Transcripts For CSPAN Hearing On Expanding U.S. Energy Production 20230201

witnesses. both even called on the floor. we're going to -- ten minutes after the close of the second -- there's two votes. this is gonna take care of business and will be back ten minutes after the close of the second vote. and the committee stands in recess. the -- >> the subcommittee will come back to order. and the order of things, doctor ruiz is next, from california, five minutes. >> thank, you mister chairman. i want to focus today on the question of reliability has emergency medicine physician, i know how important reliably electricity is for powering medical equipment and preventing lifesaving medicine from spoiling, and one of the best ways -- move towards a carbon free energy system. it's to increase the battery storage capacity on our nations grids. lithium batteries are critical components of electrical vehicles, but they are also an obvious solution to clean air clean -- while also providing the grid reliability that we need. in fact, batteries are already being used to increase reliability on the power grid. in my district, california's 25th district, the crimson energy storage in blaine is the second largest energy storage project in the world. constructed by union labor, including the international brotherhood of electrical workers, and i believe also the teamsters powering the vital medical equipment, electric vehicles, and so much more. our country needs more batteries and battery storage projects like this. batteries need lithium. and lithium is found at the sulk and see, in the imperial valley in california. in my district, the salted sea has a massive supply of raw materials that could power clean energy futures. the sultan sea has the fifth largest deposit of lithium in the world, and it has the potential to supply the lithium needed not only for electric vehicles, but also the batteries that can make our electric grids resilient. lithium valley, as we like to call it back home, is the key to unlocking a clean energy future, cement the u.s.'s leadership, strengthen our battery supply chain, and protect our national security. dr. unruh cohen, you mentioned that china has a start on that of the world and clean energy. i'm sure you know that the head start, it includes both those chemical supply of lithium and the manufacturing of lithium batteries. in fact, according to the world economic forum, the united states is eight in a lithium production in the world, and china has 60% of the lithium refining capacity in the world. can you talk about the effects that the u.s. lagging in producing lithium supplies and manufacturing batteries? >> thank you for the question, doctor ruiz. and let me underscore the reliability, the importance of reliability, and say that wind and solar availability is predictable, and so when you couple that with battery resources, we start to have a full spectrum, 24/7, opportunity to provide electricity to the grid from renewables. to do that, you are right, you need more lithium, and i know there's projects in salt and sea and around the world, getting their permits, moving forward, getting investments, and you know, the investments we see in the infrastructure act and the inflation reduction act are going to drive that further. the additional good news when it comes to the grid is we actually can take, when neb is used their batteries, and they are no longer great for that, you can put them in ways to use in the grid. so there's a lot -- >> in terms of china, us importing the majority of batteries, et cetera, lithium, from other countries. we all know too well that is dangerous for our nation, if it is dependent on foreign supply chains, because in a foreign country, -- favorites on domestic companies, for whatever geopolitical reasons, or clean energy revolution is stopping in its tracks. that means we need strong, domestic supply chains that start in communities like the imperial valley, making sure that companies don't simply come in, extract community resources, and turn it into batteries elsewhere. that means those jobs are filled by local workers, and those benefits come home to our communities. all of this is more important than ever to ensure that the benefits of this lithium goes back to this salton sea, which could become a worse environmental disaster, with reduced water flowing from the colorado river and the exposed ply a, putting find particular dust in the air. they can affect people's lungs -- the inflation reduction act can help us build a strong supply chain for our clean energy future here at home. in what ways you expect recent past legislature -- domestic manufacturing of batteries in the u.s.? >> i think we are already seeing the results of that. of that 90 billion dollars in investment that i mentioned in my testimony, a lot of that is electric vehicles. i think we just had one today that maybe i didn't get to incorporate. so almost every day, there is a new announcement. >> the gentleman's time is expired. i recognize myself for five minutes. i want to thank the panelists for being here, it's been very informative. i approach energy in two broad categories. transportation fuels, which is fossil fuels and electricity, for evs, and base load power generation. and base load power generation, you have nuclear power, which can be ramped up and ramped down very quickly or easily, so it remains constant. and then you have renewables as part of the energy matrix as -- renewables come online when the sum comes over the wind is blowing. it could be a climactic event that makes solar go of line or they can see it starting to decline, or it might be the sun setting. so when that happens, they've got to fill the gap to make sure that the base load power is constant for our consumers. that's our constituents's homes, municipalities, manufacturing. so what works in that gap filling area is coal, hydro if it's available, and natural gas. and we've got to make sure the natural gas is a big part of that. what i hear from a lot of my utilities is that we have a pipeline issue in this country, that our pipelines are about at capacity for the amount that's drawn off of it, and if we don't meet that future demand, the gas is not going to be available. so i wish the infrastructure bill would have include more gas pipeline permitting and projects, but unfortunately, it didn't. it focused a lot on evs and charging stations and all that. look, as mr. dabbar said, -- i will be part of the matrix, it's groovy. but i know what works to provide that bissell power that the manufacturers need, always on, always ready, always available. 24/7 three 65 base load power. and right at christmas eve and -- we just had about a texas event because some of those situations where, when insular wasn't possible, coal, they take three days to crank up to thermal capacity to meet energy needs, natural gas is 30 minutes. so it's got to be a big part of that. pipelines is the new word from the graduate, it was plastics in the movie the graduate, its pipelines today. i want to focus on nuclear. nuclear energy must be part of the energy matrix. moving forward -- unfortunately, other countries are outpacing us. adversaries like russia and china have continued to invest in their nuclear industries. in the past four years, china has brought in 21 reactors online, many of them are advanced reactor designs, 31 plans are under construction. this country, we have to focus on things that could be walk away safe. unfortunately, -- in large part due to regulatory and licensing structures that disincentivizes private sector investment. i've got a piece of legislation we filed in the last congress, we hope to reintroduce, if we haven't already, then expedite the permitting process to build power plants. if you've gotta prove the designs, build. it -- do the geology, make sure there's no things there with earth and earthquakes and other things that can be cited there, a water source for cooling, but replicate that in and expedited permitting process. as we continue to look at a similar's and other advanced nuclear reactors -- i was glad to see an article this week that the first mri was actually permitted -- start producing energy, as a test case, and once we see that it works, heck, it's worked in the united states navy for what, 50, 60, 70 years? it works! modular reactors work. so those are some of the things that i believe in. -- we need to incentivize -- what are some of the high-level suggestions to modernize nuclear regulation in this country to invite innovation and growth, to -- encourage growth and lead this global nuclear energy? >> as you pointed out, congressman, the nuclear regulatory commission is very conservative. as you know, you interview regulators all the time. overtime, they get more conservative, because they don't want anything overturn in the courts. and as a result, it's drug out crime endlessly as a result of that. -- let's review, it ten times the sunday. so i think any sort of legislation that might allow them to facilitate that, to make it -- to get them focused, i think that's important. that's where we have ended up. the other thing we should do is take away some of the federal power entertains like bonaville and so on and take a look at them, willing the contract as a first customer for some of these new reactors. so i think any authorization for a d.o.e. or tva or others to be a first customer of -- that will provide a big jolt for the industry. >> that's spot on. this committee will have an rcm to talk about those things, asking the same questions. we will also look at closing the fuel cycle and recycling spent fuel, in commercial reactors, because there is a uranium concern and a fuel concern. my time is expired, so i will now go to -- >> congressman, five seconds. savannah river national lab proposed to me a recycling plant when i was under secretary, and i think you should be talking to them about their idea because it's exactly what you just said. >> we are, and there's great -- others across the country that can play a part of that. mr. peters from california, you are recognized for five. >> thank you, mister chairman. our path to true energy security is not to double down on oil and gas. the oil embargo in the 70s, the gulf war in the 90s, hurricane katrina in 2005, 2008 financial crisis, covid, putin's war on ukraine, all contributed to a rollercoaster of harmful oil price volatility under republican and democratic presidential leadership. despite the pain of these price fluctuations, republicans continue to propose the same false solution, more oil and gas. that will only lead to more price uncertainty and pain, as we have seen at the gas pump recently, and has san diegans are seeing on their natural gas bills today. the solution, long term, is clean, innovative energy technologies which are becoming cheaper than fossil fuels, and can produce energy domestically, without reliance on foreign adversaries. it's not radical, it's smart. even texas takes 40% of its power from non carbon sources. it's not because texas is against oil and gas. it's because it's the sensible thing to do. i'm proud that we provided significant funding in the 117th congress to build this more clean and secure energy future, but i want to talk about the 118th congress, something we haven't talked about much today, is speed. we can have all the money in the world, but we will still fail if we don't act faster. look at high voltage electric transmission lines. according to research from princeton, 80% of the projected emissions reductions from the inflation reduction act depend on building transmission faster. berkeley lab founded -- in the pipeline to power nearly 85% of our economy, but 80% of those projects could be canceled due to insufficient transmission. according to jesse jenkins at princeton, the current power grid took 150 years to build. to get to net zero emissions by 2050, we would have to triple its size in the next 30 years. that means 200,000 miles of new transmission lines by the 2030's, 200,000. over the last decade, we build just 1800 miles per year. because each one takes more than ten years to complete, and seven of those ten years, seven of those ten years, are just for playing a permit. other countries are doing it just fine, according to an american -- north america has built just seven gigawatts of into regional transmission, less than half of that is the u.s., so say we are about three or four. south america is 22, europe's 44, china's 260. in the 1970s, iron byron mental priority was to stop, dirty destructive products. -- was designed to require public input to ensure federal agencies assess the -- before they made decisions. we have needed to think for a great deal in environment preservation, but its implementation is slow, with documents several thousand pages long, that refused to take -- nepa is also the most litigated environmental statute, with lawsuits dragging on for more than a decade, and the simple threat of litigation can prevent new -- we must build to be in our climate goals. climate action is about building things, not stopping things. to save the planet, we must build transmissions, utility scales, solar power, hydrogen pipelines, passenger rail, -- bike lanes, tons of infill housing, and ironically, many of the laws intended 50 years ago to protect environment could undermine our climate action. some claim that nepa wasn't the problem or that it can be touched. someone who has practiced law in this field says i can't believe we can sustain project by project -- still achieve climate action with the time and money we have. the successive process -- affect a punitive tax, a clean energy, and fixing laws? just to serve the public good? that's our job. we can achieve high environmental standards with less time. nipple was signed into law in 1970. 165 of our congressional colleagues were not yet born. we are as far in time -- this is an old law, folks. we are charged to updated for our times, and that's okay, because it didn't come from noises on tablets. moses -- they had electric typewriters. the selective process -- those of us committed to climate action say it's the greatest threat we face, there called on to rethink -- clean energy projects. to unlock a future that doesn't depend on greenhouse gas energy, we have to update our -- to make it easier, not harder, to build. i encourage all of you to engage in a -- with the communities of interest to talk about real bipartisan process to enact -- deliver energy security and environmental production -- protection from the american people. i look fortunate looking at that with all of, you and i yield back. >> thank you for yielding back. the china recognizes mr. palmer from the great state of alabama for five minutes. >> thank, you mister chairman. i want to start off with talking about how this green new deal policy -- there's about two billion people around the world to have little to no access to reliable energy. it reminds me of a quote from thomas hobbes, when he described life at that time as solitary, brutish, nasty, and short. this is what access to reliable energy means. the rule bank -- energy consumption has doubled. it was half what it is today. in 1980. and extreme poverty was four times higher than that it is today. life expectancy, because of china's expansion of their energy grid, and obviously, it's mostly coal fired power plants, their life expectancy has increased by ten years. this is not just -- i mean, i worked for two international engineering communities, you will hear me repeat that several times, i have a good idea of what it takes to generate power, i worked in aerospace, different projects, and i will just be honest with you. and it's not just my opinion, there was a report from the electric power research institute, that basically says that -- they are not sufficient themselves to achieve net zero economy wide emissions. in other words, no amount of winter minds, solar panels, hydro power, nuclear power, battery power, electrification, and possibly technologies, any of that, is going to get a stern and zero by 2050. that's a wall street journal article describing the policy, that research paper. miss jackson, we've had this discussion -- i grew up dirt poor, my dad had an eighth grade education, he built the house i grew up in, he only finish what he could pay for, unlike the federal government, he didn't spend more than he had, and he heeded the house with a cold heater in the kitchen. in the wintertime, we slept under about a foot of blankets, that my mom and grandma and great and quilted. what does it mean to people when they see their power bills go through the roof and they have to make decisions on how much food they can afford to buy and still be able to heat or cool their home? >> one of the things that we always have to pay for, because i hear a lot of people talk about climate change policies, but i've never heard anyone talk about actually how many degrees is going to save. the climate change -- the climate change policies are more harmful than the -- what we are trying to save and we shouldn't be enacted. one of the things we advocate for is that you do an economic impact study on the lives of the people that it's going to affect. the climate change policy, right now, they're more harmful for low income and minority families. then the climate change -- then what the climate change is supposed to be doing? >> we are hurting people. >> we are hurting real people. i get calls every day from people that don't have my political leaning -- black people, naacp people, urban league people, saying they need help. they can't afford to pay these bills, and nobody is listening. >> what gets me is we hear report after report, from europe, from the uk, about the number of people dying as a result of excess winter deaths, because they can't heat their homes in the wintertime, and we see that here as well. people can't afford to heat -- it really impacts people, with respiratory disease, cardiovascular -- that sort of thing. and it's like, it's almost like my colleagues across the aisle think this is collateral damage, and it's acceptable to achieve what clearly, they are not going to achieve by 2050. so mr. mcnally, i want to ask you -- i want to pivot now. china is building coal fire plants all over the world. there's a report that came out last year, last fall, that they built 14 coal power plants. they are building infrastructure around the world, developing -- and we are going to make ourselves dependent on china for our energy production? does that make sense to you? >> congressman palmer, if there's one area perhaps of bipartisan agreement, i think we're all clear eyed, or hopefully are, that china use energy and the transition and dominance of the power and the transportation aspects of energy as a way to replace the united states as the worlds preeminent power. it's a militarized superpower strategy. we ought to see it as such. and build our own clean energy here. >> mister chairman, time went by quick. but my time is expired, so i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from new hampshire, miss custer, for five minutes. >> thank you, mister chairman. ranking member pallone, and our subcommittee leaders for holding this important hearing. i want to start by taking a -- kathy mcmorris rogers as the first woman to chair this great committee. what we may represent districts on opposite sides of the country, our constituents rely on similar energy resources, including hydro power. and that's why i look forward to working with all of you, to unlock the full potential of hydro power, to provide affordable, reliable, and clean energy to communities, from the pacific northwest to the northeast. it's important today to remind yourself that democrats and republicans share many of the same values when it comes to our nations energy resources. we believe that all americans should have access to low costs, reliable energy. that does not depend on foreign resources or foreign technologies. while we may have a policy disagreements, if we focus on these shared goals, i believe we can find enough common ground to deliver on. last congress, we passed historic legislation to invest in our country's clean energy future, and put the u.s. back on track to lead the clean energy revolution. the infrastructure investment in jobs act, in included approximately $800 million in investments in our nation's dams, including to upgrade our electrical grid for hydro power energy. in his testimony, mr. day barr spoke about prioritizing base load energy, and i agree. hydro power is the base load power that we need. with black star capability and the potential for additional energy reserves through pumped hydro power storage, hydro power can provide additional resilience to our energy grid. i wanted to ask you, dr. unruh cohen, can you speak to the ability of clean energy resources and technologies, such as hydro power and hydro power storage, to bolster the resiliency of our grid as we transition to clean energy? >> thank you for the question, congresswoman. hydro power has been an incredibly important power source for the history of our country. it was the first power source for our industrial work, up in the new england and northeast. and it continues to be critical. i think the important thing to consider for this committee, especially looking at the investments that we made in dams, over the past few congresses, is the water cycle is very sensitive to climactic change, and so -- we are going to see challenges to hydro power. unfortunately, our friends in the west are really seeing that challenge now, with the colorado river level. it impacted the northeast as well. in order to continue to provide that incredibly important clean energy from hydro power and from pump storage, we really need to look at the investments and make sure we are maximizing the clean power that we are getting from our dams around the country. >> i just would add, this pumped hydro storage, i was out in mr. curtis's district in utah, meeting with the company there that is interested in pumped hydro storage, and how that could be helping with base load and with peak and how we manage that. so my time is limited, but i will just say it's important that this committee does not overlook the potential of our nations hydro power resources to deliver abundant, reliable, clean energy. it exists, we have 90,000 dams, some of them can be retrofitted with turbines. so i remain committed to pursuing holistic and comprehensive policies to bolster our hydro power generating capacity, and to ensure our energies -- nations energy independence, and i hope that will be on a bipartisan basis with our committee. i stand ready and willing to work with each of my colleagues here today to make good on these promises for the american people. and mister chairman, and yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. thank you. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from florida, dr. dunn, for five minutes. >> thank you, mister chair. i saw an interesting fact -- the cia projects a 50% increase in rural energy use by 2050. the u.s. should be the global leader in innovative technologies to maximize efficient energy production, should be at the forefront of filling that demand. our entrepreneurial spirit drives innovation, but overly prescriptive policies from the biden white house are drowning american innovators with burdensome regulation. this puts our economy and our national security risk -- as mr. mentally pointed out a couple of minutes ago. this is why i will be focusing on combatting the administration's radical energy policies that destroy american leadership in the energy space. i look forward to working with my colleagues on policies that will unleash american innovation, return america to the forefront of energy production, and unlock resources for future generations. i have to pause for a moment and say, miss jackson, is great to see you again. i think we've talked a lot, just recently, i hope to see you in tallahassee before too long, or your team, at least. but the first question is for mr. mcnally. i'm want to give you this question, and mr. dabbar, i'd like you to answer after him. american innovation has driven first and foremost by ideas, those animated by deities must then be supported by efficient allocation of capital investment. this administration's policies and the private sector -- stymieing rational capital investments in the energy sector, specifically oil and gas, but also in renewables. and in the nuclear field. capital allocators director investments to renewable technology because they are supported by a favorable government subsidy. mr. ali, do you feel that the current administration's policies in esg investment are obstacles to american innovation and development in energy? >> i do. i think the initiation is signaling that it doesn't want to see capital flow into oil and gas production. at a time, as i mentioned earlier, when we are in the foothills of what i believe will be a multi year boom cycle when we will not every drop we can. they are doing that based on the idea that we need to forced disclosure, or raise the cause of capital, based on carbon and climate change and so forth. as i stated in some of the papers i will be submitting with my testimony, we need a sound and serious climate policy, starting with the politicized science, crossed benefit analyses, legislation, not regulatory rules and courts. but we should do that first, and then, -- where to deploy, maybe we consider it down the road. >> you cautioned on that earlier, careful on how -- ready, shoot, aim. mr. dabbar? >> i always had a view that the best place for federal investment is in discovery, and new innovation. it's too far away from cash flow for the venture capital community, and the corporate community, to invest. the private sector, luckily, in this country, is still vastly larger than the federal government, and the amount of capital is widely available for things that can be applied, and the better use for federal money is where the private sector doesn't see anything quite yet to invest in, and therefore, discovery science and innovation and new things, that's more efficient for the federal spending. >> on that subject, mr. dabbar, i want to spend the rest of this time opining on what we can do to make america a global leader in the nuclear energy technology field. and this is a pointed question, because we have a large gathering of the nuclear industry this evening. take it away. >> i think that the development reactor program that was passed here a few years ago has really triggered a lot. there's a lot of excitement within the industry right now. and i think that is moving along very well. so i think congress should be -- has done a lot with that. >> is there more we should the? >> i think trying to -- the u.s. system, trying to maybe a first customer of some of that power, and once again, i said a little bit earlier, maybe tva or wapa or bonaville can look at being a first customer for some of this plan. >> we talked about this. -- i like these ideas. thank you all, all panelist, for coming. mister chair, i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman -- gentleman from delaware for five minutes. >> congratulations to all of the new members, and congratulations to -- thank you to our witnesses. i have been proud to support and vote for the bipartisan infrastructure law, and the inflation reduction act, which made historic investments in our clean energy future. these investments, they not only help expand domestic clean energy, they also help to diversify our renewable energy sources. this is a key to building a resilient and sustainable clean energy system. before i start with my questions, i will also like to note that i was pleased to see in the testimony of miss jackson and also hear from doctor unruh cohen in her testimony a positive recitation about former energy subcommittee -- bobby ruch's work on increasing diversity in the energy industry, this is really important to me. while i was disappointed that we could not find bipartisan support and agreement in the last congress, i really would love to see a compromise and i am hopeful that in the 118th congress, we will focus on workforce and jobs. as a former secretary of labor in delaware and former ceo of the urban league in delaware, this issue is an incredibly important one, and during this congress, i will continue to work on that issue, starting on creating programs with -- within the the department of energy to meet our first needs in the energy sector and also further train and get more people in the under represented communities into the energy workforce. it will lower the cost for those individuals that are in communities that are under represented, communities of color, and it will also increase opportunities and salaries. these are jobs that are good paying jobs. i also want to address my questions, mainly to, you doctor unruh cohen, we've heard a lot today about energy production, but i also want to emphasize, the importance of energy efficiency, going back to lauren costs. the global energy demands are only going to grow. we need to focus on initiatives that optimize energy. can you discuss the importance of energy efficiency, when we talk of things like national security or the economy, and also public health? can you talk to us a little bit about the benefits? >> thank, you for that question. the most important piece of energy is that we don't use. energy efficiency is actually our biggest energy resource, if you look at our history since 1970s, and -- it's crucial for taking an edge off of those bills, making sure that households are not making those hard decisions about paying their medical bills, versus their energy bills. it reduces the -- and, so where we have pollution concerns, that's way -- the less energy we use, the less dependent we've been, in national -- transition to clean energy is not only necessary to protect human health and the infirmary but it's also an enormous opportunity to create a more equitable economy. mister chairman, i ask unanimous consent to submit this report, improving equity outcomes for more federal investments in clean energy infrastructure from the bipartisan policy center into the record. >> without objection, so ordered. >> thank, you mister chairman. and doctor unruh cohen, can you discuss how clean energy investments from the bipartisan infrastructure law and the inflation reduction act will help build a more equitable economy? >> yes. in both of those bills, and through the biden administration's initiatives, there is a huge focus on making sure that the communities that are building out the clean energy, that those jobs are flying there, and earlier, we were talking about the weatherization program. one of the benefits there is not just to the people living in the house, being more comfortable, but also the job training and gaining skills, doing skilled training where there's workers. i mentioned my mom who benefited from that, and she loved talking to the young men who are there, doing the work, learning about the skills they were building up, and their hopes for the jobs they would have in the future. >> thank you for the time. i just want to add that i think this is an area where i've seen young people, older people, people of color, different communities, come together and recognize that we have a lot of opportunities here. so i hope as a committee, we take this opportunity -- i yield back. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from utah, mr. curtis, for five minutes. >> thank, you mister chairman. it's a delight to be here. a little warning to my staff, i'm not delivering the remarks that we worked so hard to prepare, but rather, my impressions of being here for several hours with all of you today. i couldn't help but think, if an alien was listening to us today, they might conclude that those on my list hated fossil fuels, and would stop at nothing to stop them out, and likewise, they might surmise that those of us on the right want to go crazy with fossil fuels and do nothing else. to an alien friends that are listening, i have some good news and some bad news. first, the good news. despite the dialogue, there are many areas of agreement between those of us on the right and the left. representative peters pointed out the need to deal with reform, representative ruiz has pointed out the rich natural resources, i heard him talk about it many times, in his district, that we will desperately need. representative duncan has addressed nuclear, many of us agree that nuclear is part of our future, and that we can't have it reliable, affordable, clean future without it. we all like emerging technologies, like hydrogen fusion, and better battery storage. we all agree, actually, that wind and solar are important, we may agree on the mix, but we agreed that they are important. we all agree we don't want to lose to china. and we agree that -- i don't know anyone who would listen to you and disagreed that we have to take into account those who are least able to afford this. rather than ask you all, i will take or nodding heads in agreement we are on the same page. this was -- a list quickly put together by, me i'm sure there's much more. but now the bad news. we spent too much of our time in the areas where we disagree. for those of us on the right, we feel there is too much misrepresentation of our position. and i have no doubt my friends on the left would feel the same way. i don't speak for either group, but let me say this. i don't know anyone in my circle, and i represent oil and gas and coal, i lead a group of almost 80 republicans that talk about climate. i don't know anyone in my circle who doesn't want to leave a clean earth better than we found it, who thinks it's okay to leave something for our grandchildren not as good as we found it. i don't know anyone who thinks that more pollution is better than less pollution. at the same time, those i hang around with think that it's wrong to demonize fossil fuels. and those that produce them. as far as i know, all of us in this room are highly dependent on fossil fuels. i don't know any energy expert, anywhere, right or left, who want to tell you that they will be using fossil fuels in the year 2050. -- mistake fossil fuels with emissions. we need to be clear, do we hate fossil fuels? or do we hate emissions? i challenge my friends on the left to substitute their anger with fossil fuels, with that of the missions. and then i asked this question. if fossil fuels can compete with other energy forces and cleanliness, why do we insist that they die? why -- decades and decades, why can't be viewed as part of the solution, and not the problem. on my side, we see hypocrisy, like posing an electric camera and bragging about it. the reality of it is a gas chevy malibu produces as much greenhouse gas emissions live cycle as an electric shiver -- chevy hummer. we see bankruptcy of shutting down federal let -- my district, several my counties, 90% federally owned. and yet, the president, then goes to other countries, that in many cases our enemies, and ask them to produce more. to my colleagues who express that don't understand our approach, let me be clear. we believe we've been falsely told that we must sacrifice affordability, reliability, and national security so that we can be clean. i believe we can have it all. i believe we can be energy independent. i believe we can be reliable, affordable, and clean. now, if we can get together and actually -- i believe my colleagues on the left -- and in the tiny 30 seconds i have left, i don't know if any of you want to weigh in on, this miss unruh cohen, would you like to take my last 20 seconds? >> i'll just add, mr. curtis, that in this select committee, across the aisle, we actually would often agree on the challenges that the country faces. and sometimes, we agreed, as you said, on the opportunities to solve those, and other times we had disagreements, and i encourage this committee to, as you said, focus on the things maybe you agree on. >> forget of, the amount of, time i would like to have you all share your thoughts, but i yield my time. >> the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes mr. veasey from the state of texas for five minutes. >> thank you very much, and i'm so glad that we are holding this important hearing today. particularly on energy security. i think that energy security, aren't, fireman the air we breathe, it's something that we can never quite frankly talk enough about. one of the things that has been worrying me lately is china. we know that china has released their covid lockdown. they're probably going to reopen here sometime soon, and i was hoping that maybe mr. mcnally could tell me what he thinks china reopening is going to do for -- as far as prices are concerned, the upward surge in prices, that might pose to the american public? >> yes sir, congressman, thank you for the question. that's my bread and butter. so oil prices, or pump prices, have been in a tug of war between this russian disruption risk, which makes them go up, and this macro economic weakness risk, which makes them go down. china was on the macro weakness song -- side until the end of last year because as you noted, they were in severe lockdowns. their demand was depressed, and very importantly, china is a big exporter of refined products like diesel and gasoline. that helped gasoline prices get to $5 a barrel. however, sir, to your question, as we come to this year, president xi has decided to let covid run rampant, burned through, so that by the second quarter, we and most analysts think that china will be recovering back to its pre-covid demand level. that means close to about 16 million barrels a day. the big chunk that has to come back is jet fuel, they let their citizens start to fly. that would put upward pressure on prices, you've seen them start to rise, now we have to go back and look and see what happens with russia. the boy who cried wolf, we don't see the destruction last summer, but we might going forward, so china, their return has switch sides in the tug of war from being a downward price factor to being an upward price factor. >> and some reports say we get to about 101 million barrels a day, which would be a record for the world. so one of the things i've heard a lot from my friends on the other side, on the majority side, which is we need to unleash all of this energy that we have, and i'm proud to say that as a texan, we do a pretty good job of unleashing not only -- we revolutionized things in the fracking area but we are one of the world leaders when it comes to renewable energy. about 25% or so of ercot's grid is renewable energy. so i think we are doing it right there. but when i hear about unleashing american energy and being energy independent, one area that continues to hurt the u.s. congress that i haven't been able to find some kind of compromise on is the issue of immigration. and if you talk to people in the permian basin and you talk about running oil and gas companies, lots of people realize this, but the permits that ranchers use, agriculture, the permits that hospitality use, those same immigration permits are not the ones that are needed for people to have temporary work visas in the oil and gas sector, so when you talk about people in the oil and gas fields, people that are working and say hey, we need more swapping units. we need more rigs, guess what? you ain't unleashing a thing unless you do something about immigration report -- reform. so when you hear people talk about being able to unleash -- you can't unleash anything of the dog doesn't have a handler. so please, can you please tell me, how are we going to unleash this, all this energy potential, if the other side -- and will continue to use this as sort of a wedge between the american people and offer absolutely no sort of solution? >> congressman, i will step around the land mine of immigration and the border and so forth, and just concur that i hear the same thing for my clients, in your state and others, that it's input costs are really high. part of that is finding good people. we are scouring sri lanka right now. all over the world, they are trying to bring workers in and steel tariffs have raised the cost of steel and casing -- there are -- my clients are dealing with this, and congressman -- thoroughly viewed those, -- >> before i get ready to turn back over, mister chairman, if we really want to address this issue, and we really want to unleash, we really should do something about immigration reform because just saying unleash and not addressing immigration reform means absolutely nothing. >> the gentleman yields back, the chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from arizona, miss lesko, for five minutes. >> i'm excited to be on the energy and commerce committee and on the energy subcommittee, talking about energy. because it's vital to every aspect of our lives. i represent the phoenix, arizona area, and its suburbs. and right outside of my district is the palo verde nuclear plant. it is the largest power plant in the nation for almost the last 30 years. so recently, last, year palo verde a nuclear power plant in arizona was awarded funds from the department of energy to increase its flexibility by creating hydrogen, when selling to the grid is and an economical option. mr. dabbar, what more needs to happen to increase the deployment of energy technology like hydrogen? >> so we awarded the money around increasing hydrogen production across the nuclear facilities. hydrogen is a storage vehicle. if you think about the comparison, you produce electricity, and you can stored in chemical form, or you can store it in gaseous form, in hydrogen. or you can do it in liquids, as i was talking about earlier. and so hydrogen has a great opportunity to -- for additional storage. the other thing that's exciting about hydrogen is that some industrial uses cannot really use electricity. so the likelihood of electrifying certain industries is quite poor -- like steel and concrete. so if you can take that electricity, put it into something that can produce a much higher heat rate, for that manufacturing, it's going to create an opportunity for those industrial -- electrified via converting into hydrogen. >> exciting! that's the one thing i like about energy. lots of new technology going on, exciting, i think it can solve a lot of energy needs in america. mr. mcnally, in your written and verbal testimony, you recommended the establishment of a national commission on energy, energy transition real-ism. an expert non partisan commission of renowned energy experts to advise government officials and evaluate policy options for energy transmissions. i love it! i think it's common sense. it sounds like a great idea to me. the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change, the u.n. ipcc, in a report, issued last, year pointed out that collectively, the g20 members are not on track to meet their goals under the paris climate agreement. the u.n. ipcc also states in its latest assessment that global warming at the end of the century is estimated at 2.7 degrees celsius, not even close to the paris climate agreement of 1.5 degrees. the biden administration is spending trillions of dollars on solutions that are not working, according to the u.n. ipcc. don't you think it's time they administration has an honest conversation on spending trillions of dollars, and ideas that according to the u.n. ipcc aren't working? >> thank, you congresswoman. i certainly do. i see a sound and serious climate policy as having a foundation, like a house has a foundation. and the quality of the foundation will determine whether the house is safe to build in and live in and so forth. the foundation ought to be de-politicized, a transmission of science to not experts like all of us. the concern with the ipcc reports, and the summary for policymakers, is that folks who are decoding the complicated climate science and explaining it to all of us are government officials. they don't have the rigorous peer review and requirements to be transparent like you do with actual climate science. i respectfully suggest that perhaps your side of the aisle, make it very clear, you embrace climate science, the problem is not climate science. it's how it's transmitted to the rest of us, because it's pretty complicated. in these ipcc reports -- let's have reforms to make sure it's honest, peer reviewed, and a good foundation upon which us to debate policies to address the problem. >> fantastic. i have 13 seconds. thank you for being here, once again. and telling us, and representing low income communities and minority communities and speaking up. thank you. i yield back. >> the gentlewoman yields back. the chair now recognizes mr. soto from florida. >> thank you, chairman. there are a few elephants in the room worth mentioning. the washington post reports today, oil companies post record smashing profits as gas prices creep up. record smashing profits. exxonmobil, 55.7 billion in 2022. a record. chevron, 36.5 billion, 2022. another record. inflation, corporate greed, record profits, share buybacks -- something this committee needs to keep in mind is we are navigating this. elephant number two. climate change demands our attention. intensifying hurricanes, massive floods, prolonged droughts, rising seas, extreme heat, extreme cold. climate is changing. and it takes more than just saying the word climate or delay, delay, delay, delay, to actually solve it. the inflation reduction act is now law. this committee should join the president and the senate in shepherding affair implementation of this landmark law, pursuing diversifying our energy production, with clean, renewable energy. number three. exporting oil abroad. there used to be a ban on that. and now, oil is being exported and americans are paying high prices at the pump. this isn't an america first policy, this is the exact opposite. if you want to kickstart american energy dominance, we should start by looking at the exports that just started just a few years ago. undersecretary dabbar, what do you think we should do about record oil profits an expense of the american people? >> it's almost ironic that when a few years ago, when we were at the energy dominant side on the oil market, the biggest problems, when that was going on, when we had so much production, was that the prices had been dropping so much for the consumer. it is a funny dialogue, right? when we've been supportive of expert terminals, pipelines, and so on, that actually -- oil and gas companies make less money. and consumers actually pay less money, but when we put lots of restrictions on them, there's lots of turmoil, prices go up, and then emissions go up. emissions -- because of coal plants coming on line, especially in germany. so it is a funny dynamic around those different issues. >> thank you. i appreciate describing the issue, but it would be helpful for some solutions on. it doctor unruh cohen, a key role for this committee is implementing 369 billion dollars in incentives to boost renewable energy, -- what are some of the things that this committee can do to help with that fair implementation? >> thank you for the question. we've talked a lot about what the importance -- in both the infrastructure bill and the inflation reduction act. i have important provisions to help improve the resilience of the grid and expand it. i think that is an area that this committee can give some close attention to. and in addition, there are a number of other -- we've also talked about nuclear power, and both the infrastructure act and inflation reduction act, -- of burning power plants that are safe to operate. take a look at that. it will be important so i can keep that carbon free emission coming. and then, as we talked about, just a deployment, making sure the deployment of wind, solar, the electric vehicle infrastructure, that's happening. >> thank you so much, dr. cohen. i think it should be an all of the above solution, we should look at different sources of energy, i hope that the mistakes of the past -- over 3 million floridians now get their care from their. we learn from those mistakes when we look at the inflation reduction act, knowing it is the law, and will be the law for the foreseeable future. and rather than try to undermine, and we should work together on maximizing it. under the inflation reduction act, we do have incentives for things like modular nuclear and carbon capture in there. so for colleagues who are talking about it as if it's all just renewable energy, that actually is false. there is a great opportunity for us to work together on -- to pursue this. i yield back. >> the chair now recognizes mr. crenshaw, from texas. five minutes. >> thank, you mister chair. thank you for hosting this hearing, thank you all for being here. we heard earlier that republican priorities are misguided, and that was a little shocking, because i think our priorities are guided quite well, and are very clear. they are this. provide energy to the american people that fits three criteria, reliable affordable and clean. i don't think that's very controversial. reliability is number one, of course. it has to be because energy production is pointless if it isn't reliable. society cannot function if it cannot keep the power on. affordability is second. americans need to be a ford -- be able to afford energy without subsidies so they can heat their homes, drive to work, and benefit from a thriving economy. third, republicans want our energy to be clean, and, yes we can have energy that is reliable, affordable, and clean. it is possible. it's also worth noting than -- the natural gas revolution is the single largest factor in reducing americas carbon emissions, switching from coal to gas accounted for 61% of initial reductions in the u.s. since 2005. if we cared about global emissions, we might know that the u.s. natural gas is 42% cleaner than russian natural gas, which is why republicans advocate for more natural gas exports to displace foreign coal, which by the way, counts for about 50% of total global power emissions. that would be some pretty low hanging fruit, if carbon emissions was actually the goal. also, worth noting, republicans are by far the biggest support of nuclear energy, both reliable and 100 and clean. maybe r. kelly could join us in fixing the outdated perming process that makes a four-year project last for 15 years. my democrat colleagues, they mostly just want to talk about wind and solar, which isn't reliable, and only affordable a few subsidize it. they say we can just build a bunch of batteries to deal with the emergency problem of renewables. they say we can't clear hubs of square miles of land for solar and wind farms and pay china to mine and process all of our critical minerals so we can pretend that we aren't actually responsible for the environmental devastation of chinese mining practices. and the enormous amount of missions that result from processing at all. so my question to my colleagues is simple, if the goal is actually reducing global emissions, well you work with us to improve our absurd environmental permitting regulations that are choking of our ability to not only build pipelines, but also build the solar and run farms and battery backup systems that you claim to care so much about. i know some of them are, because my friends have peters was talking about it. surely my colleagues will find it troubling that something like the ten west transmission line, whose groundbreaking ceremony was attended by vice president harris last year, won't actually be online until 2025. planning actually starts in 2016. just very simple 125 mile transmission line, on public land. so that's nearly ten years, from start to finish. nearly four years of which was just to get the environmental impact statement approved. we put a man on the moon in less than then that. does that seem like a healthy permitting and regulatory system to anyone? surely not. it's not just transmission lines, it's critical minerals as well. in nevada, we couldn't beloved the mine, because of some useless plant called pm buckwheat. i'm not joking. look it up. in oregon, we can mind reliving him because of a stage grouse. which is basically just a fancy version of the chicken. in minnesota, this administration halted the tunnels project over a vague environmental concerns. this might have produced taconite iron ore, copper, nickel, cobalt, although of which are needed for any renewable energy project. my point is this. the false narrative that we can cringe -- transition to a -- it's a fantasy. it's a dangerous one that will quickly take us down the failed energy scenario that we now see in europe. wind and solar certainly have their place, but when energy demand will increase by 50% over the next 50 years, interment rubles will never ever ever be enough. and it's time to let that finally go. so am i promoting oil and gas? yes. yes i am. in fact, the quickest way to reduce global emissions would be to ensure that our cleaner natural gas is displacing foreign coal fire and power plants. that's legal feet would have a larger impact on global emissions than any other solution offered. the industry thinks we can quadruple gas exports in the next ten years if we let them. if that gas displaced foreign coal, it would reduce emissions more than the combined impact of doubling our wind capacity, installing solar panels on every home, and electrify every vehicle in the country. you want solutions for reducing global emissions? built pipelines, build export terminals, leased the land for drilling, and send some special trade reps to countries like india and indonesia to make a deal. that's a realistic solution, and it's actually doable. reality has to guide our solutions for the future. we cannot sacrifice energy reliability for radicalism. we must be rational environmentalist, not radical environmentalist's. and we have to remember that the prosperity of the american people depends on reliable and affordable and -- energy. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from minnesota, miss craig, for five minutes. >> thank you so much, mister chairman. i'm going to focus my attention here this afternoon on our nations biofuel sector, and its role in strengthening economic environmental and national security. i'm actually going to ask you a question, so get ready. as many of my colleagues know, i've been a champion on the energy and commerce committee for expanding and enhancing this vital segment of our economy. for example, i was the first member of congress to pass you around e15 through the house -- -- any 15 fix this year. we should take up and pass consumer and fuel retailer choice acts, which is bipartisan, -- that would allow the year-round nation wine sale of ethanol blends higher than 10%. this will help lower fuel prices and improve stability and certainty in the u.s. fuel market. this bill was supported by the largest unified group of farming, biofuels, and oil companies to date. and i look forward to reintroducing the proposal in this congress again. e15 creates opportunities for our family farmers, supports economic growth in economic -- rural america, and lowers prices at the pumps for minnesota. news with this sentiment in mind, i wanted to direct a couple of questions to the panel for your thoughts and observations on biofuels policies, and where we go from here. mr. mcnally, you recently spoke, i believe, at the national ethanol conference about the future of liquid fuels. you told the group to keep the faith, because there is no evidence that consumers are -- or governments are on course to decarbonize as rapidly as the consensus expects. in a minute or so, i'm hoping you can tell me more about those comments, and why you predict american drivers will still be filling up with homegrown biofuels for many years to come? so why don't we go ahead and ask you to comment on that. >> i will have to talk very quickly, congressman, thank you very much for the question. the consensus has decided to believe that liquids fuel demand, so gasoline and ethanol, biofuels, is going to peak globally in about ten years. this is a very controversial, in my view, unjustified, if perhaps attractive, vision. if you believe that, that means the demand for biofuels and oil, because they go together, is going to plateau and go down. in my view, that consensus is wishful thinking, and the demand for energy is going to grow much stronger than that, including with liquid fuels. which means there will be a bigger pie for gasoline and diesel, which biofuels compliment. >> thank you so much. and now, dr. cohen, the select committee on climate crisis recommended that congress, and specifically this committee, develop a low carbon fuel standard to build on the renewable fuel standard. i've been a cosponsor of the next generation feels act, which would gradually ramp up the use of homegrown ethanol, at gas stations across the country, making americans less reliant on foreign oil and less vulnerable to the anticompetitive tactics of opec. i'm wondering if you could speak a little bit more about the design of the low carbon fuel standard and why the time is right to begin this important work here on the energy and commerce committee? >> thank you for the question. i actually was able to work on the 2007 energy bill, where we did the renewable fuel standard, which is now in need of reauthorization, so the time is right for this committee to take a hard look at our biofuels policy. we recommended doing a low carbon fuel standard. we've seen that work for transportation fuels, the agriculture community, out in california, it would be a way to take the holistic view about our local fuels and provide that signal and that standard to move towards lower carbon fuels and i agree with mr. mcnally, we are going to be using liquid fuels. we invested and sustainable aviation fuels in our recent laws. so we need to have -- provide the signals to produce -- that we are getting the type of transportation feels we need to meet the climate pollution reduction goals that we know we need to achieve. >> i would just like to end by saying thank you to all the panelists, i know it's been a long day for you, and with that, mister chair, i yield back. >> the gentleman -- gentlelady yells back. the chair now recognizes the vice chair of the environment manufacturing and critical minerals subcommittee, doctor joyce, from pennsylvania, for five minutes. >> thank, you mister chairman. i think all of the witnesses for being here today. realize that energy and commerce, the first formal hearing that we are holding, it is directed to energy, and how that unleashing of american energy is so important, as we began the 118th congress, this hearing is the first chance for energy and commerce republicans to begin tackling the issues that are facing all american people. it's great to be back together with my colleagues in one room, to do the job that our constituents sent us to washington to do. our new republican majority is ready to enact the commitment to america, a core piece of that plan is to ensure that our nation has a robust and reliable energy supply. let's be clear, and you've heard us say it repeatedly, energy security's national security. our physical and economic well-being is tied to maintaining energy. miss jackson, your words resonated with me. you messaged to us how important that energy sources at affordable prices are to all americans, and how the high cost of energy is certainly having more impact on lower socioeconomic americans and how that impact affects each individual american every day of the week. american policy makers in front of you have recognized that reality, and it is why, the department of energy was established in 1977 -- in order to decrease our reliance on foreign adversaries. after years of energy development, under both republican and democrat presidents, our nation finally achieved that goal, but under the last administration, energy had superseded that goal. we were an energy exporter. we were energy dominant. energy dominant, supplying those necessary energy forms to our friends and to our allies. but you know what? sadly, it's no longer true. the biden administration has waged a war on american energy industry. by creating restrictive and burdensome regulations that have left us less secure and more exposed to bad actors. it's focused on poor alternatives like wind and solar, instead of base load power capacity, it's made our grid less reliable, and less resilient. this becomes clear in my district in pennsylvania, when i heard from constituents that they were asked by their utility companies over the christmas holidays to conserve energy or risk outages. i will tell you, it's shocking. it's shocking in a state, like pennsylvania, where we have strong energy portfolios, we have coal, we have natural gas, we have nuclear, and they all play critical parts in the commonwealth's electricity supply. generations of pennsylvanian's have gone into coal mines to power america, and new drilling technology has enabled an explosion of natural gas production, from the marcellus shell industry. it is unacceptable that in a state, in a nation, as blessed as we are with natural resources, for our citizens to be at risk of blackouts, because of that government policies. now is the time to abandon these failed policies, and unleash the reserves. the reserves that are under the feet of my constituents in pennsylvania. with our new house majority, republicans are ready to begin implementing policies that will allow new leases for oil and gas production. reform the permitting prophecies for energy infrastructure, and prevent burdensome government -- governing regulation to reclaim american energy dominance. my first question is for you, mr. dabbar, case began how critical it is for good reliability to have base load power capacity, and how does the closing of coal and natural gas power plants in favor of renewables effect that grid resilience? >> yes, congressman, until the relative recent past, the last 20 years, almost all the power plants in the country were dispatch-able. whether it was hydro or gas or coal, or nuclear. and the advent of wind and solar, which are great at admissions, has increased instability in the grid. -- it's only good at the edges on the grid. it doesn't come close to having other peaking sources. >> i'm going to interrupt, if i may. how would government policies forcing electric vehicle adoption further strain the grid? >> so obviously, electrification overall, -- they are adding more demand. and what we are seeing is that, on the supply side, more power plants are being shut down that are being built. the ones that are getting built our less available. so that's increasing risks in our system, and as a result, it's actually increasing our prices. in new england, the electricity prices were 100% of the energy side above where it was a year ago. >> thank you. i appreciate all of you being here. i yield. >> the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from washington, miss schrier, for five minutes. >> i am delighted to be back on this committee, and let me also say, it's a special privilege to work with my fellow member from washington state, our new chairwoman of the committee. i agree with my republican colleagues here that a high and volatile energy prices are a real problem. there are probably farai constituents, who by the way, are still paying in many areas over $4.50 a gallon for gas. they are down, but not down enough. my colleagues just talked about -- he talked about, what, record smashing profits for the oil and gas industry. so i would just like to continue to call out what it sure feels like price gouging, and that is why last congress, we passed my bill, the consumer fuel price gouging prevention act through the house, and i hope we will take that up again. i wanted to pivot to national security. i think russia's war on ukraine has really highlighted and we focused our attention on how tightly tied our energy independence is to our national security, as we are watching what's happening in europe. national security is not just geopolitical, though. it is also security from the fire and the weather disasters we are experiencing more across this country. and with that in mind, we are conjuring up what mr. curtis said, i think we can all agree that we need to be bringing down emissions and we need to be transitioning away from fossil fuels towards cleaner sources of energy. i would add, mr. mcnally, you mentioned, even with so much domestic production of gas and oil, we still have extreme price volatility. so there's many reasons, energy and amendments, where we need to transition, stability and energy prices, pollution prevention, climate action, national security, it all should make us want to redouble our efforts here to move away from the 20th century energy sources to the energy sources of the future, and the u.s. needs to lead here, not china. we took tremendous action last congress in really putting incentives, economic incentives, to boost innovation here. hydrogen hubs, battery manufacturing, and really supercharged research, and by the way, also, i will note that some of the things that were in that bill, miss jackson, would help individual customers afford heat pumps and other innovations that would help with energy efficiency and bring down those monthly bills. i also note, it's also because of clean hydro power that chairwoman mcmorris rogers and i pay some of the lowest electricity costs in the nation. so i wanted to just ask, doctor cohen, in your testimony, back to national security, you noted that china leads the globe right now in clean energy investments. i think we all know that this is not because they are great environmentalist. they are doing it because that's where the future is. that's where the money is. can you talk about why the united states needs to catch up, surpass, and lead in this area? >> thank you for the question, congresswoman. and just going back to your point on the consequences of climate change. the western wildfires, they don't just stay out west. everybody has the health impacts come from that, from the burning of those forests. but to your question about china. in 2022, china invested about 546 billion dollars in clean energy transmissions. and the u.s. was a distant second, at just 141 billion. that was pre--- that doesn't count what we just passed, so we expect that to change very quickly. but as a number of people have mentioned, every country is looking for energy security. so they are looking at what they can do domestically, which means they start looking at what can they produce from a renewable energy standpoint. i quoted it, that bp's economists says, we are seeing that. we saw a huge change in europe in the face of them realizing they can no longer rely on russia for energy. >> thank you. and that's why we need to be doing the innovation, that this committee will do, we are at a crossroads right now where we can't depend on china for those resources, we need to do the mining, the recycling, and everything else it will take to invest in ourselves here at home. thank you, and i yield back. >> the gentleman -- gentlewoman yields. i recognize the gentleman, my colleague, from north dakota, mr. armstrong. >> thank, you mister chair. we need to level set and be honest about the use of energy on the planet, and it's importance for economic growth and national security. next year, regardless of any policies pushed by the biden administration, the world will use more carbon energy than it did this year. and the year after that, and the year after that. in the united states, this administration has taken a whole of government approach to dissuade development. but in europe, we are seeing a realignment, accompanied by slit stan shalom term investment in carbon energy, as countries try to make up for russian supply chains. the norwegian energy minister has proposed putting 92 new offshore oil and gas blocks an offer in his next licensing run. spain has laid the groundwork to become the eu's national gas hub. they have the capacity to on board, it they just need to move it. germany is building an infrastructure to support up to 56 billion cubic meters of lng importing passively. roughly the same amount imported by pipes from russia in 2021. given the right regulatory environment, these investments are for the long term. despite past rhetoric, there is an awakening in europe that yardage -- energy security is essential to national security and economic growth. there are lessons to be learned from europe, and if we don't think the challenges are related to the united states, we only have to look to the northeast, where natural gas availability is threatened by an artificial supply crunch. why continental europe -- shift in from producing areas. however, unlike countries such as spain and germany, northeastern states have yet to recognize the threat posed by unreliable access to energy despite warnings from grid operators, industrial users, and utilities. and nearly every opportunity, the permitting and certification process for carbon energy infrastructure have been mired in legal and regulatory encampments. worse yet, for my friends to support green energy, we have taught them how to stop those projects as well. you don't have to look any farther than the northern pass pipeline. it's trying to bring hydro power from montreal to boston. and it cannot get built in any state on the northeast corner. you know who shut it down? indigenous tribes in southern canada and the sierra club. from the defeat of the constitution pipeline to the cancellation of the northeast supply enhancement projects, years of cornyn -- have prevented the construction of 1000 miles of interstate pipeline across the northeast. instead of expediting deployment of the necessary infrastructure to move abundant energy resources, northeastern states supported by an antagonist federal regulatory environment have done everything in their power to halt that development. since day one, the biden administration has taken that playbook and applied it on a national scale. last month, through an overly bag and expansive definition of waters of the united states, the biden administration further and powered activists environmental entities within states to abuse the section for one certification process to stifle pipeline development for political reasons. now, only a few weeks later, a new guidance from the council on environmental quality will further muddy the waters as agencies evaluate greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change, when considering proposed actions under nepa. under this latest proposal, the council on environmental quality is pushing for agencies to use the nepa process to link up decisions with the national climate change agenda, connecting neighbor reviews to environmental justice, pushing arbitrary alternatives, and providing a new pathway to consider both upstream and downstream emissions. while it remains to be seen how this new guidance will play out, it only -- certainly will further slow the development of the much-needed protective projects and drive capital away from the resources -- undersecretary to bar, and i understand what you said about 11 am ion battery, because when we figure out a better way to store electric energy, it'll have a secret of an impact as the steam engine or the microchip. the problem is, the lithium ion battery ain't it. you talk about the need for reform as part of -- can you walk through how the activists capital, combined with this -- statutory charge has distorted the marketplace up for carbon energy infrastructure? >> yes, congressman. so as you laid out, a very long approval process, these are effectively a tactic to never build. that is what it is. in the last administration, you can put a time stamp if you may remember. it's not a yes or a no, but you've got to get it done in a certain time period. >> i called it an unreasonable amount of time. >> so i think some sort of -- congressman peters talked about it. i think one of the things that's holding up things from getting built is incredible long time periods from the time that someone -- a company tries to lay it out to the approval, plus the inflation. the inflation makes projects with a long delay undoable economically at the end of the day. so i think some sort of time stop on a neighbor review, it doesn't say it has to be built, or that it's going to be approved or not, just do something reasonable for a time period, i think that's good for everything. >> good. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from massachusetts, miss trahan. >> thank you. i don't think we can have a hearing about unleashing our domestic energy supply and not mention the record profits that big oil companies are about to announce from last year. five massive oil corporations are slated to earn a combined profit of almost 200 billion dollars. these same companies sat here before this committee last year, they gravelled for more drilling permits so that they could lower prices. they couldn't use any of them apparently to start julie on the promise they already have, and could it allocate another dime to restart the refineries that they shut down. but you bet they used those profits for stock buybacks, to inflate their share price and make sure they got their multimillion dollar bonuses. mister chair, i agree with you and members of your party that we need to achieve lower -- energy independence. we need to stop relying on the whims of opec, but we can't swap borne oil oligarchs for domestic oil barons. we can't trade vladimir putin for exxonmobil, if they are going to keep doing the same thing, influence the market, to pad their profits, while working families pay the price. mister chair, the american people want lower energy costs, and a planet that their kids can inherit. to achieve that goal, we must focus on sustainable alternatives, and we are close to having one, in particular that will change energy as we know it. recent breakthroughs including most recently at lawrence livermore national laboratory have finally put fusion within reach. unlocking this virtually unlimited source of clean energy will drive down costs for families struggling with gas and oil prices. it will reduce our carbon footprint and help ensure that -- the healthy future of our planet for generations to come. but it won't happen without building on the public and private sector investment, in research and development, that have gotten us to this point. so doctor unruh cohen, first, thank you for your incredible work over the last two congresses. in your testimony, you mentioned that u.s. public sector investment in clean energy trails other countries, including china. the department of energy is considering application for $50 million in public private partnerships and a new milestone-based funding program that would support building fusion pilot plans. but according to -- the funding opportunity announcement was significantly over subscribed, with applications requesting close to three times as much funding as was allocated. can you just tell us why public investment infusion energy is so critical for accelerating the impact of existing private investment in the united states? >> yes, thank you for the question. and i spent a lot of my career working for ed markey, in the house and in the senate. so i'm very familiar with the great clean energy technology in massachusetts, and the companies that are spinning up from that. fusion is one of those, obviously, you have a great one there, and the promise of fusion is amazing. we spent a lot of important research -- federal research dollars going into that. we have had these really exciting breakthroughs, and i know that we are on the cusp of being able to understand the potential there more, and hopefully, move forward to commercialization. i hadn't realized was oversubscribed, -- the appropriations committee can work on, -- we will see if there is resources available for that. >> did you want to add -- >> congresswoman, probably one of the leading fusion companies in the country and the world is in and around your district and devin. i think that plant is going to, when it comes online in 2025, will we'll all perform what happened at livermore. they don't like to talk about how much, but i have a pretty good idea. when i ran the fusion energy program, we decided, when we were there, to engage with the private sector, and we did not engage with the private sector before. we needed to break a little glass on that. i think the milestone program that we started, and we started moving along, is -- it needs to be expanded. i know that's some of the proposals, -- they made that larger, i would encourage that we take the momentum on technology innovation in particular, in your state, in your district, but elsewhere, and i would recommend that everyone here look at expanding that. >> i look forward to bipartisan work on that. i mean, i will leave the committee with this -- the nuclear regulatory commission recently released their options for licensing and raegan -- regulating fusion system -- security benefits of fusion energy. no high level nuclear waste, no chance of a meltdown, no special nuclear material -- material likely tony moore uranium, but the paper leaves some regulatory ambiguities, suggesting that future fusion power plants could be regulated like fission, which is a different energy process. i look forward to making sure that we put the right regulatory environment in place so we don't stifle that innovation as it's coming to bear. thank you, i yield back. >> the gentlewoman yields. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. webber. >> thank, you mister chairman. first, i want to -- scott peters said, in texas, 40% of our power is renewable. that's just not accurate. you go to a.gov, you look at that, and in texas, it's 50% natural gas, 18% coal, nuclear is 8%, and that's 76%, i'm not good at math, but that leaves about 24%. 20 of it is when, and 4% is solar. so we appreciate renewables in texas. we do. but the real fact is that the renewables cannot be the leading actor. renewables can be a supporting actor. but renewables cannot be the leading actor. we found that out with winter storm uri. y'all talked about pipelines, i think it was you in -- with one of our members. the keystone pipeline would have come into my district over by beaumont, texas. it carries into 3000 barrels of oil a day. the colonial pipeline system, you talked about it, it carries about 2.1 million barrels of product a day. the keystone pipeline is literally one fourth of the output -- it feeds the entire southeastern part of the united states. why did the president come to texas and begged us to drill for more oil? it's been a real mystery to us. also, in my gulf coast district, i had this strategic petroleum reserve. we house about 59%, not quite 60% of the espy are in my district. i've been watching it for a long time, i served four years on the texas house, one of the -- and i will tell you, there are environmental regulation committee, we paid a lot of attention, texas has 225,000 miles of pipeline. the pipeline industry has a 99.9 to 5% safety rating. we can move product safer than anybody else. we can store it in the espy are, we can have it ready for emergency, not because the president wants to bring down gas prices, in an election year, i mean -- he's trying to help, maybe he's storing classified documents in his drop to keep paying the storage fees, i don't know. he's just trying to help. but i want to go to you, if i can, mister mcnally. you made an interesting comment. you said an arsenal of energy is what we need. that's a great term. you talked about the things that we have. have you talked about world war ii -- americans need to know what's important and why we have to be energy dominant. energy independent. its energy, it is absolutely energy safety, its domestic safety, because political safety, its military safety, if you just -- economic safety, you just can't, suppress how important it is. for the president to draw down the espy are in an election year, that's totally uncalled. four i'm told you are an expert on the fbi are. you sound like you are pretty knowledgeable about it. my question to you is, in your opinion, you've probably gone back and looked, i think tsv are capacity is about 714 million barrels, maybe 730, depends on -- in your opinion, what is the proper use of the espy are? what is the history of it, if you know that far back? >> thank you, congressman weber. yes, i think we topped out at about 725 barrels. it's now about down to about half of that level. we are at a 40-year low. it hasn't been since 1983 that we've seen at this low. it's really unfortunate because in a way, it's a bipartisan mistake to start to sell off the espy are for just the regular expenses in 2017. we did the same thing in the mid 1990s. i worked for president bush after 9/11 when we restocked the espy are at higher prices. we went around the circle once before and i was hoping we would not have to do it again. in addition to the mandatory nonemergency sales, which i think are very unfortunate but starting to reverse, president biden, especially in november 2021, before the russian invasion of ukraine used it purely for political reasons. there was no disruption. the i.e. wouldn't go along and he had to beg china, of all countries, to come along with us. that is up there in the halls of infamy with the decision by vice president clinton in september of 2020, two months before the election to invite al gore to announce a release at that time as well. with the emergency release in march of last year we thought we were going to lose russia. it started that we had a real emergency, we thought. within a couple months we realized that russian supplies -- they should have suspended the sales at that point. we have the mixed history with the fbi. and fortunately, some presidents have used it for purely political price control -- by my count twice. i would say the administration probably took the right decision initially because we thought in march of 2022, the iea said we will lose 3 million barrels a day in russian supply. that wolf did not come to the village. we should have suspended those sales but we did not. thank you for the question. >> i thank you for that and i yield back. >> the gentleman from texas yields. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, miss fletcher. >> thank, you mister chairman. i congratulate -- thanking our witnesses for being here today. it has been a long day. i've been here and appreciated your testimony. as we have heard throughout the day, our country leads in energy production and innovation. we lead in these areas because of the work that is done in my district and surrounding areas of houston. we touch every single segment of the energy history from exploration and production, transportation, transmission, marketing, technology, both traditional and renewable. i'm going to resist the congressional urge to spend five minutes talking about how great my district is, although it is a. want to show these data points. it helps underscore both the importance of the issues to me and also the depth and breadth of knowledge in my constituents that i bring to the work of this committee. it's a with that in mind that i am glad -- i agree with today from our witnesses, from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. i have also heard a few things i disagree with. i can't go through all of them here but i am disappointed to hear some of the attacks on the 117th congress's energy policies, rather than more ideas about how we can work together to build on the historic investments we made in the last congress and we have talked about some today, especially we focus on permitting issues that affect all sectors and which i very much look forward to working on. i think it's important to understand underscore that the infrastructure investment jobs act and the inflation reduction act that we passed last congress are historic pieces of legislation that make energy and infrastructure investments that further strengthening american energy security and drive innovation for the future. at this moment, we have an energy sector looking stronger than ever. within the va expecting u.s. domestic oil production to set a new record high this year of 12.4 million barrels a day, which was -- the rig count is back up. it was 771 last week. net exports are also expected to rise, further strengthening our energy security and importantly that of our allies. this is happening while we are working to meet growing global demand for energy and reducing emissions. the bottom line is we need to do all the things we are doing and more. we need a ballistic approach. i really look forward to talking about what that is and how we come together to do that on this committee, this congress. but for today, i want to focus my questions on one of the programs we passed in the bipartisan infrastructure law, funding for the implementation and design of regional hydrogen hub. and through this program, congress authorized the development of multiple hydrogen hubs to advance of the country's clean hydrogen sector and the department of energy will select 6 to 10 regions to establish these hydrogen hubs. mr. crenshaw and i recently wrote a letter to secretary granholm making the case, not surprisingly, for the department to consolidation as a location for a hydrogen have under the program. i want to direct my question first to dr. cohen. in the interest of time, i will ask this, i will submit to you for the record if not. can you talk a little bit about how this program will advance technology deployment and why federal support is essential in emerging technological sectors like hydrogen? >> yes. i will sing the praises in the process because they are a great example of where industry, academia, at the local government have come together to identify, we need to take our strengths and talents in the energy industry and expand that. you will be a good candidate for the hydrogen hub. what the program will drive these types of partnerships between industry and the federal government to develop new technology. hydrogen is critical for also all the petrochemical work that happens in the houston area. we are going to need clean green hydrogen to help decarbonize some of those processes. so that we can benefit we and have clean chemicals coming out of our domestic we plants. >> thank you for. that with the time i have left, i do want, i may have to get your question for the record, if anyone else wants to submit a response, i would appreciate. that while this investment is essential to jump-starting the technology, i worry there is still a lot of hurdles that congress needs to address before we can see widespread adoption. d.o.e.'s 2020 hydrogen program plan identified rights of way and permitting issues for hydrogen pipelines as challenges for hydrogen delivery infrastructure. i think there are still a lot of unresolved questions regarding citing, political federal state jurisdictional conflicts, and the regulation of pipeline rates in terms of services that need to be resolved. within the 12 seconds i have, left -- i'm in the wrong direction. with, that is my question. if you could respond to that for the record, i would appreciate it. i will yield back the balance of my time that i've gone over. thank you very much, mister chairman, for indulging me. >> all. right i think the gentlewoman from texas, the chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia, mr. haaland. >> thank you, mister chair. energy security is national security, we've heard that over and over again. when we are in the last time we went into the majority, we passed congressional review act. what it did was update a lot of regulations around the oil and gas industry. what we saw we could not believe. it became energy dominant. we had the power to control the cost of a barrel of oil. and that, to me, is maybe the greatest power that you can experience, in fact we drove it, market price is 30 $40 a barrel to create a world war, $7 a barrel. now we are what, 90, over 100. now you said it will float for even more than that. in fact, we did this throughout the economy and miss jackson, everybody benefited, it was the greatest economy i've ever seen in my lifetime. there is no secret that president biden and his administration have declared war on fossil fuels. he said there will be no more drilling. i think that was a quote. we see what has happened there. in the greatest con emmy, we have 1.2 6% inflate. how can we unleash oil and gas industry and become energy dominant? is there a secret sauce? to both, yes. >> again, if i could rephrase my attempt to answer congressman issues very good question, get back to all the above and get honest data and analysis. if we can just do, that we will be in a much better place. to his credit, president obama, to his credit, helped get rid of the crude oil export ban which directly threatened the shell oil boom and recognize and not only was it good for energy production, and help us offset the loss of iran, which we were sanctioning and so forth. he understood transitions or multi decade affairs. to his credit, he thought gas was part of the clean energy future. but as you've pointed, out we have moved to keep it in the ground, to a war on fossil fuels, and that must end. honestly, if we could get back to where we were in the last few presidents, including president trump, or it's all the above, we can unleash you, know, our energy potential. >> congressman, it started with great innovation by the member from texas. the permian basin caused a year by year was dropping because of innovation. and that allowed us to drive prices down globally as a result of that innovation. and then the federal system and the state systems allowed things to get built to move that energy to where it needs to go. >> let me ask you this. would it be fair to assume that free market drives prices down but, government intervention drives prices up? >> that is the irony of what we are seeing today. >> okay. what we've done, i was on the action team, i met with a lot of -- i was a small business owner -- i met a lot of small business owners. we went in the business of drilling and refining. they are out of business. they were driven out of business. if you have more demand, then you have supply, guess what, the price is going to go up. obviously, if you are one of the few companies remaining, you will benefit from that. how do we reverse? that we've got to open up the free markets and then you will drive down prices. there is no secret to the way our economy works. i want to ask a quick question, i've got about 45 seconds, about russia being a leading leader in exporting fuel. the strategy was to urge for u.s. production of our own nuclear fluid -- fuel. we've got plenty of electives in georgia -- charge it at some point in time. can you give me a background on that. >> russia has almost half the global market. the biggest exposed country to that is the united states. if russia tomorrow decided to stop exporting their rich uranium to us, over the course of a couple refuelling cycles, we might lose half of the fuel needed to run the nuclear power plants, 20% of the country, 10% of the power plants would be at risk of not having fuel. >> i would hope this congress will do something about that. thank you. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, miss paragon. >> thank you, mister chair. when i received that republican committee memo for today's hearing, what stood out to me was the complete absence of the need for u.s. energy policy to address climate change or environmental justice. not a word. an effective u.s. energy policy must keep costs down, create the jobs of the future, and reduce the fossil fuel pollution and that warms our planet and harms the public health of many communities. including my own community, the communities of color in my district. doctor unruh cohen, let me thank you. thank you for your tireless work in the last congress with the select committee to make sure that we were doing everything we could to save the planet, addressing climate change, and doing the hard work of the select committee. one important program from the inflation reduction act that democrats passed is a three billion dollars for climate and environmental justice grants, based off of my bill the climate justice grants act. can you tell us a little bit about how can this program help to reduce energy costs and reduce pollution in communities of color and other communities across the country? >> thank you for the question, congresswoman. that's one of the most exciting programs in the inflation reduction act. it's going to provide funding to empower communities to look at the challenges that they are facing when it comes to energy costs, climate costs. as we've heard from miss jackson and others, there are challenges that constituents are facing. high prices are, you know, our problems for everybody. this program is going to really empower communities to figure out the solutions that work of the best for them, to help bring them affordable clean energy in response to the climate crisis consequences they are seeing in their communities already. >> thank you. my next question is for you as well. i want to talk about geothermal, something the chair and i are working on together in how we invest in geothermal. this question is related to the climate crisis action plan. the select committee on the crime crisis worked on highlighted the development of more geothermal energy as a building block of growing energy production. -- and elsewhere would enhance u.s. energy security with 24/7 clean power? >> yeah. geothermal is tapping into the power of the earth and what is all around us. california has been a leader because of the particular geologic benefits in profiling california. as the technology has improved from investment in d.o.e. over the years, we are now at a place where we are close to commercialization of energy supply in areas that don't have quite the great resources that california and other parts of the west have. and so, it will also add to that need to provide dispatch-able power to have, to fill in at times that we need it. i think it's one of the most exciting opportunities coming our way. in addition, quickly, and also will use the skill set and training of many members who are working, workers in the oil and gas industry right now. it provides an additional opportunity for them to take their skills and help continue to provide this country with energy. >> great. thank you. mister chair, i would like to enter into the record, a january 30th climate wire article titled china invests 546 billion in clean energy, far surpassing the u.s.. this is china's 2022 investment. doctor unruh cohen, and the inflation reduction act passed by democrats includes 369 billion in clean energy and climate programs. it's important to fight climate change and compete with china for the jobs in industries that the future. more of us must be done to support clean energy. what are these tips of the u.s. can take to keep pace with china unclean energy in the next few years? >> i think we are seeing it already. just since the passage of the inflation reduction act, and we have seen hundreds of announcements about bringing clean technology manufacturing to the u.s. and expanding what we have already. ahead of my testimony, nearly 90 billion dollars in projects. and that is private capital coming in ready to partner and have that synergy with the federal government investments. >> thank you. thank you for your responses. and i yield back. >> the gentlewoman from california has asked for a document to be entered into the record. we are waiting for that document. we will reserve that till the end of the meeting. >> thank you. >> and the chair recognizes the gentleman from ohio. >> thank you, mister chairman. thank you all for being here. it has been a long day. my first question is for you. it's no secret that the -- immense economic benefits in ohio, natural gas and oil development contributes more than 50 billion to the states gdp and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs. in addition to the economic benefits, we've also seen clean environmental benefits from increased use of natural gas. according to the department of energy, use of natural gas for power production has led to a 57% reduction in emissions, airborne particles such as soot. this has resulted in an estimated 17 billion in annual health benefits. in 2020, when u.s. natural gas exports were the highest on record in the united states has been in annual next exporter of natural gas and 2017. can you discuss the public health and environmental benefits america has seen as a result of this shell revolution? >> as you pointed out, the big shift from coal to natural gas has had a big impact. another thing has been under reported. this is efficiency when it comes to natural gas. the natural gas power plant, the things you produce in your state that combined cycle gas plants, are about 50 more efficient than they were. they are 50% more efficient and they run on natural gas. it takes less bg use, it takes less energy to make the same amount of electricity. it produces 50% less emissions. the emissions have been driven down in large part because of your state because of both the natural gas production model so the turban improvements, and the combination of those two has dramatically reduced emissions as a result. >> thank you. follow-up to that. can you discuss in the benefits and exporting our natural gas to developing nations? >> the developing nations, if you go to any international, conference you go to the african nations, and they are very upset. they say that the imf and the world bank is saying you can't get any money to build energy. you guys did it but we are not allowed and it is pretty stark when you go out into these international meetings, and particularly african nations. right now, they burn coal, being made by chinese companies called power plants. they don't produce much natural gas in china. our ability to export natural gas to those countries and do what we did in this country versus what the chinese are doing to the world is quite obvious. >> thank you. and with green at all cost advocates nuclear and fossil fuel power generation years ago without a concern for their own needs in, they found themselves beholden to the likes of putin for oil and natural gas. what's happening in europe is certainly not a path my constituents want our country to follow. you referenced the problems facing germany earlier. i would like to expand on. that you have concerns that this administration is putting the carpet before the horse when it comes to the transition to renewables, that's the first. question instead of picking where nurse and losers, why isn't so important in this administration and congress promote all forms of energy products? >> if you want to see the worst-case energy policies, look at germany. they decided to shut down nuclear when it was perfectly safe because of what happened in japan. they decided to increase the risk with an autocrat in terms of their energy exposure. they expanded renewables where germany is not particularly sunny and it's hard to cite, relatively crowded country. one of the starkest things you can see on the internet was when the former president was at the u.n. saying to the germans that they were going to be increasing their risk of energy exposure to russia and a better stop it. there was a picture of the germans at the u.n. laughing at him. i think we know where things actually turned out. >> i would like to hear your thoughts on how we can ensure energy policies don't lead us into the same situation, much of europe has found itself. you have 30 seconds, thank. >> yeah. again, do not let china dominating the supply lines for renewable power and electric vehicles, showed those really take off at scale into the future. maintain our strategic stockpiles, aim to become an arsenal of energy, stay open to exports, keep diversity and global energy and be at the center of it. >> thank you very much. mister chairman, i yield back. >> thank you. the gentleman from ohio yield. so the chair recognizes the very patient gentleman from illinois, miss schakowsky. >> thank, you mister chairman. it's my own fault. the rule is if you miss the gavel then you go to the end of the line. i didn't realize that. that wasn't true when we were in the pandemic. anyway, i'm happy to be on the committee and happy to be here today. i'm really looking forward to the rollout of the inflation reduction act and the infrastructure and jobs act. i think it is really going to make a difference. it's going to make a difference to communities all over this country. it's going to make an unprecedented investment into americas clean energy future, creating millions of good, clean jobs. lowering the prices of people at home, on their energy, on their energy bills. finally, really addressing the climate crisis. i agree with the previous democrat in saying that i don't hear enough about that. we should put in these same level all of the energy options. but this is an existential issue right now and dealing with the climate. i'm so happy that we are going to be addressing that. as well as maintaining and even enhancing the economy of our country. one of the things and that was in the bill as we passed would be an investment in historic 15 billion dollars for the removal of lead service lines, a problem in my community and so many communities where we are not drinking clean water because of these lead service lines. also millions of dollars that are going into help of communities that are most affected low income communities, communities often most populated by people of color. i also want to mention that over almost 100 years, americans have been subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. to the tune even today of billions of dollars. i think it is important just to mention that somehow spending a lot of money that we have on addressing the crime it crisis is certainly important. i wanted to then to ask doctor unruh cohen the question, similar to the one that was asked earlier. we haven't ruled out the kind of programs that are going to deal with environmental justice communities, communities suffering right now. what are some of the important things we are going to be doing that will serve those communities? and address the absolute relevant issues that miss jackson raised. >> thank you for the question. we are in a really exciting time. for the first -- these are the first laws where we really have been able to put money forward in specifically environmental justice programs, the biden administration is focusing its investments and has committed to its fulfilling the justice 40 so that we see these benefits flow into these communities that have been under investigated, that have experienced the impact of pollution that comes from fossil fuel development and refining. >> are there also workforce opportunity benefits that might -- >> absolutely. we will see as these clean energy programs rolled out, there will be a focus of developing jobs for people in the community and getting them the training. we have talked about earlier workforces is a place where we need to have more focus from the congress in this committee. while we will see some improvement, i hope this committee can work on some of those issues going forward. >> let me ask you this. it seems to me, instead of working to pass what i think is an effective legislation that was to do -- am i over? i think i am. i will write that and send it to you. thank you. i yield back. >> i don't mean to be aggressive. we will get everyone -- the gentlewoman yields. the chair calls on the gentlemen, mr. fulcher, from idaho. i >> need to respond to a comment a few minutes ago from my friend from california that indicated the united states somehow needs to follow china's lead on clean energy investment. i just want the state, for the record, that if anyone believes that that is a model that we want to follow, pay china a visit. i think it may change their mind. on to my specific topic. it will be a question for mr. dabbar, it's in regard to geothermal energy. in my state, idaho, we've been a pioneer on that front. there is the first district heating system in the country was in boise, idaho, in 1892. we've got a very good resource there. it's carbon free, its base load. we are a bit familiar with it there. it doesn't seem to get a lot of attention. you made a comment, mr. dabbar, earlier today that caught my ear. you need to be tilt technology neutral was the term you used when making distributions on these sources. and not some political idea and try to drive it with the subsidies and so with that comment, i want to get your opinion. i have got a bill that i wrote for several years called the enhancing geothermal production on federal lands act. it allows a geothermal exploration and production on federal lands where there is already existing leases, oil and gas leases. it has not made it very far. i wanted to get your opinion. and does this satisfy the tech neutral argument that you laid out before? what are the opportunities and challenges for geothermal this country? >> congressman, i think expanding geothermal is absolutely something we should be looking at. not knowing every detail of the bill, i think facilitating lands already being used for energy production and that have the geology already mapped out is going to drive down costs and increase the likelihood of finding the right formation. and further investment in driving down costs of geothermal equipment and thermal efficiency, it is a great base load generation. it is great base load generation wherever it's at. i would think any place that it is available, we should be aggressively attacking that. >> thank you for that. i need to pivot, just utilize my time as best as possible. i'm going to shift. i have a question for mr. mcnally here. it does go to the nuclear arena. also, in my state, we have the idaho national lab. there is a lot of research there with a small modular reactor. one of the arguments that we hear is that, in addition to the efficiency of the energy production, and there can also be some upside when it comes to grid security. specifically because we are threatened with sabotage. we are threatened with cyberattacks on our energy system so much. by having an energy source which you can isolate, for example, when reactor could potentially power the city of boise, idaho. by isolating that and staying off ultimate connectivity of the old overall grid, that could help with a cybersecurity or cyber threats. your comments on that, is that true or false? is it a benefit to be isolated off the grid or is it a negative to do that? >> congressman fulcher, on that question, that's outside my area of expertise. i would defer to my panel mate, mr. dabbar, if you may have a view on, that that's area outside mixed. >> i think nuclear power is supportive of good security, first of all it's really hard to penetrate a nuclear reactor in terms of security. i think that has a lot of value. at the end of the day, the availability of it is unparalleled in the system. >> the isolation of staying off a greater grid, do you think that is a good thing or a bad thing? >> the ability to separate in times of any challenges in the grid, including an attack, has great value. >> thank you mister chairman, i yield back. >> the gentleman yields. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. -- >> thank you chairman, i would like to thank the witnesses as well. mostly good questions have been asked today. thank you all for being here. i represent the basin, it's been mentioned many times. it's the heartbeat of the shell revolution. i'm so proud of the men and women in the basin, odessa, that part of the country that have innovated to a point where we've literally helped raise a billion dollar out -- billion people out of poverty throughout the world. we have literally lower the cost of living for every american family to the tune of 20 $500 per year. we have allowed this economy, prior to january of 2021, to soar, to absolutely take off. i'm trying to figure out right now the discussion about the climate crisis. who is saying this is the greatest threat we face with any sort of facts? mr. mcnally, to your point, i won i want to see the analysis here. i want to see the debt. you've made incredible point on. i go back to some of the campaign promises the president made. and i quote, we are going to get rid of fossil fuels. there will be no more coal plants. we are going to phase out fossil fuels. those were three quotes he made. i got to handed to him, he has done everything he possibly can with every tool to assault the 2 million texans who are in this industry, like dr. cohen's family in corpus christi, who are doing the things cleaner, more efficiently, and better than anywhere else on the planet. he has assaulted this industry in a way that is directly attacking, thank you, miss jackson, for your testimony today, the most vulnerable in our country. i appreciate the regulatory and discussions about permitting. mr. dabbar, if we continue with the policies this administration is pushing, what's our country going to look like? what's our economy going to look like? what are we expecting, 45% increases in demand over the next 30 years in electricity, what are we going to look? like >> the key word you just mentioned there, congressman, is the man. i think, no matter how you approach this topic, as long as there is a demand for a product, then it has to be supplied from someplace. take aside all the other debates. if we are still going to be needing petrochemicals to make this pan or drive some cars because they are not all electric vehicles, someone has to provide the. i think we can all agree on that from both sides. if it's not produced in midland or odessa, it's going to be produced outside tehran. that's it. if we restricted because if -- citing in this country, we will -- it will be produced overseas, it will emit more, it will be more environmentally hurtful for the world, it will be less jobs, less jobs, hear more jobs in toronto, orange -- it's relatively more straightforward. if you have this debate on this topic about the man, as long as the man is there, for national security and the economy and the environment, it's better to be produced in america than it is in russia or someplace else. >> right now in san antonio, texas, my hometown, about 100 miles to the east of odessa, it's 27 degrees, it's snowing, there is no wind at all. the sun is not going to shine until friday morning. it'll be 27 degrees on friday morning. i just looked at the weather forecast. i asked mr. carey, the climate -- i don't know what his official position is, i call him the climates are, i asked him if renewables provide base loading capacity. acid same to you. we have a ton of winded energy. we are so proud of the wind energy we have, which is more than a state of california in my district. ,,,,? >> renewables provides predictable electricity for your family and families all across the country. breakable is not always reliable. >> breakable means predictable. we know when the sun will shine. we know when the wind will blow. smart grid operators can then provide -- make the energy decisions they need to keep the lights on. i happened to look at the texas electricity map yesterday. i noticed there is a lot of stranded electricity down in my part of the world. if texas can continue its leadership in building transmission, they will be able to free up some of that renewables that's blowing between corpus christi and san antonio, and get it up to other parts of the states. >> it takes every form of energy, every amount of energy, and every bit of energy to service the demands we -- i could talk for another ten minutes. but i don't have that much time. i yield back. >> maybe we can talk about that another time. >> the gentleman from texas yields, the chair calls the gentleman from tennessee. >> thank, you mister chairman. thank you all for being here. you are tired, i'm tired. i'm going to make a couple comments and then i will go to my question for mr. dabbar but. miss jackson, i represent a rival district with two district last counties. at the average median income is 49,000. i understand exactly. i get calls every day from constituents who i call my friends and family, by the way. they tell me, if i pay my power bill, i will have to make decisions about, do i buy groceries or my medicaid? i want you to know, i totally understand, okay. mr. mcnally, you are statement about foreign and domestic actors beginning to attack our domestic energy infrastructure has never been more evidence than within the colonial pipeline attack. i was on homeland security last congress on in the cybersecurity critical infrastructure subcommittee. it was very frightening to hear how that attack occurred. it could happen again. it hit me because i drive from my district in east tennessee all the way to washington, d.c., every weekend. i have to stop at every gas they shun along the way to make sure that i had field just to come here and do my job. that hit home. i agree with you, congress needs to be better prepared for more cybersecurity attacks. we need to hold bad actors accountable. that's a big deal. mr. dabbar, your comments about russia having the largest overall stockpile in the world in your statement that the u.s. needs to work on our uranium enrichment capabilities is on point. just so you, know i have nuclear fuel services in my district. i have talked to many of those people there and they absolutely understand the importance of this very issue, when we need to do -- with that said -- and i will continue to talk to them, so stay tuned. i agree that we absolutely need a higher base load of power. we've seen how fragile we are to these disruptions. my question is this -- i'm from east tennessee, the first district. just before christmas, east end is eons experienced rolling blackouts after the tennessee valley authority was unable to meet those energy demands required to heat your home during a storm. we know natural gas facilities can come fully online in 30 minutes and our best option for ramping up energy production. my question is this, how much additional investment in natural gas what we need to combat these unexpected increases in energy demand in the feud? >> congresswoman, tva shut down base load like other places have. that's the reason why i think he ran out of those problems. tva was shutting down more plants. they're cold lance, you can kind of understand it. you need to replace them with something. you need to replace them with something that can be dispatched. natural gas is the obvious place to go, subject to some of your nuclear power plants, which would be wonderful for east tennessee. the gas pipelines in general are not there to replace plants. it used to be cold and rail and so on. things are getting more unreliable. the whole tva area, including in your region. that is the reality. if gas pipelines are not built, you will run into that problem more and more as you are great economy grows, i know east tennessee well from d.o.e., you will have additional problems. your economic growth is so strong. >> the scary thing was they didn't give notice, tva didn't, to the emergency management services, and the emergency broadcast systems went down because of the rolling blackouts. there was equipment damage. we are trying to track that to, as we go along, how long they were down, how much notice did they get, how much damage was done monetarily. there is one industry that had me from the shut down and had to work through the weekend. i have a question, anybody can answer. in the amount of time i have left. the american people tell us come up here and work, do your work and get reason. like so many other projects, whether energy production or highway improvements, they get stalled in the process. what would a rewrite look like and how that would allow for us to build natural gas production so environmentalists cannot stall those projects into nonexistence? anybody? >> how about bipartisan agreement to have legally enforceable deadlines for decisions? clean energy, conventional energy, everything. just say you have a certain amount of time. you have to get it done here. you cut back on the litigation risk we've heard today. it's for all energies, all businesses and so forth. i sense there is maybe bipartisan agreement behind that. we might want to think about the critical national security infrastructure. there you supersize. you say nepa, you've got to go even faster. i'm sensing bipartisan we -- >> chairman, i underscore that the inflation reduction act had nearly a billion dollars for agencies to fund their permanent work. >> thank. you the gentlewoman yields. take us home, the gentleman from iowa, dr. mix. >> usually i don't need this. i was an energy state. let me also stay, unequivocally, that all of us, i think, bipartisan agree that we want a cleaner, healthier planet for our children and grandchildren. we also want to be able to have an economy that can give in a global economic environment. energy demands that i learned at cop26 and cop27, to my surprise, i thought energy demand was increasing. i was surprised to hear at cop26 in 2070 that energy demand is increasing. what have yet seen from this administration is a way to transition with reducing admissions. let me tell you a little bit of a. iowa has 50% of its energy from renewables. and that is wind, solar, biodiesel, ethanol, bio mass, bio char, manure. we have this entire slew. up in till two years ago, we also had nuclear. we have an entire slew. 58% of our electricity is generated by wind. we were told this year that we would potentially have rolling blackouts. why? because we are in energy exporter. why should a state that generates massive amounts of renewable energy will be subject to rolling blackouts? it's because there is not enough energy production. on average, it takes 6.5 years to prevent transmission projects in this country. there are some examples of projects taken over ten years and they are still not fully transmitted or permitted. therefore, -- modernizing our infrastructure and diversifying our energy mix, we need permanent reform. last congress, i introduced the stay off my line act, which seeks to address some of these challenges. very briefly, if you can, i've got a couple questions, what other steps can we take to improve our nations permitting process when it comes to transmission? if you would, mr. dabbar, if you could take a swipe at that. >> excuse me. your microphone, please. >> the time clock of approvals under nepa is basically preventing things from getting built. i think that is the biggest thing that affects that. >> thank you very. much >> i would add in senator manchin's permitting legislation, the language that dealt with transmission is a good place for this committee to look about going forward. >> thank you, miss unruh cohen, you had mentioned that earlier as well. i was also the nation's largest fuel ethanol producer, it accounts for about one fourth of u.s. feel capacity. i have heard a lot from this administration from people about electrifying our transportation sector. i want to bring up a little different source of energy than what we have talked about throughout this for hours. i am very supportive of sustainable aviation fuels. according to the department of energy, replacing existing jet fields with sustainable aviation fuels has been recognized as an effective strategy to help the aviation industry reduce greenhouse gas emissions, diversify fuel supply, and enhance energy security. the technology needed for this production already exists, including ethanol to jet conversion technologies. compared to petroleum jet fuel, sustainable aviation fuel from corn ethanol offers a 15% lower carbon intensity. as we have, heard it can even be carbon negative. this is in part because the technology to produce ethanol from corn is improved. in fact, life cycle admissions of corn ethanol have decreased by roughly a quarter in the past 15 years. what course of our indie incentives and coronated efforts would be needed to speed up the deployment of essay f in commercial aviation? mr. mcnally? >> i learned a long time ago, i worked for president bush, you either know the answer to the question and you say i don't know and i can find, i will pass to my colleagues. >> i find -- as you mentioned, it's a big area a focus. and the conversion of wind energy into sustainable aviation fuel through a series of chemistry steps is completely doable. you can turned when into aviation fuel. it takes a few steps of energy and some efficiency. iowa is an excellent position to help drive that innovation. >> thank you very much. i would agree with our aims laboratory, what we are doing in the renewable space, and also continued innovation in nuclear fusion, as we have just seen landmark things occur. and then hydrogen as well. i think we have a bright future if we focus on where we have agreement and we all want a cleaner, healthier planet. thank you. >> the gentleman yields. the chair calls on the gentleman from florida. >> thank, you mister chairman. thank you to our witnesses for being troopers here in our six of this committee. thank you for your diligence, burn persistence, and endurance. speaking of endurance, our economy needs endurance. that can only be provided through a reliable domestic production of energy. i'm so excited this is our first hearing, i first topic. it goes without saying regardless if you are republican or democrat, we are an energy economy. everything begins and ends with energy. i'm excited for ali these cousins that we had today. i am the author of the reins act, which seeks to rein in the regulatory environment which costs our economy two trillion dollars a year. you can look no further than the work being done at d.o.e. or at furred or others, where this has been an ever growing presence. i'm going to go down the line. keep them short. i have a follow-up question. to all our witnesses, i will start with you mr. mcnally. give me one regulation that we can take off the books that would help unleash domestic production of energy and bring down cost of energy in america. just one. >> take off a reform, nepa. it would be the tap root of all the problems. you fix need, but you fix a whole lot of things. >> dr. cohen? >> i think we have talked about unleashing some of the clean renewable energy tied up and we need more transmission for that. >> what regulations specifically? >> i think furred is doing some rulemaking right now that will look at their regional planning. i think that improvement will bring a lot of new transmission building. >> okay. thank you. miss jackson, by the way you've had remarkable coats today, i've written a number of them down. thank you for your testimony today. >> i'm going to say that i don't know about regulation, i would say make the permanent reform so that we can have more energy production. doesn't matter how many leases you have. if we can get the permits, it's useless. >> certainty in government. it's a novel concept. >> i will also go with need. i think we need a clear litigation, standards that have been built off. it only you could clear out all that. >> perfect. thank you. it goes right back to you mr., dabbar. we need to put energy security back at the center of our energy policy, both for our international security but also our allies. my question to you is an element of ip theft in china. you were the department of energy during the program crackdown considering chinese researchers getting access to intellectual property and other sensitive security information. you are also involved in a cutting edge quantum technology exploration. what specifically can we do, should we do, to protect our secrets and other sensitive information from the chinese communist party? how will this effort benefit our own technological development? >> with a spin out of caltech, they also went to earlier, the reality is that chinese have a vast amount of effort for stealing technologies from national labs. when i showed up a d.o.e., there was a significant amount of technology being appropriated, legally, because we had no regulation on the interaction. but also at universities. when i was at deal we, we ruled out for orders to limit that. i will give you an example. something should be applied to other areas of d.o.e. is that we band grant money, the american taxpayer money, going to university researchers who were also at the same time talent program members for the chinese communist party. the american taxpayer money should not go to those people who are also working for them. >> it seems a little too common sense, if you ask me. i'm sorry, i cut you off. to that point, you have the thousand talents program, you have the confucius institutes on college campuses. is there something specifically, a database, that we are tracking, or is it simply not on the books or has it been done by executive order on the connection between thousand talents and issues of national security programs that we are working on? >> it's basically been a few agencies that have done. that is it. i would recommend that this congress take a look at the best practices for what has been done ideally and some others, and d.o.d.. and isa, nist, federal reserve has -- >> i appreciate you. >> the chair wants to excuse our witnesses. we've got one more. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california. >> thank you very much, mister chairman. i want to thank all our witnesses. you've done an amazing job. it's been a very long day for you. it's almost over. i thank you for hanging in there with us. mr. dabbar, you said something in your testimony that resonated with me. when you highlighted the fact that we are removing the base load generation from our grid at a much faster rate than we are adding intermittent power sources. as i'm sure you, know that's a particularly acute problem in my home state of california because of that we are having a situation where there are times when the sun is shining in the wind is blowing where we are having to pay adjacent states to take our excess energy because we have so much of it. and then we have other times where we have brown outs where we have to ask people to curtail demand because we don't have enough base load. the question for you is, what should be done about that? why do you think we ought to be doing differently to solve that problem? >> the only entity that is trying to pay tension to this, i think they are doing a pull -- for job -- ferc has allowed them to do what they are doing. i think ferc should be under -- you all should look at a reform of the federal power act to guide ferc to actually do their job to order the california i s o to effectively set up efforts that would reinvigorate building a base load. >> right. i agree with you on the federal side. on the state side, i actually put the blame war with a california state legislature, where i served for six years. i think the folks at cal do their best. sometimes they are constrained by the state law that's imposed on them. that's one of the reasons why my constituents pay twice as much for residential electricity as neighboring states, three times as much for commercial electricity, four times as much for industrial. it really puts a hard, heavy burden on the people of california. >> the former commissioner has written a couple papers about how layers of state are bystanders in tax incentives have turned what was an efficient market model that was anticipated under the federal power act into a very convoluted systems, which does exactly as you described, sir. >> talking about base load, i wonder if we can have a discussion about what a potential path forward would be. obviously, we're trying to rekindle some interest in fusion energy. i'm sorry, vision energy. there have been promising developments infusion energy. we got a question on this from my co-chair on the fusion caucus. can you talk about the future you see for a fusion and maybe your level of optimism that that could be part of the solution to the problem? >> for a couple decades, there was not much innovation in the material science and other areas around fusion. there was a lot of innovation in batteries and wind and solar. as of about five or six years ago, there was some big jumps in terms of innovation infusion, in particularly rounds material science that allowed for magnetic fields to get stronger. that makes the possibility of a fusion possible. the nif announcement that livermore was great. and that was not made to be a power plant. and that was dealing with the weapons program. that wasn't made to be a power play. i think there are a number of fusion companies, including some in california, including in urban, california, as well as massachusetts, there are much farther down the road than even if at lawrence livermore. i would recommend that, given -- fusion has all the positives of all the energy sources and literally almost none of the negatives. and so, given the advances in technology, i would recommend a further, additional investment by the country into this now kind of beginning to break through area. >> i agree with you. i think it has to be tension to really revolutionize the space and solve a lot of these big hairy societal problems that we've been grappling with. but, i'm out of time. let's suffice to say that i think is going to require more than just investment, we would have to take a regulatory framework that we have created two -- it is appropriate for vision and might not be appropriate for fusion. i think we're going to have to amend the atomic energy act to try to create a framework that works and that really capitalizes the industry. thank you for testimony, thank you to all of our witnesses, really enjoyed this today. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back, witnesses have made it and i want you to know you are worth it. i'm going to talk to the committee about going to bathroom breaks in the future. thank you so much to our witnesses and to all of our members. without objection, i'd like to request the following documents to be entered into the record for today's hearings. a letter concerning the lack of natural gas infrastructure from the industry and industrial energy consumers of america. a letter concerning energy regulations from the american exploration of council. a statement concerning regulations, retirements from america's power. creating an arsenal of energy for american leadership. a paper entitled blueprint for serious and policy for the american leadership. a paper entitled eight necessary steps to defend u.s. infrastructure from cyberattacks. reform for american leadership, a paper entitled congress is key to restoring u.s. energy policy. from the forum for american leadership. u.s. policy straight, recommendations from the 118th congress for leadership. a paper titled destroying u.s. energy security, recommendations for the 118th congress for american leadership. by the way, the witnesses can leave, or storing americans competitive nuclear energy. advantage from the department of energy. a report entitled reducing russia involvement in western nuclear power front. center on global energy policy and an article titled russian state aides, or effort calls for sanctions from the washington post. an article entitled ukraine war to isolate shift away from fossil fuels in the news. a report entitled, justice and climate change, he concepts for public health from the american public health association and a report entitled, improving equity outcomes for federal investments from the bipartisan policy committee and finally, an article from climate on clean energy investment. may i remind members that they have ten business days to get questions for the record and i ask witnesses to respond to questions properly. they should submit their questions between the 14th. without objection, the subcommittee is adjourned. 82. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. guthrie: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. guthrie: thank you, mr. speaker. today i rise to push for immediate and overwhelming passage of my

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