Transcripts For CSPAN Hearing On Wildfires The Electric Grid 20240713

Order. Last hearing of the year here. Theres a lot going on this morning, so i think we will have people popping in and out, but we do have a pretty hard stop at 11 00 this morning. Weve got a series of votes that are beginning at 11 00, and we are going to observe an actual 10 minute clock, we are told. It will be the first time in senate history, but that is the goal this morning. So we want to be able to hear from everyone this morning and have an opportunity for the very, very, very important conversations regarding this issue. We are here to discuss the impact of wildfires on the reliability of our electric rate and efforts to mitigate wildfire risk and increase great grid resiliency. In recent years, devastating wildfires and electricity blackouts in california have drawn National Attention to the challenge of maintaining grid resiliency in the face of extreme conditions. Tragically, we remember last years camp fire, the deadliest and most destructive fire in california history, which incinerated the town of paradise, killed 85 people. State investigators determined that the fire was caused by degraded, 97yearold power lines during socalled fire weather, which consists of strong winds, low humidity, dry vegetation and heat. The camp fire was a sobering wakeup call on the inherent risk of maintaining thousands of miles of aboveground power lines across fireprone landscapes. It spurred california regulators and several of the states largest utilities to increase their use of Public Safety power shutoffs, or psps plans, as a precaution against possible wildfire ignition during high wind events. Intended as a measure of last resort, psps plans call for utilities to deenergize powerlines in extreme weather conditions and blackout large portions of their service territory. From june through november, at least nine psps events cut power for more than 3 million californians. For some, these blackouts lasted a few hours. For others, power went on for nearly six days. These blackouts occurred not only in the rugged terrain of Northern California, but also in the greater metro areas of san francisco, san diego, and los angeles county. Repeat scenarios could be with us for a very long time. According to the testimony that we will hear today, wildfire blackouts could he californias could be californias new normal for the next 10 to 30 years, or perhaps even longer. One would expect to see such Living Conditions in a developing country, but not in some of our most populated and prosperous places in the United States, and certainly not in a state with some of the highest electricity prices in the nation. But this challenge is not just limited to california. Dense visitation and hazard trees interfering with powerlines are not an uncommon cause of wildfires. Neither is degrading Energy Infrastructure. On a national basis, the u. S. Forest Service Estimates that more than 277 fires from 2017 to 2018 can be traced to powerlines. Several of the fires that merged into the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires were started by winddowned power lines. The Great Smoky Mountains wildfires were the deadliest in the eastern u. S. Since the great fires of 1947. In my home state of alaska, some fires north of anchorage are believed to be connected to powerline ignitions in a region that has some pretty high spruce bark beetle mortality. An investigation is still pending there, but a tree falling onto a distribution line is a suspected cause of the mckinley fire of this summer, which resulted in the loss of six homes. The danger in alaska, like elsewhere in the nation, is that powerlines are located near homes and schools and businesses. That is a fact. Climate change, drought, insect foresttion and poor management have made landscapes more susceptible to fire, particularly in the west. Inmore people build homes urban interfaces or dispersed communities, the chance is for utility related wildfires to surely increase. Stepped in to ensure the federal government is not a roadblock to clearing dense visitation and hazard trees from utility rightsofway. As part passed an act of the 2018 consolidated appropriations act which directs federal land managers to expedite the clearing of vegetation within 100 feet of powerline corridors on federal land. The department of the interior and the Forest Service implementing that measure. Now we must turn our attention to what had begun to harden Energy Infrastructure and improve the resiliency in high fire risk areas during these extreme weather conditions. This is a complex problem that will require collaboration at all levels and partnerships with the electric industry. Who have joined us this morning to provide important testimony. For beinglleagues here, and i will turn to my friend, senator manchin, for his comments. Sen. Manchin thank you very much, senator murkowski. Today will be the last meeting of a person who has been with me quite a long time in my committee. Shes been with me in my state office not the state office, but the d. C. Office. She was my teeth counsel chief counsel and moved over when i became Ranking Member of the braking member staff sarah now has two little babies and things in life changes times, and we are so sorry that she will not be on the committee or working in the committee or leading the staff, but she will always be near and dear to us and by her phone, and we dont want to let her escape too far. With that, sarah, i want to thank you for all your years of service. [applause] sen. Manchin so zero murkowsk senator murkowski, thank you for posting this hearing today. Wildfires are a threat to Critical Infrastructure, including the electric rate, but as we have seen in several instances, a clement failures on the grid can also spark wildfires. This is especially true for western states. We have seen several catastrophic fires any california, but the Eastern States have seen some too. Burned in west virginia. No homes were damaged, but other communities across the country have not been so lucky. Years,e last few california has been hit extremely hard by wildfires and the impacts have been truly devastating. Last year, the camp fire alone killed 40 people, destroyed thousands of homes in the town of paradise. Mr. Bill johnson, president of the pg e corporation, being here today. And being willing to talk about his companys understanding of the mistakes that were made, lessons learned, and the operational changes they are making to ensure this never happens again. Wildfires are increasing in intensity, size, and frequency, and we will need a new approach to mitigate their devastating impacts and ensure electricity infrastructure is not starting fires. They are also getting harder to control due to Climate Change, lack of Forest Management, and new Housing Developments in rural, fire prone areas. This is affecting millions of people. I look forward to hearing from andpanel about Technologies Management practices, and what Innovative Solutions are needed to reduce risk. The department of energy and our National Labs, including the one in my home state, are working on monitor rising modernizing the electric grid to make it more resilient. We need to address the relationship between wildfires and the grid, in terms of wildfires impacting the grid and electricity infrastructure igniting wildfires. There is no silver bullet, but we can learn from utilities that have made the most they are grid the most resilient d the most resilient to wildfires. This leads technologies to detect wildfires early, growing power lines, and deenergizing powerlines as a last resort. A last resort is shutting down the power, which pg e and other utilities have done proactively. I can imagine how disruptive that was to the millions of customers and businesses that depend every day on electricity you provide, so i hope you will explain to us today why that was a step you took in those particular circumstances and how effective they were. I understand that during one of the pg e power shut offs, 218 instances of line damage were discovered, several which would have likely started wildfires had you not taken precautionary actions. The shut off prevented several fires, but came in a great cost and raises the question, if we have to shut off the power, how can we do it in a way that causes the least harm to customers . Toally, i look forward hearing from witnesses on waste congress can be helpful. I know we took a big step forward by including a provision in the 2018 omnibus bill to make it easier for utilities to do the required maintenance, especially for the small, Rural Electrical coops. I welcome your thoughts on additional actions we can take to make it easier to clean up an area after wildfires, including making use of some of the timber from trees killed by the fire before the timber rots. It makes no sense to me at all. We want to avoid the devastation caused by wildfires and have a reliable, resilient electric rich to power our homes and businesses. In the face of increasing wildfire risk, we need to do everything we can to manage and reduce these rising risks. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses and what they have to say on how to do that, so thank you, chairman murkowski, and i thank all our witnesses for coming and making an effort to be here today. Thank you,ski senator manchin. We will begin with our panel this morning. Thank you to each of you for being here, and the contributions that you will make to this very important discussion. The panel is going to be led to be led this morning by mr. Bill johnson. Mr. Johnson is ceo and president for pg e corporation. I know this has been a very, very difficult time for you, for all within pg e, the pg e family. It has been a significant challenge and i know that you have made every effort to be open and transparent as you deal with this and share the lessons iverned, so we are appreciat of you being here this morning. Dr. Michael wara is also here, thank you. Is thescott corwin executive director for the northwest Public Power Association we appreciate your contribution this morning. Manager foris the the electricity market sector at one of our fabulous National Labs at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory we are thankful you are here. The panel will be rounded off by russell, a professor and director at the Power System Automation Laboratory at the department of electrical and Computer Engineering at texas a m university. We appreciate you being here. We would ask you to keep your comments to about five minutes. Your full statements will be included as part of the record. Mr. Johnson, welcome to the committee. Mr. Johnson thank you so much, good morning. Bill johnson, president and ceo of the pg e corporation. I appreciate the committees interest in wildfires and the impacts to electric grid reliability and resilience. We haveeen mentioned, seen a dramatic increase in wildfires as a result of a changing climate. Which in terms had a dramatic effect on our electric system and how we operate it. 15 ofven years ago, pg es service area was designated as having elevated fire risk. Todayumber is over 50 and will continue to grow, so in seven years, the risk of fire more than tripled for our service area in Northern California. Experiencedas also its most destructive wildfires in the last two years and its deadliest. Pg e is deeply sorry for the role our equipment had in those fires and the losses that occurred because of them. We are taking action to prevent it from ever happening again. Over 30 billion dollars in our electric system over the last decade, including more than 3 billion in Vegetation Management, and today we are taking that a step further by increasing Vegetation Management in high risk areas, incorporating analytical and , andctive capabilities expanding this go and intrusiveness of our inspection processes. Everyear, we inspected element of our electric system within high threat fire areas, examining almost 730,000 25 millionin discrete related components in about four months. We deployed 600 weather stations and 130 High Resolution cameras across our service area to bolster Situational Awareness and Emergency Response. Data andellite modeling techniques to predict wildfire spread and behavior, and we are hardening our system in those areas where the fire threat is highest by installing a stronger and more resilient polls and covered lines, as well as underground in. Took the me president and step of intentionally turning off power for safety during a set during string of severe wind events, where we saw 100 mileperhour winds onshore in Northern California area this decision affected many of our customers, caused them disruption and hardship, even as it succeeded in its goal of protecting human life. The nature of this risk and potential consequences of it requires to plan, operate, and maintain our systems differently than we ever have. This role acquire a focus on resilience as well as reliability. Hereis one of the lessons that will be applicable beyond california, and the committee has noted this. The resilience and reliability are related, but they are distinct concepts. Our customers, including Critical Infrastructure and first responders, have long depended on Reliable Service. But today more than ever, our ability to provide Reliable Service depends on the comprehensive societal approach to resilience. Congress addressed reliability through section 215 of the federal power act nearly 15 years ago, and congress could address resilience now through potential actions that include directing the doe to increased eligibility and funding for Energy Resistance and Community Resilience programs, support research and development of new technologies and forwardlooking data, and promoting publicprivate partnerships to establish voluntary resilience zones and building codes and standards. Addressing the wildfire threat, we believe that the federal government should continue its focus on funding Forest Management and Fire Suppression activities, implementing forest and Vegetation Management policies advanced by senator daines and andressman schrader, for wildfire detection. Addressing this risk must start with our own operations, meaning we are looking to mitigate this dynamic risk affecting this company. Pg e will do everything in our power to build a better and safer future for all. That is what our customers deserve. Thank you for the opportunity. Sen. Murkowski thank you, mr. Johnson. Dr. Wara, welcome. [inaudible] oh, sorry. Guest senator dr. Wara senator murkowski, senator manchin, thank you for having me before the committee to discuss this issue. There are real present threats demonstrated by the wildfires. In the california context, these race significant questions how and if elements of the Transmission Systems across high threat areas should be operated during increasingly common and increasingly dangerous high wind events. As bill johnson just discussed, pg e has faced enormous threats to its system and has really for the first time this year used widespread Public Safety power shut offs as a tool to create inety, and as you mentioned your opening remarks, this is not just an issue for rural or remote parks of california, but directly impacts millions of people in the metro areas in california as well. Psps has prevented wildfire and caused widespread disruption to families and businesses, especially in Northern California. Events, although they dramatically improve safety, are very costly to the health of the economy, especially in smaller communities. My assessment, using tools developed by the laboratory, indicates that psps events in 2019 likely cost customers more than 10 billion. Failure of transmission components during high wind is not a new phenomenon in california. Indeed, the wildfire that spelled the birth of modern 2007, the witch fire and san diego county, was transmission e line failure. Similarly, the campfire was ignited by failure of a transmission line this year and perhaps most concerning of all, k vure of a jumper on a 230 line in the geysers appears to have caused the kincade fire. While the kincade fire was superbly managed by the administration, cal fire, and callow yes, it could have resulted in property loss as large as the camp fire that came before it. A addition, there is at least suggestion that two fires in Southern California were potentially caused by Transmission System failures this year. That the 2019ize fires are still very much under investigation. We dont fully understand their causes, but there is a strong suggestion of vulnerability in the Transmission System. Year, this was relatively limited. Mostly it involved lower voltage transmission lines that were much older. The failures we observed this year indicated that even the higher voltage lines that provide bulk system reliability might be vulnerable during high wind events. Onwould seem prudent based recent experience to at least consider including all of these lines, except perhaps the very highest voltage lines in the psps protocols, and that has potentially significant ramifications for bulk system reliability in california and impacts beyond the high wildfire threat areas on customers. Currently, california regulators and utilities are engaged in urgent examination of inspections and testing protocols for these critical components to understand why the failures are occurring. Tower that may have caused the kincade fire was expected at least four times inspected at least four times, and it failed. We need to understand why and we need to understand what mitigating actions we can take to ensure that bulk system reliability is maintained, even through psps events. All of this raises important questions about how to approach bulk system maintenance and operations moving forward in areas that facing african wildfire threats. Significantly, some risk of mechanical failure was acceptable because the failures tended to occur during wet winter storms, but today in california at least, the failure managers are worried most about is the mechanical failure when it is windy, dry, and the fuels are cured. These conditions are highly intolerant of any failure of the bulk Transmission System to operate properly and this change in the consequence of failure mode means the tolerance for errors has to be much lower than the costeffective approaches developed during the 20th century. Silence, best available on weather and climate conditions indicate that the problem is going to get worse, not better, as the years pass, and is likely to spread beyond california into broader impacts on the western United States. The legislature and Governor Newsom have worked relatively successfully over the last year to reduce the perceived and Financial Risks of these impacts on customers, on the utilities, and on the victims of fires. I to the passage of wildfire funds this summer, which provided a way for pg e out of bankruptcy and helped butilizing credit ratings, i think we have to focus on affordability and costeffectiveness of the strategy as we look to the future. Affordability is key as we maintain safety and reliability of the system, and that is going to require very smart and very targeted investment in the electricity system. It is going to require much more sophisticated approaches to measure and quantification of variance in the system performance problems can be identified and fixed before disaster strikes. To, it willlluded require collaboration between local property owners, state and federal governments, and wildland firefighters in reducing fuel loads so the consequences of ignition are less. Lessonsful that the learned in california over the past several years, catastrophe can be fruitful for other western states as the wildfire threats, both from the electric system and other causes increases due to Climate Change. Thank you. Sen. Murkowski thank you, dr. Wara. Mr. Corwin, welcome. Mr. Corwin thank you, senator murkowski, senator manchin for holding this hearing today. Reliabilityated to and affordability to our customers, and wildfire stands as a major threat to these principles. It demands our best collaborative effort. The northwest Public Power Associations provides of 138 consumer owned electric withties across the region land that is mostly under federal ownership in many places, and where many of the largest wildfires occur. If you live in these areas, sooner or later, you, your family, your friends are impacted. It is very real in these areas. In fact, my fatherinlaw was at the base in oregon, still lives in northern nevada, where wildfires reached their suburban neighborhoods. Communities,wer even the threat of one harmed is too many. Fire is one of the greatest risks to their Financial Stability of members and their solvents, and it threatens their ability to provide that basic electricity service. Analyzeave mobilized, their gaps and needs, found plans that include dozens of actions on topics like enhanced inspections, operational practices, Situational Awareness, Vegetation Management, system hardening, circuit three closing, and others you will hear about today. We thank you in congress for all takes and this funding, so we thank you for stabilizing and starting to stabilize the federal funding it is an important part of this equation, and now it is important that we prioritize that funding and get the best bang for the buck to this important cause. Our members know the best way to suppress or avoid fire is to eliminate fuel or ignition in the first place, and unfortunately, delays in removing trees or in widening corridors, they are no longer wide enough, have exacerbated the risk of catastrophic wildfire. Some of our members maintain Service Territories where 80 of the land is owned by the federal government. Effective management of these lands demands a True Partnership between federal agencies and the utilities who need approvals to maintain those rightsofway. To that end, we thank you for passing the amendment last year to promote federal consistency, accountability, and timely decisionmaking. Now we are looking for consistent, coordinated, quick implementation of this law. We appreciate the u. S. Forest Service Recently issuing a proposed rule on this, and we know just this week, an update to my written testimony, dom has issued instructional memos to their state offices in the west. We will review these memos, but they appear to set a tone of compliance with the Laws Congress intended, which is encouraging. We need coordinated consistent guidelines that eliminates the need for routine operations and control of hazard trees we would like to see a culture of responsiveness. We have many good relationships with the hardworking employees at b. L. M. And the Forest Service. They share our goal of good stewardship of federal land and some more consistent standards, timelines and collaboration with operators is great for all sides and of utmost importance and it starts with culture. We have full use of Agency Discretion to identify the exclusions you should the National Environment policy act for routine and regular work and for hazard tree removal. We need more training for agency staff and were ready to provide it as the law outlines. We like to see a implementation of provision allowing this is really vital to Decisive Action to protect people in our Electrical Systems and it is important that we see the implementation of the act of liability. Theres been a lot of uncertainty and theres also lairs that the ultimate ities that need to comply with and even when theres no indication that a utility cause an event, sometimes theyll receive an invoice from a state or federal agency for damages even years afterwards even without process. Finally, we should build on the coordination that weve seen among utilities in federal and state and local agencies on how to protect critical systems. And we appreciate your leadership on the committee in prioritizing wildfire intervention and suppression and theres a lot more to do and the faster we act ahead of the next fire system, the better. Im glad to answer any questions or to provide any Additional Information for the record at your request and thank you for having this hearing and thank you for having me today. Senator murkowski thank you, many. Corwin. Good morning for the opportunity to join this session today. I lead the Grid Research program t the Pacific Northwest at the Grid Research program. We have supported the power system reliability resilience for the nation delivering working with industry to deliver outcomes from Cyber Resilience for the electricity generated in the United States and grid Storage Concepts that are delivering the flexibility we need for resilience system of the future i would like to offer three points for the session. Number one, the grid strategy is focused on r d for all hazards esilience for a modern grid. And industry and due are identifying laboratory r d that supports the industry wildfire activity and ill share so much those details. And the nation has the opportunity moving forward to leverage the recent industry experience thats been discussed o far in this session. For clarity, i use the National Academy of engineering definition of resilience as avoiding outages in the first place and then minimizing the breadth and duration of outages if they do occur. The modernization focuses on hazard resilience to enable communities and states to address wildfire risk. All hazards in this case means human threats like signer and physical attack, natural threats such as hurricanes and wildfires and equipment failures. Three topics within the portfolio are most relevant to wildfire. First, advanced sensing and analytics. Second, extreme Event Planning tools and then thirdly, the realtime operational and Emergency Response tools to support operations during wildfire events. The sensing tools are foundational to detecting impending failures and reporting realtime tools to mitigate that risk. The tools leverage some of these data assets. And the Machine Learning concepts provide the capacity to analyze ultra large high velocity grid data streams that were seeing on the modern grid. Extreme Event Planning tools give planners unparalleled capability to assess extremely complex and large threat scenarios, all hazards, to identify the Design Options in the face of a power system that is getting more variable, more connected at the edge, more interdependent and facing more challenging threats. And the realtime operational concepts are providing operators with insights on risk and support that is moving from the paradigm of hours and days ahead to seconds and minutes ahead. Regarding due engagement, we approach it in august. And they also sought advanced technology to protect against imminent failure. Thirdly, industry express data analytic tools and they delivered a set of options to industry for consideration. Just a few examples include gmlc derived sense receivers at akridge are testing at pg e. Ools that pnl deployed for hanes. Forest Service Platforms for bio mass assessment and vegetation types currently deployed in Washington State by pnl and extendable to other high risk National Forest and range areas in the west and then lastly, Emergency Response tools from sandia and oakridge for Situational Awareness and emergency mapping. Finally the National Candidate of academy encourage industry to be more expansive in frame the resilience scenarios against which the grid of the future needs to be designed. I believe that industry coordination through the role of the sub sector to ensure connection between the investor own and public entitys and integrate wildfire lessons with the d. U. E. R d agenda to deliver blue ribbon use cases that would enhance efforts to mitigate and protect against wildfire. Thank you very much. Senator murkowski thank you, mr. Imhotf. Dr. Russell, welcome to the community. Thank you very much for the invitation to be here. Im here to talk about how to prevent power line caused wildfires. On a december day and these are real examples from actual utilities, two electric power lines came together and clashed. They broke the line. It was christmas, december 25. The lights went out on hundreds of customers just as dinner went into the oven. Power was off for hours. Arcing metal was thrown off from the conductors and thankfully, a fire didnt start that specific day but a lot of people missed christmas dinner because they didnt get to cook it. What utility operators didnt know about that event was this. That that Christmas Day outage was caused by an event that had occurred five times in exactly the same place over the previous four years. That was the fifth time that event had occurred. Until now, no system was available that any utility could use that would automatically provide operators with the information necessary to find and fix this specific problem. Regular inspections by this utility had found absolutely nothing and it had been inspected multiple times. In fact, it had been detected for the purpose of why this had happened. Representative faults that occur one day may start a fire the next time they occur. Sometimes thats years from now and the ultra failure could have been predicted. Texas a m university has developed distribution fault anticipation technology. The system uses intelligent algorithms to continually monitor circuits to detect the earliest stages of failing devices and missed operations. The concept is simple. And fix it before the catastrophic failure causes the fire or causes the outage. Occurs today, utilities have protect equipment very quickly, deenergizes the power lines but the fault may have already caused the fire. Thats the best they can do with the equipment that they have. The root cause of that fault may have started days or even weeks and in some cases, ears before the catastrophic failure caused the fire. Digital wave form analytics can detect the earliest stages of an arcing device long in advance of catastrophic failure. Instead of waiting to react to the failure, lets find and fix it early. Texas a m researchers monitored over 100 utility circuits in a longitudal study for over 15 years, capturing every failure and missed operation on those circuits. Its the largest database existence in the world. We now know how they can be detected. Let me give you an example. Another example. A failing clamp just like this particular clamp right here which did fail, by the way. Caused a power line to fall to the ground. Causing an outage for hudgens hundreds of customers. It happened in tennessee. I dont remember if anybodys here from tennessee the arcing line was a potential ignition mechanism once it hit the ground. What utility operators did not know is that for the previous 21 days before the clamp caused the line to fall, an arcing condition had occurred on the clamp 2,333 times. In the last half of that 21 days, every one of those arcing conditions represented an ignition mechanism if ground conditions were correct. So for lets call it an average of 10 days and something on the order of 1,200 arcing events, each one of those had an opportunity to start a fire. With advanced technology, texas a m researchers were able to detect that line clamp that im talking about in the very first moments of the very first day 21 days before the failure occurred. Were in a we ran a blind study. Utility didnt know we were doing this. They let us go and put this in the system. And so we were knowing for 21 days that clamp was arcing. My 1950 chevrolet did not have anything in it that told me it was broken or going to break. It was broken when it stopped running. All right . Today, weve got a computer under the hood that tells us these things are going to happen to you and some time, you better come in and get this fixed because its going to break your car in a day or two or a week or three. In medicine, we now use advanced diagnostic equipment to find cancer early so it could be cured long before a catastrophe. Weve got an analogy here. And that is a new tool allowing operators to have Continual Health assessments 24 7 to identify failing devices and fix them before catastrophic occurs. It is important to know, extremely important to know no technology or program is ever going to prevent all fires. Thats just not possible. But what we need to do is use every tool that is available to us to prevent every fire that we possibly can because some of those fires, of course, are devastating. The reality is this. Texas a m university now operating on 20 different utilities with this technology has demonstrated that a new tool can find and fix and diagnose and help you many of the things that are causing fires. I pull up on my phone, i put in a code, i pull up a picture and i will give you that on the vector substation in australia on substation a, circuit a, a fouroperation fault occurred, it was 335 amps. Replaced itself. Reclosed, etc. , and ultimately ended up closing. It occurred at 7 12 55. I know more from this phone with this technology than the operators know in that facility in australia and im sitting here in washington, d. C. This technologys available. Its ready to use. And it will prevent some fires. Senator murkowski dr. Russell, thank you. This has been very interesting. Kind of the progression of the testimony here this morning were talking about. Real issues on the ground that have had devastating impact, loss of life and property that has just been horrific. And acknowledgement that how we deal with the vegetation and the management side of it, but then to move to the technology that really key in on the prevention is a good way to house this discussion before the committee. Mr. Johnson, i want to begin the you and this relates to situation as it is now, the fact that during this fire season, pg e had to employ the Public Safety power shutoff to make sure that there was a level of safety. Certainly, it interferes with that reliability that the reality expects, but a that sometimes you got to ioritize between the reliability versus the resilience, and again, truly the safety. Theres nobody on this committee whos from california. So i will ask the question that californians probably want to of and that is in terms impact to customers Going Forward, how long do you anticipate that pg e will have to resort to additional psps events . To resort to additional events . That impact i think it was viewed ayouthat mentioned the fl impact to the communities. It is very personal. So can you speak to that aspect of the Current Situation . I can give you an estimate. It is hard to be precise about this. I will say that the use of the psps goes back to the early 2000s in california and it was after fires in 2007 at San Diego Gas and electric. 12 years later, theyre still doing psps events. Doing these e. I think for us in Northern California itll take is probably five years to get to the point that we can largely eliminate this tool. There are a number of things we can do to narrow the scope and duration. We have better predictive capabilities, Better Technology that you heard about. So, i think over the next couple of years you will see a progression of shorter and fewer events. But the Climate Change and the weather change is dramatic enough i dont think we will see the end of it for some period of time. I mentioned the situation in alaska with the fires this summer the winds coming through to the Peninsula Area that were impacted by the fire in the region and it has limited the ability to move the power from bradley lake hydro all the way up to fairbank so those that are closer to the source if you will, there rate will not be impacted if you will, but we are learning that as we are going into the colder darker winter months in the interior of the costs are already high, this is impacting them and its something that i think often times we forget you dont have to be in the range of the fire to have your great impacted by what we are seeing with these significant event. When we talk about hardening the grid, we know that it would certainly eliminate some of the risks of downed lines because of fire, but the cost is considerable. Youre in california which is a seismically prone area. You did mention though that underground and was one of the things that they are looking at. Can you speak a little more to that and whether that is even viable . Historically underground in was usually for aesthetic purposes. In downtown you wanted to beautify you to the lines underground and in recent years as we build substation subdivisions and other things more underground, and we do plan to underground more in california distribution lines. You get to a certain voltage and you cannot underground it. This isnt going to be a complete answer as you point o out. When the line is underground and you have a problem with it is much harder to find a problem then when its overhead so there will be more of this but it will be much more targeted and it wont be a large percentage of the lines. I have additional questions that people have everybody go around. Senator manchin . I want to thank all of our presenters today. I will give the rest of my questions to you right now because pg e is known and we agreed at a meeting yesterday and you were forthcoming and saying the responsibilities you took on the bankruptcy, coming out of bankruptcy and with the different people that were concerned and basically affected by these fires. Nothing that we say will bring back the lives of the people lost and i know that you share your grief on that. Where are you financially going to make it are you going to survive and be around to serve your customers . Where are you as far as upgrading the apartment and making the changes . I think that it had some great comments and also technology that might be helpful if you can give us just a run down financially where you are at and where the families are where the company is come and where you are on your income and upgrades to make sure you can prevent as much as humanly possible from ever happening again. Thank you for the questions. I came here b about seven, eigh, months ago. Ive never been in a bankrupt situation before. We are now the wikipedia of bankruptcy so i can answer the questions. Weve taken the most important step, which is to resolve to settle to make amends to the victims that lost loved ones or lost their home, so weve made settlements and the Bankruptcy Court has approved all the settlements with people the own money to. That is the key thing. Theres a lot of other things that have to happen in bankruptcy. Weve lined up the financing to finance a new entity when it comes out that there is still a lot of work and who the eventual owner is will be determined by the Bankruptcy Court but at least in my mind the most important thing has happened which is we have made amends to the people affected by these fires. In terms of, by the way in the california law, we have to be out by the end of june next year so we will know the answer pretty quickly about what its going to look like. Weve done a tremendous amount of work and this year alone we expected everyone in the district to repair for needed repaired and on a priority basis. We looked at every substation we are installing and regarding Vegetation Management. Historically the Vegetation Management tools in california were pretty restrictive. They have been loosened so we are clearing up a lot more. We are doing about everything we can and we are adopting the technology from the national lab in from texas a and m. And from australia, so we are sort of operating on all fronts to make the system safer and more resilient. Do you have anything to add to that as far as you have been evaluating and is there any other panel of comments because its been the most devastating thing they have ever seen and our heart goes out to every evey become a Family Member thats lost a loved one. I was very impressed with mr. Johnson basically saying they were at fault and the company was at fault and even though hes new to this, they are trying to make amends and make them correct. We will see how this ends up, but is there any more that can be done or other actions taken . There is more that can be done not because theyve been using stateoftheart government available to them, that is an important point. You hear this in the papers weve heard some back from world war ii. We build very rigorous Power Systems in the United States. They are meant to last for decades and decades. There are lines outside of our house but have been there since the 1940s that are still delivering power and frankly there isnt much wrong with them because it is probably better than what we put up today. You have to be careful talking about age and a power system because they are meant to last a long time. You can have a power system that will come down exactly the same way tomorrow in a vegetation related incident that would have if it had been 20 or 30 years stratford at what is more that we can do . We need to use advanced diagnostics. Everything everybody says they want to do is good. Clear more trees, harden the system cant use stronger poles, all those are good things. I will tell you because ive ie lived all of the fires in california that are significant as what was in texas and oklahoma and other places, many of the things we are doing are not addressing the important things causing the fires. Spending an awful lot of money, we should, dont take it to say we shouldnt because the one thing that you do may prevent the biggest fire that you are about to have. But there are a lot of fires none of the hardening is going to fix. We need more diagnostics. They are able today to diagnose your car, able to diagnose your condition and health of your body and we can most certainly diagnose in realtime a lot of things failing the Power Systems. Thank you very much madam chair. Ranking member mansion. A dead and dying trees powerlines can increase the severity of wildfires and puts the safety of the firefighters at risk. In fact last years unspeakable tragedy where 85 lives were suddenly lost but we need to focus on the dangerous interactions that can take place between the hazardous forest conditions and electrical transition infrastructure. In fact going back to montanas terrible fire season in 2017, i remember reaching out to one of the county commissioners. He shared a startling story with me about firefighters and the risk that they could not take of putting firefighters near highvoltage transmission lines because of the carbon emitted and it could come from the line to the ground and at that point that battle is almost lost. We have the chance to be proactive in managing the vegetation along the highvoltage lines that when the fire starts, he said we cant move our firefighters near that. Lives are at risk because of the eiffel pitched whines. Highvoltage lines. We must increase active Forest Management. A democrat from california among other major reforms. To receive the necessary permits to remove hazardous vegetation. Thank you, senator. Thank you again to your committee and the congress for passing that, but you still have a large workload of agencies that can create time delay is going through the process. When you pay with your own thirdparty analysis. Doctor russell, my remaining time. It was expla often it occurs to the lies s at the top that creates another fault condition on the cover system. Having a firefighter standing in a top is a little much but they are going to put it up so it could be very dangerous. If something happens there is a fault. Arent there those devices that would automatically trip that line so that it doesnt continue to feed the fire . There is questions there let me take them in the order. The device that you have in your bathroom is 7 million is approximately its got a very, very low initial current and its not detected by any advice its operating at 5 million mike bathroom which is lower so it couldnt detect. That is a problem. The things we are using today are looking for higher occurrence. Can this be engineered . We have a device that informs us but how about engineering a device that will trip the circuit . Tripping the circuit would be the direct consequence of the first being able to detect it. We have the technology to detect it and we already know how to trip the circuits so integrating this into the system of course is a plan that has to be done. Utilities are using good equipment once it becomes higher current. Pg and e. Equipment which im familiar with both detec detect default in a few hundred milliseconds. The problem is it can start at 16. Based on the Research Done in australia it shows iten to 20 m. We dont have equipment today that could remotely do that. The last part of the question most lines that are dropped, can we detect them before they hit the ground, theres work that has been done and experimented with. A good friend of mine ran that project. Its a wonderful thing to do, but the problem is this theres nothing wrong with that if we can do it. The wind drops, cut it off before it hits the ground. But what caused it to fall in the first place it may have been what was detectable days before. Im talking about the technology that will keep us from having it was important testimony. Let me ask another question. Is this sort of a chicken and egg are these problems in california caused by failures failures in the presence of a lot of fuel or are they caused by the weather event that created the fuel in other words is it waitin it waned, somethint causes it or could the kind of technology we are talking about here obviate the problem or is it a different problem caused by the climate issues . You could have a system working well in the current configuration with the 100mile per hour wind and you have a fire so it is a weather related. It is a weather event, so as the technology would help because the center has blown through the line, it would shut the line off. The other thing here is just so dry. I moved to california in april and it didnt rain until thanksgiving, eight months with no brain. One spark. Its just a spark. Anything that would stop the current immediately would be a tremendously helpful technology. There is an undertone to this and that is quite a change. We talked about a lot around here in abstract terms going to be meeting on it in a half an hour but here is a direct dollars and cents impact affecting the consumers individuals families, lives all over the country and addressing that problem if shows up in the 140 million dead trees because of drought. The increase in wind speed and direction this is a climate driven experience. Thank you. Very important testimony. The conversations with the witnesses this morning, mr. Johnson got talking about the impact that youve seen in california youve seen municipal loaloan cooperatives investor utilities that faced the same kind of questions obviously. In your testimony you mentioned over 50 of your service area is designated in the threat. Could you remind me again that footprint in th that part of the service area . We cover about 70,000 square miles in california. Half of that is in the higher threat districts to 35,000 square miles and 30,000 linear miles of line and about a third in that designation are in the federal land. That gets into the issue of Climate Change as well and practices because they have a Significant Impact on the threat that could come from more fuel and Management Practices matter or the lack of Management Practices to the companys Transmission Infrastructure you would agree with that. It makes a big difference. As you talk and listen to some of the testimony this morning commute 3. 8 billion the citizens when . The last decade. And that is in your own right of way. During the farm bill negotiations we talked about this we had some success across the aisle on the program that allowed for the mitigation to work on federal lands and as good a job a of a job as you don that rightofway with the massive fire burns in the forest 50 yards from the transmission lines that is going to have an effect on your infrastructure as well. The infrastructure is going to be affected so it makes sense to try to empower them to be able to deal with outside of that to give a bit of a buffer would you agree . In colorado they are working to partner with the Forest Service to utilize the authority we have given. How would you describe the opportunities to help protect against the threat in line with what we talked about . The bill that was passed either last year or the year before that you mentioned was a hopeful bill in terms of the management access to federal land, a couple of things that go along with making sure the rules that come out are continued funding of those things and the opportunity for publicprivate partnerships. The agencies have shown a lot more interest working with us since the bill was passed and so we have agreements now with the interior i think we are working on a master agreement w master t have to come in every year so i think all of that is moving in the right direction. Doctor russell was talking to some of the technologies. Can you talk about the practicality cost impact and what it needs to have to trip the kind of technologies to shut off the thrift . One of the things we worry about is public affordability is and how do you balance safety, cost, all these things so we are doing small pilots with the technologies we have to figure out how well they work and do thdothe work in our conditions d if they do, we could deploy those and reduce the other things we are doing like cutting down fewer trees but its too early for us to know nevada is one of the driest states and the average rainfall is about 8. 945 inches. We have wildfires all year long and so the challenge that we have coming and thats why i appreciate this conversation. But we start with doctor inhofe and follow on what he was talking about. This technology we are talking about is a game changer and i guess my first question to you is how accessible is it into the affordability for the utilities are we in the beginning stages. Weve been testing this on a number of utilities for several years. We started at the state legislature of texas after the 2011 wildfire funded project that i headed from 2012 to 2016 we ran a four year project with thwiththe venue to displacing Te Technology to determine how effective it would be. It was extraordinarily effective. Several are rolling this out right now. The largest coop i think in the United States and Central Texas is rolling this out on their system. They already have quite a member of the units installed. It works, its available and its no longer something that is in a laboratory. Its been available now for several years but was rolled out softly sruled outsoftly so we cw to best roll it into the utility industry. For five to 10 a customer for the typical circuit for about a three year payout, you can install one box that isnt much bigger than this on the circuit and it takes care of if you have 2,000 customers its monitoring 2,000 customers. Thank you. I would add to that, senator, in san diego, the instance of falling power lines you need to eat energized about 1. 3 seconds typically. San diego gas and electric is working with our nature than are out of washington to test that. Its had early success and theyve begun installing it on a small fraction of circuits. Some of the highest risk of circuits and i know i went to the wildfire conference in san diego in october and all of the utilities are working together on mapping the risk and identifying the priority is for testing some of these new concepts. Obviously you will start with a high risk areas consulates coming out of the laboratory and the vendors are involved so that indicates a reasonably short pathway once the level of confidence rises. Is there more we should be doing at the federal level to incentivize this technology . Reason i say that is because im also interested in, and we talked about this technology being wonderful that we should be looking out to address these fires, and i know theres talk among some of the states about how we adopt incentives for the communitywide Space Programs and let me give you a perfect example because they are one of the driest states of water use its very important for us. Late 1990s, early 2000, they started incentivizing people rolling up their crass, no longer lawns and used for landscaping. And we did it through incentiv incentives. Should he be looking at a federal level to help incentivize certain programs like that or are there other things that are best practices that we should be aware of . Two things come to my mind. One is that the publicprivate partnerships to this committee and others have been very supportive of in terms of helping move technology out and put into practice have been very effective and i think the key is having industry involved in the research and the panels and other things to identify its effectiveness and as a part of the demonstration to get the engagement in the communit and s proven to be very effective. The other thing we are seeing is part of the challenge for the regulators and consumer is figuring out how much its worth spending in terms of resilience. And we had very Good National data in terms of the outage cost to consumers for up to 24 hours. As you go into the longer duration and cost, the Information Base is done and one thing i think the committee could examine his or their opportunities to better articulate the consumer cost for the long outages regardless of the source of religious wildfire or other outages and i think that would give regulators and owners and utilities and others better information to help identify how much resilience is worthy of investment and what it would really cost, sort of the tradeoffs in terms of the cost to consumers, but that seems to be an opportunity for federal attention in terms of how we strengthen the knowledge. Thank you. Thank you madam chair. I can at this from a couple of different perspectives. My undergraduate degree was in particularly Forest Management and after i got out of school, after i went to law school that was at the university of maine, wasnt it . Not exactly. After i got out of law school i had a lot of Different Cases and i defended flayer cases and in a couple of observations i would make from an overall standpoint that is number one, the utilities do everything they can to try to stop this. Transmitting electricity is dangerous and as a result of that, the courts around the country have said that utilities will be held to the highest standard of care there is as far as handling electricity so the utilities take that obviously too hard. But when you have lawyers out there, i theres going to be ful from things you cant possibly imagine. One of the earliest cases we had in idaho a utility was held liable when two hawks got to fighting and got tangled up and fell between two lines and they started a fire and burned up the crop and took its hard to say that was foreseeable that thats whabutthats what happen. But the number of i handle the case one time where a young child got into a substation and wound up touching two hawks point. They hit the polls all the time, and wind goes through here. They are going to have these kind of things. They do everything they can to stop it. I appreciate the work thats being done, but the fault is determined now theyve got it such that it can be detected almost instantly and shut everything down, but almost isnt quite good enough. What you need is something that can foresee the fault which i think its impossible to foresee the fault. Actually, in the very earliest stages, this isnt a fire ignition mechanism and it starts to arc and we can detect it. Thats better and it will continue to get better im sure. But the plaintiffs, theres going to be times when you will get the arcing and fire starts. So you go to the next point and that is when you have that happen, what do you do about that and that is you need forest maintenance, and you need to have the rightofway cleared out. Madam chair, im going to ask this be entered into the record of this is a routine operation for the maintenance to reduce fire risk on the utilit utility rightsofway dated december 12, 2019. And it was signed by the state director in idaho and its only three pages long. If i can paraphrase daystar indies and give the utilities all the help they can get to get the utilities some help as they are clearing out the rightofway. One sentence says it all. It determines an operation and Maintenance Work is necessary to prevent and suppress wildfire and field offices shouldnt require them to obtain any additional notice to proceed for other forms of prior approval, prior to conducting the work. You dont see this from bureaucrats very often they can see it asay it as quickly and ay as they can, telling everybody what, let them get in there and do this and dont be having them fill out all this paperwork. These are the kind of things that need to be done because when you have electricity being transmitted through an urban area, its actually easy for the Fire Department to get. Get there and put out a fire but as weve seen in california it didnt get started off in the middle of nowhere and once it gets going it is by the door so its important that the rightofway speaking up constantly. Id like to introduce to the record. It really underscores the two sides of this. Number one, trying to do everything we possibly can buy the utility to stop the fire and then seconandbeen seconded to ge rightofway cleared up so if a fire doeplayer does start it is. The utilities of course are incentivized and this incentive question was raised its for the fact they do business on a cost to cost basis virtually everywhere they are all regulated by the Public Utilities commission and so they are incentivized to get out there and do it by the Power Company in my state they have contracts with people to go out and trim the trees on the rightofway is and they are at it every single day. It is a constant program. Im amazed here at washington, d. C. When i see the kind of outages that you get here and not only that, but how long they last and it is premier league because they dont do the work they need to do and that is critically important to be out there because as the trees grow the branches get blown into the lines and you get a fault and a fire and its that simple. You need to be out there clearing those lines, so thank you for holding this hearing. I think its important for everybody to recognize the two parts of this. Thank you. Senator cantwell. Following up on my colleague from idaho to him by 2018 legislation there was a provision to make it easier i think some of you mentioned this it provides the ability to manage this infrastructure on federal land requires the Forest Service to get electrical Transmission Companies access to federal land so they can remove hazardous trees and vegetation. You revert to beat the reviewed these new laws and im interested in hearing what we can do to speed this up so that the protocols are in place and we are moving forward. And if i could hear from you, obviously in the legislation we gave more tools, gps locators, digital mapping, one of the agencies using those and we want to know what we could be doing if we were and the obvious issue of the lab trying to develop this prediction model that i am all for because i think a lot of it is a changing climate in dry conditions but also just ignites the higher propensity for these events to have been comin happem interested in what you think. I think that when it comes to water and fire, neither one of them recognize national boundaries. My colleague and i are having a meeting on the Columbia River treaty issues and pushing ahead, but on the fireside, its also just as important. We are seeing in the Pacific Northwest so much impact from canada. So, how can we manage this if we are not in partnership in what they are doing to help us manage it. I dont know what we can do to get clobbered asian on the mapping system thats larger so we see where the risks are coming out so if you can comment on those. Thank you, senator. On your last point, thats correct canada has had significant wildfires as welcome as the coordination internationally as well as nationally makes a lot of sense. On implementing the regulations, it was helpful to have the piece of legislation go through. Now we really want to make sure that the implementation is coordinated between the two agencies and that its quick. The regulations that are proposed are very different between the two right now and weve commented on the Forest Service with some suggestions as have others on how to make sure it is routine maintenance and are we really going to hit the timelines and implemented efficiently across all the offices. But as the senator noted, good guidance. Its not an actual regulation, it is a memo to the state offices and its a good start. We want to followup with them anfollow up with themand make ss happening he but in both instances the role in overseeing this is very helpful to appreciate the hearing today. I will talk a little bit about the biomass and the importance of international cooperation. In 2018, Washington State had a phenomenon problem with smoke. One dasmoke. When they basically have 300 fires in oregon, 250 in Washington State and 2. 5000 in british columbia. And of course it came down by the Columbia Basin i have 95 mask in my vehicle that clearly expands the international boundaries. The work thats going on now between the Forest Service and the department of Energy Biomass program is using satellite imagery to look ahead and two these cases it is the watershed north of leavenworth and then the watershed central cascades. Using to identify the fuel buildup for the biomass and moisture content etc. That are updated on a day ahead or week ahead to begin the position on where do we have extreme brevity in the biomass compared with high fuel buildup that might offend in the form the owners of infrastructure across those areas. Areas. That water is a central part and the interesting thing from the grid resilient standpoint is Energy Storage is north everything south is the river so looking at good flexibility to get that across all hazards at Storage Capacity from the river is critical and part of that negotiation to ensure to inspect expand that border on the river basin. Thank you for mentioning that but i want to get that satellite information because i do think that will be helpful for us pick up thank you. Most people dont know wildfire is a real problem in hawaii. Last year 627 fires burning over 32000 acres resulting from hurricanes approaching the island and then burning over 14000 acres on maui alone with conditions that firefighter said they have never seen before the temperatures were hot maximum records were tighter broken 84 times april through october the fire moved quickly that used to be managed sugarcane farmland but has now gone fallow and with ginny grass hawaiis wildfire threat is increasingly similar to california and for our future also the way california is leading state and integrating Renewable Resources that my question is how do you think californias move to zero Carbon Pollution will interact with the need to address wildfire risk quick scan utilities that there is resilient wildfires while using power and mostly renewable sources quick. Thank you for that i dont think there is any contradiction between carbon free i thank you can do both and i think we need to do both. The climate problems we suffer are causing a lot of these fires. Hurricanes and the size and strength is increasing. I dont think they are mutually exclusive but in the short ter term, as we prioritize what we are doing and with Fire Prevention at the expense of others but this will not get in the way. And what we can learn for your experiences into and that key support to that transition and for example with the National Renewable lab has been working to use advanced controls with the overall power grid so we have heard a lot today but what role can immunity scale local grids play to ensure that communities can maintain power or recover quickly from fires and hurricanes and other hazard hazards. Thank you for the question. Local distributed Power Supplies as the Public Safety power shutdown and fuel pumping and other things and for hurricanes and other things part of the research is focused on how do you network with those micro grids i know that is your case with the military facilities going across military one multiple military grids on the blue sky day versus a dark sky when you could route the power. It helps to prioritize Public Safety during times of outage. So with this networking of micro grids going on do you play a role in that quick. It is going on in hawaii and a number of other places and alaska has that as well and a number of commercial vendors are demonstrating so thats very active in the demonstration phase and connected to the National Security agenda supporting military bases around the country. I know we have a hard stop i will submit other questions for the record. Just one very quick question focused on what the senator had raised with regard to the cost in my Opening Statement california has some of the highest electric grid prices in the country so as you look to the expanses that are necessarily involved if you harden the infrastructure and work to mitigate the risk incorporate technologies obviously there is a cost. Is there a tradeoff that has to go on that in order to provide for the greater resilience you have to pull back on another initiatives of the agenda cracks you have that incorporating renewable opportunities what does that look like with your portfolio Going Forward to balance that cost cracks im assuming some of this has to be shifted spirit this is a great question and one we wrestle with the prioritization whats most important in the short term and i will tell you the administration in california and the Public Utility Commission have recognized this that we need to prioritize safety first so at the start of a proceeding before the California Commission what are the priorities going to be managing safety California Energy goals and affordability cracks so we will know how this ends up we work with safety first we may have to prior tour on dash prioritize a little. Just real quick do you think coming out of bankruptcy and reorganizing and the commitment you have to make will that be passed on will you see increases to your consumers quick. Nothing in the bankruptcy is put to the consumer that will be paid by shareholders there is some Cost Increases coming to the consumers that were planned before the bankruptcy was declared and actually the consumer will see fewer increases after the bankruptcy they had before. It will be better for consumers with the upgrades of the system to the benefit of the customers and they will help contribute to that. This has been a very interesting conversation and i am glad we were able to not only hear about the very specific situation the tragedy we have seen in california over the past years, but the thinking forward what we can do on a proactive basis and we see some of that innovation through labs and universities. I thank you for that. We do recognize as a committee we have always had a problem with fire. Thats nature but what we have seen with the ever increasing threat and the intensity is the fact you have an interface unlike anything we have seen before where folks are out in parts of the country where they just were not living before and we see threats to property and life and how we accomplish what it is that the consumer expects which is to have power when they want it on their terms but do it for the safety of all and respects the issues regarding the resilience we are dealing with these are serious challenges that you have helped put a little note of optimism with the technologies we have available to us and be moving forward. With that votes have been called we will conclude but thank you for being here and traveling to make this committee. [inaudible commonsritish house of voted today to pass the brexit Withdrawal Agreement to leave the European Union by january. This comes after last week and the elections where Prime Minister Johnsons Conservative Party won the majority. Night at 8 00 eastern American History tv on cspan three expect at that impeachment trial of president bill clinton which took place over five weeks in january of 19 99. We are here today because the suffered a terrible infidelity, not a breach of the public trust, not a crime against society, the things that hamilton talked about. I recommend this to you before you vote. Breach of the marriage. Ows, his family trust it is a sex scandal. Announcer explore our nations past, watch the impeachment trial sunday night at 8 00 eastern on American History tv on cspan three. Secretary ark expert and aint chiefs of staff held News Conference at the pentagon this morning