Transcripts For CSPAN Hearing On Wildfires The Electric Grid 20240713

Committee on the impact of wildfires on the electric grid. Atmakers are looking wildfire mitigation technology, Forest Management, and power system reliability. Good morning, everyone. The meeting will come to order. 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 with a series of votes. We are going to observe an actual 10 minute clock. This is the goal. 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 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. Tree falling onto a registration line is expected because of the mckinley fire this summer 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 infestation and poor Forest Management have made landscapes more susceptible to fire, particularly in the west. As more people build homes in wild and urban interfaces or dispersed communities, the chance is for utility related wildfires are sure to increase. Congress has stepped in to ensure the federal government is not a roadblock to clearing dense visitation and hazard trees from utility rightsofway. We passed an act as part 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. It is my understanding that both the department of the interior and the Forest Service are 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. Thank you who have joined us this morning to provide important testimony. I thank colleagues for being 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 chief counsel there and moved over when i became Ranking Member of this 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 senator murkowski, thank you for posting this holding this hearing today. Wildfires are a threat to Critical Infrastructure, including the electric rate, but electric grid, 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 this impacts Eastern States have seen some too. 1300 acres were burned in west virginia. No homes were damaged, but other communities across the country have not been so lucky. Over the last few years, 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. I appreciate 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 our panel about technologies and 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 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 and should look to learn from utilities that have made their grid 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. Several times in recent months during unusually high winds. 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, 24 of which would have likely started wildfires had you not taken precautionary actions. The shut off prevented several fires but it came at 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 . Finally, i look forward to hearing from the witnesses on ways that 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 grid 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. Sen. Murkowski thank you, 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 the panel is going to be led off 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 Learned, so we are appreciative of you being here this morning. Dr. Michael wara is also here, thank you. He is a Senior Research scholar at Stanford Woods Institute for the environment. Mr. Scott corwin is the executive director for the northwest Public Power Association we appreciate your contribution this morning. Carl imhoff is the manager for 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 dr. 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. And then we will have an opportunity for the back and forth. Mr. Johnson, welcome to the committee. Mr. Johnson thank you so much, good morning. I am 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. As has been mentioned, we have 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. Just seven years ago, 15 of pg es service area was designated as having elevated fire risk. That number is over 50 today and will continue to grow, so in seven years, the risk of fire more than tripled for our service area in Northern California. California has also experienced 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. We invested 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 predictive capabilities, and expanding this go and and expanding the scope and intrusiveness of our inspection processes. This year, we inspected every element of our electric system within high threat fire areas, examining almost 730,000 structures in 25 million 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. Using satellite data and 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 stronger and more resilient polls and covered lines, as well as undergrounding. This year we took the step of intentionally turning off power for safety during a 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 will require a focus on resilience as well as reliability. That is one of the lessons here 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 doe tong deal we develop a framework, increase 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. Specific to 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 congressman schrader and ensuring access to federal lands and authorizing federal agencies to share data. We know that addressing this risk must start with our own operations, meaning we are looking to mitigate this dynamic risk affecting this company. Let me conclude by saying that the dna remains committed to doing 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. 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. At least in the california context, these raise 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 safety, and as you mentioned in 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. The use of psps has prevented wildfire and caused widespread disruption to families and businesses, especially in Northern California. Psps 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 Lawrence Berkeley 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 approaches in 2007, the witch fire and san diego county, was caused by sdg e transmission line failure. Similarly, the camp fire was ignited by failure of a transmission line this year and perhaps most concerning of all, failure of a jumper on a 230 k v line in the geysers appears to have caused the kincade fire. While the kincade fire was superbly managed by the newsom administration, cal fire, and callow yes, it could have resulted in property loss as large as the camp fire that came before it. In addition, there is at least a suggestion that two fires in Southern California were potentially caused by Transmission System failures this year. I would emphasize that the 2019 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. Prior to this year, preemptive energization 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. It would seem prudent based on 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. The tower that may have caused the kincade fire was 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 face significant 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. Moreover, best available silence science 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 a broader impact 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 would point to the passage of wildfire funds legislation this summer, which provided a way for pg e out of bankruptcy and helped stabilizing credit ratings, but 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, so that problems can be identified and fixed before disaster strikes. And, as was alluded to, it will require collaboration between local property owners, local, state, and federal governments, and wildland firefighters in reducing fuel loads, so the consequences of ignition are less. Im hopeful that the Lessons 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. We are dedicated to reliability 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 utilities across the region with 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. For public power communities, even the threat of one harmed is too many. Fire is one of the greatest risks to their Financial Stability of members and their solvency, and it threatens their ability to provide that basic electricity service. So they have have mobilized, analyzed their gaps and needs, found plans that include dozens of actions on topics like enhanced inspections, operational practices, Situational Awareness, Vegetation Management, system hardening, circuitry closing, and others you will hear about today. We thank you in congress for your work, and this all takes 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, who 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. Still, we highlight several things, as the agencies move forward, to ensure great safety, reliability, and resilience. We need coordinated, consistent guidelines that eliminate the need for casebycase approvals for the routine operations and control of the trees, and id like to see a culture of responsiveness. We have many good relationships with the hardworking employees. They share our goal with the stewardship of the federal lands, so more consistent standards is great for all sides and is of utmost importance, and it starts with culture appeared we try to identify the exclusions to the lengthy process under the National Environmental policy act for the routine and regular work and for the hazard tree removal. We need more training for agency staff, especially on the electrical system knowledge, and we are ready to provide it as the law outlines. We would like to see a straightforward implementation of allowing the quick action. This is vital to the Decisive Action to protect people and electrical systems, and its important that we see implementation of the provisions in the act on the liability. There has been a lot of uncertainty and layers of the state and local level that utilities need to comply with and create risk, and even when there is no indication that a utility caused an event, sometimes they will receive an invoice for damages even years afterwards, without process. Finally, we should build on the coordination we are seeing increasingly among the utilities and federal and state and local agent on how to protect critical nwppa stands ready to assist on that as well. We appreciate your leadership on the committee and prioritized in wildFire Prevention and suppression, and theres a lot more to do, and the faster we act, the better. Im glad to answer any questions and provide Additional Information for the record of your request, and thank you again for having the hearing and for being here today. Thank you. Ski mr. Imhoff. Imhoff good morning and thank you, members of the committee, for the opportunity to join the session today. My name is carl imhoff, and i lead the Research Program at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington State. I also have the honor of serving as the chair of the Modernization Consortium which , which is a team of 14 National Laboratories led by the labs that work with industries, state and University Partners to , support the Grid Modernization Initiative. For over two decades, weve supported the power system reliability innovation resilience for the nation delivering working with industry to deliver important outcomes ranging from Cyber Resilience for three quarters the electricity generated in the United States, National Networks integrated Storage Concepts that are delivering the flexibility we need for the Resilient Systems of the future. Today i would like to offer three points related to the issues for the session. Number one, the grid modernization strategy is focused on the reliability and hazard resilience for the modern grid, so the fire fighter safety issues are a part of that. Industry and a dod archive in a systematically identify and develop a very that directly supports the wildfire activity, and i will share some of those details. And then third, the nation has the opportunity i believe moving forward to leverage the recent industry experiences that have been discussed so far in the session to inform new planning and operational scenarios to better reflect the wildfire in all aspects of how the system is planned and operated coming into the future. For clarity, i use the academy of engineering definition of resilience as analysis in the first place and then if and when they do actually occurred. To the first point, the Grid Modernization Initiative focuses on all hazard resilience and enables the system operators, federal land managers, states , and communities to address the wildfire risk. This means human threats like cyber and physical attacks, such as hurricanes and wildfires and , normal system risks of equipment failures. Three, topics within the portfolio are most abundant to wildfire. First, advanced Data Analytics in and the second extreme Event Planning tools and third, the realtime operational Emergency Response tools during wildfire events. The sensing tools are foundational to detecting failures and employee in realtime tools to mitigate that risk. The tools leverage some of these data assets, and the Machine Learning concepts provide the capacity to analyze high ultra larg high velocity data , streams that we see on the modern grid. Extreme Event Planning tools on the capability to access the complex and large threat scenarios, or hazards, again, in the threat scenarios to identify the most resilient Design Options in the face of a system thats getting more variable, more connected at the edge, more interdependent with other Critical Infrastructures, and facing more challenging threats. And the realtime operational concepts are providing operators with insights on the risks and Decision Support that is moving from the paradigm of the hours and days ahead to the second and s and minutes ahead. Regarding doe engagement they , approached in august regarding the results that could support industry preparations for the 2020 fire season. Industry expressed particular interest in doe expertise into satellite imagery to conduct a Damage Assessment Situational Awareness, and they also saw the advanced technology to detect and protect against imminent failure. Third, they expressed interest in the Data Analytics tools and , and doe recently delivered a set of options about 15 or 20 options to the industry for consideration. Just a few examples include the deprived censors and machine algorithms we are testing at pg e. Dhs developed satellite assessment tools for hurricanes and the u. S. Forest Service Platforms for the biomass assessment, detection, and vegetation types currently deployed in Washington State are pnl are extendable to other highrisk National Forest and range areas in the west. And lastly, Emergency Response tools from sandia and oak ridge for the Situational Awareness and emergency mapping. Finally, the National Academy of resilience reported in 2017 encouraged industry to be more expansive in framing the resilience scenarios against which the grid of the future needs to be designed. I believe that industry coordination through the sub safety coordination council, entities, can integrate Lessons Learned with the d. O. E. Agenda that will enhance and mitigate wildfire productions. Thank you very much. Sen. Murkowski thank you, mr. Imhoff. Dr. Russell, welcome to the committee. Russell thank you very much for the invitation to be here. I am here to talk about how to prevent powerline 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 lines went out on hundreds of customers just as dinner went into the oven. Power was off for hours. Was thrown off from the conductors, and thankfully a fire didnt start on that specific day, but a lot of people lost christmas dinner, because they didnt get to cook it. What utility operators didnt know about that event was this 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, but any utility could use, to automatically provide operators the information necessary to find and fix this specific problem. Regular inspections by the utility had found absolutely nothing, and it had been inspected multiple times. In fact, it has been inspected exclusively for the purpose of finding why this has happened. Repetitive faults that occur one day may start a fire the next time they occur. Sometimes thats years from now, and the ultimate failure could have been predicted. Texas a m university developed a distribution fault anticipation technology. The system used algorithms to monitor electric circuits to detect the earliest stages of failing devices and miss operations. The concept is simple. Yet find and fix it before the catastrophic failure causes the fire or the outage. Occurs today,ault utilities have the day coming utilities have Protection Equipment that very quickly, maybe in a few hundred milliseconds, deenergizes the power lines, but the fault may have already caused the fire. Thats the best they can do with the equipment they have. The root cause may have started days or weeks and in some cases years before the catastrophic failure caused the fire. Digital analytics can now detect the earliest stages of a device long in advance of the catastrophic failure. Instead of waiting to react to the failure, lets find and fix it early. Texas a m researchers monitor for over 100 circuits 100 circuits in the longitudinal study for over 15 years, capturing every failure and misoperations on the circuits. The largest database of its existence in the world. We now know how those with her and we now know how they can be , detected. Let me give you an example, another example. A failing clamp, like this one, that did fail, by the way, caused a power line to fall to the ground causing an outage for hundreds of customers that happened in tennessee. I dont remember if anybody here is from tennessee. It was a potential mechanism once it hit the ground. With the utility operators did not know is that for the previous 21 days before it caused the wind default, a condition had occurred 2333 times. In the last half of the 21 days, every one of those conditions represented in a commission mechanism, if the ground conditions were correct. So lets call it an average of 10 days and something on the order of 1200 events from each one of those had an opportunity to start a fire. With advanced technology, texas a m researchers were able to detect that clamp that im talking about in the very first moments of the very first day, 21 days before the failure occurred. We ran a blind study. Know we wereid not doing this, and operationally, they just let us go out and put this on the system. So we were not going for 21 days. My 1950 chevrolet didnt have anything in it that told me that it was broken or that it was going to break. It was broken when it stopped running. Right . Today, we have a computer under the hood that tells us these things are going to happen to you, and sometime you better get in and get this fixed, because it is going to break your car in a day or two or a week or three. In medicine we now use advanced diagnostic equipment to fight cancer early, so that can be cured long before catastrophe. We have got an analogy here to the distribution circuits. And that is a new tool allowing operators to have continual selfassessment of all circuits 24 7 to identify the devices and identify failing devices and fix them before catastrophic failures occur or cause an outage or cause a fire. That is important to know, extremely important to know no technology or program is ever going to prevent fall failures. That is 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, operating on different utilities with this technology, has demonstrated that a new tool can find and fix and diagnose and help you locate many of the things that are actually causing fires. I pull up on my phone, and 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, the fault occurred, it was 335 amps, replaced itself, and ultimately ended up closing at 12 55. I know more from this phone with this technology than the operators know in that futility utility in australia, and im sitting here in washington, d. C. This technology is available and , it is ready to use, and it will prevent some fires. Sen. Murkowski dr. Russell, thank you. This has been very interesting kind of the progression of the testimony this morning. We are talking about real issues on the ground that have had a devastating impact, loss of life and property that has been horrific. An acknowledgment of how we deal with the vegetation and management decided but then can move to the technology and on key prevention is a good way to have this discussion before the committee. Mr. Johnson, i want to begin with you, and this relates to the situation as it is now in the fact that during this fire season, pg e had to employ a safety shutoff to make sure that there was a level of safety and. Certainly it interferes with that reliability that a customer expects, but the reality that the reality that sometimes youve got to prioritize between the reliability versus the resilience, and again, truly, the safety. Theres nobody on the committee who is from california, so i will ask the question that californians probably want to know, and that is in terms of impact to customers going forward, how long do you anticipate that pg e will have to resort to additional events . Additional psps events . That impact, i think it was you, dr. Wara, that mentioned the Financial Impact to the communities. It is real and tangible and very personal, so can you speak to that impact of the Current Situation . Dr. Wara i can give you an estimate. It is hard to be precise about this. Goes back tops early 2007 california, and really its after the fires of 2007 in san diego and gas and electric. Later, they are still doing these events. 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, fewer psps events. But the Climate Change and the weather change is dramatic enough that i dont think we will see the end of it for some period of time. I mentionedki so 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 cheaper, renewa Renewable Powerm bradley lake hydro all the way up to fairbank, so those that are closer to the source, if you will. Their rates will not be impacted , but we are learning that, as we are going into the colder, darker winter months in the interior, the costs are already high, this is impacting them and , and it is 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 risk that you see. You are not going to have downed lines because of fire, but the cost is considerable. You are in california, which is a seismically prone area. Mention thatgh, undergrounding was one of the things that pg e is looking at. Can you speak a little more to that and whether that is even viable . Historically, undergrounding was usually for aesthetic purposes. In downtown, you wanted to beautify 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 out out. When the line is underground and you have a problem with it is , 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. Sen. Murkowski i have additional questions that people have everybody go around. Senator manchin . Sen. 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 in 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 dr. Russell has 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, 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, senator for the , questions. I came to pg e about seven, eight, months ago. Ive never been in a bankrupt situation before. We are now the wikipedia of bankruptcy, so i can answer the questions. We have 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 e money to. That is the key thing in the bankruptcy. Theres a lot of other things that have to happen in bankruptcy. Lined up the financing to finance a new entity when it comes out, but 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. We have 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 do you have anything to add to that . Does anyone on the panel have anything . It is been the most devastating thing we have seen and our heart goes out to everyone who lost a loved one and all their worldly goods. With mr. Y impressed johnson basically saying that the fault, they were at fault and the company was at fault and even though he is new at this, he is trying to make amends and make it this make it correct. Is there more that can be done . There is more that can be done, not because the utilities have not been using the stateoftheart equipment that was available to them. He 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 explained to me by the commissioner. 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. Dr. Russell, im trying to figure out how this happens. Twitch, there is a fault, it instantly goes out. You talked about a fire at the top of the tower. Arent there devices that would automatically trip that line so that it doesnt continue to feed the fire . Couldnt you have a device, if a wire falls toward the ground it would be deactivated before it hits the ground . The device you have in your bathroom needs seven milliamps of current from you to earth to trip. One of the problems is when you have an arcing clamp on a circuit, it has a low initial current. It is not detected by any device utilities currently have, and in concept it would be operating at five build five milliamps, and it would not detect. The things we use today are looking for higher currents, looking for the higher currents that occur in faults. Cant this be engineered . It seems you have engineered a device that informs us, but how about a device that will trip the circuit . Tripping the circuit will be a consequence of first being able to detect it. We already know how to trip the circuits off, so integrating this into the utility system is a plan that has to be done. Utilities are using extreme current once it becomes a high fault. Would probablyt trip it in a few hundredths of a millisecond. The problem is that fire can start in about 16 milliseconds. Condition,an arc based on research in australia, shows ignition occurs in 10 to 20 milliseconds. We dont have equipment that could remotely do that. The last part of your question is lines that are dropped, can we detect them before they hit the ground . There is some work that has been done at San Diego Gas and electric. It is a wonderful thing to do, but the problem is this there is nothing wrong with that if we can do it. Line drops, cut it off before it hits the ground, great thing. What caused the line to fall in the first place . It may have been this arcing clamp that was detectable 21 days before. I am talking about technologies that will keep the line from having to fall. Now,e technology you have very dramatic and important testimony. This is sort of chicken and egg. Are these problems in california caused by failures in the routine i know it is not routine but routine failures in the presence of a lot of fuel , or are the failures caused by the weather event that has created the fuel . Is it wind . Is it something that causes it . Could the technology we are talking about here obviate this problem, or is it a whole different problem caused by climate issues . You can have a sound system working well in a branch blow into way wire from a 100 mile an hour wind and you can have a fire. These are weatherrelated . These are weather events. 100 mile an hour wind in sonoma and napa, that is a wind event. This technology would help because as soon as that branch blow into the line, it would shut the line off. The other thing here is it is so dry. I moved here april and it did not rain until thanksgiving, so one spark, just the spark, and you have conflagration. Anything that would stop it immediately would be tremendously helpful. There is an undertone to this discussion and that is Climate Change. We talk about it in abstract terms. Dollarsa real direct and cents impact that is impacting consumers, individuals, families, lives all over the country, and addressing that underlying problem is also part of the solution, granted more longterm. Absolutely. Events a climate driven and it shows up because of drought. Warmer temperatures so the beatles die. , change in wind speed in wind direction, this is a climate driven experience. Thank you. Senator gardner . Thank you to the chairman and the witnesses for being here today. Mr. Johnson, talking about the impact that you have seen in california, we have municipal owned cooperatives, investor utilities that face the same problems. Service area is designated a high fire threat area. Could you remind me again the federal footprint in that part of your service area . We cover about 70,000 square miles in Northern California, half of that in higher fire threat districts. Lines in third of our that designation are in federal land. So that gets into the issue of Climate Change and Land Management practices because Land Management practices have a Significant Impact on that threat that you face that could fuel,rom dryer fuel, more and Management Practices matter, or the lack of Management Practices matter to your companys infrastructure. You would agree with that . It makes a big difference. As you listen to the testimony, you have spent 3. 8 billion dollars since when . In the last decade. And that is on Forest Management in your own rightofway . Correct. We talked about we had some success across the aisle about a Vegetation Management Pilot Program that allowed them to work rights is on federal lands. As good of a job as you do within that rightofway, if a massive fire burns in the forest 50 miless from you from you transition does transmission lines, you will be affected. Power issense to outside that rightofway to give them a buffer, would you agree . That would be helpful. Colorado is working with xcel energy working with the Forest Service to utilize that. How would you describe the opportunities and Public Private partnerships to affect the threat and the line of something we talked about . The bill that was passed last year or the year before was a helpful bill. Vegetation management, access to federal lands, these kinds of things. Making sure the rules that come out are good rules, continued funding of those things, and the opportunity for Public Private partnerships. The agencies have shown more interest in working with us since that bill was passed, and since we havent great have agreements now with the interior and have an agreement with the Forest Service that we dont have to come in every year, things are moving in the right direction. Could you talk about the practicality cost impact what it means to have technology on a clamp that would trick technologies to shut off a threat . One thing we always worry about as Public Utilities is affordability, and how do you balance safety, costs, these things, so we are doing small pilots. , we have sixls circuits we are testing, and we have to figure out how well they work, do they work in our conditions . If they work, we could deploy those and reduce other things we are doing like cutting down fewer trees, but it is too early to know how that technology will displace more manual activities. Senator course that cortez masto. Thank you for this important conversation. Nevada is one of the driest states in the country. Is annual average rainfall about 9. 54 inches, so we no longer have wildfire seasons, we just have wildfires all year long. The challenge we have, and that is why i appreciate this conversation, let me start with mr. M half and dr. Russell emhoff and dr. Russell. This technology is a game changer. How accessible is it to the utilities, and affordability, are we still in the beginning stages of testing it . We have been testing this on a number of utilities for several years. We started at state legislature of texas after the 2011 wildfires in a project i headed. From 2012 to 2016 we ran a toject with six utilities determine how effective it would be. It is extremely effective. Several utilities are rolling us out now. The largest coop in the United States are rolling this out on their system and have quite a number of these units installed. It works, it is available. This is no longer something in a laboratory. It has been available for years but was rolled out softly to figure out how to best integrate it. Customer, for0 a about three year payout, you can install one box on one circuit and it takes care of 2000 customers. Thank you. I would add to that, in san diego, the instance for falling powerlines, they need to deenergize them within 1. 3 seconds. San diego gas and electric is working with the major vendor to test that. It has had early success, but they have begun installing on a fraud small fraction of circuits that are highest risk. I went to the eei wildfire conference in san diego in october, and all of the utilities in washington and california are working together on mapping risks, identifying High Priorities for these concepts. You are going to start in the higher risk areas if you roll this out. The vendors are involved. That indicates a reasonably short pathway once the confidence rises. Is there more we should do at a federal level to incentivize the use of this technology . We talked about this technology being one tool that we should be looking at to address these fires. I know that there is talk among wee of the states about how adopt incentives for communitywide Defensible Space programs. Let me just give you a perfect example, because they are one of the driest states, water use and conservation is important. 1990s, early to thousands, Southern Nevada started inventive icing people rolling up their grass incentivizi up their of rolling grass and no longer using grass. Are there other things that are best practices we should be aware of . Two things come to my mind. Partnershipsivate that people have been supportive of in terms of helping move technology out and put into practice have been effective, and the key is having industry involved in the research and advisory panels so they can identify partners to demonstrate and get engagement in their vendor community. That has proven effective. Part of the challenge for regulators and consumer owners, how much is worth spending in terms of resilience . We have Good National data in terms of outage cost to consumers for up to 24 hours. As you go into longer duration outage costs, the information basis and one thing this committee could examine is are there opportunities to better articulate the consumer cost for longduration outages, regardless of the source . That would give regulators and owners and utilities and others better information to help identify how much resilience as worthy of investment and what it would cost, the tradeoff of the costs for the consumers. How do we strengthen that knowledge . Thank you. Senator risch. I come at this from a couple different perspectives. My undergraduate degree was in forestry and Forest Management. After i went to law school that was at the university of maine, wasnt it . Not exactly. When i got out of law school i defended a utility and i defended fire cases. A couple of observations i would make from an overall standpoint, the utilities do everything they can to try to stop this. Obviously the heart. When you have wires out there, there is going to be false from things you cannot possibly imagine. One of the earliest cases we had in idaho is a utility was held liable, reach, but they were held liable when two hawks got to fighting and got tangled up and fell between two lines and arced between two lines and started a fire and burned up the crop. We took the side of the farmer but it is hard to say that was reasonably foreseeable. I handled a case one time where a young child got into a substation and wound up touching two hot points. There is so many different drunks hit polls all the time. Time. Es all the wind, they will have these kinds of things. They everything they do everything to stop it. A fault is determined, they have got it such that a fault can be detected almost instantly and shut everything down, but almost is not quite good enough. You need something that can foresee a fault, which help me out, i think that is impossible to foresee a fault. Actually, in the very earliest stages, this is not a fire ignition mechanism and we can detected. That is better and it will continue to get better, i am sure. There will be times when you get arcing and get the fire started. Then you go to the next point, once you have that happen, what do you do about that . You need forest maintenance and you need to have the rightofway cleared out. I am going to ask that this be introduced in the record, routine operations and dated december 12, 2019. It was signed by the state idaho,r for the blm in and it is only three pages long. I would like to paraphrase, fire started in these rightofways, give these utilities all the help they can get to get these utilities some help as they are clearing out the rightofway. Thetence says it all rightofway hole determines it is necessary to suppress wildfire and field offices should not require the rightofway holder prior approval prior to conducting the o m work. You do not see this from bureaucrats very often that they can say it as quickly and clearly as they can, telling everybody, let them get in there and do this. 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 point, canada has had significant wildfires as nationallyrdination and internationally make sense. On implementing the regulations, it was very helpful to have that piece of legislation go through. Now, we want to make sure that the implementation is coordinated between the two agencies and that it is quick. The regulations proposed are different. We have commented on the Forest Service with suggestions on how we can make sure we are clear with what is routine maintenance and what is a hazard tree. Are we going to hit the timelines and hit them efficiently across the offices in the west. , as the senator noted, good guidance. It is brief guidance, not an actual regulation, a memo. It is a good start and we would want to followup and make sure that it is happening. In both instances, it is helpful, and overseeing it is helpful. I will talk a little bit about the importance of international inc. Cooperation. In 2018, Washington State had phenomenal problems with smoke. 300 fireswe had burning in oregon, and fires in Washington State and british columbia. So we had smoke coming down. Clearly, it spans boundaries. The work going on between the Forest Service and the department of energy is using satellite imagery to look ahead to watersheds, in this case it is the watershed north of leavenworth and then the central cascades. To identify fuel buildup, moisture content, and etc. Updated on aand week, day, or month ahead to see where we have extreme aridity, combined with high fuel buildup that may inform the builders of the owners of infrastructure including bonneville power who are bringing power across the watersheds. The is early activity and issue is how much this might be extended into critical areas either the forest or the range areas for the upcoming fire season, and they cannot do the whole west in six months, but they can pick one or two additional areas and that can be extended to coordinate across the canadian boundary. To the negotiation of the treaty, that water is a central part of that negotiation. An interesting thing from a resilient standpoint is that most of the Energy Storage is from north. Everything south of that is the river. If you are looking for good flexibility to give the system the storageazards, capacity in the Columbia River is essential. That is part of the negotiation, how do we span the border . Thank you forand mentioning that. I want to get that satellite time and information, because i think it will be helpful. This is a question for mr. Johnson. People in the rest of the country do not know that wildfire is a real problem in hawaii, and it is. Hawaii last year had 627 fires that burned acres, with biggest fires from hurricanes. Wildfires burned over 14,000 acres on maui alone with conditions that firefighters said that they had never seen before. The temperatures were hot, where maximum records were tied were broken 84 times from april through walk sober. Overires moved quickly what used to be managed sugarcane land. Wildfire threat is becoming similar to circumstances in california, and it is important that we learn to best plan for our future. California is a leading state on integrating renewable resources, and my question is how do you zero californias move to Carbon Solution Power Sources will act will react with wildfire risk. In other words can utilities grid a grid build a that will help reduce fires zero emission sources. Think we can do it. I think climate problems are causing a lot of the flyers. Hurricanes. And strength of events is increasing. I do not think they are mutually exclusive. As wek in the short term, prioritize what we are doing, we may have to prioritize Fire Prevention at the expense of a little bit of other things, but this will not get in the way of meeting californias energy goals, and we will do this together. Yourhope we can learn from experiences and perhaps my office can follow up to what you folks are doing to meet these needs. National labs have provided key support to hawaiis transition to 100 Renewable Power by 2045. The lab and the National Renewable energy lab has been working with hawaii and electric to use advanced controls for distributing Energy Sources like rooftop solar to improve the performance of the power grid. We have heard a lot about hardening the grid, but what can Community Scale programs, using using power grids local Power Sources can ensure that communities require quickly from hazards . Thank you for the question. Suppliestributed power can help a Community Ride through an outage such as a Public Safety power shut down to provide critical services, health care, fuel pumping, and other things while the power system is being recovered. And that would work for wildfires, hurricanes, and other things. Research focuses more on how you network multiple micrograms grids, and in hawaii that may be the case with large number of military facilities. How do you coordinate, and change how they behave under a blue sky day versus a dark sky day when you might wrap power more towards hospitals. Helps prioritize public safely safety during times of an outage. Is this kind of networking going on in hawaii and are you playing a role in that . It is going on in hawaii and a number of places. In alaska they have examples of t, and a noble in it and a number of members are working with those. It is connected to the National Security agenda in terms of supporting military bases and using their resources as well. I know we have a hard stop so i will submit the other questions for the record. Thank you. I want to ask one quick question towards the end, and this follows on what the senator had raised you with regards to the i mentioned in my Opening Statement that california is a state that has some of the highest residential electric prices in the country, and as you look to the expenses that will necessarily be involved as you harden the infrastructure, as you work to mitigate the risk and incorporate some of these technologies, there are costs there. There a tradeoff that has to go on that in order to provide resilience, you one to kind of pull back some of the other initiatives agenda . E part of pg es you have been aggressive in having additional renewable opportunities. What does that look like in terms of your portfolio . I am assuming at some point some of this has to be shifted over to the rate payers. This is a great question and one we are wrestling with. This is a question of prioritize nation, what is most important prioritization, what is most important short term. Utility commission has recognized that we need to prioritize safety first. We are in the start of a proceeding before the california commission, what are the safety,es as we manage and affordability. I do not know exactly how this will end up, but we will put safety first and we may have to prioritize a little, but we will meet energy goals in the long term. Just real quick, if i can. You are coming out of bankruptcy, reorganizing, and the commitment you have to make to the upgrades. Will you see increases in utility prices to your consumers . Nothing in the bankruptcy will be put to the consumer. All of the settlers will be settlements to be paid by the shareholders. There are Cost Increases that will come to the consumers that were planned before bankruptcy was declared, and the consumer will see fewer increases after the bankruptcy than they would have on the prebreak prebankruptcy plan. It will be better for consumers and they will not pay for anything related to the bankruptcy. Some of the upgrades to the system, for the benefit of the customers, and they will have to help contribute to that. This has been an interesting conversation this morning, and i am glad that we were able to not only hear about the specific situation and the tragedies we have seen in california over these past years, but thinking forward about what can we be doing on a more proactive basis to better recognize the threat to use the analytics that are out there. I think we recognize that technology has an extraordinary role to play and we are seeing some of that innovation through our labs and universities. I do think that we recognize as a committee that we have always have a problem with fire. That is nature, what we are seeing now with the ever increasing threat of fire, the intensity of these and the fact interface you have an that is unlike anything that we have seen before, where folks are out in parts of the country where they just were not living before. Threats tong property, threats to life, but how we accomplish what it is that the consumer expects, which is to be able to have power when they wanted, on their terms, but to do so in a way that allows for the safety of all and respects the issues regarding resilience that we are dealing with. These are serious challenges, but you have helped put a little note of optimism in terms of some of the technologies we have available and how we might be moving forward. With that, votes have been called and we will conclude the committee. Thank you for being here and thank you for traveling to make this committee. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [inaudible liveashington journal every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Holly harris will join us to discuss prison and sentencing reform and then Jennifer Cavanaugh will talk about any report of where americans are getting their news and what they consider to be credible sources. Watch washington journal live at 7 00 he spanned and be sure to watch authors week. That is starting at 8 00 eastern on washington journal. Mugs areon journal available at cspans new online store. Check out the mugs, and see all of the cspan products. This week pbs newshour and political held the sixth and final democratic president ial candidates debate of the year in los angeles. Seven of the remaining candidates took part. Cspan will reair the debate today at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. The british house of commons has advanced Boris Johnsons amended brexit deal by a 100 vote margin. The vote came a week after the prime ministers party secured a majority in the general election. The vote paves the way for the u. K. To leave the european union. Heres a look at some of the debate leading up to the final vote. Mr. Speaker, thank you. I move that the bill be read a second time and we come together to break the deadlock and to get brexit done. To reunite our country, and allow the warmth and natural affection that we all share for our european neighbors to find renewed expression in one great ational project in building democratically accountable partnership with those nations we are proud to call our closest