Transcripts For CSPAN2 Energy 20240703

For the upcoming fiscal year, a testimony from the secretary, jennifer granholm, live coverage here on cspan3. The chair will recognize himself for a fiveminute Opening Statement. Welcome to the hearing to review the department of Energy Performance and fulfillment of the statutory responsibilities and to examine the departments fiscal year 2025 budget request to congress. Welcome back to the committee, secretary granholm. The department of energy has National Security responsibilities to protect Energy Security and oversee the Nations Nuclear weapons program. They conduct an overseas taxpayerfunded research and development, providing loans and grants to help commercialize energyrelated technologies. These hearings are essential to ensure that the department is taking to its core mission and is a responsible steward of taxpayer resources. These hearings are essential. Members will also have an opportunity to examine the department of energys expanded budget request as this year they are requesting 51. 4 billion. Since fiscal year 2021, the budget has increased by about 12 billion, about 30 increase. After three years of President Biden, American People administration light up session to transition everyone away from fossil fuels is training household budgets. Putting the American Dream further and further out of reach for many struggling families inflation is out of control. Skyhigh Energy Prices and persistent supplychain shortages are impacting our economy and our safety. From groceries to electric bills, everything costs more under the Energy Policies of President Biden. Americans expect that, when we flip the switch or turn the key, power comes on immediately. If you want to build a home or expand a business, we expect infrastructure can be built quickly and predictably. Regrettably, the President Biden supplychain shortages and price hikes have crippled our Economic Growth and made it more difficult to build out new infrastructure. The department of energy has played a role in the Energy Price Spikes and persistent supplychain shortages. They have mismanaged our Strategic Petroleum reserves, draining the stockpile to its lowest level in the nations history with no credible plan to replenish it and no plan to increase Domestic Energy production. The doe has turned a blind eye to punitive epa regulations that have forced the premature retirement of our most affordable and reliable coal, gas, Nuclear Power plants and threaten the reliability and stability of our electric grid. They have pursued a radical climate agenda to impose new federal regulations for household appliances, electrical equipment, construction, and natural gas usage. They also recently imposed a ban on the issuance of new export permits, apolitical reward for the keep it in the Ground Climate activists in an election year. As the committee learned during a field hearing, in port arthur, texas, the band has created hardships and pain for thousands of workers and families along the gulf coast. It has made us less secure as a nation. Democrats radical transition plans and the department of energys refusal to accept and address threats facing our Energy Systems has required congress to act. Under the republican majority, the house has passed a Bipartisan Legislation to reign in the department of energy and the Biden Administration. At the beginning of this congress, we passed a bill to modernize our Energy Infrastructure. In the months that followed, we passed bills to reverse punitive regulations and policy decisions that the secretary of energy has signed off on. We passed legislation to reverse the ban on gas stoves and prevent doe from draining our Strategic Petroleum stockpile and selling it to china. And to reverse the moratorium on new export permits. Todays hearing we will allow the Secretary Energy to answer for the Biden Administrations role in american industry and state and the pivotal time in our nations history and the decisions that are made today will impact our kids and grandkids for generations. We have a simple choice, embrace Americas Energy abundance and submit our position as the worlds Number One Energy superpower or follow the Biden Administrations plan to rely china for batteries, solar panels, electric cars made with slave labor and environmental abuses. As it has been said in this committee before, i believe we need an American Energy expansion and not an Energy Transition to china. Critical part of his Energy Expansion is Nuclear Energy. I am pleased with this administrations dedication to expanding Nuclear Energy and i look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in congress and the Biden Administration on advancing that goal. I look forward to the hearing today and i will yield my time back and recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee for five minutes. Thank you and good morning, secretary granholm, great having you with us i want to commend you and your agency for the critical work you have been doing to help combat the Climate Crisis and to support our efforts to speed our transition to renewable energy. As i have said countless times, the Climate Crisis is truly an existential threat to the future of this planet and we have to start addressing it right away. We know the only way to do it is by significantly cutting our Greenhouse Gas emissions as quickly as we can while preserving our economy and our way of life. But, to do that, we have to start the transition to clean energy right now. Breaking our reliance on fossil fuels will not only help us stave off the worst effects of the Climate Crisis, but it will also protect consumers across the country from sudden increases in energy costs and it will make sure that all americans have access to the Reliable Energy that they need. I appreciate your leadership and i appreciate the hard work of the department of energy employees, in implementing three historic bills that are cutting costs to working families, creating new jobs, and addressing the Climate Crisis. The Infrastructure Investment and jobs act provided 1. 2 trillion to our nations infrastructure, the Inflation Reduction Act invested 369 billion in clean American Energy leadership and addressing Greenhouse Gas pollution while the chips and signs to boost the Domestic Research and manufacturing right here in the United States. The department of energy proposed fiscal year 2025 budget complements and builds upon those efforts and pushes us closer to achieving net zero admissions and a clean energy future. By increasing funding for the Research Project and initiatives , and continuing to focus on supplychain development and workforce, the department is helping us create a cleaner and more Diverse Energy portfolio here in the United States. The agencys plans to invest 18. 1 billion for Energy Programs, including 8. 6 billion for science will help advance the research and development and demonstration of Clean Energy Technologies and support the work that is being done by our National Laboratories no doubt we still have a long way to go in completing this clean Energy Transition, the investments that will be made under the budget will provide critical support to this incredibly important endeavor. For example, it would provide 180 million for the office of Clean Energy Demonstrations to support Large Industrial decarbonization projects. It includes 1. 6 billion to support the Clean Energy Workforce and help fund the Infrastructure Projects across the nation. Including millions of dollars to help low income communities weatherize and retrofit their homes to Lower Energy Costs for families that have been forced to disproportionally bear the brunt of this Climate Crisis. Each one of these proposals will play a Critical Role in helping us to control the Climate Crisis. They will also help us not only stabilize the cost of energy at home, but will help lower the cost of energy for Many Americans by making critical new investments to increase Energy Efficiency and drive the innovation of new, Clean Energy Technologies. The budget makes common sense investments in cyber and Energy System security. I note that is important to the chairman and myself, and Environmental Health and management for low income communities, including 142 million for the Energy Information agency whose work provides critical Energy Information and data that involves our work. And it includes 149 billion sorry, Million Dollars for the doe office of the Inspector General to make sure that taxpayer funds are being used efficiently and effectively. I believe that the budget will further support the work d. O. E. Has been doing to make United States a leader in the clean Energy Transition and i once again want to thank you, madam secretary, for being here today. Mr. Chairman, the majority hearing memo had a number of errors when it came to stating components of the fiscal year 2025 budget request. In one situation, it misstated the total amount spent on Energy Programs by 9 billion. You can see it is a lot of little type and numbers. Because i want to make sure that the record is it is the record of his hearing, i want to make sure it reflects reality i would ask unanimous consent to insert the budget estimate by the d. O. E. Into the record. Without objection, so ordered. With that i yield back i recognize the chair, ms. Rodgers. Welcome back. Today is an opportunity to discuss the president s budget and priorities for the department of energy. This committee plays a Critical Role in ensuring u. S. Energy security and leadership. For decades, america has led the way and harness the power of Nuclear Energy, electrified many of Rural Americans homes with clean hydropower and ushered in the shale revolution. Creating millions of new jobs and powering economic prosperity. America was able to achieve this through freemarket principles, entrepreneurship, giving people the opportunity to choose which Energy Sources best suit their needs. Energy and commerce republicans have been working to protect and expand this legacy for generations to come. The Biden Administration seems to be dismantling that legacy. This administrations policies put america on a dangerous path that harms our security and gives our adversaries like china control over our Energy Supply chains. This administration has consistently sought to prevent or slow the development of american oil and Gas Resources which are critical to our own Energy Security and the security of our allies. D. O. E. Has been complicit in these actions with the effective ban on new lng exports american lng has been a lifeline , especially to our european allies since russia invaded ukraine. The aftermath of this invasion, american lng helped them reduce their natural gas crisis by over 83 and reduce their dependence on russia, this ban is a signal to our allies that we are no longer a Dependable Energy partner. We find this unacceptable. Another example is the recent decision to limit Energy Development in more than half the National Petroleum reserve in alaska. Doubling down on policies to restrict oil and gas, to retire baseload Power Generation, and promote widespread and unaffordable and unreliable electrification is not how we secure our energy future. Unfortunately, as americans that are feeling the impact of this radical rush to a green agenda, President Biden took office, since then, electricity prices have risen some 30 . Almost 50 more than overall inflation. Unilateral actions like these taken by the administration continue to drive out affordable , reliable baseload generation needed to keep prices low to keep the lights on, grid operators and others have been sounding the alarm for years, warning that the u. S. Is on a dangerous and unsustainable pathway, continuing down this pathway will mean higher Energy Prices and more catastrophic blackouts across the country. Like what is already happening in places like california. As the head of d. O. E. It is your responsibility to ensure american Energy Security and leadership. Yet, this department continues to stand by and watch as epa imposes requirements that harm our ability to generate reliable power. Is the department ceding its energy and great expertise to the epa . Epa policies, like the new particulate matter standards, will make permitting new manufacturing in industry almost impossible. Impossible. In large regions across the country. I would like to understand why d. O. E. Things we can succeed under these types of anti manufacturing, antiamerican policies which are undermining the very manufacturing programs d. O. E. Supports to help restore American Leadership in Critical Energy materials and reduce our reliance on china. Instead of undermining American Energy and economic success, lets Work Together to build on our remarkable legacy which has transformed the human condition , lifted people out of poverty, raise the standard of living more than any other nation in the world. And the best way to do this is with a Strong Energy mix that takes advantage of the resources we have here at home or cost for americans, preventing us from being reliant on china. This administrations transition believe our economy dangerously dependent upon supply chains controlled by china and make energy less affordable, less reliable, for americans. I believe the department of energy serves a Critical Role in assuring sound Energy Policies and providing the support necessary for innovation to flourish. That is the goal today. I look forward to the department of energy stepping up so that we can accomplish that goal. I yield back. The chair will recognize the Ranking Member of the full committee as a side note, we lost a colleague, and i thought the comments on the floor the other day were apropos and i appreciate that. I will remind my colleagues, if you want to go to the funeral for donald payne, there is a plane on thursday going that will come back the same day. Great to have you before the energy subcommittee. I disagree with the chair in a general sense i do believe you and this administration have done more to achieve Energy Independence than anyone else since i have been here. If you look at the record, the fact of the matter is, this president and you have encouraged Energy Independence by actually increasing the amount of oil and natural gas that is produced here. When you talk about lng , for the record, the reality is, although we have this Public Interest review that is being that you are conducting, the fact is, there are more lng exports than ever before. Anything permitted already is already in the pipeline, and the pipeline is being produced constantly to our allies in europe have enough lng for the next five years. This administration and i take the position that, why we Prioritize Clean Energy and move towards clean energy and renewables, that doesnt mean we are not producing more oil and natural gas, it does not mean we are not exporting more lng , it does not mean we are also trying to increase Nuclear Output and new nuclear plants. I think the energy mix that the chair talked about is exactly what you have been trying to do, all of the above. Energy mix to achieve Energy Independence. We are more independent today than we have ever been in any other previous administration. It is exciting to see the hard work pay off from both the bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act. These laws are expected to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions in the United States to 40 below 2005 levels by 2030 and these two laws are modernizing our economy for the future and cutting costs to working families, advancing Clean Energy Projects across the country, and tackling the Climate Crisis while we try to reduce any dependence on china. And grow our manufacturing here. That d. O. E. Is at the forefront of implementing these laws and new analysis has come out almost every day since the Inflation Reduction Act, companies have moved over 500 Clean Energy Projects leading to over 271,000 new jobs already. I am also pleased that the Biden Administration, unlike the trump administration, is finalizing Energy Efficiency rules to help americans save money and reduce emissions. These recently finalized Energy Efficiency standards for residential refrigerators, freezers, will save families more than 36 million over 30 years while affording 101 Million Metric Tons of carbon emissions. The Committee Republicans continue to target these standards, passing bills that are nothing more than gifts to corporate polluters. We may have one of these bills up as early as next week. It is a shame because people want more efficient appliances. They talk about freedom to have whatever refrigerator you want, i think a freedom, our freedom is a democracy, not the freedom of a refrigerator. Whatever. We are bolstering American Manufacturing with massive investments in domestic manufacturing, but republicans continue to ignore the fact that other countries around the world, including china, are investing in clean energy and enjoying their ability to compete in the global market. Out of secretary, we have seen investments over 120 million under your leadership, in battery manufacturing and supply chains. Over 35 billion in electric Vehicle Assembly plants. These private sectors, essentially, the private sector is responding to action and it is great to see American Companies leaving the transition to clean energy. What you are doing is working with the private sector, using these investments at the federal level to bring back manufacturing here. Looking at this in terms of the Energy Policy that makes us more independent, at the same time, you have to be conscious of the climate and the change that is happening and increasing Greenhouse Gases. We do have to Prioritize Clean Energy and renewables, but not at the expense of the other things. I yield back. We will conclude with Opening Statements, the chair says, all members who make statements will be part of the record. Out of secretary, we will thank you for being here. And taking time to testify. The secretary will give an Opening Statement and we will follow with questions from members. Our witness today is the honorable jennifer granholm, secretary of energy of the United States department of energy. I recognize you for five minutes for the Opening Statement. Thank you so much. I am honored to be with you today to discuss President Bidens latest budget request for the department of energy. Three years ago i joined this administration leaving, if america came together around National Energy strategy, we could restore manufacturing and create jobs, and address the Climate Crisis, and lead the world in clean energy. Today, we are doing just that. America is back. Thanks to congresss efforts and the president s vision, we are executing a focused, deliberate strategy that positions us to become Energy Independent and secure. This strategy positions our businesses to dominate, our workers to compete, and our communities to thrive. It is already working. Since the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure law, companies have announced more than 600 new or expanded Clean Energy Manufacturing plants on american soil. Many of your states are included. Nearly 200 billion in plant investment for batteries, electric vehicles, solar, wind, nuclear, and more. Tens of thousands of jobs being created from colorado to california, from North Carolina to New Hampshire, washington to West Virginia, and everywhere in between. Thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Sustaining that growth requires us to complement that historic funding with durable, longterm investments and the president s budget request for fiscal year 2025 will empower us to build on that progress our commercialization tools are giving american businesses the confidence they need to capitalize on this moment while deepening our Energy Security. But, deepening our Energy Security is an ongoing project and we need to fund it year overyear and that is why the budget calls for significant appropriations for our demonstration and climate programs, including our office of manufacturing and Energy Supply chains. And our grid deployment office. Here, let me thank the chairwoman and this committee for its bipartisan efforts to ban the import of russian uranium. You should feel great about that. I know that the senate acted last night to pass your legislation and it is moving to the president s desk as we speak. That ban will allow the doe to build a more robust, domestic uranium industry through funds provided in the 2024 spending agreement. Meanwhile, the department is making sure every community can benefit from reliable, affordable, clean energy and efficiency technologies and we are leveraging dedicated funding from infrastructure law for our Interagency Working Group on coal and powerplant communities. I have seen, firsthand, how this Program Gives communities the gift of rebirth. It instills pride for the workers who defined Americas Energy passed and will help our america future. This includes a 25 billion for additional the war in ukraine makes it paramount to our National Defense and the security of our allies and that is why i want to thank congress for passing the supplemental appropriations bill last week. This bill also provides 149 million for the activities by the d. O. E. To reduce Nuclear Threats in ukraine and also includes 98 million to shore up supply chains of critical isotopes to much of which our concentrated in russia. These investments make the United States and the world safer. The president has requested 8. 2 billion for our office of Environmental Management which oversees the largest Environmental Cleanup Program in the world. The 25 request will allow us to build on these results and deepen our engagement with local tribes and communities as they plan for the future of those sites and help us recruit and train a new cohort of Legacy Management workers and leaders. Thank you to the bipartisan assistance we have received from congress. America is back. We are the envy of the world. But, we cannot afford to lose our momentum, and that depends on your continued support. Thank you for the opportunity to address you today and i look forward to your questions. Thank you for your testimony and we will move into the question and answer portion. I will begin recognizing myself to five minutes for questions. There is no question United States is staring down on electric reliability crisis, commissioners and grid operators and state commissioners and reliability experts have all testified in this committee about the vulnerable state of our grid and the growing likelihood of blackouts. A commissioner said, there will be in time a catastrophic reliability event. Secretary granholm, do you share these concerns about the state of our grid reliability . I definitely share the concern that the grid is not up to what it needs to be in order to allow us to continue to grow. We know that the man for energy is increasing and the grid is old, old, old. The polls and the wires and the transformers, they need to be replaced. It was built in the 1950s and 1960s in many places and we need to invest in upgrading the grid, and expanding the grid. To do that, we will need to buy more in this country. Critical mining for copper and other components the north American Electric Reliability Corporation and the grid operators have warned about policies to transition americans away from fossil fuels prematurely retiring coal and natural gas power plants and canceling pipelines. Your response with coordinate national Energy Policy, does the administration recognize the premature retirement of electric generation threatens this reliability of our grid . We want to make sure we manage this transition in a way that ensures that the power is on and we continue to move towards clean energy. It is critical that we continue to use the tools at our disposal. We just issued a grid liftoff report which describes some of the tools we have not had in the past to be able to ensure we can add capacity to our grid and harden it. For example, we conduct to put twice the power existing power lines or that we use more grid enhancing technologies to smartly move power on the grid. Or to use new opportunities, tools like virtual power plants to access additional power. In addition to the great opportunity that Congress Gave us in the Inflation Reduction Act to incentivize additional generation of electricity. All of that is happening. We have managed increases in demand in the past and we can manage them Going Forward. To reliability means all the time Power Generation which you dont get from a lot of renewables the lack of Pipeline Capacity to energy constrained regions is also a grid reliability concern. The ceo of iso in new england testified that new england is in desperate need of more Pipeline Capacity even with growth and renewables. South carolina is facing the same issues, acp is canceled, tremendous delays, secretary granholm , you have stated that pipelines are the safest way to transport fuels, whether gas or liquids, i agree with you, pipelines are critical for maintaining it energy reliability. Do you agree that we need to build more pipelines in this country . In some places we will need to build new pipelines and we need to build new pipelines for hydrogen, for the movement of co2, as well as traditional energy. Would you rather utilize natural gas from the Permian Basin or import lng from a foreign country . We dont need to import any natural gas, we have enough supply here. Amen to that. That is why we need pipelines in new england, they are bringing in lng. Thank you for your efforts on Nuclear Energy, reliable generation, and so happy that the chairwomans bill got passed by the senate yesterday and we look forward to the president deciding that this Committee Held a hearing on Nuclear Policy and one issue that came out was the loss of capacity and credibility of the spent fuel program after he dismantled the office dedicated spent fuel management about 14 years ago, the law requires d. O. E. To have a dedicated office to manage spent fuel and nuclear waste, which will help credibly addressed the federal government obligation to strengthen the publics confidence, will you look into resurrecting the office of civilian Radioactive Waste Management to fulfill the statutory duty of d. O. E. Under the Nuclear Policy . Waste policy act . I think our office of Nuclear Energy and office of Environmental Management both new aspects of that. We are interested in spent fuel use and wise storage of spent fuel. Both of those are being addressed in those offices. Thank you. I take it on a no as the resurrection. A fuel management plan, that would be a good first step. I am finished with my questions and i now recognize the Ranking Member for her five minutes, degette. Thank you. I want to talk about methane, reducing methane is probably the easiest and quickest opportunity our nation and world has to address what our planet is experiencing. I want to set the stage. Is it true that methane is responsible for about one third of the current warming our planet is experiencing . Yes. Is it true that oil and natural gas operations are our nations largest industrial source of methane . Yes. In june of 2021, president abided signed a Congressional Review Act validating the trump administrations 2020 methane rescission would try to block the epa authority to regulate methane from existing sources. I was proud to lead this effort on the house side which reinstated two obama era methane emissions rules to set stricter limits on the amount of methane that the oil and gas industry can release from drilling sites. Secretary, i would like to ask, the administrations rule addresses methane from new and existing oil and gas operations , is that right . Yes why is it important to address existing sources of methane in the oil and gas industry . It is such a powerful Greenhouse Gas and we want to make sure in addition, it is waste. It should be captured and used as natural gas. It is wasteful and it contributes to Greenhouse Gases. It is the lowest hanging fruit for how we can address Climate Change. Right. I talk to the oil and gas companies, the responsible ones, they say, if we can capture the methane, we can make a profit, why should we let it go into the air . Exactly right. They see it, the oil and gas industry, the majors particularly see it as an opportunity for them, and many of them have taken steps to do that. Last december, the department of energy announced conditional approval of 12. 6 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to colorado to the department of Natural Resources to help measure and reduce methane emissions. In january, the department of energys Loan Programs Office announced a conditional commitment of funding to long past technologies which are in boulder, colorado, just north of my district, to support the creation and installation of realtime methane emissions monitoring that works across multiple states. I am interested in how this works. How would the realtime monitoring of methane support the administrations methane reduction goals . First of all, your Methane Emissions Technology Evaluation Center in colorado at Colorado State got a 25 million award to be able to help us do just that. There are a number of entities that are trying to identify the best ways, using the next generation technology, to identify. We have a number of Companies Invested in to do that i know that edf has put a satellite into the air. Methane sat to do that real time detection and reporting because reporting is an important part so we know where the leaks are and if the entity responsible for that pipeline or that flavoring is not taking advantage of it, the public entities should be able to go and say, you need to button this down. Super important. Methane leak detection, mitigation, reporting, validation, are all important strategies and colorado is at the center of it. As per usual. Switching gears, we heard a lot last year about worstcase scenarios if d. O. E. Finalized efficiency standards for distribution transformers. But, d. O. E. Has finalized the distribution transformer efficiency standard. From my perspective, the reaction from industry seems to indicate they are okay with this can you elaborate on how the final vote shows how the process and guardrails established for efficiency standards under the Energy Policy conservation act . I so appreciate this question. This is a great thing about our government. It allows for us to propose a potential role, to get stakeholder feedback, and to modify the rule based upon that feedback for final rule. That is what happened in the distribution transformer case. We wanted to make sure there is enough of the green oriented electric steel for distribution transformers in the United States. That was how the final rule came out. Yes, industry was happy. We have a good balance to be able to achieve efficiency, but also ensure that we are manufacturing the distribution transformers in the United States. Thank you. I recognize ms. Rodgers for five minutes. Thank you again for being here, secretary granholm, i want to start with Nuclear Policy and we appreciate you joining in recognizing and celebrating the bill heading to the president s desk to ban the import of uranium from russia. I believe this is very important in sending the signal to the market that america is committed to restoring our Nuclear Leadership and having a strong and secure supply chain in the United States. I look forward to working with you to make sure that we limit that ban in a way that will strengthen our industry. Also, i wanted to shift to reliability, electric reliability. With this force transition in place across the board. Electric reliability is a challenge facing many people. Many states. Many regions of the country new york is issuing warnings too much of the country to anticipate brownouts, blackouts. Unfortunately, we see this force retirement a baseload generation impacting reliability. I wanted to ask, because this is getting worse, alarm bells were ringing in 2021 and it has gotten worse. The law requires you, secretary of energy, to coordinate national Energy Policy would you agree this involves federal actions that affect Electricity Supply and delivery . Yes. Are you comfortable allowing epa to take actions that effectively dictate the Electricity Generation mix and the Energy Policies of nations our nation in many states . We have signed a memorandum of understanding with epa and have worked with them on their standards. I am very comfortable with what they have proposed and that is doable and it will in fact increase our Energy Security. Epa just issued new standards for Power Generators that rely upon the deployment of Carbon Capture technology, claiming these technologies have been adequately demonstrated. This is in direct conflict with the department of Energy Programs which required by congress to approve the Carbon Capture technology can work at scale in the power sector, which has not happened. Should epa be proposing standards based upon technology that d. O. E. Has not yet shown to be adequately demonstrated in the power sector . We believe Carbon Capture technology is Proven Technology and is being demonstrated for example at the petrol nova facility in texas, that has been up for a long time. What has not been chemistry is there has not been a price on carbon which made it worthwhile for private sector to step into this until now with the bipartisan infrastructure lot and the infrastructure reduction act, now a price on carbon that makes that industry worthwhile looking into and we are excited about that and excited about demonstration progress in this new environment that our office is setting up. There are many anxious to get going. I want to shift gears a little bit here. There is growing concern about what is going on in our college and University Campuses around antisemitism and the protests. These same colleges and universities benefit from millions and millions of dollars , federal taxpayer dollars, including the department of energy which has issued hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and assistance to american universities. For fiscal year 2022, over 900 million went to colleges and universities. Is there a central database, can you tell me how much money Columbia University has gotten from the department of energy . I dont have that figure in front of me but i can get back to you. That would be helpful because , i believe it is important, this committee will be taking action to ensure these funds are complying with all applicable laws, including our civil rights act. Another challenge is, we seem to be continuing to lose our Competitive Edge to china. When it comes to the supply chain issues on green energy. Last year, d. O. E. Found a lack of sufficient guardrails safeguards for intellectual property at the National Labs, specifically in Licensing Technology to companies with foreign owners. In light of the issues raised in the report, i wanted to ask why d. O. E. Has not conducted a similar view of licensing practices at universities and other Research Entities . Any entity that gets funding or partners with us on research, we have a very robust engagement with about what is a threat to us as taxpayers, about protecting our intellectual property. We have set up an entire ecosystem inside that d. O. E. To make sure that our intellectual property and our taxpayer dollars are protected. We are deeply troubled and any information we are deeply troubled with what is going on on College Campuses and detailed information you can give the committee would be appreciated. I am sure we will be following up. Thank you. I now go to the Ranking Member, mr. Pallone, for five minutes. Thank you. The lng issue, d. O. E. Possibly will for applications, there has been republican misinformation about this, they call it a ban. They mentioned it as a been in two separate hearings yes or no on this, on each of these four questions, for the record, is the update by d. O. E. To the Public Interest a ban on lng exports . No. Are lng exports impacted . No. Our future lng export already permitted impact . No. Do you expect i have one more yes or no, do you expect the pause and the subsequent update of the Public Interest in or to impact the amount of natural gas available to our european allies in the near or immediate term . No. I will ask you more broadly, briefly discuss whether or not lng exports raise Natural Gas Prices for American Consumers . Thank you for the question because that is one of the issues the update will examine. We currently produce just over 100 bcf of natural gas in the United States. We have authorized for export 48 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The question is, if all authorized was built out and was exported, what would that do to price it at home for our consumers and manufacturers . That is one of the issues under review. I appreciate that. You stressed affordability in your Opening Statement and that is the key issue. This committee and across the board, healthcare, energy, use of affordable connectivity for the internet. I think it is clear from your answers that republicans are misleading the public about the administrations lng policy and the facts. But these republican tactics are nothing new, we are seeing the same thing when it comes to Energy Efficiency standards. As you know, republicans push bills that we understand they are coming up next week, that targeted doe ability to set Energy Conservation standards for appliances to again Lower Energy Costs for American Families you are trying to lower costs. Secretary, 10 try not obligate no. That is what i thought. Can you elaborate on that d. O. E. Process or setting efficiency standards . We have come under the act, we have been doing this since 1975. We produced efficiency standards , make recommendations for efficiency standards on over 60 products of appliances, as a result of the Congress Passage of this law and the Energy Policy and conservation act, we have saved consumers trillions of dollars, and just one example, if you purchase a refrigerator today, it is half of the price of what it was in 1975. It has 20 more Storage Capacity and it uses one quarter the energy as a result of these standards. We have more models than ever before. Dont underestimate, to those who criticize us, the incredible ingenuity of the private sector, to reach the standards and provide consumers with lowercost appliances and more efficient appliances. My last question, what are the benefits, you have talked about the benefits of appliance efficiency standards, we know the republicans are trying to upend the successful program, but what is at risk if republicans succeed in upending your Appliance Efficiency Program . What is the consequence . Our effort is to save energy and to save money on behalf of consumers, we are obsessed with reducing energy use and prices for people. Consumers can save on average 500 per year by upgrading their appliances, that helps save a lot of people a lot of money. I would worry about eliminating any of this effort. We dont want to increase prices. I appreciate that. Industry supports these efforts more efficiency. People who oppose it are the republicans in congress from what i can see. Thank you very much and i yield back. I now recognize dr. Burgess for five minutes. I will submit questions about lng in writing because i want clarity in the interest. I want to point out that, four years ago, the cost of the price of crude oil was pretty low. There was an effort, a bipartisan effort in this committee, myself and representative fletcher houston, senator corner senator cornyn, to suggest the Petroleum Reserve could be topped off all the cost of crude oil was at historic lows. This was the client the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, Chuck Schumer in the senate, and not accomplished. However, two years later, we saw a massive selloff in the Strategic Petroleum reserve, not because of a national emergency, but a perceived political emergency by the administration, they were worried about the performance in the midterm elections. They bog down the price at the pump for my consumers after they had driven it up with Energy Policies instituted by this administration. To my observation now, there really isnt an attempt to put those barrels back in the Strategic Petroleum reserve. Is that correct . No. Let me clarify for you. A couple things you said that are inaccurate. Number one, the reason why the president ordered the sale of 180 Million Barrels from the Strategic Petroleum reserve was because russia invaded ukraine there was a crunch, a complete collapse of the ability to access let me stop you. We will differ on geopolitical events. Russia invaded ukraine because of the collapse of the administrations policy in afghanistan and make ukraine an attractive target. Nevertheless, there was an effort by the administration to reduce the price at the pump. Again, the emergency really did not exist then. The emergency, though, maybe on our doorstep without dangerous the world has become and we are less in a position to respond to now a real and acute emergency because of the fact you drew it down in 2022. First, we have the largest Strategic Petroleum reserve still in the world. The president ordered the 180 Million Barrels sold because of a global emergency. There was a global effort to put more supply on the market in addition to what the United States did. We have begun a strategy of refilling. I will say that congress has ordered more barrels to be released from the Strategic Petroleum reserve through congressional mandatory sales for budget purposes then the president did. Thank you to congress for canceling 140 million of those ordered mandatory sales but another 100 million we will have to sell because of congressional action as well. Do you agree or disagree that the world is a dangerous place . Absolutely. More so than any time in my laptop and i lifted the cold war, i cannot remember a time where world events may be as tenuous as they are today, a simple miscalculation on someones part could really put us in a position where the United States is in grave danger. I want us to continue to focus on filling that Strategic Petroleum reserve and the state of texas is willing to contribute and we are always willing to step up. One other question before i run out of time, the president s budget for the department of energy, roughly what . The all in . How much money does the president want . 51. 4 billion. I am also on the Budget Committee and am acutely aware of the fact that we are in a budget crisis in this country, our deficit is at levels unsustainable. The 51 billion requested in the budget, does that take into account the cost of borrowing that money and the debt service on that money . Are there constant value dollars that are put into this calculation . I am certain it does because that is part of the president overall budget. I dont think that it does and i think we are asked to spend 51 billion that is going to have to come from somewhere else and not being offset. For example, why not take it from some of the Green New Deal provisions that were included in the Inflation Reduction Act so that we dont have to borrow this money from china and our children and grandchildren pay it back . Congress has directed us to be able to spin the funding and to be able to address Climate Change, that we can be more Energy Secure as a nation and that is what we are doing, we are fulfilling the obligations by congress. Strategic change in policy will be necessary and i hope the country delivers in november. I yield back. I recognize mr. Peters for five minutes. I want to start by applauding you and present body for implementation of the ira. The administrations has leverage 649 billion of private investment in American Energy and manufacturing, we can all agree that is fantastic. We can do more. While 2023 was the strongest year on record, for combined u. S. Solar, wind, storage and elation, we lack far behind china, dwarfing us in all those categories and building out the grid. We are facing extraordinary growth in Energy Demand electric vehicles, also from ai , data centers, and domestic manufacturing, thanks to the effort of the biden and his administration. We will not be able to meet this Energy Demand nor our climate goals under the current permitting regime in this country. That is why i was happy to see the recent actions on permitting over the last few weeks through the coordinated interagency transmission authorizations like permits programs, these strong steps should move the needle on permitting for critically needed Energy Infrastructure. I think we should be celebrating those steps on both sides of the aisle. I want to specifically focus on the permits effort to energize permitting or expediting permitting for solar and storage technologies, undisturbed lower conflict areas. Can you talk about what you have done so far and what congress can do to give you Additional Authority to do more . Thank you for your leadership on this. While we can do what we can with administrative powers, we are grateful for the effort to try to seek a bipartisan solution on permitting reform. We have been doing a number of things, as you say, cutting more than half to two years for permitting on public transmission, very important and that corresponds with the fiscal responsibility act to cut permitting times while still preserving the ability and intent under neepa to ensure our environment is protected. Looking at ways to use categorical exemptions and making sure that we are not requiring doubling the effort at permitting and nipa reviews when it is not necessary, your footprint or only expanded minimally and important to be able to use them on the tools that allow us to reconduct, the tools that allow us to enhance technology to transmission so we can get more power, more smartly across the transmission lines. We are looking at all of those ways to be able to do what we can to move power and cut down on permitting times. But, i know there are other ideas that congress has been working with and we are supportive of whatever can happen. One other thing i would add, we have just been given funding through the permanent council, department of energy has come to use ai to be able to do permitting for nipa. If we can use Artificial Intelligence to create an efficient permitting regime, that is another step that we can take so we dont wait 10 years for a transmission line to be permitted. I have often preserved that the loss in the 1970s were built for defense, today, as Climate Action advocates, we have been tasked with building a love stuff, offshore wind, solar, hydrogen pipelines, we have to figure out ways to make it go faster. I would encourage you to figure about preapprovals for particular for technologies we have been doing well and for disturbed areas, not a concert we are disturbing environment resource. Any thoughts . Exactly right those are the ideas we should be pursuing. I will run out of time for a budget question, i will ask you and we will submit questions for the record so you can respond more fully. About the quantity of personnel, we will need to do analysis under existing permit regime. I have estimates of 30,000 to 60,000 new products because of what congress and the president have done to these laws. How will we pay for that . What will it cost . Personnel. Will we be able to hire folks and in a challenge labor market. Im running out of time, i will put those in writing. Gentleman yields back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Madam, secretary, thank you for being with us. I want to focus on nuclear as a source of generation and this is the source of the committee. Our chair is prohibiting russia and uranian imports that passed on unanimous consent last night in the senate. Not only does this legislation put in into the russia, iranian imports but also gives 5. 27 billion to ramp up fuel production through the Nuclear Fuel Security act and the ability to incentivize a market for advanced fuels. It will also have the ability to strengthen the fuel infrastructure of the existing fleet. Madam secretary, do you believe the doe understands how the volume and selling of fuels and fuel services in the private market can distort that market when it starts implementing the program . I think we are aware of market dynamics. We have a team that is focused on doing this well. Im happy to work with you on whatever Congress Needs to do. I think we have the tools necessary to make sure that we build up this uranium strategy in this country so that we are secure. That is my followup. It will be harmful if we take actions to make matters worse. Will you report to this committee about your plans . Absolutely. Thank you. There have been headlines in the paper the last couple of days that the dominion chief executive expects it to increase 5 each year for the next 15 years and they recognize they will need more natural gas in order to keep the lights on. Another article from the wall street journal on april 30th that duke energy reported that they will need three new gas fired power plants in the carolinas, otherwise they will have to keep the coal plants wall street journal article and other papers reporting this , just this week, the interNational Energy agency, the u. S. Data Center Electricity consumption can rise 4 in 2022 to 6 in 2026. A i could add 8 . Last december , someone asked the question, how much more energy they thought they would have to have if the president s idea of going all electric 2025 but it would be another 4. 5 i think that was too low. The question is, do you believe this country needs more energy or less energy . More energy. Thank you. Another question that has come up, especially when we talk pjm, 2014, we had a huge polar vortex move across the u. S. My district with a massive amount of manufacturing jobs, we had a situation, the question was we were going to black out the state of ohio. Fortunately we are in a situation where all power stations across was at maximum production and we did not have a blackout. Not long after that situation occurred, i asked pjm, if we had the same situation today, could we sustain what we did at that point . Again, with steel production, everything you cannot shut down and they said it would not be a problem. As the years have progressed, we have seen a change in opinion. Pjm on their website talks about a need for more power production. When i asked the same question recently, what would happen if we had the same situation as the polar vortex in 2014, they said, we could sustain what we have, but going in the future the likelihood we will not be able to do it. I guess the question comes down to, are you concerned about all of the retiring generation stations we have in the United States today . Knowing how long it takes to get generation up. Especially the baseload capacity that we have to have. Are you concerned about those generation plants . Thank you for that question. It is really important. I know we can get 20 to 100 gigawatts on the existing system just by deploying some of these technologies that we have not availed ourselves of at this moment and they are much faster than waiting for the building of a new power plant, like re conducting wires, virtual powerplants, like making sure we have grid enhancing technology, that is number one. Number two, because of the work of congress, we now have the incentives to put clean power onto the grid, we saw, last year, 40 gigawatts of additional power added to the nations electric grid. Another 65 gigawatts i planned to be added this year. We need to do both. We need to add new power, baseload power is important, that is why energy storage, something that did not exist during the polar vortex stage, is available now through utility grid storage. All of those tools will help to make sure that the lights stay on. I will say that the polar vortex is an example of what we will continue to get hit with because of Climate Change, honestly. The number of extreme weather events across the country, last year over billiondollar events were 28. Every year it has continued to climb. Events are becoming more frequent and more extreme and we have a old grid. There is no doubt we need to continue to invest in the grid itself, in addition to making sure that generation is there. Mr. Chair, my time has expired, i yield back. The gentleman yields back, i will now moved to my friend from texas. Thank you mr. Chairman, thank you madam secretary for your testimony really focusing on bipartisan accomplishments and shared goals as well as more broadly your leadership and looking to the future and developing policies and programs to ensure that the United States remains the world leader in energy production, in innovation and technology, in Emissions Reductions and and exports. This is particularly important to me and the people i represent in houston who have been glad to welcome you will times to our city. It is Energy Capitol the world and we intend to keep it that way. Before i get to my questions for you, i want to note, we are seeing, in houston, some of the investments and programs you are talking about from the investment jobs act and Inflation Reduction Act and we are thrilled at the high velocity hub in houston will receive 1. 2 billion to expand the hydrogen industry. As you know, that is really centered in houston. It has the majority of the larger share of hydrogen existing today and it is growing. I want to circle back to that with my questions. I want to note that the loan program, that is absolutely transformative, that is headquartered in my district as well as the technology that got 200 million for decarbonization and in the chemical sector. These are really important and i just want to thank you for your leadership in rolling out these programs so quickly and consistent with the vision of congress and making these things happen. I do want to circle back. Before i get to that, i do want to address some of the comments that we heard this morning and what friends from the other side of the aisle keep count calling. Mr. Burgess asked about it, i was at the hearing in port arthur, texas a few weeks ago and i am hearing concerns from the people who live and work in my district about the prospects for lng experts and their ability to plan. Following up on some of the questions, i think it would be helpful for you to share with us your anticipated timeline for doe completion of the review. The review should be completed by the end of this year and the beginning of next year. Thank you, that is helpful. I want to go back to the doe programs because i want to ask about the Hydrogen Program as well. In february, seven of the Hydrogen Hubs wrote a letter to the Treasury Department expressing concerns about the 45 v tax credit guidance that the treasury issued. In the letter they said the hubs are not able to fully materialize and the Hydrogen Market is not going to be able to take off without output from existing sources qualifying for 45 the. I recognize treasury is responsible for this guidance and not the department of energy, i would like to know your thoughts on this issue and how you are working with other departments in the administration to address this to ensure the hub success. This is a really important question. There are a series of questions that have to be answered in 45v, and the guidance , treasury is working on it so i cannot say much. As a whole government we want the hubs to be successful. Thank you. I do think it is important to get that guidance from those who are working on it and really incorporate that realworld experience. We also want this to be successful. In the time i have left i want to associate myself with the comments that mr. Peters made about the importance of permitting. Earlier today he mentioned the need to construct new hydrogen and co2 pipelines. When it comes to the development of those pipelines, the developers often cite to me and to us that challenges are one of the biggest impediments to deployment. Talk about how doe tends to work proactively with permitting agencies to address the challenges in the permitting space when it comes to carbon management. Thanks for that and i know some of this is outside the purview of the department of energy, wells and pipelines are done by other agencies, however, we do have a whole government approach of getting these projects done. It is critical that we see permitting reform that gives, that causes minds to focus around a deadline, it is important. It is important as well that we have one lead agency over these permits so that developers do not have to go and find different agencies or different nepa reviews , that we coordinate and use one document and one agency. That is all that the administration is proposing is to move it forward. As i was saying to congressman peters, it would be great to have the durability of permitting reform from congress as well. Thank you for that. Thank you so much. I have got over my time so i yield back. I will go to mr. Walberg for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you the secretary. I just came from questioning secretary sue. I guess im primed for secretary sprayed im hoping your answers will be fuller and more complete than hers. I am not cursing the project. Under President Biden the department of energy has completely shifted its mission regarding Energy Security reliability and affordability. The Department Spending sways heavily towards renewables and the Administration Overall anti fossil policy will increase cost for consumers and crowd out opportunity for expanding nuclear and events fossil fuel technologies necessary for American Manufacturing resurgence. President biden says he wants everything made in america but his of our mental and Energy Policies the opposite. As the chair noted earlier, manufacturing is not the only thing impacted. Retail rates for our constituents are also going up significantly surpassing the rate of inflation. I just have to look at the wall street journal article and found electricity prices increased by 30 since 2021. 80 higher than the overall inflation rate, that was the case. Families are paying more and what are they getting out of it . The department has set aside billions for interstate transmission projects that served renewable goals of differing states. However, those projects have faced serious delays or have been canceled. By one developers own admission the project was not viable. Transmission build out necessitates increases in retail rates that Everyday Americans have to pay. Madam secretary, how do you justify those costs as you push build out based on Political Goals and not reliability or economics . Why should taxpayers pay for these projects that are not viable on their own . First, nice to see you. We need to make sure we have a reliable grid. I agree. Right now to you sees across the country are putting on rate payers the cost of making the grid reliable and shoring it up. It was built in the 50s and 60s and it is old and a lot of these utilities go to the pucs other rate base. One thing we discussed previously was to have this be part of a infrastructure project, a National Infrastructure project that we take on as a nation to have a reliable grid through, for example, investment tax credits for building up the grid. We do not have that. That is one reason why prices are going up. The president and the administration is obsessed about lowering prices. That is why the focus has been on what can we do, in the scheme of things lower the cost. We saw lowering prices take place before this a ministration took office and they were going down significantly. You cannot compare anything that happens today with what happened four years ago because we were in the middle of a pandemic and everything dropped through the floor. Legitimate comparison is before that. No doubt, before that there was still investment in grid, not as much as is necessary. We need a bigger investment in our National Grid and we need to have it paid for. That is where promoting the opportunity of the free market, of our private sectors to do the jobs that they are capable of doing without the excessive regulation and i would say, respectfully, interference from the federal government that just is not working. That is why tax credits are a great thing. They are government enabled and private sector led. And taxpayer supported bridge yes, of course. The infrastructure that we need, the roads we drive on they are paid for by the taxpayers. The mandate that we have, jumping to that area and the Grid Security that you have mentioned, based on the success of the ira and the iha as well as consumer restricting solutions, forgive me if im skeptical of those two entities at the white house also estimated that these will help build 500,000 ev charging stations by 2030. In the last two years they have built seven. How do we complete that . And what does that mean to the citizen . Number one, we are at 170,000 charging stations driven by the private sector at the moment, the goal is to get to 500,000. The electric Vehicle Initiative was doing, it was to give funding to the states to be able to fill in the gaps where the private sector has not gone. In order to do that, that means a charging station is going somewhere where it has not been, where there may not be electricity because they are filling in a gap. Seven gaps it takes 18 months on average to get the electricity, the planning and the permitting for one charging station. Now all of them have gotten their money, i have 35 states that have released solicitation for the installation thats my lets reduce the time. It is all on the states. I continue to press on governors and offices to make this happen. Gentlemens time has expired. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Welcome madam secretary. Every year i lead efforts in the house to support robust funding for doe clean vehicle programs, like the Vehicle Technology office and the Loan Program Office advanced Tech Knowledge he and vehicle manufacturing program. These programs help to drive innovation with zero Mission Emission help to bring a new boom in American Manufacturing. I was glad to see funding for both of these fundings in the president s budget. These programs in combination with the Inflation Reduction Act provides muchneeded support for domestic manufacturing of vehicles and vehicle batteries, including tax credits for consumers looking to buy americanmade cars and manufacturers looking to build factories in the u. S. Madam secretary, can you describe how doe is supporting American Auto manufacturing . And how the Inflation Reduction Act is creating good paying jobs across the country. I am so delighted to answer that question because it is working. Take you for your support and leadership in electric vehicles and batteries. The goal is to get electric vehicle made here and the battery made here and the guts to the battery, meeting the full supply chain. In the battery there is some separator material and electoral like, all of it are pieces to the supply chain. All of those are things that are coming back to the United States to be manufactured here. We have now 400 companies that have announced they are expanding in either ev or batteries in the United States. Pockets all across the country. I know she is not here, in moses lake, washington there are four ev battery makers and the bipartisan infrastructure law to get that manufacturing back home and to have us compete with our economic adversaries across the world. Thank you. Weve seen incredible technological changes in the vehicle market, the cost of ev batteries has plummeted by 80 and there are 30 ev models in the us with 300 miles of range. How is doe working to support innovation in vehicle batteries . And how will that impact the price of evs . Innovation is could call, we have 70 National Labs. A number of them are focused on reducing the price and looking at ev batteries and the research into substitute materials for the could go minerals that may cause prices to be higher, range has significantly expanded and the prices drop significantly because of research and Development Done by doe labs or our partners in the private sector. That investment is benefiting citizens enormously because now the price of driving ev compared to an internal Combustion Engine is astonishing. If you fill up because of these new batteries, if you fill up your tank, your average tank, it costs 45, if you drive and ev the same amount of time and plugin and at home it costs you 15. If you use a fast charger it may cost up to 30 but either way you are saving huge amounts of money on operating that vehicle because of the technology embedded in these next generation batteries. Representative rochester and i are supporting funding for range of Energy Efficiency programs. Energy efficiency not only saves americans money but is essential for meeting our growing energy needs. Many utilities across the country are projecting in the near future, energy can and should buy a significant role and blunting demand. How is the Technology Office working to improve efficiency and reduce Energy Demand . A number of ways they are doing that. Number one is to do research into materials you can build a building with that reduce your energy use or generate energy, number 2, the technologys through our Energy Efficiency and renewable Energy Office focuses on conservation standards have saved taxpayers 3 trillion by 2,030 as a result of the technology. The private sector and labs across the country have come up with to respond to those higher goals of more efficiently. Combination of policy and innovation and technology has created a huge benefit for the american consumer. The chair of the oversight investigation subcommittee. Thank you, mister chairman. Madam secretary, i represent one of the most economically stressed Congressional Districts in the country. Average Household Income is barely over 50,000, thats Household Income, not individual. People are hurting because in large measure high energy costs. It is not just gasoline. A lot of times when people hear that, they think it is the gas at the pump. Its also electricity. Utilities are constantly asking for rate increases. Im getting constant complaints about it. The reason they are asking for rate increases is, in part, because they are switching at the behest of the epa to more expensive fuels, switching away from coal and natural gas to wind and solar and at the same time, the ratepayers are still having to pay, the same people out there struggling and working hard are having to pay for facilities that were built 20 years ago with 50 year Life Expectancy and those facilities are costing the stranded assets of the utilities have to be paid for and the ratepayers are paying it but dont have the money to. This is not just doe requirements, its epa too so i dont want to be unfair, but if you were sitting in my shoes what would you tell people of the Congressional District of virginia when i call you up and tell you they cant afford to pay their electric bill at their house anymore . Thanks for the question. I totally sympathize with this, especially folks who have lower incomes, trying to figure out how they are going to make ends meet and the utility bill keeps going up. You were out of the room but i was describing one of the main reasons for this is because we have a terribly old grid and these utilities are wanting to rate base the price of upgrading the transmission lines, the grid and the distribution lines and distribution transformers etc. The price of renewable energy, actually cheaper, solar is the cheapest form of energy right now, cheaper than coal cheaper than natural gas. Natural gas is very low but it shows you natural gas is superlow right now, the price of natural gas, but the price of energy bills have not come down even though we rely heavily on natural gas for 40 of our energy mix. It tells you that there saying Something Else going on. He would agree it is not just the grid. Its having to buy new sources of energy and to get the new source of energy to the grid is different than the old baseload power plants that use natural gas or coal because they have to be more dispersed around the countryside and as a result, that is part, not the only reason but part of the reason for the grid increase and the fact that they are still paying for fossil fuel Power Electric generation that was built 20 years ago or 30 years ago but still has 2030 years of Life Expectancy and because of regulations from the federal government, not just doe, dont want to say it is all of yours but because of that, thats a big chunk of why the prices are going up even if solar is cheaper, and i dispute that, i dont agree, we will talk about that another time but even if i accept that principle, they are having to invest, the Utility Companies are having to invest in office new facilities when they have perfectly good facilities the ratepayers are already paying for. Natural gas is not affected, existing natural gas is not affected by the epa rule, the epa rule does not touch natural gas. Oncall plants it requires in five Years Technology of Carbon Capture to be installed so they are not polluting. Many of the coal plants that have shut down her shutdown because they are not finding it financially viable for them and they have chosen to close down because it is not something people arent demanding cold. Its not financially viable because of government regulations. Let me say this. It is something that i think about, not everywhere in my district but theres large part of my district where people have coal in their backyards. We even had a member of this committee one time who owned a house with a coal mine in the basement. When the prices get high enough they are going to find a way to heat their home. Its going to be would most likely and most of my district, or it is going to be call, but one of the problems i think sometimes the administration has a hard time understanding is people are going to figure out a way to heat their homes, hopefully safely but not always the case and when you dont have any other choice and you dont have the money to pay the big bill, might be fine for the rich folks but not fine for the people i represent, i yield back. Chairman yields back. I go to mr. Tonko. Thank you for work to implement the infrastructure and placement, jobs act and Inflation Reduction Act, you and other leaders at the agency and the employees are devoted consummate professionals and its much appreciated. We know that if these historic funds are invested effectively they will have a major impact on making us a stronger, cleaner, more competitive economy, one of the greatest overlooked benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act is it will save americans considerable amounts of money, one way consumers will experience those savings most directly is through two new Rebate Programs which will be administered through state governments. New york state, the first in the country to be approved for these funds. People may have a hard time wrapping their heads around a one hundred 58 billion opportunity. Maybe you can help. When new yorkers see reports that they will soon be able to access rebates and other Energy Efficient upgrades can you tell us what it will be for those consumers . Thanks for being the example of states in the pipeline looking at what new york has done and consumers will be able to access rebates for things like heat pumps or induction stoves or insulation or efficient windows or efficient doors. In addition to being able to access tax credits for Generating Energy like solar panels which i wanted to kick back to representative Griffiths Point about people not having options but because of the Inflation Reduction Act and the buy parts and infrastructure law particularly for people of modest means, the ability to install solar, the ability to generate your own energy at home, or very mineral price, gives you Energy Security, is one thing that consumers across the country can take advantage of. These two programs, one is called here and one is called home, bottom line is they both ensure citizens no matter what your income can take advantage of rebates and make your home more efficient. Up to 1700 for home if you want to install this efficient equal intent that can save 30 on your energy bill. I understand each States Program will operate little differently. Can you tell us how a state may choose to run this program . This is all being funded through the state Energy Offices. Every state can organize it in a way that best suits them. New york had an advantage because they already had a program set up that enabled them to build into their existing Rebate Program but what we expect is particularly for Home Appliances either the installer who comes to your home giving you a discount at the deck of installation or if you by your appliance at an appliance warehouse that you will get that rebate at the point of sale. It takes money off at the point you are required to pay so it makes a little easier. Theres another program that gives you a tax credit for those who have incomes to have Tax Liability can take advantage of that at tax time but for most people it will be at the point of sale. What is the best way for consumers to find out if they are eligible . You can go to our website energy. Gov slave. And encourage people to do that. Getting the word out to new yorkers, will there be funds to help oversee these rebates with weatherization assistance programs, how important is that administrative funding . We want to make sure people are aware of the program and are administered well. We appreciate the fact theres been administered additional adventure to funds in a 24 budget for these programs and if we want them to work well you need people to make sure taxpayers are protected and take advantage of it. Could go minerals, on another topic, our foundational to clean Energy Transition. Yesterday congressman garrett graves and i introduced Bipartisan Legislation of Critical Materials trace act, doe support digital identifiers, clean Energy Technology, to enable accurate reporting of each products critical mineral components, sources, and manufacturing, private sector, leading the way in this sort of the relevant often referred to as battery task force. Could doe and meth play a role in ensuring critical mineral supply chains are secure . Absolutely and we look forward to working with you on that legislation. We will be in contact with the agency but thank you thank you thank you. I yield back. Chairman yields back. I go to the chair of the health subcommittee. Thank you for being here, appreciate you being here. Last time you were here i remember we talked about ev and ev mandates coming forward. Being former governor of michigan, great appreciation for the American Automotive industry moving forward. In my concern, that the ev mandates, going to make inefficient to the automotive industry, for example after the Inflation Reduction Act forward Motor Company made a decision to build two battery plants, now that the market is moving forward they will go forward with, finishing both, Going Forward with one and you hear dealers talk about people dont want the cars now and the issue, you are experiencing, jim farley had experience of having access to batteries, Battery Charging so this gets to my question. Every time we bring up we are going to go to electric cars mandate but dont have enough charging, dont have enough lithium, all this stuff, we get called naysayers in the system but they are real issues for real people when they make decisions whether or not to buy a car. You can call us naysayers but if i am somebody who wants to buy an electric car got to figure out how far can i go on and that it does factor to them. The epa is moving forward with the rule. As secretary of energy, director of the overall Transportation Energy strategy are you concerned we are moving too fast with evs given a year later we see that some of our Automotive Companies have made decisions not to build as much as they had predicted they would last year . Im not concerned that we are moving too fast, we are seeing a great uptick in evs, theres a 30 increase yearoveryear which any automaker would be happy to have but we also know that as new products come online, and got to make sure the ecosystem surrounding the makes people comfortable so thats why the charging infrastructure is so important we are working on that and that is why making sure we have longrange in the batteries is very important and we are working on that so we can get a 300 mile plus battery and have that vehicle be affordable. This is why the Inflation Reduction Act a 300 mile battery with charging stations, if you talk to car dealers they say they cant sell them. That is the concern. I think people will purchase electric cars as we move into the future, they are pretty good product but forcing it to happen this quickly as it is happening without the market deciding that, the other thing, we have to have minerals, benchmark Mineral Intelligence estimates 380 new mines are needed over the next decade and other Clean Energy Technologies. What is the doe working with the Biden Administration to make sure we have permits to mine. First of all, yesterday, the Loan Program Office announced it was open for business for mining, extraction for those who want to do that which is very important. Have to get them permitted. We are talking about that over here with representative peters about the importance of permitting and i would say as well the importance of updating the mining act which would make that are much more easy, we can do sustainable mining in this country but our act and permitting has been woefully behind the scenes. Permitting reforms it will be great, its a good to do on your list. I agree with you on that as well. Sorry i had to step out for another meeting but you talked about we need to update our poles and transmission, polls power, transformers and so forth but also Power Generation is important and my concern, dot entered mou with epa, a lot of letters, to address Reliability Risk from ebas actions but the real concern, ive had people in the Power Industry saying increase in demand and not permitting, not creating enough generation moving forward but also taking generation out, plants with useful life out because people dont like their source of generation. The question is how can we ensure that we have ample supply of power as we move forward in terms of generation and the question is should we be taking plants with useful life out of production now that we know we need more demand . The epa rule does not touch natural gas. Existing natural gas plants also called generation plants. Yes but on the call side, it has life ahead of it. It can exist with Carbon Capture technology and there are ways to finance that Carbon Capture technology so that has life. I will say that the Inflation Reduction Act is incentivized a huge amount of generation as well including 40 gigawatts last year to came online, 81 of which was clean solar, 60 gigawatts projected this year coming online and in addition to that, tools i was discussing before you were here, tools like reconducting and virtual power plants and storage and grid advancing technology can add 100 gw to the system, we just issued a grid. Thanks for the answer but i am out of time. The gentlemans time is expired. Now to doctor schrier for five minutes. Thank you for being here today. I want to give you a big thank you and shout out for recognizing the Pacific Northwest potential for a hydrogen hub with the opportunity to develop the robust industry, for the alternative fuel that is extremely important in these sectors such as heavy duty vehicles and also base load and the emergency generation of the energy grid variability and disruptions become increasingly common. The hydrogen hub will allow the Pacific Northwest to produce the greenest Hydrogen Fuel in the nation. Today i want to discuss a pressing issue on top of mind for every utility across the district certainly in my district, that is the transformer shortage we continue to see across the us. Talking to rodriguez about the problems the supply shortfall is causing and i asked what dot is doing to laminate that shortage. I was encouraged by the secretarys talk of collaboration with industry and working to incentivize industry to share units between utilities and create more standards for transformers so they can have interoperability. Im aware of does efforts at this point but we are 8 months out from that discussion, the picture generally stayed the same. I recently checked in with the public utility district i mentioned last time. While the inventory has gotten a little better the supply has not come close to meeting demand. The lack of access that forced utilities to delay or cancel projects, Affordable Housing projects are being canceled right when our Housing Inventory is low and prices are skyrocketing and makes existing infrastructure more vulnerable to storms, wildfires that occur in the northwest. During Hurricane Katrina as an example, the affected states lost 12,600 transformers so utilities always need to have these on hand. The damage or failure of a single lpt, the large one can take down an entire substation and in my own district we recently had vandalism, and attack on these and thousands of people celebrated christmas in the dark. This continues to come up with utilities in my district. Doe has done important work, but i am wondering, did doe examine all actions, to develop rapid implementation strategy . Thanks for the question. This has clearly been a huge problem not just in your district getting access to distribution, transformers, three things. We proposed a rule on distribution transformers with respect to efficiency. Weve gotten feedback, reevaluated that and put out a new rule that encourages the distribution, transformers and full supply chain to be made in the United States. Number 2, weve set up and i am sure our assistant secretary talking about how we had set up a tiger team to identify where the peach points were and because of that, the workforce, some of it was making sure that we had the right supplychain et cetera. We have focused on that through our manufacturing and Energy Supply chain office, just gave out an 18 million grant under 48 seed to siemens to do large Power Transformers in the United States which is great, there were three companies that announced they are expanding and building transformer factories in addition to those that were encouraged by that. We are hopefully going to see some loosening of the system so that utilities are able to access what we need. We in this committee asked for a little bit of a delay in the requirements for those manufactured in the us because of this crisis. So i would, in my limited time just encourage, whatever we can do to give financial assistance, Technical Assistance to get these manufacturers here and as my colleagues summit funding requests, lets make sure that is one that is included. I wanted to in my last 14 seconds just thank you for funding our National Labs, they are doing so much of the work that will relieve a lot of our concerns about forcing foreign countries, being able to manufacture batteries of the future right here among other things so thank you. Yield back. I now go to the gentleman from indiana, doctor buschon. Thanks for being here. I want to say at the outset, touting these federal grants, trillions of dollars going out the door, thats great except to the fact that when people in my district go to the Grocery Store they cant afford their food and cant afford their energy costs and inflation is a huge problem that has been driven primarily in my view in the post covid era by some of the legislation that was passed without a single republican vote. My district, people know this and honestly, the government handing out money to a select few people doesnt make everybody else happy when inflation is through the roof. Appreciate your time but since you last justified weve continued to see the debilitating effects of the rush to green, like many of us here i strongly support and all of the above approach to energy, insurers affordability, resilience, i support renewables, i support evs, the current trajectory we are on is going to be on a crash course to increase grid overloads and blackouts in brownouts and thats not my opinion, this is the fact. As we move to the digital age coming indiana is emerging as a major midwest tech. Indiana has a multitude of projects in the pipeline many of which are data centers projected to require an additional seven gigawatts of energy to be operational. This is a nationwide issue. This increased need for energy amounts to 10 of indianas current rate capacity. I believe you cannot ensure reliability resiliency with wind and solar alone. It just cannot be done. We need and all of the above approach, nuclear, fossil, hydro, renewables. My question, what is the plan at the department of energy not to just maintain the status quo, but if we do things like grow our Technology Industry or transition to all evs, the increased demand we have for energy as we are decreasing our ability to produce baseload power, people say evs alone, 30 increase in the grid, demand on the grid. Some estimates. What is our plan to not only maintain the status quo but how are we going to increase the power we need when we are at the same time taking off a lot of the base power out of the system . First of all, it is an issue about how we can both increase demand and increase sufficiency and make sure we are still ceding power to all these new manufacturing facilities. Indiana has 22 of them in the past few years. A lot of which are for clean energy products. That is fantastic but they are going to require additional power as are the Ai Data Centers et cetera. We also know that we have the tools within our disposal to be able to manage the increase. One is that we are incentivizing additional generation. When you combine renewable with batteries it becomes baseload like. We want to incentivize nuclear clearly, we want to make sure new data centers, maybe they come with an smr or Something Like that at the local level to think about them bringing it rather than socializing those costs across rate based so those tools are in our disposal, we talk about electric vehicles, theres no mandates but theres an uptick in electric vehicles, batteries for those electric vehicles, Batteries Associated with distributed Energy Resources in homes can create a virtual power plant. If we are smart about how we move power and compensate people for the ability to access that power, thats another resource that we had not had in the past. All these tools can get us to a reliable we are thinking about it. The evs are more popular in dc, la, new york city and other places, southwest indiana not so much. I would encourage you to go to Rural America and talk to them about the infrastructure challenges that we have with evs, people want them potentially but theres no infrastructure in place. I want to talk about Carbon Capture. In 2021, there is a Carbon Dioxide transport Infrastructure Finance innovation program. I got that out, authorize 2. One billion dollars for low interest loans and grants, Carbon Dioxide 5 point infrastructure is essential for meaningful deployment, Carbon Capture, yet weve seen co2 Pipeline Projects have been installed across the nation. Have we given out any grants at all . Can you report Loan Programs Office disbursement to sporty co2 infrastructure . Im going to have to get back to you on that because i am not sure they focused on co2 infrastructure. We need co2 infrastructure and we need permitting reform to make sure these are happening quickly. Co2 infrastructure. If you get back to the committee on the authorization of 2. One billion dollars in loans to support this infrastructure and what weve done so far i would appreciate it. Thank you, madam secretary. The gentleman at times expired. Now to miss castor for five minutes. Thank you for all you are doing to bring cleaner, Cheaper Energy to our neighbors back home. Its gratifying to see the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act passed in the last congress, delivering for our neighbors back home, Cheaper Energy through renewables, Energy Efficiency, being able to weatherize their homes so thank you. It was difficult for me to keep up with your Opening Statement on, difficult to keep up with the announcements on Clean Energy Manufacturing opening up, can you go through those again. 600 new Clean Energy Projects over the last passage of the bipartisan infrastructure law, 600 factories, 400 of those involving evs or batteries, 600 factories, 600 factories for sure, in clean energy space, opening up in all pockets of the country. Attraction of private investment. Of course because these factory announcements, this is separate from the department of energy funded, these are from the Inflation Reduction Act. 649 billion in private investment . Huge because 30 tax credit and the private sector comes in, and puts in their amount so theres massive investments. These are good paying jobs all across america bolstering our supplychain so when i hear from my friend across the aisle say this is helping china. Is this helping china . No. China is very upset that we are doing this, to attract all of the components of the supply chains here, china had a huge footprint on particularly the Critical Minerals and processing of them for batteries so we have been very aggressive about trying to get those components back in the United States. It has worked. We have to continue to work at it but the bottom line is china sees a threat. Ranking member thrown says republik and are misleading the public. I would call this a whopper. It is a whopper of misleading the public. In fact just yesterday, our company visited in washington saying get they are going to open a manufacturing plant for solar in the Sunshine State, 1700 jobs which is welcome. I listen to my colleagues talk about price spikes and as a matter of fact on the front page of my hometown paper this morning the tampa bay times, why Florida Electric bills skyrocketed recently, here is why. You know what they say . Because of the exorbitant price of frak gas, florida as the Sunshine State should be reliant on solar power, the abundant, free power of the sun but our utilities rely on frak gas 75 of Electricity Generation comes from that. What this Analysis Shows is the utilities, pass along those price spikes to consumers from 20202022, price of gas more than doubled, increase the the Economic Forecasting center called incredible. It is alarming to see these prices keep rising markedly, the last couple years, its like an apocalypse and as gas prices have come down, utilities havent passed along the savings. Meanwhile, they are slow walking investments in the solar, the state of florida is not passing along rebates for Energy Efficiency. They are slow walking weatherization, what does that mean to consumers that are struggling with the hottest temperatures ever last summer in july and august so they have to run their airconditioning. Thank you for your leadership on the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law because they really are providing consumers this option to be able to make their lives affordable at least on the energy side. If you can install solar panels and low enough impact on weatherization you might have solar panels installed to generate your own. In addition to saving energy because of efficient appliances and inspiration. Thank you for double can i point out, i get so worked up over this as you can tell, but the grid highlighted the barriers across the country congressman peters talked about but this outdated structure where you have states making critical decisions, throwing up barriers. Are you able to work states and rtos and others to get guests onto the grid and help with increasing cost savings . A lot of them, but some of them no. It is, utilities are risk averse. I think i understand that in the Sunshine State. I want to ask unanimous consent to submit for the record this newspaper Florida Electric bills skyrocketed, here is why. Without objection so ordered. Gentle ladys times expired. Now to mr. Curtis. Thank you, great to have you here. I would like to first of all give you a shout out for your work in the conservative climate caucus for visiting us and realizing we have a lot of things in common, we are looking for affordable, reliable, clean power. We want the us to lead on that. Let me talk about a subject thats important to all of us, Nuclear Energy and how do we get this rolling get. The bill is called the advanced Nuclear Reactor price act for first movers to help them successfully deploy. I am extremely excited about the potential of the next Generation Nuclear and seen firsthand the difficulties, we had an agency in utah trying to get a small Nuclear Reactor, they were about 10 years into it, halfway through the approving process, one hundred Million Dollars into it, had to walk away from it and i think we can all agree that weve got to figure out how to make that not happen. My bill would fix this by authorizing you, the secretary of energy, to make targeted words to cover regulatory costs of the First Nuclear technologies that are licensed and operational. I wonder if you could talk for a minute about how you see incentivizing nuclear, how do we get this rolling . Thank you so much for voting for the 24 budget which, for small modular reactors, a billion dollars in there for 800 million for reactors, workforce funding as well, super important, 800 million may not cover a full sixpack or 10 back of small modular reactors, no utility wants to be the first of its kind, the question is how do we bundle them together to make this not happen again. And this involved in advanced Nuclear Reactor and congress has been generous in supporting a couple of those as well, we have to recognize that Nuclear Technology and clean baseload power is important to the energy mix. Occupies 20 of the overall supply and we need more. We have to drive the prices down, the capital expense of the first one. This is why the combination of the data centers combined with some of these smrs together give the Technology Companies that have funding, not you giving Technology Companies funding, Technology Companies have the funding and can afford to be able to do those small modular reactors in partnership with their data centers so they are not pulling from the grid. Bottom line is nuclear is a very important piece of things, the uranium funding that was just approved yesterday in the senate, hugely important to create a uranium strategy for the next generation reactors, thank you for your leadership. What your explaining is not a few Nuclear Reactors but a number, we want us to lead on that, we dont want to use that overseas, talk about permitting reform in general for a minute, we can all see the permitting reform as a huge obstacle to where we are going. I want to brag about utah for a minute. Every Energy Source you can imagine and storage of that in utah and everyone keeps coming to me as they do to you and realize a lot of this is outside the scope of doe but you do invest in these technologies that will someday be deployed to scale and how does permitting reform have an enabling effect on your project and what can you say about how we move forward on this permitting reform issue . I appreciate congresss willingness in a bipartisan fashion to continue to work on that. In the meantime this administration is doing what it can from admin straight of point of view. We just passed a rule that allows for us to have a two year on permitting for transmission on public land, excited about that now. We announced that in utah so we are pleased about being able to move forward how we can, but having a shot clock like that embedded in law would be important to organize people, the ability to have one office to be the point person for projects as opposed to having developers go to multiple offices is an important step that would be helpful in law and what we are trying to do on the administrative side. The ability to make sure we have categorical exclusions in developed areas for the development of generation. Those kinds of things are important, it is what we are trying to do but it would be great to have it in law. I would love to continue to work with you on all those things, thank you. I now recognize mister saar be for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. You will not be surprised to hear that i think you are doing a terrific job, thank you for all your work from the outset and in particular today talking about the amazing progress the department of energy is making in implementing the bipartisan infrastructure law, Inflation Reduction Act, really good stuff. These investments are critical to strengthening our Domestic Energy profile and fortify our Overall Energy and National Security interests, in the larger global marketplace, as you know, given their precarious state of Global Energy markets and impact of global conflicts such as the war in ukraine which you talked about had on Energy Security. It is quickly important we continue work in partnership with our allies to explore Clean Energy Solutions and think carefully about our brought energy future. The department of energy, as youre well aware, has done an excellent job of working in tandem with International Partners to achieve our clean energy goals. When example of this is the implementation of the us Israel Energy center. I wondered if you could speak about the accomplishments of the us Israel Energy center and the importance of reauthorizing the center. Thanks for that. Between the bird Energy Program and the us Israel Energy center which recently met at doe headquarters for their first in person executive meeting, we welcomed 40 members of the committee, executive committee of the various consortia to meet with projects, it is critical that we continue to forge partnerships on technology and advances and entrepreneurship and learn from one another and between bird and the us Israel Energy sector, those two mechanisms of ensuring we get the best ideas going in both directions is very important. Israel has huge expertise in things like Smart Agriculture and batteries and in all the things that we are focused on given that they are in an area that is sensitive to not having to use fossil fuels from neighbors that may not be in their camp. We can learn a lot from each other. Thanks very much. Building off of the success of the us Israel Energy center you know congress enacted a few years back the bipartisan Eastern Mediterranean security and Energy Partnership act in 2019 that authorized to the us Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center similar center for Energy Research and collaboration, in this case, with cyprus, greece, and israel, so very much modeled after the us Israel Energy center, a terrific opportunity, this new one, to assemble many key partners around critical issues, does own words, this center will, quote, strengthen the regions Energy Security, bring Economic Growth for countries across the region, deepen geopolitical ties among participating governments and open commercial opportunities for us companies, that is a quote from a concept paper the department is developing, another concept paper kind of revised one in the works right now. Could you explain the department of energys plans for the United States, Eastern Mediterranean center and how the departments preparations will allow you to establish the center once resources are appropriated which we are working on feverishly here to make sure that there is funding in place for this initiative. Thank you for your leadership on that, making sure we can do it. This is forging ties between israel, cyprus, greece, and egypt. Critical area, critical for us to share ideas again on Energy Security, and as we all know with these multicountry centers like that, the benefit is because we are able to share researchers, to cross pollinate universities and research labs, that is what this would be doing, we are excited to continue working with you on it and hopefully get this going. I look forward to that as well and working with my colleagues, including on this committee, key to advancing the center and getting it stood up is an important bipartisan priority. Thank you for all the terrific work you are doing for the department. I yelled back. The gentleman yields the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from arizona. Thank you, secretary for being here. I want to talk about the conservation act and changes in appliance efficiency mandates, specifically, yes or no, do you agree appliance regulation should be technologically feasible . And appliance regulation should not increase net process costs for consumers . Yes. Do you agree that appliance regulation should save a significant amount of energy . Yes. Efficiency mandates increase the upfront cost of appliances which can really hurt low income families and renters. We do not have the luxury of waiting years for the Energy Savings to break even. Yes or no. Do you agree that three years is a reasonable payback period for efficiency regulation . It depends. If it is not three years, how long do you think the American People should have to wait for a doe efficiency mandate to save money . Ideally, you would like it to have that payback in the first year but it may not be possible in the first year. That is why the benefit of having what Congress Passed gives people the ability to reduce their costs immediately and by more efficient appliances that allows them to save money over the course of time and these efficiency rules save the standards, standards of saved consumers 2 trillion. It is important way of doing it. I would love for it to be a payback in one year too but i will settle for three years but yesterday finalized a rule on gasfired storage water heaters, and the payback is 9. 1 years, seems like an awful long time to make payback for the upfront cost. I want to move on to another question. In this, the Biden Administration has committed the United States to achieving 0 Greenhouse Gas emissions by 2050 and spending trillions of taxpayer dollars to achieve it. Secretary granholm, do you believe the United States has a credible path to me, net 0 Greenhouse Gas emission goal . Yes. In 2022, the United Nations released a report detailing possibly of reaching the paris climate agreements goal of achieving net 0 x 2050, temperatures not rising, and current policy, the path from 2030 towards the achievement for national net 0 targets. The report states, quote, existing policies point to a 2. 8 degrees celsius increase in temperatures by the end of the century with Research Service reports, none of the scenarios indicate, could meet the 2030 Greenhouse Gas emissions targets. Snow signatory of the paris climate agreement is anywhere near pathway to achieve net 0 pledges. And and the Biden Administration and your self. It was 2022. First of all the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and by person infrastructure law have given enormous wind in sales to meet these goals, with Greenhouse Gas emissions by 2030, those two bills alone, what the private sector is doing what other state and local governments are doing, we think we could get to 50 and very bullish about, being able to look at the Technology Advances we are seeing, we think theres a credible path to get in a 0 x 2050 and we are working to achieve it. I hope you are right but a lot of the evidence doesnt show that in other competing reports say the opposite because we are spending trillions of taxpayer dollars on this, thank you and i yelled back. Gentlelady yields back. Thank you, mr. Chairman and Ranking Member for holding this important Budget Hearing. I want to thank you for your service that you rendered not only to the American People to the benefit of the entire world when the United States finally decided to get back on track with addressing Climate Change issues we can control in the United States. One way weve been able to do that in the last congress when democrats were fully in charge and pass two complementary laws, the Infrastructure Investment act and the jobs act and the Inflation Reduction Act, these are now being implemented and it will take time for full implementation, these landmark laws authorize the funding necessary for the us to lead on the Climate Change crisis and Catalyze Clean Energy transmission that will benefit everyone. I emphasize it is for the benefit of everyone because i grew up in a community where environmental injustice was there for many generations and finally turning the corner and these two landmark laws help us to do so. Its important to understand to get to net 0 eventually these laws are going to be the main reason to do that. I think we are on a good track and the department of energy is doing an amazing job increasing Energy Efficiency, d carbonized electricity, electrifying switching to cleaner fuels. Can you discuss how the department is averaging these pathways through the ira in ways that ensure benefits and costs of transition are equitably distributed . Im glad you asked this question. What congress has done is embed structural equity to these investments. As an example, if a Solar Developer wants to do a solar project, they get the 30 tax credit, they get extra 10 if they locate in a disadvantaged community, and 10 on top of that if they pay a prevailing wage and register apprenticeships, they get 10 on top of that. Now you are talking about a 60 tax credit for a disadvantaged community. That is working across the country. On the tax credit side, on the grant side of the bipartisan infrastructure law, dot is ensuring every grant we do has a Community Benefit agreement in it so the community that is going to be centered where the project benefits and at the table in a meaningful way with the company so all the grants we are doing ensure that. The study done recently about whether disadvantaged communities are benefiting shows the disadvantaged communities are receiving twice the investment relative to their population as the rest of the country. It is happening is that investments are flowing toward disadvantaged communities and that is good for all of us. I am pleased, we did something right and your methods of implementation are following the law to the letter and making sure benefits and inequities we had for generations are being corrected by the massive implementation and investment. Thank you. Last may when you testified before this committee i was pleased how the department of energy was advancing the initiative and ensuring communities had a seat at the table. Can you provide an update on how youve seen communities respond to the programs and incentives the department has stood up through the ia ja and irs. The Community Benefit plans, a lot of communities may not be organized in a way that allows them to meaningfully participate so we Just Launched a pilot called ready which allows an intermediary to gather a trusted entity to Gather Community leaders and participants so they are at the table literally, a way to elevate folks who may never have been asked before. We are trying to find ways like that but the Community Benefit agreement alone have demonstrated a normas benefits, whether they are scholarships guaranteed job hirings, training through local Community Colleges and schools in the pipeline, and embedded in Community Benefit agreements. We are getting it unless locals are buying in, not going to work. We are making sure they are heard and listened to. Thank you very much. Time having expired, i yelled back. We would be remiss if we didnt acknowledge the nations most recent Nuclear Reactor came online 100 this week. Next congressmans district. Congratulations. Thank you very much. We are excited about this. First in 30 years. America needs to learn to do big things again. Thank you for holding this hearing, thank you for being here today with us. Even as we made tremendous progress in georgia but our country is facing an energy crisis, we see skyrocketing Energy Prices as the administration continues the more on fossil fuel. Im hearing from my constituents in the district how unsustainable Energy Prices are for them and it affects everything in their lives. Everything. It is not filling up the gas tank. Theres been an aggressive push by this administration to electrify every sector of our livelihood without waiting for viability or affordability. I believe we must unleash our Domestic Energy capabilities for the safety of the nation and wellbeing of those we serve. The United States leads the rest of the world in reduction of our Carbon Footprint and it is substantial. It has all been done because of the transition to Clean Natural gas which burns 42 cleaner. The restriction of exports, it kick in the teeth funding of the russian war machine. Europe would substantially reduce the Clean Natural gas for lng, if we could get these pipelines built, we would substantially damage russias economy and the irans capably, funding terrorism. This week as mentioned, celebrating a milestone, entering commercial operation, doing our part in georgia, the largest Nuclear Power station in the country. In this committee weve been working to advance Nuclear Energy policy, and the Atomic Energy advancement act a version of which we expect will be with the president with the Regulatory Commission to have performance metrics. For regulatory programs. The department of energy also has spending programs important for Nuclear Energy. Madam secretary, updating performance metrics and milestone schedules . All our big projects, yes. Let us know what the process is. If you are a manufacturing and Energy Supplychain as well as our office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, expert in those offices that have measurements, milestones that they are working against. Oject developers and experts who are in those offices that have measurements, charts, milestones that they are working against. Same thing on our nsa side. We have very large projects that are done by professionals who understand the importance of project management. And next, like to note recently usual authority to update the process for transmission solo and stored projects providing exclusions speedup permitting decisions. U just said you should be a twoyear shot clock or categorically exercises for transmission or permitting and as far as the nepa demonstrations. Will d. O. E. Work to do the same for any nuclear city and Nuclear Fuels Infrastructure Projects under this jurisdiction . It would certainly work, work with congress, require you all to act but we believe that needs to be significant worked out on permitting reform whether its for nuclear or any other project in the country to be up to speed that up. Now lets talk about building codes. Republicans on this committee, chairman rogers, subcommittee chairman Duncan Center letter with concern regarding d. O. E. Recent funding announcements to encourage adoption of extensive building codes. Ive got about 17 seconds. E could you responded . We did. And the realize what thats going to . Its not a mandate just to be clear. For those who raise their hand what Technical Assistance people to adopt next generation building codes. Its not a requirement. Okay. I have another question but ill submit it in writing. Thank you for your time. I will now go to ms. Kuster. Thank you much secretary granholm, what to say i would much appreciate your calm demeanor and very thorough answers to our committee. Im going to switch gears here a bit. Hydropower and pump storage are a critical part of our clean Energy System. These resources help incorporate come up incorporate more wind and solar done to the grid. A recent study found power can provide up to to 10 of the operating reserves necessary for the Biden Administration to achieve our climate goals. Do you agree hydropower is a key part of our clean energy . Absolutely. Great. This will go quickly been. Hydropower plants play a criticl inner Energy System, the future may be an doubt. Onethird of hydropower asset owners are actively considering surrendering the licenses and decommissioning their facilities. This puts 70 gigawatts of clean flexible energy, enough to power over 13 million u. S. Homes and businesses at risk. One of the main factors leading to hydro carbon owners to surrender license is lengthy and relicensing process. Should congress were to ensure that the relicensing process iss not driving reliable dispatchable Clean Energy Projects offline . Yes. Great. I agree. Im pleased that our bipartisan bills and house and Senate Immediately reform the licensing and relicensing process and id like to talk to you about the common features of those pieces of legislation. Recognizingg that the federal energy Regulatory Commission is jurisdiction and is an independent Agency Within d. O. E. , i want ask you some have questions about how we can improve hydropower licensing process. First question come to think it for congress to empower United States work with agencies and stakeholders in the relicensing process to resolve inconsistent with conflicted license term . Yes. Second question, ferc denied an application for preliminary purpose for a new pump Storage Facility that had not adequately consulted with the tribe on whose reservation the project would be cited. Should congress to do more to ensure tribal consent throughout the licensing process . If possible, yes. Great. If possible encompasses side but we should definitely consult with the tribes. A new england there are many small, 100 plus year old hydropower facilities that may outlive the useful life. It may be more economic for these owners to surrender the licenses that operate the still is a maybe hazard and not making any money. Should we consider ways to make it easier for obsolete facilities to make endoflife decision . Yes. Great. Its clear there are many areas of congressional and administrationon agreement, andi look forward to working with dob and my colleagues in this committee to get a bipartisan hydropower licensing reform bill signed into law and i want to commend our chair Cathy Mcmorris rodgers are working with my team on that. Switching gears, i want to thank, thanks to the tax credit from the reduction act very less coalfired power plant in new england which is my district in New Hampshire is going to transition into a solar plant and battery Storage Facility. I cannot tell you how relieved my constituency will be for the clean air and the savings to our planet and the impact on Climate Change from that decision. Secretary granholm, can we count on the d. O. E. To give fair consideration to the facilities applications to ira grants to help facilitate this transformation . This kind of transformation is exactly what youre provided for. You all in congress in making sure the Energy Community given the benefit for the next hundred years as well. So congratulations on that. We want to see more of that. Ge we are excited about the news. News. Thank you again for your leadership, for which you with this committee in a bipartisan way. Youll find we have many, many areas of agreement with regard to clean energy and saving the planet and look for to working with you. Thank you so much. I will now go to mr. Weber for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Were glad youre here. I represent texas 14th. 14. You know how many lng plants in texas . Hohman . We have to back currently operating. We have another one thats gone through phase one. It is poised for phase two but the skids were put on and makes investors really nervous. We have one across the Louisiana State line which is about seven or eight miles from us. Energy lng is a big thing here except as a calvillo secretary of energy responsible for coordinating the patient Energy Policy, of course you took on yourself to be providing the present with some good Energy Policy and that your responsibility. Can you describe for us exactly what is john podesta is role in the administration . I would like to let him describe the role but know he is responsible for Energy Technology and climate. To you all interface . Yes. How often . Frequently. Do you have discussions about lng . Yes. What did he say about . He supports the notion of doing an update that we can make sure we can assess whats in the Public Interest for you all would both agree probably the uncertainty that that creates in a phase to the construction project because we dont have time of day certain is a problem,e right . We have said both industry as well as to International Partners that is an update thats only for the purpose of a studyin and it will be done by e end of this year, the beginning of next year so it is limited his time and scope, does not affect any of existing authorization. Well it does because they have to make plans. I wont pride ask you if you ever owneded or operated a business but i have for 35 years. One of the things Business Owners want isng certainty. They dont want things changing on to win. They need certain especially to plan something that far out that big of a project. Ive been told that, actually i think mr. Podesta might have a brother who actually works in some fashion for some Foreign Energy interest. Are you aware that . No. Not aware that . Okay. Yall canceled your plans to be filled the strategic but whenas reserve. I see what youre saying. We still plan to fill the street to put when reserve, that one solicitation was over the amount that we wanted to purchase at. Would it surprise you to find it we have 60 of spr in my district on the gulf coast. With no. Wouldnt surprise me. Lots of energy. What the president does and what the white house, what congress does is actually important to our district. What are your plans Going Forward to refill the sgr . I i mightve missed out of some discussion. No worries. Our plan is to continue to seek solicitation. Our hope was peoplere to get purchases at understudy nine dollars per barrel. Sold it on average of 94, 95 and we wanted to achieve a savings for the taxpayers. We havede repurchased 32 Million Barrels up to this point, and as youre well aware of the spr has a couple of sites under maintenance right now, cant take in. Hopefully by the end of this year everybody, anything will be up and running. Whats the volume right now . 360 . I want to to say 360 something. Okay. And when youre talking about speeders 360 million. I got it. We always in texas things are bigger. We get that. But with things on the geopolitical stage around the world, do yall consult with the state department when youre making these kinds of decisions that could actually impact our ability to respond to a strategic event, Strategic Petroleum reserve . Yes, of course. And we have the largest Strategic Petroleum reserve even now in the world. Even the amount of minerals that we have, from a Company Owned Strategic Petroleum reserve with the largest and what. But were we to fight a war on more than one side i think you would agree that amount would be woefully, ready for us to be in a good spot. We regret have a a full spr totally be able to supply our military. Wouldnt it be a betterag singe . Sizing the spr and what the strategic amount needs to be, i mean do we have to have the full amount of the current spr . That is a good question, good question. We want to continue to build and we will and we are proud of fact weve been able to do so at a savings speedy my time is about out. Is it better to have more of the spr fields or less . More certain. Thank you. Im glad you understand. I yield back. I will now go to mr. Veasey. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Texas relays are this weekend at so i happily take the baton from a good friend mr. Weber to talk about the bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act and nevis benefited texas. Bp Solutions Received 31 millio from d. O. E. Heidelberg matures received 5 million from office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. Texas division of energy, and which is management received 60 million in funding for grid deployment office. That is great news for texas as all around the country people are concerned about the gun and concerned about money. So i wanted to talk about how that money is coming back to texas. I think that is awesome. Last weekend we thwarted lattimer putins plans and we help provide funding for ukraine. And in addition to thwarting his plans were already thwarting his plans before that. I wanted to have President Bidens sorting lattimer putins plans. In 2023, the United States produce the record of 38,000,000,000,000 8 trillion cubic feet ofho gas for, and a record 4. 7 billion barrels of crude oil, and that created a record 238,000,000 megawatt of solar power and aa record 6. 4 gigawas of new batteries that were on the grid, but those numbers that i talked about with the gas and the oil, thats sorted lattimer putins plans so i congratulate the president on that. When you to keep europe free, secure, and democratic. That. We need to keep europe free and secure and democratic. Madam secretary, you know that texas and lng is a big deal for texas. We were concerned about the lng pause and i was hoping that you could talk a little bit or explain to what extent the National Labs are factoring the investment that has gone into their study and what im referencing is the fact that they provided about 1. 5 billion for grants, rebates, contracts and loans to support emission monitoring and methane reduction efforts here in the u. S. Can you talk about that a little bit . Yeah. Congresswoman dingle, i think your spot is right there. Sorry. I think the and mrv, the methane mitigation verification and reporting is a really important part of the strategy for us as a nation to have lng or ng that is well received by those who receive our exports. Thats an important thing and i think the Natural Gas Industry recognizes that as well, the lng terminals. Everybody is focused on making sure we are buttoning down our methane leakage. Im not sure if thats exactly what you were asking. But we are investing in that from our office of fossil energy and carbon management. Good. I also wanted to ask you and switch gears a little bit to nuclear fuel, specifically the idaho National Labs Nuclear Fabrication and deal that they have through the nda last year and appropriations bill, congress authorized and funded the Nuclear Fuel Security act to carry a process and provision fuel that will provide american independence from russia in the production of Nuclear Energy. The molten assault record and texas is a test of a for new Nuclear Reactor design and molten salt that could be used to help safely address Critical Energy needs when it comes to water, medical license, and other important areas. Can you provide an update on d. O. E. s implementation of the Nuclear Fuel Security act and more specifically can you provide assurances that the d. O. E. Will prioritize the idaho National Labs fabrication of a fuel that blends that blends this molten salt that is being stored at the National Level . We are excited about what idaho is doing. We are excited about the partnership with Abilene Christian university and their efforts on this. And about how this whole effort might fit into our overall uranium strategy that was passed by congress in the 2024 budget. That will be part of the fuel cycle considerations that we have through our office of Nuclear Energy, et cetera to be able to continue to work with them on that. Thank you very much. I yield back pick i will now go to mr. Balderson. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you secretary for being here today. Last year you and administrator reagan agreed to a memorandum of understanding on electrical grid reliability. What is the status of that m. O. You. We entered into it. The epa issued its rules regarding 111 and the vehicle rules as well. You have held meetings both public and private . Yes. Our teams have. Would you be willing to follow up with the details of those meetings with epa . Including any transcripts to the committee . I dont know that there were transcripts because they were meetings, but happy to follow up. Thank you, i appreciate that. I want to followup during your Budget Hearing a few weeks ago. You have expressed concerns about impacts increasing lng exports may have on domestic Natural Gas Prices. That concerns are one of the reasons your department went forward with the pause on approving new lng exports, is that correct . Its one of the issues that are being researched by the National Labs as we consider what is in the Public Interest. Thank you. I would like to followup on the concern. Since 2016 you have increased our lng export capacity from zero to over 11 billion cubi feet per day. We are now the worlds top lng exporter and guess what, the spot price of natural gas has remained stable and affordable, in fact the current henry have a spot price is well below two dollars and is lower now than at any point between 2000 to when we began exporting and 2016 despite record inflation. Under President Biden, gasoline prices have gone up 48 , home heating is up 33 , electricity is up 29 and total energy cost are up 39 . In this administration was interested in Affordable Energy for our constituents, you wouldnt block leasing on federal lands, raise fees on natural Gas Producers or force existing reliable generations into early retirement. You touched earlier on the fact that the epas claim powerplant 2. 0 does include existing natural gas fired plants. However, the epa has begun the process of separate rulemaking to target emissions from existing natural gasfired power plants. Given the objectives of the mou, have you discussed this potential rulemaking within the administrator reagan . I have not yet. As that rule is developed, will you commit to working with grid operators and powerplant operators as to the real world effects of forcing existing natural gasfired plants to retire and urging the epa to do the same . I will definitely do that. Thank you. As we have discussed for and resource jiminy christmas, adequacy. Sorry, i apologize for the luster to have. Last thursday, the epa decided to move forward with her emission rules for existing coal and natural gasfired plants. At any point the department of energy expressed concern to the epa regarding the rules impact on reliability and forcing existing reliable generation into early retirement . We have worked with the epa and it is our opinion that it will not do that. Okay. Recently announced final roll for distribution transformers and somewhat scaledback from the original proposed rule. The final rule extends the compliance timelines and just efficiency targets to require less. We are already facing a supplychain shortage and utilities are having difficulty producing transformers. I still believe the final rule to this supplychain crisis. Can you explain how do you we doa plans to do this moving forward . The number this Division Roll alleviate this concern and it extends another five years as well as make sure that there is ample supply of green oriented electrical steel for those transformers made in the United States. There are issues still. We were just discussing this, and because of the clear demand, there has been an additional three transformer manufacturers that have announced they are expanding and we just give a grant to one of them for large Power Transformers, which is siemens. We are encouraged by the private sector stepping up to the challenges and we have also hoped that we can see some funding through the defense production act to continually reinforce that we need additional transfer manufacturing in the u. S. Do you believe lng has the ability to reduce the co2 footprint in developing nations . Potentially. That is an issue that will be studied by the labs in the update. Thank you. I yield back. I recognize mr. Palmer for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thought we had another democrat ahead of me. I appreciate the opportunity. Secretary granholm, thank you for being here. Earlier you said the power sector rules do not touch existing natural gas units. But the administration announced it will be on a rulemaking to set standards for existing gas units. Is it coming next . And it is coming next. I think really soon. Who support the administration for setting its rule making on existing natural gas units . I support looking at that, yes. That is going to further increase energy costs that is bettering families. I heard you and a number of my colleagues across the aisle talk about the Inflation Reduction Act, which was either intentionally misnamed or complete total failure because inflation has gone up 19 . It is 40 on energy cost. Are you aware just for instance what percent of the increase of food is related to energy cost . The percent of the percent . There is a component of. Math is tough for some of you. It is 60 of the increase in food costs related to the increase in energy costs. Making groceries unaffordable for many families. Are you aware to of how much it has impacted peoples household utility cost . Im aware that prices for electricity and energy on a monthly basis have gone up. They are up about 150 a month on average and the question is, why . Why is this happening . We were discussing before that the why is, in large measure because the utilities are socializing the cost of upgrading the grid, and rebasing those. Energy policies being imposed upon energy producers, the regulatory burden, the amount of uncertainty that mr. Weber brought up increases the cost of capital. That all gets passed on to the consumers and businesses dont pay regulatory costs. They pass it onto the consumer, and its really hurting families in my district. The food bank was surprised to find out 35 of the people who are having to rely on them for free groceries are Senior Citizens who cant afford their household utility bills and medicine. Are you aware of how much pharmaceuticals feedstock is related to petroleum . How much of that, for making pharmaceuticals . It is 99 . All of this cost gets added and passed onto the consumer. I have another question. This is also a National Security issue. The house with unanimous democratic support, i might have been wrong, there might have been a few democrats who didnt support ukraine, but this administration has put a pause on exporting lng, forcing europe to buy more natural gas from the russia. From the data i have here, france just paid russia ,600 million. The eu is spending about 1 billion each month on question gas. How does it make sense for the u. S. Taxpayers to provide for the defense of ukraine, which i think is important, but yet the administration wants to limit the amount of gas that we can export to europe and allows russia to continue to sell gas to use that money to fund their war machine against ukraine . That seems to be in opposition. Let me clarify a couple of points that you made, number one, there is no restriction on exports for any facility. The pause is for authorizations for the future, but the existing we are the largest exporter, none of the exports of lng have diminished. There are another there is another. You are misrepresenting what im saying. I just made the point that you create uncertainty in the marketplace and europe cannot rely on United States to increase exports of natural gas, lng. So they are having to buy it from russia. Not because of our action. Nobody is stopping the existing authorization. You put a pause on additional exports. We have a capacity of exporting we have authorized 48 billion cubic feet, all of that is Going Forward, so to suggest that our actions are causing europe to purchase from russia is inaccurate with respect. That is an inaccurate response to a clear question. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. I will go to mr. Pence for 5 minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman and Ranking Member for holding this. Thank you, madam secretary for being here. Back home on and the indiana six district. I spent my entire life in the Petroleum Distribution business and i would like to say i got the energy where it needed when it needed to be there, affordably in the quantities and at the right time. I have held roundtables in indiana every two or three months. It includes the state of indiana, utilities, research and universities like purdue, parking and mobility experts, charging station development. They all joined together and shared with me what is happening on the ground. That is the most important thing. Of course, like all my peers i met with folks out here that tell me what is going on. Let me ask you a question i always ask others, it is a goofy question. Do you know how many cars they sell in europe every year . No i do not. 8 million. Do know how much they sell in the United States . We have over 300 million on the roads. How many cars do they sell in china where we know they want ev . A lot more. 28 million. Sometimes i worry that what we are doing is rolling out supporting the Automobile Industry so that they can sell more cars in china. I would laud toyota that it has look at hybrids. Why havent we looked more at hybrids instead of saying, lets go to evs so fast . We are in favor of hybrid electric. Did you mandate hybrids by. Nobody is mandating anything. Hybrid electric vehicles are absolutely qualified for the tax credit. Nobody is mandating but you are incentivizing the heck out of. Incentivizing hybrids. In these roundtables, the first when i had about 18 months ago i said, and there is about 30 people there. We share what is happening out in the marketplace, i said you are all here because of the incentives and grants and the dollars that the federal government are putting out. Now, tell me how that is going. And it is one horror story after another. Are you aware of the problems with the charging stations . With the Processing Systems in the charging stations, with the inability to get the electricity to where they want to put the charging stations, with the problems they have in urban areas where evs or charging stations are a real problem in parking garages and apartment complexes . 100 im aware. Thats what the Infrastructure Initiative is all about, to fix those very problems. So, to give money to solve a problem . A problem being created by this administration . To fix the gaps in the Infrastructure Associated with electric vehicles, yes, our goal is to get 500,000 charging stations out there across the country. Today there are 188,000. There are still gaps and it is difficult. You are aware of how many of those are not operating and not working . Part of that whole initiative is to do a rip and replace. Why doesnt. Heres what im saying. Im not here to argue with you today. Im for all of the above like everybody else. Why cant we be a little more be a little more cautious and take our time on rolling this out, going after the carpet industry. Im a little concerned about i talked with the epa, the last time he was here i think he will be here in two weeks. I didnt know what a wrens. Why cant the administration take a little bit of a timeout and reassess what is happening out in the field, that my constituents tell me about. We are assessing every single day. In fact there is a lot of wish for us to move much faster on the one hand and some. It cant be by the people who are out there implementing these things pick the people i meet with, they are putting in the charging stations. They are the Utility Companies. They are the distribution companies. However is telling you to move faster is not part of the solution of getting where you want to go and where we would like to go. I know we talked to different folks but we are trying to solve for those very problems that you are describing. It takes 18 months on average to pull electricity to an area for a charging station for fast charger, or doesnt already exist. The state of indiana has the funding to be able to do this and they are doing it. There is a short is on transformers and things like that. All of those things, everywhere all at once. Thank you for your time. I yield back. Mckay go to the next governor of north dakota. Thank you, mr. Chair. Earlier you and my friend misty get had a conversation and were talking about capture the methane and you said its wasteful. Nobody wants methane in the air. Producers dont want it. Im assuming the d. O. E. Has a financial incentive to capture that as well, right . When you say we have a financial incentive meeting we put out grants for those who can capture . A lot of that. I will backup. Do you know what the federal lease rate is . On no i dont. Its 3 16 or 16. 6 and so this is one of the arguments that frustrates me because you know what associated gas is . It is gas that is produced with oil and gas. There is only two ways to fully capture methane. Either shut down Oil Production in order to get 100 capture or replace the infrastructure with infrastructure pipeline, all of those things, it captures 100 of all of them. And so, if we have an incentive and everybody says it is wasteful to do it, today wti is trading at 79 a barrel of oil, which is amazing. Russia has invaded ukraine. We have a hot war in the middle east and at any other time in history, oil would be over 120 a barrel and a big reason for that is laces like north dakota and the. Gas is trading at 1. 92 mcf so the royalty rate applies to both of those. The financial incentive part of those economically recoverable has been a frustrating argument to me. The only way to recover that . 32 on theres no other way to do it because regardless if you shut in the Oil Production or youre shutting in the Oil Production to replace infrastructure, you take 1000 barrels barrels of oil offline and lets say for simplicities sake youre taking 1000 mcf of gas off at the same time, you are losing, i mean 79,910 on oil and 1920 on mcf of gas. The problem is you dont get that thousand barrels back tooi the inner life of oil. This is why, your point is that its not in anybodys financial interest to take care of this. No, my point is if its economically recoverable at three wherere were at on climate wouldnt want to release methane, we dont do any of those things as well. We can all agree Oil Companies are pretty good at making money and a look at the saints and economic standpoint. When you in the Geographic Center of the United States and you are double regulated from wellhead to market part reason why cant capture the guess is because you cant get the federal permit to get the gas in the pipeline and then the responses you to shut in your world and they we have far to meet people say you have an economic incentive to recover that nothing, you dont. Because anybody who understands math, particularly if you did with this, is going to take the 79,910 versus the 1920. Talk about what the requirements are and allin of those things bt it was economic recoverable to capture that methane then the federal, should help pay for the infrastructure. Or the engine should pay for the infrastructure and ask for the profit. The reason they dont is because its not. We can talk about climate, but it frustrates me woman had these comments that say, oh, its economic recoverable if we dont want to waste it. It is recoverable. It is a product dont think anybody wants to waste, just outside of all the other ideological part of this but is not economically recoverable because we cant get the infrastructure. Preps this is on the we should be working on together to make sure that it is economically feasible for them to do that. Some of the programs that were passed in a bipartisan for such a law give us the ability to do grants for this purpose but its not enough. Maybe that something we should work on together. We can continue to work, we can get as much pipeline b infrastructure in the ground north dakotas apostolate can comeis work on getting permits s quickly as possible. We would have a lot less stranded gas and we could produce more oil and gas because the state has done a pretty good job of tamping down on that recognizing we have primacy and nobody wants to flare. I come from Western North dakota oil and gas is revolutionized every economy out there. Even we dont like to see flares when we have them. But we have to recognize where we are at the difference of at dollar 92 versus 70 what is a significant difference for states like north dakota the federal government and private mineral owners. With that i yield back. I will now go to the gym from texas, mr. Pfluger. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Second, is there not a presumption, and longstanding presumption through Many Department of Energy Studies that lng exports are in the Public Interest . There has been come a. When was the last study completed . In 2018. Okay. What did it say . It allowed for the conditions in which its Public Interest. At that point when you took over did you believe the study that it was in the Public Interest . I can have any reason to dispute it. Since 2018 were exporting. Today with capacity to 14 with another, with up to 48 authorized and so thats a huge volume increased. Amazing increase. A lot of it is in my district and other producing areas. Youre still invited. Were waiting on you to visit. Do you create the natural gas act authorizes you the department of energy to both conduct environmental studies and permit reviews simultaneously while conducting another study . It does authorize us. Are you doing that . No. Why . We are putting a hold so that we know when authorize next what that speeded it seems like a band and a pause. Not a band. Previous to this administration has done both simultaneously. Thats not true. Registered. I dont think thats true. Onee that was in when it wasnt. Please provide us, even the Obama Administration didnt do this. Let me just move onto the next subject. I asked you last week of the principal adviser to the president on Energy Issues. You said you were one of the principal advisers. Who are the other principal advisers . Well binary. The climate office, the president advisor on climate john podesta. Did you make the recommendation on a before january 262 pause exports of lng . Was a recommendation . Did that occur in the white house . That was my recommendation. Did anybody else join in that meeting . We have a group that joints to advise the president. Was john podesta there . Yes. Tomy meet with tiktok lng critics with john podesta . No. Did john podesta meet with tiktok critic . I know idq we who we meet with. Anybody come in either undersecretaries meet with tiktok to stop lng . Sorry, i dont know. Recently with the reporting and the admittance of this meeting with john podesta . I am not. Talked me through just i want to put myself in a cabinet room and understand what you told the president has changed on our ability to export elegy to our partners and allies around the world and why now. Pu it seems politically motivated. Tell this committee what its not politically motivated and talk to us come what did you tell President Biden, this is an exigent threat, we cannot approve any other lng exports to not red to positive. Talk is that. Thats not what we sit. You recommend we do pause it. It was you. Pause for the study, to answer the question because with such an explosive growth in lng exports and the last time we did it in 2018, we were only exporting four bcs and weve authorizepl 48 billion. Do we have a study . Pardoned . Do we have study write a. Us know. Theyre in the process of doing it. Who is they . The National Laboratories. Which National Laboratory . The National Energy laboratory in West Virginia and in washington. But we dont have a study previous speeded there in a process of doing the study. They will be wrapped up by the fall but we dont really know much about. I dont know that i said that. But i have said in his hearing and others that it would be by the entity, beginning of next year. Okay. Talk to me about what allies have said to you. Theres only 14 fdas, right . What have are nonfdas allies that did this pause . When we told them it doesnt affect any existing exports or any that event authorize, that will not affect the amount of lng coming to them come the feels to be of the act and this will only lastan until the end f this year. T did you see the letter from the 35 members of the Eu Parliament . I did. You agree or disagree . They are operating under misperception i think are operating in reality. The reality is with longterm contracts. Do you believe the pause has a negative effect on longterm contract . Not the ones that are currently in operation. Did of the Companies Give you negative feedback . Youre under secretary jewell me they were not please. I understand some in the industry who may have pending authorization request were not happy, but our review is in the Public Interest and not in the interest just of the oil and gas industry. I time has expired. Thankin you. I will now go to mr. Joyce for five minutes. Thank you, chairman duncan and Ranking Member degette for allowing me to waive waits hearing. I want to thank you, secretary granholm, for testifying. We have discussed at length in this committee the problems with the dry for electric vehicles and especially the california the mandates that would ban sales of internal Combustion Engines by 2035. What of these major issues is infrastructure. I am concerned the federal government is abusing programs for iija to bail out states that do not have the infrastructure to meet the new ev mandates that they are adopting. Last month the joint office of energy and transportation released that it strategy identified deployment areas as, according, states with regulations and market structures supporting zero emission vehicles, unquote. Secretary granholm, is in the joint office of energy and transportation attempted to prioritize awards to states and tied themselves to californias standards . When the flow requires awards for 5 billion in ev charges be distributed on a form the basis to all states works not just those tidy california. And the money has gone in for nontwo all of the states, all of the programs have been approved. 31 statesju have started of those 31 states how many are tied to the california mandate . Idling of them are tied to the california mandates. I dont understand that. But they are going another 26 dates i believe have actually done solicitations and accepted those so theyre taking steps forward. So we are encouraged by what nursing across the country. Moving on, hydrogen is going to be an Important Energy source in the future. We both recognize that. My homept state of pennsylvania was chosen idea we for two hydrogen habs. We are excited about the possibilities of this newwi technology. Would you agree it will be impossible for hydrogen too succeed without private capital and Companies Investing significantly in its developer. Yes. Each of thosed hubs all about that significant private capital investment. In pennsylvania we also have as you know a robust natural gas and Nuclear Industries that are anxious to get involved in the hydrogen production. Problem is that departments guidance for 45 tax credit making it nearly impossible for blue or Pink Hydrogen to participate. With Hydrogen Hubs alreadypr expressing concerns about the 45 guidance, do you share with me they concerned that the treasuries, the proposed guidance, might cripple the Hydrogen Hubs before the even get off the ground . The proposed guidance was open for participation from stakeholders and they received thousands and thousands of comments. Suffice it to say, we want these hubs to succeed. I share that. Is do want to see these hubs te a dose in pennsylvania succeed. You being the most Senior Energy official in america, are you engaging with the treasury to make sure it doesnt stifle Hydrogen Development . We are engaging with treasury. Thank you. Another Innovative Technology being developed is Carbon Capture. Utilization storage. In pennsylvania were very excited about the potential to keep our coal and natural gas power plants running for decades to come. In the recently finalize epa rules covering existing coal and natural gas power plants, epa is claiming Carbon Capture is adequately demonstrated and achievable. A problem i have is duly continues to award grants to spur development of ccus and create commercial scale demonstration. Is it adequate demonstrated and commercially viable as epa claims, or juxtaposed to the, is unprovenising yet technology worthy of billions in research and develop an . It is a Proven Technology. So what is that disparity . Why does that occur . Why is it we are saying a different algorithm being provided by the department of energy and what were saying from epa . The department of Energy Agrees with the epa on the viability of this technology. Were issuing grants on demonstration for different use cases but we know the Technology Actually works. Patch or no in texas is an example. Recently though we have not place, there had not been a price essentially. Now there is on the gathering of carbon co2 and so that gave the financial viability alike up and so combination proves the technology is good in the market is good. Thank you for being here today and begin chairman, thank you for allowing me to wait on. I think the gym and yields back. I will not go to for five is a glad you hear. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for letting us waive on. The good news is when you see the three of us you know youre getting close to the end. Its wonderful to see you, madam secretary. I agree with my colleagues on the other side about how the hubs, where bricks i wake up in michigan as low as they are, we do talk about vehicles of the future, its that all ev. I keep saying, stop only talking ev. There. World has gone i want to start my technology aa crucial divide Administration Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has been to help hooves into the future. And update our countrys infrastructure. We created the joint office of energy and transportation to help align resources and expertise across d. O. E. And d. O. T. To successfully electrify our roads. To this joint office and your talk about it before, we see in initiatives Like National electric Vehicle Infrastructure for no program which is allocated 7. 5 7. 5 billion fr National Electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Despite the significant investment, the rollup has been progress slower than anybody wants. And we need to be perfectly frank. Can you, secretary granholm, tells what specific obstacles thee Department Energy has faced in building the National Ev Charging Network . And who is the Department Working to overcome these challenges . Thank you for theth question because it is really important. Right now we have 181,000 chargers across the country. Most of that of course from the private sector. Our goal is to get the 500,000. We uprootqu all 50 states plus e territories plans. Theyve all got their funding formula to be able to do that. Dirty five states have released some facilitation. Ov. 1 states have announced awards. We expect the would be 1000 stations under this program by the end of 2024. The Corridor Program were were filling in gaps on transportation corridors and then there is what is the cfi i call it rip and replace when were replacing existing charging stations that are broken we have as much charging availability as possible. Our challenge is that it takes about 18 months on average to poor electricity to a charge of electricity doesnt already exist. They have permitting issues at the state level. So the states for funding a little difficulty in wrapping up. However, we are now here. All of the solicitations are out. They have the plans. Plaintiff been approved so well start to see more and more of the public chargers available throughout the course of this year and beyond. So lets build on that. So michigan recently announced an award to develop new ev charging stations. How is d. O. E. Supporting the state transportation agencies and planning and implement in this charging rollout . And unlike you to talk a little bit because one of the complaints i get from everybody in california is a lot of the chargers dont work and that is aim real problem here. Right. On how we are helping states is the joint office between transportation ndu we has a whole suite the people are doing Technical Assistance to help with bothal planning, permittin, design, et cetera. Thats exciting. Its called cfi, the charging and fueled infrastructure comp is to replace 7500 chargers. We need toet make sure that stas are doing that. Theyve been given funding for that as well. They have been giving fundiny parts. Hopefully thats happening. The rip and replace should be easy. Its the lowest hanging fruit. You have to rebut permitting for getting electricity so we are encouraging states to take that on first even as theyre getting the permitting for the other ones. I will have of the question for the record but i do need to bring this up. Last summer many communities face significant destruction from storms as you know. Southeast michigan keeps getting hit by once every 100 your storms every year, including heavy rainfall, strong winds and we had seven tornadoes, four of that my district leading to road and bridge closures, fallen trees, damage to structures and roads. At the peak closeth to 500,000 customers lost power in south michigan and it happens too much. Thousands remained without power for days. My goal is to ensure we are better prepared for these increasingly sever weather events impacting our community. How is d. O. E. Working with utilities to quickly restore power to consumers and also strengthen Grid Resilience both during and after events like this . Two responses on that. We are leading Energy Sector coordinating council with the utilities to be able to do quick responses to help get up, but ultimately it is the utilities responsibility to get the pulse of, transmission lines across. The second thing is Congress Gave us finding to be able to support hardening the grid, expanding the grid, making the grid more resilient to these extreme weather events. Were giving out those grants on a regular basis and i think michigan, in fact, that some of that. Altright this is a huge Infrastructure Projects across the country, not just in michigan and many to invest in that infrastructure as well as the roads andnd bridges. Thank you. Yield back. Madam secretary, we use save the best for last but thats not the case here. We will recognize mr. Carter for five minutes. [laughing] thank you, mr. Chairman for allowing me to wait on and for that outstanding reference. Secretary granholm, thank you for being here. Recently, the epa has issued new rules and standards that are so close to the background levels in community that even ferries s that meet the standards will not be able to permit new or expanded manufacture including manufacturing that is critical to building a Clean Environment and Energy Infrastructure that this administration is pursuing and pushing so hard. Is d. O. E. Estimates programs to support new manufacturing, has it taken into consideration new permit barriers that are created by epa . Well, as we give out grants we are not, we dont take that into account. We take into account what the seeker of the funds is asking for and the kind of technology that speeded how do you feel about that will . I supported. Youve know it is so close to the background that many places are not to be able but theres a lot of technology to be able to address that. Understood. Give me an example of that. The largest single Economic Development project in history of the state of georgia is taking place right now in my district. Thats the ev, hyundai. We were excited and appreciative that is going there. He relies that project would not be permitted today if the standards were in place . I dont have information on that. Okay. I hope you will look at thatt because it is true. We could not get that project today and i know if you want the project and i want that project. Look, i think theres going to be a market. I dont agree with a lot of things with the government picking winners and losers, but at the same time i think theyre making a wise decision. Theres going to be a market. I think the would be successful. Thats why want them to build this plant so i hope you lookt that because is a highquality jobs, highpaying jobs. I know they are. Thirtyfive factories. Are you concerned . You are obvious he pushing this much as anyone. Are you concerned with the other projects that are not going to get permit . Its brightest and that is not, in fact, the case but i will go back in research. And please let me know. Letch me shift gears if i could. Weve heard reports recently and we are certainly alarmed at the Biden Administration has pressured ukraine to halt strikes on Russian Energy facilities out of concern it will impact russias oilil Production Capacity and they to increase Global Oil Prices. As i understand it, and please of correct me if im wrong, but you as the secretary of department of energy, its your responsibility or whoever might hold that position as secretary, its their responsibility to advise the president on matters related to Energy Security and Global Energy markets. Did you advise the president on the . Its not my remit. Odds are . Its not my remit. Its not your remit . Right. Its the department of state, not the department ofd energy. So with an energy issue like this speeded the people in ia white suv that. You dont have any influence on this . Not on that decision. Can ask you, do you believe that disrupting russias Energy Facilities will drive up Global Oil Prices . I dont have an opinion on that. Surely you do. You are secretary of energy. Surely the Sector Energy i find that hard to believe but hanevertheless, and perhaps i nd the educator here as exact what the response those of the department at the cabinet post. At that you are an advisor to the president. Lities are. It is a cabinet post. I thought you were an advisor to the president. I am an advisor to the president on Domestic Energy issues. There are many people in the white house that advice both on Energy Issues and Global Energy issues. Theres a whole National Security implication there. So you are washing your hands of which i think is more of a ban. Not a ban. Its not a ban, its a pause . Its not a ban, its a pause. We get that straight and i assume you were involved in that decision . I was. Good, good. I think its the worse decision that possibly could have been made and economically from a global emissions standpoint, it was an awful decision, but nevertheless, im not the secretary of energy, you are. So, there was a 2019 department of energy study that found that the life cycle of the Greenhouse Gas emissions, lng is 30 cleaner than russia. We should take this in consideration. Do you believe that u. S. Lng is cleaner than russia . Yes. Do you believe that they double that the lng could under cut the efforts to reduce emissions . No, it will not. Because they will be using russian lng that you say is dirtier. The pause is merely to the end of this year for the study for the National Interest given the value. It does not affect current exports. Were currently have will it impact anyone in the first of next year . Will it impact what . Exports the first of next year . We are waiting to see what the results of the study is based on a number of things. [laughter] thank you, ms. Secretary for being here and mr. Chairman for allowing me to waive on to this very frustrating exchange. The gentleman yields. And members may have additional written questions they may submit in writing and i ask that they do that within 10 Business Days and that you respond within 10 Business Days for receipt of the questions. And the documents list and without objection that will be the order. Without objection, seeing no other members of congress, we will stand adjourned. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] today, on cspan, transportation secrery Pete Buttigieg testifies on esident bidens 2025 budget request for his departmt at a nate appropriations subcommittee aring. And the work on the federal aviation admistration for another five years. On cspan 3, more about the 20 budget request appring before the Natural Resources committee. That starts at 10 a. M. Eastern and you can watch our live coverage on the fe cspan now video app or online at cspan. Org. Is there a relationship between soft and hard money and pacs and super