Transcripts For CSPAN3 Puerto Rico Virgin Island Governors Testify Before Senate Energy ... 20171115

Good morning everyone. The committee will come to order. We are here this morning to review on going Recovery Efforts in puerto rico and the u. S. Virgin islands in the wake of hurricanes irma and maria, as well as efforts to rebuild it electric grids on those islands in a smarter and hopefully a more resilient manner. Were over two months removed from when Hurricane Irma devastated st. Thomas and john on september 6th and its been nearly 60 days since Hurricane Maria hit st. Croix and puerto rico. Just a little over a week ago that senators cassdy, franken and i along with senator carper who was just here and senator harris as well as some of our house colleagues visited both st. Thomas and puerto rico. I want to thank both governors. For your hospitality. The time you gave us during that visit. It was incredibly important i think for all of us to see to be on it ground and to be hearing directly from you and those that you are working with. I know that some other members of our committee have travelled to puerto rico previously and i thank them for that as well. What i think we certainly observed is the destruction is still very, very evident. When you consider the totalality of it recovery work that still needs to be done i think in a word it can be said that its overwhelming. Its one of those where do you even begin moments and i think we certainly felt that in puerto rico, we felt that in usvi. I mentioned when we were there in puerto rico that ive seen my share of natural disasters but really nothing like this, nothing like the scale that you see when you see an entire island that has been devastated as we had an opportunity to be up in the air and fly over some of the impacted areas in puerto rico, it seemed like we never left an area that had not been not only hit but devastated in terms of the impact weve put some posters up on the dis here. Over to the over to my left here is a solar field that we flew over in puerto rico. You can see closer to the front the panels that remained in tact. And while the resolution isnt that good, the impact to the raise in the back, it just looked like somebody smashed through them. In front of senator cantwell here are solar panels afield that we saw when we were in puerto rico driving by, but again seeing the impact there. Right below senator cortez is a picture of some apartments that we drove by in st. Thomas. Where the buildings had been just blasted through from one side to the other. So a clean sweep through these apartment buildings. It was just extraordinary. Below senator hinrich, you can see some of the devastation again in puerto rico. The blue tarps are certainly coming to be a symbol of the devastation that we see post hurricane, not just here in the caribbean, but certainly as weve seen the devastation following harvey in houston and in flflorida, but i think you c see just how these properties have been impacted in a way and in a manner that is just again devastating. Below senator franken is an area that we toured where the road had been taken out by land slide. Not only did we see this particular scene but another area where the only access to some 200 roads had been cut off by horrible land slides stranding homes on the other side. We had the opportunity to visit with another woman whose home was on the other side and she had not been able to visit her home. Since the urhad cane had happened. A very, very touching story, one that i think all of us will remember for a long time. But i think we also recognized while we were in puerto rico looking at the damage from the land slides and appreciating that particularly in the interior where you have such mountainous areas that this is still the rainy season and with the number of trees that have been taken down, that slope stability during the rainy months is very uncertain and so the damage that were seeing today may not be the it damage were daeling with in days and weeks from now knowing that more can happen. Again very, very, very sobering. And when you look at this and realize that these pictures were taken just last week, it is clear evidence that there is much, much, much to do. But as daunting as the recovery effort is, i think its matched by the spirit of those who lived on the islands. And we saw that, we felt that. I have i dont know whether im doing promoting here or not but while we were over in puerto rico, we were reminded that there is a resiliency in the people, members have been given a can of soda this morning that was manufactured and bottled in puerto rico with the hashtag that says wheres puerto rico, which is puerto rico strong. So i thought that was pretty cool that even in the mitdest of all this, they were coming together. They were working to remind each of us of the resiliency of the people of puerto rico, people of the u. S. Virgin islands that this is their home and to reif had force that we need to do what we can to epihad rebuild these islands. Todays hearing will also look at ways to make the electric grid more resilient to future storms. I think we all agree it makes no sense to rebuild these grids to prestorm conditions as the stafford act currently requires. Puerto ricos electric grid wassawas already an quated befeore the storm hit. So why would we rebuild it to that standard . Ive talked to bodies on the other side of the aisle. Congress needs to provide greater flexibility in how stafford funds can be used. Im going to help implement that change. We also know more urhad canes will impact the islands. Were going to see poles that will break, roads and bridges that will wash out. Residents will face flooding and mud slide. Communities with ilbe disconnected from each other and a central grid and some of that is the reality of living on an island in a tropical location. But again the questions that we need to be probing are what can we do about it now . For right now, right now restoring electricity is the immediate priority. Its been out for far too long. And it is harming the health of both local residents and their economy. And when i say health had, i think about things like mental health. You tik about being without power for 60 days plus. Think about what that means. We see pictures of kids who are trying to do their homework, using the flash light of their cell phones. But in puerto rico where we were schools were not open. Schools were not open and have not been open for two months now. Think about what happens just from an educational perspective. So when we talk about help, i think we need to be more expansive in our understanding of what the impact to these islands has been. These conditions are awful, theyre tragic but theyre also an opportunity for us to be working together to rebuild it grids in a smarter manner, whether bearing the lines where possible, direct current verses alternative, some other manner, i think we need to be looking at this Going Forward with a few things in mind. Making the grid more resilient to future weather events and in case of damage from future storm, bringing that time frame for repair on the grid on par to what we see here in the United States. I think we recognize that anyone of the 50 states here, whether you are on the mainland or, like hawaii or alaska apart from the continental United States, nowhere would we accept the fact that the people, the residents have been without power for two months, particularly the numbers of people that were talking about. But also we need to be working to bring down the overall cost of electricity, certainly compared to prestorm prices. Were fortunate to be joined by vaer distinguished panel this morning and we will have an equally distinguished panel as this one concludes. But these folks are here today to epihad us better understand the conditions on the ground, what more needs to be done at the federal level and what a future electric grid could be like like. I turn to senator cantwell for her opening remarks and look forward to a very informative discussion. Thank you madam chair, and thank you for scheduling this imi important hearing. Id like to thank all our distinguished witnesses for their thoughts today. Its been 56 days since maria struck and both the Virgin Islands and puerto rico are struggling with even the most basic needs providing Drinking Water and delivering Adequate Health care. This is onacceptable. The United States is a strong nation, needs to take care of its citizens and approximately 3. 4 million United States citizens and over 100,000 United States citizens face challenges as we speak. The federal government needs to do more and it needs to plan in advance. Inh ineckwtable treatment under medicaid and the tax code have dramatically harmed these economies. As a result they have suffered from economic contractions in recent years. In response to puerto ricos debt crisis, congress pazzed legislation from 2016. To be clear, i did not support that legislation. One of the reasons why is because it favored more of the interests of the hedge fund Share Holders than the taxpayers. But by far the most far reaching impact is to our electricity grid and this administration which has been responsible for restoring the electricity grid along with local partners needs to do more for the people of puerto rico. I welcome mr. Walker here today, i supported your nomination and you and im sure you are it right man to epihad but youicide hear loud and clear that we need do more. The white fish contract in puerto rico raised particular concerns. It Homeland Security reviewing the matter and according to a wall street journal report the fbi is also investigating. The florida workers contracted by whitefish were paid 42 on an hour, lineman 63 and yet whitefish billed the government of utility 319 an hour. Even if that figure is abnormally high because it ifcluded absorbitant charges for room and board, why would a contract specify a separate charge for room and board . It welfare of the puerto rico people to rebuild the island is my number one concern but i will not stop making sure that the u. S. Taxes payer is not gouged in this process. Lets be very clear about this. The reason why my state has many storms and many natural disasters, the reason why you have mutual aid contracts is to rebuild at cost. That is what a mutual aid contract is. Rebuilding at cost. So the notion that someone comes in there to gouge the puerto rican government and the u. S. Taxpayer charging them an exorbitant rate and writing a contract so it cant be reviewed properly was a great ifjustice to the u. S. Taxpayer. When you look at how the situation occurred, we must understand it federal government here also feeds change its process. I have seen this time and time aagain in my state whether its fire or a mud slide or failed Communication Systems cant even be restored to communicate to the public because someone is saying who will pay for this. So in the gap puerto rico made decision to go with an entity that gouged the u. S. Taxpayers. It should have been clear from the very beginning that fema and the u. S. Government would pay on those contracts and it should have been done with mutual aid at cost. So were going to get to the bottom of this. If it takes a long time. Why . Because we never want to see this happen again. We do not want be to a country where interests of the private sector are patrolling the u. S. Economy, looking for a disaster and then saying im going to go in there and capitalize on it. People should read and understand case law. Case law on price gouging was this very instance. In a blizzard in the northeast someone came in and tried to charge more for snow blowers. Why . Because they knew people to buy them. So were not going to put up with this kind of behavior in the United States of america. When people are in a crisis and a disaster, the u. S. Government have had responded and said they would be there to restore it utility grid and do it at cost and thereby get the support. So well have lots of time for questions. There is a fundamental problem with removing the authority of the grid from it people and handing it over to an unelected oversight board. This was brought up in a court case yesterday. The mission is to achieve fiscal responsibility and access capitol markets which means playing nice with bond holders. This is not our priority, which is getting the lights back on and preventing a continuing humanitarian crisis. So those are the things we must understand as this debate continues. Only a strong independent regulator can assure consumers pay low prices, they move towards a Sustainable Business model and that will be a very long process. I know our colleagues want to talk about how we modernize this for the future. But in the meantime im going to make sure the u. S. Taxpayer is well protected and we do anything we can to flatten any kind of process that exists between bureaucracy and the government of puerto rico to make sure theyre not having to pay 20 questions about Financial Assistance and aid. The answer should be yes and we should be doing it at cost. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. Thank you, senator cantwell. Our first panel this morning will be led off by the governor of puerto rico. The honorable ricardo nuvar ez. He will be followed by the governor of the u. S. Virgin islands, the honorable kenneth mack, we welcome you. Mr. Bruce walker is the assistant secretary for it office of electricity, delivery and inhad aerj reliability at the u. S. Department energy. I will note he as been on the job here for about a month, i believe and as soon as he was sworn in, he was sent to puerto rico or he volunteered to go to port reek oo and has been there much of the time and on the ground. So i think well have a great deal to share with us this morning. And were also joined by Major General donald e. Jackson jr. The Deputy Commanding civil for it u. S. Army core of engineer that has been tasked to address the grid system there. In puerto rico. So gentleman, we welcome you to the committee. Observe govern governors, we certainly appreciate that you have travelled to be with us this morning and appreciate your time. Thank you, chairman markowski and Ranking Member cantwell. I would also like to give special thanks to senator mar kousky and all the members of both house and senate who have taken the time to come to puerto rico and bare witness to the island. It is impossible to describe the fury and viance to the people w did not experience. Causing the full failure of the power grid, major damage to our water systems. Airports rendered unuseable. Roads and bridges were washed away and virtually all Communications Systems were shut down. I was there when we to rescue 2,000 people from roof tops when flooding reached massive proportions several hours after the hurricane hit. I saw mothers carrying their infa infants. I had to drive several hours northwest and through the mountainous regions to warn folks their dams could collapse because theres no other way to communica communicate. No phones, no radio, no water, no power. No business is open, lit logical access to roads. I flew over parts of puerto rico that look like a category 5 hurricane went through it. Others looked like a bomb was dropped. I personally took food, water and medicine to people who had lost their homes. Not with standing these challenges, we are resilient and making progress. We are moving from life sustainment to the recovery. Water restoration is now at 90 . Telecommunications is at 75 . Almost all supermarkets and gas stations are opened. I called for an aggressive milestone to make sure we could do everything humanly possible to power puerto rico as quickly as possible and tomorrow we will have met our second milestone of restoring 50 of the energy grid by november 15th. 59 of the 60 58 of the 68 hospitals are connected to the grid and we have started to stead a elopen schools. Now we have 839 that are open. It is important to note that this event has no parallel in american modern history. With risk models categorizing this as a storm that caused 90 to 1 100 billion in damages. This was a total catastrophe. We have twin storms blasted through another state. A catastrophe would have inhad sued as well. I became governor with the challenging task of misplaced priorities and sufficient leadership. As youre aware long before the Hurricane Season had started in puerto rico and its people been battered by demographic challenges, ive worked tirelessly since taking office just 10 months ago embarking on an aggressive agenda. Within six months, my administration has obtained it approval of the 10year fiscal plan. Although weve had our differences with it board, we have worked together. In addition we also implemented an aggressive array of policies for economic and social growth including a Gold Standard pensions reform and are currently working on a new government down sizing model procurement, reform and the transformation of the electric utility. Even during the recovery and restoration process, we are focussed on developing a plan for future electric energy in puerto rico. Were working with members of the governing board to bring together top minds and provide best in class thinking on the future. And evaluating are options including public or private ownership, or a combination for the long term. We aim to revamp completely the delivery of electric energy in puerto rico. This includes aggressively incorporating alternative energy sources, creating frameworks for distributed energy sources, Virtual Power Plants, and developing a robust Regulatory Framework that creates the right market and competitive signals to insure its delivered reliably and at a sustainable i call on congress to approve an emergency supplemental registration that provides equal registration compared to what any state would have experienced. Attached to my written testimony i have provided an extensive analysis and documentation of the devastation of the hurricanes and the federal resources necessary to build a more resilient puerto rico. Worked along with thirdparty groups and organizations. In doing this i am had committed i commit to you today that i will lead the most transparent disaster reconstruction in american history. Towards that end i have issued an executive order for the office which has been tasked with the suring full accountability for all state and federal funds directed towards the island reconstruction. The foster of accountability. We will create a recovery portal that will not only track the status of are ecovery, burt provide information to the public about how and where the funds have been used. This great country of ours has always prided itself on leadership, moral values and principals. It has also responded to extraordinary times. The whole world is watching. It is time to show we mean what we say. Its almost one and only one. It is time for our homeland to show we can walk the talk. As governor of puerto rico but more so as a proud u. S. Citizen of this great country, i ask you to once again rise to the call as you have done so many times before. Thank you, god bless you, god bless puerto rico and god bless america. Thank you, governor. Governor mack, welcome to the committee. Members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the damage done to the United States Virgin Islands suffered from two category 5 hurricanes. Just 12 days apart. Let me take the opportunity to thank you, madam chair and members of the committee and congress for visiting it u. S. Virgin island. I waunt to thank it Vice President for coming and seeing first hand the devastation in our territory and speaking with our citizens. Id like the acknowledge in the audience today members of my legislature that are here led by the president , Myron Jackson and members of the cabinet as wel. But first and foremost on behalf of the more than 100 thousand resilient americans living in the United States Virgin Islands, let me convey our heart felt gratitude and appreciation for the concern so many fellow americans have shown to us during this difficult time. From the great leadership and support of our president to you, madam chair and the many members of the house and senate who came to see the devastation first hand to better understand the conditions we are living in, we thank you. We also thank fema for the unwaving support of our ongoing critical needs in the Virgin Islands and thank our ko kordinating officer. The needs of the citizens in a disaster than the United States of america. Is the response all was perfect . No. But neither is the rediction of the outcome of a natural disaster. To our country, to our fellow citizens, to our National Government the people of the Virgin Islands say thank you. Covers i didnt travel here today to only express gratitude. I came here before you to personally ask for your help and your support in recovering. These storms brought 185 mileperhour winds that ripped leaves from the trees. Pulling up centuryold trees by their roots and eaturning our green hill sides black. Utility polls snapped like match sticks and over 400 boats sunk in our harbor. Nine schools, our two main hospitals and related health facilities, fire stations and police stations. Were so badly damaged they had to be condemned. It delivery of government services. Simple things we normally take frogranted. Running water, cell phone services, electricity. A hot meal, remain unavailable to many of our citizens. More than 15,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. And virtually all of our Power Distribution was wiped out. Power remains limited with power connections across the Virgin Islands at a mere 27 . On the island of st. John, our residents only started seeing power for it first time last week. Can you imagine a community here on the mainland going without power for over six weeks . In addition to the physical destruction its gren to a near halt, those that have reopened have reopened with significantly reduced services. And unsustainable cash shortfalls that we will experience now and if to the future. We have estimated that economic losses and tourism stand at more than 1. 7 billion over the next three years. Damage to commercial facilities stand at almost 1 billion. Our recovery from these islands will take time and it will begin with a full understanding of the damages caused. We estimate uninsured hurricanef had related damages to exceed 7 1 2 billion dollars. I have requested that amount in federal Disaster Assistance to address our most essential needs to return to normalcy. Virgin islanders are resilient but we must do more to make our islands resilient. Unless you want to see me come back here after the next major hurricane devastation of amer a americas paradise, we must build it back stronger and more sustainable than before. We must build it back stronger and more resilient to protect our citizens and the investment and consider our Power Distribution network. While we are optimistic that will be nearly fully restored by christmas but this. Its paying to rebuild this Power Distribution system in the Virgin Islands. Weve already taken basic steps to improve the resiliency of the grid and to build it back using things like composite polls that can better with stand hurricaneforce winds but we must go further. With your help, we plan to bury power lines on the primary and secondary road systems throughout the territory. And invest in a microgrid system that will add Renewable Generation capacity like solar and wind energy. Its not just power lines we need to approach differently. Ermau and maria completely devastated our Critical Health care infrastructure, destroying our two main hospitals and affiliated health care facilities. Today Critical Care is unavailable in the Virgin Islands. A critically ill patient in the u. S. Virgin islands cannot receive care there. Critical patients and persons requiring dialysis must be flown to the u. S. Mainland for care. We were doing that after irma in puerto rico. Butted now that our neighbor has been impacted, patients are now flown to atlanta, texas and florida. The funds were seeking will help rebuild two main hospitals on st. Croix, helping the u. S. Virgin islands recover will require a serious look at our Health Care System as it relates to federal law and policy. Health care funding in the Virgin Islands was under great stress, even before the two hurricanes. Unequal federal medicaid funding, primarily due to arbitrary matching rate has imposed a severe hardship on the government finances. The Virgin Islands is physically disadvantaged because of the centers of medicare and Medicaid Services using decades old bench marks. Our hospitals fee schedules are based on a 1989 fee schedule. So reimbursing of these publicly owned hospitals caused great distress to the finances of the government of the Virgin Islands. Governor, im going to ask you to start wrapping here. Thank you. Regarding Public Safety we have lost our fire stations, police stations, Emergency Operation centers for disasters on st. Croix. Universities have been heavily damaged. While we apreciate efforts of fema, these prevent home from further damage. But its not epihadding folks in homes without frames and without rules. So with each rainfall, families are being harmed. Our citizens, american citizens have suffered terrible losses, dislocation and distress in the wake of these storms. Vurmgen islanders understand and accept our responsibility. But we cannot do it alone. We cannot squander this opportunity to rebuild a better and stronger more resilient Virgin Islands to rebuild it quickly. If we do, we will only compound the suffering that so many of our citizens have endured. With your support, that will not happen. Thank you for listening and for supporting your fellow american citizens in the u. S. Virgin islands. Thank you and know that your full statement along with everyone will be included as part of the record. Id like to thank chairman, Ranking Member and the members of this committee for moving me favorably and expediting the conformation so i may go to puerto rico and the Virgin Islands to get a first hand account of devastation that was done. With permission of the committee id like t id like to entinter testimony. Number one, it successes that i realized in my attending the Virgin Islands as well as puerto rico, the challenges that were faced and the opportunities we have go forward and speaking specifically to a number of the things that both governors mentioned, there are opportunities and we have an opportunity to take advantage of those. Successes. The leadership provided boo thitwo governors sitting next to me was fantastic and the resilience and the heart felt strength of the citizens of both Virgin Islands and puerto rico was amazing. The calm on the island was outstanding. The key humanitarian challenges are continuing to be met with the leadership provided by the governors and id like to pointed out there were two critical components with the restoration that i think are worth noting. Number one, prepa, with limited crews ive had made an early decision to have to tie the southern portion to the northern portion where the load is and in doing so they made a key decision to construct the 230 line from the south, pringing it up to the san juan area, the bay station. From down here, wrapping up where the line is, up here, all the way to here. What was important about that is that one decision and the efforts made by prepa with limited staffing enabled the power to be distributed to where the load was and in conjunction with the other big decision, which is the next slide the army corp, installed generators and that in conjunction of the rebuild of the 230 line enabled power for the northern portion. Those two efforts were monumental given the facts and circumstances. The installation of this generator with the letting of the contract and the if had had stall and i was at palasae co. We fantastic support from prepa in coordinating it it, particularly with it coordination with the army corp. Lastly, the work of the federal coordinating officers in the Virgin Islands and the governor mentioned bill vogel and his deputy haas and mike burn and his deputy the coordination that was set forth by fema was outstanding. In an effort to drive and work with it leadership provided by the two governors to my right. On the challenges i think you can see through a number of these pictures, the mountainous terrain was a key component where there was stress in trying to rebuild the transition system. Lack of generation in the north necessitated the work be to done on the system. The logistics highly successful in trying to mobilize all it things necessary of equipment people and puhad aterial to get down for had and challenges to work through. It amount of fiberoptics on the island were a challenge particularly as they increased the wind sheer and therefore the damage to the poles and the water infultration to 18 substations, three of which were inundated to the point where they were not able to be energized. That leads me to my last component. Very high level weve already mobilized the grid consorshm to look at work that has been previously done by labs and oakridge and looking specifically at things like modern relay, improved sensing capabilities. Hardened control devices. Secondly microgrid opportunities. Weve already looked at and started the process to if stall 200 locations, representing 11 mega wats of power on puerto ri rico. Thats where we had provided supplies. And were doing investigation on now to add additioning microgrid opportunities and well also begin look at them in the Virgin Islands as well. The 18 substations, inundated, theres a Flood Mitigation Program called 2414. Were looking at that for the reconstruction of the 18 substation. In conjunction were utilizing noah to identify where we can put solar and identify take the mountains and use them as shieldings for the design and it slosh modeling for the Virgin Islands as well as puerto rico. So with we have to replace substations, we dont put them in an yare cruthat would be inundated Going Forward. Also we have the opportunity with the high penetration to develop the black net and utalize it in the discussion here with this committee on the cyber security, real opportunity because of the density. Integration of other generation renewable, thats a key component and add a level of resiliency because it wouldnt be able to be built from the south to the north and inevitably well see more hurricanes and lastly there are basic structural components we have the opportunity to do. I have folks at the bonneville power and wa, a do investigation on a tower constructions because the dead end towers on the transmission system, fundamentally were standing in the aisle. The others were more damaged and mainly because these towers are guide or anchored differently than the other towers. Theres structural improvements available to us and the mod fwkz of the fiberoptic something well have an opportunity to take a look at. Thank you for the opportunity to convey my thoughts and look forward to your questions. General jackson. Ranking member cantwell. Thanks for the opportunity to testify today. It core conducts two basic authorities. Stafford act and law 8499. We support fema under the National Response framework for Emergency Support function three. Esf 3 provides temporary emergency power, debris management, if had frustructure can assessment, facility restoration and temporary housing. Under 8499 through coordination and training with local, state and federal partners assisting them with advanced measures and preparing damage including eligible noneligible structures to prestorm conditions. Theyre mobilized across the command to assist local offices to respond to this event. The core has more than 50 specially trained teams that perform the wide range of missions that i just described. The corp can be kwiktly activ e activated for debris removal and temporary roofing. This year they have supported fema in support of multiple events if hadcluncluding her hu irma and maria. And Hurricane Irma in florida and in the aftermath of dev starting wild fires in california. The corp has received 59 fema assignments in puerto rico and the u. S. Virgin islands. Currently it core has over 1900 personnel in the region. As of this morning they have completed over 765 temporary generator insulations in the caribbean. This if thecludes 270 assessments and 176 generator installations puerto rico. Under Fema Authority were also assisting puerto rico with 1en had 50 critical, noncritical generators across it island. We have over 550 soldiers, and contractors dedicated to temporary power alone in puerto rico. They completed 12 thousand roofing installations and 8700 in puerto rico. Requiring additional material construction report and added capacity and will continue to see improvement in both locations. Corp debris subject matter are providing support to the u. S. Virgin islands. Were working to remove debris and over 2 million cubic yards of debris we working with the oceanianic and local authorities to open navigation channels critical restoring commerce to reach effected communities. In Puerto Rico Corp dam and levy teams inspected 14 levies, working closely with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to stabilize a spillway at the dam. They helped place emergency pumps to further reduce water levels, yet restore flow to a critical treatment plan that supports the needs of over 1 hundred had,000 people. The core was given under stafford act authority to assist in emergency repairs to the grid itself. The corp has established a general officef had led task force to over see work and provide technical assistance. The Department Energy has embedded experts in our team. Unlike with our esf 3 mission, they do not have to be awarded contracts but has relied to compet tvlly build capacity to meet requirements. Since receiving the Mission Assignment, ta have installed a power plant to stabilize the grid in san juan. And includes currently 3,000 miles of conductor wire and we contracted for 200 additional line repair crews flowing into the the island to assist the ongoing oefrts by prepa. And a power plant that will be to assist the facility. Despite our heavy if had volvement in these response and Recovery Efforts. We also remain ready and poised to participate in future events. This concludes my testimony. Thank you. Thank you Major General. Well now have an opportunity for fiveminute rounds of questioning. Governors, one of the things that impressed me when we were in u. S. Virgin islands, you relaid or shared with me that this is now your fifth hurricane. You have a little bit of experience dealing with disasters and you indicated that in anticipation of Hurricane Irma coming your way, you effectively had teed things up so in the event you were hit had, which of course you were, you could immediately move forward to basically push send with the request for mutual aid, indicated that alowed you to move quickly to remove debris and really get to work in an yare cruthat been incredibly devastated. Were looking at this hearing to not only learn about what we have done right where we have stumbled in this effort and also how to move forward from that but thats one thing that as i look at the two islands that were impacted both in considerable ways and in ported rico. Mutual aid was not implemented immediately. In fact, i heard many times as we were traveling there that in fact the Real Recovery, the Real Recovery didnt begin until a month later. Effectively october 30th when the mutual aid switch was flipped and the effort really began. Governor, can you share with the committee why mutual aid was not advanced immediately. Of course. Thank you again for the opportunity. Let me just take you initially through the time frame that was the two twin storms. We first got hit with irma at that juncture, for were some requests for information. For several contractors to come to puerto rico to attend to some of the challenges we had after irma. That of course was looking forward to just restarting without the energy grid without looking at the moment where we would have another storm. Just so im clear did you not believe after irma that it damage was sufficient to have invoked mutual aid that you could handle that on your own . The results are there. The Power Authority actually picked up from 25 energy from after the storm. So there was work in progress and an alternative mechanisms to bring more support to the island. In comes maria and i just have to define what were the it first days immediately after maria. First of all we have no knowledge of the vast damage that was done in puerto rico because we have no communications. I mean i know its hard to put yourself in that situation but puerto rico is relatively small island but it is to travel it typically takes a couple of hours. At that point we had had no communications, no radio communications, which we expected to have. At that point all of the roads were basically blocked. So our efforts immediately after the storm where to asesz the sif situation, get contact, establish logistics and going through a life sustainment phase. Right after the storm as i mentioned in my initial statement emergencies ensued. We literally had to go i to take the position that i had to mobilize Police Officers from wherever they were, they were at risk of drowning and this happened several times because more water came through it as well. After came also the devastation and the potential announcement for which we had no communications with the people of that township so i to go in a car in a route that takes about an hour 1 2, it takes four hours. I went there so we could mourn it local authorities, the mayors of what was going on. Im going to interrupt only because im out of time but it begs the question then obviously great deal of immediate urgency to save human life but in retrospect, would it have not been wiser to do as we saw in the u. S. Virgin islands just push send and request that mutual aid . Yes, we spoke about this, prepa will be happy to answer all the components and Decision Making that went for to that. But i want toed a add an element. When we were making that decision about bringing some of the additional assets to puerto rico, we had the offer from the corp of engineer that would allow us to restore the energy grid fairly quickly as was stated to us initially and that we didnt have to have a cost sharing to do so. Right now as you know puerto rico is in a fiscal predicament that we had little liquidity to push forward. So having those two alternatives, we chose under the understanding that things were going pick up quickly, that energy grid was going to be restored, we chose the alternative that both fema and the core of engineer proposed which is lets do it through the corp and in collaboration with prepa so we can get going. We all have a lot of questions here. Im going to go thank you, madam chair. Youre right about that. I want to make sure were working on solving the problems. Is everything working seamlessly now as it relates to the army corp and to prepa and everything that needs to happen or do we still need streamlining . First of all it is Public Record i wasnt satisfied with the original deployment of the corp of engineer. Im established again. We were under the impression this was going to start immediately. That we were at a 45day time frame, otherwise of course we would have looked for other alternatives. Having said that and thanks to several meetings weve had, now weve had three daily meetings on whats going on with it energy grid that includes prepa, the doe, the core of engineer. Some of the stake holders so that we can push forward and meet the aggressive standard that we for puerto rico. So while again as i said in the onset i was not satisfied and i voiced it, im hopeful that the new mechanism can allow us to get to our objectives and what i ask the senate is covers to keep on serving, keep hearing us out and as it pertains to the past week, there has win an increase, a phenomenal increase in communication, more deployment of personnel to puerto rico and as i 125stated on our initial statement, our objective to get 50 by november 15th looks like were right on target. Thanks, governor. Mr. Walker, what do you do about this issue with it bond holders having a lead against prepa . So here we are trying to make this work from perspective of restoring the grid and we have a bond holder lean. So what are you going to do to make sure taxpayer dollars areabout just going to wall street instead of the grid . During my time in puerto rico that was a question that came up and working with fema and fema lawyers, theyve worked through mechanisms that they feel confident the investments being made under the Emergency Restoration will not be attachable as theyre actually grants. So the federal government, through fema, its a better question to be answered by fema expert. But i had learned as much as i could in puerto rico. So i asked that question specifically when i was down there. There was obviously concern with the investment being made. But they believe that money will be protected. So do you believe that we need further structure by others in integration with prepa . Because yesterday im pretty sure those bond holders were in court trying to wrangle this organization away from the government and into their pocket books. The judge denied that but i guarantee you this wont be the end to the situation. If youre saying today prepa has the full oversight it needs or no doe i think if Congress Appropriates money for permanent work that fema will have to make decisions with regard and congress will have to make decisions with regard to whos responsible for it. If Congress Appropriates money for permanent restoration. But do you believe prepa needs any other oversight by you . The Emergency Restoration is uniquely qualified. Its their system to restore the system and get it up and running. And youre a person who spent much of your time in this sector . I spent my if tire life there. And i work very closely with ricardo, on the next panel and prepa personnel in their control staff restoring the system and as i earlier noted, there were some very significant challenges making decisions to restore it system. Prepa rose to the chalange and made decisions and started the work and as the governor noted, got back to almost 50 of the system. So youre standing by prepa in this and moving forward . I. And you will work with us on this large r issue of making sure this is not the last disaster were going to see and i think we need work very hard to make sure someone that took advantage of the gap that existed between nautd having this full fema commitment and the fact that prepa made a decision then, look, we had our constituents gouged during the inron crisis. So utilities who had a mustserve requirement signed up for those exorbitant rates. It took us years to get out of it. I want to make sure were stopping this kind of behavior and that we work across. And were going to see many more disasters. And were not going to be involved in this price gouging. By someone trying to take advantage of a disaster. Senator cassidy. Ill return to the second panel with prepa. But my questions all relate to it. Do you know how much it will cost to upgrade the senator franken and i have had had this conversation. What could you do in puerto rico and by the way, thank you for your hospitality. The idea is you could have a distributed Energy System on the back side to when the sun doesnt shine and i was struck we went to a tesla facility but it rained every day since it went out. And they were running the generator fully constantly, which shows the limitation of the energy. Important, useful, bought little limit said. Needing back up. So first can i ask i know that there is already l and, g on but to what degree can your kurntd fossil facility serve as a back up . Governor, mr. Walker, you all have that answer. I can wait for it next panel. And do we know how much it would cost to upgrade that palaseca . In the long term or short term . In the long term. In the long term again i would pass that question to the prepa director. Sounds great. And can i ask it progress right now of mr. Walker you showed the nice pictures of those longterm transmission lines across the mounltens. Where are we . 90 . 80 . Both the 230 lines up to the Middle Island are on schedule to be complete by the end of november. Okay. And what percent of the island is power backed . 49 . And san juan it looked pretty good, rel tvlly speaking but other Community Cans less so. Right. Rilt its been continuously flowing. Theres been ups and downs. Weve had significant rain events but right now as we stated we had an objective of getting to 50 by midnovember and were poised to achieve that. And general, i think it was a conversation with you. My sense was that the utility level renewables really didnt do that well. Now that we saw the busted windows and the broken arrays, but the distributed energy did okay. And as i went around, an ecdotally it seemed those were in tact both by helicopter and by vision. Is that a correct impression . Thats exactly what i observed. Depending on where they were situated with regard to wind flow determined how well they faired. Got you. And for had wamr. Walker, you s some of the stations being inundated. Was that by rain or flood . Both, sir. Now, im going to ask something really stupid. But with the rain if undated, i assume i can imagine a flood because it comes in from the bottom. But rain comes down from the top and it seems as if a shield would have kept that protected unless the shield blew over. It wasnt the rain per se, on the station. It was the humiliation nof rain into these channels that went to the substations. Was that a design flaw or inherent in any storm like this youre going to have that inherent problem . I dont think it was a design flaw. Many of these stations have been there for many years. So the hardening youre speaking of would address this . Yes, sir. Got you. Im not ignoring u. S. Virgin islands. Its just that your problem seemed a little bit more manageable than those of puerto rico. I want to answer your question about the upgrade of the power situation. Totally the rebuild and the resiliency would be about 850 million and i did want to point out that in the renewables we had two experiences. We newables by one vendor on one island worked perfectly. That entire field maybe 2 damaged. On another island with a different vendor and vendor for the it District Court completely emasiated. St. Croix was relatively uneffected . No, st. Croix suffered tremendously in Hurricane Maria and john in the ureye wall of Hurricane Irma. Part of the issue with it solar panels are clearly how they are if stalled. And who installed them. Because we had great survivalability in 175 mileperhour winds and on the samile chbd just a mile away with a different vendor completely destroyed st. Thomas. Thats intriguing but im over time. I yield back. Senator hinrich. I want to start and recognize congresswoman from the Virgin Islands joining us as well. Im going to alow you to expand on the same line of questions. What vuyou been able to determage at this point the characteristics of the survivalability water r were so we can make sure in future thats if corporated . Not as yet but this particular entity that is the Third Party Provider their panels also for their private clients and in huge arrays, also seem to survive very well and that just indicates to us that in just putting these people hiring them, weve got to to be careful in terms of how theyre installing them and what systems they are using because we had that different experience. It seems like theres probably something in the inhad junearing we need to look at and if had sure future installations learn those lessons. Governor rosier, i want to ask you. You said the hurricane was an unprecedented catastrophe for puerto rico. But given the antiquated nature, its also an opportunity to create a much better, more modern resilient electrical grid for your constituents. What do you want to see in terms of gen rashz, transmission, distribution . What would you like that to look like for your constituents . I would like tootoo be an opportunity to leap frog from 19th Century Technology to the van guard of the 21st century and what does that look like in puerto rico so . We have several flaws aside from antiquated power plants. Most of our generation was done in the south. Yet most of the people and consumption is in the north. So you lose about 12 to 15 in the transmission going north. It is time, it is an opportunity to rethink that. Where do we have that generation and make it better. Piggy backing on senator cassdys comments, i think its an opportunity to leap frog in renewables. I if vision also leap frogging to 25 renewables in puerto rico and recognizing that there are some mitigation strategies we need to put in place. Thats why we have worked with the prepa governing board to have a gruch that can actually help us in the design and specifically looking where this can happen. Events in puerto rico is very important. Puerto ricos not flat, its got a mountainous region. Well be aggressively pursuing. Its a 90 95 . But that last mile always takes more time. Because there are sort of remote areas of the island. This is an opportunity to make microgrids in puerto rico so that they can be sustained in different areas and lastly adding to this whole components, i think its an opportunity to look at this from a top down approach with the collaboration of fema we were able to for the first time allow that either a power plant generator be added to the house or a renewable battery pack be add thootd homes in the step program. We expect there will be about 80,000 homes ife s introduced i step program. Think of what that means if half decide to go with the a renewables. It means you have the starting conditions to think about a Virtual Power Plant in puerto rico where you can have smart distribution of the energy and some days it might be cloudy in some areas of puerto rico. Sun certainly in others as well and that can be distributed along side a, aof course a compliment of industrialsized generation which i envision should start transitioning from petroleumbased generation which is costly and more harmful to liquid gas and so forth generation. So those are, in a nutshell what we if had vision the future grid of puerto rico to look like. I would just add to that. When you have retail electric rates in the mid20s, that gives an awful lot of room to build that new distributed clean sgrid because when you have ppa agreements being signed in the u. S. For 4. 5 cents a kilowatt hour solar plus shortage, that really creates real opportunities here to do that and do it in a way that serves your constituents without gouging them as well. I think it is an opportunity based on the margin, it differential. Im sure that the governor as well over here has the same problem that can bekwm an opportunity. Thank you, senator hinrich. Thank you for the panelists for bringing your governors. Thank you for your leadership. All of you. Thank you very much for your leadership. Governor, good to see you again. Obviously a very meaningful viz toot puerto rico in the days following the hurricane and have an opportunity to see what happened to our fellow americans and tragic and of course this committee, this congress is committed to continued solutions of partnerships. I had raforeign Relations Committee markup. So i may have missed when you discussed this in your Opening Statements or question and answer sessions. What should prepa look like in five years, from a governing structure standpoint, whaticide it look like in 10 years . I think we need to transform prepa. I think everybodys in accordance. I think that prestorm we a strategy moving forward. It was a longer term strategy based on natural obstacles that we would see in terms of switching some of these power plants and so forth. But now based on the catastrophe, if we look at this as a window of opportunity to renew and make it better, i think that its a phenomenal opportunity for it people of puerto rico. What will it look like . I certainly see collaboration with the private sector. What is that structure . It needs to be ironed out, flushed out and developed. I think we need to look at it best interests of the people of pouerto rico to work with that solution. We have a Gold Standard p 3 structure in puerto rico i thing can be powerful. In your mind is prepa and its organization . As long as it objective stays the same which is producing reliable, Efficient Energy at competitive costs. I think this should be a cleaner energy paradine. Those are the critical components. I spoke a little bit about those at higher level and committed to getting the results for the people of puerto rico. Were very much an outcome grid. Commonwealth the commonwealths objective is to have 50 renewable energy. Prior to the storm 2 . Is this goal realistic . Is it right . And how can we get information tochieve that goal . I think that statement was laid out by another person in another panel. What we are looking at is the current to increase to 25 and what post five year looks like depends a lot on what is the resiliency of the system, how does it work with some of our other needs industrially and so forth but certainly right now in the short to midterm we see an opportunity to leap frog in what our renewable growth effort was and get to 20 to 25 . And thank you and governor, obviously, my comments about puerto rico stand, u. S. Virgin islands as well. Thank you for your leadership all. Im going to probably submit question for the rectoord you. Mr. Walker, you talked about understanding disasters, your experiences, key qualification for the appointment you were receiving. Seems like we picked the right guy at the right time. How are these skills boo eing put to use in puerto rico. Resources, rapid response, how are we moving forward with that and move towards actions towardsysilience in puerto rico. I spoke earlier about opportunities. And taking and lowering the costs of electricity and driving economic growth. One, it step program. We converted that over to be able to change that out. Were putting an opportunity for solar with battery pack, recognizing the additional cost can of maintaining the generator and longterm strategies. In addition weve already identified 200 locations if i could real quick. Maybe we can follow up with this conversation. Last question i want to get in was what do you need from this committee specifically to move forward with your job . I dont need anything immediately because all the things that are necessary are actually being done. So weve mobilized it modernization of the lab consortium. And people at the power, weve invokeled noah and it National Hurricane service to do slush models for the resiliency for substations and the integration and back on the mainlands of puerto rico and Virgin Islands. Governor mack mentioned some survived, some didnt. As we move forward and if congress decides to appropriate dollars for permanent work, lot of things will come. I appalls i. Cutting off. Senator franken. Thank you, madam chair for holding this thank you for leading the delegation down to puerto rico and the Virgin Islands. And senator cassidy came along with us and good to see both governors. I had a different take way from senator cassdy on the tesla array at the childrens hospital. It seemed to me they were during the day using the solar array which they admitted wasnt big enough because of the space that was there. But that powered the hospital during the day and did fill up the battery and the battery lasted until about midnight until it was down 20 . Was that your understanding . Yes, they were. The average load time they were working mind you it was a couple of days of a lot of rain they were still obviously getting some energy. But it was about 20 to 21 hours a day that it was working under the Solar Panel Battery system and they would have and then they had generators after that. So two weekends ago we went down to puerto rico. Last weekend i visited some minnesotas from puerto rico who want this done in the rebuilding done in a resilient way as i think everybody that were on the panel does. And in a resilient way that makes fiscal sense and the sfederal government must do everything it can to assist. The importance of resilience here is that we know were going to see these storms. We heard this is a once in 200 to 1,000year old storm. With climate change, thats not going to be the case anymore. We know that with rising sea level, youre going to see stronger surges storm surges. We need to build a resilient grid because these are going to be happening again and as the climate continues to warm, theyre just going to get more powerful. So we have to build a stronger, more resilient grid. So i want to talk about that a little bit. We have been uctalking about a vision of this. How we do that. One of the things i want to ask about is the stafford act. Because if were rebuilding this under the stafford act i was wondering and anybodys thoughts on this about the changes in the stafford act that are necessary to build back a better and is the administration aware of that, mr. Walker and any thoughts on that . I can comment a little bit on that as think theres two cri m comaco components as well. The stafford act makes sense because you just put Something Back up. But if you are investing a lot of money in something thats going to come down again. Its just not the best use for that money. And i would also add the component of there is this element of trying to evaluate how much damage was done pryer to the storm because of the storm or because of maintenance issues. Heres it reality with the i dont have much time and i want to hear from others. Sorry, mr. Governor. Id like the comment on that. One, it should really think about building stronger and better because it prevents future costs for reconstruction and in communities like the Virgin Islands and puerto rico, the matching component can be difficult and administrative wavers. Well have a difficult time meeting our match at 800 or 900 million to have the reconstruction done as is. So ill say those two issues. It should build back to with stand and it should really give some aditional flexibility on the cost share. Before i run out of time i want to say the one thing that hasnt been raised it has been raised a little in terms of we want the power to be less costly. My understanding was 27 cents per kilowatt hour in 27 to 29 cents kilowatt hour on the u. S. Virgin islands. Thats outrages. Yes. And if we want to keep manufacturing there, we have 10 of our pharmaceuticals come from puerto rico. We want those to stay there. One of the things about building this more resilient and sustainable and renewable is that we can drive that cost down and the second largest cost for those pharmaceutical manufacturers is energy. And so if we want to keep those businesses there, we want to keep those professionals for who are working on that, we need build a much, much better grid that isnt run on diesel. Ye yes, theres definitely a place for lng for natural gas, but also for solar we make resilient and for wind. Thank you. Thank you, senator franken. Senator lee. Thank you, madam chair. Thanks to each of you for being here today for this important discussion. We begin todays hearing with a certain amount of knowledge. We know a lot baut whats going on with prepa. For example Expert Opinion testimony has identified a laundry list of concerns with the it management and operation. Let me yus list a few. Staff have been hired without regard to experience and expertise resulting the failure of multif had year projects. Weve seen widespread theft of power and billing failures. Weve seen a lot of outdated infrastructure that as resulted in an abnormally unacceptably high rate of force and sometimes prolonged outages. We have generation units that are technically outdated. Requiring the reliance on really expensive fuel. And weve got procurement practices that have focussed on a large number of small vendors with payments going out to over 14,000 individualentities. So mismanagement have plagued for decades. If we dont start meaningful oversight over every contract signed in the territories, particularly with these entities, we could be looking at decades of ongoing programs and perhaps decades of doj corruption proskugdss. So a lot of people might be tempted to look at this and think that the starry the story somehow starts and ends with whitefish. Whitefish is of course important. Its significant. You it emplifies what has become all too common place in puerto rico and the Virgin Islands. A system in which public graft and economic corruption have become all too common. But it doesnt take a biologist to see that a whitefish doesnt swim alone. If we put out a trolling net well find a school of similar contracts with handouts, with graphs and with greed all at the expense of hard working families. And so i want to look for some ways that we can address this. Now, governor roseo i would like to speak to you and make reference to the false claims act put in place during the civil war era and among other things he put in place provisions allowing private citizens to bring suit on behalf of the United States in the name of the United States for billing fraud. So let me ask you, governor, would you object to an amendment of the federal false claims act and allow things like tattoo be brought by citizens in such a way that we define puerto rico. We define the United States to inclood puerto rico. In other words to define territories such that they billing fraud cases could be addressed through the provisions of the federal false claims act . Its my view that anything that gets us closer to behavior and treatment of the u. S. Citizens of puerto rico to the u. S. Citizens that live anywhere else in the United States, i propose, i support. So having not looked in detail at your proposal, what i will say in terms of sort of a broad statement is i am in the vast majority of citizens in puerto rico are willing to be full participants as u. S. Citizens in all respects. Ifcluding this one. You dont see anything about amending the federal false claims act what i would ask is for equal treatment in general. Lets not pick in certain ways. Lets just get equal treatment for the people of puerto rico and respond to their claim. I want to answer some of the premise but yver eer been in o for 10 months and ran on an platform of transparency, recognizing there has been decades of reckless behavior and that we have to establish reforms. Our administration has been breaking records in terms of how mini reforms weve established and one of those reforms were continually working on is a procurement reform. So thats why when the whitefish situation came about, i took action immediately. Even first of all i called for investigation, i called for any investigation and light should be shed on that manner. Secondly i if stalled a procurement Compliance Officer as well. That will actually be working on the concepts of that procurement reform for puerto rico as well. So we are very much committed to transparency. Thats why when were proposing what puerto rico starts rebuilding and in the rebuilding process were going to do this franz apparently. Were go doing this with control. Were actually working with the white house for controls and trance parns. So were very much willing participants in that. Thank you. I want to be clear fraud against puerto rico is fraud against the United States and should be covered by it false claims act. Thank you. As well as equal treatment to u. S. Citizens. With all due respect, id like to ask for two minutes to respectfully respond to senator lee. I want to be very clear that the Virgin Islands and Port Authority have gone to Great Lengths to deal with issues of fraud. We prosecute customers who steal electricity and water. We fire and prosecute employees involved in theft. Were in our third year where we bid out each Year Services for off island lineman if theres a disaster so we dont have to go through that in a hurricane. This year we simply pulled the trigger. We do that for debris removal, we do that for road clearing. We are making sure that the cast of power in the territory is what it costs to produce power and distribute it. We have no tolerance for graft, none for theft, none for employees being involved to enrich themselves whether in the water in Port Authority or in the Central Government and you can be assured be of this money that you provide we will if sure that contracts with vendors have penalty clauses, we require grade a bonds to protect the inertest of the people of the territory and the people of this country. We need your help for the reconstruction but we dont want any obstruction on the premise that were planning to enrich ourselves or to use grafts or underhand tables or activities in the procurement process and you have my personal assurance that wont happen while im sitting in the office of the government. Senator cortez. Thank you. Thank you madam chair and thank you to the panelists here, thank you and thank you for your comments today. I too have constituents in nevada who have loved ones in puerto rico and just as concerned not just about puerto rico but the Virgin Islands and were doing everything we can to help the people there. So let me start with something that my colleague senator franken brought up because this was a concern of mine as well. My understanding of the stafford act, 406 e that limits Disaster Relief funds for repairing, restoring or replacing a facility on the basis of the design of the facility as the facility exists immediately before the major disaster. Now my understanding is that then is that all of the talk that ive heard today which is important talk about new infrastructu infrastructure, bearing lines, looking at how to add renewable capacity, that is something thats not going to be addressed through it funding relief from the federal government. I guess im asking mr. Walker and general jackson is that your understanding . That is my understanding. As i mentioned earlier were doing Emergency Restoration work now. A number of things mentioned here f Congress Approves additional appropriations, those would be opportunities we could further build into. Are you asking today. Thats what youre asking Congress Today to be able to set up new infrastructure and do what we said today. Because we know another hurricane is going to come through or some other disaster. I think its the way the climate is today. Is that from the governors . To amend that. Can you repeat the question. Sure. So the stafford act limits the amount of money for Disaster Relief for repair and reconstruct. It is not for new construction or varying lines. So are you coming today for additional funds outside of the stafford act . Yes. Yes, because on the stafford if a system isnt damaged it cant be touched. If its cost effective, it can be mitigated but the whole power system is all connected and so we want to change to more efficient renewables, wind, solar. If the Generation System hasnt been damaged, then we will have an exclusion. Yes, we are. We recognize the limitations of fema funding. So were asking for additional funding so that we can get that flexibility as well. And actually rebuild better. Again, it is you can discuss whether its a good idea or not on the merit of the energy and structure. But its really just a bad idea to rebuild the system that is frail over again. Spend the taxpayer money. Because your going to have to do it once over again. Thank you. Let me jump and say everything ive heard about concerns with the energy grid i echo with my colleagues. But let me jump to health care because this is an issue i heard the governors address as well. Are you doing everything we can to address the medical needs . What do you additionally need from us and are you happy with the federal response when it comes to providing the health care . Yes, we need changes in the policies and the law. For example the match rate for medicaid is an arbitrary 45 for it territories. Fee basing schedules and the Services Covered under medicare and medicaid are stuck in the statute because its a territory. Just as a simple example. I have medicaid patients with cancer. If i have a treatment for that patient and that one treatment costs 13,000. Under it statute it cms only allows a 1,000 reimbursement for that patient. That means it Central Government is in at 12 grand and so the basing of the fee schedules for the hospitals and application for renewal complete accepted over five years old. Were back on a 1989 fee schedule for the hospitals. Folks leave and go to the mainland for services but those who cannot afford it are severely impacted and then the central treasury of the government of the Virgin Islands have to suubsudize that care and transport patients and they for their services. We wauncht want to work with the committee to make adjustments. We want the medicaid match rate adjusts. You gave us 300 million eight years ago to spend over 10 years. 226 million of it is unspent because we cant afford to put the dollars on the table to make the 45 medicaid match. So were saying wave it for three years. We can spend it out of that pool. Remove the fiscal clip. I have more people requiring medicaid because of the disaster and we can cover it out of that allotted pool. Ill be brief because i share many of the concerns. Accordable care act gave puerto rico a block grant for particular allowed time because were capped. Were capped at 350 million. That gave the illusion for a couple years that we were spending about 1. 6 1. 65 billion. What were asking right now is aside from having the limitations and the catastrophe of the storm, were now heading on a medicaid cliff as well dropping us off from an effected 1. 6 billion to 350 million. What are we asking for . To consider for a fiveyear path to increase that cap number to 1. 6 billion for two years to have it 100 covered in puerto rico. And in Hurricane Katrina the congress provided these wavers on the match and the Additional Support on the medicaid and medicare side. Thank you and thank you for letting me go over my time, madam chair. Appreciate it. Governor, you recently canceled the contract with whitefish and called for an investigation. Is that still going on . It is still ongoing. I called for two investigations. One for the local in puerto rico and the dhs to do the same. And i called essentially upon are of the entities that can investigate to do so. Listen, we are committed to transparency and were committed to finding out the truth in this. And i take it if the investigation discovered any wrong doing there will be prosecutions so appropriate action to follow. Secretary walker, you did indicate you stand by ability to restore the grid but in light of the Ongoing Investigation of whitefish as it governor just mentioned, perhaps should provide more oversight than waut you had indicated. I also want to note i think it is a good thing that you are working with our national lab to kp up with a more resilient grid and doing the modernization efforts that should occur for puerto rico. But a state like hawaii which is also an island state the kind of collaboration and developments occurring as a result of what rr happened to puerto rico i would hope would have an applicability to hawaii and even alaska. So hawaii quite a bit of work in resiliency. I actually have the written document with that and weve pulled on some of the work that doe actually did in conjunction with hawaii and heeko when they were putting that system together. I myself have been to hawaii several times on the underground secondary nett arar arary netwos to their overall system. So between the work that has been done previously in the labs, the work hat as the been done specifically, the fact i had a meeting yesterday where the hawaii projects were we were going through it reports and the documents specifically with regard to how to integrate things that were done that were successful and those things that werent with the surgeon vileeneds and puerto rico. I know ihad hihas pretty significant vulnerabilities should something of that magnitude hit. I think im very interested in how that can help hawaii. Governor, i realize that the we know the stafford act has limitations on the funding you can get. Were we to lift that limitation of there might be the unintended consequence of our various power authorities not doing their job to maintain, modernize in a maintenance of effort kind of a thing. So i think that it is really importi important we ask for additional funds in addition to whats provided in the stafford act and im wondering based on your estimates, how much are you asking congress to fund in terms of the kind of modernation, rewill hazisilience that you wo the see in puerto rico . Its about 17 billion in damage estimation. One year . No, for the bulk 17 billion . Thats right. Is it your well, i know you Hope Congress will authorize that and or that funding to occur in one year or is it eerv period of time . It would be over a period of time, of course. Again the effort is this is our initial Damage Assessment. I want to state that we worked on this with third parties so that you could get Third Party Validation of how robust and deep the damage was. Were also including and separating what it takes to put it back together and be resilient towards the future. Do you know if the Trump Administration is prepared to support your funding request of 17 billion . What were asking over here is very simple. Congress has to making a decision on how they wan to act upon it different disasters that have occurred across our nation. What were asking is equal treatment. Equal treatment. Texas submitted their Damage Assessment as well. Im sure that the other jurisdictions that have had damages will do so as well. I think that you are empowered to put the guidelines of how that is going to work. It is my job as governor to make sure you have the best Information Available so that you can make those decisions. What i cannot accept is unequal treatment to the u. S. Citizens in puerto rico. Im sure the governor would expect the same as well. So we are doing the Damage Assessment, recognizing this has been a huge catastrophe. Had this storm gone through any other state, no matter how modern of a system was, it would have been catastrophic and this is what we want to say. We dont want this conversation to be diluted by saying some of the parts were old and so forth. This is a top 10 storm in the history of measured storms in the atlantic. It passed right through it whole of puerto rico leaving no place unturned. It was a slow storm, slower than it average storm. There was about eight to nine Miles Per Hour. And it is my job to make sure you have all the information and then my expectation is that well get treated equally to all the u. S. Citizens in all of the otherer states. Thank you. Senator sanders. Thank you, madam chair for holding the hearing and let me thank all of our panelists for their hard work on these very difficult circumstances. Madam chair, todays hearing on Disaster Relief is important. The work we has to do goes above a and beyond the immediate disasters. Forgive me a short amount of time. So ill be curt and ask you to be brief. Let me ask mr. Walker and general jackson, given the fact that almost two months after the hurricanes some 50 of the people in puerto rico are continued not to have lec trishty and many people lack Drinking Water in the Virgin Islands. It is 31 now have electricity and in st. Croix i think its 16 . We are the wealthiest, most powerful country in the history of the world. Do we really think that were doing a great job when thankful people in puerto rico and 80 in the Virgin Islands still dont have electricity two months after the storm . Mr. Walker . And i understand the difficulties. Tough terrain, its islands. But do we really think were doing a great job . I think there is a team of people between the federal government and prepa and the puerto rican government as well as Virgin Islands that virgin i. That are working through the challenges associated with this. I believe the leadership of the governor and leadership of the fe ma there. They are mobilizing. I got all that. I dont mean to be harsh. We are the most powerful nation on earth. Should two months after the disasters half the people in puerto rico and some 70 of people in Virgin Islands still not have electricity. General jackson . Senator, i think we have the Mission Assignment on the 30th of september. This is not a mission the core normally does. My opening remarks we dont have preordered contracts and we have to go through a federal process. To allow us to get the right capability to the islands. Thats what we have done. We have gotten we have mooued. Its not a criticism. I understand you have protocol. Its tough stuff. All im saying. This is the United States of america. Two months later. People on the islands still living in misery. I think as a nation we could have done better. And must do better. Number two, let me say to the chair i agree with much of her initial remarks except she didnt mention climate change. My guess is that who knows what tomorrow will bring, but theres every reason to believe that your islands may suffer even worse disasters in the future. I think were all in agreement it is insane to rebuild the way it was. We agree with that. Let me ask mr. Governor map. You mention some of the solar installations work quite well. If you had your freedom to move the way you wanted to, what percentage of the Virgin Islands would be sustainable within ten years . We started talking 30 by 2025. And before the hurricane hit we had onethird of that installed. We want to put 21 more megs in wind and additional solar and smaller power generating units with micro grids on the three islands. Do you think the future would it be unrealistic to say 20 years you can be 100 sustainable. I wouldnt say unrealistic. I hope i live another 30 and were at 40 or 50 renewable. Right now, governor thank you so much for your hospitality. I want to thank the mayor. For her hospitality in san juan. As well. Right now, and i dont understand this, you are the east dela soul. Translated the island of the sun. But right now in puerto rico as i understand about 2 of your electricity is generated by solar. By renewable. In general. How does that happen and you talk about i think 20 being solar. That seems to be a conservative goal. In the short term we talk about 20 to 25 . In the immediate after math of rebuilding after the storm but certainly i am very much committed to renewable in puerto rico. I think that a lot of the effort we have been making with some of the stake holders is challenging them to prove that their technology can be scaleable to a size of puerto rico. If it were up to me im 100 backing renewables in puerto rico. As much as they can get. Let me conclude. Today were dealing with the immediate crisis. Preez let us not forget im more familiar with puerto rico problems than the Virgin Islands. They maybe similar. You have in puerto rico a poverty rate of 46 . Unemployment rate is twice the national average. Healthcare statistics we had a brief skulgs discussion on that is a disaster. High school grags rates in the puerto rico and Virgin Islands are near the bottom of the United States. But perhaps this is an issue we have to discuss that is puerto rico is struggling with an unsustainable 75 billion debt. And 49 billion in pension obligation. More than onethird of that debt is held by wall street as a rule chul funds that are getting Interest Rates of 34 on tax exempt bonds they purchased for 29 cents on dollar. Yep. This is an issue the committee must deal with. Thank you. Senator mansion. Thank all of you for being here. My heart goes out to you. I understand how tough it is and everything. And id tlik briefly touch on the now cancelled contract and i want to go into it because its coming from the state of West Virginia we do this type of work. But the White Fish Energy the Small Company from montana. Awarded 300 million post storm contract. Id like to have that to the unanimous consent to enter the record. The article. It will be included. They charged 319 an hour. For line men. Thats a rate 17 times higher than the national average. I understand the emergency situation things are stressful i understand all that. And also the cost on the island. Example, white fish is building 4,000 an hour to rent a helicopter. Thats twice the rate of ongoing. Charging 80 for daily meals. More than double, 30 Major League Baseball players get. 332 for hotel rooms and workers. The thing that i look at and see this whole thing, i understand how this could have happened, happened so quickly. And but then i found out that they requested for the mutual assistance which goes out immediately usually when you get hit and you know you have a high probability of getting hit you ask for had assistance. From the American Public power association. But governor, i think mr. Rodriguez waited six weeks before he made the request . So theres, thank you for the opportunity. First of all. Let me stress that i immediately cancelled the called for the cancellation of the white fish contract. Even without result of the investigation. Recognizing it was in the best interest of the people of puerto rico. In terms of the mutual aid, you have to put this into context of where we were at the juncture. There was a lot of mutual aid was going to other areas. Virgin islands, florida, harvey. And within the span that the was established, it was to attend to the considerations of the storm after in the after math of irma not after maria. Once the process went through we had alternatives with the core. We understood they were going to be aggressive so we can engage of them. And once we saw that that was not going to be enough, there was a solicitation in terms of that. Let me state again. That i am a willing participant in this effort. That investigations need to go on. That whatever comes out of them we will take. Im not here accusing. Im saying a disaster plan in my state of West Virginia when i was governor we had disaster plans. Subjected to flooding, i had very very challenging state that took a graphically when you look at the location. We were ready and prepared. It seems like you would have reached out to the American Public power association. And the ed son. Being prepared because you know thats the first thing that will go down. Thats all im saying on that. It doesnt this contract went out quicker than the request for help from the professionals that could have brought you a different rate structure. The ceo of the Power Authority will be in the panel and will be available to go through that. Well get to that. Governor map, we have spoken before. I have the fondest for all the islands in my heart. With that being said i think one of the panelist before one of my colleagues said you cant continue to do the same thing over and over. And i saw on your testimony and statement that youll be baring lines and doing things differently. Right now your price is about 32 cents per kilowatt higher. Three times higher than national average. Approximate e troll yum is a great. Youre trying to reduce that. I have been there and we tried to work some things before. And it was always a challenge because local people would reject different types of thijs you felt needed to be done. With this disaster we have had throughout the islands of your Virgin Islands chain. Are people more willing to understand we have to make changes to prepare for the next time we get hit . Thank you for that question. The answer is yes. This is why we are pushing for we were before the storm. With more aggression were pushing renewables. We want to work with how to access li access liquid natural gas. We want to have micro grids. Some of that property that we received in our setdlement. We want to use that for wind generation. So the short answer is theres a lot of opportunity both from myself, my delegate. My legislature. To make the tough decisions to strengthen building codes. To change the way we produce and deliver power. So bring the price down. And tighten our procurement system. My time is running out. The expertise we should be able from the mainland to give you with the things we change in technology and things of this sort. I know sometimes you run into opposition because of the structure of how you run your grid systems or run your utilities. If were able to breakthrough that and really to kbet to where we can give you more when 80 of the people cant turn on lights. Theyre willing to do anything to get the lights on. We want to use the opportunity to make the changes. We want to help. That you think. Senator king. I want to join senator hin rick in welcoming senator basket. I know a strong advocate for her citizens on the island. And welcome the governors as a former governor myself. I feel the discussion is elevated substantially when we have governors on the panel. Governor map i apologize. I was at another hearing i didnt hear your initial statement. How are the Virgin Islands on track to get the aid they need is it being a package with puerto rico . Whats the status of the federal aid . The support from the federal system has been good for the Virgin Islands. In terms of how we respond to life issues. We are really working through fe ma on the shelter in place program. Having some difficulty there. The feds are putting more money into the poll ins in terms of 25,000 per unit. But want to restrict the amount for permanent repair at 20,000. Were trying to work that out. Our presence here sdp your help is essential in terms of setting aside dollars. And changes in the statute. That permit more than simply rebuild as is. Ill get to that. But basically its on track. But theres going to be a Damage Assessment and request for aid as we have done for texas and florida. Yes. Thank you. Couple technical questions. I was fascinated by your testimony that the solar farms survived and others didnt. Which indicates that solar is sur vifable. If its properly built. I notice in the Wind Turbines it appears the damage is broken blades. Is there an assessment of whether the towers with stood the storm . The turbines are there. Is broken blades the extent of the damage . That would be a question i defer to governor. Had has the wind toufrs. Tell me about were there wind farms that survived. There was devastation across the wind farms that we had. You would see the blades come out. Some of the towers went out as well. And similar to what the governor saw in the Virgin Islands. We saw severe devastation. But we saw other areas that were practically. The question is, properly designed renewables are still feasible option for the islands. Of course. Given the hurricane risk. Of course. How about rooftop solar how did that do . It did much better in puerto rico. Again theres some Mitigation Strategy about putting sort of a. Similarly in the Virgin Islands as well. Theres those turned out to sur voif well. Considering this was a cat 5. Slow cat 5. Rooftop did well . In fact. Because of that, in terms of the reconstruction on the school. Well use the roofs on the school to create micro grids for the schools and put solar panels on them. That gets to my next question. Were all agreed it doesnt make sense to rebuild a 1980s grid. When we have an opportunity we have renewables and economics are so much better. Who makes that decision . Who will design. You do. By changing language and staff. I never knew i had that power. Yes, sir. You do. By making the changes in the stafford act that permits it. Or the appropriation and the set aside for the money for the Virgin Islands. And puerto rico. If you authorize it. Thats the second time you anticipated any question. We need to amend stafford so its not rebuild what was there before. Yes, sir. There are several bills being considered on that. Thats something we need to do. Even if stafford is amended assume for a moment who is going to make the decision . Is it the Power Authority of the islands . Once the authorities in place and the dollars are in place we will work with fe ma, the arm core of engineer, through the process that every other state goes through in setting up what the new profile should be. The u. S. Doe and Virgin Islands have been great partners in the last five years. With know how renewables can work. The test and all that. Well work with the federal agencies to make the right decision. Final question for both islands. The Trance Mission lines went down. Thats a vulnerability. So youre not so dependent upon major transmission. And under ground. It certainly does in puerto rico most of the generation is done in the south. Most of the consumption in the north. You get loss in efficiency as well. It is an opportunity to sort of flip that script. Just to add that the u. S. Virgin islands this is the fifth time that the United States government is paying to rebuild the Power Distribution system. On an aerial basis. This is 300 plus million just under reconstruction. That putting it under ground in the main corridor the second corridors and having the micro grids and some aerial in the neighborhood make the system a lot more resilient. That could with stand the 185 Miles Per Hour storms. Appreciate your testimony. And look forward to working with you. This is an extraordinary opportunity for our country. To see what a modern grid can and should look like. Thank you. Thank you, senator. Colleagues we have a second panel. That we need to get to. I do think that we have gained great information. I have hosts of additional questions that i would like to ask each of you. Im prepared to stay for another hour. Hour and a half. And do a second round with this panel. If colleagues want that. But otherwise i would suggest that we move to panel number two. So we can get their comments. So im getting consensus. Thank you. Governors we appreciate your leadership. Senator walker, general jackson. Thank you both. [ inaudible conversations ] following testimony by the governors of puerto rico and the Virgin Islands. A panel of utility officials talk about their role in hurricane recovery. Amng them was the executive direct or to have the puerto rico elect trick Power Authority. Who depended his decision to grant a 300 million repair contract. To the Small Montana energy firm White Fish Energy. The company is currently under investigation by the fbi for allegedly over charging puerto rico Power Authority. This panel is an hour ten minutes