Subcommittee Chair Duncan Opening Remarks on Ensuring a Reliable and Affordable Electric Grid

before we start the clock from my opening statement I just want to say this um so so sad that our chair Rogers is um announcing her retirement and will be uh leaving along with me at the end of this Congress and um I would like to recognize her if she'd like to make a statement you thank you thank you everyone boy uh I'm just so grateful my heart's just full with gratitude that's the the overwhelming thought right now and to all of you to my colleagues to the staff uh being the chairman of the house Energy and Commerce Committee really is the ultimate uh in Congress and I've been here a while and I've served in a lot of other roles and serving with all of you this year has just been the the best um we've worked on a lot of issues and you know what I'm going to keep this short because we have a whole another year ahead of us right and we're going to finish strong and we're gonna we're going to get some more bills uh legislation important to the American people onto the president's desk so thank you everyone uh very much this has just been wonderful to uh be chair for this Congress thank you thank you for your service we do have a whole year lined up uh ahead of us and um we've got a lot of work to do so uh we'll go ahead and get started I want to thank you all for being here today and welcome to energy climate grid Security subcommittee hearing titled power up uh State utility Regulators on challenges to Reliable affordable electricity this hearing continues the committee's focus on affordable reliable electricity during this Congress we've worked to understand what drives the growing reliability crisis in America already we have heard from furk and grit operators about the very real threats facing reliability today we'll hear from state public utility Commissioners utility Regulators that answer to rate payers in their States state commissions and utilities are integrated resource plans use integrated resource plans to look at both the cost and benefits of the entire electricity portfolio over an extended period of time commissions use these plans to ensure there's enough electricity and that rates are fair and affordable however changes to Electric sector over the past 20 years have presented new challenges to this Mission many states have introduced retail choice and rely more on Regional transmission organizations RTO and independent systems operators are isos um capacity markets this has made it difficult for utility commissions to exercise their responsibility for ensuring affordab affordability and reliability to protect the rate payers threats to Electric good reliability are growing due to environmental regulations policies from State legislatur and agencies bands on fossil fuel generation and Market distortions these factors are contributing to premature retirement for most of our reliable and dispatchable resources because of the increasingly interconnected nature of the grid policy decisions that affect grid reliability have a much wider impact than ever before some may say that more Renewables and transmission can solve the problem of an increasingly unreliable grid however this plan increases cost and complexity and may even intensify certain risk in States relying on borrowing power from others the full system cost of Renewables are higher because of the need for extensive backup power and redundant transmission lines systems must be overbuilt to ensure there's power when the sun is down and when the wind isn't blowing building more transmission also raises utility costs for American rate payers even if those rate payers may not directly benefit from the added transmission despite this several States and regions carry on with their IDE ideological objectives under a seemingly false sense of security that their neighbors can continue to save them look at States like California and regions like New England which have some the most ambitious environmental goals but they rely upon electricity imports from their neighbors as part of their planning over the last two years the California ISO imported about 15% of its total Supply New England imported about 15% of all of his electricity last year where the retail electricity rates the highest where are the retail electricity rates the highest California New England even with all the warnings the B Administration continues its rush to Green agenda with regulations like the epa's clean power plan 2.0 which threatens to regulate reliable generation of existence American rate payers pay for the Fallout from these retirements and the state utility commissions must justify the cost the North American Electric reliability Corporation monitors grid reliability and develop standards they continue to warn us that over two-thirds of the country is running into a shortage of generation capacity which will have dire consequences on grid reliability when an electric generator plans to retire and a study shows that the retirement would violate nerk reliability criteria many states choose to ignore this guidance in favor of their radical environmental policies and increase the likelihood for blackouts for decades people know that when the lights went out the state commissions and utilities were responsible because of the changes in the electricity landscape it's now unclear who is responsible however it is clear who is blamed the state util commissions are blamed we must listen to the state utility experts about the reliability challenges they're facing Congress must learn to do uh and must learn what it must do to prevent further retirement of reliable resources and to keep electricity affordable today we'll continue this process and I welcome the witnesses I'll now recognize ranking member Diana deette for five minutes thank you so much Mr chairman