very pleased to have back with us
today.
There is no question that COVID-19 has been devastating,
killing more than one 115,000 Americans, leading towards more
than 44 million Americans losing their jobs over the last three
months. But the pandemic has affected all energy industries.
But I wanted to focus on the renewable energy and energy
efficiency industries that I think have been particularly hard
hit. Social distancing measures, supply chain disruptions, and
stalled financing have placed significant burden on energy
efficiency, solar and wind projects, and this is all erasing
years of progress in clean energy job creation in efforts to
meet our carbon pollution reduction goals.
Prior to the pandemic, the clean energy industry employed
3.4 million Americans, nearly three times as many as fossil
fuel industry. But the pandemic has wiped over 600,000 of these
jobs. And if these trends continue, some estimates show that
850,000 clean energy workers could file for unemployment by the
end of this month.
In my home State of New Jersey, we lost over 8,000 clean
energy jobs in April alone, and nearly--that is basically a 15
percent decline. And of those losses, two-thirds were in energy
efficiency, which is uniquely impacted by social distancing
measures.Municipally-owned utilities and rural cooperatives
have also been adversely affected by this pandemic. Because
they are not-for-profit entities, customers could ultimately be
forced to pay much higher rates at a time when many are out of
work.
The oil and gas industry is also hurting, and we should be
helping those workers along with others in the energy sector.
But clean energy workers are crucial to helping our transition
to a more sustainable economy. Climate change is an existential
crisis.
Congress has to invest in clean energy infrastructure. That
will stimulate the economy and put Americans back to work and
create new jobs in this critical industry for our Nation's
future.
Now, our committee has been working on infrastructure
policy, as everyone knows, since the start of this Congress.
Last year, we introduced the LIFT America Act. And then in
January, we unveiled the Moving Forward infrastructure proposal
that includes more than $34 billion in clean energy
investments. And these investments will stimulate the economy,
keep businesses competitive, and create clean energy jobs
during the severe economic downturn. At the same time, these
investments will lower consumers' energy bills and reduce
carbon pollution.
The majority leader announced recently that the House will
vote on an infrastructure bill by the end of this month. And
both the LIFT America Act and the Moving Forward framework
provide a foundation of the energy provisions that will be
included in that overall package. But it is also important to
point out that the lack of certainty regarding renewable energy
tax credits has hurt the industry. I know that is not in our
committee, it is in Ways and Means, but I have to mention it,
because while recent action by the Department of Treasury to
delay certain in-service data has helped, the clean energy
industry needs certainty in its system.
And I believe that it is critical that any recovery package
include an extension of these expiring tax credits. And I have
been hearing that from industry representatives.
If we create new jobs in an industry that was steadily
growing before the pandemic, we can maintain momentum towards a
cleaner future. And it is also critical that we help stimulate
the energy sector, that we are mindful of the need to make it
more diverse.
Mr. Rush, Chairman Rush has made that a priority on this
subcommittee for many years. And the response of the
coronavirus has highlighted significant racial disparities
across our country. And the recent tragic murder of George
Floyd has catalyzed a national movement that is focusing
attention on systematic racism.
So it is long past time for the energy sector to increase
diversity in the workforce. And I hope we can begin to see real
progress soon.
Chairman, I wanted to mention that I understand at some
point today, there is going to be an announcement in our State
about a major new development with regard to wind power. I am
sort of looking forward to that, but it hasn't announced yet,
so I can't really talk about it. But you know, we feel--and I
have been a very big supporter of wind power in New Jersey. My
district is along the shore. We have a lot of offshore wind. So
this also plays into my district and my State in a major way.
So thank you again, Chairman Rush, with all you do on this
issue. And this is going to be a really interesting hearing.
Thank you again. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follow:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.
Today, we are continuing the Committee's work on addressing
the COVID-19 pandemic by assessing its impact on the energy
sector. We have a great group of witnesses, including former
Energy Secretary Moniz, who I'm pleased to have back with
us.The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating--killing more
than 115,000 Americans and leading to more than 44 million
Americans losing their jobs over the last three months. The
pandemic has affected all energy industries, but the renewable
energy and energy efficiency industries have been particularly
hard hit. Social distancing measures, supply chain disruptions
and stalledfinancing have placed significant burden on energy
efficiency, solar, and wind projects. And this is all erasing
years of progress in clean energy job creation and efforts to
meet our carbon pollution reduction goals.
Prior to the pandemic, the clean energy industry employed
3.4 million Americans, nearly three times as many as the fossil
fuel industry. The pandemic has wiped out nearly 600,000 of
these jobs, and if these trends continue, some estimates show
that 850,000 clean energy workers could file for unemployment
by the end of this month.
My home state of New Jersey lost over 8,000 clean energy
jobs in April alone -a nearly 15 percent decline, and of these
losses,two-thirds were in energy efficiency, which is uniquely
impacted by social distancing measures.
Municipally-owned utilities and rural cooperatives have
also been adversely affected by this pandemic, and Because they
are not-for-profit entities, customers could ultimately be
forced to pay much higher rates at a time when many are out of
work.
The oil and gas industry is also hurting, and we should be
helping those workers along with others in the energy sector.
Clean energy workers are crucial to helping our transition
to a more sustainable economy. Climate change is an existential
crisis. And Congress must act to invest in clean energy
infrastructure that will stimulate the economy, put Americans
back to work and create new jobs in this critical industry to
our nation's future.
Our Committee has been working on infrastructure policy
since the start of this Congress. Last year, we introduced the
LIFT America Act, and then in January we unveiled the Moving
Forward infrastructure proposal that includes more than $34
billion in clean energy investments. These investments will
stimulate the economy, keep businesses competitive and create
clean energy jobs during this severe economic downturn. At the
same time, these investments will lower consumers' energy bills
and reduce carbon pollution.
The Majority Leader has announced that the House will vote
on an infrastructure bill by the end of this month, and both
the LIFT America Act and the Moving Forward framework provide a
foundation of the energy provisions that will be included in
that overall package.
It's also important to point out that the lack of certainty
regarding renewable energy tax credits has hurt the industry.
While recent action by the Department of Treasury to delay
certain in-service dates, has helped, the clean energy industry
needs certainty and assistance. I believe it's critical that
any recovery package include an extension of these expiring tax
credits.
By creating new jobs in an industry that was steadily
growing before the pandemic, we can maintain momentum towards a
cleaner future.
It's also critical that as we help stimulate the energy
sector that we are mindful of the need to make it more
diverse--something Chairman Rush has made a priority on this
Committee for many years. The response to the coronavirus
pandemic has highlighted significant racial disparities across
our country, and the recent tragic murder of George Floyd has
catalyzed a national movement that is focusing attention on
systemic racism. It is long past time for the energy sector to
increase diversity in its workforce, and I hope we can begin to
see real progress soon.
Thank you, I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio,
Mr. Latta, who is going to use the time for the ranking Member,
Mr. Walden.
Mr. Latta, you are recognized for 5 minutes for the
purposes of an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT E. LATTA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO
Mr. Latta. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is great to be
back in our hearing room today. We are holding this important
hearing on how the energy sector has been impacted by the
coronavirus health crisis. We would also like to thank our
witnesses for agreeing to participate today.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating
impact on our Nation's entire economy, from energy, to
construction, to manufacturing, to retail to name a few. We saw
businesses go dark, energy demand declines, and everyday
interactions, transition to digital and remote platforms.
Furthermore, this health crisis has also exposed a supply
chain vulnerability. Whether it is medical supplies or energy
products and materials, we have had to learn the hard way that
more attention needs to be focused on maintaining a strong
supply chain and building up domestic industries. This is good
for national security and good for American jobs.
I have also seen firsthand how Americans innovate to adapt
to the new challenges raised by the outbreak. For example,
during the visit to the campus, of Bowling Green State
University, just a few weeks ago, I saw how unmanned delivery
vehicles, robots, are being used to order food and beverages in
the community. It is this kind of remarkable innovation that
will help our country regain its footing in a global economy.
Finally, we must acknowledge the devastating loss of life
this health crisis has inflicted on our country, and around the
world. We have lost too many Americans to this virus. And tens
of thousands of others have experienced economic hardship due
to the shutdowns, including job losses in the energy sector. We
need to be doing all we can to help our neighbors get back on
their feet and get the economy moving again.
Again, thanks for our witnesses for being here today, and I
look forward to your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Latta follow:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Robert E. Latta
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing
on how the energy sector has been impacted by the coronavirus
health crisis. I'd also like to thank our witnesses for
agreeing to participant today, given the circumstances.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating
impact on our nation's entire economy--from energy, to
construction, to manufacturing, to retail, to name a few. We
saw businesses go dark, energy demand decline, and everyday
interactions transition to digital and remote platforms.
Furthermore, this health crisis has also exposed our supply
chain vulnerabilities. Whether it's medical supplies or energy
products and materials, we've had to learn the hard way that
more attention needs to be focused on maintaining a strong
supply chain and building up domestic industries. This is good
for national security and good for American jobs.
I've also seen firsthand how Americans innovate to adapt to
the new challenges raised by the outbreak. For example, during
a visit to the campus of Bowling Green State University just a
few weeks ago, I saw how unmanned delivery services -robots-are
already being used to deliver food and beverages in the
community. It is this kind of remarkable innovation that will
help our country regain its footing in the global economy.
Finally, we must acknowledge the devastating loss of life
this health crisis has inflicted on our country and around the
world. Tens of thousands of Americans in each of our
communities have lost their lives to the virus, and many tens
of thousands of others have experienced economic hardship due
to the shutdowns, including job losses in the energy sector. We
need to be doing all we can to help our neighbors get back on
their feet and get the economy moving again.
Again, thanks to our witnesses for being here today and I
look forward to your testimony.
And now I yield the remainder of my time to my good friend,
the gentlelady from Washington, Representative McMorris
Rodgers.
Mrs. Rodgers. I thank the gentleman for yielding, Mr.
Chairman, and to the panel for being with us today. Clearly,
like many, the energy sector has been significantly hurt by the
economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
For our economy to boom again, and for America to win the
future, we must focus on sustainable, efficient, and pragmatic
policy solutions that will not only enable our energy sector to
survive this immediate crisis, but also thrive in the next era
of American leadership. This pandemic has underscored that the
world should not be led by the Chinese Communist Party. We have
seen it time and time again that the CCP will do whatever it
takes to get ahead, lie, steal, cheat their way to global power
with no regard for human rights, IP, or the environment. We
cannot and should not try to beat them at their own game by
picking winners and losers by subsidizing companies or
technologies. Instead, we must foster American ingenuity by
unleashing innovation and lifting the regulatory and tax
burden.
Our ability for people to take risks, innovate, and make an
idea of success has made America the global economic leader for
the past century. And this same strategy will help us solve the
global climate crisis and ensure abundant, efficient, and
reliant energy sources meet the needs of future generations.
The strongest way to make significant process on reducing
emissions globally without further harming our own domestic
economic production is through tech innovations in clean energy
and storage that are efficient and cost-effective enough to
export globally to developing nations. Whether it is our
ability to extend hydropower capability, explore nuclear
technology, license new advanced reactors or develop more
efficient methods for energy storage, we shouldn't let
burdensome, outdated regulations stifle innovation. Doing so
will empower Chinese leadership and harm global efforts to
reducing emissions for a cleaner environment.
And thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
It is now my privilege and pleasure to welcome our
witnesses for today's hearing. The Honorable Ernest J. Moniz,
President and CEO of Energy Futures Initiative; Mr. Gregory
Wetstone, President and CEO of American Council on Renewable
Energy; and Mr. Rich Powell, who serves as the Executive
Director of ClearPath. I want to thank each and every one of
you for joining us today. And we look forward to your
testimony.
Secretary Moniz, welcome back to this subcommittee. It is
my distinguished pleasure to welcome you to testify once again
to this subcommittee, and we certainly want to thank you and
congratulate you on your many years of service. And Secretary
Moniz, you are recognized for 5 minutes for purposes of the
opening statement. Please unmute yourself.
STATEMENTS OF HON. ERNEST J. MONIZ, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ENERGY FUTURES INITIATIVE, FORMER SECRETARY,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY; GREGORY WETSTONE, PRESIDENT AND
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AMERICAN COUNCIL ON RENEWABLE ENERGY;
AND RICH POWELL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CLEARPATH
STATEMENT OF ERNEST J. MONIZ
Mr. Moniz. Thank you, Chairman Pallone and Rush, and
Ranking Member Upton, and members of the committee. Thank you
for inviting me here today to discuss the opportunities and
challenges in the energy sector for reviving our economy during
and after the coronavirus pandemic. I must add that COVID-19 is
one of two human tragedies at the forefront of our Nation's
consciousness. The other, of course, being the incomplete
struggle for equal rights and racial justice.
EFI fully endorses the emphasis on the Green New Deal
resolution on addressing climate change and social justice
together. We then put together a framework called the Green
Real Deal that translates this principle into practice, and
guides our portfolio of activities. At the heart of the Green
Real Deal is an emphasis on an all-of-the-above approach to
reducing greenhouse gas emissions as rapid action on climate
change must be born of practicality, not ideology or wishful
thinking. A just and equitable low-carbon future must
accommodate regional differences, and coalition building is
essential to success of the clean energy transition.
In this spirit, I am especially pleased with the AFL-CIO
and EFI to form the Labor Energy Partnership, slide No. 2, a
joint effort to develop a framework of the 21st century energy
system that creates and preserves jobs while addressing the
climate crisis. Our focus will be specifically in development
and commercialization of advanced energy technologies and
associated job creation.
Before looking at COVID impacts, it is important to look
back at energy jobs pre-COVID. EFI has partnered with NASEO,
and with the BW Research Partnership, to produce the 2020 U.S.
Energy Employment Report covering 2019, at slide 3. This is the
fifth annual installment. It fuels power generation,
transmission distribution and storage, energy efficiency in
motor vehicle sectors, employ 8.3 million Americans. Over the 5
years, 2015 to 2019, these sectors generated 915,000 new jobs,
outperforming overall U.S. employment growth 2 to 1, 12.4 to 6
percent. Energy efficiency, which employed 2.4 million
Americans, in 2019 alone, generated over 400,000 new jobs.
Diversity is a challenge. According to BW research, women
who represent 25 percent of the energy workforce, versus 47
percent in the overall U.S. workforce; African Americans, 9
percent versus 12 percent; Hispanics, Latinos, 16 percent
versus 18 percent. On a positive note, veterans make up 8 to 10
percent of the energy workforce versus 6 percent overall. There
is obviously much work to do. And I believe greater outreach to
women and minorities who are just preparing to enter the
workforce could be very important.
Needless to say, COVID-19 has impacted the energy sector
hard. Direct impacts on energy arise mostly from the social
changes needed to contain the COVID-19 virus and from the
associated demand reductions. The energy sector lost about 1.3
million jobs as of a month ago, considerably more than 5
percent of gains, and almost half of those were in clean
energy. Table 2 in submitted testimony, slide 4, shows the
pattern of energy jobs in States, as well as overall
unemployment filings. While California or Texas top the
rankings in absolute numbers across the board, the rankings as
a percentage of workforce show the national scope of the
challenge. Georgia and Kentucky have the highest normalized
unemployment filings. While Wyoming, Vermont, Kansas, Nevada,
and North Dakota have the highest fraction of jobs in the five
energy categories shown.
We will need millions of new jobs in order to climb out of
the COVID-19-induced economic hole, and most likely, additional
extraordinary actions by the Federal Government.
Given the demonstrated track record of the energy sector as
having considerable leverage with job creation, major
investments now in the clean energy transition, and any further
stimulus actions and in appropriations, should have a high
priority.
We have proposed, under the umbrella of the energy jobs
coalition, 22 specific clean energy measures under six
priorities, slide 5. Rather than discuss each of these
priorities, we outline in broad terms how we see the energy
transition evolving. First, we know that continuing energy
efficiency gains and buildings, transportation, and industry
makes both environmental economic sense.
Second, it is clear that the electricity sector is leading,
and will continue to lead the low-carbon transition. To achieve
carbon net zero by mid-century across the economy, the
electricity sector will need to reach that point earlier, by
2040, ideally, maybe 2035. Because success is some of the
harder to decarbonize sectors, like transportation, buildings,
and industry depend on expanded electrification. Natural gas
will continue to play an important role throughout the
transition, including as enabler for rapid expansion of wind
and solar deployment.
I appreciate that none of this will be easy. We will
certainly need to build a coalition to support an equitable
coordinated approach. To get there will require an enormous
all-of-the-above push starting now. Expanded renewable
deployment needs to be accompanied by advances in, and then
deployment and scaling of clean energy, energy industries of
the future for all sectors. Electricity storage, at all-time
scales, including weekly, monthly, and seasonal; offshore wind;
CCS and its associated infrastructure; advanced nuclear,
including small modular reactors and micro reactors, as well as
novel fusion technology; hydrogen; new infrastructures,
including CO2 pipelines; hydrogen storage and
transportation and more; secure domestic supply chains,
including environmentally sound mining of critical minerals and
metals; advanced manufacturing; big data analytics and other
platform technologies applied to energy; and the carbon dioxide
removal from the atmosphere and from the ocean.
With breakthroughs, other low-carbon fuel technologies,
such as advanced cellulosic biofuels and renewable natural gas
can also play critical roles.
The Federal innovation budget for research, development,
and demonstration will need to double or triple over this
decade. We need a supercharged decade of across-the-board clean
energy innovation with no time to spare.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
today, to discuss these important and timely issues. I look
forward to your comments and questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Moniz follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rush. It is my pleasure to recognize Mr. Wetstone for 5
minutes for the purposes of an opening statement.
Mr. Wetstone, please unmute yourself, and you are
recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF GREGORY WETSTONE
Mr. Wetstone. Chairman Rush, Ranking Member Upton, Chairman
Pallone, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify this afternoon. While my comments will
focus on the impact of COVID-19 on the energy sector, I do want
to recognize Chairman Rush's comments on diversity and commit
myself and ACORE to doing what we can to help address that
issue.
My name is Greg Wetstone. I am CEO of the American Council
on Renewable Energy, a national nonprofit organization that
works to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy
economy.
I am honored to join Secretary Moniz and Rich Powell in
speaking to such an important topic for the renewable energy
industry. And I am especially grateful for the chance to appear
before this committee, as I was privileged to serve on the
Energy and Commerce staff as counsel for a dozen years. It was
some time ago, but long-serving committee members may recall
that when I started with the committee, I had a full head of
hair, less so when I left.
In my 5 minutes today, I will speak to the economic
importance of the renewable energy sector, describe how we have
been impacted by the pandemic, and suggest ways Congress can
help.
To start, let me emphasize that renewable energy is now a
hugely important driver for American economic growth, with more
than 430 billion in private sector investment since 2009,
including over $56 billion in American investment last year
alone. Today, the sector employs nearly 550,000 Americans from
every State in the country. This growth has been driven by
three important factors: steep cost declines, increasing demand
from American consumers and businesses, and supportive State
and Federal policy.
There was every reason to expect this trend would continue,
and even accelerate in 2020, but COVID-19 has been a game
changer. Shelter-in-place requirements, supply chain
disruptions, delays in permitting, and a constrained tax equity
market have combined to exact the sobering toll. An analysis of
Federal unemployment data by BW Research released yesterday by
ACORE, E2, and E4TheFuture found that clean energy job losses
continued in May, although at a slower rate than April. 27,000
additional clean energy workers filed unemployment claims in
May, including 4,300 renewable energy workers. These hard data
findings are consistent with estimates from the American Wind
Energy Association and the Solar Energy Industries Association.
The analysis of unemployment data shows that the clean energy
sector, and this includes energy efficiency and clean
transportation, as well as renewable power, lost more than
620,000 jobs over the months of March, April, and May, which
translate to a clean energy unemployment rate of nearly 18
percent.
Nearly 100,000 of those unemployed are renewable energy
workers, meaning in our renewable sector, the unemployment rate
is even higher, just shy of 20 percent. We ask Congress to help
by providing commonsense emergency relief that allows the
renewable sector to continue to access the policy tools
Congress has already provided. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin's
recent decision to provide an extra year of safe harbor
continuity for many renewable projects is a very helpful start.
We asked Congress to build on the new Treasury guidance by one,
providing temporary refundability for renewable tax credits
facing an increasingly constrained tax equity market; and two,
delaying the scheduled phase-down of the production and
investment tax credits in recognition of COVID-19's widespread
impact on renewable development this year.
Beyond the need for emergency relief, there are lessons to
be learned from Congress' last policy response during the Great
Recession in 2009. The policy commitments made then lay the
groundwork for the tremendous progress we have seen in the
decades since, which includes hundreds of billions of dollars
in American renewable energy investment.
Part of the appendix to my testimony, I have included more
detailed descriptions and specific policy options, we would
urge the subcommittee and the Congress to consider when it
turns to longer-term stimulus legislation. With the right
policy support, renewable energy can help drive recovery from
the current downturn, as we did in 2009, and lead the way to an
effective climate solution over the long haul.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wetstone follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rush. All right. Thank you, Mr. Wetstone.
And I just want to comment, the scenery background is
absolutely gorgeous and so appropriate. Thank you so very much.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Powell for 5 minutes for the
purposes of an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF RICH POWELL
Mr. Powell. Good afternoon, Chairman Rush and Pallone,
Ranking Member Upton, and members of the committee. I am with
ClearPath. We advance conservative policies that accelerate
clean energy innovation across all zero-emission resources. An
important note, we receive no industry funding. ClearPath
grieves with the families who have lost loved ones to COVID and
appreciate the sacrifice of frontline workers tirelessly
combating the pandemic, and the decisive leadership of this
committee.
As you consider economic recovery measures to the energy
sector, your solution should be ambitious, but also pragmatic.
Too often, energy policies oversimplify. Renewables versus
fossils, economy versus environment, 100 percent reductions
globally versus inaction here at home.
These are false choices. The reality is this: Solutions for
recovery in energy must follow a technology-inclusive agenda.
All energy workers deserve a fair shot. Policy should make the
global clean energy transition faster and cheaper. Clean
investments will provide both immediate aid and long-term
economic benefits.
Today, I plan to cover the impacts of the pandemic, the
likely evolution, and possible policy responses. First, the
impacts of the pandemic. Globally, carbon dioxide emissions
fell a massive six percent due to the virus. That is nearly
half of annual U.S. emissions. But hearing that news is falling
into the climate trap. It resulted from a global economic
crash. Less energy used is not the key to sustainable clean
air.
According to the International Energy Agency, a perfectly
healthy global economy can simultaneously use more energy, and
emit little CO2. While energy use has fallen due to
closures and quarantines, reliable electricity has never been
more essential. Sheltering at home needs more Netflix streaming
and AC running. Our hospitals need uninterrupted power for
ventilators. Factories aren't making PPE in the dark or by
hand. Affordable reliable power is right up there with hand
soap as essential for fighting COVID.
So what should we expect ahead? Imagine if our hospitals
were attempting to rely on 100 percent variable energy with
slim options when the sun isn't shining, when the wind isn't
blowing. It should make us all appreciate the value of
uninterrupted power. Those who have long called for degrowth,
or limited capitalism, as essential to solving the climate
challenge, have been disproven. Clearly, the solution to this
global challenge is not less economic activity, it is even more
growth, more development, more prosperity, globally, in ways
that emit no CO2.
Meanwhile, as we debate how much clean energy support to
enact during our economy, China authorized eight gigawatts of
new build coal without carbon capture in March. China's climate
problem is our climate problem. Just like their virus problem
became our virus problem. This is precisely why we don't like
the false choice that if China and the rest of the developing
world aren't doing anything to slow their CO2
emissions, then the U.S. shouldn't either.
The rest of the world is purchasing high-emitting Chinese
technology like their coal plants in Pakistan, because they
can't yet afford the green premium required for most clean
energy. Further, China's stronghold on many international
markets for energy increases their soft power. China's
government clearly sees competitive advantage in their early
reemergence from COVID. We must move quickly.
Lastly, our recent arrest over tragic racial and economic
disparity reminds us that many communities of color, some in
generational poverty, would struggle to pay a green premium as
well. Yet, they would benefit enormously for better options for
affordable clean energy, for projects that support communities
sustainably for generations.
There are policy solutions. Scaling up a new technology
follows the S curve. Congress can help restart the U.S. economy
and reinvigorate American exports, while reducing
CO2 in the coming decades with four key steps. And
these are outlined in a chart embedded in our testimony.
First, we must innovate. A major program of technology
demonstrations would put tens of thousands of American
innovators and energy workers back to work with nearly
immediate effect.
Second, unnecessary regulatory hurdles needlessly slow down
projects. We can only put energy workers of all stripes back on
the job as fast as we can permit the project, which performs
NEPA and New Source Review, as Representative Griffith has
recommended.
Third, we must deploy technology to prove it at scale and
bring down costs. Smart incentives will help innovators learn
by doing, while putting people back to work, delivering the
technologies in the 2020s that utilities will need in the 2030s
and 2040s, to reach their net zero goals by 2050.
Fourth, we must export the proven technologies to new clean
energy markets. American energy manufacturing jobs will
reappear when we have products and export support ready for
rapidly growing countries, like Nigeria.
In conclusion, when you are promoting economic recovery,
solutions must work with market, not against them. Falling into
the false-choices trap means we missed the politically and
technically realistic debate we need. Done right, we can
advance stronger policies that commercialize the cutting-edge,
clean technologies needed to create new markets, new jobs, and
lower emissions. And when the next pandemic comes, it will face
a healthier, stronger world ready to confront it.
Thank you again for this opportunity, and I look forward to
the discussion.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Powell follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rush. We have now concluded opening statements, and we
will now move to members questioning.
Each member will have 5 minutes to ask questions of our
witnesses. And I will start by recognizing myself for 5
minutes.
And, Mr. Secretary, energy investments have played a
significant role in Federal efforts to address economic
downturns. And this was demonstrated during the Great
Recession, and also during the Great Depression. My question
is, how do you perceive energy investment and energy jobs as
solutions to the cumulative impacts from the climate and the
coronavirus crises?
Mr. Moniz. Thank you, Chairman Rush, for the question.
First of all, I can just reinforce your statement about the
actions taken during the Depression and the Great Recession. In
both cases, of course, as you said, a major energy focus. But,
also, I would like to emphasize the Depression, of course, with
rural electrification and reaching out to all homes in America.
So fast forwarding to today, I think we need--and Chairman
Pallone's LIFT bill, of course, has, in parallel, universal
broadband access, together with energy infrastructure and clean
energy infrastructure development.
As I noted in my testimony, there is a track record. The
energy sector, in the early stages of energy transition,
outpaced the economy 2 to 1 in job creation. So this is our
chance to pull those threads together and leverage great job
creation, together with moving in the direction that we all
agree we are going in, which is a lower carbon economy.
Mr. Rush. Mr. Secretary, recent reports suggest that clean
energy policy benefits and job opportunities are not
disseminated equally. This is alarming as minorities are both
underrepresented in the energy sector and several from
pervasive economic disparities throughout our overall economy.
That is why I introduced my Blue Collar to Green Collar Jobs
Development Act.
In your written statement, Mr. Secretary, you know that a
strong economy and clean energy transition and social justice
are inextricably linked. In your opinion, how do we ensure the
equal distribution of energy-related benefits and opportunity?
Mr. Moniz. Well, first of all, as I did write and just
stated it in a different way, if we do not address our social
equity needs. And, of course, unfortunately, many of those are
on display in these last weeks in parallel with the COVID
virus. But if we do not address that, we will just have
headwinds in trying to--in seeking the energy transition. So we
need to, I think, not only work, you might say, top-down in
terms of policy, but we also need to work bottom-up from the
community level and the worker level to see that it is not just
a question of stranded assets that a utility can recover, but
it is stranded workers. We can't have that.
And one example I will give of how good planning, I think,
can really accomplish a smooth transition for our workers and
communities is, look, take the extreme stress that obviously
the oil sector is under, and they will continue to be seeing
stress from the secular change in the carbon contents of the
economy.
But I believe firmly, all of the above, if we are, right
now, developing strongly a carbon capture and sequestration
industry in the United States, the skill set is very much the
same as those in the oil industry. A lot of the locations are
the same.
In other words, we have the opportunity to take care of our
workers in our communities. We need to do that across the board
for all parts of our energy sector.
And, finally, I will just say, and this goes back to a
discussion that we held, Mr. Chairman, in a committee hearing a
few years back, that we need to really focus on women and on
minorities in clean energy. I gave the statistics. We are
lagging behind, as we are in so many other parts of our
society. We can do this with a big push, and everybody should
be behind this. It will give tailwinds to where we want to go
and really serve our communities, both urban and rural, quite
well.
Mr. Rush. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Chair yields
back.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Upton, the subcommittee
ranking member, for 5 minutes for the purposes of an opening
statement.
Mr. Upton, please unmute yourself.
Mr. Upton. I will ask my colleagues, if I get muted again,
to raise your hands so I can see you.
Mr. Moniz, it is great to see you again. And, obviously, we
are going to the same barber. So, I look forward to seeing you
in person in the future as well.
But let me say just a couple of things. With stay-at-home
orders in place across the country, COVID pandemic really does
underscore the need for affordable and reliable electricity.
One of my Michigan utilities consumers has a very good track
record when it comes to preparing for emergencies, but it has
been so challenging to plan for safe operations during the
pandemic. On top of all the other hazards like severe weather,
cyber-attacks, things you have to be ready for, and by all
accounts every one of your electric companies have performed
exceptionally well during the pandemic.
So, Secretary Moniz, based on your experience as a
Secretary of Energy, what are some of the biggest challenges to
maintain that good reliability and resilience during this
pandemic, which, for all of us here, we have never seen
anything like it before?
Mr. Moniz. Well, I think your reference, Mr. Upton, to
keeping the lights on all the time tells us that why we, of
course, have enormous respect for our medical workers at this
time and other essential workers, we maybe should remember that
electricity is really, you might call it, the lifeline
infrastructure for everything that we do. There is no day off
for those workers.
And so, I think that they have been doing a fantastic job
in terms of maintaining good practices like the social
distancing, and, yet, handling all of the emergencies that
arise. For example, in the South, the spate of violent storms
that occurred about a few weeks ago.
So, I think not going forward, utilities also have a
challenge--and I know, frankly, in parts of Michigan, Detroit,
for example, there are challenges with concern over those who
have lost their jobs, not being able to pay their bills. The
utilities, I think, are taking on the responsibility of making
sure no one is cut off. But then, there are going to be
liquidity issues that they are concerned about in going
forward.
So I think in the Congress, there also has to be kind of a
comprehensive look at how we maintain service to all of those
unemployed workers, ways in which the utilities can continue to
serve them, and stay whole in terms of liquidity. Make no
mistake about it, this is the key infrastructure on which other
key infrastructures depend.
Mr. Upton. That is one of the reasons why the additional
funds for lighting were so important for the States and
utilities to use to make sure that it went down to the consumer
level.
Mr. Powell, you raised the issue of electric liability in
your testimony. And, of course, we all want cleaner energy. But
what are some of the factors that we have to consider when
looking at the electricity from affordability to reliability to
the environmental impacts that we confront.
Mr. Powell. First, thank you so much, Ranking Member Upton,
for your leadership on these issues, and continuing to find
ways to affordably drive clean energy transition. We hope to
balance all of these issues in priorities. In a crisis like
this, or even during a normal economic activity, we need to
have a steady, reliable on-demand supply of electricity to
power economies. That is a luxury here in the United States
that much of the developing world does not have. And ask
someone who is attempting to run a factory in Bangladesh, what
happens if the lights are continuously turning on and off in a
setting like that, we need that reliable electricity in order
to supply everything else. As Secretary Moniz said, it is the
back of our backbone. It is the core infrastructure for
everything else.
And that is why I have been so impressed by elements of our
electric industry going through this crisis. If you look at the
nuclear industry, for example, they had their spring refueling
cycle where 30 nuclear reactors had to be refueled, which is
something that they don't have to do all that often, only once
every year and a half or so, but they are doing it in a
coordinated way across the industry.
My understanding in talking with folks from the industry is
that 29 of those 30 reactors were successfully refueled. That
is an incredibly exacting and careful process which requires
thousands of workers to come into each of the plants, extremely
high-skilled labor. And they were able to do that and get them
back up and running. These are the most reliable power-
generating units in our country. A lot of them generate more
than 97 percent. So it is finding assets like that that are
extremely reliable and can back up our economy.
Mr. Moniz. Could I add one footnote?
Mr. Upton. Sure.
Mr. Moniz. Sir, thank you. As Mr. Powell mentioned in
developing countries, the COVID--the pandemics, as were said
earlier, really have no solution until there is a solution
everywhere.
Now, if we think of in Africa, big parts of Africa, without
reliable electricity, how can they support the health system
that will defeat the pandemic? So we would need to think about
electricity everywhere in the world as well, for our own
benefits.
Mr. Upton. Thank you. With that, my time has expired.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time has expired.
Now The Chair will recognize Mr. Pallone, the full
committee chairman, for 5 minutes for purposes of an opening
statement.
Mr. Pallone, please unmute yourself.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Rush. I know that Fred
Upton mentioned haircuts, and I want you to know that in New
Jersey, the barbershops reopen next Monday, and I can't wait.
I wanted to drill down on the clean energy sector, and
basically divide my 5 minutes in half. So I was going to ask
Secretary Moniz to talk about investments in clean energy and
how crucial they are to economic recovery in moving forward.
And then I was going to ask Mr. Wetstone about the reduction
tax credits and the investment tax credits in the same vein. Of
course, the idea is that whether these industries are going to
survive and prosper without Federal help.
So my question of both of you--so Secretary Moniz, my
question is, how important is Federal help in terms of
investment in clean energy infrastructure, how crucial is that
to sort of get out of this rut and move forward?
Mr. Moniz. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will not touch
your question about the barbershop reopening. But with regard
to support for, especially for renewables, clearly very
important, it was alluded to by, I think, Mr. Powell. Let me
just reinforce that if you took, for example, the 2009 Great
Recession and the ARRA program, it had many, many stimuli for
clean energy. For example, it allowed, in the end, the
Department of Energy loan program to support the first five
utility-scale solar farms more than 100 megawatts each. We now
have 80 or so--Greg would know better--but a huge number with
private funding. That is the kind of thing we need to do.
And right now, in, for example, wind, we need to build,
really build, invent really, an offshore wind industry for the
United States, an offshore wind industry with its supply chain
from everything like being able to make the enormous blades
required for a 10-megawatt turbine, being able to move those,
being able to have the docking facilities to stage that. That
is the kind of thing that we should be looking at, building
industries of future. And that is in the clean energy space,
the offshore wind being just one, one very clear example of
that.
I might on another one, by the way, which I believe is
referenced obliquely at least in the LIFT America bill, and
that is right now, even with COVID virus, we should be looking
for opportunities in efficiency, say, public buildings, in
community solar activities, especially serving disadvantaged
communities. We could be doing those right now with proper
social distancing, get people to work right now doing important
clean energy work.
Mr. Pallone. Well, Secretary, I think that--I don't want to
prejudge it because it hasn't happened yet, but I think that is
one of the things announced today in New Jersey is a major port
facility for wind turbines. So that is an example of what you
mentioned.
But Mr. Wetstone, in the time that we have left, same
thing, how important are these Federal tax credits, production
tax credit, investment tax credit, in terms of moving forward
and getting out of this loss of jobs, you know, for the future?
Mr. Wetstone. Thank you for asking, Chairman Pallone. The
renewable tax credits have proven an extremely effective way to
leverage the marketplace and promote economic growth. Since
2009, over $430 billion in investment. What we are facing today
with COVID-19 to help the sector, we need to make those credits
so they can be used by people in the center even as the tax
equity marketplace that is relied upon to monetize credits is
constrained.
So we need to make those credits refundable for a few
years, and we need to recognize that 2020 is not the year we
hoped it would be, the year it should be for renewable power,
and extend the phase-out deadlines by year, recognizing the
cost of the pandemic.
And I would add that we should look for ways to expand what
we are doing to incentivize use of advanced grid technologies,
like energy sorts, that should have a tax credit too. We should
be incentivizing better planning, transmission. The CLEAN
Futures Act had great transmission planning features. Those
provisions should be enacted and built on. We welcome a chance
to work with the committee.
We are launching tomorrow an initiative promoting a macro
grid. This is really to modernize, upgrade the Nation's grid,
better connect the seams between the electricity markets and
better connect the population centers with the parts of the
country that are rich in renewable resources.
Doing that, we not only get more efficient and cleaner
power, we save a ton of money. NREL's Seams Study says we can
save consumers $47 billion with that initiative, and we would
love the chance to work with the committee to move forward in
that direction.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, both.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rush. Thank you, Mr. Pallone. The Chair yields back his
time.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Latta of Ohio for 5 minutes
for the purpose of an opening statement.
Mr. Latta. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, again, thanks to our witnesses for appearing today.
Mr. Powell, one part of ClearPath's mission is to look at ways
the United States energy sector can innovate to meet these
challenges. Would you describe some of the supply chain issues
that have resulted from the outbreak of COVID-19, and how the
energy sector has had to innovate to meet these challenges. And
also, any specific supply chain issues on the nuclear sector?
Mr. Powell. Well, first, thank you so much, Representative
Latta, for your long leadership, especially on nuclear issues,
right now, the most important clean-generating technology in
the United States. I do think that the current crisis has
forced us all to re-evaluate the idea of highly globalized
supply chains around the world, especially supply chains, many
of which end in China.
The increasing tensions with China, the increasing
uncertainty over their public health regime, I think, has us
all thinking that ought to be far more diversified than we
currently are, and less reliant on any individual state.
And even before the crisis, I think there was justifiable
concern about our heavy reliance on China for critical
minerals. Many of the materials that are required for battery
technologies, and advanced renewable technologies, really many,
many clean energy generating technologies are these relatively
rare earth materials.
China has worked hard to develop, clearly, a monopoly in
the supply of a number. So I think that as a huge innovation
priority for all clean energy technologies, many folks are
thinking about finding more earth-abundant materials, as they
are called. Things that can be found or mined virtually
anywhere, or at least in far more countries and expending our
supply chains in technology to focus on those.
Nuclear, which you mentioned, I think it is very relevant
to point out that the administration has just finalized the
result of its nuclear fuel working group. The administration
heard a request from the uranium producers of America to look
at ways to ensure that we had a sustainable supply of uranium
coming into the United States, and that our uranium fuel supply
wasn't overly reliant on mucha (ph) and certain other unstable
central Asian republics that we couldn't necessarily rely on
for that nuclear fuel.
And I think the recommendations of that nuclear working
group were really insightful. They both pointed to the need to
further diversify our nuclear fuel supply, including much
heavier reliance on American uranium and to establish a uranium
reserve in the United States in the same way that we have a
strategic petroleum reserve. And they also looked more
holistically at the situation and said, If we want a
sustainable nuclear fuel industry in the United States, we need
a sustainable nuclear industry in the United States who are the
customers for that fuel.
If an industry is not growing, fine. And so it was holistic
growth at nuclear fuel, they also looked at the priority of
innovative new nuclear technology designs, and they suggested
that the United States should take on kind of a nuclear Moon
shot, or advanced reactor designs. And so I am pleased to say
the Department of Energy has just accepted its first round of
submissions for this nuclear Moon shot, appropriated this
Congress, funded in last year's fiscal year 2020 appropriations
bill, which would really get the United States back into the
nuclear innovation game, and demonstrate two advanced nuclear
technologies here in the United States by 2025.
Mr. Latta. Let me follow up. How has our global
competitiveness in emerging energy technologies been impacted
by COVID-19?
Mr. Powell. That is a great question. So one area where we
remain quite competitive globally is obviously the export of
liquefied natural gas. That is a place that is the result of
the incredible energy innovation in our fossil energy industry,
and the incredible story of public-private partnership between
the Federal Government and the, particularly, shale and
unconventional gas industry, which is really scaled up. And
that is an area that is continuing to go well. Although,
obviously, China was a primary customer for U.S. LNG. And our
current trade tensions with China will mean that that is a more
difficult export market for us. Although, I think other export
markets, particularly Eastern Europe, may well take up that
supply.
Other areas, I have to say particularly ones compared to
Chinese exports, I think we are at significant risk of falling
behind. I think for the manufacturer of traditional renewable
technologies, photovoltaics, we are so far behind it is hard to
imagine the United States are catching up. We are in a better
position, at least by value, in the winds technology space.
Greg could say much more about this.
In the nuclear space, I think that is really a place where
we are still neck and neck. China's actually exporting more
than we are now, but I think we could move more quickly by
developing advanced technologies, small modular reactors and
micro reactors, which could be a really appealing competitive
offering to a lot of the developing world, and still have a
chance to get ahead of the Chinese competition.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much.
And Mr. Chairman, I yield back. My time has expired.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the great State
of Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, for 5 minutes for questioning the
witnesses.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Can you
hear me?
Mr. Rush. Can hear you quite well.
Mr. Sarbanes. Excellent. Well, thank you for holding the
hearing today on a very important issue. I appreciate the
witnesses' testimony. Obviously, the pandemic has had profound
impact on our economy. And as we look to the other side of this
in getting our economy back on track, obviously promoting a
cleaner and healthier future for all communities is a critical
priority.
Secretary Moniz, in your testimony, you mentioned the value
of investing in energy infrastructure, particularly grid
modernization. I appreciate that. I certainly agree that
investments in the grid are important for grid security and
resiliency as well as integrating these new renewable
technologies that can help us meet our climate goals.
Could you just elaborate for a moment on how grid
modernization can be crucial to meeting the carbon reduction
goals and how it can also help stimulate the economy as we
recover from the pandemic?
Mr. Moniz. Certainly. Thank you, Mr. Sarbanes. Let me just
note two examples: one, in terms of the very high voltage
transmission grid, we need to really be able to build what you
might call continental scale grid, because, frankly, many of
our renewable resources aren't that close to some of the major
demand centers. And we need to be able to move that over large
distances, and that will require a big build-out, as well as,
to be perfectly honest, managing, of course, some of the policy
regulatory issues that arise in crossing various State
boundaries. But that is one example at the high voltage grid
level.
But now, if we come, especially to the distribution system,
we are just scratching the surface about integrating all of the
IT opportunities into that system. When we do that, we will be
able to manage a very, very different grid architecture,
including a lot more distributed generation, for example.
And secondly, I think it will unleash a lot of
entrepreneurial activity, as that will provide the opportunity
for genuinely new services when one has that integration.
Again, I think we are only scratching the surface.
On the latter, by the way, I might say that--and this is
related to COVID, maybe. I think with the impacts of COVID on
our social structures, our work structures, remains unclear. We
don't know how much additional work at a distance will become,
say, permanent in our society. We don't know if cityscapes will
change dramatically as less commercial space is required, and
maybe it is converted to more residential space. We don't know
how our rural scapes will change, especially if we have worked
at a distance in broadband. All of this can be enabled by this
integration of electricity IT.
Mr. Sarbanes. I appreciate that. Thank you. Let me ask you
quickly on energy efficiency. We know that increasing energy
efficiency is a win-win. It lowers energy costs. It reduced
carbon emissions. We have had the opportunity to work on some
of those projects together in Maryland, and in Baltimore, in
the past, as you know. So it can be a way to reverse severe job
loss in the energy efficiency sector, and it can involve
funding to State energy offices. They could leverage private
funding through performance contracting, resilience projects at
hospitals, fire stations, schools, public buildings. Funding
for DOE, DOD, and GSA could also help leverage the performance
contracting opportunities and increase resilience at Federal
facilities.
Would that be impactful on creating jobs in the short and
medium term? And maybe speak to how the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act, investments in Federal buildings,
modernization, green buildings, et cetera, help the economy,
and could reduce Federal spending on utility bills? So if you
could speak to that opportunity as well?
Mr. Moniz. Sure. You are spot on in terms of this being a
job engine that we could turn on right now. And clearly,
residential efficiency upgrades are very important, must go
forward. They may be constrained while COVID restrictions are
in place. That is why we emphasize an in addition. We should
really look at small- and medium-sized businesses. We should
look at the 850,000 public buildings across our country, urban
and rural, places where those restrictions would be far less
consequential. We can do those jobs now, and we should move on
that.
In terms of ARA, you are absolutely right. The Federal
building structures are another enormous opportunity. But I
would just note more broadly, frankly, if we go back to the
Obama administration, the efficiency standards put in place at
the Department of Energy will result by 2030, cumulatively, in
over half a trillion dollars of consumer cost savings, and in
about 2-1/2 billion tons of CO2 avoided.
Finally, I would just add, and you mentioned it, that we
could accomplish these efficiency projects using existing
mechanisms. Many governments already have those energy savings
performances contracts in place, but another is, utilities
across the country have efficiency programs.
We could go right now through our utilities and use those
established programs for residences, but also, for small and
medium business. So we have opportunities laying in front of us
which would have a tremendous impact economically,
environmentally, and for jobs.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you very much.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from the great
State of Washington, Ms. McMorris Rodgers, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Rodgers. All right. Good morning, everyone, and good
to see you from sunny Spokane.
Anyway, I wanted to ask Mr. Powell. Certainly, the
regulatory uncertainty is a big issue right now, and I just
wanted to ask if you would speak to the uncertainty that the
regulations are putting on our energy industry, whether it is
to address the current crisis, and to innovate in America for
this era of a new clean energy future?
So, I wanted you to speak to that and the specific question
was, can Federal subsidies, investments, or other financial
incentives make up the loss in private investment due to the
regulatory uncertainty, or the regulatory barriers?
Mr. Powell. Thank you so much for that question,
Congresswoman. It is wonderful to see you, and thank you for
your long leadership on hydropower, for your co-sponsorship of
the LEADING bill, the gas with CCS technology and innovation
Moon shot. Really appreciate your work and attention to all of
these issues.
We cannot underestimate the importance of this regulatory
issue. I will take hydropower, an issue I know is near and dear
to your heart. The re-licensing of dams is an enormous issue.
In many cases, it can take a facility a decade or more to re-
license that facility. My understanding is up to a third of all
of the hydro powered capacity in this country, 16 gigawatts of
hydropower is up for re-licensing by the end of this decade, by
2030.
And a lot of those are the smaller dams. And so, especially
for a smaller facility, they may just look at that incredibly
intimidating re-licensing process, and say, not worth it. I am
not going to put it in the annual requests for a 1-year re-
licensing, or I am not going to spend the decades and millions
of dollars in attorneys' fees to make this re-licensing happen.
That is 16 gigawatts of clean energy, and it is flexible, clean
energy. It is clean energy that can come on and off on demand
or serve as a giant battery for the grid in many cases.
It would be a tragedy if we lost some large portion of that
16 gigawatts of clean hydropower, and that is just one example
of the regulatory uncertainty.
To your second question, you know, can we sort of subsidize
our way out of this kind of regulatory burden we have put on a
lot of the companies. While I will absolutely acknowledge there
is a real valid role for incentives, particularly for urban
stage technologies, it doesn't matter how strong the incentives
are if there is no permission to innovate, and to go and deploy
that technology out of the grid.
Just two quick examples: Duke Energy in the Carolinas, a
place near and dear to ClearPath's heart, recently released its
annual climate report. It actually charted out how it plans to
reach a 2050 clean energy future.
As a footnote there, they note that over the next three
decades, a transition to clean energy is going to require them
to build twice as fast as they have built in the last three
decades.
If you look at California where they are working under SB
100, a rule that they have to get to 60 percent renewable
energy by 2030, that is going to require 2 to 4 percent of the
land mass of California to be used for renewable energy, not to
mention all of the transmission that is going to have to go
into that. If you can imagine all of that happening under the
current company apparatus, it is just very hard to imagine us
moving as fast as we would need to move with the current
permitting.
And I am not suggesting that we, you know, sacrifice our
clean air or our clean water standards, I am simply saying that
we have got to have the same protections and do it faster in a
more streamlined way.
Mrs. Rodgers. Absolutely. Another area where the Pacific
Northwest is leading is in energy storage and the PNNL, the
Pacific Northwest National Lab, is at the cutting-edge of
battery storage and the R&D around that, but China's
threatening to overtake us. In 2019, China installed 520
megawatts of Electra chemical energy storage, and their current
energy storage capacity is 18 percent of the global total.
What can we do to reclaim our global leadership, and just
if you could speak to that in the time remaining?
Mr. Powell. Absolutely. Thank you for that question as
well. PNNL is a remarkable facility, and their work on energy
storage is absolutely world leading. I would say the two things
that we need to do are: First, build on the amazing
breakthroughs happening at PNNL, and actually support them all
the way into the market.
There was an amazing new technology for grid-scale storage.
Canadian flow batteries (ph) developed at PNNL, an early stage
company spun out of that called UET, which got some really
support from DOE, but because we didn't have a soup-to-nuts
innovation apparatus, which actually helped them get all the
way into the market, the company struggled to sort of break
through that valley of death. And then, what do you know, it
was scooped up by the Chinese investors who promised to build
the first demonstration projects in China and suddenly, we are
at risk of that technology and IT being transferred over as
Chinese innovators as opposed to those here in the United
States.
The wildest thing I can say is, I think we are falling
behind in some of these things like lithium-ion battery
manufacturing. I do think we have got an opportunity to catch
up, especially with advanced manufacturing, both in lithium ion
and in these next-generation battery technology.
Mrs. Rodgers. Yes. Oh, thank you. So, we need to innovate,
manufacture, and deploy here in the United States. Thank you.
Mr. Powell. And deploy. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the vice chair of the
subcommittee, the gentleman from the fine State of California,
Mr. McNerney. Mr. McNerney, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. McNerney. I thank the chairman, and I thank the
witnesses. Especially good to see you, Secretary Moniz. I am
glad to see you are using your considerable intellectual
firepower to advance the clean energy sector, so thank you for
that.
The good news I am hearing this morning is that investing
in clean energy can not only lead growth out of the pandemic,
but it will also put us in a position to decarbonize the
economy, and while generating good return on investment. This
is all good news.
So Secretary Moniz, you talked a little bit about offshore
and the potential there. Anchored offshore wind is pretty well-
developed technology. It is cost-competitive now, but offshore
in deepwater is still kind of a new industry not totally
developed. What do you think the potential is for that to
become economically viable?
And the reason I ask is because the West Coast, there is
plenty of wind offshore, but it is all deepwater. We can't
really rely on anchored wind turbines and I want to see the
West Coast become a leader in wind energy technology, offshore
deepwater wind energy technology.
Mr. Moniz. Right. Good to see you, again, Mr. McNerney. I
think it is often not recognized that much of the offshore
deployment in Europe, which is often pointed to, does not have
the same challenges that we have in the United States in terms
of getting into deepwater pretty fast, and certainly, as you
said, the West Coast has that in spades.
So we need to--obviously, we need to innovate there in
terms of floating platforms. We have had a number of
interesting, I think, technologies put forward. But, frankly,
it has been very hard to get them to the stage of getting
licensed and demonstrated, you know, the way they should be.
We are seeing some progress. And, by the way, it is not
only on the East Coast and the West Coast, but also on the so-
called North Coast in terms of the Great Lakes. So I think this
is a--as I said, I think it is one of the--not just
technologies, but it is one of the industries of the future
that we need to advance. And in trying to create an industry,
that means we need a much more coherent approach, as I said
earlier, all the way from demonstrating, piloting those
technologies, in this case, especially the floating 10-megawatt
wind turbines, but the entire supply chain for doing that.
There are highly nontrivial challenges there. But we should
just get on with it, just the way we should with so many of
these other interesting possibilities.
Mr. McNerney. Well, I think it is interesting the way you
discuss creating new industries and not just new technologies.
Would you expand that, especially with regard to electricity
storage and advanced nuclear?
Mr. Moniz. Yes. On the storage, we have an awful lot of
focus on batteries, and that is, of course, important. Although
I would note that I think we need to really have a focus on the
different requirements of batteries for mobile applications
versus for stationary, grid applications. Because we have many,
many possibilities to the latter and that is what we should be
doing.
But, for example, in California, we did a study, our EFI
did a study last year. We published a study that just with the
data in California and the fact is that there were ten days in
a row with no wind in California. The solar resource not very
complicated, called Latitude, was twice as much in the summer
as in the winter.
So if we are going to build a big economy around these, we
need to have storage at weeks, at months, and at seasons, to go
there. Now, one example of that, as I emphasize, could be
hydrogen and maybe in California, we should be right now
prototyping, like a big hydrogen hub that serves multiple parts
of the energy economy.
Turning to nuclear, which was discussed a little bit
earlier, I have to say that, you know, it is fine to have this
uranium reserve, but uranium is not the problem with nuclear.
We have other, deeper problems in not having some of the
manufacturing capacity that we need for nuclear. We need to
have that. We need to get the small modular reactors and micro
reactors that can be made in factories and, frankly, we have a
national security problem.
Today, other than using the reserves of enriched uranium
that the Department of Energy has, we do not have the
capability today to make the fuel of the future for nuclear
submarines and aircraft carriers. We do not have the capability
right now to make the tritium needed for the stockpile.
We need to take this very, very seriously from multiple
perspectives, including the national security perspective, for
re-establishing the nuclear supply chain.
Mr. McNerney. OK. Thank you. That was a plug for a bill
that Mr. Flores and I are promoting on high-assay nuclear
fuels, so thank you for that testimony.
Mr. Moniz. Didn't know that.
Mr. McNerney. I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time is up.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the State of
Texas, Mr. Olson, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Olson. Thank you, Chairman Rush. And guys, I am at home
in Sugar Land, Texas, so the proper greeting for witnesses is,
howdy, y'all. Welcome.
The past few months have been very rough here in Texas 22.
We have lost a lot of jobs, good-paying jobs. Oil prices
dropped like a rock in late March, early April, because of a
supply war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. It actually had
negative prices. Oil dropped to negative almost $5 per barrel
for a couple of hours last month, and so we lost a lot of jobs.
And then we got hit by the pandemic crisis, the COVID-19. Lost
a lot of more jobs. So that means a lot of people back home
here right now are worried.
Can they keep their power up? Can they pay for it? Will
they be shut off if they don't pay for it? Will there will be
some sort of hurricane that hits that takes out their power.
And as was mentioned earlier, we had three named storms already
hit the East Coast. And more are coming, for darn sure.
Ten years ago, this picture back home would have been very
bleak, but as Mr. Moniz has stated, Texas adopted an all-of-
the-above policy. We used to just be black gold, Texas tea, all
oil. Now we are number one in wind production for the entire
country by far. We have an installed capacity for wind of two
25 megawatts that will power 6 billion homes.
Solar is growing rapidly as well. Right here in my home
county of Fort Bend last year, they opened up a solar power
farm that will power 40,000 homes. Two more solar farms are
coming online in the next two years, and these are state-of-
the-art, like the space station, they actually follow the sun.
Not like residence, which is fixed. So we embrace all of the
above in renewables.
My first question is for you, Mr. Powell. My home State is
kind of unique in the country, in terms of the electricity
market. It is completely deregulated. We have no capacity
market whatsoever. We have the power providers separate from
the power distributors. It has worked very well.
There has been some rumors about a moratorium coming from
DC that in a few years, with our rights to disconnect people,
whatever. And this has always been a State rule in the past. I
am concerned about DC overreaching one-size-fits all because,
as I mentioned, we don't fit all here in Texas.
So, Mr. Powell, do you share those concerns about DC having
a one size fits all to recover for this COVID crisis and impact
on our energy sector?
Mr. Powell. Well, thank you very much, Representative
Olson, for your leadership on all of these clean energy
technologies. Your long championing carbon capture
technologies, your support for energy storage. I do think this
is a really significant issue. Clearly, in the midst and the
depth of the COVID epidemic, it was important for utilities
voluntarily, and for States to take action and to suspend
disconnects, just as utilities often suspend disconnects in the
depth of winter when it would be really dangerous to leave
people without power at their homes.
That said, energy is not free, and if we want large
companies to make the really difficult investments to
transition over to clean energy over time, we need to make sure
that they are thriving, robust companies with strong balance
sheets in order to do that.
And so when I think about the appropriate role for Federal
and State responses to this, especially given how distinct the
COVID crisis impacts public health and the economy are across
the States, I think this is much better thought of as an issue
that is handled at the State or the PSC level, as opposed to
with a single blanket Federal approach because there are such
different circumstances in States.
And I think if there is to be a Federal approach on this, I
think as was discussed earlier by Ranking Member Upton, you
know, programs that already exist, like LIHEAP, which assist
people in paying their bills, are probably a better way to
think about a resolution to this than a blanket Federal
approach on disconnects.
Mr. Olson. Final question for Secretary Moniz.
First of all, Chairman, I have a letter from a group called
PSA. They are Petroleum Suppliers of America based in Mitchum.
I would like to put this in the record for the hearing. Is that
okay, sir? Without objection?
Mr. Rush. Hearing no objections, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Olson. Thank you, Chairman.
My final question is for Secretary Moniz. This goes back to
your days as our Energy Secretary. We will lose a lot of
peoples' jobs right here in America. A lot of expertise. Is
there a national security risk of these people being sucked up
by foreign countries like Russia, like OPEC countries, maybe
even Venezuela taking that expertise to their countries from
our country, by taking those good-paying jobs overseas? Is that
a national security concern, sir?
Mr. Moniz. Well, as I said earlier, I think that, really,
the solution is much more to build up, for example, CCS, which
you know very, very well in Texas, because that is where the
same skill sets are required, and I think we can create very,
very good jobs that would be attractive and keep those workers
and communities whole.
I think in terms of the international ramifications--well,
first of all, there are clearly some countries that could use
some expertise, that is for sure, like Venezuela, for example.
But I think the reality is that we have a lot of uncertainty as
to where demand is going clearly in oil. We don't know the
recovery from COVID. We don't how the secular change, if you
like, in the energy industry is going to affect demand.
And so, I think that the--the better way to approach this
is to be thinking about our national security is served by
building up these new domestic industries where we can keep
those workers and put them to work doing something very, very
important, literally building a new industry.
In fact, you know this, but maybe it is worth saying that
once we start getting into carbon capture and sequestration at,
say, the billion-ton-per-year scale, we are talking about
building an industry as big as the oil industry today. So I
think that is really our path forward.
Mr. Rush. All right.
Mr. Olson. I am out of time.
I yield back. Thank you all.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the chairman of the Environmental
Subcommittee, the gentleman from the great State of New York,
Mr. Tonko, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me?
Mr. Rush. Hear you quite well.
Mr. Tonko. OK. Thank you. First, we should recognize
utility workers, great operators, and other essential employees
that have been keeping our energy systems going during the
pandemic. And second, I want to associate myself with previous
comments about clean energy projects, grid investments, and
building retrofits that have been significantly disrupted as a
direct result of the COVID pandemic.
I see a clear need for immediate relief for these sectors,
as well as inclusion in long-term economic recovery efforts
through tax policy and other mechanisms.
Mr. Powell, I agree with your testimony that we need to
think about the policies that will enable us to grow a clean
energy economy. And it is worth noting that before the
pandemic, we were beginning to think of wind, solar, and energy
efficiency as engines for job creation, but obviously, that
wasn't always the case.
So, Mr. Wetstone, can you help us understand the growth of
the solar and wind industries over the past decade, since our
last big economic downturn?
Mr. Wetstone. Absolutely. Let me see--can you hear me?
Mr. Tonko. Yes, we can.
Mr. Wetstone. The wind and solar have both seen dramatic
improvements and cost-effectiveness, so they have gotten less
expensive. We have seen dramatic improvements in demand as
residential consumers and businesses seek wind and solar
energy, and the result has been a tremendous economic boom as
we heard from Congressman Olson about wind in Texas is
happening. Wind and solar is really across the country.
Last year, $55 billion, actually more than that, in
investment in wind and solar in this country. Eight years in a
row, renewable energy has been the largest source of private-
sector investment in the United States in infrastructure, and
that is--that is significant. And it was--the renewable sector
played a really key role in helping us through the downturn in
2009 and 2010.
Between those 2 years, we got $57 billion in new investment
at a time when the economy was generally shrinking.
So I am grateful for that question, and I think there is
really good reason to think that with the right policies,
renewables can play a really critical role in helping us grow
through and recover from the current downturn.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, and it is good to see you.
Secretary Moniz, welcome and good to see you. I hope you
can help us here connect the dots. I recognize that the 2009
Recovery Act was before your time as Secretary, but do you have
any thoughts on how these investments, whether it was R&D,
technology demonstration, loan program office financing, tax
incentives, or other DOE programs, how they led to cost
reductions in technology improvements that made possible this
job creation and economic growth that Mr. Wetstone just
described?
Mr. Moniz. Sure. And, in fact, if we take two different
ends of the innovation chain, if you like, I already mentioned
with the boost given to the loan program, it basically kicked
off the utility scale solar business in this country and,
again, up to COVID at least, a very booming industry indeed.
And as the industry booms, then, of course, the costs come
down, and that is what Greg Wetstone described. But if we go
back to the early--earlier parts of the innovation process, ARA
kicked off a couple of very substantial programs, such as the
Energy Frontier Research Centers, which solved hard science
problems mainly at universities and, of course, ARPA-E, which
has been, in my view, a fabulous program. Over 80 companies
spun out already.
So now, if we fast-forward to that, to today, now we need
to capture the fruits of that innovation, like all the ARPA-E
inventions, et cetera.
So today, what we would say is, here is the way to move
forward and get real stuff happening fast. Let's have follow-on
opportunities for ARPA-E, prefeed studies for engineering
design. Prototypes. Let's get them to build prototypes.
Let's get new ways of the national labs being potentially a
place to help these companies, literally maybe on their
territory, build the kinds of pilot plants and prototype plants
that get these out into the commercial sphere.
So I think we should be in a further stimulus or in the
regular appropriations process, these are the kinds of jump-
starts that we should have capturing on the last decade's
innovation, while we seed the next decades' innovation with
what I said earlier, a doubling or tripling of those
investments and really having a mind set of inventing new
industries.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I have other job creation and economic
potential questions for our witnesses that we will get your
way, but I thank you for the opportunity and yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the great State
of West Virginia, Mr. McKinley, for 5 minutes for questioning.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and my good friend
from Illinois.
Seventy percent of the lost jobs that have been mentioned
earlier were in the energy efficiency market, which includes
HVAC, lighting, insulation, appliances, on and on. Before
COVID, the efficiency market was growing in excess of ten
percent annually. Fortunately, economists are already
projecting that these jobs will come back once the crisis
subsides, that energy projects were merely postponed, not
canceled.
Unlike 2008, the job losses were not the result of a policy
failure, but look, if the United States is really serious about
moving towards 100 percent renewables, shouldn't Congress
ensure that America has a dependable supply chain? Haven't we
learned anything from the COVID crisis about the disruptions
that we experienced with PPE and pharmaceuticals? America is
simply too dependent on foreign sources for critical materials.
Consider the ingredients in a battery for an electric
vehicle. According to mining news, America is nearly 100
percent dependent on other nations for its cobalt, lithium, and
carbon anodes. The same is true for solar panels. Key minerals,
like silicon, arsenic, and gallium are primarily sourced from
China and Russia.
London University researchers have projected by the year
2060, the availability of minerals for electric car batteries
will need to increase 87,000 percent. 87,000 percent. And the
wind and solar industry will require similar increases. Can we
rely on this level of dependency on China? One option is to
start extracting critical minerals domestically, but the
environmental left doesn't want us to do that.
Arrogantly, they would rather have rogue companies destroy
the land and water qualities of other countries instead of
safely developing American mining operations.
For example, it takes 500,000 gallons of water to obtain
one ton of lithium. That is a lot of water. Extracting lithium
in Chile consumes 63 percent of all the water available in the
region. Now, consider that the Edison Electric Institute
projects by 2030, just the end of this decade, the United
States could have nearly 19 million electric cars on the road.
Using the amount of lithium in a Tesla battery, America
will need approximately 2.6 billion pounds of lithium. Think
about that amount, 2.6 billion pounds. Think about all the
water that will be wasted to achieve that. America's about to
confront a global shortage of key materials. So if
environmental groups are preventing us from mining, and there
are critical shortages developing, shouldn't we consider some
alternatives?
What about an energy source that is efficient, never needs
recharge, has zero emissions, and can operate 24/7? Shouldn't
we be considering that? That is hydrogen power, and you just
heard Moniz talk about that. It is already being used globally
as an alternative energy source. We wouldn't be turning our
back on fossil fuels during energy efficiency, but developing
energy efficient hydrogen fuel cells could be another tool in
our----
We still went carbon capture, 45Q, companies like NET Power
and Petra Nova, and advanced nuclear plants--look, the
employment in the energy efficiency market is projected to be
just a bump in the road, but the looming problem with the
supply chain of critical minerals threaten America's ability to
rely on renewable energy.
Wouldn't it be novel for Congress to pursue clean, carbon-
free emission energy sources without destroying an all-of-the-
above energy approach?
Rich Powell, am I correct on that or have I gone wrong?
Mr. Powell. So first, Representative McKinley, thank you so
much for your fearless leadership on carbon capture over these
past several years. I think the points you have raised about
the desperate importance towards diversifying our supply chain
for these critical and rare earth minerals and materials are
very important, both for domestics supply chains here in the
United States and also diversifying globally.
Take cobalt alone. We are heavily reliant on the Democratic
Republic of Congo because that is where significant rights
violations and awful labor practices are rife in the industry
in Congo. So we need to find other alternative chemistry for a
lot of this stuff. They are using different materials or
alternative sources for all these materials.
I certainly agree with you on the hydrogen front. If we
could find a way to economically convert our existing fossil
abundance, coal and gas in the United States, capture that into
hydrogen, capture that carbon sequestered underground, as you
said, we would have a virtually unlimited source--used for
multiple applications all around the country. Those are in
transportation or for heavy industry, or in our power sector.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
The Chairman now recognizes the gentleman from the great
State of Iowa, Mr. Loebsack, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Loebsack. Well, thank you, Chairman Rush, Ranking
Member Upton, for holding this hearing today and thank you to
the witnesses for joining us as well. It is great to see all of
my colleagues today, even if it is only virtually.
As we have seen, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected nearly
every industry across our country in countless ways. As we are
discussing today, the clean energy sector has been particularly
hard-hit, with over 600,000 jobs lost over the past two months.
In my home State of Iowa, the clean energy industry
supports over 31,000 jobs, many of which are created by small
businesses and provide economic opportunity for folks living in
our rural communities. I think Iowa is a unique State in some
ways for energy and electricity production, and my district
truly represents an all-of-the-above energy approach. And I
would like to say my colleague, Mrs. McMorris Rodgers, in
August, we are hopefully going to celebrating the opening of a
hydroelectric plant in my district. And thanks for working with
me on those issues. I really appreciate that. I see the thumbs
up there. That is good.
We are the second largest producer of wind energy in the
country behind Texas, as Mr. Olson mentioned earlier, and the
largest producer of ethanol and other clean-burning biofuels
that significantly reduce carbon emissions in our
transportation sector. And we have also seen tremendous
continued investment in solar energy. These industries have
suffered significant losses in a very short period of time, and
it is absolutely critical that we provide both immediate
emergency assistance where possible, but also look forward to
ways that we can broaden our investment in clean and renewable
energy to ensure that this industry comes back stronger than
ever.
I just have a couple of questions, Mr. Wetstone. First,
rural communities, including in my district, have been hit
particularly hard by the consequences of this pandemic. Can you
elaborate on the unique challenges that the clean energy
industry is facing, specifically in rural America? You touched
on a number of policy options that Congress could pursue in
your testimony, but can you elaborate on what you see as being
particularly crucial for the recovery of these jobs in our
rural communities, particularly in the wind industry?
Thank you.
Mr. Wetstone. Sure. And thank you for the question,
Congressman.
The wind sector is subject to the same shelter-in-place
requirements and supply chain disruptions, the difficulty
securing, permitting inspections, and constraints in tax equity
finance that make it hard to continue to move these major
projects forward. The same thing is really mirrored on the
solar side, but the wind is seeing that, in particular.
The new Treasury guidance--we credit Secretary Mnuchin. It
is helpful, an additional year to complete projects that were
built in 2016 and 2017, but what we are facing now in the wind
sector is the difficulty in monetizing credits, particularly
looking forward and you need that for the financing to let
these projects go forward, and that is the reason that we are
asking that the credits be made refundable on a temporary
basis.
I would also add that Congress, for the wind sector,
created an additional year of a 60 percent value production tax
credit for this year, and we are not really seeing the ability
to take advantage of that policy that Congress provided to
allow for continued growth in this COVID economy. So extending
that would be immensely helpful.
Mr. Loebsack. Thank you.
I do have to say I was on Interstate 80 east of Des Moines
just recently, and we do have a couple of new wind energy
projects there, first time east of Des Moines on Interstate 80.
We have another one even further east now under construction,
so that is some good news.
I don't have much time left, but Secretary Moniz----
Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time is----
Mr. Loebsack. I think I have about 50 seconds.
Mr. Rush. OK. Yes, you do. I am sorry.
Mr. Loebsack. Secretary Moniz, the biggest concern that a
lot of us have going forward is to make sure that we have a
clean energy industry, but also one that provides energy at
decent prices for our folks.
How can we reconcile some of those concerns?
Mr. Moniz. Well, first of all, I would like to say in terms
of the rural issues and more generally I would like to go back
and repeat that I think there is a big opportunity for public
buildings and schools and efficiency and modernization upgrades
in addition to the wind and solar issues.
In Iowa, certainly, as you mentioned, wind--actually, you
could have taken credit as having more wind than Texas
normalized to the size of the State and the energy. And just to
note that--because I think it should be stated that building
wind in Iowa has been such a fantastic way to also attract
business in terms of corporate sourcing of wind and solar, so I
think that is really terrific.
In terms of the cost, clearly, the costs, as Greg has said,
have come way down, except that we need to talk about the
storage implications, which obviously, today, add several cents
per kilowatt hour to the costs.
But my real issue--and everything we have already said in
terms of sourcing the elements for the batteries, et cetera, et
cetera, but I think, and I think maybe in Iowa, a real focus on
looking at the storage technologies that are specifically aimed
at large stationary use, which could be alternative
chemistries, not subject to the vagaries of the supply chain
constraints on rare metals and minerals, I think, could be very
important.
Mr. Loebsack. Thank you.
Mr. Moniz. You mentioned a dam and, of course, the extent
to which you can use hydro for storage on longer time scales,
like a day, would also be another way of integrating the
resources in a very economical way.
Mr. Loebsack. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the greatest
State of all, the great State of Illinois, Mr. Kinzinger, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You are right. It
is the greatest State, and you also are like my only chairman
that actually pronounces my last name correctly, so thank you
very much. I appreciate that.
Obviously, we have seen, in real disbelief, a virus that we
didn't know existed eight months ago, wipe out many, many years
of job gains, 110,000 American deaths and counting. But some
jobs are coming back online but the extent of the damage
broadly to the energy sector still remains unclear. But if
there is a lesson that we have learned, it is also we have seen
the resiliency and reliability in terms of baseload and peak
power generation.
Some have discussed the unusual stresses on the system and
the increased workplace safety and health protocols, but in
spite of those challenges, we have seen results. Mr. Powell
mentioned some of the successes in nuclear spring outages went
on as scheduled. Each involved only as much as one or 2,000
added personnel. Today, 29 of 30 reactors are online and
running with no blackouts or major disruptions reported.
Mr. Powell, in your testimony, you touched on the need for
regulatory reform as part of any approach to break our way
through the effects of the pandemic. The pandemic has forced
regulatory agencies to think of better, less burdensome ways to
interact with and regulate industry. During the nuclear
refueling outage, for example, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission took steps to make quicker, more efficient oversight
decisions, saving utilities time and enabling more efficient
operations.
So Mr. Powell, how can we take advantage of these lessons?
And should we encourage agencies to make more efficient
procedures permanent?
Mr. Powell. Absolutely. And first, Representative
Kinzinger, thank you so much for your leadership--your
sponsorship of the NUKE Act and just your long-time support for
this most vital and important industry, both here in the United
States and for its implications for our role around the world.
I think that is a terrific suggestion to find the best of the
places that we were able to streamline and make more
appropriate that regulatory burden combined with permanently
institutionalized changes like that as opposed to sort of
backsliding to business as usual going forward. Every
additional and unnecessary, you know, piece of paperwork or our
regulatory burden can have thousands, or even millions of
dollars of impact on the operating expenses of an industry, and
for a lot of these clean energy technologies, like nuclear,
that is very material in keeping plants up and running and
active.
Mr. Kinzinger. So what other regulations can be addressed
besides NEPA? Or what other guidance or clarity can the Federal
Government provide? So, for instance, I support the security-
minded goals of the administration's recent bulk power
executive order, but I can appreciate concerns about the lack
of clarity or guidance so far.
So do you agree that more clarity is needed with the
executive order, or maybe another issue comes to mind along
those lines?
Mr. Powell. I do think some more clarity could be needed
there. Obviously, there are significant concerns with the
import of some of these components from China. It appears,
perhaps, malware was found in some of these components. So
certainly there is an issue there, but we don't want that,
again, to, you know, overreach, right, and add unnecessary
additional regulatory burden to the industry.
The other one I will point to that the administration just
took action on, or an independent agency, the International
Finance Corporation just took action on was updating its
guidelines about what the DFC could finance and export.
As you know, the Development Finance Corporation is a
relatively new agency built out of the old OPIC, Overseas
Private Investment Corporation, which you all greatly expanded
in the BUILD Act of 2018. So it is now a $60 billion authority
with the ability to both do financing and direct equity
investments in American projects abroad and it was specifically
expanded with the goal of pushing back on the Chinese Belt and
Road Initiative, especially in rapidly developing as
strategically significant countries. Unfortunately, when it
became the Development Finance Corporation, it inherited some
of the old OPIC restrictions, including a financing nuclear
project, even though it had a much larger mandate and more
resources to work with.
And so I think it was very appropriate and timely that the
administration just took this step of updating that guidance,
or proposing to update that guidance, or proposing to update
that guidance for a common period right now.
Our exporters, particularly who have small modular reactors
or micro reactors, or even full-sized reactors to now use OPIC
financing, potentially come together to export around the
world. I think that is a great----
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you. And we need a Renaissance here
with existing nuclear plants, too. It is a national security
issue. It is a climate security issue and the Russians and the
Chinese have figured that out.
Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I will yield back.
Mr. Rush. The chairman now recognizes the gentleman from
the great State of North Carolina, Mr. Butterfield, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Butterfield. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
convening this hearing today. And thank you for all that you do
for our committee. You have been on this committee now for a
long time, and I have the privilege of serving with you, at
least for the last 13 years. And I just thank you for the work
that you do. This hearing today has just gone without a glitch.
I am very proud of our technology. And I hope that we continue
to use it as long as we need to use it.
Mr. Rush. Thank you.
Mr. Butterfield. Greetings to all of my colleagues. All of
you look good. I hope all of you are well.
Mr. Chairman, we in North Carolina, just like you in
Illinois, we are holding up, but we are still feeling the
impact of COVID-19 in our State. As of this morning, 1200
deaths, and that number is climbing every day.
The pandemic has impacted just about every facet of our
lives, including those that supply the electricity and natural
gas that we use in our homes and our businesses. I represent a
rural district, like many of you on this call do. I represent a
rural district in my State. The majority of my constituents get
their power either from rural co-ops or municipally owned
utilities.
And, so, today's hearing may not be the ideal forum for
this discussion, but as Mr. Pallone mentioned in his opening
remarks, municipal-owned utilities have been adversely affected
in a big way during this pandemic. And I would be remiss not to
mention that the municipally owned utilities in my district are
no different. As factories and small businesses have shuttered,
revenues have drastically reduced. Meanwhile, some costs have
increased for municipalities. And high rates and utility bill
delinquencies have occurred during this period. Why? Because of
extreme job loss. These utilities have been shut out of the
coronavirus relief fund. They can't borrow money. They can't
borrow the cheap money that is available for operating costs.
I know many of you are hearing this from your guys as well.
I hear from mayors, I hear from municipal officials every week
with concerns about how they are going to keep providing
services as the pandemic continues.
So I want to associate myself with Mr. Pallone's remarks. I
encourage this committee to continue working for its helping
municipally-owned utilities and the people struggling to pay
their bills.
And now, as we have heard today, the energy sector has
suffered, along with every other sector of our economy. The
study mentioned in Mr. Wetstone's testimony indicates that
clean energy jobs in my home State have been hard hit, with
over 27,000 jobs lost over the past three months. Specifically,
the solar industry, the solar industry, in our State and my
district, have been hit very hard.
And so, I want to thank you for your testimony today. And,
Mr. Wetstone, I want to just ask you very quickly, I am going
to go back and look at my time, 2 minutes remaining.
Mr. Wetstone, in your written testimony, you wrote that
projections show 32 percent less distributed solar will be
installed this year. Can you please talk more about the
pandemic's impact on this solar industry and the unique impact
on distributed solar?
Mr. Wetstone. Thank you for the question, Congressman. I am
happy to do so. It is a difficult situation. There is no
question of while the entirely renewable sector has been
impacted, distributed solar has been hit particularly hard.
shelter-in-place orders, work stoppages have made it very
difficult to continue existing work to secure new work.
Residential solar, going to people's houses to put new solar on
the rooftop is harder to do. Folks are less receptive, and it
may not be allowed under shelter-in-place requirements. We have
seen a lot of planned installations that have simply halted.
This is really the critical reason we are asking for a
delay in the phase-down of the renewable credits. 2020 has
really become effectively awash for many providers of
distributed solar because of COVID-19. So, the benefit from the
26 percent credit your Congress intended, we are seeking that
extra time in order to allow solar to continue to grow the
balance of this year, and through next as well.
We are seeing the potential, I do want to mention as well,
for wind to come back to pick up as well with an extension. And
I just want to mention energy storage which has such tremendous
potential for growth if we can get our credit there as well to
really match the growth trajectories we have seen at wind and
solar. I am happy to work with your office and this committee.
Mr. Butterfield. Thank you very much for your testimony. I
yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Moniz. Mr. Chairman, can I just repeat my earlier
comment about community solar, and maybe look at without having
the constraints about the residential access. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. So the gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the great State
of Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I greatly
appreciate it. First, I want to thank you, Mr. Powell, for your
focus on unnecessary and duplicative regulations that are
needlessly slowing down and, in some cases, preventing energy
efficiency and pollution control projects that could be putting
energy workers back to work in a particular for your support of
my New Source Review legislation that would streamline the NSR
permitting process, making it easier to update and retrofit
existing facilities to make them cleaner and more efficient. I
urge the committee to act on this legislation. It would result
in projects that are beneficial, both to our environment, and
it would create more jobs.
Mr. Powell, your testimony underscores that China is still
moving forward on new coal investments, and emissions in China
and India is expected to grow in the future. Unlike coal plants
and industry in the U.S. and in many Western countries, Chinese
industries seems unencumbered by regulatory restrictions. Back
in the U.S., facilitate the adoption of new, clean coal and
carbon captured technologies around the world.
Mr. Powell. Thank you very much for that question,
Representative. And thank you again for your leadership on New
Source Review. I think it is so important that we don't let the
letter of the law interfere with the spirit of the law. And we
don't let the existing regulation stand in the way of upgrades
and important efficiency and carbon capture improvements to
these facilities that reduce emissions overall. So it is very,
very important to address and reform there.
There are a number of things that we need to do to
radically reduce the cost and improve the performance of carbon
captured technologies. It starts with things like the
regulatory reform that you mentioned and had championed so
there is, indeed, permission to make those kinds of investments
on the plants.
We then need significant additional demonstrations of the
technologies. So while we have, at this point, one very large
and successful operating coal plant demonstration in this
country, in Representative Olson's district, the Petra Nova
project, which was completed on time and on budget, and has now
sequestered nearly millions of tons of CO2 into an
older tertiary oil field. We need more demonstrations of these
technologies in order to bring down the costs.
Secretary Moniz earlier mentioned the importance of these
pre-feed studies and these feed studies at the front end of
engineering and design, which helps an innovator and a project
developer to determine if there is a there there on the
project, if it is technically and economically sound under any
circumstances. And we have just funded a generation of those in
the Department of Energy, nine in total, on six new coal, and
three new gas projects. But that is just the beginning of the
journey for those projects. They are going to need further
support in public-private partnership from the Department of
Energy to get those projects up and built. And once we have
more demonstrations, once we know that it works, and we have
brought that down to the level where a direct cost share is no
longer as important. But for incentives to take over instead,
that is where, I think, the very wise 45Q tax incentive that
you all enacted in 2018, stands to come in and then shoulder a
lot of the heavy load. So let those projects and industries
learn by doing and start to expand.
I was very heartened to see sort of in the first leg of
Leader McCarthy's climate package on carbon management, the
proposal for a permanent 45Q tax incentive for--at the same
level for existing coal and gas facilities, and actually even
at a higher level for direct air capture facilities were an
idea put on the table. I think that ought to be an idea that is
in strong consideration.
Mr. Griffith. And I appreciate that. Let me switch to
Secretary Moniz. Secretary Moniz, you know, I appreciate your
concern for what is happening in central Appalachia, and my
district includes part of that and what is happening to the
workers there. And you have always been so good to try to look
out, both for the future, but also looking out for cleaner
energy.
Do you agree with the sentiments that China and India and
other developing countries will not abandon fossil fuels as
they seek to rebuild their economies, post-COVID? And would you
agree that we should not give up on clean coal innovation, and
likewise, that we should not cede our technological edge on
fossil research to other nations?
Mr. Moniz. Well, I think your question--and by the way it
was a pleasure working with you as well in your district. I
think you have already raised the key issue which is that we
need to get CCS. And I think Rich Powell really said it. And I
said it earlier in a different way. We need to build this as an
industry, not just as a set of projects, but we need to have
the mindset that this is a new industry with a major new
infrastructure. Once we do that, we will set the stage for the
global introduction of CCS, because that is what we need.
Mr. Griffith. And Mr. Secretary, if I might, I am going to
point this out. There is a new technology, a mobile technology,
panel-bed filtration system technology. It is going to the next
step. It is gotten through the first phase. And I think that
has got some real potential too. I will just point that out to
you. My time is up. So I am going to have to yield back.
Mr. Moniz. I don't know that technology, but we can look at
it.
Mr. Griffith. Yes, sir. I know you will. Thank you so much.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time is up.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the great State
of Vermont, Mr. Welch, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Welch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I want to
thank all the panelists for really excellent presentation. And
it is wonderful to be with my colleagues, especially on this
issue, because while each of us comes from an area like Mr.
Griffin and my good friend, Mr. McKinley, too, where it is
cold, others of us come from other parts where we have got in
Vermont a lot of solar and a lot of energy efficiency. And the
fact is that if we kind of adopt the approach that Secretary
Moniz has of all of the above, what is practical, what works
here, what is going to give us energy and independence, be
efficient, and be affordable and sustainable, there is a lot of
room for us to make progress together.
Secretary Moniz, I want to just ask a couple of questions
about energy efficiency. You noted in the outset that we lost a
lot of energy efficiency in solar jobs. Vermont, in fact, per
capita, lost the most. We want to get them back. And Mr.
McKinley and I have been working on a bill called the HOMES
Act, which would provide rebates to homeowners who employed
contractors to do energy efficiency. And, of course, our
contractors can't even do it now because they can't get in the
homes. And we have modified our legislation to provide an
incentive for online training and an opportunity for the
contractors to rehire their workers. They need the workers, and
we need--they need to be trained. We give a tax incentive--if
the homeowner gets 20 percent reduction through an increase in
efficiency, they get 2,000, 40 percent, it is 4,000.
Can you comment on your view about the efficacy of that?
Mr. McKinley and I see that as good for the homeowner, they
save on their energy bill. Good for the local contractors, and
that is true in West Virginia, Virginia, as well as Vermont.
And obviously, there is the benefit of lower carbon emissions.
So I would appreciate you speaking directly to that, if you
would.
Mr. Moniz. Certainly. I would be happy to, Congressman
Welch. Good to see you again.
I might just note in terms of the general numbers, the
efficiency--efficiency accounts for 2.4 million jobs in the
United States. And, roughly, half of those are in fact, in
construction doing exactly the kind of work that you are
talking about. I think that has not been generally recognized.
And Vermont has, in the table--in one of the slides we showed,
Vermont, in fact, has the largest number of efficiency workers
normalized to its workforce size in the country.
So, unfortunately, the other side of that coin is that
temporarily, at least, you have been hit hard. Hopefully, that
will come back.
I think the incentives you are talking about, I think, are
really important and have all the benefits you say. There is no
need to repeat them. I would just add that I would urge that,
again, thinking about also broadening the program to be able to
include some small businesses, some public buildings, for
example, because that may be where if there are lingering
constraints on getting into homes, then those are places where
there is lots of time during the day without significant
occupancy. And so with--still with appropriate social
distancing, I think those jobs could go on now.
So, I certainly agree with the focus on homes, but as long
as those remain a little bit constrained, maybe we should open
the aperture. The same----
Mr. Welch. Yes, excellent suggestion. One other question. I
saw that BP did a write-down of its assets, anticipating
projected lower price of oil. And in their announcement, they
really are making the commitment to try to move into a new non-
oil-based, or a nonfossil fuel-based economy. What role do you
see the major oil companies playing in the energy
transformation that we are discussing today?
Mr. Moniz. I don't know the details of that write-down, but
I saw that--I think it was $17 billion. And I might add to
that, the announcement a little while ago about Shell reducing
its dividend by two-thirds, that--both of those say to me, Yes,
they are not looking near term. They are looking at structural
change.
So in that context, the way I see it, and I know this is
controversial, but the way I see it is, it is all about
coalitions, and we need the biggest tent coalition we can find
to move as fast as we can. Frankly, the energy companies have
to be part of that coalition for us to move as fast as we can.
So Shell and BP, having mentioned those earlier, as well as
American companies, Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Occidental,
they were all part of a Vatican convocation that I was a part
of last year. And they were all signatories to a pricing
statement, from an emissions pricing statement, and to a
corporate transparency in carbon reporting statement.
So I think the issue is, now we have to get beyond crawling
the talk to at least walking the talk, and eventually running
the talk, so that they can be part of the solution. I think
that is----
Mr. Welch. Thank you, Secretary. I yield back.
Mr. Moniz. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the great State
of Ohio, Mr. Johnson, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Well, thank you, Chairman Rush and Ranking
Member Upton for holding this important hearing today. And
thanks to our witnesses for being with us as well.
Mr. Chairman, I asked for a June 16th, 2020 letter from the
American Exploration and Production Council to the chairman and
Republican leaders are to be entered into the record.
Mr. Rush. Hearing no objections, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, the
American Exploration and Production Council represents
independent oil and gas producers around the country, including
here in eastern and southeastern Ohio. According to their
findings, 65 percent of on-land oil drilling rigs have been
idle in the U.S. as a result of this unprecedented drop in
demand, due to the COVID shutdown, and it was made even worse
by the Saudi-Russian-induced price war.
In energy-rich parts of our country, like my district, the
Shell revolution has provided an economic lifeline to
communities. But according to data from the American Petroleum
Institute, Ohio has seen the largest year-to-date drop in
natural gas production in over 6 years. However, I am proud
that through this crisis, Congress remained responsive.
In fact, many of us on this subcommittee worked together in
a bipartisan way to soften the economic blow. We urged the
administration to utilize the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, keep
PPE and mainstream lending open for oil and gas producers, and
we pushed the Trump administration to get the Russians and
Saudis to knock it off. Fortunately, we are seeing signs of a
rebound.
We can't look backwards now, though, and this is certainly
not the time to exploit a crisis to advance extreme Green New
Deal-type policies. Our competitors and our adversaries are
watching. China, Russia, Iran, and others are looking to chip
away at the dominance we have achieved over the past decade,
due to the Shell revolution, rising LNG exports, reliable coal
reserves, and cutting-edge nuclear generation technology.
Renewable energy and other innovations have their place,
and I don't deny that. But we can't lose sight of what will
remain the backbone of America's global energy diplomacy
strategy going forward.
So let me start with Mr. Powell. Mr. Powell, whether it is
LNG being an oil net exporter, or in your area of expertise,
taking the lead in cutting-edge nuclear technology and other
advances, what are some of the consequences if America were to
lose its seat at the head of the table in global energy
competition? And provide some examples, if you could.
Mr. Powell. Thanks very much for that question,
Representative Johnson. It is very good to see you again.
It is a vital issue. You know, I think when we saw in the
midst of this crisis for global oil and gas, the ability now
for the United States to go and become a real broker in the
global resolution as opposed to a supplicant to countries like
Saudi Arabia and Russia, a position that we were in before, we
began to get a net ex of these commodities, it is just a
completely different position for our country. And it finds a
completely different security and geopolitical posture around
the world.
Imagine if this had been a crisis on the other side of
extremely high oil and gas prices, which would have an impact
less on the oil and gas industry, but on consumers and the
economy around the country, having that seat at the table when
the position is reversed, as it surely will, right? So when we
think about these oil and gas prices, in the near term,
whatever it looks like, but remember these things will swing
back. Having that seat at the table is just so important.
Having that seat at the table as well on nuclear energy is
extremely--you should remember that the world will build more
nuclear energy.
So it is simply a choice about whether they will build
American reactors with all of our safeguards, and with all of
the security and long-term economic association and diplomacy
benefits that that brings, literally centuries-long
relationships with those countries, or whether they are----
Mr. Johnson. Let's dig into that a little bit. You know,
one of our chief competitor, China, you just mentioned,
continues to invest in developing advanced technologies,
including nuclear and energy--other energy-related areas.
So what can the Department of Energy in Congress do better
to partner with American innovators and energy producers to get
burdensome regulations out of the way and work to maintain
America's global leadership in this space?
Mr. Powell. So, first, we need to think very strategically
about the many countries within China has a Belt and Road
Initiative relationship that is already building nuclear, and
they are interested in nuclear, and see those as kind of target
states, like the ones where--especially we already have
existing nuclear agreements, or could soon have nuclear
agreements and think strategically about how we can take a
whole-of-government approach to combine the resources of State
Department and economic diplomacy, with, as I mentioned
earlier, the Belt Climate Corporation (ph), the Export/Import
Bank, the Department of Energy and all of its resources.
The recent fuel working group report recommended that we
ought to reinstall, at a White House level, a senior official
responsible for global nuclear trade that would sort of
quarterback all of those different resources. So I think that
is an excellent suggestion. And I hope the administration moves
forward with that expeditiously.
Mr. Johnson. OK. Well, thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the great State
of Oregon, Mr. Schrader for 5 minutes.
Mr. Schrader. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I really
appreciate you having this hearing, and the attendance here of
getting everybody once again together, talking about something
other than COVID-19, which is kind of nice. Although, again, I
would take advantage of the crisis. There is an opportunity for
us to do some things and redirect our efforts, particularly in
the energy sector going forward.
Mr. Powell, you talk a little bit about in your testimony,
about some concerns with regard to some of the well-meaning
activists in the renewable energy sector, and being 100 percent
renewable, and the practicality of the that, practical effects
of that, you know, when the wind isn't blowing and the sun
isn't shining. Can you elaborate a little on that?
Mr. Powell. Thank you very much for that question,
Representative. It is an important issue and shouldn't be
overlooked.
We want a power sector that needs to run 100 percent of the
time. And right now, we have a very limited ability to store
electricity over periods of time. This is not a commodity like
milk, for example, where we have got refrigeration, and you can
consume milk several days after it is produced by a cow. It
literally needs to be produced at virtually the same second
that it is--that it is consumed somewhere else.
Energy storage is starting to change that game. But even
all of the progress we have made on energy storage in the past
decade would store, you know, seconds or minutes at most of all
electricity produced in this country. So we would need to go so
much further. And that is why we need to have, in addition, to
variable intermittent renewable energy, we need to have
flexible renewable energy like hydropower and geothermal, and
we need to have other flexible zero-emission resources, like
coal and natural gas, carbon capture, and advanced nuclear
technology that can ramp up and down.
Mr. Schrader. We are very big in Oregon and all those
renewable areas, we have very vibrant hydro, geothermal, and
certainly working like everybody else in the country on wind
and solar. But I want to make sure the light switch goes on at
the end of the day. Also being in Congress, I have learned that
for a lot of my colleagues around the country, their whole
economy is driven by the fossil fuel industry.
And it has made me pause a little bit in my absolute
righteousness with regard to renewable energy. And, you know,
and you commented, I think, in your testimony a little bit
about how if we want to get emissions down, we got to get
global emissions down. I hope and pray we do our part in the
United States. But we need to get China, India, others.
Do you see them abandoning a coal strategy at all? We have
had other testimony before, but there are a lot of coal plants
still being built overseas.
Mr. Powell. There sure are. As you take a look at China, as
I think I mentioned in my testimony, as part of their stimulus
package, they already green-lit 8 gigawatts of new coal plants,
which is really substantial. It would be sort of equivalent to
20 percent in the U.S. a day. They have got somewhere between
100 and 200 gigawatts of additional coal plants and pipeline
domestically. And globally, as part of the Belt and Road
Initiative, they are building about another 100 gigawatts
around the world. So about half of our power projects that they
are undertaking.
About ten million people work in the coal value chain in
China. So, for perspective, that is about 100 Chinese are, in
some way, connected to that industry.
It is sort of hard to imagine them abandoning the coal
industry. And I think what we need to be thinking about are
what are the ways that we can develop the technologies here
that would allow them to keep using that resource, which they
are very likely to use. A lot of those coal plants are brand
new--the average age is 11 years old in China--to keep them
using that technology going forward, without abandoning all of
those people and workers, but to put it in a way that brings
down and eliminates the emissions.
Mr. Schrader. That is what we are trying to do here,
actually. I am working on a bill with Representative McKinley
from coal country about what is the future of American energy
independence.
And Secretary Moniz, I know you have been very active in
the all-of-the-above approach. You have talked about--I think
in your testimony, you talked about coalitions that need to be
built. You can't just talk the walk, you got to walk the walk.
Well, Rep McKinley and I are trying to do that. We are trying
to take an all-of-the-above approach. And the piece of
legislation, I think you are familiar with, that the goal is
get all of our power plants, the United States of America, down
to near zero carbon emissions, reduces those emissions by 95
percent.
David and I are rolling the dice a little bit on our own
States and the energy sources we have and trying not to
prejudice the discussion by eliminating one energy source.
Rather, like you all have talked about, making huge innovations
in technology to get carbon sequestration real. I have talked
with some members of my committee about capturing carbon from
the atmosphere; some game changers here.
Could you comment on some of the outlines a little bit of
legislation on that, please?
Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from my neighboring State, the great
State of Indiana, Mr. Bucshon, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to State that
I recently attended orthopedic surgery practices, the opening
of their new solar arrays. And they are now energy neutral, so
it is good to see healthcare providers lead the way on clean
energy generation.
Mr. Powell, I want to pick up on the innovation being
raised by you and others today as it applies to the resiliency
of our energy systems. This committee has stressed the
importance of having a reliable and resilient grid, and perhaps
nothing has showcased that importance more than the COVID-19
pandemic.
While every industry wrestled with the unique challenges of
working remotely, our energy workers have continued to keep the
lights on, and the TV streaming services shows running with no
major disruptions. One of the key principles to a resilient
grid that we have talked about for a number of years has been
the need for a diverse fuel source all-of-the-above approach,
which we have talked about today for our energy generation.
This is important for addressing all the potential hazards
that may impact the reliable, affordable delivery of electrical
power in the United States.
One of the risks the Nation faces as it turns away from
coal generation is the loss of key capabilities to other
nations, as we have talked about, as they continue to use coal
power to build and grow. And by doing so we risk losing the
skills base in jobs and relevant high-end combustion and
emissions control technologies such as carbon capture. If we
are going to rebuild our manufacturing and technology
competitiveness and energy, how do we do that, Mr. Powell, will
we continue to allow critical industrial capabilities to
literally, deplete and die off, with divesting completely in
the coal industry as some people have suggested?
Mr. Powell. Well, thank you for that question,
Representative Bucshon, and thank you so much for your
leadership across these clean energy issues, including our
hydro power, another issue that is very near and dear to my
heart, and your heart, I think. This issue of skills in
workforce is just so important. If you talked to the folks at
Southern Company about the difficulty they had in identifying
workers with real special expertise, like high-energy welding,
to build the two nuclear reactors in Georgia, you get a sense
of what happens when you allow some part of your industrial and
construction expertise to atrophy in your workforce.
Fewer people take on that highly skilled labor and invest
in years required to get the certification and the expertise to
do it. And then soon, you find yourself in a position where
either that labor is completely unavailable, or it is so
expensive that it actually makes the project very, very
difficult to undertake.
So continuously, you know, exercising, frankly building
that muscle mass, maintaining that muscle mass by finding a way
to develop those projects here in the United States, so that we
can then export them around the world is very important. And
that is why we support things like demonstration projects for
these new advanced coal technologies. We will get a permanent
extension of [inaudible] Access putting on generations of these
technologies.
Mr. Bucshon. Yes, I think the risk of losing high-skilled
workers, particularly in the coal industry or fossil fuel
industry, is real. And if we want to be competitive, you know,
it is clear that the world will continue to demand coal for the
foreseeable future. So to ensure it is the cleanest burning
technology, shouldn't the U.S. be competing there and taking
advantage of carbon capture and sequestration and other tools
to actually build the newest, cleanest most innovative
projects? I guess my question is, we should be leading,
correct, in developing these types of technologies and not
allowing our workforce to deplete to the point where we really
can't compete.
Mr. Powell. Of course. We think that the--you know, while
it is very important for the United States to reduce its own
emissions, with the climate mass is daunting, and globally, we
need to bring down those global emissions, we are in the
highest and best use of the U.S. powered grid is almost as test
set for all of these different resources so that we can be
innovating the technology, so that we can be maintaining the
work forces, and the experts who can then go, fly around, and
provide technical assistance around the world in making these
retrofits and developing their own clean energy grids and
retrofitting their own existing grids.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
Mr. Rush. Thank you, gentleman.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from New Hampshire,
Ms. Kuster, for 5 minutes. Unmute your mike.
Ms. Kuster. Again, I am sorry. I did want--thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for convening this important hearing on the COVID-19
impact on the energy sector.
Clean energy jobs are good for our local communities, our
economy, and our planet. And more than 17,000 granted Staters
are employed in clean energy jobs that can't be outsourced, and
many of them are in our rural community. I am particularly
proud that 13 percent of our clean energy workforce is combined
of veterans. It is not surprising that after serving their
country, veterans are drawn to a field where they can continue
to make a difference.
But, unfortunately, we know that COVID-19 has had a
tremendous impact on clean energy jobs. At the 3rd of the
month, I held a conversation with my colleague, Chris Pappas,
with more than 30 clean energy groups. We were distressed to
hear that nearly 2,000 grantees have lost their jobs in this
industry because of COVID-19. And while this is a challenging
time, I also believe it could be a moment of opportunity to
double-down on our efforts to create clean jobs and cut
greenhouse emissions.
Earlier this year, I unveiled a clean energy agenda which
highlights a number of bills, most of them bipartisan, that
Congress can address this year to promote clean energy in
America. It is imperative that we continue to focus on these
solutions as we move forward.
Secretary Moniz, in your testimony, you described clean
energy jobs as an economic powerhouse. Can you describe why
these jobs have such an impact on local economies and global
emissions?
Mr. Moniz. Well, thank you, Ms. Kuster. Well, the first
fact again, I will just repeat, we saw for five years that the
energy sector generated jobs at twice the pace, actually, a bit
more than twice the pace of the economy as a whole. So they
were, you know, this high leverage here in terms of job
creation.
Secondly, as you said, many of the jobs, particularly--
certainly efficiency issues, efficiency upgrades around
buildings, et cetera, a lot of the solar jobs, et cetera, these
are, by definition, local jobs supporting typically some small-
to medium-sized businesses. So, I think they are great engines,
again, for kind of the fabric of the State's economy there. So
I think those are all very, very important. But going--I am
sorry, please. Go ahead.
Ms. Kuster. Go ahead. Maybe we will get to it. In your
April 3 op ed in The Hill, you touched on the need for a
stimulus program built on an energy jobs coalition to focus on
energy infrastructure modernization and job creation. In one
facet, and you have referenced this today, updating energy
efficiency in public buildings, like schools and courthouses.
How would this type of stimulus help, and how would it make a
difference as we recover from COVID-19?
Mr. Moniz. Well, again, the work itself would help in a
healthy environment. With less energy use, help the--help the
economy, help the bills, who is paying those bills, in that
case, the public, paying those bills, and generating jobs. Now,
the advantage of the public buildings, as I emphasize, is also
that they do tend to have, large times of the day, without
heavy occupancy.
So that even if we remain constrained with COVID, as we are
in many of the residential situations, that we still have the
opportunity to move out strongly with these jobs. So this is a
big opportunity. And we are going to need, as we emphasize, we
will need a lot of new jobs.
Earlier, there was some discussion that, well, all the
energy jobs will come back. Well, I wish that were the case. I
am not convinced that it is going to be the case in energy any
more than it is throughout the economy, because, frankly, a lot
of smaller enterprises is going to have a hard time coming out
the other side.
So we got to get those jobs back as best we can. But we
need to create millions of new jobs, and that is where, in that
op ed, we emphasize, boy, you have got great leverage in the
energy sector to do that.
Ms. Kuster. Well, thank you. And I will submit for the
record a question about the impact on marginalized communities,
but my time is coming to an end. Thank you.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important
hearing.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Rush. The Chair thanks the gentlelady.
The Chair now recognized the gentleman from the great State
of Texas, Mr. Flores, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the
witnesses for appearing today.
Clearly, COVID-19 has severely impacted all of the energy
sector, but in particular, the oil and gas industry. The impact
has been variously described as historic, resulting in all-time
lows. In March and April, for instance, a record 52 percent--
prime and throughput utilization had their largest decline in
revenue since 1985. A strong rebound in the energy sector is
essential to the overall economic recovery and revitalization
of the job market [inaudible]. We have already seen some minor
improvements. That is the industry's plan.
But as much as we need the oil and gas market to be back to
drive overall economic activity, we must not reduce efforts to
create sustainable growth from other sectors. Specifically, we
must aggressively support innovation and private-sector
partnerships to regain U.S. dominance in the nuclear energy
industry, the only green baseline energy source, based on
energy source in this country.
In 2017, we passed and funded the Nuclear Energy Innovation
and Modernization Act. Among other things, the Act mentioned
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to prepare bringing pre-
structure to support new safety attributes to these advanced
technology fuels. There is a quick urgency to get these
technologies to the market.
H.R. 1760, the Advanced Nuclear Fuel Availability Act,
which passed the House twice, probably [inaudible], it created
a public-private consortium to facilitate fundamentals of a
market to advance fuels, thus ensuring the diverse support as
well-spent.
Mr. Powell, I have a couple of questions for you. First of
all, can you speak to how a public private consortium can
ensure access [inaudible] Or advanced reactors can support the
development for a market for advanced fuels?
Mr. Powell. Absolutely. Thank you very much for the
question, Representative Flores. It is good to see you. It is
good to see you doing your part to reinvigorate demand for oil
and gas in this country at the moment. And thank you so much
for your long support for advanced nuclear fuel, or HALU, as we
call it.
Secretary Moniz mentioned earlier, this is a vital issue.
If we have a next generation of advanced nuclear reactors that
require a higher test fuel, but we don't have any of that
higher test fuel available, because we don't have a domestic
capacity to produce it, we could have a whole generation of
these new companies, entrepreneurs and technology that don't
have anywhere to go to actually run their technologies in the
United States.
And so, I absolutely support the idea of creating a public,
private consortium to develop a sustainable supply of HALU. I
think that that can start by creating a reserve of HALU using
the capacities already at the Department of Energy, down
lending fuel that was used in nuclear Navy, or perhaps even
weapons grade materials to something that could be used for
civilian reactors, but is still significantly more powerful
that is currently used by civilian reactors. I think that that
would make a lot of sense.
Without that sort of pump priming for the market, it is
difficult to see how this will emerge, because it is kind of a
chicken-and-the-egg problem. No company is wanting to invest in
very large resources required to create that enrichment
capacity.
And then without that enrichment capacity and that fuel
available, the companies might want to come along and actually
want to have reactors to use it.
So the government working with the private sector, taking
the first step in setting up that market seems appropriate and
important in this case.
Mr. Flores. Thanks, Mr. Powell. I have two questions in the
20 seconds I have left. The second question is if our objective
is to build new nuclear power infrastructure [inaudible]
Mr. Rush. Mr. Flores, you are breaking up.
Mr. Flores. [inaudible] Later, with these advanced
technologies fuel structure fields the [inaudible]
Mr. Rush. Mr. Flores, you are moving up--we are going to
yield back the balance of his time.
The Chair will now recognizes the gentleman from the great
State of Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and thank you very
much for the----
Mr. Flores. With the limited time I have and the poor
cellular signal I have, I will submit questions for the
record----
Mr. Rush. Mr. Flores, Mr. Flores, you yield back, I will
give you 30 seconds at the end of the hearing if you so desire.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Kennedy for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to give a
special welcome to my friend, and my former neighbor, Secretary
Moniz.
Without question, COVID has upended nearly every facet of
our lives. Last week, we had the opportunity to discuss the
devastating impacts of this pandemic that it has had on the
frontline, our frontline community, and environmental justice
communities. Particularly, high policies choices that have left
certain communities, predominantly low income and minority, far
more vulnerable to the effects of COVID.
COVID didn't create the racial disparities that we see
today. It shined a bright light and exposed the underlying
inequities of our system that many have known to be true for a
very long time.
First off, I want to echo many of the comments from our
Chairman Rush. He spent years working on expanding diversity
and opportunity with people of all backgrounds into the energy
field. I stand with him on that effort.
Getting back to COVID-19, on the clean air industry is
significant. According to E2, the clean energy job losses for
the last 3 months amount to 620,000 jobs national. In
Massachusetts, that is nearly 20,000 jobs, more than a 17
percent decline. We must focus on policy that support the clean
energy industry, and provide opportunity for all communities
and workers of different backgrounds.
President Trump had signed a--recently signed an executive
order allowing agencies to invoke their emergency powers, to
expedite environmental reviews for infrastructure projects.
Unsurprisingly, the President's focus isn't only on fossil fuel
projects related to energy.
I think we can all agree about robust environmental reviews
are important. Perhaps even more so, on projects that impact
solution and carbon industry, leveled in the middle of a
pandemic that attacks the respiratory system.
Last week, the administration finally released a long-
awaited environmental impact statement for the proposed
Vineyard Wind Project. Vineyard Wind Supplement highlights the
recent report by the American Wind Energy Association that
describes recent developments in the offshore wind industry
that analyzes the potential future economic impacts of the
issue. The report was over 1.3 billion and announced domestic
investments in wind energy and manufacturing facilities for its
construction in the Atlantic States.
The report also analyzes two scenarios. A base scenario and
a high scenario. The economic impact associated with wind
energy development through 2030. These scenarios, we estimate
the jobs, the output, and the valumatic associated with product
development, onsite labor impacts, turbine and supply chain
impacts, and these impacts. The actual wind energy, excuse me,
the optional wind energy economic environmental employment
impacts will be concentrated in Atlantic coastal states. It
would also generate an impact on other parts of the United
States as well.
Under the bay scenario, offshore wind energy development
would support $14.2 billion in output, $7 billion in value-
added, and approximately 45,500 jobs by 2030.
And so, I wanted to ask Mr. Secretary to begin. Do you
believe that COVID will affect these numbers, and if so, how?
Mr. Moniz. I actually believe that if we put our minds to
it, that we can overcome COVID and build this new industry of
offshore, and offshore and the entire supply chain. By the way,
as you know very well, in New Bedford would be an example of a
city that is looking very, very much to build that
infrastructure supplying the offshore.
So, I think that this is an area where we do not have to be
hostage to COVID. But we should be investing right now in the
innovation and supply chain buildup that we will need for this
new industry.
Mr. Kennedy. So building on that key, sir, what
specifically then would you suggest, the impacts for
southeastern Massachusetts for communities like Fall River and
New Bedford, and all the southeast in New England could be
monumental, what needs to be done to actually get ready for
this, now given the delays and the impacts that we have seen?
Mr. Moniz. Well, I think, first of all, we need to build a
supply chain for the turbines themselves. We should remember
that these are going to be very, very large, eight, 10 megawatt
individual turbines, and as was discussed earlier with very,
very special needs. For example, one of those turbines could
require, or will require, a ton of a specific rare earth
element. We have to think about the whole supply chain to get
that done. We have to build a supply chain. And there are
companies, also, in Rhode Island, for example, experienced in
building large wind blades, because those present huge
logistical challenges that building in that area could be a
real leg up. Building a port and maintenance facility,
maintaining these requires a major seaborne activity.
And so, all of this has to be viewed, I think, with a
comprehensive action plan for this decade that we come out of
this decade with a robust industry and a robust supply chain
and a robust workforce.
Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Secretary, it is great to see you. I think
this is an enormous opportunity to revitalize parts of our
country to strengthen union labor and to get good jobs that
provide a pathway.
Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the great State
of North Carolina, Mr. Hudson, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hudson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all
of our witnesses for joining us today for what I believe has
been an excellent discussion. Rich Powell, it is good to see
you, albeit it is virtually today.
As you know, all sections of our economy have been impacted
by the coronavirus, and the energy sector has been hit
especially hard. With millions of Americans on unemployment, it
is imperative that we get our economy open and people back to
work in a safe way.
I thank Chairman Rush and Ranking Member Upton for holding
this very important hearing. It is critical that we understand
the impact of jobs as we develop policies and we get Americans
back to work and grow our economy.
According to the estimates, we lost over 1.3 million energy
sector jobs due to the coronavirus. Now is the time to come
together in a bipartisan way to produce solutions that actually
help our energy sector, and not just pick winners and losers.
For instance, my friend, Chairman Rush and I, have a bill
together, H.R. 4061, the Blue Collar and Green Collar Jobs
Development Act. This legislation is an all-of-the-above energy
jobs creator. It is bipartisan ideas like that that will get
our constituents and Americans back to work.
Rich, the COVID pandemic has wreaked havoc on our energy
industry. And there are many other challenges we need to
address in order to get back to where we were as the global
leader in energy, and with historically low unemployment. For
example, back in April, an activist Montana district court
judge issued a terribly misguided decision on the nationwide
permit 12 under the Clean Water Act because one agency
supposedly didn't, quote, "consult," end quote, with another
agency.
As this case continues to be considered, infrastructure
projects across the Nation will be slowed by additional red
tape. This is just one recent example, but it illustrates the
severe kind of challenges facing infrastructure and
construction projects.
In your testimony, you said, quote, "We can only put energy
workers of all stripes back on the job as fast as we can permit
the projects," end quote.
I can't agree more. Rich, what are some ideas you have on
how we can best reform our permitting laws?
Mr. Powell. Well, thanks very much for addressing that real
important issue. Representative Hudson, it is great to see you.
Thank you as well for your long support on these clean energy
issues, particularly your championing of the small kind of
Hydro Permitting Reform Act of last Congress. I think that is
the kind of issue that we need to look at and find other
opportunities like small conduit hydro, like the permit 12
issue.
You know, the case of conduit hydro we basically had a
hugely overworked regulatory apparatus for projects that were
really small and occurring mostly on private land with private
resources often and, you know, not in an open waterway, but
literally, in a private pipe or conduit somewhere. And putting
the full authority and timeline of the typical per regulatory
procedure on something like that, which is clearly, you know,
totally misplaced.
In this issue, in permit 12, something that someone with
pipelines around the country rely on, we haven't been letting,
you know, a single process error in one permit application.
So when a country tries to shut down the entire permitting
regime for the entire country, I think folks need to remember
in this that, you know--let's say you don't like oil and gas
pipelines, although, I heard gas pipelines have been extremely
influential in bringing down the emissions from our power
sector the last decade, but let's say you don't like those. If
you support the clean energy future, you are going to need
pipelines of some sort, and they are going to carry hydrogen
around the country, and they are going to carry carbon dioxide
that has been captured away from power plants around the
country, or renewable natural gas around the country.
We need this infrastructure. So finding ways to streamline
that and offer the same level of environmental protections, but
in a smarter way.
You know, the idea that we have something in the Defense
Department like an arbitration panel that routinely resolved
even very significant disputes of very fairly and objectively
on a 60-day timeline, and we can't take that same kind of a
fair, fast-moving arbitration mechanism and apply it to moving
disputes over some of these environmental permitting
challenges, it just seems like we need to be looking for best
practices like that, or opportunities to leverage technology
and do semi-automated permitting when it is a lower priority,
or less risky permitting application that couldn't just greatly
speed up all of those processes; again, without sacrificing any
of the clean air or clean waterbeds.
Mr. Hudson. Well, I appreciate that answer. And I think you
are right. We can do both; we need to do both. And I appreciate
your testimony today.
Mr. Hudson. I appreciate your testimony today.
Mr. Chairman, I see I am under 30 seconds. I will yield
back the balance of my time. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. Thank you. The gentleman yields back his time.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from the greatest
State of all, the great State of Illinois. Ms. Kelly, you are
recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Kelly. It won't take 5 minutes because I have a meeting
in a few minutes, but thank you, Mr. Chair, for having this
meeting, and to the ranking member, and thank you to the
witnesses.
Like was mentioned, The Chair is very interested in
diversifying this industry. And I want to know what ideas that
all of you have about diversifying the industry.
Secretary, you talked about the low numbers, but what ideas
do you have? We talk about it, but we need to see how we can
implement changes so we can increase those numbers. So I want
to know what your industry is doing--Mr. Wetstone and Mr.
Powell, you can answer also--and any ideas of what we can do to
push this issue along?
Mr. Moniz. Well, as I said earlier, I certainly, I think,
this is a very important issue for us to address. I would just
offer a couple of areas. One, I did mention, briefly earlier,
and that is that I believe that we can do a lot more--and by
the way, it is women and minorities in the energy business.
Ms. Kelly. Right.
Mr. Moniz. We need to--we have a problem across the board,
frankly. The only thing we are doing well on is veterans. But
with women and minorities, I think we need to really catch
young people as they are about to transition into the
workforce, bring them into energy, as a great opportunity.
Because, again, as we have seen, this is an area that
outperforms the economy. So it is a great chance to build--to
build careers, build families, and the like.
So I think that is one of the things that--I come from the
university, so it kind of is in my blood to draft people at the
early-stages of their careers.
At my own organization, we are a small organization, but we
will be looking very hard at how we can do that, connect with
maybe with some of the HBCUs, for example, in terms of
opportunities.
But the second thing I would note is that if we look at the
labor unions, they have incredible apprenticeship programs.
That is one of the reasons why we are partnering with the AFL-
CIO.
Rich Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO likes to say that the
unions are second to the military in training people for jobs,
and training them well and paying them while they are being
trained.
So this is a case where, I think, we can also work with
them in terms of trying to increase the women minorities. I
know they work hard at it, but maybe we can, maybe we can even
redouble those efforts.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
Mr. Wetstone.
Mr. Wetstone. Yes, thank you for the question. It is a
focus right now in the sector in how we do better here.
Certainly, connecting, and recruiting more from historically
black colleges and universities is a big part of that. But as
the Secretary mentioned, training, looking for ways to bring
more folks into the sector, we are looking at establishing at
ACORE specifically some internship programs that will help do
that also. We put on events that are relevant, educational
events that will help people understand the business dynamics
in this sector. And we are looking at scholarships for those
events that help facilitate training. There is more we can do,
and we welcome suggestions and recognize the scenario. We need
to make progress.
Ms. Kelly. Mr. Powell, do you have anything?
Mr. Powell. Absolutely. Thank you for the question. It is
extremely important. In our work and in our philanthropy, we
have supported a number of efforts in this vein. We supported,
for example, a delegation from the historically black colleges
and universities looking at--particularly the nuclear
engineering space to come to DC and to be exposed to the
industry and the policy portion of the industry by the
Millennial Nuclear Caucus. So, we are very proud in support of
that.
We are also founding sponsors to a terrific institution
called the Joseph Rainey Center. Congressman Rainey, as you may
well know, is the first African American Member of the House of
Representatives and a former slave. And the Center was founded
with the goal of elevating the voices of minorities and women
and mavericks in the public policy discussion, particularly
State policymakers.
So it spends a lot of time helping educators bring
resources to those State policymakers around the country. So we
are a proud sponsor of the Rainey Center as well.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you. I know----
Mr. Moniz. Madam, could I add one more thought, going back
to my DOE days, and that is that the National Nuclear Security
Administration of the DOE, we formed a program with HBCUs on
training cyber experts. So choosing a part of the economy that
clearly is going to need lots and lots of people, and again,
grabbing young people to capture that. And the second program
was not with minorities directly, but maybe there is a lesson
here. We worked with the military, and the military allowed
those who were within 6 months of leaving the military to start
what was in effect an apprenticeship program, a training
program, so that when they came out, they were ready to install
solar
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Ms. Kelly. My time is up, so thank you so much.
Mr. Rush. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
California, Ms. Barragan, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this very important hearing.
The disruption of the clean energy industry by the pandemic
has led to hundreds of thousands of job losses. California has
been the hardest hit. And in May, Los Angeles County lost
nearly two-and-a-half times as many clean energy jobs as any
other county in the United States. And yet, a transition to 100
percent clean energy must remain a priority for our country.
Our Congress must act to provide relief by making clean
energy tax credits refundable, so that eligible projects can
receive direct cash grants, and by investing in energy
efficiency retrofits for small businesses and critical
infrastructure. As we work to help the clean energy industry
rebound from the pandemic, we must invest in an economic
recovery that addresses both the job crisis, and climate crisis
our country faces.
I believe this will take a transformational investment in
the clean energy economy so that we build back better by
creating millions of jobs and reducing pollution in our black
and brown communities that have been hit the hardest by the
pandemic.
I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary and Mr. Wetstone, for
addressing the issue of minorities. Latinos make up 14 percent
of workers in the clean energy industry, but have experienced
23 percent of job losses. So I think it is critical that
Congress looks at policies to recover job losses, and thank you
both for commenting on that.
Mr. Secretary, as extreme weather from the climate crisis
worsens, communities of color will continue to be hit first and
worst. What can Congress do to further encourage investments in
clean energy micro grids for critical facilities in vulnerable
communities in order to maintain basic services?
Mr. Moniz. Yes, I think that is extremely important. And,
by the way, of course, it goes without saying that the
environmental impacts and the COVID impacts hit those
communities, as you say, first and worst.
In going forward, I strongly endorse the idea of building,
at the community level, these kinds of micro grids coupled with
distributed generation and the like.
I will give one example: When I was Secretary, I joined
Mayor Duggan in Detroit, in dedicating a solar field that was
placed in the middle of a disadvantaged community, and what was
great about--the utility helped support it, to build it, but,
also, drew upon local residents, essentially for
apprenticeships, so that they were trained on the job as well
to learn how to install the solar.
So I think it is really taking this kind of comprehensive
view, this integrated view of community building together with
the energy bill that makes sense. And I think, quite frankly, I
think giving substantial incentives for that I think would be
helpful, and I might say that it might go through some of the
established programs that, for example, the utilities have,
because the utilities are, you know, they are close to the
ground on this.
And I know usually we go through other mechanisms,
including State energy offices. I am not arguing against that,
but I do think that those who execute the projects, like the
utilities, could easily be incented to do this kind of
integrated planning.
Ms. Barragan. Well, thank you for that.
I am working on legislation to ensure environmental justice
communities receive greater funding support for micro grids. We
need to be intentional about our investments in frontline
communities to achieve greater equity to achieve clean energy
deployment.
Mr. Secretary, I want to ask you about something else I
have seen. There is a recent study from the University of
California Berkeley. It found that the United States could
achieve 90 percent clean electricity nationwide at 2035, at no
extra cost to consumers. Do you believe this is feasible, and
what are the main changes to our energy policy needed in 2020
to set us up on this path?
Mr. Moniz. I don't know the study specifically, but let me
say that in my testimony, I noted that if we are to get to net-
zero this century economy-wide, we have to get there in
electricity faster. 2040, I think, is a date, but I said maybe
we should move that up to 2035. Net-zero by 2035 in the
electricity sector. To do it, I believe we need--we cannot do
it just with wind and solar. We need wind and solar, but we
need this, what I call, all-of-the-above approach.
So right now, we need to go out hard on wind and solar,
getting the storage at different time scales, getting CCS where
appropriate, small nuclear could come in there and we will
certainly need, in my view, carbon dioxide removal from the
atmosphere and ocean in order to get to the net-zero, but we
need this decade to be, as I said, the decade of innovation.
We need to build these things up so that by 2030 we can
start deploying them so that by ideally 2035, at a minimum by
2040, we can reach that net-zero electricity and do it with all
the social justice concerns that you have raised earlier.
Ms. Barragan. All right. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
My time is expired.
I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the great State
of Arizona, Mr. O'Halleran, for 5 minutes.
Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you, Chairman Rush and Ranking Member
Upton, for hosting today's important hearing. As the COVID-19
pandemic has devastated the entire United States' economy, and
to the extent, the world, it is important that Congress
continue to conduct its oversight and legislative duties to
provide economic relief to all Americans nationwide.
Before the pandemic, Arizona ranked third in the Nation for
total amount of solar capacity installed. While also being the
home to over 470 solar companies that have invested over $12
billion into the State's economy. Since the pandemic, Arizona's
clean energy sector has lost nearly 10,000 jobs.
Overall, this job loss is in addition to the increasing
amount of coal plant retirements throughout the southwest,
including in my district, where the Navajo generating station
in Kayenta Mine lost nearly 900 jobs late last year.
As the country continues to battle this tragic pandemic and
offer proposals for reinventing the economy, Congress must
provide the energy sector with some public policy guidance.
Secretary Moniz, in your testimony, you emphasized the
importance of building diverse coalitions of energy
stakeholders to ensure the clean energy transformation benefits
all energy workers and their families. I am sure you know the
number of coal plant retirements nationwide has continued to
accelerate in recent years, which has left countless workers,
either facing early retirement or suddenly looking for new
forms of employment.
How can the clean energy sectors' economic recovery also be
inclusive of coal workers who have recently been impacted, or
soon will be by more plant closures nationwide?
Thank you.
Mr. Moniz. Well, certainly, I just reinforce what you, of
course, said, Congressman, that obviously in the coal business,
that is the place where pre-COVID, we were already seeing lots
of job reductions in the supply chain. Now, I think there are--
I have also emphasized that solutions tend to be very regional
or community-focused, and so, there is not one size fits all.
For example, in West Virginia, the decrease in coal has
seen an increase in natural gas somewhat compensating and with
some of the same workers carried there. Of course, when you
mentioned the Navajo station, that is a very, very different
kind of a situation. And there, by the way, I think that we
need--I will be honest.
I tried, and we made some progress in getting a credit loan
subsidy passed for Indian land, energy projects, which could
leverage about $100 million of projects, but that is, frankly,
orders of magnitude too small. And I think that we need to have
a very, very serious initiative now to get Native American,
indigenous people lands really as part of the energy
revolution, and have them be part of the jobs to create that
industry.
Otherwise, I mean, besides those two specific locations, it
comes down to the issue of, I think, looking at community
assets, and I might say that we are doing a project right now
with my MIT hat on that will include looking at coal country, a
coal country county, and looking specifically at what are all
the assets that they have in terms of having a bright future in
a future low-carbon economy.
But I think that is the way it works. I think it is not a
one-size-fits-all; I think it is really a place-by-place hard
look at the assets and making sure that we minimize any kind of
stranded workers, including, of course, the coal workers.
Mr. O'Halleran. I thank you, Secretary. Appreciate that.
And I look forward to having a discussion with you on your
thoughts on the entire process.
Mr. Moniz. Would be pleased with that discussion.
Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you.
Mr. Wetstone, in your testimony, you discussed the certain
supply chain disruptions as one of the many impacts felt by the
renewable energy sector through the COVID-19 pandemic. Given
the uncertain future----
Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. O'Halleran. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Wetstone. I will provide a response for the record.
Mr. Rush. Yes. Mr. Flores didn't complete his question due
to technical difficulties. I yielded him 5 minutes. I think he
had submitted his final question for the record, or final
question in written form. And so, Mr. Flores, if you are not
present, we will accept your final question in written form and
ask that witnesses respond in a manner of ten days to your
final question if there are no objections.
Hearing no objections, so ordered. The Chair now has
several unanimous consent requests for documents to be included
into the record, a letter from the National Rural Electric
Cooperative Association; a letter from the American Gas
Association; a statement from the International Association of
Drilling Contractors; a letter from the American Public Power
Association; a letter from the Renewable Fuel Association; a
letter from the Biotechnology Innovation Organization; a letter
from SMUD; a letter from the Petroleum Equipment and Services
Association; a fact sheet from the National Mining Association;
a letter from the American Expiration and Conduction Council; a
letter from the American Fuel and Petrol Chemical
Manufacturers; a letter from the American Association of Blacks
in Energy. And that concludes the list.
Hearing no objection----
Mr. Butterfield. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rush. Yes.
Mr. Butterfield. Before I sign off, would you let the
record show that on the Democratic side of the aisle, Mr.
Veasey and I stayed with you till the end.
Mr. Rush. The record will so reflect.
I want to thank you and congratulate you for an outstanding
job.
Mr. Butterfield. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Mr. Rush. All right. That concludes the witness questions,
and I would like to thank our witnesses for their participation
in today's hearing, and I want to remind members that pursuant
to committee rules, they have ten business days to submit
additional questions for the record to be answered by the
witnesses who have appeared. And I ask each of our witnesses to
respond promptly to any such questions that you may receive.
Without objection, I want to, again, express my personal
thanks and appreciation to all the witnesses. And I see Mr.
Veasey is here. Unless he has an objection, I will reopen the
hearing for Mr. Veasey.
Mr. Veasey, do you have questions for the witnesses?
Mr. Veasey. Yes, I do have questions for the witness. Can
you hear me?
Mr. Rush. Yes. We will reopen the witness questions for 5
minutes.
Mr. Veasey, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And Rob and Kelly asked a question that I wanted to address
earlier on diversification in the energy sector, and so, I am
going to skip over to Dr. Moniz and ask him about the potential
for the energy sector to revitalize the economy through energy
efficiency.
Last year, I had introduced a bill with Congressman Greg
Stanton to authorize the energy efficiency and conservation
block grant program that would provide grants and technical
assistance to various levels of government to support a wide
variety of energy efficiency and renewable energy activities.
Can you just share briefly with me why, making an investment in
energy efficiency is important for our public buildings and how
that benefits taxpayers?
Mr. Moniz. Well, energy efficiency has so many benefits
simultaneously. Good for the environment by less energy use,
good for the economy by reducing bills, of course, and good for
jobs because as we mentioned earlier there are 2.4 million jobs
in energy efficiency, half of those construction jobs, which
means, of course, modernizing and retrofitting buildings.
With regard to public buildings, all those benefits accrue,
in this case, the bill payer, of course, is the taxpayer, and
that is a benefit. But also, we don't know the future of how
this COVID virus will work out. We don't know if there will
continue to be sensitivities, difficulties in accessing
residential homes, which is, of course, a very important part
of the energy efficiency. But buildings offers the opportunity,
not entirely, but largely independent of the virus to be able
to arrange the work in the proper way, and we can do that right
now.
So right now a big push, create jobs, now when we need
them, and do it in a way that just helps the economy and helps
the environment.
Mr. Veasey. Yes. And Secretary, I want to skip over to
mining very quickly, and I want to direct this question to you
and if we have time, Rich may want to way in as well. I think
that depending on how much longer we have to be sheltered in
place because of COVID-19, that peoples' mindset about trade
and trade with certain countries can certainly be altered, and
people may be even more adversarial than we saw they were
towards trade in the 2016 presidential campaign.
My question to you is, for these rare earth minerals that
we need like I think lithium was mentioned earlier, how in the
world do you do safe mining? Like, if we are going to say we
want to do more of that here because we want to have materials
that are sourced in the United States, more to be able to make
our cell phones and whatever else we need rare earth minerals
for, how in the world do you bring back safe mining to this
country?
Do you think that we need to bring back mining to this
country in some form of future, and how do you do that with the
politics behind mining because mining, as you know, can be very
dirty?
Mr. Moniz. Yes. I think we clearly need to look at, if we
are going to--the extent to which we reconfigure mining will
require managing the environmental issues. Actually, earlier,
Rich Powell did mention that in addition to the security and
supply chain issues, we should recognize that a lot of these
supply chains--for example, he mentioned cobalt is being
produced with very, very despicable labor practices, including
child labor and the like.
So we have, I think, many motivations to look at reopening
that supply chain for, and doing environmentally sensitive
mining. For lithium, there is, for example, work going on right
now in the salt and sea looking at a lithium source. There is
work in California on rare earths. We have other opportunities
for nickel and copper, which will also be very, very much in
demand.
So, I think--and, frankly, my group, we are going to look
at this issue of what can we do to improve the security of our
supply chains, create domestic supply chains, create domestic
jobs, but do it in a way that will pass the environmental
tests.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you.
Mr. Moniz. And I might add a different one is, if you talk
about LNG, that was mentioned earlier as well. It is not a
mineral, but it is an extracted resource.
Mr. Veasey. Yes.
Mr. Moniz. We have large LNG, and now there are interesting
maneuvers and I will be honest, I am devising one project in
trying to see if we can't do net-zero LNG for export. So, you
know, really, really attack the environmental problems in all
of these resources commodities.
Mr. Veasey. I definitely want to hear more about that
later.
Mr. Moniz. Happy to discuss it.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman yields back.
I just want to reiterate that I had entertained a unanimous
consent request to enter into the record various and sundry
documents, and I didn't hear any objections. So it is so
ordered that those documents will be entered into the record.
That is it.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Rush. Without objection, the subcommittee is adjourned.
I want to thank the witnesses, once again. You have been very
patient. You have been very informative and exciting even, so I
want to thank you for all your testimony. It is so good to see
you all, again, and God bless each and every one of you.
Again, now the subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our panel.
Like many industries, the energy sector has been
significantly hurt by the economic crisis brought on by the
coronavirus pandemic.
For our economy to boom again and for America to win the
future, we must focus on sustainable, efficient, and pragmatic
policy solutions that will not only enable our energy sector to
survive the immediate crisis but thrive in the next era of
American leadership.
This pandemic has underscored that the world should not be
led by the Chinese Communist Party.
As we've seen time and again, the CCP will do whatever it
takes to get ahead and lie, cheat, and steal their way to
global power, with no regard for human rights, IP, or the
environment.
We cannot and shouldn't try to beat them at their own game
by picking winners and losers by subsidizing companies or
technologies.
Instead, we must foster American ingenuity by unleashing
innovation and lifting the regulatory and tax burden.
Our ability for people to take risks, innovate, and make an
idea a success has made America the global economic leader for
the past century. This same strategy will help us solve the
global climate crisis and ensure abundant, efficient, and
reliant energy sources meet the needs of future generations.
The strongest way to make significant progress on reducing
emissions globally--without further harming our own domestic
economic production--is through tech innovations in clean
energy and storage that are efficient and cost effective enough
to export globally to developing nations.
Whether it's our ability to expand hydropower capacity
export nuclear technology license new advanced reactors, or
develop more efficient methods of energy storage we shouldn't
let burdensome, outdated regulations stifle innovation. Doing
so will empower Chinese leadership and harm global efforts to
reduce emissions for a cleaner environment.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Greg Gianforte
As we examine the impact of COVID-19 on the energy
industry, I feel important to point out that last year, the
U.S. Tax Court determined that the IRS erred in issuing
guidance surrounding the Section 45 Refined Coal Tax Credit and
confirmed that investors making investments in refined coal
production should be able to rely on their ability to receive
the credit. Unfortunately, despite this ruling, many of these
employers will never be able to take full advantage of the
Section 45 credit given the approximate two years lost due to
the impact resulting from the improper guidance issued by the
IRS. As such, in order to compensate for the resulting
production shutdowns and loss of investment and jobs--and to be
consistent with the legislative intent underlying the Section
45 credit--I believe it is critical that Congress restore the
full production period for refined coal facilities currently in
existence from ten years to twelve years after a facility was
placed in service. As such, I urge the Committee to consider
H.R. 2622 as part of any energy package that it may consider
this year, as we should not be in the business of picking
winners and losers between different types of energy.
Importantly, if this extension is not provided and the benefits
of the credit go away, we expect that this will undoubtedly
result in a rate hike on consumers across the country--a result
that is contrary to federal stimulus efforts to date.
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