It is all yours. Thank you, jim. Thank you, christine. Christine, you have a good voice. Lets move on. [laughter] let me join jim in welcoming you all to phoenix. I am pleased to see some any 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. Although he was not able to stay for todays activities, weve visited early this morning with the secretary of agriculture, sonny perdue. We will hear from two 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 enjoyed john speak about his everin every pixar movie made. He has a passion for American Workers and american industry. His comments will touch on one of the greatest challenges our nation faces which is vital to maintaining and expanding our Economic Vitality and the coming years, which is Workforce Development. My initiative as the chair is focused on Workforce Development how we prepare the students off today for the job market off tomorrow and how we ease the , worker transition to new and emerging employment opportunities. To seebeen very pleased the bipartisan engagement with my fellow governors on this issue. Weve held workshops in colorado, oklahoma, in Washington State and also 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 also conduct Panel Discussions on infrastructure challenges, autonomous vehicles, the changing face of our country and we will also spend time examining how the state federal relationship has changed over time. We will also announce some newly. Dopted policy resolutions i am hoping we can have a little fun as well. Welcome to arizona, welcome to the deadly gh 2017 winter meeting. 2017 winter meeting. I will turn it over to our past chair, steve bullock. Think i would like to thank all of you for being year. Talents bute many christine certainly did not marry you for your voice. [laughter] for our first acre, it is my true and sincere pleasure to introduce our first speaker, tony tark. He was announced as the forest chief early this year and he made time this summer to get out of washington and join us on the ground in support of our efforts to fight wildfires. He wasly days after announced as the chief, there he was in missoula, or in seeley lake, or on one of our biggest fires. As governor, and as an individual, tony, i sincerely appreciate that commitment from the beginning and i look forward to welcoming you back to this country big sky country when we are all not eating smoke everyday, for sure. The chief has been working with must all his adult life, having started with the agency at age 18. Ofbrings a track record leadership and accomplishments which will no doubt serve him and serve as well in this role. These are the challenges facing the agency. In montana, we had the most expensive wildfire season in our state history. This years season will also end of being the most expensive in our nations history, already over 200 million and county. WildFire Suppression is a ,ignificant impediment appointed by governors been making for many years. Secretary perdue certainly knows weter than i do about what can do to mitigate fire danger in the first place and i am sure that the rest of the governors look forward to working with him to put an end to this disastrous practice and move washington in the steps that need to be done. Last year, i began the National Forest Service Management which came up with 48 bipartisan recommendations to improve forest and range Land Management practices. I know you are familiar with the initiative and we were pleased to see the Forest Service take an active and engaged role in our efforts. I hope the chief will continue that engagement and work with the governors to implement these recommendations in the coming years. Tony, thank you for making time. Hearingforward to both you and working with you on the challenges and the opportunities of public land space it the coming years. Please join me in welcoming chief tony tooke. [applause] good afternoon. Trying to makeg my talk into a song, but i think im going to stick with it as i had it. I am an honor to be here, glad i was invited and i look forward to i am already enjoying the time that we have spent together so far this morning. The Forest Service has a long, states history, with the along the country. We have all we hold in regard the relationships we have with the states, including the western Governors Association. We go all the way back to the northern1910 in the rockies. After the fires, we formed cooperative agreements for prior protection and we have expanded and then, those partnerships. Example, the 2014 farm bill and Good Neighbor authority. Dozens ofgned agreements since the Good Neighbor authority was expanded nationwide. About 84 of the National Forest system lies in the western states. American forest lands make up large proportions of the western states, and are about 124 Million People 112 Million People who live in the west, depending largely on the values and benefits that they get from the National Forests there and others. N water, numeral communities out west for example, there economic livelihoods and social wellbeing depend on the values and benefits of these forests. So we share the responsibility to manage these landscapes and we share responsibility for taking on the threats and risks. As many of you know, these landscapes are at risk. I would like to Work Together, i would like to roll up my sleeves, with our employees and our leaders to work with the states, communities, ngos, to take on some of these problems and take them on at a larger scale. Is topriority for us improve the condition of forest and range land. As i say that, about 80 million acres, take the National Forest system for example about 80 million acres of National Forest are at moderate to high risk of fire, insect or disease. A percentage of that is at an extremely high risk. These acres and a lands which are at risk, there is a drinking water, environmental security, communities, homes that are adjacent to these lands which are at risk. Historic sacred sites, places, wildlife habitat, Outdoor Recreation opportunities. There is a lot riding on that. So my commitment is, if we are going to step up our game, and we are stepping up our game, to increase results and on the ground, we are going to use every tool, authority and resource available to us to work with the states, local communities, federal partners, tribes and work with ngos to take this on. When i look at the western governors National Forest and range Land Management initiative, i have read it i have readme it three or four more times and i appreciate the opportunity for employees to be engaged. The concerns and opportunities dovetail perfectly with the way that we see things. Urgentmple, we see the need to improve these conditions. We see the need to forge broad agreements with stakeholders across the landscape to restore forest health. We recognize the need to overcome obstacles that exist such as collaboration, obstacles sufficient funding, obstacles like insufficient markets for products. Ond for products. We also see insufficient coordination across landscapes, and we see excessive costs and delays associated with planning, going through our environmental analysis and decisionmaking process. The question is, how do we meet the needs and rise to these challenges that we face together , how do we work better together, to improve the conditions of forest and range lands, particularly in the west . One way that the Forest Service can do that is by being Good Neighbors and excelling at customer service. Caring for the land and serving people has been the center core of our culture for a long time. As chief, i want to reemphasize that part of who we are. I want to ensure that we are connected to the communities and we are listening to people and their ideas, and that their ideas are originating to what we are doing. So as chief of the Forest Service, i want to make sure that there is an agency. That we work with some integrity when it comes to focusing on the people we serve. I am the head of a diverse, Broad Coalition and we are all working together. Tool, every every authority and everything we have available to us. We have plenty to do. There is a backlog of special use work, a backlog of rangeallotment work. There is a backlog of force 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 citizen that we have served deserves our very best and deserves us to excel in customer service. It does not matter whether it is everyractor, a partner, 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 and expand the use of our best practices. We will practice those innovative tools to overcome barriers. Having sustainable, healthy forest and grasslands depends and will depend on our ability to increase results and get Better Outcomes on the landscape. So we are using the good example,authority, for to expand our ability to do that. I am very proud of how the Good Neighbor authority has achieved some deep roots and really expanded. We now have over 130 agreements signed with 32 states. Most of the states in the west. A lot of the Good Neighbor authority agreements, about half of them are for forest health, Forest Management is their Main Objective the other half is for managing hazardous fuels, improving wildlife habitats, treating and dangerous species and treating endangered species and watershed improvement. Of examples, last year in idaho, the Idaho Department of lands opted into the first Good Neighbor authority timber sale. That sale generated about 4. 5 million feet of timber and of 1. 2 Million Dollars in revenue for restoration projects. That is one example. We are looking for ways to improve and strengthen it. Another example is in nevada where we are developing a master three statevolving agencies, to Forest Service regents, and the bureau of Land Management. We are looking at the barriers that get in the way of us expanding the Good Neighbor authority for example, some of the restrictions on road construction. We are designing web ages where people can interface on the web and do training around Good Neighbor authority, looking at policy and lessons learned. Another way to address the throughes we face is stewardship, 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 to look across the landscape, e. On to the National Forest system. Everyone, work with with every citizen. Everybody from all walks of life, whether it is from a rural area or urban community. Bringing people together where we have a diverse, Strong Coalition is a way that we will get things done, increase the scale and impact of our work and deliver to the american people. The other thing is we have to use every tool in the box. Example, timber harvesting, wildfire, prescribed burning. Using hazardous s. Emical we have to use every tool available to us. When we get burn windows in the west, we can either have fire on or have fire on our terms. We have to ramp up prescribed burning. In doing all of this, using every tool in the box, we will make sure we Stay Grounded in science, using solid science and good data to work collaboratively and use good maps. Another thing that we are looking at is how we improve our environmental analysis and decisionmaking process. Toobottom line is it costs much and it takes too long. We think we can improve it and we can improve it without sacrificing quality. What i mean by that is by using sound science, using good data, and working collaboratively with different groups. We have put personnel in place already to do this. A started last september with meeting of our National Leadership and a crosssection of our workforce. Now we are taking some of their ideas to our external partners and state funders. The firefighting, i certainly would like to think of the western governors who have continue to support us over and over. We climbed this mountain many times, we have climbed back up it again and we are really close. I am optimistic about this is going to happen. Funding six which would increase the resources that 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 way that we can prevent wildfires. I think that one of the longterm answers is upstream, and how we manage the land. This past fire season, it illustrates the challenges that we face. You alluded to that earlier, it is a fire season that again in october 2016, in the southern appalachians, in the southeast, extended to the southwest, the northern rockies, california and the northwest. At the same time, we had major hurricanes strike the mainland u. S. Oil we were dealing with Fire Suppression. A number of them, you have already mentioned. Over 9 million acres have earned. Much higher than the 10 year average. Year in recordbreaking many ways. For example, the fire levels four and five which are our highest, we were 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 if nothing does not change. The way that fire is funded has been around. It is funded at the 10year average. That has been around for well over two decades. This is not a scientific finding funding 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 does a couple of things. Stops the growth of that 10 year average against a flat edge and budget, 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 stewardship and partnerships, and finding a solution and a fix 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 enormous opportunity right now to roll up our sleeves, Work Together, and bring together this Diverse Coalition that can really move the needle and change 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 of our priorities are in sync. We have a chance for a few questions. I will start out. For many of us, the farm bill really opens up possibilities and things we are 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 forestry . Anything that can strengthen like the Good Neighbor of , authority and give maybe a little bit 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. They do an incredible job. 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 reducing the impacts of 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 this 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 in 2007, we had one of the largest wildfires in the desert. 700,000 acres burnt in less than two weeks. We lost 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 lines and probably held that fire to considerably less than what it was. So we created 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 that we can go back and look at and talk to the other agencies, and other federal cooperators as well as the state foresters for example, to see if we have the ability to do it now. If we dont have the authority to do which 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 forests 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 has that already occurred . Could you talk about that a little bit . Yes, sir. If we were going through now i helped the black hills in one of my prior jobs in washington, d. C. , with the adaptive Environmental Impact statement. You know, it 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 million and 60 million acres that are designated under the insect and disease designations from the 2014 farm bill, so there are as 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. And him and him him him i just e 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 on the National Forests and also private lands because all of those forests are heavily it is surrounded by private lands. Those are 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 underresourced. Has the Forest Service thought about two things, shared assets 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 at 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 consequences 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 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. Is there a way to get it . 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 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 pooling our resources. We have the most of authority, the most support, the most ability to do that in my career, which is almost 38 years. I think that is something that even within the fire funding , 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 echo. 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 rules 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 that is hurting the animals that have access to forage, it creates a fire hazard. And yet, because we have wilderness designation, 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 it has to fit certain conditions and certain situations. We have, for example, put prescribed burns in some of our wilderness areas so there are some things we can do 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 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. Priority 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 invite our panelists for the next roundtable to immediately join us 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 has had a long drought and fire, earthquakes, everything else, a disaster. He is a natural one to lead this panel. [laughter] right. But this panel will address issues that are on the front mines of every governor minds of every 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 jeff the director for energy , assurance programs at the National Association of state energy officials, 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 salt River 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 is ive been the Regional Administrative director for fema for all of two weeks. My staff thought it was a good idea i should talk to everybody , 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 in five years, and weve had a series of actions which makes it tough to get collaboration and give states the continuity they need. 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 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 141 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 care of 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 to my boss today, not about this, but he wanted a oneonone session. He told me wanting that brock thing 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 and 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 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 have 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 and 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. We have been deeply engaged in supporting states on working on Energy Infrastructure for over 30 years. The nations infrastructure, electricity, national gas, petroleum is significant when we consider the economic and human consequences and understand existing vulnerabilities and potential threats from all hazards. 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. Since 1980, the u. S. Has sustained to 18 similar to set 218 total cost exceeding similar disasters at a total cost exceeding 1. 2 trillion. This does not yet include the cost of hurricanes harvey, irma or maria. The society for Civil Engineers in the 2017 report card gave 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 757 million. Infrastructure investments, it is important to understand the interdependencies. 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. Water advisories were issued. Sewage plants were not fully operational, and they discharged partially processed sewage into rivers. Hydrants whiche , 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 loss of supply resulted in fuel shortages that took one month to clear up. The Public Sector and the private sectors investment in Energy Infrastructure is needed to mitigate risk. We need to replace aging infrastructure prone to failure adjust supply and demand, and , employ new technologies that mitigate older vulnerabilities, particularly in the cyber field. The state capacity to quickly and efficiently respond can reduce consequences by improving the speed of the response and Recovery Efforts working collaboratively with the private sector. Instate and multistate facets are key. We sponsored a multistate exercise in the northwest last year to explore the impact of earthquakes on the Energy Structures of 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 impacts. 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. Microgrids combined with power hospitals, transit can improve for critical facilities hospitals, transit can improve the reliability, resiliency and provide cost savings. Storage, demand response wind, demand response, 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 in part because almost 3 billion was 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. Puerto ricosand, power grid was already constrained and now must be rebuilt. 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 energy, emergency, insecurity 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, there is work to help improve the coordination between state energy offices, public utility emergency commissions, and Emergency Management agency. The interdependencies of regulated and unregulated fuels require a holistic approach to preparedness and infrastructure resilience. That concludes my remarks for today. Thank you very much, director. Director hallan . Governors, welcome to arizona. On behalf of srp and all arizonans, if i lose my voice, you have to blame the audience 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 project. 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 water 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 controlled 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 verde river, the salt river, and the East Clear Creek watershed. 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. We need a 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 recharge. We have a couple recharge facilities where instead of ground, weer above store 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 utilize to extract out water , when we do need it during those times we do not have the surface water supply to satisfy the needs of our service territory. We also have interconnected 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, a trading source 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 we would like to do is to utilize of that capacity so it 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, what i would like to focus on is wildfire. All of you are familiar with wildfire. If you look at our watershed, that is a 13,000 square mile watershed to serve a 400 square mile service 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 engaged now with the Forest Service for them to move forward with that mission , to protect that watershed and that water 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 Forest Management projects impacts our Management System today. Unfortunately our forests are , unhealthy. Trees, tents per acre, if you look to the pictures on 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 that was actually 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, the same level of partnership, but our struggle today is developing a Forest Products industry. A Forest Products industry does not exist in the state today and the current challenge is 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 and remove a lot of those trees . Example of afect federal investment and what that , federal investment created. In 1911, Theodore Roosevelt dedicated roosevelt dam. The federal government contribute 10 million in the 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 the initial shot on that one. Yes, to answer your question, there is. We bring your staffs together emae a year in the greatest f regions to talk to them about what training they desire and , how we can best support you with that training. That will include exercises as well. In 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. 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 in all 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 there is a result, 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. Its a very important activity. 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 significant investment for future development of a water supply. We have to be innovative, Work Together and look for opportunities in which we can develop additional Water Supplies. Thank you. Governor . 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, you talked about the creativity that you all used. But also from a process standpoint, 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 than a hurricane or other things, what sort of guidance or thoughts do you have as we look for how we can make overall fire , really taxing inauthorities and resources a 132,000 square miles 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 it really streamlines communication. From my perspective, i think the best thing we can look at right here and now is mitigation and look at ways that we can provide 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. If we can do things upfront, instead of being reactive, being more proactive will go a long way in building resilient communities. Chairman . Thank you. Governor, i dont have so much a question as a comment for the director. I want to say, as a new governor things more of the experienced governors told newcomers was to be ready for a disaster. ,ou never know when it will hit when a fire or flood will occur. One of the best things you can do is get to know your regional director, because people help you and they know the ropes better than you. I made it a point to become acquainted with the regional director in region 8. Finnegan was her last name. On, but ied coincidentally worked in the office about five months when we have the flooding of the missouri river, which affected many parts downstream, and the mississippi river, too. Ma was a tremendous resource to us. Everyone from the region really stepped up to help south dakota, and many other states you serve. Thank you for your service. I appreciate that. That support will continue forward. You will have to see a new face every it helps a lot to build relationships. Perspective, my staff, state staff, relationships are solid and work well. I know all your stage directors, as i was here already state directors, as i was here already. It is time to build on them and enhance partnerships. Final comment and question. On the issue of agricultural drainage how will it exacerbates the flooding events that may happen . Is as muchre if it of a challenge in the United States as it is in canada. Trilogy issues are great environmental stewards, but they issues are drainage great environmental stewards, but they can have consequences. Also in terms of when flooding events happen, they can be exacerbated by a bond of agricultural drainage by a lot of agricultural drainage. As much hereblem as it is in other places . Any comments . Ladies and gentlemen, please help me in thinking this great panel for their discussions. Thank you so much for being here. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the western Governors Association also heard from representatives from pew research, gallup, and microsoft. This is 50 minutes. We are down to our last panel on this very packed day. I invite the roundtable participants to come with this batch. While you are doing that, i am going to recognize the moderator of the panel. The honorable John Hickenlooper from colorado
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.