think i would have a numbers problem dealing with his. i think for both a counterterrorism standpoint but also from the standpoint of what this does to nation's currencies, especially beginning in countries where you get unstable perches. are going to get a class of people that are using this in the elites for instance, and has that going to affect their behavior for the government. >> so two things. one after this if you want to see my mining rig, i worked so hard on it, i'm happy to show you. and the second is, you know, we're talking about bitcoin here but like i said before, the greatest get bitcoin is given us is a blockchain.info the way they can do something like this without needing a central authority. so in the next five years is it going to be bitcoin? maybe. who knows? but i do know that there's more and more people getting interested, more and more

ingenious developers, even smarter than me, who will create something that would just be able to make crypto currencies something that everybody would want and everybody could use. spent i been skeptical in the brodom -- broader term. look at what we've been going through this last week on ssl. it's open source, people and look at this standard for years and years and years to the internet is fundamentally insecure. at almost every level, even those places that have had a lot of scrutiny. so if crypto currencies are going across, they've got a lot stacked against them. dollars at the end of the day, you can have counterfeiting, that happens. you can have inflation to it tends being an issue we can get past backed by the full faith a united states government. or whatever whatever government. when you have easy to problems

in wednesday's crypto currencies, it's more difficult to get past. it's 51% of miners agree on something, you can make changes to the standards in ways that allows power and energy you just don't have been fiat currencies, or only left to the sovereign. i think that a lot of things were going to have to get through. there's a lot things that sound like a good idea on internet but then to work out. we don't order our groceries that much. is because something make sense, just because it's technically possible dozen it's going to happen or else we would've all gotten you you on jet packs. >> i guess i will actually -- speaking of jet packs. i think that the core question of what happens when you digitalize information and what are the new kind of opportunities it allows market participants of all shapes and sizes to connect with one another and to transact with one another across borders, it's not

in the bitcoin iteration. one of the challenges will be exactly how do you engage this phenomenon, that is fundamentally reshaping our society? >> i could go on another two hours. i've really been educated and also entertained, but please join in thanking our fantastic panelists. [applause] >> thank you. >> [inaudible conversations] >> tonight, house budget committee chairman paul ryan

heads the gop dinner in cedar rapids, iowa. the state's governor terry branstad will also speak and congressman ryan's remarks will come later in eating. live coverage of this event starts at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. we invite your comments on social media at cspanchat on twitter and facebook. tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., citizens united, and americans for prosperity hoes what they're calling a freedom summit in manchester, new hampshire. senators rand paul, ted cruz and mike lee along with donald trump and former house speaker and republican presidential candidate newt gingrich are among those scheduled to take part. live coverage is also on c-span and we will be inviting your comments on this event via social media. >> c-span to providing live coverage of the senate floor proceedings and key public policy events. every weekend booktv now for 15 years the only television network devoted to nonfiction books and authors. c-span2 created by the cable tv

industry and brought to you as a public service by her local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> in the senate yesterday majority leader harry reid tried to secure agreement to have votes on two nominations later in the day. republicans sought to delay the vote until april 28 after members return from a two-week break. the debate widens into a back and forth about the new senate rules on nominees and the pace of send work with minority leader mitch mcconnell and others taking part. >> we're here this afternoon because republicans are holding up confirmation of two important nominations. our leader today, the senate wrote to invoke cloture on michelle friedland, ninth circuit court of appeals. so the only question is, when will she be made a federal judge in the ninth circuit?

there are some who say that 30 hours should run so they can speak for themselves on why they insist on doing so. there's no question that it's not to debate the nomination but it's just to do nothing, stand around and do nothing. she was nominated nine months ago by president obama, so it's time to confirm this well-qualified nominee. enough of destruction installing has taken place. she graduated second in the class at stanford university law school. she clerked for sandra day o'connor on the supreme court. she's been a partner in a prominent california law firm. ninth circuit is the busiest circuit in the entire country. senate confirmed 18 of president bush's circuit court nominees within a week of being reported out of committee. this woman, that was 13 months

ago. we have 30 others judicial nominees pending on the calendar. with 85 vacancies on the federal courts. does a reason to delay this nomination. there's no reason to delay the nomination of david wild to lead the department of labor. is a boston university professor, harvard university, researcher your so bad a president it's under all difficult for people watching this to understand why republicans are demanding that we waste time. because that's all it is. but against the iraqi people have become accustomed to wasting time. that's what they tried to do for five years. we have wasted because of stuff like this. the staff has to be here. we've wasted so much time that we could be working on important issues to the republicans come to the floor, we want amendmen

amendments. madam president, one reason we don't do with that stuff is because we spend so much time on this. we have wasted thousands of hours during the five years, and that's really unfortunate when they been stalling so much. so i would ask unanimous consent that until the time of workload today at 4:00 all post-culture time yielded back on the senate. i'm sure, on the senate proceed to vote with no intervening action or debate on counter number 574. for the, the phone decision on the nomination senate proceed to vote on cloture executive talent number 613, if cloture is invoked all shall time -- senate proceed to vote on confirmation of the nomination. that if confirmed a motion to reconsider made and laid on the table, no action or debate and no for the motions being ordered for thfor the nomination of in a statement way the nomination be printed in the record. be notified of the transaction.

resumes legislative session. >> is there objection? >> madam president? >> senator from iowa. >> reserving the right to object and i would offer an alternative, but before i do that i would like to say to my colleagues in the united states senate that first of all, there is controversy about this nominee. let's make that clear. and second, the majority leader said maybe the people of this country don't really understand what's going on. they understand what's going on. we are working under the rules that the majority changed by ignoring the rules of the united states senate in november. so as the majority leader knows, we have not yielded back post-culture time on judicial nominations since the so-called nuclear option was triggered last november. we have followed the rules of the united states senate, the regular order, on all judges before the senate in the last five months.

just exactly the way the rules were changed in november. so there are 30 hours of post-culture debate on this nomination. therefore, i would ask, i would ask if the consent could be modified so that the vote on confirmation would occur at 5:30 p.m., monday, april 28 when we return from the april recess. this would allow the senate to process the pending cloture nomination on the wage and hour nominee this afternoon and said that confirmation vote also for monday when we return on april 28. that's the alternative that i offer to the majority. >> madam president, -- >> would be majority leader so modify his request? >> i reserve. madam president, this is not obviously this exchange is not a

dissertation on logic because if it were, why in the world would we want to waste 30 hours doing nothing? that's what we're doing, 30 hours. and i know that my friend from iowa has been on the judiciary committee a long time, and i appreciate all that he has done. but it's apparent that the only reason the senator from iowa expresses a delay is to delay. no other reason. i may have missed it and there could've been summit condemned talked about what a bad person she is our she's not qualify but i must have missed that. i've heard little, if any, opposition but, in fact, i have heard none to this nominee. i've heard only of destruction for obstruction state. delays for delays sick. it's been going on for five years. it appears that the senators wishes his caucus that just says no. that's what they do.

so, madam president, i object to the modification. >> is there objection to the original request? >> madam president? >> the senator from iowa. >> reserving the right to object, and i will object, but just remind everybody when the majority leader says that nothing is being done on judges, we have confirmed 233 judges and only disapproved thank you. and so don't ever try to sell the american people on the idea that the senate is not doing its work on getting judges approved. i object. >> objection is heard. majority leader spent as i indicated, this is much in the way of logic here. we have had a lot of judges approved after wasting hundreds of hours of time doing nothing. we have judges report out of it should committee unanimously led by our good friend, the senior senator from vermont, the chairman of the committee who

does such an admirable job. reported out unanimously and a stall, delay, obstruct and delay have a vote and it passes repeatedly. their only purpose for the delay is for delays sick. they are obstructing this as it obstructed everything in the last five years. and i know people complain, madam president, about the rule change that was made. where would we be in this country without having changed that rule? i had a letter today from the secretary of defense, chuck hagel, outlining nine important people in the department of defense that need to be confirmed. we have numerous ambassadors

with important countries around the world and they are not being confirmed because they're being stalled. why? why couldn't we have these people go to their work? they've been nominated. hunters all over the world are without ambassadors from the united states. -- countries all over the world. where would we be if we had not changed those rules? it's kind of slow because of the inordinate amount of time that where consulate eating up. no longer that my friend from iowa talks, the more reason is that maybe we should change the rules more than what we did. so unless something changes we are going to vote tomorrow at 5:00, three votes your 5:00 on friday. >> madam president? >> the senator from kentucky. >> i think it's important all of this in context. my good friend of the majority leader broke his word last you a

said we have settled the issue of what the rules were going to be for the senate for this congress. he then broke the senate rules in order to change the senate rules, setting a very unfortunate precedent, and continue to abuse the senate rules by using th a device calld filling up the tree to prevent members of the senate from his party and from our party from even offering alternatives. despite this heavy handed behavior, he expects the minority to simply expedite consideration of, indicates of the matter we're just discussing, a lifetime appointment as senator grassley as pointed out. were simply exercising our rights under the rules of the senate. i might say that many of these nominees would have been confirmed last december had we not experienced this event

perpetrated by the majority in a heavy-handed attempt to alter the balance to change the nature of the senate with a simple majority. it was an unfortunate decision, but those kind of decisions have consequences. and all we deniers exercise what senator grassley pointed out, the rights that senators have under the rules of the senate. if the majority leader doesn't like the way the senate is working i would recommend he change his behavior. we don't have a rules problem. we have a behavior problem. i hope we can get -- with a couple of examples of trying to edge back to normal here where we brought of the bill that was i to open for amendments. amendments were process from members of both sides but it seems of late where sort of back into the old senate. all we are about is just scoring

partisan points, to nine members the opportunity to offer amendments. i think most members on both sides of the aisle came here to be senators which involves having your committee work tickets as they come having the opportunity to offer a minute taken seriously. this body when he was at its peak operating the way it should under members majority's of both parties has been a more civil place in which rights were respected. so the ranking member of the judiciary is born and we're simply exercising our rights under the rules of the senate. >> madam president? >> majority leader. >> i'm a patient man. try to be. for my friend to come here and have the audacity to talk about breaking my word, the trouble

with that statement is we had to hold the senate to see what happened. he said simply, i said something, and that fact what he said is we're not going to have all of these filibusters on motions to proceed. now, for the viewing audience, we wasted so much time just trying to get on a bill. you see, it's not that easy. you have to file something innocent, wait a day, get on the bill if the object and the object hundreds of times, it takes two days to get on the bill. vote, 30 hours and they were only on the bill. to get off the bill went to go through the process all over again. we have done it hundreds of times. there is more filibusters of president obama's judicial nominations than far more than

all in the entire history for all the other present. we been a country for a long time, roughly 240 years. as for the entire period of time, 235 years, there were more filibusters in five years under president obama and the entire history of the country. i went to newark and had the good fortune to watch a play, a wonderful point about lbj. that good man during the time he was majority leader for six years had to overcome one filibuster. as majority leader in the senate because of his performance we have over here, i have had to overcome almost 500 filibusters. this is for the country. it's not for me. we've been stymied on everything we've tried to do, everything. now, we know it's public record

now, three days after obama was elected the first time, a meeting was held here in washington. written of all over, karl rove called the meeting with others, and the decision was made to, our goal is to make sure this man never gets reelected. so to the credit of the republican leader, he said our goal is to make sure that he is never reelected. well, obama surprised everybody, except us, and was overwhelmingly elected by the american people. they also said in the same meeting the way we're going to stop them from being reelected is to object to everything. that's what they have done. unprecedented in history of our great republic. i've been here a while. i know how people used to work together. but you can't work together if one side says no to everything.

we've been able, because of the good fortune we have a once in while being able to first -- being able to piece together some work with republicans, it's getting harder and harder to do. we have been able to get it done a few times. so, madam president, to waste this time of the american people, and that's what it's done, to say there's some objections with this woman, come to the floor and talk about what's wrong with her. from the finest law schools in america. there's a battle every come whether harvard, yale or stanford. they flip back and forth. it doesn't matter, she's a very fine academic. she clerked for one of the finest supreme court justices we've had in history of the country. by the way, a republican. so what's wrong with this? what do we gain by holding this up? the country gains nothing.

as i've indicated, we have about 140 nominations that are being held up, and for my friend, republican leader said, we will approve them all in favor, i'm sorry. we would approve them all in december anyway. please, madam president, please, who in the world thinks there's a bit of credibility to that? so everybody, i'm sorry. in 25 hours i guess we can come here and vote on this. all we need is a majority and that's the way this. i'm so sorry for the inconvenience of everyone. but republicans know that for them it's pretty easy. they can just walk out of here. they don't have to be here. we do because it's our burden to run the country. they can walk away and take trips and go home. we're not going to build do that. we have to vote and approve

these two people. we have a very good judge we need to approve. with somebody from the wage and hour's department, department of labor who's been, that job has been vacant for a long, long time. so i'm sorry for the inconvenience of members but we have an obligation. we have been elected as united states senators. >> madam president? >> the senator from kentucky. republican leader. >> just a couple of brief observations that are relevant to the point. number one, we've approved more judges at this point than -- for president obama than president bush had approved at the same time in his presidency. and number two, the majority leader has a curious definition of filibuster. the reason the majority leader has had difficulty getting onto bills is because as soon as we get on bills there are no amendments allowed. once you get past the motion to

proceed, i would say to the people who may be listening who are not deeply steeped as i say and senate rules, there's a two-step process. devote to get on the bill and then you are on the bill. what's happened, once we get on bills the majority leader has made it impossible for members of his party or hours to offer amendments more often than the last six liters combined. in other words, he gets to decide whether anybody's amendments are considered either on his side or on our side. that's what has degraded the senate. that's what is turn the senate into looking more like the house but, in fact, i'm told isolate the house votes more than this and does and the assistant majority or uses and is quite right at the time, that if you want to have a chance to vote, come to the senate. that's what the senate is about.

that hasn't been what it's been about in recent times. and so all it really requires to get the senate back to normal, is for the one member of the senate who has the right of prior recognition, who has the right to set the agenda, to open up the senate, let members of both parties offer amendments. look, when we used to be in the majority i would tell our members the price of being in the majority get a gives the minority their votes. it's an unpleasant experience for us but that's the way the senate operates and that's the way you move bills to completion. i had thought, and there were a couple of times this year when it looked like we're going to get back to normal. i still hope it's not too late for that. it would be in the best interest of the institution and best interest of both the majority and the minority to begin to restore the institution to the way it used to operate.

>> madam president? >> majority leader. >> i believe i have the floor. >> i'm sorry? >> do i have the floor. >> i have the floor. >> you yielded the floor. >> the republican leader have not yet yielded the floor. >> madam president, if the senator would yield for a question spent a would be happy to. >> the majority leader said there is urgent work that the senate needs to turn to which is why we ought to amend the ordinary rules of the senate which call for a 30 hour post-cloture period. i would just ask a distinguished republican leader, is he aware of any urgent work that the majority leader has planned for us to turn to, that would be a reason to expedite this particular nomination speak with i'm sure the majority leader will announce at some point what we're going to do next, but i'm not quite sure what that is at this particular point. >> madam president, to the

sender will yield for another question. i would just ask distinguished republican leader, is he aware, and i'm confident he is, that the majority leader and other leaders of his party had a press conference last week, i believe it was, announcing their agenda from this point to the election in november which involve things like the vote we had yesterday, vote on the increase in minimum wage, vote on extending long-term unemployment and the like. i believe there was a quote in the article of considerable -- sender removes like i do, it said it would not interested in legislating big we're just interested basically and posturing and politics to help distract the american people from the unpopularity of this president's policies in this parties policies. >> i do. in fact, the senator is entirely correct. it was a rather candid admission at a press conference that the whole agenda was basically

crafted by the democratic campaign committee. and getting an outcome was sort of a relevant. it was mainly about scoring political points for the fall election here on the floor of the senate. so if that's the urgent items the majority leader has in mind that would somehow be prevented if we had a vote on this judge, on the monday after the recess, it is perplexing to reach the conclusion that this is a matter of great urgency for the american people. if there's no interest whatsoever in getting an out. >> madam president? >> i yield the floor. >> majority leader. >> i have heard my friend come to the fore often and see why don't we work on fridays? well, madam president, most people work on fridays. now, i want to make sure i was right, but there has not been a single republican, a single word

about the nominee of the ninth circuit, positive or negative. haven't said a single word. a lot of words are being thrown about here, posturing. i wonder somebody who is long-term unemployed, out of work for a long time, and there's a profile that not all of us do shtick summon a city five years old, laid off because of the recession and can't find a job, overqualified, over educated, once -- lots of different issues that they can't find work. we decided it was important that they get unemployment benefits, a benefit extension. about 2 million people agree with that because they're the ones who lost those benefits. i don't think that's posturing. we voted on that and it passed. i think we'd have five cloture votes to get there but strong-willed republicans were able to do that and i admire

those five individuals. they mentioned -- want to do by me but they said something we could just be. that's something we did yesterday, madam president, said if a woman works the same job that a man works, that women should be paid the same as a man. now, is that posturing? i don't think so. my daughter doesn't think so. my granddaughters don't think so. they think it's pretty fair because we have more than half the people who are going to college now are women, half the people in medical school and law school are women. shouldn't they be paid the same as a man? is that posturing? i don't think so. i begin, the version and destruction. they wanted to offer a minutes -- amendments they covered everything, even the kitchen sink. .. now, do we have anything urgent to do when we get back?

if we didn't have to go through all this nonsense, and that's what it is, we would be voting today on minimum wage, to bring more than 20 million people out of poverty, out of poverty. giving -- i'm sorry. a million people out of poverty, 26 million people would get a raise. that's what it would do. now, why did we pick the number of $10.10 an hour? because that gets people out of poverty. it's really important, madam president, we understand madam president, we understand of the program, to decided they would do five years more ago. that is to the everything oppose everything president obama has done. you can not talk about what went on before because never in the history of our great republic have we had a party, minority party thatne determined to do

nothing, nothing. hoping, that it will get them the 345 majority in november. we'll find out, if their noble experiment works. that is, oppose everything and people will like us a lot. i don't think that is going to work.i i would also say this, madam president. we're here to do the work of the american people. is it right that we have more than 100 people that are being held up for no reason? other than they want to make that if we have somebody is going to be a circuit court judge, we have to file cloture. that's two hours, i mean twos days. then we have 30 hours and then, and then we have, on a, simply moving to a piece of legislation, we waste a week getting on that because of their obstruction and delay. so madam president, it is

unfortunate that my friends talk about all the great things they have done. i'll tell you the great things they have done. this is their, i could give you examples. we tried to do a highway bill, a highway bill, important for this country. a deficit in infrastructure of $3 trillion. it wasn't much better a couple years ago. so what, we brought that bill to the floor and this great amendmentht process, they wanted to debate amendments, what they did, they wanted to stop women from getting contraceptives. that held things up for a month, a month. until they finally got some sense and withdrew that. so, madam, president, the republicans made a decision for more than five years ago to oppose everything that the president obama wanted or tried to do and they have stuck with that. it has's not been good for the country. and we have situations like we have here. >> mr. president, would the. senator yield forco a question?

>> sure. >> mr. president, majority leader says there's important work for the senate to do and i can think of one your gent thing that we could do today, if the majority leader would consent. the house has passed a reauthorization of the debbie smith act, which will remind colleagues this, is money that congress has appropriated to the department of justice for grants to local law enforcementci agencies andes forensic labs to test unprocessed rape kits. this is national scandal the number of unprocessed rape kits which prevented law enforcement from identifying a serial perpetrator of sexual assault, many times not just involving adults but involving children. the house passed reauthorization of that bill and all it takes is for the majority leader and the senate to content to take thatt bill up today and pass it to get it to the president's desk. i can think, that perhaps is the

most important and most your gent thing we could be doing right now and i would just ask the majority leader if he would consent to taking that bill up and passing the senate right now? >> mr. president, the committee of which i'm almost certain my friend is a member, the judiciary committee, is that right? member of the judiciary committee. former supreme court justice of texas. they have reported a bill out of the judiciary committee which my friend was part of that reporting situation and that part of whatan they reported out has the debbie smith language in it but it has more stuff in it than just that. so i would be happy to take a look at that. you talked to t the chair of the committee, the ranking member, who is on the floor here today and if, they would be willing to separate this stuff here and have, what was reported out of there committee, take a look at this, i, senator lee was here on the floor. is not here now but i would be happy to take a look at that.

>> mr. president, would i ask, if i may ask one further question of the ranking, excuse me of the majority leader? one follow-up question? >> i'm sorry -- >> mr. president, i would ask that majority leader, whether he would yield for one last question? >>ld yes. but before doing that, i have just been informed this bill that was reported out of committee, which my friend from texas serveses senior senator from texas, we've cleared it on our side. they want to clear it today, t we'll geodt this thing out toda. all they have to do is clear it on their side.id we cleared it. >> mr. president, if i can ask the majority leader through the chair, there is the justice for all act, which as you point out, senator, includes things other than the debbie smith act, which has not cleared the senate, which if it did clear the senate include the debbie smith act that would be a positive development. there is a separate bill if the cleared, there is a separate

bill which w would rethorrize te debbie smith act which passed the house. so we could take up just the debbie smith act reauthorization that the house fasted and get that done today which i would urge the majority leader tole consider, if we can't clear the larger bill, the justice for all act. but frankly i would be happy with either one but if we could just do the debbie smith act today i think we could call that great progress and a great blow for justice and for some of these people who have been waiting too long to, for the law enforcement community to be able to identify their perpetrators and get these folks off the street. >> the bill which 55 senators over here have cleared is a bill to protect crime victims rights, to substantial backlog of dna samples collected from crime scenes and convicted offenders, to improve and expand the dna capacity of federal, state, local crime laboratories. to increase research andment for new dna technology, develop new

training programs contrarieding collection a use of dna evidence. to provide post-conviction of r dnaat evidence and to exonerate the innocence and state capital cases and other purposes.as we will pass that rightes now. we're happy to do it. >> mr. president, if, if i may respond to the majority leader, the bill he is referring to is the justice for all act which is something i support but there has been some reason why that bill has not come to the floor and received floor time. i'm worried that if we wait to pass that, that we'll delay the passage of the debbie smith act which is a component of that act which we could take up having passed the house and we could take that up today and then deal with the justice for all act in due course. so i just ask, i would ask the majority leader if he woulde grant unanimous concept and take up the house-passedas reauthorizationse of the debbie smith act.ct i. would ask unanimous consent o that effect.

>> mr. president? >> the majority leader. this is what we deal with here. we have a piece of legislation, going to report it out of the committee. it has been cleared bit democrats here in the senate. and the republicans now are way. let's dole it some other way of the point is, the committee met and reviewed the houseed legislation and decided that they wanted to do more than what the house did. i think we should go along with the committee. i hear my friend, the republican leader and other republican senators talk about let's have the committees do their work. they have done their work. we approve of their work. we're ready to pass this rightig now. which is, it includes the debbir smith language but does a lot more. >> mr. president. >> republican whip. >> mr. president i ask the distinguished ranking member of the judiciary committee to remind me what the challenges with the justice for smith act, justice for all act.

we have a member on our side who was unfortunately not here today because of medical concerns, that has concerns about that bill, so we can not pass that bill by unanimous consent over that senator's objection. so, what we can pass is the debbie smith act which is a piece of this, which there is no objection to that i know of. and then we can get this rape kit issue addressed today while we take up the concerns of the absent senator who is necessarily not here because of medical issues when he returns and when the senate returns. so i would reiterate myi unanimous consent request, that the senate take up and pass by unanimous consent the house-passed debbie smith act. >> reserving the right to object, mr. president. my diversion, delay. judiciar,y committee took what the house did, reviewed it and said we can do better and it is here on the floor right now.

and now they're saying well,ev even though theen judiciaryt committee did it, wii we'rehe being toldir all the time let committee's work. we don't like what they did. we want to do something else. the debbie smith act is important. but the justice for all act -- >> is there objection? >> yes. >> the h objection is heard. republican whip. >> mr. president, the majority leaderco thinks this is zero-sum game. this could be a win-win. debbie smith, who i have met and i dare say, virtually every member ofre this body has, know, is a passionate advocate for this cause and hence the naming of this statute, this law, on her behalf. because she recognized that these unprocessed rape kits was a national scandal and that people like her who had been victims of sexual assault needed help from the federal government to t help provide fund to local law enforcement agencies to test ancid process these kits so as o

identify the perpetrator and get them off the street. so, what debbie smith has asked me and i dare say the majority leader and all ofit us to do, is take up this piece of a bill. we can do that, around think we will have done a good thing today. if we can't take up the justice for all act because of other concerns people have, this shouldn't be a zero-sum game. we could pass the debbie smith acts today and we could take up thnde justice for all act when e return following recess. it doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. >> mr. president. >> majority leader.me >> this. has been cleared on ths side for more than two weeks. more than two m weeks. this is what is going on in the senate. the republicans basically oppose everything. decided they were going to do and they do it. and they come back and say, well, we, we reported this out of the committee. i read what it said. it is very good piece of legislation. they said, well, we don't like t that. let's forget about the committee

process and do something what the house did. we have a committee structure here that i have tried to follow. i admire the work done by senator leahy and he led this, this, piece of legislation out of this committee. i accept it and i approve it as do all 54 other democratic senators. >> tonight, house budget committee chairman paul ryan headlines a gop dinner in cedar rapids, iowa. the state's governor, terry branstad, will also speak and congressman ryan's remarks will come late another evening. live coverage of the event starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span and we invite your comments on social media as c-span chat, twitter and facebook. tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m., citizens united, and americans for prosperity host what they're calling a freedom summit in manchester, new hampshire. senators rand paul, ted cruz, and mike lee alongwith donald trump and former house speaker and republican presidential candidate newt gingrich are among those scheduled to take

part. live coverage is also on c-span and will also be inviting your comments on this event via social media. >> i think what we need is something akin to the grace commission during the reagan administration, or the brac commission, the base realignment and closing commission, during i think the clinton administration. outside group with integrity, former members of congress. no current elected politicians to come in and do a complete audit of government from top to bottom. every agency of government, juan, has a piece of legislation or a charter that created it. it has a purpose. if it is not fulfilling that purpose or not doing it within reasonable budget, it should be cut or eliminated. let's take head is start. this is, this came in with the highest motivation. do you know, and i didn't until i reserved it, there are now three head starts? there is early head start. there is enhanced head start and there is regular head start. why do we have the other two?

because the first one wasn't working. why do we have the third one? because the second one want working. >> veteran columnist, cal thomas on fixing a broken washington. sunday night at 10:00 eastern. immediately following a heritage foundation book signing party for mr. thomas and he chats with guests. this weekend on booktv, this year's national black writers conference saturday at noon eastern with panels on race, power and politics and literature and shifting identities in africa. sunday at 2:00, strengthening communities a historical narrative plus a panel on publishing. booktv every weekend on c-span2. >> yesterday federal energy regulatory commission acting chair cheryl lafleur testified before the senate energy committee on the security of the nation's electric grid. the committee examined the reliability and security of the electric grid from cyber and physical attacks and touched on how new epa final rules on

greenhouse gases will impact the availability and price of electricity to consumers. this hearing is about 2 1/2 hours. >> good morning. thank everyone for joining us for this important hearing this morning entitled, keeping the lights on. are we doing enough to insure the reliability and security of the electric grid? i'm pleased to chair the first oversight hearing of this, that this committee has had in quite some time on this important subject. this subject is important to many members the senate, as, recently as indicated by letters cents on a variety of different issues as well as members of this committee and i thank the members for joining us this morning. affordability and reliability of the electricity is so

commonplace in america today, that most people spend little time even thinking about it. except of course, when the power goes out. and when the lights go off. whether for a few minutes a few days, or a few weeks, it can be inconvenient, it can be maddening, and it can be also life-threatening. in a small neighborhood just a few blocks from the new york stock exchange in 1882 thomas edison's pearl street station in lower manhattan illuminated 400 lamps in homes, offices and businesses for the first time for 85 customers. it was indeed a glimmer of how electricity would come to dramatically change and improve, and strengthen our country and make our daily lives more convenient and more prosperous. the u.s. electrification rate steadily increased from there,

from a few percentage points in the early 1900s to about 70% in the early 1930s. but at that point only 10% of rural households in america had electricity compared to 90% of urban homes. with government action and great effort on the part of many parties, rural electrification ramped up and was near 100% by 1960. during the 20th century, electricity production in the u.s. shifted from being produced primarily from coal and hydropower to a diverse mix of coal, natural gas, nuclear, petroleum, and recently other renewables. and with the rapid development of new technologies 50 years from now, we can be certain there will be even more diversity in electric, in energy sources to power our country. however the economy and technology rapidly evolve our dependence on electricity only

grows. think about your average day and how much we all rely on electricity. the alarm clock or charged cell phone that wakes you up in the morning. the coffee pot that brews your morning coffee. toaster warms a bagel, refrigerators that keep fresh fruit. traffic lights that make your commute safer or the phone that you used to stay in contact with friend and family to conduct important business. and that is just to mention a few. there are just a few of the ways we rely on electricity in our daily lives. a power outage of a even a few minutes can be a terrible inconvenience it, can be a costly occurrence or can be a real threat to public health. particularly when temperatures are very high or very low or in the aftermath of storms, disasters, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, mudslides, fires. in louisiana we felt the impacts of long-term power outages after natural disasters which while understandable is still extremely difficult to deal

with. today our committee is here to receive testimony what both the public and private organizations that have responsibility for this grid are doing to maintain it and to prevent brownouts or blackouts. can this grid be made smarter and safer, more secure? but doing so in a cost effective way. our first panel will focus on new and emerging cyber threats as well as long sanding physical threats to the electricity grid. this committee has already taken steps to address this issue by including in the energy policy act of 2005 a first-of-its-kind provision to establish reliability standard including ones to address cyber threats to the nation's electric grid. in fact the electricity sector is still the only part of our national critical infrastructure that is subject to binding cyber threat standards. we will discuss some of that today. as far as the physical threat to the electricity grid is

concerned, the attack last year on the metcalf substation in california's silicon valley was the most serious attack ever on the u.s. electricity system. fortunately metcalf did not result in a blackout in silicon valley. , horrors of which could only be imagined but the incident as reported came very close to causing a shutdown of the large portion of the western grid. i commend the electricity industry and its federal and state partners involved for the significant improvements they made to reduce rick of a physical attack that took place. i also know last month, ferc, took a vote to direct nerc, north american electricity reliable corporation to gave it 90 days to do so. ferc is the responsibility of electricity industry as well as state and federal energy partners. each of us has a role to play.

in my view it is essential that information regarding an attack or threat of an attack be transmitted to others that need the information in a timely, secure and actionable fashion. i'd like at this time to submit a letter regarding the feinstein letter to the record and the response by chairman lafleur on this subject that we will go into in more detail. without objection. it will be submitted. i believe that we must take very seriously these issues and develop appropriate responses to these threats, but the response must fit the size and nature of the threat. one size does not fit all. in louisiana we have two large utility companies, entergy and clicco and relatively number of small rural co-ops and municipal utilities. it doesn't make sense for small co-ops with minimal critical infrastructure to be subject to the same requirements as larger suppliers.

we must keep that in view. our second panel will focus on different aspects of the reliability challenge, already or not there is sufficient generation and unfettered transmission to keep the lights on when electricity demand peak throughout the country. senator manchin and senator franken have been particularly focused on this issue. the adequacy of power generation differs a great deal from region to region. rather than tackling the entire issue at once, at the request of senator manchin who is here today, we'll look at impact of coal-fired generation requirements on the pm system and reliability on during the polar vortex earlier this year. i appreciate all the senators concerns regarding the threat to reliability from coal-fired plant retirements, caused by new environmental standards as well as competition from the gas market. the question of coal retirement is multifaceted. there are different perspectives that will be shared today and i look forward a lively discussion on this question with the second

panel. so in closing we have a pan negatively expert witnesses here today to discuss these issues. senator murkowski, i thank you for your help in planning this hearing today and for your cooperation from you and your staff. and i want to thank all of you who traveled a great distance to be with, to us today and i will now turn it over to senator murkowski for her opening statement. >> thank you, madam chairman. appreciate the opportunity to, to discuss not only an important and critical issue but really very, very timely. the hearing title, are we doing enough to insure the reliability and security of the u.s. grid? , is a central question that is posed today, but really everybody in this room already knows the answer to this question. we can always do more. in the next more important question then is, how should we prioritize those efforts? we can judge, i think, madam chairman, by the very filled committee room this morning just

how important this issue has become when we've got standing room only on electric reliability, i think that says something about the importance of this issue. and we can judge from recent press reports that our first commitment should really be to do no harm or at least no further harm. you have mentioned the metcalf incident. recent stories about last year's metcalf incident and a ferc report delaying critical energy infrastructure information have served to sensationalize the issue of physical grid security. instead of helping to protect the grid from attack, the disclosures that we have seen potentially increase its physical vulnerability. last month, madam chair, you and i wrote and asked the energy department's inspector general to review both the handling of this sensitive, non-public information, and how it came to be published in "the wall street

journal." late yesterday inspector general friedman issued a formal management alert informing ferc to the fact that this information should have been classified and protected from release at the time that it was created. this revelation with its national security implications i find extremely troubling. and i would commend the chair, chairman lafleur, for taking swift action in response to this report to secure the classified information. the regardless of how sensitive national security information was handled at ferc or how it found its way to a reporter, and we have asked the ig to find this out, the owners of the grid and their regulators are quick to respond to incidents such as metcalf, making use of the regulatory framework established by congress in the 2005 energy policy act, nerc provided needed information in a timely fashion. a number of government agencies

including the ferc, dhs are and the fbi undertook significant work with the industry to promote mitigation measures. last month , unthe relationship of chair lafleur, ferc directed nerc to develop a mandatory standard on physical security within 90 days, even before the standard-setting process was underway. we saw lessons learned from metcalf being applied and i think that is critically important here. as experts have recognized for some time it is likely impossible to insure that every part of the grid could with stand physical or cyberattack. thus we need to redouble a properly-scaled and continuously-improving approach to grid reliability and security. after the facts about the universe of today's threats are clear or perhaps just a little more clear we can debate whether new legislation might be necessary. now some are interested in empowering ferc to direct emergency actions to protect the

grid. i've got my own thoughts on that but clearly the commission must do better going forward to protect non-public information from disclosure. but i will say it has been apparent for some time we made need to empower ferc to protect the grid from our own federal actions. this sort of everyday vigilance is not and need not be high-profile but it is vitally important. we should not lose sight that for the electric grid, reliability and affordability must remain our core considerations. the challenge before us is how to maintain and improve reliability and affordability while keeping environmental performance in balance. as you note, madam chairman, we have a very impressive group of panel lifts before us today. i thank each of you. particularly would like to thank chairman lafleur for your steady leadership there at ferc. your extensive experience in the energy industry is indispensable

as we tackle these myriad issues best ferc, including cyber and physical security concerns but to each of you and to our second panel as well, equally credentialed, i appreciate the opportunity to discuss this very important subject this morning. thank you, madam chair. >> thank thank you. senator murder cows sky and -- murkowski and thank you for joining me on inquiry. i would submit to the record the document from the inspector general relative to what you and i both referred to in our anticipating statement this morning. let me at this time welcome the panel that is joining us. first the honorable cheryl lafleur, chairman of the federal energy regulatory commission. one of ferc's main responsiblities is maintain reliability and resilience of the grid. thank you for your leadership. we'll have further questions. next we have gerry mccaully,

president and ceo of nerc where he oversees key programs affecting 1900 north american bulk power operators and users. we would like to welcome sue kelly, president and ceo of american public power who is advocating for 2000 non-profit electric utilities around the country in addition to others. . .

we are narrowly four years we had the honor of serving on the federal energy regulatory commission i appear before you as a chairman and appointment i received in november. i think the committee for inviting me to testify. one of my first decisions that ferc was to make electric reliability a personal priority. ferc supports the reliability in several ways. first we directly oversee the development and enforcement and reliability standards for the both electric system. we also support reliability to the regulation of wholesale rates and markets which compensate resources and send investment signals needed for reliability and of the interstate electric transmissi transmission. finally ferc is responsible for the energy infrastructure including gas pipelines, terminals and hydro facilities.

the reliability and resilience of the grade stems from how it's planned, constructed, operated and how they respond to and learn from events that happen that means in setting the standard ferc has to pay attention to not do decisions like trimming trees all the way to emerging cybersecurity. last november we approved the fifth generation of cyber security standards that for the first time requires all fiber assets to receive cyber protection commensurate with their impact on the grid. reliability requires protecting the physical security of the assets from tampering, vandalism and sabotage. the topic of the physical security was highlighted by the april 2013 attack on the substation in northern california. in the wake of that attack, ferc

worked with other federal agencies to communicate the effect of the attack and the lesson learned. ferc provided guidance to the asset owners on steps they could take to improve security based on the modeling it had performed. in addition to these efforts, on march 7, 2014, ferc directed them to develop mandatory physical security standards for the grid within 90 days. interacting the standards, we recognize that many asset owners had already taken steps to protect their critical facilities. but a mandatory standard will reinforce, strengthen and broaden these efforts. we also recognize that not every facility is the like. it's important we have the latest writing project of the most critical facilities and the responsive actions be customized to the specific location circumstance.

another is aspect that has received attention as i noted earlier, ferc has applied a familiarity with grade operations to perform sophisticated modeling to identify the system vulnerabilities. last month of "the wall street journal" published an article that included some details of such modeling. i stated it then and i continue to believe that publication of such information about the grid undermines its security. i appreciate the chairman and ranking members resent statement highlighted the importance of protecting this kind of information. in light of the release of the internal ferc modeling information, we are working on many fronts to understand what happened and to ensure that it doesn't happen again. as a part of this effort, i ask the department of energy inspector general to advise us on how we could improve our

processes with respect to information security. yesterday the inspector general issued a management alert indicating that some of the ferc modeling work when it was created in early 2013 should have been designated as classified information and a lease at the secret level rather than as critical energy infrastructure information as it was classified. we outlined a number of steps to take into your taking them immediatelhere taking themimmeda top priority that we look forward to the further recommendations in doing our own work we can improve the processes and culture to make sure this doesn't happen again. it's critical that the public has the confidence that the energy information is protected. during my four months as the chairman and committee have been somewhat eventful and we have faced many challenges including the ones we are focused on

today. in this area i've repeatedly emphasized to the wonderful team of folks that work there and externally that we have to have our actions guided by two things one is protecting the reliability of the customers and the second is protecting the integrity of the commissions arf people can have confidence in it. thank you for the opportunity to testify and i look forward to your questions. thank you so much. good morning committee members. my name is jerry and i have three points i would like to offer the committee this morning. the first is that nerc and the industry have been working hard to address the physical and cyber security power grid as well as the recently and it reminded the committee that this is a north american international grade that we do

work with. not long after 9/11, the industry developed the first set of physical security guidelines capturing the best practices across the industry in terms of physical security. nerc approved the cybersecurity standards in august of 2003. as the chairman mentioned, ferc approved the generation of cyber standards that encompass the entirety of the bulk electric system and a dot risk-based security methods that are captured in the standards. we have a very robust audit and compliance program that we go out and monitor companies through the regions. a lot of work has been accomplished in the cybersecurity. and it's also important to note the electric industry along with nuclear is the only asked you as it wa was mentioned that has a mandatory cybersecurity standard. we have another little known

standard that requires companies if there is a physical or cyber incident sabotage even suspected they must report it to nerc and tomball and enforcement. in response we have been working very hard and very quickly. i think the order demonstrates something i've been seeing for some time the commission has the authority is needed to direct them to a standard they feel is in the public interest. there's a standard order and now the physical security order. i think it is a good order. it focuses on the most critical assets. it provides for a risk-based approach and it provides for accountability and verification. the industry is behind the standard development supporting us in gettin and getting it done have taken steps to abbreviate the process so that we can get the standard done in the 90

days. my second point is that nerc has a number of tools beyond the use of standards to address the physical and cyber security and we operate the industry's information sharing and analysis center that allows us to share information and other security information with the industry and also collect information from the industry and to share with our government partners. they operate in a controlled and confidential environment so that the information we are sharing is maintained secure. we also have a system of alerts since january 2010 week issued a 27 words to industry covering a number of physical and cyber issues and immediately following the incident last april on the very next day we provided an alert to the industry outlining the methods and tactics used in the attack and what the industry should do to address the issue.

i believe we have the most robust private public partnership between the industry and government to our electricity sector coordinating council. we have approximately 30 ceos, not information officers that the ceos themselves. the highlight of the fbi and so on and we meet quarterly and we discuss what actions we can take to improve information sharing, incident response and tools. they facilitated last november a great exercise that was a severe level attack and i think it was an opportunity for us to demonstrate our readiness and also identify what areas we need to improve in terms of assuring the security and reliability. my third point, madam chair is a direct response of the hearing.

my answer is we are doing the right things on a prioritized basis and we are making process and continuously improving. the incident was serious but it's also a good example of the resiliency of the grid. but also it's an important turning point in a signal about looking at physical security for from a different perspective not just keeping bad people out of substations but other aspects of security. but in the context of all the things we look at in the cybersecurity there are any other issues. the storm is under a constant attack from natural phenomena. we have issues with operator training, equipment failure so we want to make sure we take the cyber physical aspects in the context of the full spectrum of

the risk that we have to manage. >> i'm the president and ceo of the american power association. we are a national trade association based in dc that represents more than 2,000 for profit community owned electric utilities and 49 states. i appreciate the opportunity to testify. but today i represent investor owned cooperatively owned and publicly owned utilities independent generators as well. for very legitimate reasons we often have different views on the policy issues facing the industry about what we also come together on the security. we all supported to 14 that was passed after 2005 comin 2005, ae changing nature of threats to the grade we've also worked with dhs to develop the electricity subsector council which i will

discuss later. the overall reliability of electric system keeping the lights on for both ourselves and our neighbors is of paramount importance because electricity is produced and consumed instantaneously and follows the path of ensuring reliability and great security as a collective affair that we are engaged together. cyber attacks with potential terrorist acts have driven the public discussion in recent years and about utilities for decades have planned for physical threats. unlike the threats to the physical infrastructure has been around for many years. utilities take threats seriously and we d did play measures to mitigate them, but the size and in some cases the remoteness of the infrastructure requires that we prioritize and concentrate on the ones if damaged o would have the most impact on reliability. simple risk mitigation techniques can help address routine problems. the key to electric utility physical security is the defense

and depth which relies on the resiliency, redundancy and ability to recover what it over. while the systems are built to the stamp tax, successful attacks can happen. we use modeling to the redundancies into the system to support most critical assets. but since we have over 45,000 substations in the u.s. prioritize in prioritizing the s focusing and planning on them. in recent months on the physical infrastructure they've drawn increasing scrutiny. one is in california. shooting at substations unfortunately is not uncommon. but this incident demonstrated a level of sophistication not previously seen in our sector and we've been working to understand and share the lessons learned. the government industries conducted a series of briefings across the country and in canada for utilities and local law enforcement to help utilities learned or about the attack and the potential implications for

them. appa and associations take the incident very seriously. the notion that recent media stories spurred the industry to action are somehow an enhanced for the security or inaccurate. are inaccurate. they were initiated prior to the stories. however in part and in response to the incident on march 7, ferc directed nerc to submit proposed reliability standards on physical security within 90 days. appa and our members along with other stakeholders are actively engaged in the process right now to develop the important standards. turning to cybersecurity, we believe the best way to enhance the security crops the defectors i am improving information sharing between the federal government and the sectors. we therefore support of information sharing legislation that passed the house and we look forward to reviewing the senate version. so far the cyber related to section 215 standards coupled

with additional best practices and management practices have prevented a successful cyber attack. but that doesn't mean it's not going to happen. the industry prides cybersecurity to ensure a quick response. and cybersecurity is going to have to be a process with the threats continue to evolve. finally, i have to go to the partnership coordination and sharing of relevant threat information is critical to the security. at the national level, we play an essential role in coordination information sharing. as representatives from trade associations, public power utilities, ious, and the members coordinate with and periodically meet with officials in the white house, the dhs, federal law enforcement and national security organizations. this dialogue is focused on three areas of the tools and technologies come information sharing and incident response. in conclusion on behalf of the

entire electric industry would like to reaffirm the industry's ongoing commitment to protecting critical electric utility infrastructure from cyber and physical threats. to do this we have to work in partnership with all levels of government from law enforcement to cabinet level executive departments. confidential information sharing and tools and technologies are needed. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. >> thank you ms. kelly. chairman? good morning ranking member murkowski and members of the committee. i'm the president of the national association of regulatory utility commissioners and the chairman of the public service committee commission. thank you for the opportunity to testify about the security of the nation's electricity grid. there are three main thoughts i wish to share with you this morning. first, state utility regulators to share your concern about the resilience of the grade. for us it is job number one.

it includes not only security from such physical and cyber attacks and the ability to bounce back from severe storms and accommodate the impact of markets and regulatory changes. they've already taken several steps towards a more resilient great coming and we welcome the conversation about what more can be done. physical threats are one of the challenges the utilities face each day. a massive storm such as hurricanes and he. we experienced consecutive 100 year i storms along with the electricity infrastructure. last august the assailant allegedly attempted to several physical attacks on the electricity infrastructure in

central arkansas. the suspect was apprehended him after admitting responsibility was indicted on several federal criminal violations. we engage with the respective utilities and met with me and my staff during their investigation. this is a shining example of the federal, state and utility cooperation. economic regulators view these challenges through the lens of resilience. with severe weather seemingly more frequent and concerns growing over cyber and physical security along with the general day-to-day operation of the transmission system providing the service may not be enough anymore so what are we doing to improve resilience? the utilities operate the infrastructure and they should know their systems better than anyone therefore they are ultimately responsible for safety and security that as the

regulators, we acknowledge it's our responsibility as well. the public has for the most part based for the utility system works, but this can be shaken following the prolonged outage or devastating pipeline accident. as citizens we are thankful for federal, state and local law enforcement and intelligence officials who are focused on criminal accountability and national security. as the regulators our duty is to ensure reliable service in the face of all threats, no matter the source. the good news is that despite the vulnerabilities, our systems are indeed recently in command of the entities that own and operate them are skilled at restoration when something goes wrong. although the customers will become this room did become disgruntled, the industry does an excellent job of overall restoring service. and to maintain the physical

infrastructure so the wives are restored as quickly and safely as possible. it's here the will of the states is paramount. we are responsible for setting the rate for the utilities and the regulations that govern them. we determine who pays how much and for what they are paying in it solely our responsibility. it does every improvement to the systems against the risks and benefits of how these investments will impact consumers and the people that we serve. in the end we would like the most reliable system possible and that is everyone's goal. we are doing a terminus amount of outreach through workshops, seminars, training, participation.

we are incorporating the challenges the industry faces. we are also preparing for the omissions reduction rules that will have different impacts throughout the country. while they have taken efforts to reduce the carbon admissions well in advance of any federal environmental regulation some of my colleagues have concerns regarding local reliability issues due to the retirement of the generation in the state. the state commission to seek the investment that deliver the best system improvements and ratepayer volume. whether these investments address physical or cybersecurity, they must prudently made the prevailing expectations of reliability and affordability for the ratepayer. this requires appropriate dialogue and discussion in an open and transparent way. we rely upon the utilities to know where the vulnerabilities may be every suspect the industry to communicate with us

so that we can best determine how to move forward. in conclusion as we have seen across the country the states are pursuing innovative approaches to ensuring the great resilience. while we do not endorse a particular program, we can learn a great deal from those pushing ahead. typically the general public doesn't think about utility of resilience unless it is after a hurricane or another disaster that knocks out power to millions. but we hope that through these types of discussions and improved coordination, we can all become better prepared and in the states they are committed to do it. when we have the votes of 10:30 we are going to keep the hearing moving because for senator murkowski and we will keep the

hearing going. before we start i would like to call the attention of the members to document the staff sf provided particularly to page three to really understand the interconnectivity of the grid. it says here that there are actually three independent regional grants. the western grid, the eastern grid, and then texas. but hawaii is not on here and neither is puerto rico or alaska. so i want the stuff to upgrade this list, upgrade to the document, but the reason that i call it to your attention is as all of us are very supportive really on both sides of the aisle about the importance of state authorities. it's really impossible to keep the grid up without regional and national cooperation command this document shows the

interconnectivity as well as into canada. it is as the federal, regional and state as well as private entities so it is a complex important subject. let me start my first question to you ms. lafleur. what are you doing to respond to the inspector general's management alert yesterday that said in part, and i'm going to submit this to the record, the department subject matter experts have confirmed that at least one electric grid presentation created by the commission staff should have been classified and protected at the time it was created. this document and others at the essence of its content may hold apart to be provided by the federal officials in a

classified setting that was not appropriate. and that is in creating and disputing the documents that led us to the preliminary conclusion that the commission may not possess adequately controlled identifying and handling national security information. there are recommendations in the management of letter that i know you are familiar with. can you comment about what you're doing again to implement these and what additional steps you may be taking at the active chair to make sure that this doesn't happen again. following first of all the instructions of the general's management alert that means we met with him privately to understand the documents that he was speaking out and gathering any paper copies we can find

including the secure information facilities wiping and discarding aldescribingall of the databases and any portable devices across the commission to make sure the documents. it reaches out to the doe on the classification level going forwarforward and he reaches ouo the former employees including the former chairman and into trying to get our arms around any information that may be out there. does ferc have a high-level person that is responsible for trying to help the legal department do this through the classified and unclassified, have you all stood up any additional resources in that sphere in the last few years.

under the delegation from the doe and the general counsel has been very involved and there's also. i've offered a full internal review as a chain of custody to all of the documents that was created into giving that to mr. friedman's people and ultimately what we need to do is develop a crisp and clear internal process so we understand what information we are creating and have a process where the right professionals get a chance to way in on what level of classification it should have. i understand that you testified and i generally agree that the private sector is doing a very fine job under difficult circumstances. there are lots of different

views from a different sizes of companies and a different nature of entities that are involved in providing this critical infrastructure for the country. but when you see that you thought the industry was doing all that it could i understand the incident that there were no cameras facing to the outside perimeter but only to the inside perimeter. can you comment about? plan and what actions has the industry taken since yo since ty faced the cameras in a different direction to see who might be in the area that should not be. >> i think that the common and best practice was prematurely focused on keeping not only bad actors that children in the public safety keeping people out of the substations. and we have a very experienced driven listenings learned driven

industry so i think they were focused on what they thought was the threat and that is the value of medcaf there is an opportunity to improve that. my understanding without disclosing too much is that there has been a change in the perspective of both how the cameras and the lighting and motion detection and other devices that would help protect it further. >> one final question and each of you just take this very quickly. had this very quickly. let me turn it over to the senator murkowski. i generally am very strongly supportive of the public-private partnerships. i find that in many areas and of course we all do to be very effective and unique in some ways in the united states. they don't operate that way in other parts of the world and i think that is generally what our constituents believe is a very effective way to handle some government responsible for these asked to do it with the

public-private. so, nerc and ferc kind of representatives of that which ferthat whichferc been very gooe commission and nerc being the private sector. how would each of you, starting with you, and is lafleur, say how this is working and maybe really quickly give an example of an improvement that you can think of. i think it is working quite we well. we have a somewhat unique hybrid system where the old voluntary system guidelines have superimposed this compliance system. the work we've done together too set up a separate priorities

because the hybrid system we have had the same reliability and what we do to get there. and with that, the communication at the top between the two agencies is what has led in the culture of learning and setting priorities and i think that is the biggest step that we have taken to make the standards better. >> i think the model is working really well and it's almost necessary because it is a complex electric grid interconnected internationally with canada and mexico that we are able to bring the expertise of the industry together and able to work up the standards is anywaout the standardsin a way d adverse consequences and get the buy-in from the industry. yes, we have the oversight into the direction and guidance that exercise that in a number of times. they push back on some standards, and they directed us to do a standard to protect

against solar magnetic disk services, so we are interested in the government oversight with the expertise and the full understanding of how the grid works from the industry. >> ms. kelly? >> i would've generally come to her in what the chairman has said. i would add i think that we are kind of moving on our adolescence into adult hood. there have been some bumps along the road with one of the things i would point to as a result of the ongoing cooperation is the phrase of the statute users, owners and operators of the power system is pretty broad and anyone that turns on a toaster is one of those people. so, when the steam was first enacted and implemented, we have to figure out who the universe was and we made an initial cut, but we now kept going back and nerc is taking a second look and deciding who truly needs to be in and who can be out going back to your discussion about the number of the co-ops in

louisiana. it may be that some of those entities do not impact the bold power system and therefore could be exempted from the scheme without adverse impact to the system. and so, i think we are taking a closer look at that and i think i welcome that because wrigley, that frees up the resources to concentrate on the entities and in the facilities that truly do impact. so i think that is a perfect example of how as we are moving forward, we are finding the regime and improving its. >> so a kind of risk-based analysis. >> correct. >> chairman and honorable? >> thank you madam chair. i concur with the comment of the chairman and of ms. kelly. we supported this legislation that created the ferc and nerc partnership and certainly in the real world sense. when they are implemented, they come to their respective state commissions for cost recovery to

integrate and implement the standards come and certainly even in arkansas we have approved fiber standard investment even in the last year. so we expect the utilities to heed these standards committee also plan to be responsive when those requests, norway. -- come our way. >> thank you, chairman and lafleur for the responses to the chairman of questions in terms of those steps that you are taking at ferc to implement or act on the ig recommendations. i think that is going to be critically important moving forward. to strengthen the culture within that supports the work of the professionals. i hear you say the notice to the employees has gone out reminding

them of certain aspects certainly at the confidentiality, but that's maybe an area that you need to look more vertically high and i'm not going to suggest how you might be doing your job, but that is going to be an important aspect. i want in this vein i want to just make it clear that you understand what you will be receiving from me as the chairman you are effectively the chief executive to who the agency staff reports, and i'm going to be asking the agency some more extensive questions about the handling of documents in supporting materials such as those that are referred to in the ig management alert. i'm also going to have some written questions outside of the hearing about the inception of the study itself and its uses. but, i have directed my staff to provide cementer robert race for the agency.

i am not going to be seeking sensitive information about the findings of the study or the merits of the so-called modeling upon which it is based, that i will have questions about the manner in which the study was conceived and documents into the information concerning it were handled, how they were intended to be used and were in fact used. i have asked my staff to contact your general counsel today to begin discussing how i can get answers to these questions without drawing further attention to this substance of what we ge tried to be sensitive information itself. i will be turning over the answers that i receive for his complete report, but what i'm asking of you today is to have your cooperation and the full cooperation of the agencies, its leaders and the senior executive service and other very dedicated federal and he is who support them in getting full and

complete and of course prompt responses to my questions. >> you will absolutely have our cooperation come and hopefully a lot of them might be the same questions we are asking ourselves. i agree with you about your comments on culture. first of all, i think in many ways, ferc has a very strong culture. i've never known of a merger to lead with a confirmation that they deal with from day to day which is not to say that we absolutely need to learn the lessons of what happened here. but i think that we deal with confidential information about it all the time. i've given this a lot of time and i think the cultur the culto the top and when i ran an operating company, the ceo and everyone had to take a lot of safety tours because i put in place the rule that anyone even a brand-new trainee could stop a job if they saw any a legible safety incidents of any magnitude because that is how you convey that safety is

important and i think you're the culture of respect for the confidentiality and it has to start at the top as well. and we need to make sure that before the information is created and as a process goes along to make sure that we are doing it with care and with an attention to asking the right officials to weigh in on the classification or how it is treated or feingold or anything else. and i will take accountability for that because i think it has to start at the top and go all the way through the organization. >> i appreciate that. chairman honorable -- i don't know why those of us seem to be having difficulty with your name and title here this morning. you spoke about the reliance of -- be reasonably and c. of the grid -- resiliency of the grid. there are risks that present themselves when it comes to the reliance.

you managed to come engine outages caused by hurricanes or major storms. i think people can kind of relate to that. but, as we are seeing more affect on energy assets retiring, there is a kind of quiet consensus that the risk of a localized reliability event or affect is growing. and i guess the question to you is how acceptable is a risk is this is the impact to the reliability is caused by federal policy, and when i say federal policy, the push within this administration to move out the fact that we are seeing so many of these facilities going off-line during the polar for tax this winter, we saw i think that it was 89% of the coal electricity capacity that is due

to go off-line was utilized as data backup to meet the demand. so i think the folks are prepared to accept a level of risk. you have an outage when you have a bad storm coming u, but to wht do they accept the risk? if that is brought about by federal policy? >> thank you for the question, senator murkowski. this is a great example of so many challenges that economic regulators face across the country and ensuring reliabili reliability. so the question is how accessible is it. for the economic regulator it is not. and for that reason, we have been very engaged with the eta, with the personality and even the administrator mccarthy about this very important topic of reliability. we are charged with ensuring

reliability. it's our main core focus in addition to ensuring safety and affordable utility service. the utilities on the front line must ensure reliability. when there is a disruption to the grid or the outage for any reason, the utility is on the front line to make sure that the lights come back on and at the generation is moving no matter the source. we certainly don't pick winners. we embrace and all of the above energy approach and senator i know you do, too. i've heard you say that the very thing. we believe that cole is a low-cost option and that it should be a part of our energy mix. we therefore are working with the epa to ensure that they hear us and our ready regarding the rulemaking process to urge them to ensure that they have

flexibility that the federal government respects the role of the state and that the epa also honors this notion of diversity. we embrace that as economic regulators. the fuel tax in one state is very different from another. states such as kentucky or west virginia or indiana very heavily rely upon cold. and so any rulemaking that impact the state's generation next will clearly be of importance to those states also to all of us as economic regulators. so, i appreciate the question. i want all of the members of the committee to know that we are working every day literally on this issue, and we are a constant voice in helping all of the stakeholders around this issue to continue to remember the importance of the reliability. reliability. it's job number one for us. >> thank you very much. senator franken, thank you for

your leadership and interest on the subject area. >> thank you all for your testimony. i agree, chairman an, chairman , the public's ability -- >> excuse me a minute. i'm going to go vote and leave senator cantwell in charge of the committee. please continue. >> okay. i agree that we need a state flexibility in addressing those kind of issues especially on the new rules that the epa would make on the existing plant. we are talking about the greatest security. a serious issue and an attack on the power substation in california is one that is going to happen anywhere in any number of substations across the country. and as the chairman of the energy subcommittee, i want to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to secure the electric grid. that's why i sent a letter over with the senators and to the regulators advocating for stronger security measures and

i'm pleased that an order has been issued to strengthen the greatest security. thank you for that. as we take steps to secure the grade, i think it's important that we gauge in the law-enforcement community both of the federal level and at the state and local level. they are a critical partner in the effort to secure the grid. chairman lafleur, mr. coffee, can you explain what you are doing to ensure the law-enforcement agencies anthate officials are fully integrated into the efforts to secure the power grid? >> thank you for that question, senator. i will mention two things. the order that ferc issued on march 7 on requiring physical security standards, one of the things it requires is that after the critical facilities must is done, each asset owner identifies specific threats and voter abilities of each facility and it contemplates that they will involve government agencies such as law enforcement assessing the threat and the

vulnerability of a particular facility because who knows better than the police location, geography and so forth. in addition, ferc and other agencies, the dhs and fbi have done 1 13 city tours around the u.s. and canada to explain the lessons of metcalf and local law enforcement is one of the main attendees as i understand that these meetings because obviously as you said it could happen in any community. >> i also personally believe the most important and the most effective security measure we could take is the relationship between the 20 company and the law-enforcement. we recognize that years ago which is why i mention we hav me a standard already we have had for many years that if there is any issue of incident related to the physical or cybersecurity that they must get reported to the local law enforcement. we require companies to have an

established contact with local law enforcement because i think having the presence of and response capability is important. we also participate in the outreach. i went to one of them isaf. one was law enforcement and first responders and power companies. i think that going forward we need to emphasize that further and envisioned facilitating one on one with utility companies and the law-enforcement responders to not only make sure in general that they understand the critical infrastructure, but specific stations which are most important what kind of response would be expected. >> in that way metcalf was a wake-up call. we would all agree on that. the reliability of the electric grid is essential. we are seeing more extreme weather and those can have serious effects on the grid. but distributed generation makes it more resilient by allowing the critical facilities, military bases, hospitals and others to stay on line during an

outage. that's why i worked with senator murkowski to the amendment on the shaheen portmanteau work on providing heat and power district and other distributed generation technologies. i know that senator murkowski has a lot of constituents in her state and in areas that are far away from the centralized grid and she understands the importance of the issue. ms. lafleur, what is ferc doing for heat and power in the district energdistrictenergy syy systems that operate in the island mode? >> our responsibility is to merrily for the interconnected interstate grade. we work in partnership with state regulators who have more responsibility at the

distribution level in the state. what we have generally done to support the growth of the distributed generation is to make sure the market rules and the two thirds of the citizens that are served by the competitive market that these distributed facilities can compete fairly and get paid for their advocacy. we have put out a rule in 2013 on the small solar installations and we have done rules on the fly wheels and some of the storage applications in the demand response which often relies on backup generation and hospitals and so forth and others. and we are trying to make sure there is fair compensation for them in the wholesale market that help those grades. >> i just believe that the resiliency of the grid -- we saw this in the super storm sandy and places where there were operating in the island mode that it was a good thing.

it was a good thing for the data storage and those kind of emergency. >> i can never resist a plug for my alma mater that kept the grid up and supporting law enforcement i think across much of new jersey. >> absolutely. that is what i'm talking about. thank you. >> senator rich. thank you madam chairman, madam acting chairman. first of all, i want to thank chairman landrieu are holding this hearing. the security and electric grid is important to most americans come and as with many things, most americans don't realize how important it is to them. when an incident happens, and everybody starts wringing their hands saying why didn't we do this or that. i want to focus on something that is available to electric utilities and the government agencies that a lot of people don't know about. in my state we have a facility

called the idaho national guard story that is a flagship for nuclear energy and has been since the 1940s. it is the leading laboratory in america for nuclear energy but most people don't realize that's where the first reactor was built. what most people don't realize is they have a lot of other missions and one of them is exactly what we are talking about and that is grade security. since this is a relatively come and i use the word relatively come a new area of focus on the electric utilities have been focused on this for many years, it has become so sophisticated that it takes much more than what would be an ordinary effort. at the laboratory today there are a number of facilities everyone should be aware of. number one, we have a full scale come i want to repeat that, a full scale grid that invalidates

modeling research which is not on the grid and that is being done. we have a test that is a joint program with the sandia national laby nd it supports the industry and government efforts to enhance the cybersecurity of the control systems that are being used throughout the electric industry, not only the electric industry but also the legal and gas industries. third, they have a wireless test ban and indeed we just started an improvement on the wider list test ban and we are going to continue to do that. and as we all know, there are more and more every day components that are being connected to the grid but a wireless comes of this test ban is extremely important as we move forward on the security. last commanded this is important in light of the incident that has been talked about here. they are in the early stages of

this, but they are working on a project to develop security protections, physical protections and others so that's going to be an important also. we are proud of the work that's done at the idaho national laboratory. like i said, they are renowned when it comes to nuclear energy, but there are these new areas that they are developing integrated security is certainly one of the things they will be focusing on. the reason i wanted to say what i said about this as i want to make sure everyone in the industry and in the government agency knows these facilities are available because they have a tendency to fly under the radar so i want to state that for the record and thank you for making the time available.

>> i definitely belief that technology is one of our friends here and this solution. when you look at the spectrum of things we tried to do, whether it's encouraging cooperation on the voluntary standards or requirements, i think obviously things like related equipment from a storag the storage capaco that you can move around problems but we need to do to develop more of the technologies that give the capacity to deal with these outages. is that cooperation? >> i would first respond by echoing the comments.

i've been to the pacific northwest lab and they are very rich resources for the industry. the information sharing and also the senator was plugged into them. we know that we also use the resources for training purposes and behind the scenes. it's becoming more and more. in the west the sink rotators have been deployed wisely didn't go widely and at this point i don't know that there's any particular incentive that i butd point out that we are working to encourage industries to get a situational awareness out of that visibility through the grid technologies.

>> as i mentioned it's one of the things the fcc is working on. i would also note there is a transfer program that the research institute is working on with the department to try to develop a more portable transformer that can be brought more quickly so we look forward to these kind of technological advances to assist us in the win with these issues and more money would always be welcome. >> most consists of carrots and sticks to its reliability standarit's reliabilitystandardt units and so forth because they make the grid more reliable. in 2005 the congress gave us the section 219 of the federal act

that allows for incentives advancing them to encourage people building the transmission to put the latest technology because they can get a little higher return on the equity. we adopted a rule allowing them to require the units for certain types of wines and so the regulation helps support those investments. you're talking about new to climate and we are talking about the issue and apparently it is the 9/11 service in washington state. why not look at ways to further incident the deployment and the resiliency of the grid.

some of the technology in washington state we benefited from cheap hydropower for a long time so it's more than 8,000 for us, so my question is isn't there a faster way? but unfortunately i have to go and vote. thank you. >> i would like to hear the answer to that so please continue. >> who would like to answer the senator's question? >> i'm going to take that as a challenge. most of it is governed by the formula rate so they can recov recover. the question is whether we need to do something to better incentivize those. one of the things the senator mentioned we will look at other rules and give them an answer for the record.

>> thank you. let me follow up on that question. i didn't catch all of this but i'm putting two and two together about what it might be about. it's an issue that has come up several times with the industry about the federal and state requirements for the distributed generation or how that can both positively and sometimes negatively affect the price of electricity. divide the back power at a certain price. could some of you comment about the current status of some of that, west particularly come and also perhaps maybe, you know, the chairman and honorable that you should start but i would like you to comment as the members come back we will finish the line of questioning and moved to the second panel and hopefully about ten minutes.

>> thank you for the question. there is a wide array of stakeholder interest in this issue. we are working together. we are educating ourselves and learning about the importance of being innovative and allowing the customer choice, but at the same time it is important to particularly from the economic regulator perspective to balance the interest to avoid cost shifting, to ensure that reliability is maintained in the first instance. certainly it is an important innovation quite frankly that is happening all across the world. but also from an economic regulator perspective, it is something that we continue to be challenged with making sure that all interests are balanced that does have to be able to receive back the industry at any