The meeting will come to order. Today we we are here to discuss the opportunities that the recent challenges to say that the growth in demand for electric power in united the United States. And thats a trip over to demand for electricity grew steadily along with our economy. In the decades following implementation of the north american freetrade agreement which is in 1990 and electricity demand growth fell by nearly 45 . 45 . For the past two decades electrical demand for load has been flat across the country. We are here today because that era appears to be coming to an end rapidly. But thats the growth in Domestic Technology and manufacturing sectors utilities and gridan experts across the country telling us electricity demand is truly remarkable growth. Meeting this demand growth may provide to be one of the greatest challenges we will face an will face in also inn opportunities for the toy First Century for citizens. Our defense and security but i wanten to thank our witnesses on what is at stake if we dont meet the low low growth below growth is driven by three main factors as we evaluate them. Its too reassuring of industry and advanced manufacturing spurred by the bipartisan infrastructure laws to chips act and the ira. Construction spending on. Manufacturing is more than doubled since we assign these bills into law. This is unbelievable. Unbelievable. People dont realize how much is coming into this andli how rapiy advance and that tells you the strength of energy we needed what we dont have. The world has been flat as a pancake. We are seeingg new factories to build advance advantage in Semiconductor Technology practically every week. Second is the revolution in advance applications especially in Artificial Intelligence and the rapid growth in a data cents to provide the Processing Power needed for those technologies and id stand they have an unquenchable thirst. Third its the electrified technology across multiple sectors like demonstrations pushed to flood the market with tvs which i think are way over there speed on. And ive been cautioning and warning them from day one. The north American Electric reliability corp. Ration projects in its 2023 longterm reliability assessment that they will be 90 gigawatts of demand growth by 2030. Put that in perspective but thats over 10 of the peak of the west electrical demand which is 750 gigawatts. Even that number is likely conservative. Nerc relies on data submitted in previous Years Industries in the forecast is growing faster than what they can keep up with last month and this is unbelievable last month the texas grid operator revised its 2030 load forecast from last year to add 40 gigawatts of new expected low growth. One state. Thats like getting the entire state of california to the texas grid. That should be a wakeup call and i hope it is. We need to be prepared to meet this demand. Let me be clear the low growth is an opportunity for for the generation to lose. The reason we have growth is industries which have defined the 21st century chips ai advancedfi manufacturing or tripping over one another to build america coming called the world but theres no guarantee of success to put it plainly. They cant be open for business if we cant keep the lights on. If america cant build the energy of the structure needed to support these industries with reliable and affordable power we will be forfeiting the opportune to be on the forefront of technologies of the future in the control to china and other nations that we cannot the survey necessarily necessarily trust in between the frustrations policy and their inability to act in congress it seems like we may be in gryearold danger. We have heard from fercdo and nc that are grid reliability and affordability are at risk because we are retiring baseload faster than we can replace it. They told me basically we c are taking on dispatch whether it be cold nukes whatever it may be that we depend on for natural gas because of the Environmental Movement trying to replace it with yearold internet and power and are very concerned acrosstheboard. Nerx assessment came out last week and this is a brandnew number. It shows that the country at elevated risk of blackouts this summer. If you live or represent one of these areas tell them to watch out. They are going to be inn troubl. The help rolling brownouts of blackouts and that should be concerning to everyone in this T Administration every senator and congressperson they and congressperson represents those areas. Last july and nerc had an Energy Policy is a brandnew category of the major risks facing ourr grid. When nerc nonpartisan said the policies you are putting out in washington is basically putting at risk. Its ridiculous that Government Action is creating new categories of grid risk instead of preventing risk. As if to prove nerx point epa finalized for new power plant. As far as i can tilt and to kill natural gas from replacing it. Its a double whammy. I dont know what to think now. Even though these dispatched resources are essential for liability and i have said this, the transition is going to happen. But you cant take something off before you have something equally as good if not better to replace it with. You might not like it. We are doing it better and cleaner than anyplace in the world and the transition is there. None is fighting the transition. He gets his job so we can do to take care of her family and make a living and thats fine but the bottom line is we dont have that technology. We arent there they are to do it because of political political reasons enough that we are trying to make sure they understand. These the special resources and in this message we are serious about on shoring critical industry. The ones driving the low grip. They wouldnt be in the race to take power a flame. They be racing to bring new generation on line instead of building new Energy Infrastructure its harder. We have 2. 6 millionmegawatt hours of generation waiting an average of five years. Think about that. 2. 6 millionmegawatt hours waiting to go nowhere to go with it. My sample in West Virginia state we have one plant over 1800megawatt stateoftheart gas plant with Carbon Capture clean as it can possibly be. The companies telling me to have to wait half a decade before they get the green light to start permitting. Its unbelievable. And to be clear these are not just roams with fossil plants its as or even worse for wind. I cant believe this chart. This is whats happening with wind and how far its gone down. They cant connect. Theres no way to connect. Solar is going much better because solar get into get into the grid system faster. Its in areas where the Great Authority there. Would it be offshore for somewhere to where theres no grid system whatsoever they cannot get there because they cant get permitted and if the majority leader senator schumer the leaves that was done cured alll the problems i have news that didnt do it. The american queen power just published the 2024 as you can see we are on pace to install less wind in 2024 than we did during the worst year of the great recession. Show the chart. Now we are down to there. We have to make it easier to build transition pipelines to meet the moment and the moment in that weather permitting is needed so the best really. In time it may help build new transmission let me be clear these who are using the tools we currently happen or not her placement for action. These help with one aspect in one part of a bigger problem. I know all of you will look into this is as my friend senator hickenlooper said they are a on congresss inaction which you are totally right senator. For sample in a row took action on transmission within region to transmission lines within the regions not for the interregional lines that would truly have the most reliability and affordability benefits. In affect them at all and only if the rules are art and current investors and they will be a challenge but i want to say considerable work remains to be done both at the commission and in congress if we are to realize the modern electricity grid on which the continued vitality of innocent economy and security increasingly depends for some of these next is particularly interregional planning and permitting reform for congressional action could be critical for buying direction and momentum. Just so we are clear permitting and transmission legislation is not partisan priorities let me also quote mario leyla a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation who served in the white house during these Trump Administration but he said after ferc issued its new rules transmission expansion has only become more difficult. Thesera are problems only congrs can solve. I have to say i couldnt agree more. They are critical permitting problems throughout types of infrastructure that only congress can fix and i remain committed to addressing that. Myself and senator team have been working diligently for quite while. They finally have language we will start sharing this language with everyone so people can see where we are and hopefully we can get our act together here but in fact each each witness the force today submitted technology that speaks in stark terms to the permitting challenges facing the source of supply and demand further look for to hearing more from our witnesses and with this alternate over to the Ranking Member. It thank you so much was determined thanks for hearing todays important hair. Americans demand for witters is expected to grow rapidly through 2030 in fact we may be entering aid period of sustained demand growth unlike anything we have seen since the two decades following world war ii but as you said mr. Chairman we cant be open for business if we cannot keep the lights on. Theop biggest source of electricity demand is expected to come fromli data centers. Data centers allow Cloud Computing and bitcoin and Artificial Intelligence but how we meet this demand for literacy love serious economic insecurity consequences for our nation. The stakes couldnt be higher in many believe the race for Artificial Intelligence with communist china will be more consequentialeq than the space race with the former soviet union and the ai race has already begun. Artificial intelligent consume and massive amounts of electricity but some estimates suggest electricity demand for these data centers will double between now and 2030. Whoever secures support of electric power china or america will have a big head start in the race for Artificial Intelligence. Right now america is not positioned well. Our gridow is already strained. For years north American ElectricReliability Corporation nerc has raised alarms about grid reliability. The premature retirement of natural gas fire powered plants increase the risk for blackouts and brownouts and much of the country. Yet retirements continue in President Biden is making the situation worse. Last month the Environmental ProtectionAgency Issued new rules that will force the premature closure of even more natural gas fired power plants. These plants play a major role in ensuring electric reliability. They also help make electricity more affordable. President biden doesnt seem to care at all. He wants the costs of complying with epa rules to be high. He wants to force operators to shut down these plans before the end of their useful life. It is a disgrace. We cannot regulate our way to electric generation but what owns the data centers the quality of the Generation Source is as important as the quantity of electricity generated. I acknowledge wind and solary cn help yet they are weather dependent. Batteries too can help it if batteries are expensive and can provide power for extended periods. They require vast amounts of minerals from china to congo in the nation of the countries with that human rights and environmental records. We need a reliable study and balance supply of electricity. Nuclear coal natural gas and hydropower to provide that. This demand poised to surge it only makes sense to keep their existing power plants operating while also building a new generating capacity. Our goal should be addition and not subtraction. Mr. Chairman of the 20th century w was the american century. Which can truly the 21st century still up for grabs. Much depends on how america capitalizes on the potential of Artificial Intelligence. Ethe president s opposition to coal, to natural gas and to hydropower that fuels and generate 65 of our electricity is a white flag. Its a surrender an act of surrender to china. Mr. Chairman of this chart shows that china has added 262 gigawatts of coalfired electric generation since the paris climate agreement in 2025. The gridlines how much china has added to coalfired power plants to electoral generation. Meanwhile the United States the United States has shut down over 100 gigawatts of coalfired electric generation. What does this mean . It means that when chinas Ai Developers need electric power the Chinese Communist party is going to makeha absolutely sure that they will get it. And they will get it from coal. When americas Ai Developers need power will it be enough and will it be reliable and affordable . Right now under joe biden and the democrats the answer is no. The race for Artificial Intelligence is one america cannot afford to lose and we cannot win this or any other with china if we are unwilling to use the very Energy Sources that china is going to exploit to the fullest. Thank you mr. Chairman. Think you set up an effective turned her panel of witnesses and i will go to senator risch if i may. The interim ceo ceo and president of the electric Power Company one of her home state utilities in West Virginia. Gadhafi here. Karen onaran present ceo of electricity consumers resource council. We have mr. Scott gatzemeier Corporate Vice president of friend and u. S. Expansion at Micron Technology then we have mr. Mark onaran executive director of the National Center for Energy Analytics and at this time ill send to my friend. I thank both of you for holding whats really an important hearing today and covers a lot of ground and underscores some real shortcomings we have that we can address. , Micron Technology was founded in idaho and they had a humble beginning, to say the least. It has grown to become one of the top Semi Conductor companies in the world. It continues to drive the companys advanced memory and Storage Technologies. They had given the u. S. A Competitive Edge in supercomputing. All is not well the Semiconductor Industry. Those of us that serve on Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committee and work the National Security lien have heard over and over again the shortcomings of the Semiconductor Industry. It was driven by this my conductor industry following the siren of chief wages and moving production offshore. This has caused us some difficulties and it is very much the National Security problem. With semi with the Semi Conductors everyone is aware and knowing more than the Defense Industry and the defense contractors how important microchips are, Semi Conductors are in the construction of certain products. They are in everything and now for their refrigerators, tvs, and in automobiles. But very importantly they are in just about everything we manufacture having to do withha defense. Thus, what those of us who saw this came up with the chips act 52 billiondollar addition to our budget to stimulate bringing this industry back to the United States. This was not driven by a desire to subsidize the Semiconductor Industry. It was designed to meet, which wast a great challenge in Semi Conductor production. To bring it back here to the United States and close this gap on National Security. It appears to me it is working. We thought it would. No one ever knows it to actually try it. But, right now this is happening. Micron is leading the charge in on shoring chip production again. The Company Russo broke ground on a new fact has plans to build for additional fabs nationwide. Brings more than 25 Years Experience across engineering,of ope