Transcripts For CSPAN 2017 Western Governors Assocation Winter Meeting - U.S. Forest Service... 20171228

Ladies and gentlemen, i am proud to present the 32nd governor of the state of south dakota accompanied here in phoenix by the first lady of south dakota. The chairman of the western governors association, the honorable dennis dugard. Thank you, jim. Thank you, christine. Christine, you have a good voice. Jim, well. Lets move on. [laughter] let me join jim in welcoming you all to phoenix. I am pleased to see so many western governors here. We have a Great Program planned, and im delighted we can share this time together. Over the next two days we will have visits with Top Administration officials including the secretary of labor, the secretary of transportation, u. S. Forest service chief who will be visiting with us momentarily. And although he was not able to stay for todays activities, we visited with the secretary of agriculture. We will hear to other keynote speakers. The president of the arizona cardinals, and john ratzenberger. Most of you know john as the famous cliff clavin from the tv show, cheers. I think we will all enjoy john speak about that. Johns comments will touch on one of the greatest challenges our nation faces which is vital to expanding our Economic Vitality in coming years. That is workforce of element. My initiative as chair is focused on workforce development, how we prepare students of today for the job market of tomorrow, and how we ease the worker transition to employment opportunities. I have been pleased to see the bipartisan engagement with my fellow governors on this issue. Weve held workshops in colorado, oklahoma, in washington state, and my home state south dakota. I am looking forward to additional efforts supporting the initiative leading up to the annual meeting in south dakota next june. Our meeting today and tomorrow will conduct Panel Discussions on infrastructure challenges, Autonomous Vehicles the changing face of our country, and spend time examining how the state federal relationship has changed over time. We will also announce some adoptive policy resolutions. Im hoping we can have a little fun as well. Im going to turn it over to our chair, to get us started. Governor bowler thank you. Talents, but many christine certainly did not marry you for your voice. [laughter] for our first speaker, it is my sincere and true pleasure to introduce tony tooke. Tony was introduced as the chief in august of this year. On the ground in response to efforts of wildfires, literally days after he was announced as the chief, there he was in missoula or on the lake. I appreciate that sort of commitment from the beginning. I also look forward to welcoming you back to big sky country. The chief has been working for the Forest Service for most of his adult life, having started at age 18. He brings leadership and accomplishments that will no doubt serve us and him and that role. Certainly, plenty of challenges facing this agency. In montana, we had one of the most expensive in this agencys history. It will also be one of the most expensive than our nations history. House of federal Government Funds wildFire Suppression is a significant impression. The chief is certainly knowing better than i do how this cripples teamwork that can mitigate wildfire danger in the first place. And i, and im sure the governors of others look forward to working with him and to move washington forward to in steps with the washingtons governor ball. Last year, i began the management and initiative in my role as chair of wga. That Initiative Came up by recommendation to improve forest land practices. I know you are familiar with the work. We were pleased to see the Forest Service take an active and engaged role in our efforts. I hope the g4 continued that and work with governors to enforce the recommendations. Tony, thank you for making time. We look forward to hearing you and working with you about the opportunities of public land space. Please join me in welcoming chief tony tooke. [applause] good afternoon. I was scrambling trying to make my talk into a song but i think im going to stick with it as i had it. It is an honor to be here. I look forward to the time we will spend together this morning. The Forest Service has a long history and relationship with the western states and western governors and states across the country. We hold in very high regard the relationships we have with the states, in particular the western governors association. Our relationships and partnership go back to the fires of 1910 in the northern rockies. After those fires, we informed cooperative agreements. Since then, we have expanded the partnerships, for example like the 2014 farm bill and the Good Neighborhood party. We have signed dozens of agreements since the Good Neighbor authority was expanded nationwide. Western states are tremendous partners. About 84 of the western forest system lies in the western states. The National Force and grasslands make up large proportions of the western states and has about 112 Million People who live in the west. Those 112 Million People depend mightily on the values and benefits they get from the National Forest and National Grasslands. Things like lame water, forest and range products and many other things. In the west, their economic livelihood and west wellbeing depend on these arrangements. We share the responsibility to manage these landscapes with the people of the west and we share responsibility for taking on the threats and the risk and as many of you know, these landscapes are at risk. I want to Work Together. I want to roll up my sleeves and work with the states, the local communities, the nongovernmental organizations, to take on some of these problems on a larger scale. A top priority for us is to improve the condition of forest and range lands. As i say that come about 80 million acres, i will take the National Forest system for example, 80 million acres are at moderate to high risk of catastrophic fire, insect, and disease. One third of that is extreme one third of that is extreme risk, a very high risk. What is at stake when we look at these acres and lands at risk . There is drinking water. There is environmental security. There is communities. There is homes adjacent to these lands that are at risk. There is sacred sites. Historic places. There is wildlife habitat. There is Outdoor Recreation opportunity. There is a lot riding on that. So my commitment is we are going to step up our game, and we are stepping up our game to increase results and outcomes on the ground. Were going to use every tool, every authority, and every resource we have available to us to work with the states, work with local communities, work with our other federal partners, work with tribes, and work with nongovernmental organizations to take this on. When i look at western governors National Forest and range management initiative, and i see immediately and i have read it three times and i really appreciate that our employees had an opportunity to be engaged early on. When i look at it, the opportunities dovetail perfectly with the way we see things. For example, we see an urgent need to improve these conditions. We see the need t to forge agreements with stakeholders across the landscape to restore Forest Health. Like you, we recognize the need to overcome obstacles, obstacles that exist to collaboration, obstacles to insufficient funding, and obstacles like insufficient markets and markets for small diameter products. We also see that there is a lack of sufficient coordination across landscapes and we see their excessive cost and delays associated with landing and going through our environmental analysis and decisionmaking process. So come the question is, how do we meet the needs and rise to these challenges we face together and how can we work Better Together to improve the conditions of forest and rage lands, particularly in the west . One way, a way the forest land can do that is by being Good Neighbors and excelling at Customer Service. Service and caring for the land and serving people have been at the center core of our culture for a long time in as chief, i want to reemphasize that part of who we are. I want to ensure we are connect connected in communities and that we are listening to people and listening to their ideas and that their ideas are contributing to what we are doing. And so as chief of the Forest Service, i want to make sure as an agency we work with efficiency and integrity when it comes to focusing on the people that we serve. You know, i envision a diverse, Broad Coalition for conservation where were all working together and using every tool, every authority, everything we have available to us. We have plenty to do. There is a backlog of special use work. There is a backlog of allotment of deferred maintenance and certainly a backlog of Forest Management work. By addressing those needs, we can positively affect jobs and economic opportunities, particularly for Rural Communities when it comes to the west. Every american citizens that we serve deserves our very best and deserves us to excel. It does not affect matter if it if it is a contract, a permit every forest and grassland user, every citizen. To improve our Customer Service we have to better understand what the requirements are to each one of those customers as we expanded the use of our best practices and we will apply those innovative tools to overcome barriers that get in the way of us doing that. Having sustainable, healthy forest and grassland is going to depend on our ability to increase results and get that Better Outcomes on the landscape. And so we are using the Good Neighbor authority, for example, to expand our ability to do that. Im really proud of how the Good Neighbor authority has really achieved some deep roots and really expanded. We now have over 130 agreement s signed with 32 states and most of the states are in the west. A lot of the Good Neighbor authority agreements, about half of them are for Forest Health and Forest Management is the main objective. The other half is managing hazardous fuels, improving wildlife habitat, and understanding improvement work. So i am very proud of the work we are getting done under this authority. Just a couple of examples, last year in idaho the Idaho Department of land had the first Good Neighbor authority timbers center in the clearwater National Forest. 4. 5 sale generated about billion boardfeet of timber and another 1. 2 million of revenue for restoration projects. That is one example. We are also looking for ways to improve and strengthen it. Another example is in nevada where we are developing a master agreement and involving three state agencies, to forest two Forest Service regencies, and the bureau of land management. We are looking at the barriers they get in the way of it ending the way of expanding the Good Neighbor authority. For example, some of the restrictions on road construction. And we are designing webpages where people can interface on the web, do training around Good Neighbor authority and look at policy in lessons learned. Another way to address the challenges that we face is through stewardship. And increasing partnerships and volunteerism. The Forest Service cannot do this alone and we cannot do it by just looking at the National Forest system. We have got to look across the landscape beyond the National Forest system. We want to work with everybody, we want to work with every citizen. We want to work with anybody from all walks of life, whether from a rural area or urban community. Bringing people together where we have a diverse come a Strong Coalition is the way that we will get things done, increase the scale and the impact of our work to deliver conservation to the american people. The other thing to take this on is we have to use every tool in the box and i will give me some , example. Timber harvesting, wildfire, prescribed burning, we have to use noncommercial hazardous fuels reduction projects. We have to use herbicides. Sometimes we have to use a combination of these. We have to use every tool available to us. When we get burn windows in the west, we can have fire on those terms or our terms. We have to ramp up prescribed burning. In doing all of this and using every tool of the box, we will make sure we Stay Grounded in science, solid, sound science. Use good data, work collaboratively and using good maps. Another commitment and another thing were looking at is how we improve our environmental analysis and decisionmaking processes. The bottom line is it costs too much and takes too long, and we think we can improve and and we can improve a without sacrificing quality. What i mean by that is by using sound science, using good data, and working collaboratively with different groups we put personnel already in place to do this. We started last september with a meeting of our National Leadership and a crosssection of our workforce and now we are taking some of our ideas to our external partners and stakeholders. You mentioned the fire funding fix. I certainly want to thank the western governors who have continued to support us over and over. We have climbed this mountain many times. We have climbed back up again and are really close. Im optimistic this is going to happen. Getting a fire funding fix that would increase resources we have and increase our ability and capacity to take on these conditions and improve the conditions of our forest and range lands is a good way that we can prevent wildfires because i think one of the longterm answers is upstream in how we manage the land. This past fire season illustrates the challenges we face. You alluded to that earlier. This is a fire season that began in october 2016 and in the southern appalachians, extended to the south west, the northern rockies, california, the northwest. At the same time we had major hurricanes strike the mainland, while we were dealing with Fire Suppression. The numbers some of them you , mentioned. Over 9 million acres burned. This is much higher than the 10year average. We had a recordbreaking year in many ways. For example, the fire levels four and five, which are our highest, we stayed at those two levels for over 70 consecutive days. At one time, we had over 80 large fires. When i stepped into this position, there were fires in over 300 acres at a time of year when we normally have 25 fires. So you can see the challenges we have. I do not know how many structures have burned. Our best estimate is 11,500, thats almost four times the average between the years 2000 and 2015. Our fire personnel were stretched thin, but i am really proud of the way the fire community, the federal agencies, the states, the local governments and counties and others came together. We maxed out and had 28,000 people for several weeks at one time supporting the fire season in the west at its peak. You mentioned how much of our budget is going to fire. It was over 2. 4 billion this past year. That is 57 of our agency budget. It is predicted by the year 2021 and is going to be 67 of if nothing does not change. The way that fire is funded has been around. It is funded at the 10year average to average. That has been around for well over two decades. This is not a scientific finding mechanism, it is a mathematical mechanism. We are dropping off in that 10year average some of those low fire years and these recent years is adding to that cost. So we need a firefighting fix that this couple things. That does a couple of things. Stops the growth of that 10 year average against a flat edge and or it increases our resources that we have to manage the forest. Secondly, treats disaster fires, these large megafires and national disasters, has them funded out of emergency funding and not out of our normal appropriations. A couple of other things and i will open it up for questions but in the last two decades we , have also seen our number of nonfire employees declined from 19,000 to 11,000 as we have had to increase our workforce to take on the fire challenge. So this is simply not sustainable. I am very optimistic. Members of congress are considering different legislative proposals right now. The administration is working really hard and we are working really hard to find a solution. So, those are some of the priorities i see for the Forest Service. Improving the condition of our forests and range lands being , Good Neighbors, providing excellent Customer Service, promoting shared partnerships, shared stewardship and partnerships and finding a , solution and ask to the way wildFire Suppression is funded. I think all of those dovetail really well with the concerns and opportunities that the western governors see. I think we have an anonymous enormous opportunity right now to roll up our sleeves, Work Together, and pray together this bring together this Diverse Coalition that can really move the needle and changed the water level on delivering conservation across the landscape, particularly in the west and im excited to be able to do that with you guys so thank you. [applause] thank you, chief. I concur in the opportunities for the partnership. So many priorities are in sink. I will start out. For many of us the farm bill , really open up possibilities and things were now seeing on the ground. We have a lot more work to do even using those tools. I know that you were at the helm leading Forest Service implementation of the 2014 farm bill. As we start looking toward the 2018 bill, what are your sort of aspirations for that farm bill as it relates to for street stry . On mark forre anything that can strengthen the i think, like the Good Neighbor of authority and give maybe a little bit or more flexibility or leverage around that. There may be some ways that we can strengthen efficiencies that we have in the insect and disease designations. I know there is a roads issue with the Good Neighbor authority. Those are some of the things i see that we can work on. Does anybody have questions for the chief . Governor mead . Chief, thank you for being here. Pass on our thanks for all those who fight the fires and do the dangerous business. You talked about tools in the box in terms of maintaining healthy forests. One of the things that is certainly important in the west is the opportunity for grazing permits. I would ask you to address, because i think there is some perspective that grazing is inherently harmful to the forest. Address that in terms of how the forest and as a way of proactively reduce some of the fuel on the ground as a way of impacting some of the fires, if you would. Thank you. So, i think the second or third week in this job very early on i had the opportunity to go to a Public Land Council meeting. I changed my schedule to be able to do that. In my view, grazing is very much a legitimate and needed management tool and one that we recognize and we want to do what we can to increase the use and i know if we have issues, that i know we have the issues we can work through and address. We also have a backlog of range allotment work. We have, you know, many vacant allotments that i asked the Public Land Council, you know, that they give us what some of their Top Priorities are for some of those we might open up and might move some things around so it is very much a recognized, legitimate use and one that we look forward to working on to try and improve. Thank you chief for being here and thank you for your comments on that. Please, go ahead. No i would never want to interrupt you. Chief, we had some good discussions is morning and i very much appreciate those because a lot of the genesis of what weve done in idaho is a result of the Great Company in idaho, the idaho forest group. One of the things we discussed was years ago when i first became governor and 2007, we had one of the largest wildfires in the desert. 700,000 acres burnt in less than two weeks. We lost a a lot of habitat, that sort of thing. So what we did was we found out when that fire started at 5000 acres there was actually a cap on a lowboy that couldve been unloaded they couldve started with the first fire lies and probably held that fire to considerably less than what it was. So we created a Rural Volunteer fire associations across the Southern State of idaho and that , is where the interior department came in and trained the farmers and ranchers on safety to lower the liability and prevent the accidents that were going to happen, because they live in the resource and when they see a lightning strike, a puff of smoke, they can be right up there on it with their own equipment and are willing to do it. My question then, because we have been very successful with them and we have stopped a lot of fires in their infancy, would it be possible for us to work up a protocol for the Forest Service to train our loggers and our folks who actually live in or adjacent to the forest to actually do the same thing . I think that is something we can definitely look at. There might be a little bit of Something Like that in the 2014 farm bill around stewardship and the stewardship contract. Im trying to remember. It is definitely something we can go back and look at and we can talk to the other agencies, the other cooperators as well as estersate orsers for for example to see if we have the ability to do it now. If we dont have the authority to do it now we can look at what it would take but you know, i am for any ideas on the table that can help us manage to restore healthy, resilient forest like well want to. I think we need to look at everything. Thank you. Chief, when i was first elected we had quite a bit of pine beetle problems in black hills National Forest and we ended up allocating a fair amount of state resources to be spent on private lands as you probably know, the black hills is quite checkered with private inholdings and to the extent that we could not spend dollars on federal land at that time, and maybe it is easier to do now, but to the extent we could not then we tried to do what we could on private land and stateowned land. One of the things that struck me was the time that passed between when a timbering company wanted to do some timbering on federal land and the process they had to go through was quite a few years. As i recall, five years before they could actually get into the land and do some timbering. To the extent we wanted to use timbering as a means of slowing the spread of the pine beetles, by the time we got permits for a contract, the beetles had already been through that land and were moving on. What opportunities do you see in the future for streamlining and to what extent is that already occurred . Could you talk about that a little bit . Yes, sir. If we were going through now i helped the black hills and one of my prior jobs in washington, d. C. , with the adaptive Environmental Impact statement. You know, took some time to get that done but once we got it done they had the decision to really get after treatment in the forest. But now we have provisions with the insect and disease designations. I think we have somewhere between 50 billion acres 50 million and 60 million acres that are designated under the insect and disease designations from the 2014 farm bill, so there are efficiencies with categorical exclusions as well as environmental assessments in those that if it were facing that situation again, we are using those. We have used it multiple times. I just left the Southern Region to go back to d. C. , and i will use mississippi for example. They had the largest Southern Pine beetle outbreak in mississippi in decades. It is in National Forests. We are using the provisions from the farm bill to keep the Southern Pine beetle off the on the National Forests and also private lands because all of those forests are heavily it is surrounded by private lands. Those of the things were looking to use on the black hills or any other forest. We are more positioned to get the treatments faster than we were then. Thank you. Governor hickenlooper . Thank you for sharing your time with us, chief. We really appreciate your taking the time out and coming here. I want to ask a twopart question. One, our forests are really in transition and we have done such a good job of preventing fires as you describe. We have more intense fires then the pine beetle. Most States Affected adjust to the new reality and have been under resourced. Has the Forest Service thought about two things, shared assets we outfitted a couple large tankers last year. Montana, washington, we shared it with several states that allowing the states a larger role in shared assets and may be helping if the states would group together and may be put up some of the money and the federal government would put up some of the money and allow there to be an objective prioritization. I think we could agree that as governors being so good working together across partisan lines. The second thing that i think most of us have grappled with is the there are more and more People Living in the wild land urban interface. We have taken a couple runs at this to try to figure out how to get insurance companies, how to convince people to do a better job of managing the fire risk around their homes. Im sure california has by far the greatest vulnerability here but we have a lot of risk. I know every governor of the state, at this table, probably has a similar thing. If you are to work with the federal government to try to begin finding ways to incentivize and motivate im not talking about a big stick or a heavy hand, but a way to motivate insurance companies. Right now people who have no risk are paying for all of the consequence of people not taking basic procedures to protect their assets. We will start with the second part first. We have a program called fire wise communities. I am trying to sit here and think. I know we have some Great Western examples of that where i come from, southern appellation appalachians for example, the state of arkansas has been very successful implementing firewise communities. An idea like that is something i think we can work on. In your first question, one idea that we have and every piece of the landscape is important. It is not just the National Forest system but across those boundaries. Taking the science we have, the data we have, looking at probability of success, and values at risk and where do we see the biggest priorities. We also have to look at infrastructure. We have to look at the infrastructure that exists and where do we need to improve that. If we really made some huge investments but the infrastructure is not there. That is something we need to sit down and work with you on and let you see what some of our ideas are and let you give us feedback on that and bring back other nongovernmental back other bring back other nongovernmental organizations as well and to that discussion. There is only one way i see we will get anything done that increases the scale and impact is by scaling and resources. We have the most of authority, the most support, the most ability to do that and the most support of my career which is almost 38 years and i think that is something that even within the fire funding thing the way it is, we have a good opportunity. On the other side of the coin with all the support we have to really bring to bear a Diverse Coalition to take these challenges on more than we are. Last question. Quick question. Let me echoed. Chief thank you for being here , today. We did talk about this earlier but we have designations of our forests. Those designations bring rules and tell us what we can and cannot do. And, the challenge we face is sometimes i think roles get in the ways of common sense. We talk about best practices management, having healthy , forest. A management tool we could use is prescribed burns to take care of some of the excessive fuels thatis hurting the animals forage, it to creates a fire hazard. And yet, we do not have the flexibility to go out and use best practices. What are we going to do to change that so you have better flexibility to bring common sense to bear to better manage the forest for a better outcome . You are right. On certain designations, there are limitations to what we can do. We can use certain tools and certain practices under certain conditions. We actually can do prescribed burns in wilderness. There has to be a plan done and at has to fit certain conditions and certain situations. We have for example put prescribed burns and some of our wilderness areas so there are some things we can do with an within the current law. One last question, governor burgum. Gov. Burgum in our meeting this morning with secretary perdue it , was briefly mentioned there was an effort to both streamline and synchronize between the Forest Service and the blm roles rules and regulations. Those people involved in both agriculture and Energy Development across the checkerboard in our state which includes the National Grasslands and tribal lands, we mentioned this group might be very interested in hearing closing comments from you about that effort to synchronize with blm and whatever efforts are being made. I didnt quite hear your question, im sorry. The synchronization between blm and the ruling we shared this morning. Maybe share some thoughts. Yes, were been working very hard to do that. Sage grass would be one example. Blm put out a notice of intent. We have put one out behind them. We are going to be working very hard together to be in lockstep and i know both agencies are going to work really hard to hear from the states. For example, in our notice of intent we called out about six or seven things that we want to comment on. And, i know very soon in the near future we going to be looking for additional opportunities to where we overlap and can work more closely together to get increased results and outcomes, so that will be a big problem for us. Please join me in thanking chief tooke. [applause] thank you. [applause] as you all know we have a very packed program so im going to join our next analyst for the next program to join us immediately at the dais. I am going to recognize the next moderator of the panel, the honorable c. L. Butch otter from idaho. Thank you, jim. I welcome the premier of saskatchewan to join us for this panel. Brad it is a pleasure having you , here with us. I understand the genesis of my leading this panel was rumored by the governor of the neighboring state of montana which is had a long drought and fire earthquakes, everything , else, a disaster. He is a natural to lead this one panel. [laughter] right. But this panel will adjust issues at the front mines a very governor at this table. Our constituents, communities, we see a whole host of natural disasters of the past few months that weve seen their impact on energy and water infrastructure. We have three panelists today that will speak from the federal, state, and utility perspective on how to best prepare these infrastructure assets for a variety of natural disasters that are common to the west. The federal region administrator will discuss the federal emergency preparedness, response , and Mitigation Programs, including impacts on infrastructure in Rural Communities. And, the director for Energy Assurance programs at the National Association of state energy officials. Jeff will speak to what states are doing today and what additional actions states can take to improve their Energy Security in the wake of natural disasters as well as address the , importance of considering the intersection between water and energy. Finally, bruce hallan is the director of water rights and contracts with the project in arizona. He will address the water supply and quality impacts from wildfires, droughts, floods and what utilities can best do to better prepare themselves for these impacts. I want to thank you all for being here and we are looking forward to your remarks. I will start with you. Thank you very much, governor. What the governor did not mention as ive been the administrative director for fema for all of two weeks. My staff thought it was a good everybodyuld talk to since i was already in town for the western regional partnership. So i have some folks to talk to when i get back. That said, i am the first region eight fema administrator and in five years and weve had a of actions which makes it tough to get collaboration and give states the continuity it needs. Another unusual thing is i come from region eight. I started as a federal coordinating officer, then was a Response Division coordinator, for the last six months i have been acting deputy and now on the regional administrator. It shows the direction fema is taking, putting Emergency Managers in charge of these areas where we have political appointees and moving forward from there. So i look forward to establishing relations with all of the governors in region eight which is what i focus on, but it is an honor to be here and talk to all today. Well have a couple minutes for remarks but i wanted to focus on fire, as we have been talking about that. Fema does not have a role in fighting fires but we do have a role in a Grant Program called the Fire Management Assistance Grant. It is a Simple Program as the governor will probably tell you. No, he wont. Part of the frustration im sure and it is my frustration as , well. The grants are designed to prevent a major disaster declaration and all that goes into that with the infrastructure and individual assistance. So that is pretty narrow view when you look at things, especially when there is one fires burning across the state of montana, in this case that was the most recent. So as we went about supporting montana this fire season, we had to open the aperture a little bit on the traditional fema management assistant grant and say, this is about preventing a disaster, but that could be a megafire if you do not take things soon enough. We had a look at the Economic Impacts a little more closely, which leads to what are the impacts on the Frontier Community like montana . Our folks may look at it and go there are 25 structures , threatened, this many people evacuated, whatever, in the grand scheme of things it does not look like a large number but it is a Significant Impact on that portion of the population and we have to factor that into the Grant Program. I talked today, not about this but he wanted a oneonone session. He told me wanting that brock said, he said challenge the status quo. I think on this Fire Management Assistance Grant we can challenge the status quo and make that program smoother, easier, and more effective for the states. It is not going to cover everything. It is designed for Fire Suppression costs at its written right now, but i did offer to brock long that region eight would like to lead the way on that as we get into the National Dialogue and do what we can to support you all on that end. For the sake of time as well, i wanted to kind of skip by a little bit of some of the things i was going to talk about and kind of hope they come up in questions and talk about fema initiatives called the regional integration teams. It is an initiative to try to get more capability in support to the states. We went out and we pulled the six region eight states and every fema region did this to see if there would be interest in fema funded federally funded , positions that work within the state to do things such as planning. To work on our programs public , assistance, that sort of thing. Every state comes back with a little bit different take on that but if the interest is there, brock long is committed to moving forward to provide better support closer to the state and sin of being back at instead of being back at the region headquarters to make sure we are providing more capability and enhancing that partnership that we have today. Finally to close, another thing just to think about, obviously we haven survey been through a period of time that is incredibly busy. I dont want to stand up here and talk about hurricanes but in the end, i think we can have some pride in the fact that there was a tremendous amount of collaboration that came together pretty effectively in support of those hurricanes and subsequently the california wildfires. Having sat through all the daily briefings we have and watching everything from the state perspective to the federal reporting officer through the Emergency Support functions across the board. In a half hour, go around the room and talk about what we need to do to support survivors. It was a pretty effective overall effort and i was proud to be a part of that agency and proud to move things forward and support all of the things appear as best i can. I will close on that note in i appreciate the time. Thank you very much. Thank you administrator. Now to the director. Thank you very much. Appreciate this opportunity to share with you some thoughts on Energy Infrastructure. The blinged gauge and supporting states on working on the infrastructure is a car mission core mission for over 30 years. The nations infrastructure electricity, national gas, petroleum is significant when we consider the economic consequences and understand existing vulnerabilities and potential threats. Last year alone, Power Outages cost the United States 150 million. So far in 2017 weve seen 15 weather events that have occurred that have exceeded 100 billion in damages and resulted in 282 deaths. This is not yet include the cost of hurricanes harvey, irma or maria. The in society for Civil Engineers in his 2017 report card, give the Energy Sector a d . It estimates the next 10 years additional spending of 177 billion is needed compared to the estimated planned spending of seven under 57 million. 757 million. Infrastructure investments, important to understand and her this example maps out intricacies. The lack of water for hydroelectric generation increases stress on the grid and a considerable amount of energy is required to supply water for irrigation. This is one of the linkages we see when we look at the different types of interdependencies under different scenarios. During the 2003 blackout, i was emergency manager in michigan and i saw the Immediate Impact of outages on the water system. Sewage plants were not fully operational. Discharge partially processing sewerage into rivers. It affected fire hydrants which might not have adequate pressure for Fire Suppression. Even though the power was restored within 72 hours, the marathon detroit refinery was down for 10 days and that lost a loss of supply resulted in fuel shortages that took one month to clear up. The Public Sector and the private sector or are investment in Energy Infrastructure is needed to mitigate risk. We need to replace aging infrastructure from to failure, adjust supply and demand, and employed new technologies that mitigate older abilities, particularly in the cyber field. Vulnerabilities, particularly in the cyber field. The state capacity to quickly and efficiently respond can improve the recipient of the response and working collaboratively with the private sector. In state in multistate facets are key. Last year doe sponsored a multistate exercise in the northwest to explore the impact of the earthquake sound that would have catastrophic impact on the Energy Structure in the northwest. California hosted a regional workshop to look at the impact and response to the San Andreas Fault earthquake which would have similar devastating impact. We also had a cyber lead emergency exercise in new england last year to look at how that would impact if a major shortage were to occur. Here are some of the pathways to improve the public and private sector resiliency initiatives. Powergrids combined with for facilities, hospitals, transit can improve the reliability, resiliency and provide cost savings. Storage, wind, solar, other generating fuel diversification options offer additional resilience. Smart grid investments like smart meters can identify the number of customers that have lost power which allows for faster recovery, improved physical and Cyber Security is needed. Florida was able to restore service relatively quickly and in part because almost 3 billion that have been spent over the last decade on smart meter, smart grid and infrastructure hardening. Energyrelated building codes shelters, robust fueling options , helped reduce the impact and increase the speed recovery. Resiliency as a result of a sustained commitment to four factors. Robustness resourceful, rapid , recovery and lessons that are learned. In conclusion, i would like to point out earlier this year the u. S. House passed with overwhelming bipartisan support hr 350, titled enhancing state Energy Security and emergency preparations act of 2017. The commissioners support this bill. If passed by the senate, it would provide federal financial help to the formula grants to the states to implement, review, revise security plans including a greater emphasis on Cyber Security and mitigation action such as fuel diversification. It also allows states to leverage federal resources to build stronger partnerships with the public and private sector. Finally, working to help improve the coordination between state energy offices, public utility emergency commissions, and Emergency Management agency. The interdependencies of regulated and unregulated feels requires a holistic approach to preparedness and infrastructure resilience. That concludes my remarks for today. Thank you very much, director. Governors, welcome to arizona. On behalf of srp and all arizonans, if i was i voice, you have to blame belting out those christmas carols. [laughter] if i could i will give my presentation. The salt River Project i do not know how familiar you are with the salt River Project at it was created before statehood here in arizona. I am very appreciative of the opportunity to talk to about Water Management here in the desert southwest. It is all about drought. I think much of what i talk about today, probably many of you at the table experience the same issues but when it comes to drought, it requires significant investment, it requires partnership, requires ensuring you have certainty because as you know what her supply is fundamental to Economic Development and growth. A new issue we have been involved with is wildfire. I will give us some overview of understanding to what it means to our water supply. Variability in water supply, this is about 25 years of information. Its inflow into our system, you can see how variable that water supply is. It is exemplified this year. We are looking at 100 days in phoenix without any rain. It is not rain in the desert we are depending on but it is snowfall and precipitation in those upper and central high lands and mountains that fill our reservoirs. It is said variability of inflow we want to control because we want to ensure we have certainty when it comes to water supply. Our original settlers control that variability through partnerships with the federal government, investments with the federal government to provide infrastructure at dams and canals and groundwater pods. Here is our reservoir system. To put it in perspective we have , seven reservoirs within the 13,000 square mile watershed. Three watersheds. The bird a river, the salt river river,e river, the salt and the East Clear Creek watershed. We are particularly concerned about when it comes to these catastrophic wildfires. It is about a 60,000 acre watershed. The entire watershed is at high risk of catastrophic fire. We know some of the issues colorado has dealt with in the cost associated with mitigation and cleaning up that reservoir following a catastrophic wildfire. When we are talking about infrastructure, what is very important within the desert environment is resiliency. Diverse portfolio of Water Supplies to ensure we have a longterm water supply during these drought periods. Water planning in a desert environment is focused on drought. What this shows you here is the various mechanisms we employ in the phoenix metropolitan area and many of the areas of arizona when it comes to managing for drought and water supply. One is recharged. We have a couple recharge facilities where the set of stormwater above ground we are storing water below ground to bank it for future use during these drought periods. In addition to that, you need additional infrastructure in order to extract that water. So we have over 270 highcapacity groundwater wells we utilized to extract out water when we do needed during those times we do not have the surface water supply to satisfy the needs and our territory. We also have interconnect facilities. Not only are we delivering supplies of instate water but we also have access to Colorado River water. Now you have a trading service, opportunity to further solidify water supply. Lastly, the use of reclaimed water. Within the metropolitan phoenix area, for the most part we use almost all of our reclaimed water, storing it underground, using it for irrigation, using it for power generation. I would like to point out we had some recent modifications to roosevelt dam. That dam elevation at 2151, we had to increase the height of that dam due to some safety and Flood Control space. We now have enough space behind that dam where it essentially doubles the capacity. What would like to do is utilize some of the capacity seven can be more flexible and we can get large inflows and potentially we can store more water behind that dam. We proposed some legislation within the drought bill last year to try to get around the water control manual so we can store some additional water within that reservoir to improve water supply resilience, but that is aimed at maximizing the use of our existing infrastructure. Next whatever like to focus in on is wildfire. All of your familiar with wildfire. If you look at our watershed, that is a 13,000 square mile watershed to serve a square mile 400 territory. Over 95 of the salt river watershed is forced inland and over 75 of the verde watershed is National Forest land. Srp petitioned the federal government in the late 1890s to protect that watershed. They created these forest reserves that ultimately ended up becoming those National Forest lands. The original intent of those forested lands was to protect the water supply. We are actively engage now with the Forest Service for them to move forward with that mission to protect that watershed and that what her supply that is the primary water resource for the fifth largest city in the United States, the city of phoenix. As you know, Forest Management projects and our Management System today, fortunately our unfortunately our forest are unhealthy. Trees, tents per acre, if you look to the voters to the left, that is what a healthy forest should look like. To the right are what our forests look like today. Essentially, the only way you can control that fire is when it runs out of fuel. I would like to show you the extent of those wildfires and the impact it had within our watershed. In the 1980s and 1990s, when we did have Green Infrastructure in place that was working in those forests. Today since the 2000s, where currently at about 2. 4 million acres that have been impacted within our watershed and we do not want to see the entire watershed go up in smoke. In the early 1900s, srp entered into a relationship with the bureau of reclamation. The bureau of reclamation turned over the care, operation and maintenance of the salt River Project. That is 100year Publicprivate Partnership with the federal government and private landowners to develop water supply. We believe that same commitment could occur with the Forest Service when it comes to the care, operation, and maintenance of that watershed. The same level of partnership at but our struggle today is developing a Forest Products industry. A Forest Products industry does not exist in the state today and the current challenges how do we assist the Forest Service, how do we make sure they have the certainty they need to invest the capital necessary within the state so we can create jobs, create an economy remove a lot of those trees . This is a perfect example of what a federal investment and what that federal investment created. In 1911, theater roosevelt dedicated roosevelt dam. The federal government contribute 10 million in the investment to that dam. Today the metropolitan statistical area has a gdp of over 240 billion and the foundational aspect associated with that Economic Investment in is that water supply. Theodore roosevelt mentioned we will see up to 75,000 to 100,000 people here in the valley. Today we have over 4. 2 Million People. With that, i very much look forward to questions and comments and appreciate the opportunity to speak today. Thank you, director. Thank you all for your comments. We will open it up for the governors. I would like to start by asking each of you we each have our emergency manager and disaster departments and agencies within our state. Is there training and the kind of support that would be available so that we have the best practices and best state of the art in preparing for the disaster, as well as defending the disaster . Thanks, governor. I will take the initial side on that one. Yes, to answer your question, there is. We bring your staffs together once a year. We talked through what training they desire and how we can best support you with that training. That will include exercises as well. And our region we are going to do that in january. We will have representatives from all the states and we will outline and look forward with the plan as we need to based on the states desires. Desire as well thank you. Here it director . From a state perspective, most of your experts reside within your public utility commissions. What we have been working to do is make certain they are integrated well and with the state Emergency Management agencies that have a challenge of being subject Matter Experts at the different infrastructure. I think if we can bring that to the table. It can help with enhanced response capability. One of the challenges we have seen in turnover in states that and there is a need to refresh that capability and to assure that preparedness capacity is there. We have been doing exercises and training and providing technical support, and hope to continue to do that with the support of the department of energy and its a very important activity here at director . In many ways, it requires significant planning when it comes to water supply and Water Supply Development. It is forward thinking planning. The need to collaborate and partner together with a variety of organizations, whether it is the federal government, local, stakeholders utilities. , the governor has brought together a diverse set of stakeholders that are beginning to look at those issues. From a Water Supply Development perspective, it takes decades in order for you to develop those supplies, funding, and find the appropriate resources. Today in arizona, the low hanging fruit had been picked so it will be more expensive, there will be significantin arizona, significant investment for future development of a water supply. Innovative, Work Together and look for opportunities in which we can develop additional Water Supplies. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. The topics you are speaking of are top of mind for all of us. Thank you also. I know it is before you took over, talk about the creativity that you are used, but also from a process standpoint as this is actually bringing up members of the region staff to sit directly with our folks. Figure out the best way to go. Unfortunately, i think that when we look at all of us end up with drought and floods and challenges, but what we are seeing more and more in the west is our fire seasons are longer hotter and more damaging. As you view that and recognizing that it is a different kind of disaster than hurricane or other things, what sort of guidance or thoughts do you have as we look for how we can make overall fire zone landscapes, the authority and resources in 132,000 square mile state, what should we be advocating for how the federal government starts looking at overall fires and making them more in view of disasters that other natural disasters might be . Thank you, governor. We are coming back in december. We will do an after action review based on the fire season. And to be able to carry over some of the lessons learned. I agree the liaison was an important position. We do use liaisons for our disasters all the time. It is probably a great tool to use in the fire situation as well. I think youre really streamlines munication. From my perspective, i think the best thing we can look at right here and now is mediation and mitigation and look at ways that we can provide grants and grants for fire mitigation. Whether that is in the event of more concrete poles, getting rid of the fuel. I know the pot of money for preDisaster Mitigation is limited, but you have to look at if there is a disaster that you can look at the Mitigation Program as another alternative for fire mitigation. I know that we would like to see us move more Disaster Mitigation money up front whether we can do that or not, it will be a longterm issue. I think that is a great thing to help build more resilient communities, be a fire or any other disaster. We can do things in front instead of being reactive and be more proactive will go a long way in building resilient communities. Chairman . Thank you. Thank you. I dont have so much a question region 8 nt for the director. I just want to say as a new brandnew, 2010, lected in 2010, one of the things that more experienced governors told the newcomers for a disaster, because you never know when it hit. When a fire or a hurricane will occur and one of the best things you can do is get to know your regional fema director, because you will want them to be your best friend lotuse they will help you a and know the ropes better than you will. O i made it a point to become acquainted with the regional region 8. N on not long after, but oincidentally, i wasnt in office, but about five months we had historic flooding on the Missouri River affecting south dakota and downstream Missouri River and mississippi river, too. Fema was a tremendous resource to us. Obin was a great help and all her staff and everyone from region 8 really stepped up to south dakota and i know many other states that you serve and so i want to thank you for service and whatever part you played. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Hat support will continue forward, no doubt. That was some stability. To see a new face every nine months. I think that will help a lot and relationships and the things that we have to do. My a staff perspective, staff, state staff, relationships are solid and work well. State directors from the region 8 perspective because i was here already. So we have that relationship and now its time to build on that enhance those partnerships. Final comment or question from premier wall . Quick question. Not sure its a challenge like like in the United States in our country. Weve tried to come to terms with this. Because g issue, farmers are great stewards, bull drainage issues can have inadvertent consequences, not getting along f with neighbors. They say whiskey is for drinking is for fighting. Happen, oding events exacerbated by agricultural drainage. I wonder if thats on any radar screens and maybe not the that it is in other y places. That . Y comments on ladies and gentlemen, please help me in thanking this great anel for their discussions and thank you so much for being here. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] they sit their babies in television and ive seen it over and over again country and the child quietly goes to sleep mind. E their and friday, tech sector trends. It as the starship enterprise. You ever watched star trek, theres a computer that understands your idioms and