Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hearing On Wildfires The Electric Grid 20240713

Order. Last hearing of the year there is a lot going on this morning so i think we will have people popping in and out but we do have a pretty hard to sto stop 0 this morning a series of votes beginning at 11 and we are going to observe an actual ten minute clock. We are going to be able to have an opportunity for the very, very important conversations this issue. We are here to discuss the impact of wildfires on the reliability of the electric grid iand efforts to mitigate the rik and the grid recently and see. In recent years devastating wildfires and relate tobaccorelated hadron National Attention to the great idsiliency in the face of extreme conditions. Weve remember last yearss campfireem at the deadliest andt destructive in california hstory whichir incinerated the town of paradise and killed 85 inpeople. They determined it was caused by degraded 97yearold powerlines and the strong wind winds, low humidity, drive vegetation and heat. If it is a wakeup call on the inherent risk of maintaining thousands of miles of aboveground power lines across fire prone landscapes. The california regulators in several of the states largest utilities to increase the use of Public Safetyre public shutoffss a precaution against possible wildfire during the high wind events. The measure of last resort plans call for utilities to de energize powerlines in extreme weather conditions and Service Territories. From june through november at least nine cuts power for more than 3 million californians. For some, they lost a few hours and for others it went on for nearly six days. Theyly occurred 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 it could be the new normal for the next ten to 30 years or even longer. One would expect to see the Living Conditions and a developing country thats no bun some of the most populated places here in the unite United States, certainly not in the state with some of the highest electricity prices iner the natn that its not just limited to california. Its not an uncommon cause of wildfires or is the Energy Infrastructure. The National Basis the Forest Service estimates that more than 277 fires from 2017 to 2018 can be traced to powerlines. Several that emerge to the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wild fires were started by dowd, wind, downed power lines. The Great Smoky Mountains wild fires were the deadliest in the u. S. Since the great fires of 1947. In my own state of alaska in the valley north of anchorage are believed to be connected to power line conditions in the region that has the high mortality the powerlines are necessarily located near homes and schools and businesses thatt is just the fact. Climate a change from the draft, infestation and poor management have made the landscapes more susceptible particularly in the west as more people build homes in the interface or dispersed communities the chances for utility related wildfires are sure to increase. Ital isnt a roadblock from the utility rights of ways. In 2018 we passed the reliability and t Forest Protection act as a part of the 2018 consolidated appropriations act. Its my understandin understandf the department of the interiordi and Forest Service are now implementing that important measure. Now we must turn our attention to what can be done to harden the Energy Infrastructure and improve the resiliency of the grid in th the areas in extreme weather conditions. This is a complex problem that is going to require cooperation at all levels of partnership with the electric industry. I think the colleagues for being here a and i will now turn to my friend senator manchin for his comments before we begin with the panel. Before i could Opening Statements, i want to take aan moment of personal time here if i can. Today will be the last meeting of a p person whos been with me quite a long time and my committee. Shes been with me in my state office, not the state office, that my dbut my dc office, she y chief counsel and moved when i became the Ranking Member is the director of our Ranking Member staff and it did turn this job. She has a new little babies and shshe has two little babies and things in life change sometimes and wehi are just so sorry that she wont be on the committee or leaving the staff that she will always be near and dearff to us and by her phone and we are not going to let her escape to park. With that i want to thank you forwi all of your years of service. [applause] thank you for holding the hearing today on the relationship between wildfires and the electric grid. Its a threat to Critical Infrastructure including the electric grid but as weve seen in several instances, equipment failures can also sparked wildfires. Spark wildfires. This is true for western states. Weve seen several catastrophic fires that this impacts eastern states, too and my home state hasnt been exempt. Over thanksgiving weekend it earned 1300 acres in West Virginia and no homes were damaged but other communities across the country hasnt been so lucky. Over the last few years, california has been extremely hit hard by wildfires and the impacts have been devastating. Last year thate killed 85 people and destroyed 14,000 homes in the town of paradise. I appreciate mr. Bill johnson of thet corporation being here tody and willingness to talk about his companys understanding of the mistakes that were made, Lessons Learned and operational changes they are making to ensure this never happens again. Wildfires are increasing in intensity, size and frequency of your going to need a new approach to mitigate the devastating impacts and electricity infrastructure isnt starting the fires. They also are getting harder to control due to Climate Change, lack of force management and new housingg developments in these areas. This is affecting millions of people. I look forward to hearing from the panel about the Available Technology and Management Practices and what innovative needed to do this can cause. The department of energy labs in my home state are working on modernizing the electric grid to make it more resilient. We need to make sure its addressing the relationship between wildfires and the grip of hundredgreatboth in terms ofs impacting the grid and also electricity infrastructure igniting wildfires. There is no Silver Bullet that we can anbut wecan and should ln from the utilities that have made the greatest and most recentlrecently and could wildf. This goes for maintenance and inspection practices, installations of new and improved technologies to detect problems early, Risk Mitigation of tree trimming or growing pattern to be the powerlines and the advertising them as illustrious as. Of course the last resort is shutting off the power and other utilities have been done proactively several times in recent months duringngro unusuay high when. I can imagine how disruptive the plus to the millions of customers and businesses that depend the threeday on electricity and i hope that youve explained to us today why that is the step you took in this particular circumstance and how effective they were. I understand during one of the power shut off scott 218 instances of wind damage were discovered, 24 of which would have likely started wildfires if you had taken precautionary practions, so if we have prevend several but it also came at a utgreat 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 and finally i look forward to hearing from the witnesses about ways that congress can be helpful. I know we took a big step forward by including the provisioa provisionin the 2018 e it easier for utilities to the required maintenance especially for the smaller Rural Electrical coops but i welcome your thoughts on additional actions we can take to make it easier to clean up an area after wildfire including using their timber tre by the fires before it rots. It makes no sense to me at all. So, we want to avoid devastation caused by wildfires and have a reliable resilient to gri grid r our homes and the ss and in the face of increasing wildfire risk, we need to do everything we can to manage to reduce the rising risks. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses and what they have to say about how to do that, so thank you and i think all the witnesses for being here today. Thank you senator. We will begin with our panelists this morning again thank you to each of you for being here and the contributions that you will make to this important discussion. Its going to be led by mr. Bill johnson. Mr. Johnson is the ceo and president for pg e corp. I know that this has been a very difficult time for you and for all within the pg in the 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 very appreciative you are here with us this morning. Doctor michael was also here ass a Senior Research scholar m at stem for Blood Institute for the environment, we thank you. Mr. Scott corwin is the executive director foexecutive e northwest public power association. Appreciate your contribution this morning. Carl inhofe 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 and the panel will be rounded out by doctor don russell, doctor russell is a professor and director of the Power System Automation Laboratory at the department of electrical and Computer Engineering at texas a and m. University, so we appreciate you being here we would ask you to keep your comments to about five minutes into his defense will be included as a part of the record. Welcome to the committee. Thank you so much and good morning. I am bill johnson president and ceo of Pg Corporation today i appreciateat the invitation to e year ended thbehere and at the s interest in wildfires and the impact the reliability and resilience. As it has beenn mentioned, in te west we have seen a dramatic increase in wildfire threat as the result of a changing climate which interns have a dramatic effect on the electric system andd how we operate. Just seven years ago, 15 of the pg in the service area was designated as having elevated fire risk and its over 50 today and will continue to grow so in seven years the risk of fire more than tripled for our northernrea of california. Its also experienced the most destructive wildfires in the past two years and its deadliest. Pg and e and he is deeply sorryr the role that our equipment had in those fires and the losses that occurred t because of them and wect are taking action to prevent it from ever happening again. We invested over 3 billion our electric system over the i last decade including more than 3 million Vegetation Management and today we are taking that work a step further byod increasing Vegetation Management in the high risk areas and incorporating analytical predictive capabilities and expanding the scope and intrusiveness of the process. This year every element of the system within the high threat wifire areas examining almost 730,000 structures and 25 million discrete related components and about four months. We deployed 600 weather stations, 130 highresolution cameras across theth service ara to bolster the Situational Awareness and Emergency Response. We are using satellite data and modeling techniquess to produce wildfire spread behavior and we are hardening the system in those areas where the threat is highest by installing stronger and more resilient polls and covered lines as well asel underground in. This year we took the unprecedented step of intentionally turning up during a string of events where we saw 200mile per hour winds onshore in Northern California and this decision affected millions of our customers, cause disruption and hardshicaused disruptionandt succeeded in its goal of protecting c human lives. Its the nature of this had the potential consequences require us to plan, operate and maintain the systems differently than we ever have and this will require focus on resilience as well as reliability and that is where the lessons here are beyond california and the committee has already noted this the resilience and reliability are related but they are distinct. Customers include Critical Infrastructure First Responders have long depended on Reliable Service. But today more than ever the ability to provide Reliable Service depends on the comprehensive societal approach to the resilience. Congress addressed reliability for section 215 of the federal power act nearly 15 years ago and can address resilience out the potential actions that include developing a framework and process for economic costbenefit analysis come increased eligibility of funding for existing Energy Assistance and Community Resilience programs, support research and development of new technologies and forwardlooking data and promoting publicprivate partnerships to establish voluntary resilience building codesps and standards. Specific to addressing the wildfire threat we believe the federal government should continue its focus on funding Forest Management Fire Suppression activities, implement it firstes and Vegetation Management policies insuring access to federal land for prevention and response and authorizing federal agencies to share satellite data. We know that addressing this risk must start with us and our own operations and that is why we are focused on the safety and riskio based approach to the ris facing the company and industry and let me conclude by saying that we remain committed to doing everything in our power to build a better and safer future for all, that is what our customers deserve and thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you very much for having me before the committee to discussh this issue. There are present threats presented by wildfire in at least in the california context they raise significant questions regarding how a bishop be obligated during increasingly common and a dangerous drive highway and events. As bill johnson just discussed, pg and e. Has faced enormous threats to its system and has for the first time this year used widespread safety shutoffs as a tool to create safety and as you mentioned in your opening remarks, this isnt just an issue for the role or remote parts of california that directly impacts millions of people in the natural areas of california as well. The use is both preventive and causing widespread disruption to families and businesses in Northern California. Though they do, they are costly especially in smaller llcommunities. My estimate is developed by the laboratory and indicates the event of 2019 cost customers more than 10 billion. Failure of transmission components isnt a new phenomenon california. It has modern approaches to managing utility called for by the risk in 2007 which the firen San Diego County was caused by the transmission line failure. Similarly the camp fire was ignited by failure of the transmission line and this year and perhaps most concerning of all failure of a jumper appears to have caused the fire. While it was superbly managed by the administration after the commission that could have resulted in property loss at least as large as the Thompson Camp fires that came before it. In addition there is at least a suggestion that two fires in Southern California were potentially cost by the mission wsystem failures this year. I would emphasize that the 2019 fires are still very much under investigation. We dont fully understand the cause but there is a strong suggestion of vulnerability in the system. Prior to thisli year preemptiveo the assets it was relatively limited mostly it involved us voltage transmission lines that were much older and the failure that we observed this year indicate that even the higher voltage line that provide reliability may be vulnerable during the high wind event. It would seem prudent based on the experience to consider including all of the lines perhaps except the highest voltage lines in the particles and that has potentially significant ramifications for the blog syste book system relin california and infected on these areas of customers. Currently, california regulators and utilities are engaged in examinationn of inspection taotocols to understand why they are occurring. The tower that may have caused the fire t was inspected at leat four times overt the last 24 months, and yet it failed and we need to understand why and what mitigating actions we can take to ensure both system reliabilityy is maintained even through these events. All this raises questions about how to approach the maintenance and operations moving forward. Traditionallyni some risk in mechanical failure is acceptable from the systems because they tend to occur during wet winter storms. But today in california at least the managers worry most about the mechanical failure when its windy, dry and the fuels are cured. Thear conditions are highly intolerant of any failure of the trans should systems operating properly and this change in the consequence of failure mode means the tolerance has to be much lower than the costeffective approaches developed in the 20th century. Moreover, best available science on weather and climate conditions indicate that its going to gett worse, not better as the years pass and is likely to spread beyond california into a broader impact on western ignitedpr states. The legislature and governor havthe governorhave worked relay successfully over the last year to reduce the perceived Financial Risks of the impacts on customers, on the utilities and the victims of fires and points to the passage of the Wildfire Fund legislation that provided to help stabilize the Credit Ratings but we all have to focus on affordability and cost effectiveness of the strategy as we look to the future. Affordability is the key as we maintain safety and reliability of the system and that will require smart and targeted investment in the system. It will require much more sophisticated approaches to measurement of the performance to be identified and fixed for disaster strikes him a strikes a lunatic who will require collaboration between local property owners, state and federal governments and wildfire firefighters and reducing fuel loads for the consequence is what. Im hopeful the Lessons Learned in california over the last several years catastrophe can be fruitful for other western states as the threat from the electric system and other causes increases due to Climate Change. Thank you. Thank you chairman kautsky, ranking membe member manchin, ms of the committee for holding the hearing today. In an industry so dedicated to safety, reliability and affordability for the customers, wildfire stands out as a major threat to all three principles into something that demand demaa robust collaborative effort. The association is comprised of 158 consumer owned8 electric utilities across the Western Region with land thats mostly under federal ownership in many placeser and where many of the largest wildfires occur. If you live in a serious suitor or later, your family, your friend are impacted. Its very rea real in these v as affect my fatherinlaw was a smoke jumper infa the 1960s and still lives in northern nevada where they reached the suburban neighborhoods. For public were communities even one life is too many. Fire is one of the greatest risk to the Financial Stability of the members and solvency and it threatens their ability to provide basic Electricity Service so theyve mobilized and analyzed the gaps and needs some implement the plans that included dozens of actions on topics like enhanced inspectio inspections, operational practices, Situational Awareness, education management, system hardening, circa three closing and others youll hear about today. We thank you in congress for your work and this all takes sfunding so we thank you for stabilizing and starting to stabilize y federal funding. Its an important part of this equation and now its important that we prioritized the funding to get the best bang for the buck to this important cause. Our members are the best way to suppress or avoid fire is to eliminate fuel or a commission in the first place and delays and removing trees were widening the corridors ar that are no lor wide enough exacerbated the risk of catastrophic wildfire. Some members maintain Service Territories were 80 where 80 oe land is owned by the federal government. Effective management demands a True Partnership between federal event at the utilities would need approval to maintain. To that end we thank you for passing the amendment to permit federal consistency accountability and timelync decisionmaking. Now we are looking for consistent coordinated quick implementation of the law. We appreciate the u. S. Postal service issued a a proposed rule on this and we know that just this week an update to my written testimony has issued instructional memos to their state offices in the west and we will review these memos, but they appear to set a tone of compliance with the law that congress intended such as encouraging. Still we highlight several things as the agencys move forward to ensure the greatest afety reliability and resilience. We need coordinated guidelines to eliminate ththat eliminate tr casebycase approvals, routine operations and control of the hazard trees and we like to see a culture of responsiveness. We have many good relationships with the hardworking employees for us to service and they share the goal of good stewardship of federal land for the more consistent standards, timelines and collaboration with operators is great for all sides and of the utmost importance and start culture. These discussion to identify the category of exclusions to the lengthy processes under the National Environmental policy act and routine and regular work for the hazard tree removal. We need more training for agency staff especially on electrical system knowledge and we are ready to provide it as the law outlines. We would like to see a straightforward implementation of the provision allowingg quick action on the hazard trees and this is vital to the action to protect people in the Electrical Systems and its important that we see implementation of the very sensible provisions in the act onn the liability. Nd to prioritize wildfire prevention and there is a lot more to do glad to answer any wequestions or give any Additional Information for p the record thank you again for having me here today semi good morning and thank you chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity the grid Grid Research program in Washington State also the Modernization Lab consortium and a team of national 14 laboratories in the home Energy Laboratory to work with state and University Partners to support the Modernization Initiative for over two decades supporting the power system reliability to work with industry to deliver important outcomes for cyberresilience for the electricity generated in the United States highperformance sensors and Storage Concepts with the flexibility we need future i would like to offer three points related to the wildfires the modernization strategy for reliability with its resilience from a modern grid for the safety issues are part of that Program Industry is systematically identified r d to support wildfire activity and i will share those details then thirdly to have the opportunity moving forward to leverage the experience that has been discussed so far in the session to inform new scenarios to better reflect wildfire threatsce how the system is planned and operated going into thean future. The National Academy of engineering of definition and then to minimize from when they occur. To the first point the Modernization Initiative focuses on Grid Resilience the system operators in federal land manager and states and communities to address wildfire risk all hazards like cyberand physical attack naturald at threats like hurricanes and wildfires in normal system risk of equipment failure three topics that are most relevant to wildfire first sensing of the Data Analytics and planning tools in Emergency Response tools to support operations during wildfire events the tools are foundation to the failures and realtime tools to mitigate that risk they leverage and the Machine Learning concepts provide the capacity to analyze high velocity data streams we see on the modern grid extreme Event Planning tools unparalleledab capability to access complex and large threat scenarios to identify the most resilient Design Options in the face of the Current System with more variable and more connected at the edge of more interdependent with other structures and face more challenging threats the realtime operational concept providing with inset one insights moving from the paradigm of hours and days ahead two seconds and minutes new industry engagement regarding the results that could have preparations for the 2020 season expressing particular interest to conduct Damage Assessment Situational Awareness and advanced technology to protect against that failure thirdly industry expressed interest in data analytic tools and delivered a set ofls options to industry for consideration a few examples include Machine Learning algorithms at testing at pg e dhs and satellite Damage Assessment test u. S. Forest Service Platforms for moisture detection and vegetation currently to other high risk other areas in the west and the Emergency Response tools for Situational Awareness and emergency management. Finally the National Academy of engineering reported 2017 to be more expansive with thee resilientos scenarios the threat of the future needs to be designed the industry coordination to the subsector counsel to ensure connection between the industrial public entities and integrate recent wildfirer lessons with the agenda with those scenarios that enhancet industry efforts to mitigate and protect against wildfire. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the invitation to be here im talking about how to prevent wildfires on a december day these are real examples of actual utilities, two electric power lines came together to clash and broke the line and it was Christmas December 25th. The lights went out on hundreds of customers as dinner went into the oven power was off for hours metal was thrown off and thankfully of fire didnt start that specific daynk but a lot of people missed christmas or they did not get to cook it. Utility operators did not know about that event was that that Christmas Day outage was caused by an event an event that occurred five times in exactly the same place over the previous four years that was a fifth time that had until now know system ewas available to automatically provide information necessary regular inspections and had been inspected multiple times and explicitly for the purpose to find out why this had happened repetitive faults one day may start a fire the next time they occur. Sometimes it is years from now the ultimate failure could have been protected distribution fault anticipation technology that uses intelligent algorithms to monitor electric circuits to detect in the earliest stages of failing devices. The concept is simple find and fix it before the catastrophic outage. Causes the default may have caused the fire thats the best they can do the root cause may have been started days or even weeks or even years before the catastrophic failure caused the fire analytics can now detect the earliest stages of an arcing device well in advance of our catastrophic failure instead of waiting toan reactt lets fix it early texas a m researchers monitor the utility circuits in a longitudinal study over 15 years capturing every failure in the e circuits the largest database of its existence in the world we now know how those failures occur and how they can beit detected i will give you an example of failing clamp like this one right here which did fail by the way caused a power line to fall to the ground causing an outage for hundreds of customers in tennessee the arcing line was mechanism was it hit the ground what utility operators did not know for the previous 21 days before the clamp cause the line to fall and arcing occurred 2333 times. In the last half of the 21 days every one of those arcing conditions had an ignition mechanism so an averageio of ten days and 1200 arcing events each had an opportunity to start a fire. With advanced Technology Advances a dash texas a m could notice that in the very first moment on the very first day 21 days before the failure occurred you are in a blindbe study utility did not know we were doing this they just let us go out so we knew for 21 days that clamp was arcing. My 1950 chevrolet did not have anything in it that toby was broken. It was broken when it stopped running now we have a computer under the hood that says this will happenpu and you better get in and get this fixed because it will break your car itd day or two. In medicine we use advanced diagnostic equipment to find cancer early so it can be cured long before catastrophe. We have the analogy here for the circuits and that is a new tool allowing operators to have Continual Health assessment to identify failing devices and fix them before catastrophic failures occur or cause anca outage it is extremely important to note no technology or program will ever prevent all fires just notus possible. We need to have every tool that we can because some of those are devastating. The reality is texas a m university now operating on 20 different utilities with this technology has demonstrated a new tool can find and fix and diagnose and help locate many of the things that are actually causing fires. I pull up on my phone and put in a code and pull up pictures that on the vector substation in australia on substation a, circuitir a, a full operation fault occurred bigger than 35 amps and ultimately occurred i know more from this over this technology and the operators know inec australia and im sitting here in washington dc this technology is available and ready to use and will prevent some fires. Doctor russell thank you this has been very interesting. With the progression of the testimony talking about real issues on the ground that have had devastating impact in the loss of life that has just been horrific and an owacknowledgment of how we deal with vegetation but then to technology to look at that prevention is a good way to have this discussion before the committee. I want to begin with you. This relates to the situation as it is now and the fact that during this fire season pg e had to employ the power safety public shut off to make sure that there was a level of safety. Certainly interferes with that reliability as a customer and what they expect better reality that sometimes you have to t prioritize with the reliability versus the resilience and truly the safety. Theres nobody on this committee from california so i will ask the questions they want to know and that is in folyterms of impact to customers Going Forward, how long do you anticipate pg e will have to resort to additional ps ps events cracks i think that was you that mentioned the Financial Impact to communities it is real and tangible and very personal to that situation. It is hard to be precise but i can tell you going back to the early 2000s in california and then 12 years later in a very narrow surgical way. So for us it will take five years to get to the point where we can largely eliminate this tool. To narrow the scope and the duration with better predictive capability and technology you will see shorter and fewer events but the Climate Change is dramatic enough i dont think we will see the end of it for some period of time. I mention a situation in alaska the lines coming from the Peninsula Area to be impacted by the region and it has limited feasibility to move the cheaper renewable from hydro up to fairbanks so if they are closer to the source, their rates will not be as impacted as he went into the colder and darker and winter months in the interior where costs are already high this impacts the rate payer and often times we forget that you dont have to be in the range of the fire to have your rates impacted by what we are seeing with these significant events. We all know when we talk about the grid that would k eliminate some of the risk that you see you would not have a downline because of fire but the cost is considerable you are in california that is a prone area. But you did mention under grounding was one of the hathings pg e was looking at and if thats even viable quick. Historically under grounding if he were downtown and in recent years to build substations and subdivisionsis underground and we do plan more and california distribution line that certain size find you cannot underground it. But this is not a complete answer when the line is underground its much harder than when its overhead it would be much more targeted and not a large percentage to a guy have additional questions. Thank you to all the presenters today i will be directing most of my questions to you because pg e and then to be forthcoming and saying coming out of bankruptcy with the homeowners and the different people that were concerned and then the lives of the people that t were lost. Where are you all in the financial cracks will you make it and survive or serve your customers cracks where are you to upgrade the equipment to make the changes cracks the doctor had some great comments and technology that could be very helpful. Just give us a rundown financially where you areus at where the company is and to make sure that you can prevent this as much as possible from ever happening again. Thank you for those questions i came to pg e seven or eight months ago never been in a bankrupt organization before i can answer some of these questions we have taken the most important step which is to make amends particularly to the fire victims so we made settlements and the Bankruptcy Court has approved the settlements and there is a lot of other things that has to happen in the bankruptcy to line up financing but there still a lot of work and who thes eventual owner is will be determined by the Bankruptcy Court but we have made amends to the people that are affected by these fires. By the way in california we have to be out by the end of june next year so we will know the answer pretty quick what it will look like. We have a tremendous amount of work to upgrade the system and this year alone we inspected what needed repair on a priority basis every substation to install hardened wire and Vegetation Management historically those rules in california were restricted they have been loosened so we are clearing off more and doing everything we can to adopt the technology from the national lab and texas a m so we are operating on all fronts to make the safer and more resilient. Do you have anything to add to that or anyone else on the panel because its the most devastating thing we have ever seen our hearts go out to every victim and Family Member who lost a loved one. I was very impressed with Mister Johnson to say that they were at fault and the company was at fault even though hes new theyre trying to make amends and we will see how this ends up but there is more that can beny done. There is more that can be done not because utilities have been using the state of the art you read it here unfortunately in i the papers but some of the polls were back from world war ii have not beenen replaced we build very rigorous Power Systems in the United States that are meant to last for decades and decades and lines outside of our house that have still delivered power frankly iteres not much with them because the copper is better than what we put out today you have to be careful talking about age they are meant to last a long time. A power system has new wire will come down exactly the same way to vegetation related tincident then if it was 20 or 30 years. We can do more how quick. Advanced diagnostics that want to clear more trees hard system concrete, all those things. Ete, all i will tell you all the fires in california that are significant in texas and oklahoma many of the things are not addressing the most important things that are causing the fires. But the one thing that you do may prevent the biggest by you are about tore have but a lot of fires that that will not fix we need more diagnostics it can diagnose your car in condition and health of your body most certainly in realtime things with our powerli system. Dead and dying trees can increase wildfires and put the safety of them at risk. In fact last years unspeakable tragedy in paradise those lives that were dast on the dangerous interactions that can take place between the transmission infrastructure. In fact going back to montana terrible fire season 2017 i remember reaching out to county commissioners to share a startling story about firefighters that the risk they could not take your high voltage transmission because of the carbon and then the arcing. And then at that point that battle was almost lost we cannot be proactive to manage vegetation but when the fire starts to say steve we cannot move them near that voltage line their lives are at risk because its arcing from those highvoltagech lines these catastrophic wildfires are not and anomaly and unless we do something about it we will see more we must increase active Forest Management. And then to run across tens of thousands of miles doing so is critical to prevent wildfires as the montana county commissioner shared the developing Bipartisan Legislation the republican from montana democratic california working together on active Forest Management to expedite among other major reforms bringing this Bipartisan Legislation in the near future. You mention the 2018 reforms to have expedited Environmental Review with that rulemaking process Going Forward but the clear statutory exclusion could be very useful. Can you first discuss the challenges engaging with federal agencies to receive necessary permits for hazardous vegetation it is several challenges i do believe the law is helping to move us into a better plane so thank you to the committee in congress for passing that. You have a large workload that can create time delays. Was also for a small utility it can take two or three years for smaller projects or three or four years with larger projects even if you pay for your own thirdparty analysis. With utility that only has several Million Dollars per year that is a big load. Discuss the benefits to establish a new categorical exclusion to accelerate removal of hazardous construction on federal land. As i said before, utilities have very good working relationships to clarify to the extent it should and could be clear to free up both sides of what needs to be done on a more timely basis thats a large benefit right there. You speak in your testimony the dangers of arcing. Also firefighters risk in the scenario described by my montana county commissioner by my montana county commissioner. The plasma that is created of the smoke products burning at several thousands of degrees around a transmission line creates a conductive path to tilow arcing to occur often that creates another fault condition it is a dangerous condition for anyone to be in. Although it is a difficult set of circumstances to be very aggressive at that spot. So having a firefighter at the spot of the most aggressive fire is dacey but they are there to put it out so it could be very s dangerous. Thank you all very informative trying to figure how this happened in my bathroom we have a gfci switch if something happens there is a fault it goes off. Doesnt that happen in this case cracks you talk about a fire at the top of the tower are there devices that would automatically trip the line. Couldnt you have a device with a wire falls to the ground it would be deactivated before it hits the ground in milliseconds . Swimming three levels of questions. With those amps from earth one initial current it is not protected by what they have and operating at 5 million amps they would not detect that. Thats the problem if theyre looking for higher currents. Cant this be engineered . That informs us. What about tripping the circuit . That would be the direct consequence to first detect it we have to have the technology to detect it we already know how to trip the circuit so integrating this into the system is a plan that has to be done they are using extremely good equipment pg es equipment today would trip and a few hundred milliseconds that is exceptional but that fire can start in 15 milliseconds. Grasses shows it occurs in ten or 20 milliseconds. Now the last part of the question is the lines that are drop can we detect them before they hit the ground cracks there is some work that has been done with san diego electric it is a wonderful thing to do but the problem is this theres nothing wrong with thatt if we could do it its a great thing to do but what caused it to fault in the first place cracks it may have been the arcing clamp that was detected 21 days before. Talking about those technologies to have not having them to worry spirit that technology is very dramatic and important testimon testimony. Se are these problems in california caused by failures i know its not routine but routine failures or are the failures caused by the weather event that creates the fuel cracks is that window or something that causes it for the kind of technology that we talk about here create a problemro. You can have a perfectly sound system with everything working well in the current configuration from 100 yards away and then you have a fire. These are not routine these are weather related. They are weather events. 100mile per hour wind in sonoma is a weather event. But this technology would help because as soon as a branch blew into the line it would shut the line off. And the other thing is here it is so dry and moved to californiai late april no rain for eight months so one spark and you have conflagration. Anything to stop the current immediately would be tremendously Helpful Technology spirit there is an undertone to this whole discussion of Climate Change we talk about in abstract terms im going to a meeting in half an hour but here is a direct dollars ands cents impact affecting consumers and individuals all over the country to address the underlying problem is also part of the solution although longterm. Absolutely it is a climate driven event and shows up in 147 million dead trees because of warmer temperatures so the beetles dont die increase of wind speed change of direction its a climate driven experience. Continuing on the talking about the impact that you have seen in california those utilities that have the same kind of questions. With those service area remind me of that federal footprint. We cover 70000 square miles of Northern California and about 30000 linear miles and about one third of our lines in that designation is federal land spirit that gets into land Management Practices because they have aec Significant Impact on the threat that you face of dryer fuel and Management Practices matter. And that testimony since when. In the last decade. We talked about this we had some success across the aisle on some pilot programs to allow for a wildfire mitigation work next to the rightofway on federal land. And that will have the effect on your infrastructure as well so it will be effective so to poweren the utilities and then to give them a buffer. Summit in colorado and how would you describe the opportunities and publicprivate partnershipsel cracks. The bill that was passedhe the year before and access to federal lands. And to make sure it with fundings of these things but the agencies have shown more interest so now we have agreements and then not to come in every year but that practicality and cost impact what that means toat have technologies on the clamp to shut off . One of the things we always worry about me talk about affordability balancing safety pd cost in all of these things and with these circuits from australia but figure out how well they work if they do we could cut down fewer trees but now its too early to know how that is displace more manual activities. So just to put things into perspective with the average rainfall is nine. 5 inches now we dont have seasons just wildfire all year long. Thats why i appreciate this conversation. Following up on the what senator was talking about this new technology is a game changer so how accessible is it to the utilities and affordable cracks are we still the beginning t stages and with those utilities for several years that the state legislature of texas after the 2011 wildfire project 2012 through 2016 ran a fouryear project placing the technology there to determine how nafective it would be it was extraordinarily effective in the largest coop in the United States is rolling this out on their system they are ready have quite a number of these units installed. It works it is no longer something in a laboratory. Within to be bes integrated into the utility industry. So with a three year payout you can install a box on a circuit if you have 2000 customers and monitors 2000 customers. With those power lines to deenergize one. Three seconds and to test that to have cccess and they began installing on psalm circuits going to the wildfire conference all are working together on mapping risk to identify High Priorities with these concepts to rollout the entire system user and a higher risk area. Coming out of the laboratory that is a reasonably short pathway. Is or more we could do at a federal level cracks the reason i say this that we should be looking at and i know there is talk among other states has a perfect example with water use and conservation is very important so then to incentivize people to use different landscaping and we did it through incentives so looking at a federal level other other thingsra we should be aware of the publicprivate nepartnerships that we are very supportive of to help move technology out to put into practice the key is having industry involved so they can identify the effectivenessss to demonstrate and get engaged that has proven to be very effective. So to figure out how much is worth spending in terms of resilience we have very Good National data with outage cost going into longer duration the vase is thinner and one thing the committee could examine if there are opportunities to better articulate the consumer cost regardless of the cost to give regulators and others better information to identify how much resilience is an investment or the tradeoffs but that seems to be an opportunity of how we strengthen that knowledge. I come at this from a couple of different perspectives my undergraduate degree was in Forest Management when i got out of school that was at the university of maine . Not exactly i defended a utility and a couple of observations i would make from the overall standpoint the utilities do everything they can to stop this transmitting electricity is dangerous and as a result the courts have said that utilities will be held at the higheste standard so they take that to heart when you have wires out there there are faults from things you cannot possibly imagine one of the very earliest cases was the utility was held liable. It was our reach went to hawks thought to fighting and got tangled up and they arced between the two lines but its hard to say thats reasonably foreseeable but that is what happened. I handled the case where a young child got into a substation and touching two hot points. Drunks hit polls all the time and the wind goes through here they will have these kind of things so they do everything they can to stop it i appreciate the work that is w doing by doctor russell but the fault determined is now as such can be detected almost instantly and shut everything down but you can have what word foresee a fault but i think that is impossible. In the very earliest stages if it starts to arc we can detect it. And itr will continue to get better. But there wills be 21 times when you get arcing for go so when you have that happen what do you do about it cracks you need forest maintenance and you have the right away cleared out this is a routine operation december 122019 signed by the state director for the blm in idaho and its only three pages long. And i could paraphrase they started so give the utilities all the help they can get to get them some help that one sentence thete right away determines the operation is necessary to suppress wildfire that they should not require the rightofway to have any additional motives to proceed a fireio approval prior to conducting the work. You dont see this from bureaucrats very often telling everybody let them get in there and do this. These are the kinds of things that need to be done because when electricity is transmitted to and urban area its easy for the Fire Department to get there but as we have f seen in california once it gets going it is katie by the door. Its important that rightofway speak lead out i like to introduce this to the record. Trying to do everything he can do and then second to get the right away cleared up if it does it is minimal. That this incentive question was raised and that they do this on a cost plus basis by the Public Utilities commission so they are incentivized to get out there and do it. My state has contracts with people to trim the trees. That is a constant program im amazed here in washington dc the outages and primarily they dont do the work they need to do that is critically important to be out there. And then the branches are blown into the lines and it is that simple. You need to be out there. Its important for everybody to recognize. From idahos point. And to make it easier and the ability to with this infrastructure with quicker access and of the blm regulation to hear what we could do and that those protocols are in place so obviously to have more tools in digital mapping and one of the agencies using those what we could successfully be doing if we were and the obvious issue trying to develop this prediction model i feel a lot of this is a changing a changing climate and drier conditions which ignites a higher propensity for them to happen. When it comes to water and fire neither wine recognize national boundaries. My colleague and i are having a meeting today on Columbia River trade issues and the fireside is just as important. And we see the Pacific Northwest so how can we manage this for what they are doing to help manage it cracks i dont know what we can do to get cooperation. On the last point to have significant wildfires in canada as well. And it was very helpful to have that legislation go through now we really want to make sure that implementation is coordinated between these two agenciesenen with the regulations proposed are very different. For us to make sure we are clear what is routinent maintenance that timelines to implement this across their offices in the west but as the senator noted good guidance it is a memo it is a good start to follow up with them so its very helpful to see this is very helpful in 2018 Washington State had the phenomenal problems with smoke and they said we have 300 fires burning in oregon 250 in Washington Statea. And in British Columbia all of that air shift came down in the columbia basin. Clearly it spans international boundaries. The work going on now that the enbiomass program uses satellite imagery to look ahead to the watershed just north of leavenworth. And with the fuel buildup and to the where we have extreme humidity in the biomass combined with high fuel buildup and then to bring across those watersheds. And then into other critical areas for the upcoming fire season. They cant do the whole west and six months but maybe two additional areas and that is around the canadian boundary as well. It clearly that water is a central part of that negotiation from a resilient standpoint must most of thent storage is from grand coulee north south of that is from the river if youre looking for flexibility to have resilience that Storage Capacity is critical. To have that good for the overall colon the river basin. But when the rest of the country dont know that wildfires is a real problem in hawaii. Last year we had 627 fires burning over 2000 acres the biggest from when the hurricanes approach the island this summer we burned over 14000 acres on maui alone. Like we have never seen before. With those are tied are broken and it has not gone sallow and now filled with guinea grasp or echo Climate Change and the spread of the species it is becoming increasingly and with the best plan for the future it is a reading stay on integrating and then read that in one to interact with wildfire risk but what if they use power from mostly renewable sourcesd cracks. I thank you can do both and you need to do both and those that they are causing fires and they are not mutually exclusive but in the short term especially in california and that we may have to prioritize at the expense of the little bit of other things to get in the way of energy goals. And what we can learn from your experiences to follow up to what you are doing to meet both of these needs. National labs have support and as the additional testimony at the National Renewable energy with electric to determine how to use that control for the to improve the performance of the overall power grid. We have heard a lot today with the micro grid using local Power Sources that they can maintain power from fires or hurricanes or other hazards. So the distributed Power Supplies can help the Community Ride through the outage such as a Public Safety shout shortage to provide Critical Services and that would work for wildfires or hurricanes. 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. [inaudibleicer the majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell last night the House Democrats finally did what they had decided to do a long time ago. They voted to impeach president trump. Over the last 12 weeks, House Democrats have conducted the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history. Now their