Coordinating counsel. You have five minutes for opening statement. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name is tom fanning. I am the chairman, president and ceo of southern company. Also the immediate past chairman of the electric institute. The association that represents all u. S. Investor electric companies. However im addressing you today in any role as one of three cochairs of the electricity sub sector coordinating counsel. We clob rate with colleagues from public power utility and Rural Electric corporatives. Im pleased to address the subcommittee and share the steps the electric Power Industry is taking to make Energy Infrastructure smarter and resilient. Allowing us to continue delivery affordable and reliable power. The 2017 Hurricane Season highlights the critical importance of corporation and coordination among electric Utility Companies. The government and other key Infrastructure Industries to ensure fast, efficient recovery for customers. The electric sector fates evolving threats to the energy grid. The industry Risk Mitigation strategy emphasizes a defense in depth approach. We focus on preparation, prevention, response and recovery. With an emphasis on the isolation of and enhance protection for critical assets. While this hearing is focussed on storm response and recovery it is important to note that our companies do not build the energy grid or our security responses to meet only one type of threat. We must prepare and plan for them all. Whether manmade or natural. Malicious or unintentional. Relating to the cyber or physical security or a combination of threats. Weather it an unavoidable part of the business. The industry works to identify gaps, compile Lessons Learned and best practices. As an industry we strive to be better today than yesterday. And be better tomorrow than we are today. Since super storm sandy five years ago this week. The electric Power Industry has combined efforts across all industry. And worked with the government partners to streamline restoration efforts in improve preparation for and response to major threats that cause significant outages. The benefit of this coordination were visible over the past several months as the industry and federal government work to prepare for and respond to the hurricane. There is an understandable urge to compare storms. But the reality is that each storm is different. The Common Threads however are the need for resilient infrastructure. A plan for response and recovery. And the awesome nature of our industry anlt ability to respond to emergency. Before i close, id like to under score the importance of the escc. During the most recent storms the es krshs c held daily coordination calls among impacted companies and government officials to address critical operational issues such as identifying specialized equipment needs. Removing temporary flagt restrictions for manned and Unmanned Aircraft to assist with aerial damage assessment. Coordinating how industry could reenter and access disaster areas and coordinate response areas efforts. With the oil and natural gas telecommunications, transportation, and water and waste water sector. Energy secretary rick perry was on every call. And was frequently joined by other officials such as homeland aking secretary. The calls were essential to identifying and address Critical Issues in the response and recovery effort. The reliability and resilience of the energy grid are paramount importance. Customers expect the lights to go on when they flip a switch. When the power goes out our customers expect it will be on soon. The electric power sector will continue to strive to mote the expectations through a multilayer strategy. To invest in smart Energy Infrastructure. Continuous enhancement of the industry government partnership. And the grit of the amazing men and women who make the energy grid workday in and day out. The subcommittee is showing great lead ship with focus on preparedness and look forward to working with you on this critical topic. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify in behalf of the escc and i look forward to your questions. Thank you. The chair is call upon mr. The executive director of the water Power Authority. Suffered devastation from two hurricanes. Irma and. Five minute opening statement. Im executive director and chief officer of the water and Power Authority. On behalf of the governor ot virgin islands. The delegate to congress. The member of the 32nd legislature sdp the governing board. I thank you for the invitation to provide testimony. On Energy Challenges facing the u. S. Vir injure islands as a result of the passage of Hurricane Maria and irma. As youre awe ware september of 2017. Virgin islands faced a phenomenon of two back to back category 5 hurricanes in two weeks. Wind scale the category 5 hurricane has sustained winds of 157 miles per hour. There were cases hurricane hirm winds about 190 miles per hour. Transmission and distribution facilities were plain sp simple destroyed by the catastrophic winds of two hurricanes. Due to hurricane irma, impact on september 6, 2017. The water island electrical trabs mission Distribution System suffered significant damage. The st. Thomas system sustained damage of approximately 80 . St. John approximately 90 . Water island 90 . Approximately two weeks later on tuesday september 19th, 2017. Hurricane maria caused damage to almost 60 of the transmission and Distribution System. The islands of didnt receive any significant damage from a result of Hurricane Maria. To date the authority has approximately 536 line men and other related off island personnel in the territory restoring the electrical infrastructure. With the assistance of fe ma, and cruise ships have been brought in to provide sleeping quarters for the off island crews since many hotels and houses throughout the territory remain closed after sustaining major damage. By far the biggest challenge that one i would like to focus on today, is funding daytoday operations and hardening of the system in event of future storms. Without question the hurricanes have decimated the finances. While we appreciate the assistance that has been had and will be forthcoming to rebuild the systems that were damaged, one of the primary concerns is the ability to meet prestorm expenses. Prior to Hurricane Authority revenue were approximately 25. 6 million per month. Since the Hurricane Events and since were unable to provide electric service and bill customers. Ref knew dropped below 2 million a month. R payroll insurance and maintenance. And Financing Agreements it must pay. To address this dramatic shortfall the authority sought to the government a Community Disaster loan. Any support or assistance you can offer in this regard is appreciated. One of the evident take away from the two category 5 hurricanes and significant damage territory wide, is that there is not urgent need for wa pa to rebuild the system. But to harden it and appoint where its resilient to wind storms. It believes it would reduce the post storm period moving away from introducing composite poles under major distribution circuits. And address the grid. Since its too susceptible to damage from wind storms. Each grid would be a localized group of electrical facilities that either work in tandem. Or option to disconnection where they can stand alone. In event the power and main grid is sprupted for any reason the micro grid will function. Currently you have in the works a micro grid on the island of st. Kroi. And provide through battery and solar power. A Police Station at this point. What we are attempting to do is a utility moving forward is harden our system number one. And basically make it resilient by having micro grids. I thank you for opportunity to appear. And im available to answer any questions you have on this matter. Thank you. I heard what irma didnt destroy. It did. Chair calls upon mr. Chet thompson. You have five minutes for opening statement. Thank you. Ranking member rush. Members of the subcommittee. Thank you for having me. Im the president and ce, of the american fuel and pet row chemical manufacture. The refining and industry. Our members represent 120 refineries. 140 chemical facilities. That represents 90 of u. S. Production capacity. More than half of that capacity is located along the gulf coast. Hurricane harvey impacted our facilities in the fuel supply chain very hard. Hurricane irma impacted the fuel supply chain largely in florida. While nates impact was minimal. More importantly, the hurricanes the combination of hurricanes harvey, irma and marry ya were devastating to people of the gulf coast. Particularly houston. Florida and puerto rico. Many of those impacted are part of the extended oil and gas family. Our hearts sp prayers go out to those still struggling to recover. We standby them and will help them any way we can. As a result of this personal impact, todays hearing is particularly important to our industry. Id like to limit my time this morning to this afternoon only to three key points of my written testimony. By and large the u. S. Refining industries weathered the storm fairly well and proved to be resilient. They did this this didnt happy accident. Rather it was a result of hard work and preparation. And with the help of an incredibly dedicated work force and federal state and local first responders. The true heros out of the events. If you want to draw the storm up that could reek the most havoc on the industry. Harvey was hit. It hit corpus kri christy as category 4. And moved up the east coast. Stalled over houston. Which is the epicenter of the refinery industry. It dumped over 60 inches of rain in some locations. And more than a trillion gallons of water across texas and louisiana. At its peak, harvey knocked 24 of the refineries offline. That represents 25 of all u. S. Refining capacity. It has a similar impact on chemical members. Knocked 60 of u. S. Pe troe chemical capacity down. 85 of the capacity in the gulf region. Harvey had a Significant Impact on the entire fuel supply chain. It shut down ports, pipelines and terminals. Rail and certainly gasoline stations. Our facilities couldnt get feed into the plants and we couldnt get product out. This had the potential to be catastrophic. For the fuel and chemical supply chain. In the end it wasnt. Just two weeks after harvey made land fall, 20 of the 24 facilities that went down had restarted. And the chemical facilities made substantial progress as well. Again this was not by accident. Facilities were prepared for the storm. And applied many Lessons Learned in the after math of previous storms like katrina. For example our facility developed more sophisticated preparedness plans. Kbrufed storm monitoring. Hardens Critical Infrastructure. Elevated pumps and generators. Spare parts so we could be ready to move with Recovery Efforts. We upgraded our i. T. Systems to locate employees. All of this made a difference. We came back online much faster than we did after prior storms. The second point id like to make the federal and state response was significantly approved compared to previous stormed. One of the lessons we learned we have to better coordinate with federal state and local government. Over the last few years we have been working hard in that regard. Closely with doe and dhs to improve our relationship. The results during harvey in particular were excellent. We were in Constant Contact before, during and after the storm. The improved coordination was most eft evident in the quick review and approval of storm waivers. Our federal and state partners particularly secretary perry, governors scott deserve credit for the improvements. If i to identify the one area that could be improved it would be better communication by the government to consumers about the fuel supply chain. And the challenges that often accompany events like hurricanes. For example the government could help explain the time line for bringing facilities back online. And getting product back to the distributors in the marketers. It could help us discourage panic buying that seem to accompany the event. Third and finally the companies will work with federal and state authorities to identify a apply Lessons Learned. Although we did fair fair lu well. No doubt theres going to be things we can learn and improve upon to make future responses better. We would caution anyone to result to knee jerk reaction or conclusion particularly those based on a few ice hated events before assessments are in. I know im running out of time. I thank you for the time and opportunity to speak. Id like to express our thanks and appreciation for the incredible work force. And our first responders. They certainly deserve our appreciation. Thank you. The chair calls upon mr. Max. The chief supply officer for. You have five minutes. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. On the retail communities response efforts to 2017 Hurricane Season. My name is max mcbrayer. Of racetrack petroleum ink. Testifies on maf of the National Association of Convenience Stores and the society of independent gasoline marketers of america. A family owned business in atlanta. Operating 450 Convenience Stores across 12 states. And employing 9,000 members. The 2017 hurricane a devastating effect on americas fuels infrastructure and markets. During Hurricane Harvey, flooding damaged more than a quarter of the u. S. Refining capacity and shut down fuel pipelines. This put severe strain on the domestic fuel supply. Hurricane irma led to increasing demand in florida, further causing prices to rise sharply. Natural disaster directly and severely affect the retail fuels market. Margins on fuel sales range between 2 cents and 20 cents and retailers must constantly react to changes in supply and demand to ensure their prices remain competitive. During any Severe Weather event, wholesale fuel prices become more volatile as the market tries to assess and anticipate supply availability. When these unwelcome changed occur, retailers respond to meet their cost. Damage, compliant fuel inventories became strained, leading to escalating wholesale prices. Retail market prices generally reflect rapid increase in the wholesale price. In this instance, fuel retailers made individual decisions on whether to increase prices and risk losing customers or potentially take losses by keeping prices low and not covering the increased wholesale cost. Despite the tough situations, the fuel market was supported of the actions of both the federal government and the state governments. The governments worked with us to deal with the issues before during and after the hurricanes. Communication and coordination initiatives were particularly important. For example, the governors of texas and florida held Conference Calls with industry and government stakeholders that where they listened to concerns and rendered prompt assistance. In florida, specifically, the Governors Office waived certain restrictions for highways, helped ensure that your they prioritized fuel shipments, coordinates escorts for tewell trucks and ships. At the federal level. Disaster response efforts spanned a number of agencies, which ultimately issued more than 30 waivers to help deal with fuel supply issues. Importance was providing assistance to affected areas. These waivers were the difference between getting fuel to our customers in a reasonably, affordable and timely manner and not being able to supply customers with the fuel they needed. In response to state petitions, federal agencies eased restrictions on the type of product retailers could sell. For example, epa temporarily waived certain reformulated gasoline requirements under the clean air act. Despite the major disruptions, to the fuel Distribution System after the hurricanes, the impact on consumers and the economy was still less than what occurred with hurricanes katrina and rita in 2005. Thats because the government worked with the private sector to respond appropriately. There are still important lessons to be learned, however. For instance, theres no good coordinated effort to make consumers to make sure that consumers were informed of the stotts of fuel supplies via social media. As the hurricanes approached, we believed much of the panic about fuel availability caused a significant and unnecessary pool on the available fuel supply. The panic lessened when information on the fuel supply was shared with the public. In addition bottlenecking at ports and fuel terminals was a problem that the government could have done nora leavate. Anything that can be done to remove hurdles for fuel transportation would speed up Recovery Efforts in the wake of future hurricanes. Racetrack believes the collaboration between the public and the private sectors was critical to the successful response efforts. We are proud to have been able to serve the communities that we operate in and i thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony. Thank you. The chair now calls upon the honorable ramon nieves who is now an attorney at law, a former distinguished member of the senate of puerto rico. You have five minutes, sir. Thank you, chairman, Ranking Member rush, members of the subcommittee. I had the privilege to serve the people of puerto rico as senator of san juan and ch