▶ 0:13:40Okay. Hey, are you ready? >> well. Good morning. I want to thank our guests for being with us today. Making it, uh, some of our members, unfortunately, are stuck at their home airports right now and are some of them are on their way, and unfortunately, some might not be able to get in, get in this morning, but, uh, really appreciate you all making the effort to be here today.
▶ 0:14:07So the subcommittee on energy will come to order, and the chair recognizes himself for five minutes for an opening statement. Again, good morning, and welcome to today's hearing to examine the performance of our electric grid through the duration of winter storm fern. Starting on january the 23rd, a significant winter storm brought widespread snow, sleet and freezing rain from new england to the rockies and down to the gulf of america.
▶ 0:14:30This storm was followed by an arctic front that kept stubbornly low temperatures across the country and additional snowstorms. As expected, american families bundled up, staying indoors to avoid the inclement weather and dangerous road conditions. When they were at home, they relied on our nation's complex energy system to keep the lights on, their homes warmed and their refrigerators stocked. Just like any other day, families expected their lights to come on with a flick of a switch.
▶ 0:15:02Well, semi routine and exhaustive amount of preparation, coordination and real time decision making occurred behind the scenes to make sure american communities had power. While some outages occurred, the grid held up because of the important work of some of the witnesses we have before us today, the southwest electric power company, or swepco, is an electric utility across arkansas, texas and louisiana. The northeast gas association represents natural gas utilities across 11 northeastern states.
▶ 0:15:32Grid grid strategies developed public policies to support a clean energy transition, and the north american electric reliability corporation, or knowak, is the regulatory authority that ensures reliability and security of our nation's bulk power system today. Today, these witnesses will provide critical insights into how the nation's electric grid remained resilient through the duration of the significant weather event.
▶ 0:16:00While looking forward to today's opportunity to learn more about the grids performance through the storm, one thing remains clear baseload and dispatchable resources saved the day. Generation coal, natural gas and fuel oil skyrocketed, while intermittent resource generation unfortunately plummeted, nuclear has always remained steady and reliable.
▶ 0:16:22Without access to these affordable and reliable supplies of baseload generation, the setting of this hearing would be and would look much different. Power outages that occur in freezing temperatures caused billions in economic damage and, even more importantly, tragic deaths in our vulnerable communities. Our new england states illustrate an interesting example. Through the storm, the fuel mix in new england was carried by natural gas, fuel, oil and nuclear power.
▶ 0:16:50In spite of generous subsidies and favorable public policy choices, intermittent resources were nowhere to be found when new england needed power the most. Because limited gas pipeline capacity in new england regions restrict supply and raise prices, power plants had to opt for more expensive and less efficient fuel oil. It's important to recognize fuel oil plants for the predominant source of generation 70 years ago.
▶ 0:17:17Importantly, outages across the country were limited, but the success of the grid through the winter storm fern should serve as a warning. That brings us to the present day. How should policymakers and regulators consider the operation of our future power system? We stand on the precipice of tremendous growth in our nation's electricity demand. The energy and commerce committee has held several hearings and passed legislation. Short reliability crisis caused by the biden administration to power next generation industries.
▶ 0:17:45Now, we are considering the implications of the generation resource mix that can appropriately meet the needs of households at one at all times of the year, while simultaneously ensuring america leads in the future economy. The answer is clear our nation needs more dispatchable power, and it needs a lot more of it.
▶ 0:18:08Given the military activity taking place in iran and the implications of energy markets throughout the strait of hormuz, now more than ever, we need to utilize the bountiful resources we have here, right in the united states. The lessons of winter storm fern should illustrate the common sense must rule the day. American energy dominance and independence must be achieved so we can keep our community safe at home.
▶ 0:18:30With that, I yield back the balance of my time, and at this time, the chair recognizes the gentleman from california's 50th district for five minutes for an opening statement. >> thank you, Mr. chairman, for holding this important hearing. Ranking member kathy castor was delayed by the weather today, so I'm stepping in for her to give an opening statement. At nearly every hearing this year, we have talked about the significant growth in energy demand every region in the united states will face.
▶ 0:18:53And even though that growth is very exciting, comes with real challenges that everyone in this room is grappling with, americans are feeling the strain of these challenges on their wallet. Electricity costs are 8% higher today than they were a year ago. Some projections show residential utility rates climbing as much as 18% in the coming years, and no region has been spared. We've also been saying it every nearly every hearing this congress that we are running out of time.
▶ 0:19:22I and every utility grid operator and developer I talked to do not think we are ready to meet the current moment. Right now, we are on track to lose our competitive edge to nations like china. So far in the 2020s, china has completed more than 8200 miles miles of high voltage, long range transmission lines, while the us has built only 375. European utilities are also rapidly increasing the minimum transfer capacity between countries to move power back and forth.
▶ 0:19:51Over 125,000 miles of advanced conductors, which can help us get the most out of the grid, have been installed in india, europe and china. The united states has installed less than 10% of that by focusing only on building the kinds of generation one party likes or by keeping old, inefficient and expensive coal plants online. We are holding our country back. Every witness before us has been clear.
▶ 0:20:17We need more of everything, whether it be transmission pipelines, solar, wind or gas. But that doesn't mean we need to keep every asset that is uneconomic or inefficient. Now, instead of focusing on how to develop a long term plan and holistic energy strategy, which has proven which has been proven to decrease costs and improve reliability for everyone, we're constantly talking about short term fixes that will increase costs.
▶ 0:20:42Steamrolls state regulators and negatively affect reliability in the long run. Look at texas, which is slated to receive roughly half of us industrial electricity demand growth through 2030, when the natural gas system failed and people died from cold and superstorm uri, did texas exclusively turn to more natural gas or keeping coal plants open? No.
▶ 0:21:06Texas reduced its risk of blackouts and brownouts from 10% to 1% by deploying all resources, including solar energy and batteries for storage. Now, they are primed to dominate this area of sustained load growth because they built new generation to meet new demand. Instead of only holding on to the past. To confront this challenge, we as a country must build more generation.
▶ 0:21:30Make it easier to connect that generation to the grid and increase regional and interregional access to that energy. Right now, there are over 2500gw worth of energy projects in the interconnection queue, which is the number one barrier to connecting resources. It's insufficient grid capacity or too much congestion in a given area.
▶ 0:21:51So you can build all the generation you want, but if you can't connect it, you can't use it in 2024, that transmission congestion, our inability to move power around the grid costs customers over $12 billion. And it happened during winter storm fern.
▶ 0:22:05We need to build a better grid nationwide, which will increase competition, reduce congestion and ensure customers can access the next cheapest electron that is our north star, the north american electric reliability corporation, represented by one of our witnesses today, has said clearly that an additional 35gw of inter-regional transfer capacity across the country would make the grid more resilient, lower costs, and enable us to better meet load growth.
▶ 0:22:34I agree with my colleagues in the majority that the federal government needs to take a somewhat stronger hand in planning and permitting, in collaboration with state partners, to make sure we can keep the lights on, but we need to stop looking backwards. It is difficult to reach consensus, but doing nothing is costing us money, hurting the reliability of the grid and making us less competitive. We need everyone at the table and we will not meet this moment if our approach is business as usual.
▶ 0:23:01I look forward to hearing about some potential solutions from our witnesses, and working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to find some as well. Thank you. And I yield back. >> thank you very much. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from kentucky, the chairman of the full committee on energy and commerce, for five minutes for an opening statement. >> thank you, Mr. chair. I appreciate the recognition. Appreciate our witnesses being here today. The massive winter storms have put our vital energy and power delivery system to the test this year.
▶ 0:23:30Today's focus on winter storm fern helps direct attention to what really matters for designing our electric system, making sure energy systems provide the power americans need when they need it. Fern and other recent major storms like elliot in 2022 and uri in 2021 represent consistent lessons to discuss this morning.
▶ 0:23:53First, reliable generation resources matter when power demand spikes during major winter storms, 80 to 90% of additional electricity needed is supplied by dispatchable fossil generation, natural gas, coal and even oil. Nuclear consistently provides baseload power, and these dispatchable resources step into the breach.
▶ 0:24:15Wind power may supply additional energy in some regions, but despite its enormous capacity, it cannot be relied upon. During these storms, solar energy can be relied upon even less so. Second, preparation and planning matters vast, multi-day deep freezes challenge fuel and grid systems across large regions. This requires planning and coordination to make sure power will be available as demand spikes.
▶ 0:24:44The storm elliot caused the highest single day electricity demand on record during the winter months. It also caused 90gw of cold weather related generation outages, more than other recent storms. Operators underestimated the demand and extent of the freeze, which reduced gas supplies and gas generation. The storm was so large, southeastern states could not import sufficient power from other regions which were short, uh, which were short excess power themselves.
▶ 0:25:15This caused rolling blackouts, including in kentucky on christmas eve. Authorities said a longer freeze would have been catastrophic for the new york city gas supplies. How past lessons informed preparation for last month's storm will be useful to examine today. The trump administration leaned in effectively on coordination. Gas generators withstood withstood winter impacts better than in past storms, and there was much more energy to dispatch as demand spiked.
▶ 0:25:44Third, what we do in the future matters expanding generation and a grid to meet massive new energy demand requires a focus on policies that ensure reliable, affordable power delivery. Storms like fern show us the generation mix that we can depend upon when it matters most. Thank you, Mr. chairman. I thank our witnesses for being here and I'll yield back. >> thank you very much. The gentleman yields back the remainder of his time.
▶ 0:26:09The chair now recognizes the gentleman from new jersey, the ranking member of the full committee, for five minutes for an opening statement. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. Today's hearing addresses an important topic. But given that this committee has jurisdiction over reliability and affordability of all energy, not just electricity, we should really be addressing skyrocketing oil prices, all the result of trump deciding to wage an irresponsible war in iran. The war is throwing the region and gas prices into chaos.
▶ 0:26:38Two weeks ago, president trump through the middle east into chaos with his irresponsible war. And in the weeks since, it has become clear that no one in the trump administration had a plan for what to do about oil prices, let alone any plans on how to end a war that should never have happened. And the level of incompetence, to me is astounding.
▶ 0:26:57Oil prices have been extraordinarily volatile, while gasoline prices have increased by nearly $0.75 per gallon since the start of the year, some analysts think that oil could reach over $200 per barrel, and it's clear that the trump administration has no idea how to fix it. In fact, trump does not actually consider this a problem. Just last week, he said, and I quote, when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money. I don't know about you, but when oil prices go up, my constituents feel it with their wallets.
▶ 0:27:24American families feel it as they sit around their kitchen table trying to figure out how they're going to make ends meet. It's once again crystal clear that the president only cares about making big oil ceos a buck. And that's who he's talking about. When he said, we make a lot of money. And once again, american families suffer, they're left paying the bill. Now, the president and congressional republicans are not only driving up oil prices, their policies are also driving up monthly power bills. Which gets to the topic of today's hearing.
▶ 0:27:53Just under two months ago, much of the southern and eastern parts of the country were under a blanket of snow. Temperatures plummeted, winds whipped and many of us feared the worst. However, the bulk power system endured. That's not to say there weren't localized issues. Local distribution systems suffered, with freezing rain and wind taking down power lines and causing blackouts. Utility crews worked around the clock to restore power, and all of us are thankful for their hard work.
▶ 0:28:19But at the end of the day, unlike in texas during winter storm uri or the southeast during winter storm elliot, there was enough supply of electricity to meet demand. Grid reliability is a team sport. Every resource, including wind, solar and storage has a role to play. These resources were especially vital during winter storm fern, as renewables in general exceeded expectations. They were able to take on more of a role than the grid operators required, but that was not the case for every resource.
▶ 0:28:47The weather knocked roughly 20gw of largely fossil fuel resources offline in the mid-atlantic alone, due in part to freeze offs at gas wellheads. Unfortunately, transmission constraints harm the grid during the winter storm and help bring us close to the brink.
▶ 0:29:04Within pjm, power in chicago was bottled up and couldn't reach the east coast to help lower prices in the middle of the country, southwest power pool had to curtail nearly ten gigawatts of wind energy at one point because it didn't have the transmission capacity to take that power to where it was needed most.
▶ 0:29:21A 2024 study by the north american electric reliability corporation found that our country needs over 50 35gw of new inter-regional transmission for its reliability needs alone, and that's before taking into account the tremendous growth in data centers fueling artificial intelligence applications that were seen following that study.
▶ 0:29:42So if republicans are serious about wanting to make our grid more resilient to extreme weather, we should be talking about how to build more large inter-regional power lines. Now, finally, Mr. chairman, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge a central irony of what some of my colleagues are advocating for today. We all agree that severe weather events stress the grid unlike anything else. But the increase in severe weather events is fueled by the same polluting coal power plants that many republicans want to be.
▶ 0:30:09The solution to severe weather events, forcing every coal plant in this country to stay online will further exacerbate climate change in the coming decades. So we must invest in real, durable reliability for the power grid. And with that, I thank you and yield back. Mr. chairman, balance of my time. >> well, thank you very much. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time. This concludes member opening statements.
▶ 0:30:34The chair reminds members that pursuant to the committee rules, all members opening statements will be made part of the record. And again, we want to thank our witnesses for appearing today and taking time to testify before the subcommittee. Each witness will have the opportunity to give an opening statement, followed by a round of questions from the members of the subcommittee. And just real quick, if I housekeeping you want to pull those mix up close to you when you speak, uh, with the lights there. Just a quick explanation.
▶ 0:31:05They'll be green for four minutes. That turns yellow at the, um for the last minute and turns red when your time is up. So our witnesses today are Mr. james robb, the president and ceo of the north american electric reliability corporation. Mr. brett madison, president and ceo of southwestern electric power company. Mr. michael goggin, the executive vice president of grid strategies, and Mr.
▶ 0:31:33Jose costa, the president and ceo of northeast gas association. Again, we appreciate you all being here today. And Mr. robb, you're recognized for five minutes for your opening statement. Terrific. >> good morning, chairman lateef. Representative peters and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for letting me set the table for today's hearing. I'm speaking here today on behalf of the independent, nonpartisan ferc certified electric reliability organization structured by congress through the energy policy act of 2005.
▶ 0:32:03So here's the top line. Even though many metrics show strong grid performance, risk is growing more acute, nearly two thirds of the country is at elevated or high risk of energy shortfall over the next five years. Winter storm fern was a severe, long duration event that significantly set the grid during fern, the industry showed commendable improvement in cold weather performance. However, the system ran very close to the edge, leaving no room for error.
▶ 0:32:31Operators needed every tool at their disposal, and extraordinary actions by government played an important role. Fern was a classic near-miss event that reinforces concerns documented in our recent ltra. That report assesses risk of energy shortfall over a ten year horizon. And importantly, it's a risk assessment, not a prediction. It shows where the system is exposed in a space filled with single issue advocates.
▶ 0:32:58Nrc's ltra is unique because it's the only independent and transparent assessment of this type, rigorously peer reviewed with geographic and temporal consistency, congress was quite wise in how they conceived the model of the eero. So three trends explain why two thirds of the nation risks energy shortage.
▶ 0:33:20These include unprecedented demand growth, a changing resource mix with increasingly unfamiliar reliability characteristics, and lagging supply additions that are not keeping up with growth and planned retirements. Let me start with demand. Over the next ten years, electricity demand projections are higher than we've ever seen at any point in the last two decades.
▶ 0:33:41These trends are driven by the proliferation of large industrial loads, particularly, but not exclusively data centers, and expanding use of electric heating and electric vehicles. The rate of increase is staggering. Summer peak demand is projected to rise by over 200gw, with winter demand growing faster. That's 70% higher than what we projected at this time last year.
▶ 0:34:03Next, the generation base is changing as older generators retire and get replaced by power electronics based renewables and batteries, the resource mix is becoming increasingly variable and weather dependent, and there is a decline in the essential reliability services that are necessary to support voltage, frequency and ramping needs over the next ten years, coal and natural gas generation is projected to decline from 62% to 48%, while renewables
▶ 0:34:33And batteries will grow from 12 to 34% on peak. These renewable resources work very, very well in the summer, but are frequently challenged to perform during winter events. Finally, energy supply is just falling short. Winter growth is projected to exceed resource additions by over 60gw. Projects need to get out of the queue and into the ground much more quickly.
▶ 0:34:55A recent berkeley lab study finds that even projects with interconnection agreements are taking longer to reach operation, and many projects, including those with strong sponsorship, never get built at all. Let me turn back to fern. The storm brought long duration cold, widespread snow, sleet and freezing rain across the eastern two thirds of the country. Demand forecasts surged and industry activated an extensive array of operating procedures to manage the reliability risk.
▶ 0:35:25Doe stepped in with emergency orders during the event. Natural gas, coal and nuclear resources provided most of the generation. However, renewables did contribute in new england. Fuel oil and liquefied natural gas kept the lights on, and in general, the natural gas system performed better than in previous storms, and gas storage withdrawals were essential.
▶ 0:35:47However, the storm was not as cold as initially forecast and widespread closures of schools and businesses alleviated pressure on the combined systems. This outcome reflects years of sustained and ongoing winterization efforts following winter storms. Uri and elliott, industry preparation and collaboration, and extensive outreach by irc and its regional entities.
▶ 0:36:10Nevertheless, the widespread use of emergency procedures and extraordinary government actions are powerful warnings that we should not ignore a system bordering on the edge during winter extreme should not be normalized. A larger, colder, longer storm would have had far more consequence. We have four primary recommendations to address these challenges. First, we just got to get off the dime and effectively address siting and permitting reform at the federal, state and local levels.
▶ 0:36:40We need to accelerate efforts to speed resource additions. We need to reliably figure out how to reliably integrate large loads, and we need to accelerate efforts to better coordinate the increasingly interdependent gas and electric systems that serve this country. So thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to answering your questions. >> well, thank you very much for your statement. And, Mr. madison, you are recognized for five minutes for your opening statement. >> thank you, sir.
▶ 0:37:06Chairman lata and congressman peters and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is brett madison, and I serve as the president and chief operating officer of southwestern electric power company, known as swepco, a subsidiary of american electric power.
▶ 0:37:21Swepco has provided electricity, reliable electricity for more than a century and today serves approximately 550,000 customers across louisiana, arkansas, northeast texas and the texas panhandle. With nearly 1400 employees. We operate a diverse generation portfolio that includes coal, natural gas, wind and purchase power.
▶ 0:37:46Winter storm fern brought extreme cold across our service territory, with temperatures dropping dipping to negative two in fayetteville, arkansas, and 17 degrees in shreveport, louisiana. More than 200,000 customers were impacted and restored thanks to the dedication of our swepco team, including ibew frontline employees who work in truly difficult situations.
▶ 0:38:12Our experience during winter storm fern and other recent winters reaffirm a core principle reliability depends on being able to call on a resource when it's needed for as long as it's needed, regardless of the weather. During the storm, cole supplied more than half of swepco owned generation, supported by on site fuel that ensured steady performance.
▶ 0:38:39Natural gas units provided essential flexibility and ramped as demand increased, but remains tied to pipeline delivery, which can and does tighten during extreme weather and when resources contributed and supported the system. But their output varies with weather conditions and cannot substitute for around the clock resources. Since winter storm uri in 2021, swepco has made substantial reliance improvements as we plan the system needed for this new era.
▶ 0:39:11I'd like to emphasize five points. First, new natural gas plants will be indispensable. The unit swepco planned to build will include robust cold weather enhancements and must be paired with reliable pipeline capacity. Second, new nuclear energy will be crucial for long term zero carbon base load power.
▶ 0:39:33Swepco is currently evaluating opportunities in texas, arkansas and louisiana to support the advancement of nuclear technologies. Third, existing baseload resources, especially coal, continue to provide vital reliability during extreme conditions. Federal policy must avoid premature retirements until new, equally dependable resources are available.
▶ 0:40:00Fourth, a resilient future requires modern transmission policies at ferc and regional planning bodies such as the southwest power pool, must support strong interregional transmission, including 765 kv lines, to enhance both reliability and affordability. Finally, across all of this, affordability must be maintained as a priority.
▶ 0:40:29Existing customers cannot be asked to shoulder the cost of integrating new large loads, long term arrangements, innovative rates and coordinated regional planning are helping to ensure that growth benefits all customers. Our grid is facing extraordinary challenges, but with the right policies and the right investments, we can ensure the system remains reliable, affordable and resilient. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify and I look forward to your questions.
▶ 0:40:58>> well, thank you for your opening statement. Mr. goggin. You are recognized for five minutes for your opening statement. >> chair. Mr. peters and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today. My testimony reviews the data from winter storm fern and other recent events to make five main points. First, wind and solar resources performed well during winter storm and other recent events, while fossil generation did not. Second, in all recent cold snap events, natural gas accounted for the majority of generator outages, followed by coal.
▶ 0:41:26We also saw natural gas prices spike during winter storm fern and these other events costing consumers billions of dollars. Fourth, I recommend that a diverse generation mix increases resilience. Each resource type has distinct outage risks, so a diverse mix reduces the economic and reliability risk to ratepayers.
▶ 0:41:47And finally, expanding transmission increases resilience by providing americans with more affordable and reliable power and tapping into diversity among regions in the timing of peak demand and generator outages. First, let's look at generator performance. Wind and solar provide around 20 to 25% of the power during winter storm fern's peak demand periods in texas and the two other large grid operators in the middle of the country, the southwest power pool and the midcontinent independent system operator at the southwest power pool.
▶ 0:42:17Miso and pjm regions experienced peak demand during winter storm fern wind and solar provided over 38,000mw, nearly twice the 21,000mw of output they're compensated to provide and are expected to provide during peak demand events by exceeding grid operators expectations by over 17,000mw. Wind and solar picked up some of the slack as gas underperformed its accredited capacity by 52,000mw and coal by 7000mw.
▶ 0:42:45Gas and coal generators fell short of grid planners expectations during winter storm fern, largely because the experiences outages at many times higher rates higher than renewable generation. This is consistent with performance patterns during other recent extreme weather events like winter storms. Uri and elliot, when gas generators accounted for 63% and 55% of outages, respectively. Coal and gas generators depend on fuel deliveries and access to cooling water, while wind and solar do not.
▶ 0:43:15Retiring coal generators that the department of energy has mandated remain online also performed poorly during winter storm fern, consistently delivering only 29 to 42% of their capacity, according to the department of energy's own numbers.
▶ 0:43:29In contrast, the largely complete vineyard wind project, which the administration has repeatedly attempted to halt by retroactively revoking its permits, operate at a 75% capacity factor during winter storm fern, delivering more than 400mw into new england land based, wind and solar powered tens of millions of homes.
▶ 0:43:48As a central and eastern us experienced peak demand during winter storm fern, just as they did during other recent winter storms, intruding on state authority and impeding market forces which are replacing uneconomic and unreliable old power plants with modern resources, only results in higher costs and less reliability for ratepayers during winter storm fern and other recent winter storms. Gas performance problem was partially caused by gas wells freezing.
▶ 0:44:15This happened in winter in texas during winter storm uri and in the marcellus shale area. During winter storm elliot each took offline about 20% of total us gas production, which played a major role in kickstarting the cascading failures that led to rolling blackouts in texas and parts of the southeast. In those events, winter storm fern was less cold, and it caused about a 10% drop in gas production, which led to gas prices spiking to 60 to 90 times normal in many parts of the eastern us, costing consumers billions of dollars.
▶ 0:44:46Domestic natural gas prices are also increasingly tethered to global prices due to liquefied natural gas exports. By diversifying our generation, mix with wind and solar, which will always have a fuel cost of zero, we can protect consumers from both short term gas price volatility during extreme weather, as well as long term uncertainty due to global geopolitical events like the ongoing closure of the strait of hormuz. A stronger transmission grid also would have provided americans with more affordable and reliable power. During these extreme weather events.
▶ 0:45:15Expanded transmission between texas and the southeast could have kept the heat on for millions of texans during winter storm uri. While the same ties could have kept the lights on for customers in the southeast during winter storm elliot providing more than $1 billion in value in winter storm fern, a modest transient transmission expansion between western and eastern pjm would have saved ratepayers in the eastern us around $90 million.
▶ 0:45:38Customers across the midwest similarly could have saved tens of millions of dollars, with stronger transmission ties among those grid operating areas. Transmission provides these benefits by tapping into diversity in the timing of peak demand and generator outages among regions. Extreme weather events don't hit the entire country at once, and they move over time. Imports from neighboring regions are a key tool for cost effective resilience.
▶ 0:46:00In short, a diverse generation mix and transmission that taps into regional diversity are the best solutions for ensuring americans have affordable and reliable power in the face of extreme weather, wars and other uncertainties. >> well, thank you very much for your opening statement. And, Mr. costa, you are recognized for five minutes for your opening statement. >> chairman. Latter Mr. peters and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is jose costa.
▶ 0:46:30I'm president of the northeast gas association, and I represent the natural gas industry in the northeast. I appreciate the chance to share insights from winter storm fern and extended cold that followed this event, tested our energy systems and underscored the reality. Our infrastructure is operating at maximum capacity, and we need to invest in new natural gas infrastructure and storage.
▶ 0:46:54I would like to first highlight how the industry performed before discussing some of the significant stresses experienced to begin during fern, appalachian producers performed exceptionally well. They deserve recognition for their winterization efforts.
▶ 0:47:09Moving upstream, pipeline operators and gas utilities ensure that gas was delivered to where it was needed during and after fern northeast pipelines recorded some of the highest flow days ever, and utilities met record setting customer demand. This is only possible because of the maintenance and preparations they do in advance, and the dedicated efforts of their workforce. Fern clearly showed just how reliable the gas industry is.
▶ 0:47:38However, the northeast natural gas infrastructure is significantly constrained as demand peaked in new england's pipelines reached their max flows, the region turned to lng import facilities and on lng storage to provide additional supply to the region. Across the northeast, natural gas is typically the dominant fuel for electric generation. As supplies tighten, the pipelines continue to move significant volumes of gas to the firm. Gas utility customers.
▶ 0:48:11However, eventually they reached a point where they could no longer supply gas to power plants that do not hold firm contracts. During this period, natural gas remained essential baseline fuel, supporting the region's electric grid, supplying at least a quarter of the generation in new england for several days, gas fired generation in new england relied on lng imports to maintain operations.
▶ 0:48:33It should also be noted that this event went as well as it did through significant industry coordination and communication with our partners in the electric sector and in government ngos. Gas supply task force was activated throughout the event and ncga closely coordinated with broader industry through the electric gas operations committee, which we co-chair with iso new england. However, while we weathered the storm, this event tested the northeast.
▶ 0:49:05An earlier arrival to the blizzard of 2026 could have been the tipping point. As I said, this extended cold led to extreme demand across the region. All three regional isos reported elevated sustained demand for the duration. As available pipeline gas tightened, the region became increasingly dependent on fuels delivered by truck and barge.
▶ 0:49:28This required state and federal agencies to issue waivers, including allowing drivers to drive extended hours and sometimes dangerous conditions, further complicating supply chain oil. Fuel depots experienced delivery disruptions. This is not reliable, sustainable or cost effective. In all, this led to some of the highest volume wholesale energy prices the northeast has ever seen.
▶ 0:49:51Gas, gas, gas spot prices for new york and connecticut were 17 times higher than prices just across the state line. In northeast pennsylvania, power prices in new england and new york also spiked to record levels. Gas utilities take steps to mitigate price spikes, including buying firm transportation supply contracts, implementing financial hedges and utilizing storage.
▶ 0:50:15Yet despite these efforts, it is impossible to protect customers completely from market volatility like we saw this winter. It's important to note that we support an all energy source solution. However, during fern, weather dependent resources failed to meet the moment. Many generators in new york and new england switched to oil, with oil becoming new england's leading fuel source for power generation. This immediately led to emissions increases.
▶ 0:50:45In fact, according to iso new england, co2 emissions in new england this january were up an estimated 24% compared to january 2025. Finally, a better path is available. Thoughtful investment in more natural gas infrastructure can improve reliability, reduce costs and cut reliance on higher emitting fuels. Thank you for your time and I look forward to answering your questions. >> well, thank you all for your opening statements.
▶ 0:51:15Really appreciate it. And this does conclude the opening statements from our witnesses and will now begin with questions from our members. And I'll begin the questioning and recognize myself for five minutes. First question I ask everyone that comes before us in the subcommittee. Do we need to have more energy or less energy in this country, more. >> much more. >> more and more diverse? Much more? >> well, thank you very much.
▶ 0:51:44I know that when we had the toss, the isos and ercot and last year, they all said the exact same thing, we had to have more. And they also added that we have to make sure that we're not taking off any existing generation offline. And that's where I'm going to start with my questions with you, Mr. robb, because, you know, you and your statement mentioned about the premature thermal retirements going offline in the next five years, what's going to happen?
▶ 0:52:12>> so the loss of those resources is it creates multiple problems for the grid. Uh, you know, first is you lose the energy production. Many of those facilities aren't, uh, extremely large producers of energy, but they're strategically located. And one of the things that's very important about traditional generation is it provides what we call essential reliability services. They can be controlled within very tight parameters.
▶ 0:52:35They provide support for the frequency of the grid, the voltage of the grid, and they can be ramped up and down to accommodate changes in load or changes in the performance of other generating resources. So they're absolutely essential to the reliable performance of the grid. >> well thank you. Um, Mr. madison, if I could ask this question because, um, you're talking about the reliability out there and also that, uh, coal is 50% of the power during the storm. I, I understood that correctly.
▶ 0:53:04What happened if we didn't have that generation at this time? >> quite honestly, if we didn't have that dispatchable resource that's reliable and dependable and it was 50% of our load during that storm, uh, unfortunately, we would have had customers lights go out. >> okay. Thank you. Um, Mr. costa, uh, being up in the northeast, um, you were talking about the lng storage. If you have one, number one, ask the congress. What would it be? >> could you repeat that again? I'm sorry.
▶ 0:53:34>> if you had one. Number one, ask the congress, what would it be? >> uh, I think we need more. The permitting reform, the work you do on a permitting reform is critical to bring more supplies from marcellus shale to the region. >> well, and you know, that's important because, you know, from the beginning of this congress, the first thing that we've heard pretty much on a even scale, we have to be producing that energy. But we also have the permitting reform. What good is getting the energy, having energy to move from point a to point b?
▶ 0:54:01And so that's, that's an important thing that we're talking and trying to get done in this committee. And at the top of the list, when it comes right down to it, uh. Mr. how, you know, when you talk about the energy supply, um, how can we speed up the process, especially on permitting? How would you see it done? >> I'm not sure I have. Excuse me, a good prescription for the answer here.
▶ 0:54:25Um, I think it's, you know, clear that we've seen, you know, some agencies, you know, reduce the amount of time it takes to produce the environmental impact statement. Ferc's made some very strong progress in that in that area. But at the end of the day, we're not getting stuff built quickly, right? You know, I the most recent interstate transmission lines took 15 to 20 years to get built. Uh, a natural gas plant might take seven years to get built.
▶ 0:54:52Um, and the problem is, is that we can add a data center, uh, which is an enormous consumer of power, as everyone's noted, you know, in 18 to 24 months. Um, and we want those data centers to get built. So all these time frames need to be compressed. And whether that's done through permitting reform, uh, other actions to, uh, to speed the development of resources, unclogging supply chains, speeding, interconnection queues, all those are part of the solution and need to be pursued.
▶ 0:55:23>> thank you. Uh, Mr. madison and your five points that you laid out, uh, one of the things that you talked about and again, is really on our modern modernization of that transmission and the, you know, permitting and really the supply chain in my last about 50s, uh, how can we make sure we can live up to that because it's taking so long to get these things done. So.
▶ 0:55:51>> I think on a state basis that we've got each of our three states, arkansas, louisiana, and texas have really done a good job in clearing the way. But we need federal policy to. Gentleman. Mr. rob, to my right is stating that we can get things accelerated with policies that allow us to build transmission a lot faster, a lot quicker than we are today.
▶ 0:56:14>> well, again, that's one of the things this subcommittee has been looking at because again, we all recognize the absolute need when we've seen a flat lining out there of electricity usage over a good number of years, and it's just skyrocketed up. We've got to get this thing done. My time has expired, and I recognize the gentleman from california's 50th district for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. I really enjoyed being a trial lawyer when I did environmental law and. But I always thought that if you went to trial, it was because someone misunderstood their leverage.
▶ 0:56:45And really, a good lawyer serves his or her client best by finding where there's agreement and trying to settle the case ahead of time. And this strikes me as something where we should not be going to trial. We seem to have violent agreement among everyone. There's not disagreement about what you're talking about. Everyone's talking past each other. We need new natural gas facilities. Sure, we understand them. We also understand it takes seven years and there's no way to connect them. New nuclear. There's virtually unanimous support in this room for new nuclear. Virtually unanimous.
▶ 0:57:14Um regarding the existing base load, the premature retirement. Of course, we understand we don't want to retire things prematurely. I think democrats object to propping them up artificially when the market wants to retire them. Um, every single person talks about transmission here. We this committee has done nothing on transmission, but everyone says interregional transmission is important for liability, for cost control, for competition. We know we need it for interconnection.
▶ 0:57:42You could build a gas plant tomorrow in pjm. There's no way to connect it because there's no there's no capacity on the grid. We agree on that. We agree that affordability is a priority. As Mr. madison said, we understand that a diverse mix compensates for the defects in each particular form of energy because none of it's perfect. You love natural gas. It's not perfect. You love wind. It's not perfect. We understand that. And the market is driving us to more diversity. The kinds of things that Mr. goggin was talking about. Um, we understand fuel oil in new england is bad.
▶ 0:58:12We want to get rid of that. That's dumb. Right? We all understand that. And we all know that. I think increasingly everyone understands the need for permanent reform and speed. So I look at this as a lawyer. I think that this case should be settled. We should do it now and we should move on. And the fights we're fighting, like, you know, Mr. lot always asks, do we need more power? We all know we need more power.
▶ 0:58:33So it's very frustrating for me, um, who used to litigate cases to say why we should not take this to trial everyone and to see everyone agree, uh, from up here and agree over the course of the last year and a half, same thing I'd like to introduce for the record, this, uh, this article, winter storm fern highlights the need for more resilient transmission. Talking about, um, how, uh, regions across the country are exporting and importing all types of energy over that four day period during fern. >> without objection, so ordered.
▶ 0:59:04>> um, I, I, um, I guess I want to ask Mr. Mr. raab last year released a study that said an additional 35gw of inter-regional transfer capability, which our grid connections among regions would make the grid more resilient against extreme weather, lower costs, and enable us to meet low growth. I understand we need more generation and reforms to the permitting process as part of the solution here. Can you talk about how those grid connections help on the transmission? Help resources like coal and natural gas, not just renewables?
▶ 0:59:36>> well, the whole premise of inter-regional transmission is to be able to move power from a region that has excess into a region that has deficit. Um, and, uh, you, you, you cited the study, uh, that we conducted and it showed a 35, 37gw. The important thing to note about that is it's not evenly distributed, right?
▶ 0:59:57There's certain areas of the country where, uh, that transmission would be, would, would be valuable from a reliability perspective, and it would benefit all resources, whether it's wind, solar, coal, natural gas, nuclear, what have you, because it would expand market opportunities and access, it would also improve reliability for those areas that find themselves, uh, at times in reserve deficit. >> regardless of the generation source, right. Pardon. That's regardless of how the power. >> irrespective of the generation source. >> um, Mr.
▶ 1:00:27Goggin, I, I know folks have done analysis about how during the storm. Fern there was sufficient generation available that couldn't be transmitted to where it was needed because of transmission congestion. Can you give us a brief example of that happening and whether it had an impact on customer costs? >> absolutely. There were a number of points of congestion on the grid, and it shows that we do need these not just for reliability but for economics. We need to expand our grid and allow these flows from region to region as well as within regions. One example is within pjm.
▶ 1:00:56Consumers in this area and eastern pjm paid about $90 million more than they should have because there was abundant low cost generation in the western part of pjm, northern illinois, and places like that that could not make it here. Um, we certainly saw wind generation being curtailed in the southwest power pool. Um, that would have been worth over $30 million if it could have been delivered into the midcontinent independent system operator area, also in the midwest as they experience peak demand. So tens of millions of dollars left on the table.
▶ 1:01:26>> and I would just say, look, I'm willing to work with everyone in this committee room to do this. Part of the federal government. Reason we're a federal government is we should be forcing these these connections across state lines to serve all of our constituents and all of the states. Uh, and I think we got to get about the business of doing that. I yield back. >> thank you. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from kentucky, the chair of the full committee, for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, Mr. chair. I appreciate the recognition. Appreciate you all for being here.
▶ 1:01:53And I just want to make sure it seems like there's a sort of a disconnect in some of the testimony. You know, clearly dispatchable energy provided the bulk of power during the storm. Yet we hear wind outperformed gas and coal in terms of accredited capacity, which is understand it basically just means you perform higher than expected. So, for example, if it was only budgeted for 2% but performed at 4%, proponents would claim that's a major increase or major performance. But it pales in comparison to dispatchable power.
▶ 1:02:20So, for example, the missile system during the storm variable wind power ranged from 20% supply to 3% supply, while gas and coal dispatched from 78% to 62% of the power, depending on what was needed. So, Mr. madison, um, as an operator, do you rely more on gas and coal or wind when a major storm is approaching? >> thank you for your question. Um, we do have a diverse mix in our portfolio.
▶ 1:02:44However, whenever we know that there's a winter storm like fern approaching, we need to make sure that our resources that are dispatchable are ready at any moment. Notice because they are dependable, reliable, and dispatchable is the key. Um, our wind assets perform decent during fern. Uh, unlike in, uh, winter storm heather earlier in the year where there was a lot of icing, they did not. So I want everyone on the committee to understand that our north star is our customer.
▶ 1:03:14That's what we focus on. And we have to keep their lights on, irregardless of policies. Et cetera. We want to make sure our units are running. So we spent about $7.5 million winterizing our units as a result of winter storm. Uri taught us a lesson to make sure they're ready and available. So we put a lot of emphasis on that dispatchable resource when a winter storm is coming. >> thank you.
▶ 1:03:38So it's wind and solar works when the wind's blowing steady, not fast and when the sun is shining. But that's somebody somebody told me, he said, well, that was an unusual day. That's why you can see the wind. And solar didn't perform the way it was supposed to. So well, you need power on the unusual. That's when you need it the most so that you can't dismiss that. So, Mr. rob, you say that various emergency actions during fern should serve as a warning. What do you mean by that?
▶ 1:04:09>> excuse me. Thank you for the question. I get very worried when we normalize risk. And, you know, the. For, as everyone's noted, an uninterruptible supply of power in the 21st century is absolutely essential to every aspect of our lives. And when we run close to the edge like we did during fern, that should serve as a wake up call and be viewed for what it is, you know, a near miss situation. This storm could have been much worse, right? What bailed the the system out was the fact it wasn't as cold as projected.
▶ 1:04:38And we saw a lot of load shed occur because businesses and schools were shut down. And that's not a societal outcome that we want. So the system is losing margin. That's driving operators to have to go to more and more extreme operating measures. And they need every tool, they needed every tool in their tool kit to keep the lights on across the country. That's not the way we want to run the electric grid that's so essential to our life. >> so thank you. So question my next question.
▶ 1:05:05So huge multi-day storms can limit help from other regions. During christmas 2022, when winter storm elliot hit, two, kentucky utilities weren't able to get enough power from pjm to keep their lights on during fern despite a brand new large transmission line, hydro-québec sent power meant for new england to its own canadian customers. So, Mr. costa, what does this say about the importance of ensuring dependable resources within regions? >> um, thank you for the question. Uh, congressman, the, um, you are you are correct.
▶ 1:05:35Um, that what we saw during fern was that we actually had wood burning in trash incineration, produced more electricity at that time than we did with the, um, with weather dependent energy sources. >> yeah, I saw that. I kept checking, but this has to be some trick on the internet. But it's absolutely true that in new england you burn by burning wood in refuse, you create more energy than wind and solar.
▶ 1:06:05>> that was per iso, new england's own, uh, website, uh, details. And uh, so as I've been saying, I think the dispatchable fuels we've been hearing today as well, dispatchable fuels are critical to our region. And it's just a shame that we have the marcellus shale so close to us that could bring us cost effective energy to the northeast if we're able. >> just what would happen if you did? So we every time we talk about this, we get accused sometimes in this committee of.
▶ 1:06:34We are just here defending polluters is what they say. Well, these people aren't there to produce pollution. They're there to produce energy. What if you didn't have dispatchable power? The wind. I mean, the, uh, the fossil fuels last fern, what would have happened? >> I mean, when you when you talk about pollution, if you look at natural gas, natural gas. >> if you didn't have natural gas, what would have happened. >> if we didn't have natural gas? >> if you didn't have that option? >> um, it's I the generation there, it just oil or most likely at this point we would actually have outages.
▶ 1:07:04>> well, you wouldn't have all either. So you'd have allergies if you didn't have any of this. Right. Because when solar would not, if you were 100% wind and solar wouldn't have performed. >> that's correct. >> thank you, I yield back. >> thank you very much. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from new jersey, the ranking member of the full committee, for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. I my questions are of Mr. goggins. Um, over the last 16 months, the republicans keep repeating their claims that wind and solar are unreliable when the grid needs them most.
▶ 1:07:32But your testimony based on actual data kind of tells a different story. So can you talk about how renewables help keeping the grid going during winter storm fernand and talk about how they performed relative to expectations? >> absolutely. In terms of total performance, wind and solar in the southwest power pool region, we're about 20 to 27% during the peak demand periods in ercot. It was in the texas grid operating area. It was 15 to 24%.
▶ 1:07:58And in iso on the two peak days, they had their. During the peak hours, it was 23%. So very strong performance over 20% on most of those days. And most of those large markets, um, this also was well above the expected capacity. And that is really, I think the important metric of what we're looking at. The grid is a product of decades of planning.
▶ 1:08:18And when those grid planners think about what generation will be there when power demand is high, that's the relative metric is how did you perform relative to what is expected of you and what, importantly, you are compensated to provide regions like pjm. Miso have capacity markets where resources get paid for the capacity they provide, and wind and solar outperform that by a large margin. As I outlined, it was nearly twice.
▶ 1:08:42If you look across the sbp, miso and pjm areas, roughly twice what they were expected to provide and what they are compensated to provide. In contrast, gas and coal fell well below that. What it's. >> well, that was my second question about, you know, this isn't just about renewables outperforming expectations. It's also about gas and coal fired power plants underperforming. So it's a little more.
▶ 1:09:06Did thermal power plants that is gas and coal underperform during this extreme winter weather? And will they likely continue to struggle during future cold weather events? >> yes they did, and we've seen this repeatedly, repeatedly in the events over the last several years and even over the last decade or more, there have been repeated correlated outages of fossil generation, um, coal and gas, um, for, for many of the coal units, as well as some of the gas units, this is simply equipment failures, uh, things breaking things,
▶ 1:09:37Freezing water pipes, freezing like it might at your house when it's really cold. Um, as I mentioned, these thermal resources need cooling water and they use water to produce steam. In many cases, that just creates more things that can freeze and break when it gets really cold. Um, we also, you know, the gas supply issues are also a very real factor. And, um, we're a major impact. Um, you know, in fern, it wasn't large enough to cause rolling blackouts like we had in yuri and elliot, but they still happened.
▶ 1:10:04It was 10% of production, natural us natural gas production in winter storm fern versus 20% in winter storms. Elliot and yuri. And so we have these correlated risks because of those, um, dependencies on a certain type of fuel or, um, you know, dependencies on, you know, things that use water and therefore have, are prone to certain types of failures. And so having more diversity, bringing in wind and solar that don't need fuel, that don't need water gives you more diversity that protects against those risks. >> all right.
▶ 1:10:32And then my last question is about your work on winter storm fern. Um, throughout last year, energy secretary, right, in my opinion, has illegally abused emergency authorities under the federal power act repeatedly to force coal plants to stay online long after they were slated to retire. And so can you talk about how these so-called emergency orders drive up energy costs for ratepayers? And are they actually necessary for reliability? >> absolutely.
▶ 1:11:00So these are plants that as part of that decade old planning process, were slated for retirement. And that was a decision by the owner, by the utility, by the utilities regulators in many in many of these markets and by the market forces that were sending a price signal to those units that you are no longer economic, you're the services you're providing are no longer valued. Basically, your cost is greater than your value, and you should retire and you should be replaced with new, more economic, more reliable resources.
▶ 1:11:30And we saw that during this event, the performance of these coal units by doe's own numbers was extremely poor. The numbers we put on its website showed 29 to 42% consistent output from as a share of those resources capacity during winter storm fern. That's well below what, you know, the offshore wind and many of the land based wind resources were providing. Um, and it certainly well below what grid operators expect from a coal. >> so would you say I'm just interrupting because we're running out of time.
▶ 1:11:58Do you think that these, um, these, uh, emergency orders are necessary? >> absolutely not. The markets and the existing state regulatory processes are working well. They are providing the right price signals to bring market entry and replace these uneconomic, unreliable resources with new, more reliable resources. Intruding on that market and those regulatory processes is not going to benefit consumers. >> I thank you. Thank you, Mr. chairman. >> thank you.
▶ 1:12:27The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from alabama sixth district for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. Um, Mr. robb, uh, I'm trying to think back to the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, when we had some pretty severe winter storms.
▶ 1:12:47My recollection is that most of the power outages came from those were the result of trees or other things taken down lines. But it wasn't catastrophic grid failure, is it? Do you have any knowledge of of our past history and how our grid held up under winter storm conditions? >> I have some, but I don't have personal experience. All the way back to the 50s.
▶ 1:13:18However, I would I would say that in general, uh, it's very unusual to see resource driven outages. Most outages have always been because of problems on the distribution system, due to icing on lines, uh, people running into telephone poles that sort or utility poles, that sort of thing. We're in a very unique period of time where we're seeing resource deficiency. >> why do you think that we're seeing that now?
▶ 1:13:43Is it because of the, as, as pointed out, uh, a couple of years ago, the, the change in resource mix is the number one threat to the grid. >> I think it's driven by a few things. I think the change in the resource mix is clearly one of the issues that we're seeing. We're just we don't have the same fuel security we had in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
▶ 1:14:05Um, I think the weather systems that we're seeing are more extreme, uh, and more routinely extreme than what we've seen in the past. >> I don't know that they're more extreme because, um, we've known about polar vortexes since the 1850s as first identified as a polar vortex in a magazine that was the editor was charles dickens. Um, the most extreme event we had was in the early 1900s.
▶ 1:14:33And we actually, the event that took place in texas was predicted weeks in advance because, uh, scientists identified atmospheric conditions above the north pole, very similar to what happened in the 1920s when we had the super vortex. So I don't know that, that we've got more extreme, um, events.
▶ 1:14:54And, uh, I just think they, that we've changed the, the, the fuel mix, the resource mix and we're, we become reliant on things that I'm not sure are totally reliable. The question I'd like to ask, uh, Mr.
▶ 1:15:13Madison, uh, would reopening some of the facilities that have been closed, particularly the coal fired facilities and, and reopening those empowering those with small modular reactors mitigate some of the issues with reliability because the transmission lines are still there. You don't have the issue with transmission lines that you do with with trying to build solar or wind. >> yeah. Thank you for the question. And I would like to make a point. When we talk about coal plants during winter events, we have long term secured coal contracts.
▶ 1:15:41We have on site fuel sitting on the ground. I've heard a number of times that the cost to the customer on those coal fired plants went up. I don't know how they calculate those numbers, but they did not go up. And so that fuel price is consistent. So I want to make sure that I that I noted that if there's an area where you have an interconnection where you have hired a plant, putting a plant back in that place, the interconnection still exists. Yes, sir. To your question, that would be very helpful.
▶ 1:16:12>> but the issue isn't just extreme weather events. It's the fact that we've gone so whole hog toward renewables in certain areas of the country that they're now high risk, just based on demand. >> well, and I think it's math and it's a proper, um, you know, physics as well. Um, we're, we're not opposed to when, if you look at our portfolio, we have a large portion of wind, we have a diversified portfolio portfolio and it complements and acts well at times.
▶ 1:16:39But you ask, uh, Mr. guthrie, ask about dependability and reliability. I can rely on those dispatchable sources and they hedge as an insurance policy. Um, but again, our goal is to always keep the lights on for the consumer. That's what I'm tasked with as an operator. >> Mr. costa, you discussed the importance of gas reliability. What happens if the gas supply can't meet demand? And what does a gas outage look like?
▶ 1:17:10>> so in the northeast, um, with the gas supply, it's you have gas utilities that have firm contracts. And as a result, um, at this point, if you take a winter storm, fern, their customers are protected, uh, with the, it's really the power plants that do not have firm contracts and they're the ones that would suffer. And then you would have lights out. Okay. >> thank you, Mr. chairman, I yield back. >> thank you.
▶ 1:17:36The gentleman yields back and the chair now recognizes the gentleman from new jersey's eighth district for five minutes for questions. >> thank you. Chairman. Today's hearing is on an important topic, but it is being held at a time when congress and this committee should be laser focused on the affordability crisis that the trump administration has exacerbated with the president's unauthorized war with iran, a war that the american people have overwhelmingly opposed since its start, a war that goes directly against trump's
▶ 1:18:07America first promise and pledged that he wouldn't start any new wars. Since the start of the year, our military operations have extended into iran and venezuela. It is only march, and this is actively making life more expensive for americans. Last week, oil prices spiked to over $110 a barrel, the highest since the start of the covid 19 pandemic. In the past month, oil prices have increased by almost 52%.
▶ 1:18:40Natural gas costs have increased 13% since the start of the trump's second term, and gasoline prices are up over 25% since the start of this year. This comes when the president asked about his performance on the economy and affordability, gave himself an a plus, plus, plus, plus plus. No room for improvement. Let's also remember that to mitigate this spike, the administration announced plans last week to tap into the strategic petroleum reserve.
▶ 1:19:10This is a strategy that both, yes, republicans and democratic administrations have used in the past. But when president biden tapped into the reserve in response to rising oil prices following russias invasion of ukraine, a war that he did not start, by the way, republicans were outraged.
▶ 1:19:30Speaking about russia last week, the administration announced a temporary waiver on us sanctions on russian oil, which means that russia is now a direct beneficiary of the president's war on iran. That is not an america first policy. Let's also rewind back to when the president when president biden was making these decisions.
▶ 1:19:53Colleagues on this committee, including the gentleman from alabama, were in up in arms, saying president biden has drained our spr to the lowest level since the 1980s. Instead of draining our reserves for political motives, biden should focus on reversing his administration's disastrous policies that have caused energy prices to skyrocket just once again.
▶ 1:20:15Energy prices natural gas costs have increased 13% since the start of trump's term, and gasoline prices are up over 25% since the start of this year. I doubt you will see a tweet like this addressed to president trump and his disastrous policies that are hurting the american people when they need relief from their government. And in america, first focus.
▶ 1:20:38Um, we should be having the secretary of energy secretary right before this committee, but he is tied up in venezuela, which, by the way, not the us. He is tied up on iran, which again, is not the us. Everything that this administration is doing is running counter to all the promises that president trump and republicans on this committee ran on in 2024. So let's recap.
▶ 1:21:07Republicans were upset that president biden tapped into the reserve. Now president trump is doing it. Republicans had the opportunity and president trump had the opportunity to replenish that reserve. They failed to do so at an adequate level. And now the strait of hormuz is closed because of a war that trump started. We are tapping into that reserve again to lower prices that have increased exponentially since the start of the war.
▶ 1:21:32By the way, the strait of hormuz was something that was obvious to anyone who studied the middle east, and this would be a response by the iranian government, but not so much this administration. I say all this because this is an important issue in terms of what we've seen this year in storms and being prepared for it. Our energy production in this country is incredibly important. But when we sit here and our colleagues across the aisle pretend it's business as usual, we are not in this trying moment.
▶ 1:21:59The american people are not in this trying moment. It gets extremely frustrating, especially because so much of the time spent on this committee by my colleagues across the aisle are in constant critique of the prior administration. But when they see things that are hurting the american people being done by this administration, the lack of accountability of this administration. They're often silent. So I appreciate you all being here, and I yield back. >> thank you. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time.
▶ 1:22:26The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from tennessee's first district for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, Mr. chairman, and thank you for being here today and for your testimony. Uh, winter storm fern was a real world test of our electric grid, uh, for my home state. I'm proud of the men and women at tva and our rural electric co-ops who worked around the clock in dangerous, icy conditions to swiftly restore our power.
▶ 1:22:51And I'm sure you know, the tva board recently announced it will continue operations at the cumberland and kingston coal plants. Um, that decision didn't just happen in a vacuum, as shared in Mr. rob's testimony, newark has sounded the alarm about early retirements in its 2025 long term reliability assessment and winter storm. Fern showed us exactly why those warnings deserve our attention.
▶ 1:23:16Uh, when the other resources underperformed during the storm, it was dispatchable generation that kept the lights on. And in the tennessee valley, coal alone provided 14% of our power generation at peak demand. Solar and wind combined just provided 1%. So, Mr. matheson, um, what does winter storm firm tell us about the role of dispatchable infrastructure, especially coal, in maintaining grid reliability? Sir. >> thank you for your question. I think it's very important.
▶ 1:23:46And when you look at how our assets perform during winter storm firm coal, they were at 81% of their capacity factor. When you look at wind, it was around 42% and natural gas was about 31%. So that dispatchable coal unit is the workhorse. It's the baseload unit and um, subject to check, but I believe I'm right here. Aep swepco built the last coal plant that's been built in the united states. It's called the turk plant in fulton, arkansas.
▶ 1:24:16It came online in 2012. It's an ultra supercritical plant, which just means the temperatures are higher. And it, when built, complies with the current ccr ilg rules and all the environmental rules that are available today. And it's one of the workhorses in our fleet. And that plant performed perfectly during winter storm fern. >> fantastic.
▶ 1:24:39Um, I also want to mention, um, how much our electric grid and pipeline network rely on significant preparation, scenario analysis and real time communications and coordination during these extreme weather events, forecasting for severe weather and all possible outcomes can be very time consuming, consuming, and burdensome. I know I talked to the ceo of tva when we had hurricane helene, and I asked about ai projections and things of that nature. So, um, Mr.
▶ 1:25:08Mason, I'll go to you again. With the advent of ai and advanced computing, how can these tools be used to forecast potential supply shortfalls and demand increases and help respond to these events? >> well, thank you. Thank you for your question. One thing I want to mention about ai in northwest louisiana, we just landed an amazon data center. That's going to be 1.2 gigs. And we've got power plants in the offing to be built to support that. That'll be fueled by natural gas.
▶ 1:25:36I think it's early in the game to be precise on what ai can do, but it will be a game changer in predicting algorithms and forecasting, uh, fuel needed weather patterns. Uh, the one thing about a winter storm, fern, is like a hurricane. They can be devastating, but we have notice of when it's happening so we can begin to gear up. But I see a future with ai.
▶ 1:26:00When you put that data into an ai system, it will tell you exactly what you need to do, when to do it, how to do it. Kind of comical watching these driverless cars. I was in austin yesterday and they were telling me that once they learn an algorithm, then they start driving more aggressively like those around them. So it's amazing. I think what ai will be able to do for us. >> yeah, remind me not to take one of those. >> exactly. >> I'm pretty aggressive myself. Um, let's see, Mr.
▶ 1:26:28Robb is more intermittent generation added to the system. How important will reliable natural gas infrastructure be to maintaining grid stability during severe weather events? >> yeah, it's going to be critical to be able to balance the uncertainty and renewable production. One of the one of the issues with renewables is that while they tend to perform well in the summer, they don't perform well in the winter in general. Um, you know, the winter peaks typically happen at six in the morning and eight at night, right? When the sun doesn't shine.
▶ 1:26:58Batteries can help alleviate some of that, but not all of that, at least with the technologies we have today. So right now we need something to balance those resources. And the only real fuel we have to do that, that has the flexibility. Um, and ubiquity is, uh, natural gas. So it's an essential fuel for reliability. >> thank you sir. Um, Mr.
▶ 1:27:19Matheson, you've talked about amazon, uh, working, uh, we have, I guess tva has partnered with google to do some, some innovative things for their data centers, and it won't cost the ratepayers any more. And, you know, we're going to be checking on that, but this is going to happen all over the country. So with that, Mr. chairman, I yield back. >> thank you very much. The gentlelady yields back and the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from california's seventh district for five minutes for questions.
▶ 1:27:49>> thank you very much, Mr. chairman. And I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. I want to be 100% clear. Maintaining the reliability of the electric grid is a number one priority when it comes to extreme cold or extreme heat. Keeping the ac or heat running is a matter of life or death. Republicans want to accuse democrats and clean energy advocates of undermining reliability. So I want to set the record straight. Nothing could be further from the truth.
▶ 1:28:17Climate change and extreme threat to the grid, not to mention every other aspect of our lives. Wildfires are the biggest threat in california. They're also the biggest driver of electricity prices, and it's well established that the severity and frequency of wildfires is increasing because of climate change. Hurricanes, another massive threat to grid reliability, are becoming stronger because of climate change. Extreme heat is becoming more common because of climate change.
▶ 1:28:47Even extreme cold like winter storm fern, can be linked to climate change as climate change destabilizes arctic weather patterns, extreme cold air can be pushed down into lower latitudes, Mr. rob knowak has acknowledged the impact of climate change on reliability in the 2021 long term reliability assessment and the 2022 state of reliability report.
▶ 1:29:13Knowak stated that climate change is increasingly increasing the severity and frequency of extreme weather, which is threatening reliability. Yes or no? Is that correct? >> I'd have to go back and look at the reports, but I don't doubt that. >> okay, next mission is to conduct reliability assessments and establish reliability standards. Do you consider the role of fossil fuels in exacerbating the extreme weather that is threatening the grid?
▶ 1:29:43>> I don't have an opinion on that. >> okay. Is not nerc's mission to stop climate change at all? >> no. Our mission is to preserve the reliability of the bulk power system. >> okay. Our responsibility on this committee is to see the bigger picture and implement a long term strategy to stop climate change while still maintaining everyday grid reliability. That is our job. And we're facing these storms.
▶ 1:30:09Heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes and floods are only going to get worse if we don't do something about it. So how can we meet demand during winter storms without burning fossil fuels? 2026 was the coldest winter in decades, where parts of the south and east coast. But it was unusually warm for much of the west. Mr. goggin, what was solar output like in the western us during winter storm fern?
▶ 1:30:36>> it was extremely good and power prices, as you noted, were quite low throughout the west during this event. And that reflects it was just not that cold there. So there was abundant supply, electricity demand was not that high and the solar output was very strong.
▶ 1:30:48And so if we did have stronger transmission ties between the eastern and the western us and between texas and the east and the west, some of that surplus solar power and just general low cost power in the west could have kept rates low, could have helped keep the lights on in the eastern us and texas when those areas needed it, and we didn't see solar. >> answered my next question right now. So okay, I'll continue here.
▶ 1:31:12Um, in sacramento, we don't get winter storms, snowstorms like fern, but we do deal with extreme heat waves that put serious strain on the grid. Six years ago, in 2020, extreme summer heat pushed california's grid to the breaking point, and we saw rolling blackouts across the state. But since then, california has dramatically improved the reliability of our grid. Despite facing similar heat waves. Mr.
▶ 1:31:39Goggin, can you talk about how california has achieved this stunning turnaround? >> absolutely. A big part of it is a diverse mix of resources and facilitating the transmission expansion that's necessary for that. And california has been procuring wind resources both in state as well as from more distant areas where there's less diversity in the correlations of the profiles from those areas. So they're buying new mexico wind, they're buying wyoming wind. And this is building a diverse generation mix in the state.
▶ 1:32:09Obviously, there's a lot of solar investment. There's a lot of battery storage investment, and that is playing a key role. These three resources wind, solar batteries work together extremely well to provide dependable capacity flexibility and to work with the existing resources as well as imports to meet reliability. And we're seeing the same thing play out in texas and other areas where this is the winning solution is these diverse. >> Mr. goggin, you're answering my next question. Sorry.
▶ 1:32:32So we're going through this very quickly, but I just want to say, since previous winter storms, texas and other states have taken steps to winterize their grids and improve reliability safeguards. And two weeks ago, this committee passed the secure grid act, which I coauthored with chairman lada, to strengthen states ability to assess and prepare reliability risk. Mr. robb, how important are state energy programs for driving reliability improvements?
▶ 1:32:59>> they're absolutely critical because the states have the responsibility for the resource mix. >> okay. Thank you. And I ran out of time, I yield back. >> thank you very much. Gentlelady yields back. And the chair now recognizes the gentleman from oregon's second district for five minutes for questions. Thank you, Mr. chairman. >> thank all of you for being here. I think I want to start by focusing on the most simple approach, Mr. rob, to the problems that we're facing and what we here in congress can do about it.
▶ 1:33:27So you already mentioned we have a shortage of generation in the northwest. I'm from oregon. We we anticipate a shortage of a massive amount of shortage for our area about. We need about as much power in the future as we have today. And we. And we need it really soon. So that means we have to double the amount that we have in the northwest. So we have a real shortage there. Is this true across the nation, or is this just a northwest problem?
▶ 1:33:55>> it's not ubiquitous, but you're not alone. A lot a lot of places are facing enormous load growth and the need to get new generation and supporting infrastructure in place. >> right? So let's I was going to go to infrastructure next and that would be transmission. And so when we just heard Mr. goggin talking about the movement of wind and solar out of the southwest, up into california, into oregon and so forth, that takes transmission.
▶ 1:34:21And we we have a an incredible problem with our transmission in the northwest. A problem in the sense that it's too small, it's full up. There's no more capacity. Is that correct? Across the nation. >> again, not ubiquitous, but that problem is fairly common. >> and so now we're getting to it. How do we solve these two problems? One on the generation side and one on the transmission side. What's what? What is it going to take to solve these two problems?
▶ 1:34:50>> main thing is we got to figure out how to get stuff built right. I mean grid planners understand where there's need for more transmission. They understand where there's need for resources. The issue is getting permits to build it, getting through the interconnection queues, where that's an obstacle, uh, dealing with supply chain bottlenecks to get the equipment to build the, to build the stuff. But we got to be able to get it put in place and we got to get put in place very. >> we do. And let's focus on those obstacles again, because you're here in front of congress.
▶ 1:35:19The idea is that you'll tell us what it is we need to do to try to address the very obstacles that are standing between us and getting that generation and that transmission. So let's talk about transmission first. Is it the environmental work that we have to do to put a power line in that's the problem? Or is there some other or additional problem? Because certainly the eyes and everything else, uh, is a problem. >> that question probably be better addressed by one of the people who actually build transmission because we don't.
▶ 1:35:48Um, but, but, but the issue is permitting. >> the three we have here. Who should I ask? >> I'd ask Mr. madison. >> Mr. matt, you're up. >> I'm going to throw him a question in a minute, but that's okay. No, we we do build transmission lines and and I agree with Mr. rob. We do need to streamline the process. As I said earlier, the states have done a very good job of expediting, permitting us.
▶ 1:36:12But when you start going across, you know, transmission lines interstate, if we would have a more robust federal policy. >> so this this goes every time you hear the word robust, I start to nod off. Let me just let me just say that it's we just had a vote on the speed act and the speed act vote was 221 to 196. 11 democrats joined the rest of all all but one republican voting for that.
▶ 1:36:39Um, it hasn't gone anywhere over in the senate. If that were to pass, would that help? >> yes. Let's interchange the word for robust to speed. And that would that would help us from expedited. And that's what we need. >> and we. So if we're going to actually solve these problems that we've heard about for the last several hours, we actually need to do something to reduce the amount of time it's going to take to get generation to get transmission. So you're saying the speed act would help? Yes. And yet it's not moving in the senate.
▶ 1:37:08So you're you're telling congress do something with the speed act. Is that what I'm hearing? >> yes, sir. >> and so if if the speed act were to pass, would that help us address these almost existential problems that we're facing without having enough power to, to, to bring about artificial intelligence? >> it would build a highway. I like to look at it like this transmission system that we're talking about in oregon is a two lane highway. We need a ten lane highway to be able to move bulk power. No matter what the generation source is. We can't move it right now.
▶ 1:37:39>> and we've created these laws and requirements and studies and standards and everything else that are standing between us and actually getting done what has to be done to help protect this nation in as we go into this electrical, electrically driven future? Thank you so much, all for being here. I yield back. >> well, thank you very much. The gentleman yields back and the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas 33rd district for five minutes for questions. >> Mr. chairman, thank you very much.
▶ 1:38:05Uh, now that we know that, uh, extreme weather is no longer just an occasional stress test for our grid, uh, that's becoming sort of a routine operation condition. Uh, you know, we need to be cognizant of that. I know that, uh, winter storm fern was the third major winter event, uh, in as many years, and it forced grid operators across much of the country to manage simultaneous spikes in electricity demand, uh, fuel constraints and infrastructure stress.
▶ 1:38:31Uh, the encouraging news is that the bulk power system is pretty much held together. Uh, grid operators learned a lot of lessons. I know we did in texas, ercot, uh, with winter storm uri and elliot, uh, liked improved weather forecasting and better coordination, uh, and more clear planning to help keep flowing, uh, during peak demand. Uh, but fern also reinforced something that is also, I think, equally important.
▶ 1:38:57And that is there is no single resource or technology that guarantees reliability, uh, cleaner energy, provided meaningful generation and helped limit operating costs during periods of extremely high fuel prices. And natural gas supplies faced price spikes and delivery challenges and outages were often caused by distribution infrastructure failures rather than generation shortages. And so we have to move beyond, uh, fuel versus fuel debates.
▶ 1:39:25I think that that's unfortunately, uh, become almost sort of comical, uh, here, uh, but, uh, every resource type definitely has distinct outage risks during extreme weather. Uh, and I want to focus my questions on what policies actually reduce risk and lower cost, uh, going forward. Mr. goggin, uh, analysis shows that cleaner energy helped reduce operating costs during winter storm fern. When when fuel prices surged.
▶ 1:39:56And so I wanted to ask you, to what extent can renewable generation act as a hedge against fuel price shocks that ultimately show up in consumer bills? >> absolutely. It's an extremely powerful hedge because wind and solar have no fuel cost. They will always be free. And that's something that you can't get with other resources.
▶ 1:40:14Gas is obviously mostly traded on the spot market, and so the price can be extremely volatile during short term emergencies like we saw with winter storm fern, as well as long term, just with geopolitical and other macroeconomic factors that are uncertain. And so wind and solar does not have that risk. And it gives you a valuable hedge as a ratepayer that some of your fuel prices known and locked in at zero. So that's extremely valuable. And I think it's been a big part of the solution in texas, with the massive amount of wind, solar and batteries they have built, particularly over the last several years.
▶ 1:40:44>> yeah. Does does overreliance on a single fuel create affordability and reliability risk at the same time? >> absolutely. You see these these correlated risks each fuel has, you know, some types of risks, some are economic, some are reliability. And the solution to those risks is to have a diverse portfolio so that if one resource is unavailable or is too expensive, you can use the other resources. And that that diversity.
▶ 1:41:05I think not putting all your eggs in one basket is an extremely smart way to plan a generation system, and you need the transmission system that also enables that allows you to access diverse resources within your region as well as from neighboring regions. And so generation and transmission diversity is really key. >> yeah. No, thank you very much. And I want to ask Mr. rob, I know that winter storm fern saw some natural gas prices spike, uh, nearly 10 to 35 times at major hubs.
▶ 1:41:33And given the gas electric coordination risk identified by nurc, uh, how can we better align the two, uh, these two industries to ensure that fuel is available when the grid needs it most? >> that's a great question. Uh, first of all, we need to recognize that these two systems are two sides of the same coin, right? Natural gas now supplies 45% of power generation. Fuel and power generation consumes about 45% of natural gas.
▶ 1:42:01So the first thing I would say is we need to figure out how to plan these two systems together. Right now, they're planned independently on different bases. Second, we need to address the disconnects between the realities of fuel procurement for the power sector, uh, which are very, very different than the fuel procurement needs of a local distribution company for home heating.
▶ 1:42:23Uh, one of the issues we ran into in, uh, in fern was just the duration from when the operators needed to, to make their gas buy versus when they, when they actually purchased the gas, it was 5 or 6 days. That's an eternity. Uh, that needs to be addressed. Third, we need better coordinating mechanisms between the, between the two sectors. That's being addressed in some ways voluntarily by the initiatives that jose discussed in the northeast. We see similar things in other parts of the country.
▶ 1:42:52And then finally, the the gas system needs to be able to perform, uh, during extreme weather to the same degree that we require the electric system, uh, to perform, that's going to require more infrastructure, both pipelines and storage and probably some requirements on the pipelines and the upstream production to make sure that they can continue to operate during extreme cold events. >> yeah. No. >> thank you very much, Mr. chairman, I yield back. Thank you. >> thank you. The gentleman yields back.
▶ 1:43:22The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from florida's 15th district. I'll take that back. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady, the at large member from north dakota for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. And thank you to my colleague from florida, uh, for allowing me to jump ahead of her for these questions. Uh, this is like the super bowl of hearings for me. I'm a former utility regulator.
▶ 1:43:53Uh, these issues that we're talking about today are what drove me to run for congress, uh, because I saw the reliability risks front and center as president of naruc, as a state utility regulator for 12 years and was frustrated that we weren't shining enough light on these issues and paying enough attention to them. So Mr. rob and I have worked together for years. I appreciate your focus on this.
▶ 1:44:23I want to highlight something that you said, um, Mr. rob fearn fern was a classic near risk event. Near risk event. I wonder how different the room would be today if it wasn't a near risk event. If things had gone just a little bit differently, I can estimate what it would be like in here.
▶ 1:44:46It would be packed and all of us would be really mad at all of you because somebody else, not us, would be to blame. That's what happens with this. The engineers come through like champs in the in the hour of our greatest need, and they figure it out until they don't. But guess what? We have been warned.
▶ 1:45:11Your report time and time again, year after year from newark, has been warning this country that we're at risk of not having enough power to meet demand. Two thirds of the country is at risk of not having enough power to meet demand. That's not acceptable. We have to do better. So I appreciate you guys being here today and sharing some of your wisdom on what we should be doing better. Um, Mr.
▶ 1:45:41Madison, you mentioned that you would like the federal government. Um, I'm, um, paraphrasing you'd like the federal government to pay more attention to reliability and to demand more, um, of the system as it relates to reliability through our policies. What would you like us to do? >> well, as I was talking to Mr. bentz, I think, and Mr.
▶ 1:46:06Rob said it many times, we need to build stuff. At the end of the day, we need to build transmission lines, bulk transmission lines. We need to expedite that. It's needed today. We need to win at this ai game. We really do. As a united states, they're happening all over the place. They'll go somewhere else. We want them here. To me, it's a matter of national security.
▶ 1:46:30So to be able to build out to that demand, we can't haggle around with policies that ought to be this way. That way we need to me, it ought to be a bipartisan solution, because the whole country is dependent on building out the infrastructure that we need, because the reality is it's pretty simple. The lights will go out if we don't do this right. >> I agree with you. It should be bipartisan. Uh, Mr.
▶ 1:46:57Rob, uh, how are premature retirements of baseload resources sources such as natural gas and coal? Making matters worse, uh, when we have increased demand. >> thanks for the question. Uh, it makes matters worse in a number of different ways. When you lose the energy production associated with those facilities.
▶ 1:47:17And we saw in winter storm fern a number of facilities that were operating under 202c orders did perform and were required to keep the to keep the lights on. There's no question about that. The second thing is that those facilities create, um, the special sauce that keeps the grid operating.
▶ 1:47:35They create frequency, they create voltage, they create the ability to control those within very tight parameters, which is what allows the high voltage transmission system to operate without, without that kind of generation, we don't have the ability to operate a transmission system of the scale that we have. We may eventually be able to do that with grid forming inverters and other technologies, but those aren't ready for prime time yet. So so they play a very, very essential role in, uh, in the reliability of the grid.
▶ 1:48:05>> thank you. In the past, I've heard you say that one of the easiest things that we should be doing in the country to address our current urgent needs is to stop retiring things that are already connected to the grid and working. Do you still believe that that would be a good first step? >> I think the way to get out of a hole is to stop digging and and to the extent that some of these plants have, uh, remaining, uh, valuable life, they should be continuing to operate.
▶ 1:48:32That's not to say that there aren't some plants that probably need to go, right, because they haven't been maintained and they're not ready to, uh, not ready to operate. But that's not the characteristic of the entire fleet. >> thank you. I thank you all for what you're doing. And I yield back, Mr. chairman. >> the gentlelady yields back, and the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from virginia's fourth district for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. And thank you to the witnesses for being here for this very important hearing.
▶ 1:48:59The reliability of the nation's grid and our ability to maintain a stable and robust supply of energy during extreme weather events and disasters, both natural and man made, is extremely important to our overall national security. Unfortunately, what I've heard from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is the same myth that only fossil fuels can serve as reliable sources of energy, and that renewable energy does not have a place in ensuring the stability of our grid.
▶ 1:49:28But that is simply not true, as painfully demonstrated by president trump's unauthorized war of choice in iran, conflict in one part of the globe can dramatically disrupt the movement of fossil fuels everywhere and send the price of oil and natural gas into the stratosphere. This fossil fuel reliance undermines our national security and threatens the stability, the stability of our grid. As things are now.
▶ 1:49:54In order to recklessly balance his addiction to fossil fuels, with his duty to the american people to keep energy costs affordable. President trump has eased sanctions on russia just to try and keep energy prices from continuing their meteoric rise, and secretary bissette has said that the trump administration is fine, with iran exporting almost 1 billion barrels of oil, while other oil traffic through the strait of hormuz remains paralyzed.
▶ 1:50:22In other words, we are now funding the world's largest exporters of global instability and chaos just to maintain a semblance of energy stability. This is only exacerbated by the actions of my colleagues across the aisle, who have sat idly by while the administration zealously undermined the clean energy transition and worked to kill dozens of clean energy projects and hundreds of billions in clean energy tax credits that would have made our grid more resilient to the current supply
▶ 1:50:54Disruptions that are affecting the globe. Because of the president's senseless war. Now, Mr. goggin, in your testimony, you note that natural gas. I'm sorry, that question is actually already been answered. So I'm going to skip, um, you highlighted in your testimony that renewable energy projects account for 92% of power generation resources that are trying, trying to interconnect to the grid.
▶ 1:51:17Can you discuss how we should work to expedite that interconnection process, and what the benefits of doing so would be for the reliability and stability of the grid? >> absolutely. Transmission is one of the key bottlenecks in getting new generation of all types onto the grid. And we do see, as you mentioned, a large amount of wind, solar and battery capacity is stuck in this interconnection logjam. And moving transmission forward is, you know, building things is I think everybody here has said is really the key solution.
▶ 1:51:44And we talk about the three p's in terms of driving transmission, planning, paying and permitting. Planning is easy. You can draw lines on a map, figuring out who pays for transmission work, developing regional workable cost allocation methods to pay for transmission is a key impediment in most regions. And finally, permitting is obviously something that a lot the you know, the federal government, as well as state governments, can work together to achieve. And that allows transmission lines to be built and permitted in an expeditious way.
▶ 1:52:12And that will give us this basically open up the market, let these resources that are trying to get onto the grid move forward. And when solar batteries can be deployed very quickly, you can build them in a year or less, much faster than any other form of generation. And so they're extremely valuable as we have this large load growth going on now. >> and speaking of permitting, I guess it doesn't help once permits are awarded, if the administration pauses the construction of a wind project for no apparent reason. >> that does not help. >> thank you. Um, and, Mr.
▶ 1:52:41Goggin, previous witnesses to this committee have highlighted that increased renewable energy generation provides an opportunity to significantly update aging and outdated parts of the grid, as we seek to ensure that these new sources of energy are able to seamlessly integrate into the grid. Could you speak to the necessity of updating aging grid infrastructure? >> absolutely. It's something we need to be investing in anyway. Most of our power grid was built 40 plus years ago.
▶ 1:53:06It's now reaching the end of its life, and there's opportunities to rebuild that at higher capacity using modern technology, advanced conductors, and other things that give you a lot more capacity with a similar report, you know, profile and, you know, land use. And so there's a lot of opportunities to do that. And that's why we talk about we need proactive multi-value transmission, recognizing that transmission is not just needed to bring new generation on. It's not just needed for new loads. It provides economic value. It provides reliability, value. It provides.
▶ 1:53:33Ferc has identified seven benefits, distinct categories of benefits of transmission. And so we need to be thinking as we're replacing our aging assets on the grid, how can we maximize those seven categories of benefits across, you know, economics, reliability, resilience, all of that all ultimately flows to the ratepayers. And so, yes, we need to be thinking about all of that and investing at a level that's commensurate with those benefits. We're woefully short of that today. >> perfect timing, I yield back. >> thank you very much. The gentleman yields back.
▶ 1:54:01The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from florida's 15th district for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. During winter storm fern, florida saw snow flurries as far south as my district in hillsborough county, with temperatures dropping down into the 30s. That's unusual for us back home, destroying over 3.1 billion worth of crops across florida.
▶ 1:54:41>> the gentlelady's will informally pass and come back to the gentlelady, and the chair will recognize the gentleman from south coast, south carolina's seventh district, for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, Mr. chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today. Reliable energy is essential, uh, to every aspect of our modern life, especially to public health and our welfare. Um, yet power outages have cost the american people $44 billion each year.
▶ 1:55:10Winter storm fern highlighted the importance of grid reliability, leaving more than 1 million customers without power at its peak, including 70,000 in my home state of south carolina, these disruptions make it clear that reliability must remain a top priority, particularly during severe weather events that place extraordinary strain on the electric system. We also demonstrated the critical importance of dispatchable energy sources during the storm. Peak coal generation rose by 25%, and peak natural gas generation rose by 47%.
▶ 1:55:40Across all impacted regions, dispatchable energy significantly outperformed wind and solar generation. The grid's performance during severe weather depends not only on these baseload and dispatchable resources, but also on real time coordination among grid operators, generators, transmission owners, marketers and other market participants.
▶ 1:56:00Analyzing how the bulk power system performs during these events is essential, I think, to strengthening reliability and ensuring the continued delivery of electric power that americans depend on every day. Uh, Mr. costa, during um, winter storm for natural gas generation played a significant role. We, um, uh, played a significant role at meeting peak electricity demand.
▶ 1:56:25Importantly, natural gas storage infrastructure is necessary to protect against potential capacity constraints or pipeline failures that limit supply. Can you discuss how your areas utilized natural gas storage to ensure fuel delivery and availability during the storms? >> uh, yes. So thank you for the question. Uh, congressman, uh, one thing I want to note is that also to your question, is that, um, in the northeast, um, in the power generation sector, we over 20% of Mr.
▶ 1:56:53Raab will probably have the exact number of generators or actually natural gas. Those generators went offline. And that's the reason we saw the I. But when we did have the marcellus shale perform extremely well, um, this winter winterization efforts, but we did see some other areas with that in storage was a big player this year. Um, and being able to, and those are firm contracts that utilities have to be able to pull from when needed.
▶ 1:57:21And storage was a big player this year and making sure that we were able to get the supply we needed. >> yeah, there was a lot of preparation and coordination leading up to and during the storm, um, among members of the power and gas sectors, this included the administration taking proactive steps to issue. Um. 202c orders to enable maximum availability of dispatchable coal and gas and backup generation if it was needed.
▶ 1:57:47It also included, um, longer term adjustments like winterization obviously, uh, to the, to Mr. rob, Mr. madison and Mr. costa, how did planning and actions taken during fern reflect lessons from past storms? Additionally, can you all speak to any existing coordination practices between pipelines, generators, and grid operators that could expand to further strengthen that reliability during extreme weather? We'll start. We'll go down here. Yes, sir.
▶ 1:58:15>> so, uh, following the 2018 cold weather event, we started the process of developing mandatory reliability standards related to winterization. Uh, those were approved by ferc last year will be mandatory and enforceable next year.
▶ 1:58:28Many of the power generating units kind of leaned in and have gotten ahead of the enforcement date and have taken steps to, to winterize their equipment against very, very extreme cold temperatures, which is, again, one of the things we defined with we defined with ferc, I think the efforts around coordination. And that helped. Uh, that's one of the reasons why we did we believe that's one of the reasons we didn't see the same number of generation outages in fern that we did in elliot.
▶ 1:58:54And yuri is because of those winterization requirements, uh, in terms of coordination between the two sectors, the, uh. The american gas association last year initiated a series of regional forums to, uh, to drive better situational awareness between the two sectors, better understand the vulnerabilities.
▶ 1:59:15I participated in one of those events in the pacific northwest, and those are desperately needed relationships that need to be, uh, automated and activated in real time so that the grid operators know what's going on in the gas system and vice versa, because they're so interdependent. Mr. madison. >> well, one thing we did is what Mr.
▶ 1:59:37Rob said is we prepared for winter especially yuri taught us a lesson with putting heat tracing and things of that nature in our gas power plants. We did winterization our coal plants to meet those requirements. And the second thing that we did is we always practice any type of weather event. And so in october, we went through a full blown, uh, two day, uh, practice session. And it, it's ironic. It basically mirrored what fern did.
▶ 2:00:06So everybody was on point and we practiced, rehearsed. So that helped us tremendously. >> Mr. costa, you're off the hook because. >> I'm sorry the gentleman's time has expired. And if you want to respond to him, uh, written, we greatly appreciate that. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from california's 15th district. Five minutes for questions. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. >> as of. >> yesterday. >> the cost of crude oil had gone up 50% in less than two weeks. The average price of gas hit $3.72 a gallon.
▶ 2:00:35Americans are already paying the price for trump's reckless and chaotic war in iran, so it's disappointing to hear the same tired arguments about tying our electric system to these volatile markets. When gas pipelines froze during winter storm uri a few years ago, energy prices spiked in texas, and some families were hit with catastrophic electric bills of over $10,000. Today, we're faced with similar unpredictability, although this time of our own making as a result of an unnecessary war.
▶ 2:01:08If we double down on fossil fuels, americans will continue to be at the mercy of foreign wars and industry price gouging. So, Mr. goggin, your testimony notes that in every recent winter storm, uh, the natural gas accounted for the majority of the generator outages. Can you describe how diverse sources of power, including renewables, protect consumers from the massive oil price spikes we are seeing, not least due to this war? >> absolutely.
▶ 2:01:37There's both a reliability and resilience benefit as well as an economic benefit and winter storm. Fern, luckily, was not, did not appear, did not result in a reliability event. We did not have rolling blackouts we like we did during winter storms, elliot and yuri. However, the risk is still there. If it was a colder event, I think we could have seen, um, you know, the loss of gas generation at the levels that we saw in those previous events and that could have pushed things over the edge. Fern was, however, a economic event. We will see rates go up dramatically for ratepayers to cover those fuel costs.
▶ 2:02:07You know, the billions of dollars that were expended, particularly on natural gas, when it spiked to, you know, over 100 times normal in some places. These are extreme pricing events, and they are going to have a large impact on ratepayers. And so having a diverse mix of wind and solar and battery resources that do not have that fuel price exposure, do not have that exposure to the fuel supply delivery interruptions. That is extremely, extremely valuable for both economics and reliability. >> thank you for that. And, Mr.
▶ 2:02:38Robb, your organization's 2024 report found that america needs 35gw of new inter-regional transmission to keep the grid reliable. Can you elaborate on that finding and describe how it may have shifted given increasing energy demand since that study was finalized? >> yeah, that's a great question. So the 35gw, uh, was identified as opportunities to better use the reserve base of the country by, by sharing reserves during extreme events.
▶ 2:03:10Um, it did not examine every opportunity to do that. It looked at transmission as the solution to that. That's just important to important to note the question as to how things have evolved given the demand forecast, the load growth that's happened because that study was vintage to 2023, data is a great one. I honestly can't tell you how it changes, uh, because areas that were deficient that that showed deficiency probably are showing more deficiency.
▶ 2:03:36Areas that might have been able to export may also be in deficiency. Now, because of the load growth, really, the analytics would have to be done to ascertain whether that number is higher or lower today. >> worthy of further exploration. So thank you all for your testimony today. And with that, I yield back. >> thank you very much. The chair will again recognize the gentlelady from florida's 15th district for five minutes for questions. >> thank you very much, Mr. chairman. I'm going to try this again.
▶ 2:04:06Uh, thank you all so much for being here with us today. During winter storm fern, florida saw snow flurries as far south as my district in florida, which had really damaging impacts on our agriculture industry. And during the storm, the department of energy issued seven emergency orders to mitigate the risk of blackouts in florida. Backup generation was leveraged to stabilize the grid, ensuring more than 100 different local entities, including critical services, could maintain power. Well.
▶ 2:04:37Today's hearing focuses on winter storm fern. The lesson is broader. In florida, we tend to face hurricanes rather than winter storms, but the challenge is the same ensuring that our grid can withstand extreme events and deliver reliable power when americans need it most. Mr. rob, I'd like to start by coming back to you.
▶ 2:05:00Nrc's reliability assessments have warned about growing risks to the bulk power system is demand increases and dispatchable resources retire in florida. Our utilities spend significant resources hardening the grid for hurricanes, strengthening poles, putting lines underground, preparing for rapid restoration. But generation reliability is just as critical for us during these extreme events.
▶ 2:05:23Based on newark's analysis of winter storm fern and other severe weather events, what lessons should policymakers be keeping in mind to ensure the grid maintains sufficient dispatchable generation and reliability during extreme weather events like hurricanes? >> yeah, that's a super question. You know, one of the things that's very unique about florida that we really admire is the fact that your natural gas generation fleet and the natural gas system in florida is purpose built, uh, largely for the generation business.
▶ 2:05:51We think there's a really important lesson learned there relative to the dual purpose gas system we have in the rest of the country, where it has to serve both local, uh, local distribution load for home heating, uh, as well as the power sector. Um, I think the planning of the grid, uh, both the power sector and the natural gas sector in florida have significantly improved the resilience of that system for, uh, for the benefit of floridians.
▶ 2:06:21>> and are you seeing any particular reliability concerns in regions experiencing rapid population growth where electricity demand increases? I know my district has three of the fastest growing counties in the country. Does that affect your assessment and issues related to reliability? >> yeah, absolutely. Because as the population migrates, so does load, right. And we've seen big migration into florida and into texas in particular.
▶ 2:06:47And it's one of the drivers of the our characterization of texas as a elevated or high risk area of the country. >> thank you. And Mr. costa, you said something earlier during the hearing. You noted that during winter storm fern, the weather dependent sources failed to meet the moment. Tell us a little bit more about that failure to meet the moment and what we should be thinking about, to ensure that we prevent that type of situation in the future. >> well, thank you for the question.
▶ 2:07:15And I think it's been said earlier today. And, and, um, we agree that, um, all energy sources have a place. Um, but when it came to winter storm fern, it was evident that um, that renewable sources weren't there. It was the dispatchable fuels like natural gas, nuclear, uh, and in this case, oil that really, um, took the moment and ensured that we kept the lights on.
▶ 2:07:45>> and Mr. madison, secretary wright has argued that a more levelized demand profile where electricity demand is kept stable throughout the day, could help reduce costs by minimizing the need to ramp power plants up and down throughout the day. From an operator's perspective, could you explain how policies that encourage more consistent electricity demand might help reduce prices for consumers? >> yeah. Well, right now what we have is I think what he's talking about you're referring to is when there's peak demands, it's usually between in our service territory, 1 p.m.
▶ 2:08:15And 7 p.m. Like in the summer time or winter time, that's when the most consumption is we have a very good energy efficiency program in all three of our jurisdictions to encourage a better use and utilization of the energy dollar that a customer spends. That's, that's one way. Um, also making sure that you have a diversified mix in your portfolio. I think it's important you're not putting all your eggs in one basket. So a look at our portfolio and it's done this way on purpose.
▶ 2:08:46Where we have coal, we have natural gas. We also have wind resources. And so at any point in time during the day, one of those is going to be a little less expensive than the other. So we use what's called economic dispatch through our regional transmission organization. And I think that's something that has proven to be very cost conscious for our consumers. And we need to continue with that. >> thank you, Mr. chairman, I yield back. >> thank you very much. The gentlelady yields back.
▶ 2:09:16The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from iowa's first district. Five minutes for questions. >> and thank you very much, Mr. chairman and ranking member castor, for holding this important hearing on the lessons learned from recent winter storm fern, which was one of the few, um, winter storms that did not affect iowa to a degree. It affected the southeast, but winter storm fern showed us an uncomfortable truth about our grid. Uh, this is not a picture of a confident, well planned system.
▶ 2:09:46It's a picture, as Mr. roberts said, of a system boxed in by infrastructure decisions made years ago, prolonged cold, high demand and regional fuel constraints all arrived at once. And in many ways, the grid performed better than in past events because of years of winterization and hard lessons from yuri and elliot.
▶ 2:10:05The lesson from vern is that we're asking more of a grid in every region, and increasingly relying on emergency tools and extraordinary coordination to navigate conditions that are becoming more common, not more rare. And at the same time, we've layered on emergency orders, special directives and broad must run orders that in some regions, effectively over procure generation and crashed prices.
▶ 2:10:27Those tools helped us through fern, but they're not a sustainable business model for a grid that's about to serve even larger loads, data centers, advanced manufacturing and electrification on many levels of our economy are driving demand up quickly. Yet building the infrastructure to serve that demand modern gas plants and nuclear storage, new pipelines, transmission lines or any renewable source which iowa does have takes years longer than it should.
▶ 2:10:53Because technology, not because technology is unproven, but because our permitting pathways are slow, fragmented and unpredictable. When we fail to build, everyone in the system has less room to maneuver when the weather turns. My aim today is to connect those dots. If we want a grid that can meet historic load growth without lurching from one emergency order to the next, we need to reform permitting so that necessary projects can be built on timelines that match the needs of households, businesses and critical institutions. Mr.
▶ 2:11:24Rob greenfern we saw heavy use of emergency authorities and operator alerts. From your perspective, are we beginning to normalize emergency actions because we have underbuilt the system? >> I certainly hope not, but I believe in the situations that we found in fern, and we'll probably find in the next 2 or 3 winters, we are probably going to have to rely on those kinds of actions, uh, until we get the grid up to, uh, up to scratch to, to deal with the situations on their own.
▶ 2:11:55>> and looking back at winter storm fern, if the projects currently stuck in interconnection queues and permitting processes had been in service, how different would the system's risk profile have been? >> it would have been better, but I couldn't say by how much. You know, one of one of the issues, uh, one of the issues we're seeing is that even when things clear, the queue, uh, the interconnection queue, it still takes a long time for them to get built. And in many cases, they don't get built at all.
▶ 2:12:23And that's true for, for projects that have strong state sponsorship as well. So the interconnection queue is increasingly a hurdle, but it's not sufficient to, uh, to count on that generation showing up in a certain time frame. >> so it's difficult to quantify how much of our near miss problem is a build out problem. >> yeah. That's said much more eloquently. >> Mr. costa, you note that that pipelines were issuing customer specific operational flow orders to generators during. Fern.
▶ 2:12:50Can you walk us through what those afos look like in practice? Who got curtailed first, how much notice they had and what that meant for gas only generators versus dual fuel units in new england and new york? >> yeah, there was there was constant. Thank you for the question. There was constant communication going on.
▶ 2:13:09And that's part of the collaboration that took place during winter storm fern, uh, especially with the pipelines, with the producers, iso's and all the way down to the generators. And, um, the goal was to ensure, to keep them on as long as they could without them taking more than they should. So it wouldn't hurt the home heating customers.
▶ 2:13:30Um, it just got to a point where, um, they, they ended up shutting down the, especially the oil, the dual fuel ones that can go on oil, but unfortunately also the gas only generators who could get gas from the marcellus shale. If we put pipelines in the ground, we're not able to get gas. >> there are so many questions.
▶ 2:13:53We could certainly ask about this, but in a state that has a myriad of generation of electricity and power from numerous sources and having visited miso, um, let me just ask you, Mr.
▶ 2:14:06Rob, as the ferc representative, so when we have rules or legislation that is taking generation offline without addressing the need for how we're bringing generation online, and I'm referring specifically to power plant 2.0 under the past administration and the, um, the tailpipe emission rule, which is rapidly developing electric vehicles.
▶ 2:14:32So we're taking, um, energy offline and increasing demand for energy. And that's even without data centers and advanced manufacturing, how much stress does that put on the, the grid. And reliability. >> that the gentlelady time has expired, but if you could answer written in a written statement back to the gentlelady, we'd appreciate that. Uh, the chair now recognizes the gentleman from colorado's eighth district for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 2:15:00Ranking member, thank you, of course, to all of the witnesses for coming today. Um, as my colleagues on this committee and my constituents back in colorado's eighth congressional district know, I'm a strong advocate for all of the above energy because we have it all. Uh, 4% of us crude comes out of my district, but we also have 1 in 2 wind generators are made in my district, some of the biggest solar projects, geothermal battery, uh, the last vestiges of what used to be nuclear generation in colorado. Um, so we need to have that because we know what the statistics say.
▶ 2:15:29We're going to need more power on the grid. I think it's 165gw more in the next four years than we currently generate right now. Um, there's a right way to do wind and solar and variables. And unfortunately, uh, what the ruling democrats in my home state in colorado have done is the absolute wrong way to do it, which is one size fits all heavy handed government mandates.
▶ 2:15:53Uh, they've declared war on coal and oil and gas production in pursuit of their truly unattainable net zero goals. Um, and as states around the country have been investing in growing their generation, uh, colorado has actually declined in how much electricity they're producing. We made 2000 gigawatt hours, less electricity, uh, last year than the year before that. And as we all know, when the supply goes down, the costs go up.
▶ 2:16:20And so my first question, this is just going to be a yes no question to the entire panel. Do state mandates that remove dispatchable energy from generation portfolios, build more reliable and affordable grids or less reliable and affordable grids? So, um, I guess yes, is more reliable and no is it's less reliable. So yes or no question, we'll just start at the left. >> I would say no. >> no. >> it depends what you're replacing it with.
▶ 2:16:51>> no. >> thank you. And, uh, Mr. goggin, thank you for the answer. I just want to point you to a previous quote that you have, which is, quote, a diverse generation mix increases resilience, which I would assume includes oil, gas, coal. >> um, it depends on what you have already. If you have a lot of that, then more diverse would be less of that. You'd be bringing in other things. It depends on what you have. >> so there's a place for oil, gas and coal. >> um, it depends on what you have on your generation mix.
▶ 2:17:20And if you have, you know, some place. >> if you. >> have hydro. >> there's a place for oil and gas and coal on that generation mix. >> it depends on what resources you have. >> okay. Well, I, I think a diverse generation mix includes oil, gas and coal. So, um, thank you for that. Um, to, to Mr. robb, uh, long term reliability assessment mentions the significant consequences of retiring fossil fuel generation at a pace that energy providers and the supply chain can't keep up with.
▶ 2:17:44In 2025, colorado was responsible for retiring 10% of the country's dispatchable baseload power, despite producing only 2%. And actually, as we just heard, declining in producing 2% of the nation's power. And so my question to you, what impact does the premature retirement of coal plants and other baseload dispatchable energy like natural gas? What does that have on electricity costs for ratepayers?
▶ 2:18:15>> so we don't do the economic analysis of what it means for for, for rates. So be clear on that. Um, but but it doesn't bode well, uh, because we're replacing, uh, generally older depreciated, uh, assets, uh, and bringing on, you know, high fixed cost assets at a time of relatively high interest rates. So I can't do the math in terms of, in my head as to whether it's higher or lower, but it's certainly putting pressure on affordability. >> what about reliability?
▶ 2:18:45Can you speak to reliability? >> I can definitely speak to reliability. Um, the, the benefits of having, uh, what I call, uh, spinning mass generation stuff that kind of generates power the old fashioned way from a reliability perspective, based on the grid we have right now is absolutely essential.
▶ 2:19:03And one of the things that concerns us about the retirements is that we're, we're losing spinning mass generation, and we're replacing it with power electronic based generation that doesn't behave the same way. >> got it. Um, that makes perfect sense to me because of what we've seen happen in colorado. Fortunately, we, I have some statistics that I can mention about reliability.
▶ 2:19:25Uh, the ruling democrats in colorado and their drive for this net zero, um, uh, variable power only is going to cost our state $61 billion. That's not my statistic. That's the colorado energy office's statistic. And we know that if utility providers have to go funnel $61 billion into these failed policies, they can't upgrade the grid. They can't invest in reliable generation.
▶ 2:19:54We've seen the results in colorado. Just this week, we had to do our fourth power shut off because we don't have a reliable grid in colorado. Not the fault of the utilities. That's the fault of the, uh, the mandates coming from the ruling state democrats. And I'm out of time. So I will yield back to the chair. >> thank you very much. The gentleman yields back and the chair seeing no other members wishing to ask questions. I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before us today, and our members may have additional questions for you.
▶ 2:20:21And I remind members that they have ten business days. Submit additional questions for the record, and I ask the witness to do your best to respond within ten business days. And in receipt of those questions, I ask unanimous consent to insert in the record the documents included on the staff hearing documents list. Without objection, so ordered. Without objection, the subcommittee is adjourned. Thank you.