comcommittee brain foundations n all of this is important for us to do. so we need obviously the funding to do that to move forward. can we move from awareness action guess we can. they are serious injuries that threaten the youth that we do not need to be scared away from that. we do not need to avoid the developmentally appropriate participation in sports activities to read what we need to do is focus on how to teach the recognition response. and our country needs a good universal mechanism to implement the community focused solutions. and we leave that that can help children ultimately as they enjoy the benefits of sports. our motto applies here. this is play hard, play safe, but play smart. >> very good. you are now recognized for your five minutes. >> thank you. i want to thank the chairman for

the ranking member schakowsky and members of the subcommittee. i'm honored to be here today. my focus is going to be on the radiological evidence of both concussions and sub concussions. and if i could add the next slide. what is known as my older traffic brain injury is common in the sports injury and when we are talking about a single my old tv ey i got 80% get better between 15 to 30% go on to have persistent systems as they have been described today. what is most concerning is what has been called chronic narrow degenerative disorders. and that is the second one where it is repetitive by a traumatic brain injury that we are concerned with and the evidence comes from postmortem studies if i could have the next slide. here is a slide that shows

protein in the brain and those are the areas that show up and this is in the case of a retired professional football player that had symptoms and was presumed to have chronic chromatic at the next. here are four individuals. what is interesting here and this has worked by goldstein it shows that it looks the same as the postmortem so we have a military person at 45 with one close range injury and a 34-year-old with two blast injuries and a football player at the age of 18 with repetitive concussions and then a 21-year-old with concussions in the blows to the head. so what is known? we've gone over the first two. the third is that it's difficult to diagnose and that has been a serious problem because if you use conventional mri you are not

likely to find differences for the abnormalities and so many people have said there is no problem. the problem is the correct advanced toolthat correctadvancn used until more recently. now with the advanced imagery we are able to both diagnose and move towards the prognosis and hopefully intervention. the advanced imaging techniques such as diffusion imaging which we have been using in our laboratory showed the radiological evidence of brain authorizations and living individuals with mild so if we can detect this early and perhaps look at the underlining mechanisms the character provides plots going on in order to come up with preventive measures. next slide. this is a study from our group looking at the hockey players. at the bottom line is over on the right. the first is that the preseason and the second is postseason.

they are three individuals that had a concussion during play from preseason to postseason. it's not a good sign. next slide please. we also looked at the gray matter and that is the cortex where they are in the brain and this is a study in the former professional football players who work romantic when we looked at them and it was compared to the age matched controls. what is most concerning however is the blue line that shows the critical thinning accelerates with age whereas the red line is almost completely flat and this suggests that it may indicate abnormal aging and risk for dementia. this is a study that we did in

germany with the soccer players and we selected event specifically for not having any symptoms whatsoever and what we found was compared to the professional swimmers, there was a difference between the two groups of controls on th with ct and soccer players on the right almost a separation between the two groups with an increase in what is called a measure of damage to the brain. next slide. why do concussions result in some and not in others? another question we don't know is why do some develop the degenerative diseases while others do not and whether the predisposing factors? is its exposure and/or genetics involved because not every football and soccer player or hockey player that gets hit to the head ends up with these

narrow degenerative diseases which is what people are most concerned with. next slide. but we need is diagnosis to detect early. we have tools now that are sensitive and widely available and can be applied. the prognosis to follow the recovery and the degenerative process we need to follow the recovery to predict who will have a poor outcome and who will have a good outcome. knowing that we might be able to receive the treatment to halt the cascade of changes. finally just in the summary on the next slide a sports concussion leads to alterations of the brain and advanced brain alterations following the concussion and a sub concussions grange, and the impact over time is an important. we need longitudinal studies to identify different stages of

recovery and being able to pick out ahead of time what is going to lead to a poor outcome so that we can intercede and some measures of safety such as the rules for returning to play follow th the observed evidencef brain. >> very impressive testimony from everyone and i was even impressed that you all stuck to the five minutes. i'm going to go back because i think your testimony kind of juxtapose each other very nicely. following the baseline of the athletes that answer the university of nebraska is this allowing you to detect the injury earlier that there may have been some pre-existing concussion how are you power yon

fact and what is it telling you and what is the university doing to implement a level of protections? >> one of the major changes we've seen and i think this is across the field amount to get the pre- concussion data so more of them are moving to the student-athletes prior to the start of the season and that certainly is what we are doing and then showed a player of the injured and identified through the trainers are the medical team, one of the weaknesses here is that they do not always self identify. so we have run across that a number of times you we wil do wl pick up something on the text. the trainers in the medical teal team didn't know because they didn't disclose. then we also tried to test

somebody else that placed a similar position and that has not been injured and they act as a sort of control over the course of the season and generally what we are finding is that both effects that occur in the normal players that have no more history of concussions being identified by the brain processing does change for the four to five months of training in the season that began with the players we see in terms of the electrical activity of the slowdown of about 200 milliseconds that is four times faster than the slowdown in multiple sclerosis for a contrast. so clearly the brain has changed the way that it is processing. we are moving to start intervention programs for those that identify and there is some data with alzheimer's that suggest working memory tasks.

maybe even a week of intervention shows a four to five week gain in the end proof meant so we are trying to see how we can see some of that occurring. in regards to concussions many times it isn't a correct blow but the head is going back and forth and the brain is sloshing around. you mentioned going back to the 1970s type of equipment and osborne likes to talk about the next will. describe what you mean by the 1970s equipment and how it may reduce concussions. >> what i call the horse collar is a piece of equipment that is disappeared from the game and it does an important thing to read essentially it immobilizes the head so if concussions are a

kurd by the rattling of the brain back and forth, especially from a blow to the side, the horse collar will dampen that down. there are no epidemiological studies of data being effective, but i just can't -- my personal opinion is is that if you immobilize the head of that is going to solve a lot of the problems especially with these rotational hits. doctor graham, does that make sense? whether or not the horse collar would have that effect, i don't know. our committee was based purely on the science and reviewing the literature but i think the principle is that you want to find ways to minimize the rotational forces that come into

effect with a blow to the head and whether you can do that by equipment order by change and play, that's what you have to do to decrease the evidence of the incidents. >> thank you. i only have 11 seconds left so i will recognize the ranking member. in addition to the science hostel much talk has been about culture. and it seems to me that is very important. so a change in the culture means not only managing head injuries when they occur but also encouraging a safe play to reduce the risk of injuries. you spoke about the need to change the win at all costs added to the players and

coaches. what would you tell the teams to help them change that attitude both within themselves and teammates and perhaps more collar tv co. challenging in the coaches. >> i would encourage the coaches to stress this as much as possible as well as the parents because the coaches and appearance are there to help us learn to play the sports correctly and if they can emphasize not having to worry about winning to the point that it hurts then the players become coaches and then it's a never ending cycle of teaching and making sure that they know that winning is not the most important thing. it feels great to win but i would much rather lose than have another concussion. >> clearly yo you were aware because of the severe consequences of the brain injury. but do you think that the youth

athletes understand what the symptoms are? >> i think it is getting better and especially at my school. we emphasize making sure that the symptoms of concussions i feel like it is spreading as well. the education programs are also being directed towards the athletes and quite honestly, about five years or six years ago there was a study that showed that was the number one reason athletes were not coming out because they didn't know how to tie together. it wasn't simply that they didn't want to lose playing time that they didn't know what they were dealing with themselves. what wbut we also believe that athletes and teammates need to watch out for each other because it may not have the wherewithal to know that they are not right and yet they ar their teammatest next to them often times does so

there is a responsibility within the team to take care of each other and that is an important focus. >> please explain how the mayor of surgery works and describe the type of changes in the brain your lab is able to protect on the imaging and also some of the types of imaging used by your lab that have been a significant part of the research diseases like alzheimer's. why are the same imaging techniques appropriate for the research on this disease and research? >> i have faced lie that is at the end of my slider that just explains the imaging which i think would help out. >> the one i didn't understand as it was consumers with -- >> i was going to go through and just show you why it's important

because it is generally a stretching of the cables in the brain which is the white matter and for example it's the largest white matter tracts in the brain and so you get the sharing and this doesn't show up on the traditional. the first conference i went to nobody showed a brain and i looked to my colleague and i said why would no one show a brain and he said everyone knows you can't see anything on the brain and i said about nobody's using the right tools. this is a simple principle of diffusion imagery. if you look at the left this is >> that goes on a kleenex and that is called isotropic diffusion. on the right access and isotropic.

a newspaper has five or so it restricts the water and this is the same principle that is used to get the brain so that it's very round and it's isotropic. everything goes in the same direction. if you're looking at white matter your restricted in two different directions and so you can measure what the integrity is of the white matter fiber bundles and that is what you need to look at in the mild tbi. they will be put into the neurosurgery. it's very subtle brain injuries that are not recognized using conventional imaging where you can recognize it if you use something like diffusion imagery. we have shown over and over again and it's not just our group people started using it

because it is the most sensitive tool that exists today. what needs to be done is to look at the injury and see what outcome like 72 hours of three months and six months. can we then predict knowing what happens at 72 hours if we have someone that is trying to separate water that's outside of the brain versus inside cells. if you can predict from 72 hours then you can go back and say okay maybe we want to put in anti-inflammatory medications and this is a response. we don't know enough right now the only way to know is to do these studies and follow over time using very sophisticated imaging technology.

>> this could be very promising but only for our athletes but the returning veterans and apply it in chile to schizophrenia or alzheimer's. >> i'm rarely schizophrenia research. that's what i'd don i done for s before i became a tv i research or in 2008 but we have a measure based on this kind of imaging that shows early on that the very first episode of schizophrenia you see fluid around all of the brain that is free water. it's like the isotropic but in just the frontal lobe you see is more restricted to inside tissue and this is a brand-new technique that was developed by a fulbright scholar in our lab and israel.

>> the gentleman from new jersey is recognized. you stated many sports related concussions still go undiagnosed and i would like to know why in your opinion that is the case and how can we improve that in the state law and also be involved with coaches and players in the areas w and areao have improvement. i think i would echo what others have said on the panel i think that a lot of it has to do with recognition. people are good at recognizing when someone gets knocked out on the field that is a small percentage of all concussions and i think that as our understanding of the symptoms that can go with concussions have arisen. it becomes incumbent upon us to

improve the quality of education that we give to the coaches and the players and trainers and officials of the symptoms of concussion. that is the main reason. my sense is that in general the culture speaking for the state of nevada all of the coaches i've come into contact are believers. they are not hiding kids and putting them back in but i think that sometimes it's hard to recognize when a young athletes don't tell you how they are feeling and other issues which i guess rob about the importance of teammates being involved in diagnosing them so they can be told and appropriately evaluated. >> how close are we to better design proponents? >> i think that we are at the very beginning. i think we have been using a standard that hasn't changed for 40 years that was designed for skull fractures that served its purpose and i think that many

investigators are working to improve the quality of the standards to include the acceleration as well as other important aspects of impact and just like the automotive industry did years ago once you start drinking the cars with safety ratings the market can be relied upon for the manufacturers to improve their designs to improve their sales that is the stage we are at and the standards are an important part of the eight patients. >> and your testimony you have discussed the fact that there is a numerical system for the impact. i think that it is designed at virginia tech and you called it the best tool we have for analyzing the systems. can you briefly explain how the numerical scoring system works? >> basically it involves the test where you drop the helmet

from a given height to decide what to the front come into the back. it tries to simulate the kind of impacts that a football player would actually experience and numerical scores are given to the maximum acceleration held the head feels for the given drops based on in my opinion a fairly crude initial model of what causes concussions. there is no effect taking into account rotation or temperature and in my opinion, the reproducibility is not as good as one would like having tried to do examples of these kind of tests in groups i've been involved with. so i think it's a good first start. it's the best we have right now. i think it needs to be paid attention to that there is a lot

of room for improvement. >> how old are you and what grade are you in? >> i'm 18 and i'm a senior. >> does that mean you will be going off to college in the autumn and do you know where you will be attending? that i'm going to the university of north carolina. university in north carolina. >> congratulations to you and condolences to your parents on the cost of higher education in this country. it's a great school. i have a goddaughter that as a freshman she is a little older than you but i would be happy to introduce you to her. [laughter] let me say i'm very proud of your testimony and i couldn't have done what you just did when i was 17 or 18 and i think the nation has benefited by your outstanding testimony. >> of the gentlemathe gentlemanm mississippi were recognized for

five minutes. >> thank you for being here and sharing your expertise on what is a topic we are only learning about as it has been in the news for several years but it's coming to the forefront and your work and information and testimony today will be beneficial to us as the parent of a 24-year-old man i appreciate the work that you do at the children's hospital. but in preparation for this i had a discussion with some parents back home and the interesting discussion as i had several friends who have daughters playing youth soccer and a number of them reported an increase in the number of

concussions suffered by young ladies playing soccer. we have seen the news to always associate with helmet to helmet contact and concussions and things we see on the field but it appears in everything we do in life come every sporting event there is that danger and that risk and that's why i think what you're doing with the think first alabama doctor johnson for the preventive part is how we educate the players and the coaches and parents can and perhaps using the teammates approach the safest thing may be to have the backup player the one to report. that might get them off the field but thank you each for your work. educate us a little bit on what is the impact? what does that mean and how

important is that when addressing the diagnosis and should the impact affected the rules and if so, how? >> i think that the definition would be all of those other 99.9% but having that don't result in the concussion meaning the diagnosed concussion and as it has been pointed out previously, the road on concussion is the diagnosis part and if you look at the historical studies about the rate of concussions in different sports it is very able and a lot of that has to do with who is diagnosing it and male versus female and men are more or less likely to report symptoms but i think if it is a sub concussion impact is only other impacts that we have found more and more information with the information that's been done in boston and other places that even these sub concussive impacts have resulted in terms of anatomic structural changes in the brain over time.

so the sub concussive impacts needs to be addressed in terms of listening the overall cumulative impact load that every player has great football is the most obvious in terms of the practices and how many practices a week children should be able to do hitting and whatnot but that has applications for all sports. >> if i could ask you a question for clarification first. if i could ask the 77% of the military is that how many cases suffered concussions or is that 77% of all military? >> that's proved she beat coterminous brain injury they are concussions. >> can you tell us more about the sideline imaging work that you're doing? is this practical or something we can expect to see old out in

the lines across america to diagnose athletes and perhaps on the battlefields to diagnose the lawyers? >> i think it is possible we have already published a paper this last year in 2013 where we took one of our systems and recorded on the sideline of the field. the biggest challenge for us making it practical is to get the processing time down at this point that takes us an hour and if we can get it down to five minutes and then i think we can sell it to the coaches because there are other ones that are going to determine. and i guess at this point given all of the other issues, the common tests that we use right now like the impact which from the assessment tools there are questions to the player and they have to reflect and maybe a little foggy because of the concussion, but these tests don't have any predictability or reliability after two days of supposed injury.

it doesn't predict recovery time or the disparity of the injury and so on, so these biomarkers that we are talking about are the critical things we are hoping are going to be more reliable and predictive. .. >> i really want to thank you for telling us what's going on. and i also did want to thank ian

hereton for -- heaton for coming here today. i think it's important to have people like brianna and ian to tell their stories and give us a face to the importance of this. i want to thank the ftc, too, for making sure that false claims aren't made. but this is so important, so appreciated, and then we'll have to figure out where it leaves us, but it certainly has of informed us. thank you. >> i would agree with every word of that. so this is a question to you, dr. molfese and dr. shenton, and it dovetails into what the gentleman from mississippi was talking about as well. but are the symptoms of a concussion or tbi uniform enough so that it's possible for early detection or developing a

checklist for a coach or a parent to be used, you know, by nonmedical? we'll start with you, doctor. >> no. >> well, that was easy. [laughter] >> the symptoms overlap with depression and ptsd, and that's been a real problem. in fact, there was a paper published in the new england journal of medicine that said when you remove the effects of depression and you remove the effects of ptsd, mild tbi doesn't exist. and that's a real disservice. and it used to be that people would claim that when people came in complaining that they still had symptoms from hitting their head since there was no evidence from conventional mri or conventional ct they said go see a psychiatrist. so it was really not appropriate at all because there's at least a small minority of people who have mild concussion who go on to have symptoms, and they can go on for months, for years, and then they can clear up.

so that's separate even from cte. what you need is radiological evidence for diagnosis the same way you would want to know values of a blood test for cholesterol or a broken leg. and i think we're moving in that direction, and that's what we need as the hard evidence, because the symptoms are too nonspecific. >> all right. dr. molfese? >> there are actually studies published looking at the number of symptoms, and a wide variety of a number of symptoms people will report, there's no data that indicates whether some of these reports lots of symptoms versus a few symptoms, that that has any relation to how long before they're going to coffer, how great -- to recover, how great the injury is. >> so can we get to the point where a seventh grade coach, a seventh grader takes a big hit, that there's a checklist per se to determine if that kid should go back into the game?

>> i think, in general, there are certainly guidelines that list concussion symptoms. and so i think the general bias at this point is if the individual reports any of these symptoms, that they should be pulled. because we do know that there is data to indicate if you do have a concussion and you start playing again before the symptoms resolve, the likelihood of even death is much greater, not to mention further significant concussion that's going to take longer to recover. >> all right. so this one's for dr. johnston and dr. gioia. one of the things that's occurring in nebraska right now is you have a child or a high school student that suffers a concussion during a game. so it's been diagnosed. what do you do next? right now the thought is you keep 'em home, or her home, dark, no lek tropics -- electronics. that's kind of the norm. a discussion whether that's

appropriate or not or to what length. what do you know? what would you recommend? >> well, i will tell you about how we handle things in alabama, and i think a lot of what we do is based on the cdc guidelines which is that once an athlete is diagnosed, they are removed from the field of play, and then they are evaluated. we used the sports con suggestion assessment tool which is a sideline-based assessment, we also use it afterwards as well. it has a quick inventory of neurocognitive function. and then when children have symptoms that persist, you know, obviously they don't return to any sort of play or even an escalation of activity until their symptoms have completely resolved, and then those children of who have persistent symptoms lasting beyond the one to two weeks are referred to psychologists like dr. gioia and our traumatic injury program -- >> what would you recommend,

mr. gioia? >> yeah. this is a big question at this point. what's the best treatment for this injury. and let me just say, the field is moving on this one. the recommendations that we make -- and i've written several recent papers on this -- is that in that acute stage of symptoms, probably the first few days, maybe for some a little bit longer if there's more severe number of symptoms, is that they really reduce their activity, cognitive and physical. but what you want to be doing, though, is start to increase that activity over time to. so we don't black box kids until they're asymptomatic. that has a lot of likely negative effects on kids, obviously to, being removed. so what we do is we initially shut them down, restrict them, then we gradually start to bring them back into school and into physical activity. but that has to be individualized based, again, on the severity of that symptom presentation. and that's where we are right now. we need a whole lot of research to really help validate that. >> thank you.

and, mr. lance? gentleman from missouri gets to ask another question. mississippi. [laughter] yeah, i thought you were billy long. [laughter] >> that hurt. [laughter] that hurt. all right. thank you, mr. chairman. and a couple of questions that i would have. one would be if we're looking at this, dr. gay, if i may ask a question -- >> yes, sir. >> in your testimony you state that football players at the elite levels are shedding equipment to increase speed and mobility. >> yes. >> a decision on which helmet to wear is their own, and that player often chooses a helmet's looks, shape, feel perhaps over its collision cushioning ability or safety features. do some positions require different levels of collision cushioning? and if so, would you recommend a special helmet for specific positions that would meet all

current safety standards? >> yeah. that's a great question. currently, there are no position-specific helmets being made. i think the helmet manufacturers try to do the best they can for everybody. i would say that not to belabor the point, but i think for linemen where you typically get no severe hits but a lot of subcon usive blows, that -- subconcussive blows, that horse collar is crucial. i wouldn't recommend that a wide outwear a horse collar. that was really affect the quality of the play. it's an interesting point because, certainly, some players might tend -- and this is why i'm an advocate for the hits system. it'll give us much more detailed information about which positions get hit where. one could envision if we have a large database, then improving helmet design to react to the

information we got from that kind of information. >> okay. dr. graham, if i could ask you, how much money has been spent on sports concussion research, and where is most of the funding coming for, for that research? >> unfortunately, it's not an issue that our committee looked at, nor would we have had the resources to, you know, to pull it out. you know, clearly you can identify some research that's being done in the federal sector that applies to this. but the private research that may be done by the sports leagues, by the manufacturers of equipment themselves, i don't know any good way to quantify that for you. >> got you. well, look, i appreciate everybody being here, and it's a very important issue. we love our children going through sports, we love to watch it, and we don't want anybody being hurt that shouldn't be hurt. and so, hopefully, this

increased focus will lead to better research, better safety equipment, detection and, of course, prevention. so thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you. the gentleman from mississippi. and i just want to thank -- this was truly an all-star panel of medical experts and physics, and much appreciate it, ian. thank you. so that does conclude our hearing for today. now for our witnesses we, whether we showed up or not, have the right to send you a question, and it's called -- a written question. we have about 14 days to write those and submit them to you, and i'd appreciate a couple of weeks not over -- you don't have to do it right away, but at least if you can get them back to us if there are any within about 14 days. and i just want to begun thank

you for coming out here -- again thank you for coming out here and providing some very, very valuable testimony for us. and we are adjourned. >> we're bringing you highlights from booktv in prime time all this week. tonight the topic is human intelligence. at 8 eastern, elizabeth colbert on her book, "the sixth extinction." then james barrett, author of "our final invention." and michio kaku discusses the future of the mind, the scientific quest to understand, enhance and empower the mind. booktv all this week in prime time here on c-span2.

over on our companion network, c-span, each day this week we're presenting five of the supreme court's notable oral arguments so far this session. on april 2nd the court struck down limits on the total amount of money an individual can contribute in federal elections, ruling that such of limits violate the first amendment. today at 7 eastern on c-span, hear the arguments in the case of mccutcheon v. fec. after that journalist casey sherman and dave wedge mark the one-year anniversary of the boston marathon bombings with personal stories from those in boston that day. they're the authors of an upcoming book called "boston strong." watch the event tonight at 8 eastern on c-span. meanwhile, members of congress are back in their home districts for a two week holiday recess, and a number of them have been tweeting out their thoughts on today's bombing anniversary. massachusetts congressman stephen lynch says:

>> there's an old saying that victs a-up fathers and defeat is an orphan, and i wouldn't be surprised if information is poured into you in regard to all the recent activities. we're just talking about the fact that an interrogation last week senator goldwater asked some questions about the use of the carrier aircraft, the care craft from the carrier essex with their markings painted out. well, we figure that somebody

over there's told them about, you know, that thing on wednesday morning -- >> yeah. >> and, therefore, dirksen's going to spring it or goldwater, and they're going to spring it in such a way that it looks like there was u.s. air color and you were wrong and i was wrong in saying will wasn't. >> historic audio from the aftermath of the u.s. attempt to overthrow cuban premier fidel castro saturday at 6 p.m. eastern on c-span radio in washington, d.c. at 90.1 fm and nationwide on xm satellite radio channel 120. >> the head of the federal energy regulatory commission testified last week on the security of the nation's electric grid. the senate energy and natural resources committee examined the reliability and security of the friday from sign -- of the grid from cyber and physical attacks. members also touched on how new epa greenhouse gas regulations will impact the availability and price of electricity to consumers. this is two and a half 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 of the senate as recently indicated by letters sent 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 electricity so common place 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 electricification 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 finance on lek -- 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, refrigerators that keep fresh fruit, traffic lights that make your commute to work safer or the phone that you use to stay in contact with friends and family to conduct important business. and that's 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 even a few minutes can be a terrible inconvenience, it can be a costly occurrence, or it could 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 about what both the public and private organizations that have responsibility for this grid arñ 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 longstanding physical threats to the electricity grid. this committee has already taken steps to address this issue by be including in the energy policy act of 2005 a first-of-its-kind provision to establish reliability standards 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 substation california silicon valley was the most serious attack ever on the u.s. electricity system.

fortunately, med candied not result -- med cap did not result in a blackout of silicon valley. the horrors of which could only be imagined. but the incident as it's been reported came very close to causing the shutdown of a large portion of the western grid. i commend the electricity industry and its federal and state partners involved in the significant improvements they've made to reduce risks of a physical attack since that took place. i also know that last month ferc voted to direct nerc to direct some additional standards and gave it 90 days to do so. grid reliability is a responsibility of the electricity industry as well as state and federal agency partners. each of us has a role to play. in my view, it is essential that information regarding an attack or a threat of an attack be transmitted to others that need that 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 lefleur 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 as well as a number of relatively small rural co-ops and, of course, municipal utilities. it just 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; whether or not there's sufficient

generation and unfettered transmission to keep the lights on when electricity demands 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. so rather than tackling the entire issue at once, at the request of senator manchin who's here today, we'll look at the impact of coal-fired generation requirements in the pgm system on reliability during the polar vortex earlier this year. and 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 to a lively discussion on this question with the second panel. so in closing, we have a panel of 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 us today, and i'll now turn it over to senator more cow city ask for her -- murkowski for her opening statement. >> thank you, madam chairman, appreciate the opportunity 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. the next and most 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 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've mentioned the metcalf incident. recent stories about last year's metcalf incident in a ferc report detailing critical 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, nonpublic 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 us national security -- 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. but 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 friday 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 and the fbi undertook senate work with the industry to promote mitigation measures. and then last month under the

leadership of chair lefleur, ferc directed nerc to develop a mandatory standard on physical security within 90 days, even before the standard-setting process was under way. we saw lessons learned from metcalf being applied, and i think that 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 withstand physical or cyber attack. 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 be nonpublic

information from disclosure. but be i will say it has been apparent for some time that we may 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's vitally important, and we should not lose sight that for the electric grid reliability and affordability remain our core considerations. the challenge before us is how to maintain and improve reliability and affordability while keeping environmental performance many balance. in balance. as you note, madam chairman, we've got a very impressive group of panelists before us today. i thank each of you. i particularly would like to thank chairman lefleur for your steady leadership there at ferc, your extensive experience in the energy industry is indispensable as we tackle these myriad issues before the ferc including the cyber and the 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 you, senator murkowski, and thank you for joining me in that inquiry, and i'd like to submit to the record the document from the inspector general relative to what you and i both referred to in our opening statement this morning. met me at this time -- let me at this time welcome the panel that is joining us. first, the honorable cheryl lefleur, chairman of the federal energy regulatory commission, one of ferc's main responsibilities is maintaining the reliability and resilience of the grid. thank you for your leadership. we'll have further questions. next we have jerry mccauley, president and ceo of n everything rc where -- nerc where he oversees key programs affecting bulk power system

owners and users. next we'd like to welcome miss sue kelly, ceo of american public power, who is advocating for 2,000 nonprofit community-owned electric utilities throughout country in addition to others. finally, our last witness is the honorable colette -- honorable chairman of the arkansas public service commission. chairman honorable is here representing the national, so of regulatory commissions where she serves as president. welcome. thank you all for being here, and why don't we begin with your testimony, chairman lefleur. >> [inaudible] >> you have to -- >> all right. better. >> push your button, thank you. >> chairman landrieu, ranking member murkowski and members of the committee, my name is cheryl lefleur. for nearly four years, i've had the honor of serving on the federal energy regulatory commission. i appear before you as ferc's

acting chairman, an appointment i received in november. i'd like to thank the committee for holding this hearing and inviting me to testify. one of my first decisions at ferc was to make electric reliability a personal priority. ferc supports the reliability of the electric grid in several ways. first, we directly oversee the development and enforcement of mandatory reliability standards for the bulk electric system. we also support reliability through our regulation of wholesale rates and markets which compensate resources and send investment signals needed for reliability and of interstate electric transmission. finally, ferc is responsible for permitting energy infrastructure including gas pipelines, lng terminals and hydro facilities. the reliability and resilience of the grid really stems from how it's planned, constructed, operated and how asset owners respond to and learn from events

that happen. that means that in setting and overseeing reliability standards, ferc has to pay attention to nuts and bolts issues like trimming trees all the way to emerging issues like cybersecurity. last november we approved the puffth generation of nerc cybersecurity standards that for the first time requires all bulk electric system cyber assets to receive cyber protection commensurate with their impact on the grid. reliability also requires protecting the physical security of the grid assets from tampering, vandalism and sabotage. the topic of physical security was highlighted by the april 2013 attack on the metcalf substation in northern california. in the wake of that attack, ferc worked with other federal agencies to communicate the facts of the attack and lessons learned. ferc also provided guidance to asset owners on steps they could take to improve security based

on modeling it had performed. in addition to these efforts, on march 7, 2014, ferc directed nerc to develop mandatory physical security standards for the grid within 90 days. in directing network -- nerc to develop these standards, we recognized many asset owners had already taken steps to protect their facilities, but a mandatory standard will reinforce, strengthen and broaden these efforts. we also reck these that not every facility is alike. it's very important that we have the list right and protect the most critical facilities and that the responsive actions be customized to the specific location and circumstance. i'd like to discuss another aspect of this issue that's received considerable attention. as i noted earlier, ferc has applied its familiarity with grid operations to perform sophisticated modeling to

identify system vulnerabilities. last month "the wall street journal" published an article that included some details of such ferc modeling. i stated then and i continue to believe that publication of such information about the grid undermines its security. i appreciate chairman landrieu's and ranking member's murkowski's recent statements highlighting the importance of protecting this type of information. many light of the release of internal ferc modeling information, we are working on many fronts to understand what happened and to insure that it does not happen again. as 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 ferc's modeling work when it was

created in early 2013 should have been designated as class tied -- classified information at at least a secret level rather than as critical energy infrastructure information as it was classified. the inspector general outlined a number of specific steps to take, and we are taking them immediately and giving it a top priority. but we look forward to his further recommendations, and we're doing our own work in how we can improve our processes and culture to make sure that didn't happen again. it's critical that the public have the confidence that sensitive energy information is protected. during my four months as acting chairman, thai been somewhat -- they've been somewhat eventful, and ferc has faced many challenges including the ones we're focused on today. in this area i've repeatedly emphasized to the really wonderful team of folks who work there and externally that we have to have our actions guided by two things.

one is protecting the reliability and security of the grid for customers. and second is protecting the integrity of the commission so people can can have confidence in it. thank you for opportunity to testify, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you so much. mr. cooley? >> thank you. good morning, chairman landrieu and ranking member murkowski and other committee members and fellow panelists. my name's jerry callly. i have three main points i'd like to offer to the committee this morning. the first is that nerc and industry have been working really hard for a long time to address both the physical and cybersecurity of power grid as well as the resilience and remind the committee that this is a north american international grid that we do work with. not long after 9/11, nerc and industry developed the first set of physical security guidelines capturing the best practices across industry in terms of physical security. nerc approved a first set of

cybersecurity standards in august 2003. as the chairman just mentioned, we just -- ferc just approved the fifth generation of those cyber standards. they encompass the entirety of the bulk electric system, and they adopt risk-based security methods that are captured in the nist standards. we have a very robust audit and compliance program that we go out and monitor companies through our eight regions, and we have been very active in insuring that the companies are mitigating and addressing issues, so a lot of work has been accomplished in the area of cybersecurity. and it's also important to note that the electric industry along with nuclear is the only industry, as was mentioned previously, that has mandatory cybersecurity standards. we have another little-known standard that requires companies if there is a physical or cyber incident -- sabotage even suspected -- that they must report it to nerc, and they must

report it to law enforcement. in response to the ferc order of march 7th, we've been working very hard and very quickly. i think the order demonstrates something i've been saying for quite some time, is that the commission does have the authority if needed to direct network to do a standard that they feel is in the public interest. they did it previously with the solar magnetic disturbance standard order and now with the physical security order to. i think it's 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. they're supporting us in getting it done, and we've done -- we've 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 thurm of important tools beyond -- a number of important tools to address physical and cybersecurity. we operate the industry's

information sharing and analysis center, the isac. this allows us to share threat information and other security information with industry and also collect information from industry and share it with our government partners. the isac operates in a controlled and confidential environment so that the information that we're sharing is maintained secure. we also have a system of alerts where since january 2010 we've issued 27 alerts to industry covering a number of physical and cyber issues. and immediately following the metcalf incident last april, on the very next day, on april 16th, we provided an alert to industry outlining the methods and tactics used in the metcalf attack and what industry should do to address the issue. i believe we have the most robust private/public partnership between industry and government through our

electricity sector coordinating council. we have approximately 30 ceos. not information officers, but the ceos themselves meeting on a quarterly basis with the top officials from the various government agencies including the white house, homeland security, d, oe -- doe, nsa, fbi and so on. we meet quarterly, and we discuss what actions we can take to improve information sharing, incident response and tools. nerc facilitated last november a grid exercise that was a severe level attack, and i think it was an opportunity for us to demonstrate our readiness but also identify what areas we need to improve. in terms of insuring security and reliability. my third point, madam chair, is a direct response to the question of the hearing, you know, keeping the lights on, are we doing enough. and my answer is we are doing enough, we're doing the right things, and we're doing the right things on a prioritized basis, and we're making progress

and continuously improving. the metcalf incident was serious, but it's also a good example of the resiliency of the grid. no customer outages occurred during that incident. but also metcalf is an important turning point, it's a signal about looking at physical security 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, physical and cybersecurity, there are many other issues that we have to weigh. the storm is under constant attack from natural phenomenon storms, we have issues with operator training, human error, equipment failure, so we want to make sure we take the signer and physical aspects in the context of full spectrum of risks that we have to manage. thank you and look forward to your questions. >> thank you. ms. kelly? >> thank you very much. my name is sue kelly, i'm the president and ceo of the

american public power association. appa is a national trade association based in d.c. that represents more than 2,000 not-for-profit, community-owned electric utilities in 49 states. today to i represent investor-owned, cooperatively-owned and publicly-owned utilities, independent generators and canadian utilities as well. for very legitimate reasons, we often have different views on the policy issues facing our industry, but we all have come together on grid security. we all supported section 215 that was passed in the energy policy act of 2005. and given the changing nature of threats to the grid, we have also worked with doe and dhs to develop the electricity sub sector coordinating council which i'll discuss later. the overall reliability of the bulk electric system, or put simply keeping the lights on for both ourselves and our neighbors, is of paramount importance to electric utilities. because electricity is produced

and consumed instantaneously and follows the path of least impee dense, insuring grid security is a collective affair. cyber attacks, meteorological events, potential terrorist events, they've driven much of the discussion in recent years, but utilities have for decades planned for physical threats. unlike cybersecurity threats, threats to physical infrastructure have been around for years. utilities deploy measures to mitigate them. but the sheer size and in some cases the remoteness of the infrastructure or requires that we prioritize the facilities and concentrate on the ones that, if damaged, would have the most severe impact on reliability. simple risk mitigation tech nikes like cameras and rocks can address routine problems, but the can key to physical security is defense in depth which relies on resiliency, redundancy and the ability to recover should an extraordinary event occur. successful attacks can happen.

we use modeling to build redundancies into the system to support most critical assets. but since we have over 45,000 substations in the u.s. prioritizing the most critical assets and focusing our planning on them is extremely important. in recent months a few high profile attacks on physical infrastructure have drawn increased scrutiny. one such incident at pg&e's system 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 it and to share the lessons learned from it. government and industry conducted a series of briefings across the country and in canada for utilities and local law enforcement to help utilities learn more about the attack and potential implications for them. appa and our fellow electric sector trade associations take this incident very seriously. the notion that recent media stories suddenly spurred our industry to action or somehow

enhanced grid security are inaccurate. these briefings or were initiated prior to these stories. however, in part in response to the metcalf incident on march 7th, ferc has directed nerc under section 215 to submit proposed reliability standards on physical security within 90 days. appa and our members along with many other industry stakeholders are actively engaged in the process right now to develop this important standard. turning to cybersecurity, appa believes the best way to enhance security across critical infrastructure sectors is by ip m proving information sharing between the federal government and these sectors. they have, therefore, supported information-sharing legislation that passed the house, and we look forward to reviewing the senate's version. so far the cyber-related section 215 standards coupled with additional best practices and management processes have prevented a successful cyber attack. but that doesn't mean it's not going to happen. the industry, therefore, applied a similar approach to

cybersecurity to insure a quick response, and cybersecurity is going to have to be an iterative process as the nature of the threats continue to evolve. finally, i have to note that the partnership, coordination and sharing of relative threat information is crucial to grid security. at the national level, the escc plays an essential role in information shearing. it has representatives from trade associations, ious, real co-ops, tba, the pmas and the fec members periodically meet with officials in the white house,do to e, federal law enforcement and national security organizations. this dialogue is currently focused on three areas, tools and technologies, information sharing and incident response. in conclusion, appa on behalf of the entire electric industry would like to reaffirm the industry's ongoing commitment to protecting critical electric utility infrastructure from both cyber and physical threats. to do this, we have to work in

partnership with all levels of government from local 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. >> i wish to share with you this morning. first, state utility regulators share your concern about the resilience of our friday. for us, it is job number one. second, the resilience our rate payers expect includes not only security from physical and cyber attacks, but also the ability to bounce back from severe storms

and accommodate the impacts of markets and regulatory changes. finally, the states have already taken several important steps toward a more resilient grid, and we welcome this conversation about what more can be done. the seriousness of the metcalf incident must not be discounted. however, physical threats are but one of the many challenges utilities face each day. these vulnerables can take the shape of a sophisticated metcalf-style attack or massive storms such as hurricane sandy. in arkansas we've experienced consecutive 100-year ice storms along with vandalism on our electricity infrastructure. last august, a lone assailant allegedly a attempted several attacks on the infrastructure in central arkansas. the suspect was apprehended in october and after admitting responsibility was indicted on several federal criminal violations.

local law enforcement responded swiftly and met with me and my staff. this is a shining example of federal, state and utility cooperation. economic regulators view these challenges through the broad lens of resilience with severe weather seemingly more frequent, concerns growing over cyber and physical security, providing reliability service may not be enough anymore. so what are we doing to improve resilience? the utilities own and operate the infrastructure, and they know or should know their systems better than anyone. therefore, our utilities are ultimately responsible for safety and security. but as their regulators, we acknowledge that it is our responsibility as well. the public has, for the most part, faced that their utility system works. but this faith can be shaken

following a 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 at accountability and national security. our duty is to insure reliable service. despite these vulnerables, our systems are, indeed, resilient, and the entities that own and operate to them are skilled at restoration when something goes wrong. although customers will at times become disgrunt with led when the lights go out, the industry does an excellent job of overall restoring service. utilities spend billions of rate payers' dollars to train, educate and drill employees and maintain physical infrastructure so that the lights are restored as quickly and safely as possible. it is here that the role of states is paramount. we are responsible for setting

the rates for the nation's investor-owned utilities and the regulations that govern them. we determine who pays, how much and for what they are paying. state commissioners take this role very seriously, and it is solely our responsibility. my colleagues and i must weigh the cost of every proposed improvement to those systems under our jurisdictions against the risks and benefits of how these investments will impact consumers. in the end, we would all like to have the safest, most reliable system possible, and that is everyone's goal. at our level, we are doing a tremendous amount of outreach and education through workshops, seminars, trainings, participation in the escc and more. we are incorporating the multitude of challenges the industry faces. we're preparing for new reductions rules that will have different impacts throughout the country.

while many states have taken great efforts to reduce carbon emissions well in advance of any be federal environmental regulation, some of my colleagues have concerns regarding local reliability issues due to the retirement of coal-fired generation in their states. state commissions seek investments that delivers the best systems, improvements and rate payer value. whether these address physical or cybersecurity, they must prudently meet the prevailing expectations of reliability and affordability for the rate payer. this requires appropriate dialogue and discussion in an open and transparent way. we rely upon the utilities to know where vulnerabilities may be, and we expect industry to communicate with us so that we can pest determine how to move forward. in conclusion, as we've seen across this country, states are pursuing innovative approaches.

while we do not endorse any particular program, we can learn a great deal from those who are pushing ahead. typically, the general public doesn't think about utility 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 naruc and the states are committed to it. >> thank you all very much. thank you for abiding by your time, because we do have a very important subject to try to cover. unfortunately, we're going to have votes at 10:30. we're going to try to keep the hearing moving, though, because i'll vote first, senator murkowski second, and we'll keep the hearing going. before we start, i'd like to call the attention of the members to a document that the staff provided, particularly to page 3 to really understand the interconnectivity of this grid.

it says here that there are actually three independent regional grids, the western grid, the eastern grid and then texas has its own grid. but hawaii is not on here, neither is puerto rico or alaska. [laughter] so i want the staff to upgrade this list. this -- [laughter] to upgrade this document. the reason i call it to your anticipation as all of us are really supportive on both sides of the aisle about the importance of state authorities. it's really impossible to keep this grid stood up without regional and national cooperation. and this document clearly shows the interconnectivity as well as into canada. so it really does take a combination, as all of you have mentioned, of federal, regional and state as well as private

entities. so it really is a quite complex and important subject. let me start my first question to you, ms. lafleur. what are you doing specifically to respond to the mr. friedman, the inspector general's, management alert yesterday that said in part -- and i'm going to submit this to the record -- >> the department's subject matter experts have confirmed that at least one electric grid-related presentation created by the commission staff should have been classified and protected from release at the time it was created. this document and others, the essence of its content may in whole or part have been provided to both federal and industry officials in an unclassified setting. that was not appropriate. the methods used in creating and distributing this document led us to the preliminary conclusion that the commission may not possess adequate controls for

identifying and handling classified national security information. there are four specific recommendations in this management letter that i know you're familiar with. could you just comment about what you're doing again to implement these and what additional steps that you may be taking as the acting chair to make sure that this doesn't happen again? >> whether well, thank you for that question, madam chairman. we are meticulously following, first of all, the instructions of the inspector general's management aletters which means we met -- alerts which means we met with him privately to understand the documents he was speaking of, gathering any paper copies we can find and putting them in our secure information facility, wiping and scrubbing all databases, computers and any portable devices across the commission to make sure that the

documents in question that potentially should have been classified are protected. and it instructs us to reach out to the doe on the classification level going forward. it includes reaching out to former employees, including our former chairman, and trying to get our arms around any information that may be out there. that's part of the instructions. >> can i ask you this, does ferc have a high-level person at ferc that's responsible for trying to help, i guess your legal department would do this what's classified and unclassified? have you all stood up any additional resources in that sphere in the last few years? >> yes. we have, our chief security officer has our classification authority. he has delegated a derivative classification authority under the delegation from the doe and our general counsel has been very involved in this also. since it happened we've taken a number of steps internally.

we sent out an immediate reminder to all employees of the to regulations that govern information security. i've ordered a full and -- immediately ordered a full internal review, kind of a chain of custody of all the documents when they were created. we're 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're creating and have a process where the right professionals get a chance to weigh in on what level of classification it should have. >> okay, thank you. mr. cauley, 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, as miss kelly said, a lot of different views, different sizes of companies, different nature of entities that are involved in providing this critical infrastructure for our country.

but when you said that you thought that the industry was doing all that it could, i understand that in the metcalf incident that there were no cameras facing to the outside perimeter, only to the inside perimeter. can you comment about that? and when and what actions has the industry taken since to maybe face the cameras in a different direction to see who might be in the area that shouldn't be? >> well, i think common and best practice prior to metcalf was primarily focused on keeping not only bad actors, but children just for public safety, keeping people out of the substations. and we have a very experience-driven lessons learned-driven industry, so i think they were focusing on what they thought was the threat. and i think that's the value of metcalf and looking at it in hindsight, is there is opportunities to improve that. so my understanding, without

disclosing too much, is that there has been a change in perspective of both how the cameras and lighting and motion detection and other devices that would help protect it further and not just at pg&e, but around the industry. ..

>> we have a somewhat unique hybrid system where the all voluntary system of guidelines has superimposed on it this compliance system with the million dollar a day penalty. that is kind of an odd marriage. there were naturally some tensions in the beginning, but i think what has really helped is, the work we have done to set priorities because of the hybrid system, we have to have the same reliability priorities even though we might disagree about what exactly to do to get there. that, i think another

communication at the top between the two agencies is what is led. gerry has led a culture of learning and setting priorities from what happened. nothing that priority setting is the biggest at the we have taken to make the standards better, which is what keeps reliability going. >> i think the model is working really well. it is almost necessary because it is such a complex electric rate is interconnected internationally with canada and mexico. we are able to bring the expertise of the industry together. we're able to work up the standards in a way that have no unintended adverse consequences and get the by and for the industry, yet we have the oversight and direction and guidance. exercise that a number of times. they pushed back on some standards and directed us to do a standard to protect against solar magnetic disturbances. we have the best of the public interest being represented and government oversight. with the expertise in full understanding of how it works

from industry. >> ms. kelly. >> i would generally concur. i would add that think we're kind of moving past the hour pimply adolescence into adulthood. there have been some bumps along the road, one of the things that i would point to as an example of ongoing cooperation, the phrase in the statute is pretty broad. in syria anyone he turns on the toaster is one of those people of. when the scheme was first enacted and implemented we had to figure out who that universalists. we made an initial cut, but we are now going back and taking a second look in deciding who truly needs to be in and you can be out. going back to your discussion about a number of small co-ops and louisiana, it may be that some of those entities really do not materially impact the bulk power system and therefore could be exempted from the scheme without adverse impact of the system. and so i think we're taking a

closer look at that. i welcome that because frankly that frees up resources to concentrate on the entities and facilities naturally to impacted so i think that is a perfect example of out of real moving forward, refining the regime and improving it. >> so are risk-based analysis. >> absolutely. correct. >> chairman. >> thank you, madam chair. i concur with the comments about the chairman and ms. kelly. supporting this legislation that created the effort and our partnership and certainly in a real-world sense once these standards are implemented retail investor-owned utilities come to their respective state commissions for recovery to integrate and implement these standards and certainly even in arkansas we have approved it cyber standards, investments even in the last year. so we expect the utilities to

heed the standards, and we also plan to stand ready to be responsive when those requests, way. >> senator. >> thank you, madam chairman. and thank you, chairman, for your responses to the chairman's question here in terms of those steps that you are taking to implement or act on the ig recommendations. i think that's going to be critically important moving forward. i was going to ask you what you might be doing to strengthen the culture. you know, i hear you say that a notice to the employees has gone out reminding them of certain aspects, certainly the confidentiality, but that may be an area that you need to lead to

more critically. i am not going to suggest how you might be doing your job here, but i do think that is going to be an important aspect. in this vein i want to just make clear that you understand what you will be receiving for me as the chairman. you are effectively the chief executive to whom the agency staff reports. i am going to be asking the agency more extensive questions about the handling of documents and supporting materials such as those that are referred to in the ig manage the dollar. i was also have written questions about the inception of the study itself and its uses. so i have directed my staff to prepare some interrogatories for the agency. i am not going to be seeking sensitive and permission about the findings of the study of the merits of the so-called modeling upon which it is based, but i will have questions about the

manner in which the study was conceived and documents in the information concerning an were handled, how they were intended to be used and where were in fact used. asked myself -- mustaf to contactor general counsel to begin discussing how i can get answers to these questions without drawing for their attention to this sensitive and permission. now will be turning over the answers that i received to the ig four is complete report, but what i'm asking of you today is to have your cooperation and the cooperation of the agency's, its leaders in a senior execs service and other very dedicated federal employees to support them in getting full and complete and, of course, prompt responses to my questions. >> we will absolutely have our cooperation. hopefully a lot of them might be

the same questions we have been asking ourselves. i agree with you about your comments and culture. first of all, in many ways they're is a very strong culture in all the decades i've never known a merger rumor to leak or of the confidential information that is still with the today, which is not to say we absolutely need to learn the lessons of what happened here, but i think we deal and confidential information in our back and all the time. i have given us a lot of thought . when i run an operating company this ceo and everyone has to take a lot of safety doors. i put in place a level that anyone, even a brand new trainee could stop the job if they thought in the electrical safety incident of any magnitude. that's how you convey that safety is important. year, the culture respect for confidentiality has to start at the top. we need to make sure that everyone knows they can ask

questions. before information is created and as the process goes along to make sure we're doing it with care and with an intention to asking the right professionals to weigh in on classification or have it treated, filed, or anything else. i will take accountability for that because it has to start at the top. >> i appreciate that. chairman, i don't know what both of us seem to be having difficulty with your name and title here this morning. you spoke a lot about the reliance resiliency of the great i think we acknowledge and accept that there are risks that present themselves when it comes to the reliance. you mentioned outages that are caused by hurricanes or major storms. i think people can kind of relate to that. but as we are seeing more

assets, energy assets retiring there is kind of a quiet consensus out there that the risk of a localized reliability of and for a fact is growing. and i guess the question to you is, al acceptable of a risk is this if the impact to the reliability is caused by federal policy? and when i say federal policy, the push within this of ministration to move out, the fact that we are seeing so many facilities going offline during the polar for tech's this winter. we saw that 89 percent of the coal electricity capacity is due to go off one and was utilized as that back up to meet the demand.

so i think folks are prepared to accept and level of risk. when you have an average, when you have a really bad storm, but to what extent do they accept the risk if that is brought about by federal policy? >> thank you for the question, senator murkowski. this is really a great example of the many challenges that economic regulators face across the country in ensuring reliability. this is -- so, your question is how acceptable is it? economic regulators, it is not an acceptable. we have for that reason been very engaged with the epa, with the personnel, even with administrator mccarty about this very important topic of reliability. we are charged with ensuring reliability. it is our mean, a core focus in addition to ensuring safety and affordable utility service. the utilities on the front line

must ensure reliability. they're is a disruption to the grid or an average for any reason. utilities are on the front line to make sure that the lights come back on, that the generation is moving now matter the source. we certainly don't pick winners and losers. we embrace it and all of the above energy approach and, senator, i know that you do, to. and we believe that coal is of low cost option and that it should be a part of our energy mix. we, therefore, working with the epa to ensure that they hear us at our november neighbor committee meeting issued a resolution regarding the 111d rulemaking process turds the epa to ensure that the states have flexibility, that the federal government respects the role the state, that epa also honors this notion of diversity. we embrace that as economic

regulators. the film makes in one state is very different from another. states such as kentucky or west virginia or indiana very heavily rely upon coal. and so any rule making is that impact a states generation makes will clearly be of importance to those states but also to all of us as economic regulators. 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 continue to remember the importance of reliability. it is job number one for us. >> thank you, madam. >> thank you very much. senator, thank you for your lead and interest on the subject. >> thank you, madam share. thank you all for your testimony i agree, chairman, of flexibility -- >> excuse me a minute.

i'm going to go vote and the the senator in charge of the committee. please continue. >> i agree that we need state flexibility in addressing those kind of issues, especially on new rules that the epa will make on existing coal-fired plants. we are talking about great security. it is a serious issue. this out -- the power substation in california, it's and one that could have happened anywhere at any number of some stations across the country. as chairman of the energy subcommittee of want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to secure our leopard print which is why i sent a letter along with senators reid and feinstein for regulators advocating for a stronger security measures. i'm pleased and order has been issued to strengthen good security. thank you for that. as we take steps to secure the great it is important that we

engage the law-enforcement community but that the federal level and that the state and local level. they are critical partners in the effort to secure the great. chairman the floor, can you explain what you are doing to ensure law enforcement agencies and officials are fully integrated into the efforts to secure our power grid? >> thank you for that question, senator. i mentioned two things. the order that was issued on march 7 on requiring physical security standards, one of the things it requires is that after the critical facilities list is done each asset owner identifies specific threats and vulnerabilities of each facility and contemplates that they will involve government agencies such as law enforcement in assessing the threat and vulnerability of a particular facility. he knows better than the police to location, geography, so forth in addition, first and other

agencies, dhs and fbi have done a 13 city tour around the u.s. and canada to explain the lessons. local law enforcement is one of the main attendees, as i understand it, at these meetings obviously it could happen in any community. >> thank you for that question, senator. i actually personal believe the most important and effective security measure we can take is the relationship between the utility company and law enforcement. we recognize that years ago which is why i mention we have a standard already and have for many years of tripwires of there are any issues of incidents related to physical or cyber security that they must give reported to the local law enforcement. we require companies to have reestablished contact with their local law enforcement. having that presents an response capability is very important. we also participated in the average. a third of the room was law

enforcement in addition to first responders and power companies. i think going forward we need to emphasize that further invasion facilitating 1-on-1 which utility companies and the local law enforcement and first responders to not only make sure in general they understand our critical infrastructure by specific stations which are most important, what kind of response would be expected. >> thank you. to that was a wake-up call. we all agree on that. the reliability of the electric grid is essential to our energy security. we are seeing more extreme weather events which can have serious effects on the grid. but distributed generation makes the grade more resilience by allowing critical facilities, military bases, hospitals, others to stay online during an outage. that is why i work closely with senator murkowski to introduce an amendment to the sheen portman built to support the

important of combined heat and power district energy 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 decentralized grade, and she really understands the importance of the issue. miss the floor, what is being done to support deployment of combined heat and power? district energy systems and other energy systems that operate in island mode? >> well, our responsibility is primarily for the interconnected interstate great. we work in partnership with state regulators to have more responsibility at the distribution level within the state. what we have primarily done to support the growth of distributed generation is make sure at our market will in that two-thirds of the services that

are served by competitive market that these distributive facilities can compete fairly and get paid for their electricity. we have put out a rule in 2013 on small solar installations. we of down rules on fly wheels, some of the storage applications, demand response which often relies on back a generation in hospitals and so forth and others. we are trying to make sure that there is fair compensation for them in the wholesale market that helps those grants drive. >> thank you. i just believe that resiliency of the great -- i mean, we saw in super strong sandy, we saw places where they were operating in island mode that it was a good thing. it was a good thing for data storage and those kinds of emergencies. >> i can never resist a plug for my alma mahler which kept its micro grid up and supported law

enforcement, i think, across much of new jersey in the microgram and hurricanes in the. >> absolutely. and that is exactly where i'm talking about. thank you for bringing it up. >> thank you. senator. >> thank you, madam chairman. madam acting chairman, thank you very much. first of all, i want to thank the chairman for holding this hearing. the security of the electric grid is critically important to most americans. as with many, many things almost americans don't realize how important it is to them. when an incident happens and everyone starts were in their hands and say what did we do this and that. i want to focus on something that is available to of electric utilities and the government agencies that a lot of people don't know about. in my state in i know we have a facility called the idaho national laboratory. it is the flagship laboratory for nuclear energy and has been since the 1940's. it is the lead laboratory in

america for nuclear energy. what most people don't realize, and the reason it is because that is where the first reactor was built in the first electricity was generated in the first light bulbs lit. what most people don't realize is they have many other nations. one of them is exactly what we are talking about, grid security since this is a relatively -- and use the word relatively, a new area of focus although 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 . number one we have a full scale test could verify and validate modeling and research which is being done on the great. that is being done. we have a test, a joint program

with the national laboratory, and it supports industry and government efforts to enhance the server security and control systems that are being used throughout the electric industry, not only the electric industry but also oil and gas. thirdly they have all wireless test bed. we just ordered improvements on the wireless test bed. we are going to continue to do that. as we all know, there are more and more every day, components being connected to the grid that our wireless, so this wireless test bed is extremely important as we move forward with great security. and lastly -- and this is important particularly in light of the metcalf incident that has been talked about here, and they are in the early stages of this, but the -- they are working on a project to develop a security protections, physical

protections and others for substations. we are proud of the work that is done. like us said, they are renowned when it comes to nuclear energy. but there are these new areas that they are developing. read security is certainly one of the things that they will be focusing on. the reason i wanted to say what led have said about this is a want to make sure that everyone in the industry, everyone in government agencies knows that these facilities are available because sometimes they have a tendency to fly under the radar. i want to state that for the record. thank you for making time available, madame chair. >> thank you, senator. following upon that, if i could, i definitely believe that technology is one of our friends here in the solution. when you look at the spectrum of things that we have tried to do, whether it is encouraging

cooperation on voluntary standards or requirements, i think obviously things like relay equipment, storage capacity so that you can move around problems, what do you think, panelists, that we need to do to encourage more of the development of these margaret technologies that give us the capacity to deal with these averages? in the context of that framework, you know, is it more tax incentives, more regulation, you know, more cooperation? >> i would first respond by echoing the comments of senator resh. i have been to the pacific northwest lab and the idaho national lab. very rich resources for the industry.

our industry to my information sharing analysis centers plug into them. we know of the testing and the security capability. we also use those resources for training purposes and behind the scenes analysis of threats. the dree is becoming more modernized. particularly in the west there is -- this interface is have been deployed widely. at this point i'd how don't know what i would point out. we are working to encourage industry to get better and visualization and situation awareness to my recovery tools out of that increased capability and visibility into the grid through smart creek technologies and sinker phasors. >> anybody else? >> yes, i would like to note that as i mentioned, tools and technologies of the main things that is being worked on to try

and improve the tools that we have to address these threats. i would also note that there is the emergency transformer program that the electric power research institute is working on with the department of on security to try and develop a more portable transformer that can be brought in more quickly. we really look forward to these types of technological advances to assist us in dealing with these issues. more r&d money would always be welcome. >> well, i would just add, most consists of carrots and sticks. here the stick is the reliability standard. phaser measurement units and so forth help people meet their standards. then make the grade more reliable. but the rate regulation in 2005, congress it was the section 219 of the federal power act which allows for incentives, and we have rules allowing greater weight in centers for advanced technologies to encourage people building transmissions to put

the latest technology because they can get a little higher return on equity if it the better technology and airline. we recently adopted a rule, for example, p.j. and allowing them to require phasing measurement units for certain types of mines so that the rate regulation helps support those investments. >> you're talking about new deployment. if we are talking about the issue does your command apparently we are because right now the 9/11 service in washington state is down. so it is the issue due sure. if it is, why not look at ways to further incident not just on the deployment but on the resiliency of the great. to me this security measure is margaret technology and just figuring out why we don't see a faster deployment. some of the technology is created in washington state, but then again we have lived and breathed and benefited from an electricity grid with cheap hydropower for a long time.

it is more of a neat those for us. my question is, you know, is there a faster way? unfortunately after go and vote. thank you. >> i would like to hear the answer to that. please continue. thank you, senator who would like to answer the senator's question? >> well, i will take that as a challenge to go back and look at how we do our rate regulation. most of it is governed by formula race. as people invest in those things they can recover if it is a prudent investment on the line. the question is whether we need to do something to better and sent those. some of it is happening to the market rules, will's that encourage storage technology is one of the things senator can well mentioned. we will look at other rules and give a more complete request answer for the record. >> thank you. let me follow-up on that question. i'm putting to win to together about what it might be about.

it is an issue that is, several times in conversation about federal and state requirements how that can both positively and sometimes negatively affect the price of electricity. the ability of a requirement for utility companies to buy back power at a certain price. could some of you comment about the current status of some of that? perhaps many you should start, but i would like to comment. as the members come back we will finish the line of questioning to this panel moved our second panel. go ahead and take that and if you would. >> thank you for the question. they're is a wide a ray of takeover interest in this issue. we are working together. educating yourself.

learning about the importance of being innovative and allowing customer choice but at the same time it is important to, particularly from an economic regulator perspective balance the interest to avoid cuts shifting, to insure that reliability is maintained in the first instance. certainly distributed generation is an important innovation. "frankly it's happening all across the world. but also from an economic regulator perspective it's something that we continue to be challenged with making sure that all interest and balanced. the interest of the industry. that does have to be able to receive fax it anytime. the interest of consumers from all walks of life, from norway paribas is -- glasses and ensuring the in an equities of permitting those who would like to put solar panels on the

rooftops. these are issues that we are exploring, educating and commissions and quite frankly our commissions are leading the way in being responsive. >> i'm going to come back to that question. now i think that senator portman is next. are there scheduling conflicts that i should know about? >> not now. >> senator. >> thank you, madam chair. i really appreciate it. i know that this is a focus with this panel on cyber security, but we have also talked about reliability. and of the next panel will focus on that and i appreciate your willingness to move for an hearing so quickly after taking the chairmanship. i would like to ask a couple of reliability questions because we have some experts on this panel who may be can give us a preview of what we will hear next but also for us to the will to compare and contrast what we will hear from some of the industry folks. first, i