said they would protect? guest: i am irritated over the fact that some of my colleagues voted to alter the government of the united states, to damage our democracy. i saw exactly what was going on and i am pained by it. i have comfort knowing that i work with people who believe that our system of government should be altered. i'm hoping that the overwhelming majority of americans will prevent that from happening again. host: representative emanuel cleaver represents the fifth district of missouri, democrat. if for being with us. is it for today's washington journal. we will be back tomorrow morning

at 7:00 a.m. eastern. now we are going to take you over to the senate energy committee hearing. it is getting underway now come alive on c-span. we will talk about the growing demand for electric power in the u.s. and the impact on the electric grid. here it is.

>> today we ask you to discuss the risk of opportunities. in the half-century after world war ii, demand for electricity grew along with our economy, but in the decade following, the implementation of the free-trade agreement, which was in the 1990's, annual electricity demand growth fell by nearly 45%. 45%. for the past two decades, the demand and load has been flat across the country. we are here today because that appears to be coming to an end rapidly. with exponential growth, utility

and grid experts are telling us that it is poised for truly remarkable growth. meeting the demand growth may be one of the greatest challenges we face. our economy and defense of our country -- i want to thank the witnesses for sharing their perspective on what is at stake. low growth is being driven by three main factors as we evaluate. the reassuring by bipartisan infrastructure, the chips act and ira. they signed these bills into law. this is unbelievable. people did not realize how much is coming into the u.s. and that tells you the energy that we

need and what we do not have. the eu has been flat as a pancake. here we are. we are seeing new factors to build semiconductor technology on most every week. the revolution and advanced computing calculations, especially artificial intelligence to provide the process needed for those technologies. i understand they have an unquenchable thirst for power. third, it is the push to electrify technology across the sector. i think they are way over on. i have been warning them from day one. the north american liability corporation projects long-term reliability that there will be 90 gigawatts of demand growth. put that into perspective. over 10% of the electrical

demand about 750 gigawatts. even that number is likely conservative. the forecast keeps growing unbelievably faster than what they can keep up with. last month, the texas grid operator revised its 2030 forecast from last year to add 40 gigawatts of new expected though growth. that is like adding the entire state of california to the texas grade. that should be a wake-up call. i hope it is. we need to be prepared to meet the demand. it is an opportunity and it is ours to lose. the reason we have the growth is that industries that would define the 21st century are tripping over one another to build and are coming from all over the world.

there is no guarantee of success . we cannot be open for business if we cannot keep the lights on. if america cannot build the infrastructure needed, we will be forfeiting the opportunity and concede control to china and other nations that we cannot necessarily trust. between the administrations, policy and our inability to act in congress, it seems like we may be in danger of doing that. we have heard that our grid reliability and affordability are at risk because we are retiring he slowed dispensable faster than we can replace it. they came to speak with me and told me, you're taking off dispensable 24/7 24/7, whether it be nuclear or whatever we are depending on the environmental movement and trying to replace it with intermittent power, they

are very concerned across the board. the assessment came out last week. these are brand-new numbers and show half the country at elevated risk. if you represent one of these areas, tell them to watch out. they will be in trouble. that should be consenting to everybody in this administration and every senator and congressperson who represents those areas. last july, they added an energy policy as a brand-new category facing our grade. when they say the policy were putting out in washington is putting at -- putting us at risk , take heed. as if to prove the point, the epa filed license for new

powerplant rules. as far as i can tell, pained to stop natural gas from the placing it. it is a double vanity. i do not know what they are thinking. i sent this to them. the transition is going to happen. but you cannot take something off before you have something equally good if not better to replace it with. we have been doing it better than anyplace else in the world. the transition is there. no one is fighting the transition, just give us the jobs to take care of our family and make a living. we do not have the technology yet. we are not there. they are doing it because of the political reasons. that is what we are trying to make them understand. it is not going to work. these dispensable resources -- we having serious about on

showing critical energy. they would not be in the race to take power off-line. instead, get it -- it is getting harder and harder. it just is. we now have 2.6 megawatt hours waiting in average. 2.6 million megawatt hours ready to go and nowhere to go with. west virginia, we have one plant over 1800 megawatts with carbon capture. the cleanest it could possibly be but the company is saying they had to wait half a decade before they even get the green light to start the committee. it is unbelievable. and to be clear, these are not just problems for fossil plants. it has been equally or even

worse for wind. this is how far it has gone down. there is no way to connect. solar is doing better because solar can get into the grid system faster. it is in areas where it is already there. they cannot get permitting. if the majority leader believes that what was done cured all the problems, i have news. it did not do it. they just published, as you can see. we are on pace to install less wind 2024 than we did in the great recession. there was a recession and now we are down here. we have to make it easier to

build pipelines to meet moment. last week, they may help build new transmission. they are not a replacement for action. these rules help with one aspect . i know you looked into this, but as my friend said, it is a band-aid on congress' in action. for example, the new rules took place within regions. transmission lines already in the region not interregional lines that truly have the most benefits to offer. it did not affect them at all. they are all going to be challenged. i want to quote commissioner clemens.

she said she is retiring in june. work needs to be done. for some of these next steps with planning reform, congressional action could be critical providing direction and momentum. just that we are clear, that legislation is not person -- let me quote a senior fellow at the heritage foundation who served in the white house during the trump administration. he said transmission expansion has only become more difficult. these are problems only congress can solve. they are critical permitting problems for all kinds of infrastructure but only we are committed to addressing that.

myself and the team have been working diligently for quite a while. we will start sharing language with everyone so that people can see where we are. witnesses before us today submitted technology in stark terms. with this i will terms ranking member. >> the demand for electricity is expected to grow rapidly. maybe entering sustained growth unlike anything we have seen since world war ii. we cannot be open for business if we cannot keep the lights on. data centers enable bitcoin mining and artificial intelligence.

how we meet this growing demand for electricity will have serious economic and security consequences for our nation. the stakes could not be higher. it will be more consequential than space space. the ai base has already begun. they consume massive amounts of electricity. some suggest electricity demand for the data centers will double between now and -- china or america will have a big head start in the race for artificial intelligence. right now, we are not positioned well. they have raised alarm over reliability. the premature retirement of power plants has increased risk for lack outs and brownouts in

much of the country. president biden is making the situation worse. these play a major role in reliability. they help to make it more affordable. he wants the cost to be high. he wants to force operators to shut down for the end. it is a disgrace. when it comes to data centers, the quality of the source is as important as the quantity generated. they are weather dependent. batteries are expensive.

they require vast amounts of -- we need a reliable, steady and balanced supply of electricity. nuclear, coal, hydropower. with demand poised to surge, it only makes sense to keep existing plants operating while thing new generating capacity. our goal should be an issue and not subtraction. it was the american century. much depends on how america capitalizes. the opposition to hydropower. it is a surrender to china.

this chart shows that china has added coal-fired electric generation. meanwhile, the u.s. has shut down over 100 gigawatts. what does this mean? it means that when china's developers -- that the chinese communist party will make absolutely sure that they will get it. they will get it. when the ai developers need power, it will be reliable and affordable. the race artificial intelligence is one that america cannot afford to lose.

thank you, mr. chairman. >> i would like to turn to our panel of witnesses. the interim ceo, one of our facilities in west virginia. good to have you here. i'm side. the president and ceo of the resource council. we have mr. scott, corporate vice president at micron technologies. we have mr. martin hills back again. at this time, i will turn to my friend the senator. >> i appreciate that. thank you both of you for holding what is an important hearing today.

it covers a lot of ground and underscores some shortcomings that we have that we can address. it is my privilege to introduce to you, micron technology was founded in idaho and they had a humble beginning, to say the least. it has grown to become one of the top semi conductor companies in the world. it continues to drive the company's advanced memory and storage technologies. they had given the u.s. a competitive edge in supercomputing. all is not well the semiconductor industry. those of us that serve on foreign relations and intelligence committee and work the national security lien have heard over and over again the

shortcomings of the semiconductor industry. it was driven by this my conductor industry following the siren of chief wages and moving production offshore. this has caused us some difficulties and it is very much the national security problem. with semi conductors, i think everyone is aware, no one more than the defense industry and contractors how important microchips are, semi conductors are in the construction of certain products. they are in everything from refrigerators to tv's and automobiles, but they are also in just about everything that we manufacture. thus, what those of us who saw this came up with the chips act,

in addition to our budget to simulate bringing this industry back to the u.s. this was not driven by a desire to subsidize the semiconductor industry. it was designed to be a great challenge in semiconductor production and close the gap on national security. it appears to me that it is working. we thought it would. no one knows until you actually try it, but now, this is actually happening. the company recently broke ground and has plans to build additional nationwide. within 25 use of experience in operations and technology development. the leading expert on domestic

expansion. he is position to offer a unique perspective. returning the semiconductor industry to the u.s. it is no accident that companies like micron continue to invest in idaho. they are in support of clean and affordable. that makes it a prime location. this issue of national security and semiconductors fits very well with the subject that we are talking about today because it does demand a tremendous amount of energy. i think you did a really good job of underscoring what the experts are telling us that we will need for energy in the future. thank you for being here today and we look forward to hearing your testimony. >> i know you have an important

committee that you have to be involved with, coming up. i'm sure scott will get you up-to-date as quickly as possible. let's start with our testimonies. >> thank you for the invitation to testify. i serve as interim ceo. aep is one of the largest u.s., serving customers across our footprint. we own and operate the largest transmission system in the u.s. this is a significant moment for our country, our industry and our company. we are excited about the opportunities and challenges ahead of us as we meet the growing demand in our communities. we are beginning to see this trend reverse.

others require a significant amount of power. the effort to support the development of these businesses have been remarkably successful. companies are growing because we have an abundant and diverse resource. in some areas of the country, demand for electricity is growing faster than available capacity. a large-scale manufacturing facility might require 100 megawatt. a facility that size would be one of a kind, a major source of activity for the. nowadays, tracing data center tour will require 15 about the power. power demand from data processing is expected to double nationwide in three years. one example of this demand surge, openai chatgpt requires

what hours for request. they have currently requested more than doubling the demand that we serve on our system today. it took over 100 years to create our current system. investment on an accelerated timeframe will be required to serve a fraction in a reliable manner. as demand is increasing, our electricity system is accommodating new forms of energy. it must not overtake the reliability needs. they are steadily increasing. our society depends on a reliable system. customers need an energy system that is available to deliver affordable and environmentally

sensitive information where they need it. it must be a priority. we need to think bigger to address many opportunities and challenges in front of us. we ask that congress prevent -- this is the impact that could hasten the pace of retirement and diminish reliability. evaluating the establishment of the planning authority focused on authority and ensuring that reliability mechanisms are in place. congress should expedite clean resources to meet consume it -- to meet the -- to meet demand.

encouraging the development of advanced technologies and citing a package for critical infrastructure. the nuclear tax credit for customers. encouraging efforts for the efficient development to ensure reliability and accommodate development. it will play a crucial role in helping with advanced manufacturing. we can serve and secure america's role for generations

to come. we will quickly build new sources to deliver electricity where it is needed. >> distinguished members of this committee, thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. my name is karen. it is the trade association. our mission is to ensure that we have reliable and affordable power, so we support the adoption of coordinated policy to ensure that reliability at low cost. the purpose of my testimony today is to represent the

industrial sector as one of the drivers that we are speaking of today. after decades of decline in manufacturing, domestic manufacturing is seeing a resurgence. according to a recent report, the number of manufacturing facilities grew by over 11% between the first quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2023. construction spending on manufacturing has nearly tripled since june 2020. it was up 37% year-over-year in january 2024, when construction spending reached a high of the industrial sector is projected to add 36 gigawatts of additional power by 2030.

bringing manufacturing back to u.s. shores has many implications and benefits. this is bringing investment to communities that have been neglected in the past, bringing thousands of jobs whether that be through construction, the permanent jobs to run the operations and manufacturing and the secondary jobs to support those workers including retail and food and housing. according to the national association of manufacturers, the industrial sector contributed at a yearly rate, 2.9 trillion dollars to the u.s. economy. that's in the third quarter of 2023 and it projects we will need approximately 3.8 million manufacturer workers in the next decade. we've already heard about the national security implications, we can no longer rely on hostile

foreign nations to supply our critical infrastructure, or critical minerals and our computing power. we saw the devastating impact during covid of supply chain interruptions. it behooves us to create more, manufacture more here on our shores. at this point, we must right size our grid. and we must meet this demand by reducing some of the regulatory barriers that we are seeing. we all know the risks, we've heard those today from various energy supply to extreme weather like we saw in houston last week. we cannot take any options off the table right now. we need all of the above resources and we need the infrastructure to support those resources. we need an agile and flexible grid that can manage variable supply as well as variable demand. demand will change their profiles.

we really want this committee and congress to pass a significant permitting reforms for transmission infrastructure and other energy infrastructure. we've seen that the federal energy regulatory commission has taken some measures to address interconnection backlogs, but we still have a lot more work to do. i really ask everyone to come to the table and work on solutions, take nothing off the table now. finally, even though we all appreciate and wish to be good stewards of the environment, the epa rules that recently came out further complicate a tenuous situation on our grid. we cannot be further impeding our reliable and safe and affordable electricity. electricity underpins our national economy, national

security and the prosperity and ingenuity here in the united states. senators, i thank you so much for your invitation and i will conclude my remarks and look forward to your questions. >> chairman manchin, ranking member barrasso and senator rich and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today and represent macron regarding the importance of affordable, reliable and sustainable energy. i serve as the corporate vice president for mike krantz expansion in the united states. macron was founded more than 45 years ago in boise, idaho in the basement. macron is a world leader today in design, development and manufacturing of memory and storage technology. we have an expansive ip portfolio of more than 55,000 patents. we operate in 17 countries and we have over 40,000 key members worldwide. macron plans to invest 125

billion dollars supported by the chips and science act that will transform regions and create over 75,000 jobs. we are also seeking chips funding for our existing plant in manassas, virginia that would be shown to you on a tour. macron is the only manufacturer of memory or memory and storage products are essential to all computing and storage capabilities in phones, data centers, computers and numerous other devices. without memory, none of those devices be able to operate and provide the remarkable capabilities that shape our modern world. mike ryan has an expansive memory product portfolio from those that are made in idaho and new york or in virginia to macron's latest product,

high-bandwidth memory hbm 3. it powers the generative ai models by allowing them to breakthrough data bottlenecks. it is the fastest highest capacity and 30% more energy-efficient than other products available across the industry. as mike ryan manufactures, we have made significant effort to reduce our consumption of energy which is detailed in my written report. however, between the expansion of u.s. semiconductor manufacturing, new data centers another manufacturing in the u.s., electric demand will go faster in the coming years that it has in decades. for all those planned investments in the u.s., manufacturing and data centers to work, the u.s. needs to modernize its grid and expand electricity generation capacity. when it comes to energy permitting, i will speak to the challenges we face.

the western u.s. produces an abundance of sustainable energy including hydropower in the northwest, wind in wyoming, solar in the desert southwest and the capacity is constrained on the transmission lines to move energy from the places generated to the homes, farms and businesses that need it. there is no transition to sustainability, sustainable energy without transmission. we plan to import 400 megawatts in boise for this pacific northwest in the summer when a surplus of energy is available there. in the winter, when the pacific northwest energy demand peaks, utilities there will import energy across the plan for transmission lines from oregon to boise. idaho power has a record of decisions but does not have a notice to proceed from the federal government. b2h could be $1.7 billion in

permitting because of already exceeded 220 million. construction is finally slated to begin later this year with completion in 2027 over 20 years after this project began. the federal permitting process would add to decades to the project timeline and adds hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost and it's not a permitting process that will enable u.s. manufacturing renaissance or ai leadership. above all, macron's efforts which will ensure affordable and reliable electricity which could include a balanced approach of permitting reform that utilizes all avenues to support the growth of domestic manufacturing , improves reliability of the grid and maintains low energy costs and addresses the need for sustainable energy sources. i will leave you with this -- macron's main product is memory chips and it's an intensely

competitive and dynamic business. my groan succeeds because we provide an edge in power requirements and better performance metrics but we been growing and planning to grow and invest to meet our customers in the digital economy. it's imperative congress also plans to increase the energy demands out today and tomorrow so the united states can remain competitive and a destination for manufacturers like macron. thank you and i look forward to your questions. >> now we will hear from mr. mills. >> good morning and thank you for the opportunity to testify. a personal observation and longtime observer of this rate committee and occasional witness, note that it brings music to make years to hear such significant bipartisan convergence on such a critical issue. it's a personal interest because i began my career in new jersey

and ohio. we are at a rare have it in history where we are at the emergence of a new vector for electricity demand. i'm referring specifically to the emergence of useful artificial intelligence. especially when it's combined with the next phase of expansion for the cloud computing infrastructure that was pioneered in the united states and expanded to the world. while there is a vague course and outright guesswork where the future uses are for ai both civilian and military, no one doubts the ai is here. planners and pundits have rediscovered a basic truth, the arrival of new ways to boost the economy illustrates a long-standing correlation in an iron law that links the growth and drives energy and especially electricity use. we have a good idea of why we are seeing such surprising leaves and near-term forecasts for electricity demand.

in monetary terms, every billion dollars spent on data centers leads to over $60 million per year in electricity purchases. last year before the ai acceleration kicked into high gear, capital spending in u.s. data centers was renting just running at $100 billion per year and the addition of hardware is accelerating both the rates at which data centers are being ordered and the energy use per data center for $1 billion spent on a data center drives 200 million dollars per year in purchases. for context, the billion dollars spent on new ev's are $1 billion worth of new chip factories which generates only $20 million per year in annual electricity demand. ai has a voracious energy appetite and that's not news. there's been areas of studies pointing at the so-called training phase, of a building can use as much electricity as driving a tesla from

300,000-4,000,000 miles. there is the used phase of flying ai to consume 10 times more electricity. for all practical purposes, there are nearly unlimited numbers of potential applications for both training and using ai. ai will become more energy-efficient than the latest ai chips are already one hundredfold more energy-efficient over the last half-dozen years and they will get another one hundredfold more efficient before the year 2030. efficiency won't solve the so-called problem of electricity demand, it will do the opposite as it did in the first icloud era. it lowers costs which makes the pluripotent relation of the benefits of the product possible especially in digital domains. operating at computing efficiency of a 1980 computer like a single smartphone today, one of them use a months of electricity of a skyscraper and the -- and we could use the entire grid.

the world has billions of smartphones and thousands of data centers. today's global cloud infrastructure already rivals the energy used by global aviation and that's before ai. you can count on the pattern repeating with ai. demand coming from the expansion of the cloud will continue to overshadow the combined impact of new ev's chip factories. whether the ai expansion is fully realized and chip factories -- and the expansion of chip factories and ev's as well in america, that will be determined as other witnesses have said on whether we have adequate electricity whether it's affordable whether it's available when it's needed. given the scale of electricity demand from this -- from the cloud and ai, when added to the demands for restoring manufacturing and promoting ev's, the nation's electricity producers net eat access, full access to all options, the electric power plant needs to focus on additions to, not transitions away from existing electricity production.

we pioneered the world cloud leadership and ai. we produce $1 billion of aluminum in america. today, that happens mainly on low-cost grids in china which has become the world dominant supplier of aluminum while the u.s. has single digit percentage share of global aluminum supply. aluminum and silicon are different materials in different industries but the energy implications of the two domains i suggest has a relevant lesson for us, thank you. >> now we will start with questions and i will begin. i don't know where to start. let me ask you all, you heard about the roles that firc came out with and some people doubted took care of anything. -- of everything.

did it take care of permitting issues? does anybody believe it cured this? nobody? ok. we all understand it stays within the region. it stays where you can do some repair but it doesn't take care of interconnecting, right? we are all in the same page there. we all agreed and let me show you on this chart here. this shows that if you live in these areas we represent any of these areas, this summer they are predicting you will have rolling brownouts or blackouts because demand will be so great. doesn't account for the winter. it will change in the winter when it's different. i would ask you coming from the technology and of it, where are you looking to put your new databases and things of that sort? do you know where you might have

more reliable power and where you recommend putting a plant or an area where there will -- they will be reliable and not >> unreliable. it's incredibly important to our industry. a minor factor into making decisions where you're located. when you look at new york, we made a decision to go there is because it's a nuclear power plant 40 miles directly north of our facility with a direct line connection to a 345 k substation across and that site. it was one of the most reliable substations on the grid when we were looking at where to select our site. reliability of the system is incredibly important. a small millisecond blip in our power would take down our factory for a week by interrupting power so reliability is incredibly important. >> i will use the chart i used before on wind and all of our environmental friends are big on the wind thinking it will

happen. wind has hit a slump and going down because it takes so long to build a transmission line. it's easy to bring solar on. it's at a record high. it's clear down to here. do you agree or disagree with this analogy of what happened to wind? because we can't get transmission built? we all have to have permitting reform and we have worked on this in the committee and a bipartisan effort. we all understand but we can't get the administration to understand the need of how desperate this is needed. have you had any contact with the white house, john podesta's office, the climate department there about the need to get permitting done to get the lines ? have you had any embittered all and have they reached out to you? no? none of you. have you tried to reach out to

them? have you told him how desperate we are to try to get transmission and get things built? i would encourage you to do so if you haven't, please do so and reach out to them. the other thing is on china, do you believe china has a competitive edge with the amount of power they have two dispatch? do you want to comment on that? >> they have a profound competitive edge in low-cost high reliability electric power as you well know. they have a competitive edge on exporting the materials we used to use -- to build our unreliable power. >> if we don't have the capacity and are not able to keep in pace and be the leader in the world, are we in jeopardy because of the lack of power we have? >> i think you said it, you can't run a business if you can't keep the lights on. we need additional generation. we encourage investigate --

investigation into all sorts of generation like new hydro, noon nuclear, geothermal, battery technology for wind and solar to make them more reliable. our sources run 20 47 and they require new generation be created before you retire existing generation. >> i'm a customer of yours so i will ask you, are you concerned about the amount of epa regulations coming out on power plants that you will have to close more reliable power than what you intend? >> very much so, epa think it's the best available technology. we had a pilot program to explore the carbon capture we've got some experience with it and it has its challenges in front of us and it's not a proven technology today nor is the infrastructure to move the carbon to sequester it available.

while it might be a viable technology come a proven technology in the future, it's not today and it's unrealistic to expect it will be available by 2030. >> do you have any coal-fired plants being retired earlier than their time? >> we will have to have that conversation with our commissions. there were not scheduled to be retired in 23 and these rules -- if you don't comply with these rules, you need to shut the plans down and that would be a premature shutdown. >> on the premature shutdown, who continues to pay because your rate was based on the life of the plant? so it's based into the rate of west virginians and we will be paying for shutting down earlier in bringing out other power so it's a double whammy. for the most hard-pressed and challenge people basically, doesn't make any sense at all. no sense whatsoever. i hope you speak up loud and clear and you put statements out as to what will happen and who will pay the freight. >> we plan to do just that,

senator. >> thank you. >> in 2021, you testified before a different committee in the senate that renewable energy can only take us so far. you went on to say at higher levels of intermittent renewables, the cost of the energy system begins to skyrocket and the reliability degrades. still true today? >> i made that testimony when i was see eo of excel energy but it still holds true because it reflects the physics of the grid. i'm a big proponent of renewable energy and it's part of the solution and how we address climate change in the risk of it. the reality is, the more renewable generation you put up on the grid, at some point, the grid reaches saturation in the value of that renewable energy diminishes and the integration cost increases. it's the reality that the big grid we are part of needs 24/7 steady mass dispatch will generation and that's just a fact and we have to accept that.

>> so it's dangerous to force these natural gas coal-fired plants off-line at this point? mr. mills, what would be the consequences if federal and state regulators effectively prohibit the use of natural gas and coal to meet the growing demand for electricity? >> in simplest terms, the cycling of economic growth and opportunity come it's a profound disadvantage geopolitically. you can only consume the energy you produce and since we all have witnessed that we have soaring demand for economically driven need for electricity. we won't get that growth without the power. >> some argue that electric batteries also play a big role in meeting the growing demand for electricity and the argue that rapid deployment and development the battery technology will enable us to store energy for longer times. what is your assessment of the state of battery technology and what are the implications for the affordability of electric

service if we rely on these batteries? >> there is a technical point, batteries don't produce energy, they store it. there are expensive ways to store energy. there are roughly 100 times more expensive than the original way of storing energy. they are playing a very significant role in short-term stabilization for long-term energy storage. united states would have to deploy tens of trillions of dollars of batteries at scales the world cannot now manufacture nor produce the minerals four. >> the head of the department of energy recently argued that the projected growth and demand for electricity we've all talked about and reported broadly says is significantly overstated. he claims many large energy users can control when they need electricity and he said they might agree to stop using power

during times of peak demand and he said individuals will stop using electricity during times of high demand in response to high prices. in your view, will this be enough to address the growing demand for electricity? if not, why not? >> another physics point -- demand-side doesn't produce energy, it's avoiding the use of energy. economic growth requires more energy. utilities have been very good at managing demand for about a century. this is not a new discovery. the principal discovery is our society is more electrified and there are fewer and fewer sources of what we call loaf -- low hanging fruit and i will pick on macron because they are good company where you would turn to them when they run their factory and will tell us that if you take the power away from milliseconds, you have astonishing economic destruction. i have had that happen when iran this as a young man.

when you have a four hour battery, four hours in one second, you are black and don't have a pile of coal nearby or more electricity. it is not a solution but it is a tool in managing cycles, society is cyclical and humans are cyclical and peak demand can be shaped but they don't produce energy. >> let me turn to macron, and understand the availability of electric service and the quality of the electric service you get are incredibly important to micra. what is the impact of temporary voltage dip we just talked about on facilities like yours? >> i have also unfortunately had the opportunity to recover from a minor power blip of milliseconds. tens of millions of dollars of product loss in that recovery and on the order of $100 million this would be only order of

larger facilities. it's a large economic impact and while we are putting in all sorts of energy savings and variable speed drives and he capture recovery, we are putting that into trying to lower the demand and the ability to fluctuate what we call the base load, we run 24 365 on all the time and you cannot just shut it off. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman and the ranking member. i'm one of those that believes we still need permitting reform. let me start with you and i want to express my appreciation for the el endorsementc of oneo of my bills. n this the expediting generating procedures bill. i was pleased that you consider this legislation possible in

order to ease what we are talking about, this interconnection backlog and enhanced grid reliability and lower energy costs. lawrence berkeley national lab determined there were 20 600 gigawatts of generation and storage in u.s. interconnected cues in 2023. can you talk a little about way expanding some of the ways this legislation works to alleviate the bottlenecks and have a positive impact on energy development and grid resiliency? >> thank you for the question. elcon was the support of that proposed bill. we are at a point where we need all of the above resources. we have a lot of resources that are hung up in the interconnection queue that are ready to put steel in the ground and start producing power. unfortunately, due to regulatory

constructs at the markets, these are being held up with red tape and restudied so we really need to find a way and perhaps automate the study processes we can do it quickly and quicker and get these resources on the grid. frc has done some work with their order 2023 but we still need to go further and it's just the first step. >> while i have you, this is always a concern of mine. we build out our portfolio around energy including clean energy and we need to make sure we have a workforce. you talked a little bit about it so when considering the severity of literally growing and moving forward in clean energy and all of these projects, what do we need to think about for that workforce? is it they are should we put more investment in there and what type should be?

>> absolutely, coming from the utility side before i joined the consumer side, that was something we heard from the utilities quite a bit. it's the same for manufacturing. trade schools and things like that have declined. there was a more prominent focus on liberal arts education. we moved away from the trade education we need. we need to encourage more workers to look at some of these new and emerging jobs. wednesday make sure they are well paid. we need to make sure they can exist in this society and can prosper so we really need to be investing in our future workforce and we need to start doing that now. >> thank you. are you familiar with advanced re-conductering as we talk about

building at the grid and transmission,? the technology will help us with that capacity, is that correct? >> gets a grid enhancing technology. we have just use a couple of years ago in south texas where we used the advanced conductor technology i think a 330 mile transmission line. to your point, it increased capability by about 40%. i would caution that you do have to find specific applications and specific regions and a lot of other technical things before it can produce those sorts of results i mentioned. we've been a very big proponent of grid enhancing technologies and making sure they also have a cost-benefit and when they do, we are all in. >> are other countries already using this type of technology? >> i believe so but i would have

to check with my team to see how extensive it is. >> thank you. >> now we have senator cassidy. >> the chairman just reminded me, do you have the coal fire plant in shreveport, louisiana or was that shut down? >> i believe that has been shut down. >> the chair reminded me my ratepayers in louisiana are still paying for that, because it did not go through its full life. we speak about higher energy costs they've risen significantly during this administration. part of that is the kind of unrealized productivity of sunk assets. let's be clear, that's regressive. poor people pay a greater percentage of their income for this unrealized potential. in northwest louisiana, you guys

include go supply that area and you have liability. i want to give you a congratulations and shout out. my state consumes a lot of energy and you guys are providing reliable energy so i appreciate that. i recently toured simpra in southern california and 100 percent of their electricity right now is being supplied by renewables. it's remarkable. i don't think souther calc -- southern california is big on manufacturing but there's more than i thought there was. that another time of year it would have a mix but to say this kind of load balancing is possible. as much as i believe in fossil fuel and increasing the base load but in a place like southern california with lots of renewables, it's certainly possible, correct? >> in all sincerity, they are

connected to a big grid that somewhere has that dispensable 24/7 fossil fuel that is supplying them and you can stream renewables from different places at the end of the day, they are still connected to grids that have fossil capabilities. macron is located downstream from nuclear power plant and that's one of the reasons you did this. all we got to go on, even if you like this great utility in southern california in which they are using one under present renewables, you still have to have that baseline? absolutely, the nuclear power plant i assume is not behind a meter, it's on the grid so it supplying resources to the entire grid for the benefit of many customers, not just macron. thank you. mr. mills, going to permitting reform, i've been interested in judicial review.

any comments on that? >> one of the big challenges for large manufacturers of any kind is that the permits are effectively in an infinite period of potential review, judicial and other forms of review which is why we see exactly the kind of challenges, especially the transmission line in idaho, it's same is true in maine where i spend my summers, transmission line that just never got built. >> so the chairman knows how -- we know that both are essential. so is it fair to say that the permanent reform that would benefit both power and pipe are the same ones that will benefit pipe and power?

>> yes, the world cannot be operate without both. >> i know that because the chinese have been somewhat non-cooperative with your economic development there. is the power source there coach cal or what is -- coal or what is the typical source there? >> micron were one of -- we're one of very few manufacturing companies that does not have finance manufacturing -- front end manufacturing. >> the degree that tour energy policy increases as the cost of

energy and encourages someone so move to china, we're worsening because we're increasing the consumption of chinese coal fired electricity as opposed to clean burning u.s. electricity be it renewables, nuclear or natural gas. and it's less than -- well, certainly 2025, you guys will tell me it's probably even earlier, despite a bigger population of bigger economy and more electricity usage. i yield back, mr. chair. >> right on, brother. >> we should be excited about that and thanks to the act

that's the largest percentage of semiconductor growth rate in the world. can't emphasize the importance that many people here played a big role in supporting that. but we have the same issues as the chairman mentioned in the northwest. the northwest power council calculates that the region will need 3500 mega-watts of renewable generation by 2027 and 14,000 additionalling me watts by -- mega-watts by 2040. so that's a doh estimate, puts the pacific northwest in the need of 56% more transmission capacity by 2040. what is the priority of

hydrolicensing southbound? do you think we need a tax credit to spur the base load power in place? and what other things do you think we need to do in the transmission capacity that would be interesting for your next phases of production? >> we have a lot of access to hydroand we will be operating in new york where there is additional access. it's a good source of sustainable energy but i would also say we need to be looking at all sources of sustainable energy, looking at nuclear, small modular actors investing in that, investing in improved battery storage energy for wind and solar and geothermal and other sources that we can get is critical.

being able to share that's how that transmission line is going to be critical for the pacific northwest and enabling interconnectivity. >> well, just to make clear, there are some savings, right? it's like one third or one fourth the cost to basically save electron than it is to produce one and there is some capacity to build into the grid on smarter technology that would help us in moving power around where we needed it. >> yeah, and when you look at the availability of power from lower cost sources during different seasonality and then also you look at the cost of an asset, if you will, of a generation source that sits idle because wind or solar are running at that time, if you

could send that power somewhere else to where it could be utilized as a lower cost, that could help savings as well. >> what about the tax credit idea? we already have it for wind and solar. why not for hydro? >> for new york, they introduced zero emissions credit for their nuclear power plants that they had to work on fectly maintenance activity that they had with their nuclear plants to keep them online and running. >> what about other sources of energy for the future? you mentioned both battery technology but you didn't mention fusion we have three fusion companies going to work in washington. do you think there are some other things that micron is looking as we think about these data centers and a.i. integration into the grid? >> yeah, we produce

misconducters, -- semiconductors to lower our consumption. we've done a 10x reduction in our power consumption of our chips. and as i mentioned, 30% more energy efficient than other competitors products on the markets. >> that's monumental success, right if when you think about driverless cars or other applications, it's an immense amount of energy and memory that's required. so, thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator.

>> just thinking about how hydro has provides us with this great base load. wonderful. we need to do more. when we're willing at the number of hydro facility and recognizing how much it costs to reliance and how long it takes to do it, and what's to say that we're not going to have some of these facilities who are just like not worth the time or the energy and it goes back to the permitting. but it is something that i think as we think about our energy demands, we have got to have some better projection here. we are talking about number one

priority at j-bear in anchorage area there. it's a training facility. and they just very casually say that it's going to increase j-bear's power requirements by roughly 50%. and you're thinking about what that means, this is in an area of the state where we're talking right now about importing lng from canada. so we're going to be seeing brownouts, what's happening, where we're going to get this resource. we've got a governor that says we're going to get back to coals. there's a little more than panic here. but the whole focus -- well, so much of the focus has been on our energy and the increased consumption, the increased

demand here -- question for probably mr. fowke and mr. mills, this anticipated energy demand, we see the forecast in filings by the rto's by the last couple of years, but eia's latest annual energy outlook only forecast demand would grow by about 1% on average from 2022 to 2050. i cannot even begin to think that that is reasonably or remotely sane. it's just -- it's not the world that we're living in and we're seeing this every single day.

we've got to get a better handle on what's coming down the pipe here. what do we need to do? >> well, i don't know where eia is getting their information. that sounds like a forecast that maybe would have been accurate four years ago. but not -- >> maybe. >> not with what we're seeing in today's world. and central ohio, we're going to double our capacity in five years. one thing that has to happen is it is incumbent upon us as a utility to get the updated forecast in a timely manner so they can have full information. >> do you think that they're collecting the right data in order to give you a forecast that is accurate? >> well, the rto's typically collect their data from the members. so we need to tell them how much load we're seeing and there's a risk adjustment process and how

much of that is serious, how much of it's duplicate, etc., etc., but we're working very closely with them to get those forecast right. and they're recognizing it. >> innovation occurs in episodes. >> well, and ok, but talk to me because we just past the chips act four years ago. we know that's coming. >> correct. >> so how are we incorporating what we know legislatively from the appropriations perspective? >> they didn't testify for the

committee that the effect would be to increase electricity demands because chip pad in taiwan, 20% of the entire country is electricity is used to -- and in ireland, because it's a data center hub, 20% of the entire hub is to run data centers. this was predictable. it was predicted in the technical literature. i'm one of the players that tried to push it in the public policy domain but we're told that we will see efficiency fall close do that problem. the invention for chip demands electricity and so on. so the hard part is that -- and i have sympathy for the leaders of rto's.

they're semiconductor with a new micron might show up one day. there are hundreds of new microns brewing in the country. and five or 10 of them will succeed. and we'll all act surprised. it's predictable that it will happen. what's hard to predict is when but it's not a century. it's a few years. i close by saying that the demands as we have discovered occur faster than we can get permits to build power plants or reliance hydro dams. and this is a part that has to be resolved. the incommiserate velocity of what we want for growth, we won't get it. and what we want -- don't want to permit and this is a matter whether it's transmission lines for wind or the gas turbans and the pipelines for the gas turbans. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i have continued to support your bipartisan effort. >> now we got everything at your desk. >> ok. i'm ready. i'm looking forward to it. i will assist in any way i can. obviously, we need to accelerate all the points that you all are making. and it's far beyond whether someone's on one side or the other of the climate change today. the world's changing so rapidly and a big part of the ability to respond to the greater need is going to be our ability to move electricity from one place to another. how would you just say specifically in just a couple of examples of how permitting delays impact your members, their ability to grow?

>> right. thank you. yes. so, you know, we are looking into communities as the micron. we're looking for the reliable. we're looking for states and regions that have -- that are open to infrastructure expansion, that they are not shutting those conversations down. the permitting, of course, when we delay getting that infrastructure in the ground, we cannot expand our operations there because we will not be able to reliably support our operations. we need to have that infrastructure in place. the longer it takes to permit, we either move to a different state or we do not expand. and so we are curtailing our economic prosperity by delaying this permit and getting that infrastructure that we need. >> all right. and i think the same was said in terms of reliability. >> absolutely.

>> the same constraints exists in restrictions. and we've been discussing all about the predictions that they have provided that the transmission would significantly lower cost then and enhance for liability. we've got a big wires act that hopefully help coordinate interregional buildout. i've discussed with several of you over a period of time. and the speed and reliability act would streamline permitting reform on nationally significant lines. micron is obviously making huge investments in new york and in boise. how does that reliability in access to low cost influence those decisions? >> on the reliability sigh, we talked about the impacts that a millisecond dip in power can have, right, in significant

profit loss for us the reliability is absolutely paramount. availability as well. and that's where, you know, the cost of inaction is in extraordinarily high here. we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and i'll just talk about d-ram for a second. 90% used to be maid in the u.s. in 1975. today, less than 2% of the world's d-ram is made here and that's at micron's facility in manassas, virginia. with our plan investment in idaho and new york, we will get that up and we will get to over 60% of our capacity, 12% of the world's capacity is built here in the u.s. again. but if we're unable to get the power, either the generation or the transmission to the locations where we want to build, it'll be an opportunity missed for the united states. >> right. no, i appreciate that. and i celebrate micron for your innovation and your success.

even though your idahoan and the last take, i realize innovation occurs everywhere. i don't want to create enemies but we appreciate what you guys have done and going to make the most of it. mr. fowke and i have known each other for many years. aep testified last year that you're being asked to connect loads across the transmission system footprint equal to 10% of the total u.s. electricity demand today. and earlier this month, doe released that preliminary list of national interest, electric trancin' transmission and many of these primarily designated areas fall within a.p.'s service area. so how would that final designation of these high priority areas make it easier for you to access new

transmission infrastructure and connect new generation? how much of the work has been done? >> went to continue to work with your staff on that. as far as national quarters, we have had a tremendous amount of success working with our state to get transmission cited in and we've had to use eminent domain in less than 3% of the circumstances. so i think what's important, what the national quarters bring which those that don't have the capacity in the full grid in the rare case where we need a federal backstop to step in when it's a critically important transmission line for reliability, that's where i think frk they only have that national quarters. that is the biggest thing than having a national quarter because states should be leading the siding process.

they're critical on that process. >> totally agree. thank you. i'm out of time but i might come back for a second round of questions. mr. chairman? >> senator hogan. >> i'm just glad i could be here to help balance things out. >> i'm so happy you're here. >> i knew you would be. thanks to all of you for being here. i've got to start with mr. gets ameyer. i heard you received a bs in electrical engineering ee. so obviously, a jock on campus and obviously, managed to get an engineering degree. pretty impressive. and then went on to -- reasonably good schools although not as good to get an m.b.a. in fort collins and ms at berkeley. so just want to make people

aware of your outstanding credible credentials. if you had something in west virginia, it would have been trifecta. >> now you see why we're happy he's here? >> yeah. we're governor together for 10 years. so we go way back. >> way back. >> way back. but seriously, let me start with mr. fowke and it was serious. i did want to welcome you. mr. fowke, in your testimony, you said that epa has finalized new power plant set to regulations and i quote, which could hasten the pace of plant retirements and diminish reliability." at the same time, that we need increase electricity over the next five years. increase it. so, don't we need to be focusing on dispatchable resources 24-7 to provide this additional electricity? it's not going to magically appear out of thin air, right? so, aren't we on the wrong track

and don't we need to have epa work with our base load industry to make sure we can meet pour electricity needs and we're not like some third world country with blackouts and brownouts which have already started to happen. >> i agree with you. i love seeing renewables on the grid but you cannot substitute 24-7 dispatchable generation. if you look at the queue right now, the generation queue, it's 2.6 territory watts which is more -- terawatts, but if you look at what is in those queue, senator, over 95% of it is non-dispatchable generation. >> what was the percent? >> over 95% of it is -- less than 5% is dispatchable 24-7 generation. so we absolutely need to hang on to what we have. >> i heard you the first time. i just want make sure everybody else did. >> we need to hang on to what we have. the epa rules will hasten the

retirement of the dispatchable generation we have on our grid today. >> ok. who wants to disagree with him and why? let the record show that nobody disagrees. i think that's pretty important. from the user's side, i don't know. is dependable electricity important to your business or do you think it's important to anyone else? >> it's important and it's important to all semiconductor manufacturers. minor interruption, milliseconds can cause our factories to go down for a week and cause millions, tens of millions of product loss. so incredibly important in our factories run 24/7, 365 at peak output operation. so we will require the base load to meet our demands. >> so would you argue it's vitally important in terms of our economy being competitor than a global economy? and would you argue it's important for national security as well to be able to generate energy for ourselves and our allies? >> absolutely.

yes. >> ok. i would guess any other thoughts on how we not only maintain, but increase our base load from any of you that would like to respond to that. >> the senator, the fastest way to increase power supply as we're talking about demands that are occurring in the next few years, not decades, is not things that we don't know how to build but things that we know how to build. the fast destruction of dispatchable comes from turbans and from the primary source of the supply this will be true in the united states, almost every state and it's true in europe and what's happening in and around the world but especially here. >> and would you agree that american technology and ingenious neutrality is driving improvements at the same time that we're producing energy on a low cost basis in this country and that's a better approach than regulations that shut us down and force us to get energy from other countries?

>> you know the you know the expression, the question answers itself, sir. chair manchin: thank you, senator. now we have senator king. sen. king: thank you, mr. chairman. what is bothering me about this entire discussion is that we're only talking about half of the asian. we are like -- half of the equation. we are in a car on a railroad track with a train coming toward us and we are talking about the cost of a tow truck. the cost of not addressing climate change dwarfs the cost of addressing climate change. reliable studies show that in houston today, the power is off. we can talk about this and you can dismiss the studies and talk about environmentalists and everything else, i will tell you who is paying attention to this, the insurance companies. they are called eyed businesspeople. in a report this morning, texas

has had to create a kind of risk pool because people cannot get homeowners insurance because of the volume of these violent storms. so i just want to put the context here, nobody is saying we should go back to hydro because they love the looks of dams, they are saying we should be talking about renewable power because the alternative to moving in that direction is catastrophic in terms of dollars and cents. so i just wanted to lay that little bit of context. i agree with you all, mr. mills and others, about reform, have been working with the chairman for years on this. it has to include judicial report -- reform. the point is the process cannot take forever. last week we had the secretary interior -- i talked to her about it and informed her because of the delays in doing their studies that eisenhower retook europe in 11 months.

so i suggested she sent an email to her permitting staff with one word, eisenhower. we have got to address that. i understand that. but to act like the transition is just something we are doing because it is a nice thing to do or because some elite group says we should do it is just not accurate. transmission is obviously a big part of the problem. mr. fowke, i liked your testimony about gas. it is not the whole answer but as part of the answer. increase it by 40% without building new poles, and i think that is the kind of thing, and dynamic line management has to be part of that, as well. the other piece is the queue. nobody has talked about that. one of you testified there is as much power waiting in the queue of the various rpo's around the

country that is double the total amount of power being produced in the country right now. 500 gigawatts batteries, batteries are dispatched both. -- our dispatchable. and that is a technology and development. there are other storage technologies, good old pump storage around for 150 years, all those kinds of alternatives. mr. fowke, how do we get there -- i will go back to my original question. do you believe we have to address the threat of climate change? mr. fowke: absolutely, and i think there is a lot we can do, but we have to balance that against the need for reliable and affordable power. we need -- i have spoken many times about this in my former role and will say it as someone in the industry, this industry can make tremendous threats to reducing carbon emissions, and already has, more than we ever thought possible, but you pick

the percentage, that last 20% will require different technologies than we have today. sen. king: small modular -- mr. fowke: you took the words out of my mouth. i am a big proponent of that. maybe it is something else, but we have to have technology move at the speed of value. i worry that when we prematurely shut down power plants that are running, that will have a very negative impact on reliability with potentially the ability to find this terrific growth around the country. sen. king: do you agree that the queue is a barrier in itself? in terms of what is waiting in line? mr. fowke: yes, i do. that is why we think ferc should be encouraged to fast-track those resources, low serving entities that have the obligation to serve, are essential to serve from reliability. we do not have that today, senator. sen. king: we always talk about

all of the above, so many options. storage to more efficient conservation -- i used to be in the conservation business. we could cut energy usage significantly in a factory or hospital, and those are kilowatt hours you can use somewhere else, but they are not generation. but they free up generation to be used somewhere else. plenty of options. thank you offer your testimony. thank you, mr. chairman. >> i do not know what to say. say something in west virginia. mr. fowke: i cannot quite speak that lang which it, getting close. chair manchin: senator hirono. hirono popped thank you very much -- sen. hirono: thank you very much. i am glad senator king noted how important it is to deal with this space and the changes. i agree that the insurance industry has certainly gotten it, that when you cannot afford

homeowners insurance because they need to cover the results of extreme climate disasters, including, i have to say, wildfires, which is what maui experienced, at least we have one major industry that has said we need to deal with climate change. an thank you for agreeing that that is something we have to do. i am interested in the importance of clean energy goals. mr. goltz myers, -- mr. gatzemeier, an analysis study concluded that many of the large technology companies and private equity groups that own and manage data centers have pledged to use green power electricity for their needs and we expect renewables to ultimately supply the majority of the incremental supply to the facilities, end quote. can you elaborate on micron's renewable energy commitments and the roles they have played, and

plans for building through micron with the chips act? wind gusts by 2020 -- mr. gatzemeier: by 2025, we have said we will be 100% renewable. in new york, we were looking at entering into co-op solar projects, like we did with idaho power with the black mesa project, a 40 megawatt project. additionally, looking at additional ppa's or renewable energy edits purchased as well to meet those goals. sen. hirono: how much does the falling cost of renewable power contribute to micron setting its energy goals? mr. gatzemeier: what was the question? sen. hirono: how much does the following cost of renewable power play into micron's setting

its energy goals? clean energy. mr. gatzemeier: obviously, we look at the cost of energy. we are in a cost sensitive business, so we want to continue to drive that and be effective. in the u.s., you can get energy credits and look at renewables that are effective. however, if there is not more generation at aunt -- added onto the grid to meet the demand, the cost of energy would rise and create problems. something you would run into availability issues, reliability issues, and those are the things we would like to avoid through change with transmission and additional generation of multiple sources coming online. solar, wind, battery technology, to enable those to be more effective, geothermal, talked about nuclear with a small modular reactors, and other investments that could be done to continue down the path to meet all of the goals we are

looking for. sen. hirono: you are an example of a private company that pays attention to these issues. mr. fowke, you described how new data centers could require three to 15 times as much power as a more typical industrial plant. do you think facing utilities should require data centers was such a new demand for power to install energy storage on site to shave back there demand for power from the grid at periods of peak man? mr. fowke: it is an interesting commentary and something we need to look into. traditionally, i would refer to mcauley, data centers are backed up because of the importance of having backup power -- i would refer to my colleague. increasingly as we look around, i think data centers are more open to doing exactly what you described. i also would want to call to your attention the data center

tariff we filed in ohio, recognizing that the six ordinary growth needs -- this extraordinary growth needs to be funded fairly by the data centers, not cost shifting to other consumers. we think it is a critically important first step as we move forward with the demand we see. sen. hirono: i agree. mr. gatzemeier, do you have a comment on this question? mr. gatzemeier: unfortunately, right now we have power conditioning coming to our site but no cogeneration. our large power could sustain us through a reliability event, so in the case of a reliability issue, we see it impacting our production in a negative way. sen. hirono: thank you, mr. chairman. chair manchin: thank you, senator. now i get to have a second round by myself, at least until the chair gets back.

he will be looming over my shoulder soon enough -- oh, there he is, looming over my shoulder, as predicted. [laughter] chair manchin: go on, brother, take it. >> let me ask a final question. mr. mills, you have been working on this for such a long period of time, i think you have a perspective. part of what america values is this strange creation of a democracy that most of the time functions pretty well. people have an opportunity to voice their concerns. we have spent a lot of time designing process by which neighborhoods and counties and states are heard. two of the biggest reasons put forward in terms of the slowness of progress, especially in expanding transmission but also making sure it is efficient where it needs to be, it is in

the process but also the litigation. how would you rank those, relatively speaking, in terms of where we should put more attention to trying to move more rapid? again, i am a big believer that climate change is real and is happening at scale. by delaying our response, it will cost 5x or 10x of what it costs now. within that, were should we focus our attention? mr. mills: you are asking me to choose between process and litigation, the lesser of evils, a tough challenge. but seriously, i think what you would find for most industries, the litigation is real, and in hyper examples, it becomes the dispositive factor that kills thing. on average, you will find it is a regulatory process. it is the sand in the gears that

economists talk about, the small and large in the united states. the international manufacturers association puts out a semiannual study on the cost of process in the form of regulations come about they modify it. the last study came out this spring, and for large firm, it is $18,000 per year per employee, and for small firms, $36,000 per year, if i recall correctly, per employee or a regulatory compliance process. that is a huge headwind for businesses to start and expand in the united states. i would say, if i had to choose, i would set the process system, the regulatory system, are big impediments. sen. hickenlooper: i appreciate that, and i would argue that process is uniquely american and critically important. mr. mills: it is. sen. hickenlooper: we do not want to eliminate it, but there are ways when we look at something like this that, really, both sides, republicans and democrats, everybody has an

alignment and self-interest in getting things built more rapidly to address this energy challenge we face. i think it is time to relook at the processes, make sure people's voices are heard, there is fairness in how decisions are made. but we can do it more quickly. i yield back to the chair, the man must be respected, who always is seeing both sides of the fence. chair manchin: let me say to all of you, thank you for your expertise that you bring to the committee. i think it is something we need to continue to raise the alarm, because i can see a real catastrophic situation happening in our country in not being able to meet the demand. no matter what side of the political fence you're on, and it is a shame that politics divide it. there is one team, and every american expects to have dependable, reliable, and affordable energy. we built the system around a

need for the country and in the defense of our country. we're getting into a situation now because of political will, if you will, and whoever is in charge wants to push one agenda over another. if it is not feasible, it is not reasonable. it really isn't. if you cannot do it, we are not there, we have not matured. carbon capture sequestration, mr. fowke, i remember, being governor at the time, and senator hickenlooper here, you all went into that venture with your plant, correct? i am understanding in order to prove we could commercialize carbon capture sequestration, and you all did that, and we showed we could capture it, liquefy it, pressurize it, put it back into the ground. on scale, it would have taken one-third of your power. president obama, i told him this, i said you said go ahead and build a coal fire plant. if you made us use carbon

capture at that time, we did not have the maturity in technology you cannot build a plant that costs 900 megawatts of investment for 600 megawatts of return. that is the problem. so when they said it was a war on coal, there was no alternative. either shut it down or get out of the -- you know. so that was the problem. i will tell you this, politically, it changed my state of west virginia to being over 75% democrat registration. old line of conservative democrats but still democrat, switched now to 80% republican in one ticket because of that. and everything i said about transitions, do not ever take someone's job away from them unless you have something equally as good, if not better. because you will pay the ultimate price on that one. so this transition is going on, we gave the maps and everything else. my state will be hit eventually you would if it was not for west

virginia two years ago with that polar bomb, whatever they called it -- remember? shut everything down. every coal plant we had, and you can confirm this, you are running about 110% to keep pjm from falling apart. it would have gone down. that is what we are asking this administration, in real life, and i am not a finning fossil or renewables, either one, i am just looking at the need. we have replaced -- growing up, the only two dispatcher pool 24/7 at that time was nukes and coal. gas was replacing coal. then we saw gas freeze up in texas and people dying. so we have work to do there. smr's are coming on, all in. battery storage, all in. wind has the greatest challenge of all the renewables because of permitting. we need permitting for pipelines to move carbon capture and get

inventory. they need it, we all needed. senator schumer said he thought it was not going to go anywhere, i think it must go somewhere, and we have it ready to go and we will, and we are working with our republican colleagues and democrat colleagues, and we will go and see if we can move this from this committee forward on the floor. again, your expertise means an awful lot to us, and i want to thank you for that. we're going to go ahead and adjourn the meeting. members will have until the close of business tomorrow to submit additional questions for the record. with that, thank you. meeting is adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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