questions imposed on all 700 megabirds -- megahertz to the plate network that is fully interoperable. so that argument does not seem to hold water. furthermore mississippi's contract with its vendors requires complete compliance with quote all the rules, specifications and functionalities unquote. that may change per the fcc were ntia during the buildout of a nationwide network. understandably we in mississippi are disappointed and upset. given these assurances by the state of mississippi and the vendors how exactly is the ntia saving taxpayer money especially when in fact the agency is telling mississippi to spend money to dismantle the lte equipment already deployed?

>> senator as you know there were originally seven pilot projects that we looked at. for them were approved in three of them are not approved including the 70 million dollar mississippi grant. we were deeply disappointed as well because he wanted to try to make this work but at the end of the day the state in nta couldn't agree on terms because the state's plan didn't provide the necessary level of detail we needed to meet the statutory requirements. as you know under the btop program there were specific statutory requirements that this had to meet and the mississippi plan that came forward was not a viable alternative that medbee statutory requirements. one of the things that ntia is committed to -- the. >> to requirements from 2012? >> i believe from the original btop program and my understanding is the mississippi program didn't provide broadband so that was one of the challenges of this.

but look we wanted to try to make this work or at the firstnet team worked very hard and long hours with mississippi trying to find a way to make it work. through the projects were not able to go forward because for one reason or another including this one. ntia is working with the state of mississippi to dispose of the equipment. mississippi the medical communications equipment held by the hospitals and the ambulances will be retained in mississippi so we are trying to keep as much of that value but ntia is committed to helping to dispose of the access equipment frankly to avoid a loss to taxpayers. >> mr. secretary we were weeks away from employment. mississippi was a leader in deploying the network for first responders. based on the statute that was enacted in 2009 with the federal government make the decision to dismantle the original btop project forcing the state to start over. mississippi has already accomplished the goals of ntia's

implementation program which is why the state turned down the offered grant. mississippi today has a mature governance structure for the network created in 2005. the state was only weeks away from turning on its broadband network. when the btop grant was suspended by ntia i hope that your offer to continue working with the state comes to fruition. ms. swanson was invited over a year ago to come to mississippi. for whatever reason that meeting has not taken place yet. but i can tell you that we in mississippi are entire delegation republican and democrat are very concerned about this, very disappointed at the wasting of federal money from the economic stimulus program.

and we are particularly disappointed that netcom is not able to go forward, a project that has received essential equipment and would allow first responders to transmit life saving data to provide hospitals with support in vital medical services to proceed on. i time has expired but i hope this hearing will result in some purposeful action on the part of the department and firstnet to make things work in mississippi. >> thank you senator richter. senator daines. >> thank you. i come from montana and in a state like montana we have almost the tale of the two types of them are meant rural and

permits across most of our state and the same time because of technology it is removed geography is a constraint. we are able to build world-class companies in montana because we can attract and retain great talent because of the quality of life we have. it also helps us improve our first responder services, the technology and encouraged in terms of what firstnet could do to improve public safety by coordinating these communication capabilities. when we have incidents that are 50 to 100 miles away in terms of a medical emergency we could bring electronically the doctor to the location of the incident. it's the difference between life and death. in a state like montana we have some very important national assets. we have a third of the nation's icbms located in montana, 150 warheads. we share a border with three canadian provinces.

so without perhaps this background i'm concerned about the definition of rural. firstnet plans to deploy on top of existing infrastructure first and that makes complete logic, makes perfect logical sense to me except for the fact that states like montana have very limited 4g lte coverage and in fact in tribal lands is virtually nonexistent. what sort of contingency plans do we have for these types of areas like for example the northern cheyenne reservation that doesn't even have 3g service let alone 4g lte and perhaps secretary maybe you can take the first shot at that. >> yeah with your permission senator i would like to allow suit to take this. >> she is smiling. >> first of all i think it's important senator that you know

that the public notice that we issued on monday takes a bold step about rural and making sure that rural is taken care of in this total plan. so we know how important it is for states like yourself and so we are spending a lot of time on that particular topic. we also in her first public notice senator asked for public comment on what rural meant because in the legislation it could have different interpretations we want to make sure we have consistency. we have got a lot of good feedback on that and we will incorporate that. i'm assuming that your state can give us feedback on that particular topic. if not we are happy to take that. in terms of tribal i think it's important you understand that we take the tribal consultation very seriously. as you know there are 566 recognized tribes in the u.s.. all the different states have abraded tribes that we need to consider. tribal organization should be part of stay consultation so

when that occurs the single point of contact it's important that we make sure that representation is actually part of the state consultation. we as an organization hired and have a person dedicated to the tribal organizations so they are fully represented. we also as part of the public safety advisory council of the tribal working group. one of our board members mcguinness has been traveling the u.s. meeting with all the different organizations so i dissuade to no rural is important, tribalism port and i believe we are taking steps to make sure those areas work. >> what's the preliminary thinking on the infrastructure that doesn't exist today will they wait until infrastructure is there or circumvent that her mother had them put this infrastructure in? >> that is part of our rp process and would like to get feedback from the partners in the vendors who will be responding as how we cannot only cover and uncover rural. the idea is that we would make

that as high a priority as our urban covers. i think there were some comments about leveraging existing infrastructure. part of the rfp needs to address the rural coverage and the folks responding to the rfp need to respond and how they plan to do that. >> of course the paradox here is some of those areas are in the greatest need of telecommunications. >> we understand which is why we are making it up ready. >> as i understand and also maybe ms. swanson the governor of each state would have the option to accept or opt out of the firstnet plan. i'm not hearing that montana is planning to opt out but i know there was curiosity rounded the governor did opt out of the plan they are responsible for coordinating and submitting a plan to the fcc. and a sense of what the costs associated with opting out versus accepting the plan for some of the states might be? >> it's a great question and i think a lot of people are trying to figure that out. i think it's important to understand you are not opting out of the nationwide network.

you are assuming responsibility for building your own radio access network. all states where do do you use radio access network or builder on will connect our national core. that is what creates the interoperability across the nation. in terms of the cost that would be something for your team in montana to determine. we are going to give the governor a plan that will handle the coverage we have in terms of priorities and then we will give you what the cost of that is where the pricing to your end-users. you will then have that to make a determination as a state in the governor makes that decision as to whether or not you want to take on responsibility. >> so we will have a cost if there was a knockout? >> we want to determine your costs. you will determine that will determine data and issue an rfp and determine that. we will tell you what our plan is. you can then compare it to what you think building your own

radio access network would cost. >> thanks for that know i'm out of time mr. chairman. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. thank you to you and ranking member nelson for holding this important hearing. as a former prosecutor and cochair along with senator burr of the 911 caucus in the senate i know how important is to support our first responders. i'm also the state that had that bridge collapse and while everyone saw on tv the firefighter, the first responder show up and repeatedly dive into that water to look for survivors and all the work of emergency responders what people didn't see where the 77 men and women at the minneapolis emergency communications center who took those calls. while a number of people died it could've been so much worse because people were able to get to hospitals and people survived because of our first responders. i have worked hard to strengthen our states emergency response

network by working on the legislation that led to the creation of firstnet. i think is critical to our communications infrastructure and congress intended it to be built on a combination of new and existing infrastructure. i know senator thune and senator daines another's were talking about the rural issues so i'm not going to focus on that but ms. swanson are you committed to making sure as first firstnet formally launches partnerships opportunities will be available to entities of all size? i note that nucor wireless based in st. cloud is participating in a pilot project with firstnet in elk river and its a trial project but i want to make sure you are going to continue to work with entities of all sizes. >> yes in fact i think it's important to understand that the processes decide to do that. we have a responsibility to make sure that we deployed in nationwide network of the most effective cost structure so as

we go out and talk to people who have different assets who want to participate in a request for a proposal everyone will have an opportunity to do that. we will weigh those options and also look at the complexity of the design and also the speed to market. those are the things we have to consider but certainly we are welcoming one and all because this is going to take an integrated and joint effort to make this work. >> okay. the spectrum act included an amendment by works to include that created a funding mechanism for more than 150 million for next-generation 911 research and grants coordinated by ntia and it's a and i continue to have as my top priority making sure that we not only have a nationwide network in place but we integrate the nextgen technologies that are already transforming public safety and real-time video text messaging. ms. swanson what involvement has

firstnet had with public safety answering points and the 911 community? >> actually we are in good medication with the 911 organizations frequently and in fact i'm planning to go to the nato conference in the month of june because they know how critical it is to the overall system. it's an ongoing dialogue. say i thank you. mr. andrews what are ntia anissa doing to further the 911 operations? >> that is a great question as one of the things we have done in partnership between ntia and in senator gardner stayed in boulder we have created a public safety communications research program which is our effort to push forward into the next generation of public safety. as you know as well ntia administers the nextgen 91911 program that's something we are working on. smack very good. we should invite senator gardner to join our 911 caucus. it's a very exciting group.

we have a lot of emergencies that we respond to. my last question ms. swanson i understand minnesota was the second state to have its -- with firstnet last september. what were some of the takeaways of that meeting with the stakeholders? >> as i indicated earlier it is important that we learn from each of the states the individual circumstances. every state has a set of circumstances that are very different. your topography is different and your priorities are different and we are learning and each of those consultations what exactly is unique to your state so we can incorporate that into the rfp process. >> okay very good, thank you very much. >> thank you senator klobuchar. senator udall. >> thank you very much chairman thune and thank you for focusing this hearing on this very very important topic. let me first just say that i

want firstnet to succeed, ensuring our nation's first responders have the communication tools they need. should be a top priority of this committee. despite lessons learned from the terrorist attacks of 9/11 our first responders still do not have nationwide interoperable communication networks. as many of you know in an emergency this can be a matter of life and death. in my home state of new mexico i'm pleased that the recovery act broadband grant helps upgrade the state's public safety communications. this hopefully puts my stayed a step ahead as first firstnet becomes our fur ball. one concern i have is that congress sometimes makes good policies but then fails to follow through by adequately funding their implementation and i think that could well be the case here. building firstnet is no easy task and wants congress to give firstnet a chance to succeed. it's important for first

responders to have the communications tools they have to protect all of us. many senators have already raised the rural issue. i think rural is tremendously important in new mexico so i wanted to focus on that. ms. swanson is talked in your written testimony and i think to a question asked by senator daines about tribal the tribal issues and how tribes are going to be included. i want to applaud you on having a person dedicated to the tribes. that's usually the way it works the best is somebody that really understands these tribal issues and develops a long-term relationship and worked with them. could you expand a little more on your testimony, your written testimony about how you are going to make sure tribes aren't left out in this moving forward? >> certainly. as you know the act requires that we engage with tribal so

there was no ambiguity about that so we are very clear about that. setting that aside first i really understand the importance of tribes. as you said we have a person dedicated to that within firstnet and that's unique for organization to dedicate a resource to that. we also have as part of the public safety advisory council of tribal working group and that is focused on tribal issues so is represented within the public safety community in the tribal group. that particular small group had a meeting in washington d.c. two weeks ago and so it's a very high purity for us. in fact when i was in town hall meeting a couple of weeks ago the tribal representative from our organization was there the town hall. we had tribal representation of the town hall meeting and he was going to get in his car and drive along the coast to meet with as many tribal organizations as possible. he is out about and one of our board members kevin mcguinness

who is from the ems community has been taking on that responsibility as a board member to go out and make sure we are reaching out making the tribes aware of it and making sure that the tribal representation is part of consultation. it's really important that those state meeting so we can understand their perspective as well. so we are very focused on that and consider it a high priority. >> as you said the consultation part is tremendously important. the tribes look to the federal government to look and see that they are going to be communicated with and consulted with on these kinds of issues so we appreciate what you are doing and we hope we have your commitment to make sure they are not left out. smack you ask -- you absolutely do. >> thank you senator udall. senator gardner. sprey thank you to the witnesses. i apologize for coming to the hearing way. i was attending an aumf with

secretary kerry. we want to thank ms. swanson for the work you are doing. it's a difficult but vitally difficult task. firstnet if done right can help first responders across the country do their jobs more quickly and effectively and no one knows this better than colorado who is endured wildfires and flooding at great magnitude. my question stem from a place where want to help ensure the state has exactly what it needs to react to disasters such as these in the future. i want the network to succeed. i'm happy to talk about the 911 caucus so we will have to figure that out later. ms. swanson one of the concerns i have from the state is the current path forward for firstnet does not include the use of public assets that are willing to be utilized by the public safety network. my understanding is you first need to know who the commercial

partners are when utilizing public assets. is there an argument to be made that we should be using this public asset? >> that's a very good question and you weren't here earlier but let me state what i stated earlier. in the early days of firstnet we thought getting that information about government assets would be very important for building out the network. what we have learned there are btop projects in l.a. in particular is this is more difficult than we anticipated in terms of the unique circumstances coming to a memorandum of understanding about those assets the leasing of excess capacity. whatever the circumstances are they turned out to be more complex than we had anticipated. so what we would like to do is obviously know about those assets but take that into consideration after we determine who the partners and determine what additional what additional

perhaps coverage our capability those assets can add to the existing plan. we think from a sequencing standpoint and a complexity standpoint as i said earlier they want to make sure we are dedicating our resources on getting the national network built. so it's been a change from what we originally anticipated that we are very comfortable with this approach. additionally if they are assets that an organization in the state would like to be considered as part of a nationwide network that think it's important we look at speed looked upon a complexity and costs. we have a responsibility to make sure this is done in the most effective and efficient way possible. >> some of the follow-up questions i have on the sequence he and the speed with which we are getting this done you mentioned that adams county is functioning and so thank you for that. if a all the international standings and if interoperability is not an issue

there we are looking at three years, four years maybe down the road people in colorado need to get this done now. this adams county have to wait until they receive the state plan and build it out to be part of firstnet? i'm concerned we have places in colorado with rural areas and forest of terrain that need to move forward and take the time to build out. how do you respond to that? >> this is a complex issue as you know when we are very excited about what adams county is doing. it has become a good project for people to see how this new technology is working. i think it's really important for people understand our focus is getting on the nationwide network. we have limited resources at firstnet to spend time on individual projects so it would

dilute our billet me to work on the nationwide plan. it's a trade-off for us frankly senator. it's a difficult one because i would love to have all the resources in the world to do a lot more in different areas but we have an obligation to move this as quickly as possible so we have had to make trade-offs. >> i wanted to shift to the rural conversation it sounds like so many people broader. in previous experiences we have had with funding from the government intended and designed to good of unserved or underserved areas money was spent in areas where could easily be spent in those areas where money would be spent at difficult areas to reach for networks and others. that money was not spent in by the time they got to those areas the money was gone. they had to look elsewhere for opportunity. are there areas in and parts of colorado where firstnet will not be building out because it doesn't make sense or it's not

responsible? >> i think that's an excellent question. it's important for you to know that the funding in the second notice ensures rural build up. i think if you look at the public numbers we issued on monday there is assurance for rural buildout. the consultation that we do with every state is really talking about the priorities. not that we would never build but we want to understand where your priorities are. obviously a network of this magnitude would can't just snap our fingers and turn it on one day. it's going to have to go in phases that we have rural buildout milestones that we need to accomplish to make sure that we actually do that. the response of the earth he is going to be critical. and the folks who responded to rfps are going to have to address those issues. that's why we are taking information from your state consultation and putting that into the rfp so whoever is responding us that that's a priority for you. smack from your. >> from your -- i'm telling you

we talk more about rural and we do urban. that's how important is to us. we are constantly thinking about in making sure and i would commend you if you haven't seen it in for anybody that's listening the second notice assures that. we took great pains and spend time to make sure the situation you describe won't happen here. >> thank you. mr. chairman thank you. >> thank you senator gardner and appreciate the continued emphasis on the rural issues. i am sure you got that loudly and clearly today that there's a lot of interest in this good committee. >> i feel the same way. >> this has shed a lot of light on the subject that i think we need to get out and have this oversight hearing to raise some of these issues and that some of these questions we appreciate the panel's willingness to appear today and to respond to those questions.

we will continue to provide that oversight. this is an important investment something that has a lot of ramifications for our first responders and public safety community and making sure we are able to respond in an effective and timely way when things happen. we want to make sure we get it right in this committee will do what we can to stay on top of it. thank you all for being here today. the hearing record -- okay, all right. the senator from massachusetts is here. >> i apologize mr. chairman. i want to thank you for convening today's hearing. we understand very well how important is to have a strong reliable first responder network from the over 100 inches of snow this winter to hurricane sander -- sandy to the marathon bombing we know how critical it is our emergency responders have

the tools that allow them to work and talk to each other safely and that is why i have always supported firstnet because it's one of the most important recommendations of the 9/11 commission and interoperable public safety network. it ensures that our first responders have the tools which they need. so ms. swenson we must ensure that firstnet is reliable across the entire country however at each part of the country faces its own set of difficulties that will challenge the network's resiliency whether it's blizzard hurricanes tornadoes earthquakes, the list is endless. we have to make sure that the network has the capacity as a response to each one of these different challenges. so my first question is, is supposed to establish an

advanced network for the 21st century public safety needs. given that the states and municipalities already have existing public safety networks how will firstnet work when utilizing these resources and deploying the national safety broadband? >> thank you for the question. we we are interested in making this a reliable network and we were just talking to senator gardner about a similar question but i will be happy to repeat it. the issue with the current assets within the state when we started firstnet we thought that would be the way to go is to do an inventory of those assets and build upon those. it turns out one of our projects in los angeles the btop project in los angeles has informed us and has been useful in understanding the challenges in using existing assets because of the difficulty of developing memorandums of understanding

releasing excess capacity and it has been extremely useful in helping us understand that it was a little harder than we thought to do. that doesn't mean we wouldn't utilize those in some fashion but we did go through the rfp process, award partners to actually deploy the network and then determine how those assets could be utilized and also those assets depending on who owns them they could be part of responding to their request for the proposal. applying this network as you indicated it's important to do this in an urgent fashion and that's where we are dedicating our resources. >> on interstate 2013 in the middle of downtown boston with a million people watching the marathon there really is no other like this. we then had the marathon bombing attack so on the one hand you have the government response in on the other hand you have a private cellular network that you also want to have working

and you have a million people are calling, what's happening to my family member running for in this instance people who were running that were also injured. can you talk about the capacity in emergencies for the private cellular network to be able to find the kinds of information which is necessary for people to be able to respond properly? ..

we will be in a different class and we will harden those relatives -- harden those standards relative to each state. >> thank you sen. and thank you to the panel. the hearing record we will be open for two weeks during which senators are asked to submit questions for the record. upon receipt witnesses are asked to submit written answers as soon as possible. possible. thank you for your participation. this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> thursday on our companion network the senate finance committee will look at protecting taxpayers from various scams during the tax filing season. you will hear from federal state, and local officials and what they are doing to help promote public awareness. >> secretary of state john kerry testified today on the administration negotiations with iran and the use of military force against isis. here is what he had to say in an exchange with florida

senator marco rubio. the presumption has been that we somehow are not aware of the goal even as we negotiate that goal. our negotiation is calculated to make sure that they cannot get a nuclear weapon and it is almost insulting that the presumption here is that we are they are going to negotiate something that allows it to get a nuclear weapon. >> i am not saying there is a grand bargain but that i believe that our military strategy toward isis is influenced by our desire not to cross redlines. [inaudible conversations] >> absolutely not in the least. [inaudible conversations] >> we will do what is necessary in conjunction

with our coalition. sixty-two countries. 570 countries that for the 1st time ever are engaged in military action with another country in the region. >> i want to touch on that. general dempsey outlined the need for a broad coalition that i imagine involves these coalitions. his are also countries that are deeply concerned about iran. they feel we have kept them in the dark. in essence, the way we have proceeded has impacted our trust level with critical hours and the coalition. >> that actually is flat wrong also flat wrong. flat wrong. i met with the king who completely supportive of we're doing all of the gcc members.

they all articulated support for what we're doing and believe we are better off trying to prevent them from getting a bomb diplomatically 1st. they are perfectly comfortable. they are apprehensive. i want apprehensive. i want to make sure that as members of congress want to make sure the deal that is struck if one can be struck now we will in fact prevent them -- >> the details on where it stands right now. >> we have shed considerable shared considerable details. >> and are the apprehensive? >> you are they are comfortable with what we shared with them. notifying all of the senior foreign ministers of the world, i might add who

publicly sat with me at a press a press conference during which you articulate support for what we are doing. >> coming up tomorrow on our companion network secretary of state john kerry will speak about climate change and global energy as part of the atlantic council's road to climate in paris.

>> next line marijuana -- environmental officials testify and how they are dealing with the epa proposed greenhouse gas emissions rules for power plants. this committee hearing runs just under two hours.

>> whoever is here, we will go by the earlybird seniority and then after the gavel we will get to them after everyone was already taken care of. i really do think the most important thing is the state perspective they are the ones who have to carry these things out. the co2 regulations were existing compliance

unprecedented and scope complexity command requirements it will impose and state government. the proposal undermines the long-standing concept of cooperative federalism in the care act with the federal government is meant to work in partnership with the states to achieve the underlying goals. instead the rebel forces states to redesign the way they generate, manage, and use electricity in a a manner that satisfied president obama extreme climate agenda. thirty-two states oppose rule. so any agency of the lack of authority nine states have passed resolutions and their legislatures that express limits. have epa engaged in a

meaningful dialogue the agency would not be rushing ahead to impose an unfair and unworkable and likely illegal regulation. while the epa is busy selling this is a plan to save the world from global warming, we know that this will will have have visceral impacts on the environment. they have yet to do any modeling that would measure the proposal impact on temperatures and sea level rise. use the epa models and numbers and found that after spending $479 $479 billion over 15 years we would see the double-digit electricity

price increase to 43 states reduce grid reliability resulting in voltage collapse and cascading outages. outages. it will reduce co2 concentration by less than 0.5 percent. global average temperatures rise would be reduced by 0.01 and sea level rise will be reduced by 0.3 millimeters the thickness of three sheets of paper. benefit will be the continued emissions growth and china. hold that up higher. these results or lack

thereof shows this is a consequence of the environment expanding the government control and every aspect of american lines. noted to be one of the foremost climatologist in history. if you control carbon you control wife. nothing more than a blatant and selfish paragraph. back when nancy pelosi was the majority.

i appreciate the people coming so that we can hear their voices from the state. it is nice be to take the time to be here. sen. boxer. >> thank you, mr. chairman you, mr. chairman command i want to welcome our witnesses. a proud that mary nichols is here, here, legend in our state and has worked on the environment for her whole adult life. she now's executive director of the california air resources board who will describe what is happening. my home state of california has been a leader. we are prospering.

people can put there head in the sand, but facts are stubborn things. according to according to a knew peer review, research at the national academy of sciences california's record temperatures are driving the states extreme drought and scientists predict it will be worse. just two weeks ago scientists that nafta and cornell and columbia found if we fail to act immigrant -- act aggressively we have an 80 percent chance of a mega- drought in the entire west. in the face of this peer-reviewed science states should be working together to find solutions to prevent climate change. we know the american people want action. action. this is not a gas. this is a poor. 83 percent of americans including 61 percent of republicans if nothing is

done for emissions global warming we will be a problem again, you can sit here and say it is not an issue, but the american people would be in disagreement with that. ultimately climate change deniers continue to attack the landmark clean air act. just last week the majority leader mcconnell told state government to ignore the clean air act. imagine, ignore the law of the land and one of the most popular legislative actions in the history. we know that we can reduce carbon while growing the economy and i want to talk about california and the regional greenhouse gas initiative where new york is prospering as well. you will hear some of that from our witness. california is on the path to cut carbon pollution by 80% 80 percent

by 2050 as required under our greenhouse gas emissions line our state. ap 32. the people who try to overturn lost at the ballot. during the 1st year and a half california added 491,000 jobs growth of almost 3.3 percent. we are living proof a growing the economy in a safe environment goes hand-in-hand and are a large state. this is benefit of the middle class. it may interest you to know that the energy information administration found last month california's monthly residential electric bill averaged $90 compared to oklahoma's which averaged $110. under california climate program many consumers are receiving a twice a year climate credit.

california new york command other states should be proud of there leadership in putting forward real solutions to climate change while we can't boil things they can't kick you out notice you just get an eviction on your record now the media but he is now our

director. it is interesting mr. chairman. today, as todd testifies people have worked with a democrat governor, the republican governor in wyoming and has put wyoming 1st done what is best for state environment. it is a privilege to introduce one of those testifying, testifying to the director of department of environmental quality for wyoming. >> thank you, you, senator. anyone else here for introductory purposes? we are going to go ahead and start with our testimony. we would like you to do your best. we will start with you and work. you are recognized. >> thank you, chairman ranking member, members of the community for inviting me today testify.

i am michael myers from the new york atty. gen.'s attorney general's office. my perspective is slightly different than those of other members of the panel. as an environmental lawyer i worked for the past 15 15 years at the attorney general's office counseling state regulators on legal issues related to air pollution and climate change and limit -- litigating those issues and courts. it is particularly appropriate the commission continue to hear state perspectives. another provision of the clean air act the epa is using states are in the driver seat. for us to succeed in this critically important area the state has to be willing to take the wheel. from the perspective of state new york has already taken action to cut greenhouse powerpoint initiatives, initiatives, i have good news, you can reduce these emissions and

the power sector and do so in a a way that will help grow your economy. new york and other states have reduced greenhouse gases from the electricity sector by 40 percent from 2005 levels 2005 levels and reinvesting the proceeds from the art -- option of pollution allowances has kept down electricity cost in our region. region. epa clean power plan would build off of the work that states like california have done in this area. the plan would cut greenhouse gases by about 730 million metric tons grade equivalent to the annual emissions of power and half the homes in america. the the shift to cleaner generation would also result in substantial public health benefits including 150000 fewer asthma attacks by 2030 back to back to what i started with. for this plan to work states have to be willing to step up.

some are discouraging states on the grounds that the clean power plan is unlawful. my unlawful. my written testimony highlights why such arguments are meritless. first under section -- action under section 111 d to address greenhouse gases from fossil fuel power plants is required under the clean air act requiring epa to ensure states achieve emission reductions from power plants necessary to protect human health and welfare from the harms of carbon pollution. second pollution. second, epa regulation of hazardous pollutants from existing power plants underwent provision of the clean air act does not preclude the use of section 111 d to require those plans to cut there greenhouse gas emissions. the implication of that claim is that the epa had a choice. a choice. it could either use the

hazardous air pollution program to cut mercury emissions poisoning fish we eat or combat climate change by using the provision that the supreme court said speaks directly to powerplant current emissions. carbon emissions. not only does this interpretation defy common sense but is wrong as a matter of law. third, it is clear epa has the authority to test substances emissions limitations for states to meet. in the absence of such a benchmark state plans get could widely in terms of astringency and effectiveness. it's clear that the epa has the authority to interpret the best system of emission reduction to reflect the various ways in which states and utilities have reduced greenhouse gas emissions from electricity sector.

the building block approach appropriately recognizes successful strategies such as and and invest programs renewable portfolio standards and energy efficiency the states and utilities have already shown can significantly reduce carbon emissions and do so cost-effectively. in in conclusion here is what i urge state regulators to consider. world scientists are telling us we need to act now if we are to have a chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. faith leaders are faith leaders are telling us there is a moral imperative to act the law the clean air act requires us to act and the epa plan is on sound, legal ground. we are open to work with you on how best to cut emissions. the time is now. take the wheel. thank you for the opportunity to testify, and i look forward

to answering your questions. >> the chairman of the california air resources board. you board. you are recognized. >> thank you, chairman ranking member members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to be here. i am chair of the california resources board and i'm honored to be here to support epa proposed clean powerplant which we believe will unlock state innovation across the country to protect our people and grow our economies. the framework proposed by epa is a workable compatible plan that will cut carbon pollution along with other forms of pollution for the focus on increasing energy efficiency and the use of cleaner domestic energy sources. it provides an opportunity for a better future. this is a future that we working to create in california. our success story has been one of bipartisanship. the 2006 california global

warming solutions act was signed by a republican former governor schwarzenegger who appointed me to this position and a democratic governor, jerry brown who has reappointed me and has placed climate change at the core of his agenda, championing our enormously successful carbon market ramping up green energy programs and working nationally and internationally to spread solutions that will protect our vulnerable citizens our extremely valuable agricultural industry our coastline and are forced against the already growing reality of climate change. california overwhelmingly supports the efforts to move california toward cleaner and more efficient sources of energy and address the grave threat that global warming poses to america and the world.

i am here today to share our successes with you and to emphasize that epa is using its clean air act authority in the way that it was went to the spread success across the country and encourage each state to develop its own plan to cut carbon pollution and to grow its economy. i am going to skip some of what is in the prepared testimony because i really want to focus on the fact that we believe that working together, not just as an environmental agency, but under the direction of our government with the public utilities commission and our energy commission as well as the independent system operator the controls the transmission wires we can deliver not only in more resilient energy system that meet and exceed the targets that epa has set. we are on track for a 3rd

of the state's vision is to be met by renewable energy. they are on track for a 3rd of the state's vision is to be met by renewable energy. governor brown's establishment of a goal to get to 50 percent by 2030. our carbon wide carbon intensity has already fallen by nearly 5 percent since 2009 and we will keep falling. that is not only due to electrical power plants that cleaner fuels and vehicles which are an integral part of a plan. the epa power plan is only one piece of the overall president's climate plan but it is an important one. the main thing i want to emphasize is that this is happening at the same time that california is prospering, growing jobs are growing the economy faster than the rest of the country. we have grown our jobs since the market is gone and operation by 3.3 percent. personal income and wages are a growing and rates well

above the national average. our electric power grid delivers power reliably, resiliently come and efficiently thanks to the continued stewardship of transmission operators and as senator boxer indicated, power bills are down. californians pay for my post electricity bills in the country. states all across the country, country, and we do talk to many of our colleagues are discovering the clean energy. texas as well as many places are taking action to ensure

their ratepayers and citizens against risks to reliability that come from dirty and an efficient coal plants. we think that the clean powerplant will encourage states to take broader advantage of strategies that they are already using saving money and invigorating economies across the country and to the extent that they choose to work together around the regional grid they will do even better because we don't own know the original approach will be more cost effective for all. as a result we believe the net benefits about to something like 48 to $82 billion in 2030 representing live say sick say, sick days avoided and

climate change abated as well as a more efficient and secure energy system. bottom line is clean powerplant builds on 40 years of clean air act success and now confronts us with an opportunity to address one of the most severe challenges of our time in a way that a way that can create knew jobs and increase energy security >> thank you. commissioner of the indiana department of environmental management. you are recognized. >> thank you chairman, members of the committee. i am the commissioner of the indiana department of environmental management. i bring you greetings and appreciate the opportunity to share with you the proposed regulations for fossil fuel.

proposed proposed regulations will detrimentally impact indiana for a number of significant reasons. where the most manufacturing intensive state in the united states. more than 80 percent of the electricity comes from coal. the other 300 year supply. we recognize we need all forms of energy to power our economy. developing an updated energy plan for the state that will continue to foster greater use of renewable and other energy sources. a crucial energy resource that must continue to be utilized. the mission is to protect the environment. my office examined the proposal and engaged private sector stakeholders and other state agencies and an extensive review of the proposal and its potential

impacts. our analysis came to one conclusion. this will significant harm without providing measurable offsetting benefits. for those reasons we filed joint comments are urging the urging the epa to withdraw the proposal. the copy of the letter has been shared committee. the most ironic impact of the proposed regulations is that they are likely to increase worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by decreasing the international competitiveness of us benefits.

us emissions will decrease. worldwide they will increase as businesses move to areas with less efficient and more carbon intensive energy supplies. indiana one so a competitive advantage due to the low cost of electricity, but no longer. the low cost of electricity advantage has slipped and epa regulations have significantly contributed to that change. we have forecasted a 30 percent increase in electrical costs. the proposal will add additional costs on top of that. predicted is proposal we will increase the cost of natural gas.

furthermore increasing energy cost hit the poor elderly, and most vulnerable at a time when indiana is doing all it can there is a real possibility that the increased energy cost will slow the economic process progress. we are obviously concerned about the economic impact of the epa proposed rule on business and consumers. we also filed 31 pages of technical comments. we want to make sure the rule does not result in unintended consequences such as reduced reliability or not yet having the necessary infrastructure in place to convert from coal to natural gas. for purposes of due diligence indiana is evaluating all developed -- all available responses from submitting estate plan to participate in a regional approach or simply choosing

to comply at all. the fact that this misguided policy will harm people while increasing the worldwide level the very emissions is designed to increase compels indiana to propose legislation. thank you for the opportunity to share. >> the director of the wyoming department of environmental quality command your recognized. >> good morning chairman ranking member, members of the senate environment public works committee. i am the director of the wyoming department of environmental quality. i think the committee for inviting the state. providing extensive providing extensive comments to the health protection agency.

we take great pride in how we manage natural resources providing both environmental stewardship and energy production. it is a false question to ask if everyone energy production or environment stewardship. in wyoming we must have both wyoming sends electricity to both the eastern and western power grids reaching from iowa to washington generating 49.6 million megawatt hours of electricity with 66 percent of this electricity consumed beyond our borders. this this electricity generation includes 88 percent coal and 9 percent went. epa proposal impact states differently. each state has unique characteristics and energy portfolios that are the application of each of the four building blocks. the proposed coal is problematic and unrealistic to achieve. proposing a compressed

timeline during which states should develop and submit plans. considering plans. considering the complexities of the proposal in developing the plan. 70 percent of the proposed stake is far greater than what can be achieved. this disparity is referred to as the cliff. wyoming. wyoming these evaluation identifying other data errors are often more powerful building blocks. a focus on key concerns since it centered at -- since it has the largest impact. 100% of the missions from fossil fuel power plants regardless of end user we will be attributed to the energy producing states. 66 percent of electricity in wyoming is from outside its

borders. there will be attributed to the consuming and not producing state. 85 percent of 4.3 million-megawatt hours. more than half of the land in wyoming is home -- on demands for the federal government was subjecting renewable transmission projects to meet them. while the intent while the intent is good the process is slow. it took over four years. now the fish and wildlife service requires to fast-track transmission projects on there 8th year of the process, process both still awaiting a final decision.

finally the epa assessment of available land in wyoming for wind energy development fails to consider high-priority environmental conflicts such as better safe ground, ground, habitat, other designated critical habitats, the protected areas of critical and cultural significance. factoring this significance. factoring this and reduces available land and renewals as opposed. all of these factors lead to an unrealistic goal for wyoming. directing your attention to the two, number one depicts the glide path as proposed by epa. >> which one is one? >> on your right depicting a bar graph as proposed by epa. one can observe the dominant influence as shown in green. after a. after review wyoming

determined what is practically achievable. this is shown in graph number two. read as can be seen as a a wide gap between epa and wyoming's analysis. based on the propose: with limited options simplest illustration stranded investment would be nearly one half million dollars and does not include the cost of replacement. we look forward to continue dialogue is the epa

considers epa considers our comments and reconsiders the proposal. thank thank you for allowing me to provide input to your committee. >> thank you. the commissioner of the service commission of wisconsin thank you for the opportunity to speak. the chairperson. last fall i submit those comments together with our analysis of a written testimony the record. the manufacturing heavy state.

if the problems in the clean power plan are not limited the work not done to restore manufacturing sector will be threatening. with that background and because of the far-reaching impact of the epa's clean power plan we brought together an interdisciplinary team. this team consisted of public and service commission experts in utility rate monitoring economic and environmental engineering along with the department of natural resource experts environmental regulation particularly the clean air act. using a. using a standard utility monitoring program we forecasted the cost of this regulation under a number of scenarios with varying assumptions about the future

candidly our team felt that taking into account the impacts of this wasn't -- this regulation in every family and business the us is the kind of analysis that should've been done by the epa before making such a proposal. a result of our analysis of been provided to the community. here are two highlights. this the single federal regulation will cost ratepayers between three-point 1 billion $4.1 billion. this does not include necessary upgrades to the gas and electric infrastructure which we will add significantly. these costs are also on top of the 11.6 billion in carbon dioxide reduction measures that wisconsin ratepayers pay for since 2,000. not only do not receive credit for the investments but the proposal penalizes wisconsin for being a reactor. second, as. second, as our assumptions became more realistic, the cost rose.

would you assume that this massive increase would drive prices higher? that reasonable assumption significantly raises the cost. at the heart of the matter we question the very foundation of this proposal. the epa constructed four building blocks, each of which was evaluated independently and then to determine the foundation for each this target reduction they added the carbon dioxide reductions. unfortunately the epa ignored how the building blocks would affect each other when all four were implemented together. increasing reliance on natural gas far below the 6%

requirement: one. furthermore epa used indiscriminate and unsupportable approaches to enter the building blocks. building block one applies a national level he rate improvement each coal-fired plan regardless of the ability of an individual plan to realize these games. in contrast, building block three, state renewable state the noble goals takes a region -- regional approach. as it is currently written under any previous interpretation of the clean air act the system proposed is actually not the system of all. they are not recognizable systems that can be applied to an omission unit and they cannot guarantee certain conclusive greenhouse gas emission reductions

engineers of the public service commission modeled in planning concluded that the building blocks would deliver a 15.6 percent reduction. this is a far cry from the 34 percent the epa claims is attainable and necessary for wisconsin to comply. finally the compliance timelines are unrealistic and unworkable. the leadtime required we will require the full proposed compliance timeframe through the end of 2030. i sincerely appreciate the opportunity to speak to this esteemed committee committee command you we will find my submitted written testimony dealt much deeper into the issues of modeling and the technical aspects of the role we find troubling. we can agree on the need to protect our environment this proposed rule does not strike the right balance in protecting public health reliability of the grid command economic security. thank you very much. >> thank you.

you submitted a sip a federal program would that create a problem. i think you answered that. very similarly, would like to ask you the north carolina propose to delay the claim plant -- clean power plan until a final ruling by the courts on the plans many legal uncertainties. the administrator looked at hiring a bunch of knew attorneys. given that taking steps to comply with the clean power plan that the state came back and found was totally out of compliance.

>> it creates a lot of uncertainty. where rates are going ago. we become commissioners but i'll give us crystal balls. unfortunately we can't look into the future but have to make the best decision based on information before us. a similar issue with the cross state air pollution will and utilities were starting to make movements to attempt to comply command we have to do the best to allow them to try to recover and be judicious in spending ratepayer dollars so we will work closely monitor legal proceedings and any that wisconsin is involved in. >> in your written testimony you talked a little bit it

could increase the amount of emissions in this position that i have held since lisa jackson said that doing something unilaterally in the united states is not going to affect. >> most of our businesses the basic bottom of our economy, the steel industry the auto industry rely upon energy costs and they are internationally competitive. you can buy from brazil, india, russia and actually why would you bother? you just bring the finished

product year. here. so the missions will happen is countries. some of them some of them have decided to, like i understand china signed an agreement to consider stopping the growth of the emissions by about 2030. between now and then there is still much higher production. our businesses that have to stay in business by the internationally competitive, i am concerned that emissions will go of. >> thank you very much. if you don't analysis as to how much of the rate increase the psc would have to approve to implement this plan? >> we expected to be in double digits the the double digits pending upon which method of compliance we use. it can be easily in the upper 20 percent. right now we have more of an aggregate number.

that will be fleshed out as we know more details and utilities come and ask for your recovery but this is can be a significant increase on ratepayers all across the board, low board, low income to large manufacturers. >> thank you. i'm going to be either ask you for the record or if there is time at the end if you would agree with the position of many of taken. waiting until these not real issue -- these legal issues are cleared up. i hope i hope we have time because i do want to hear your answer. i say what parts of the

clean power plan will require enactment of knew laws in your state, and how long will it take to develop pass and implement these laws. >> as far as legislation that may need to be put into place, anything that we will relate to a a multistate plan is developed would need some legislative discussion. anything anything dealing with their noble portfolio standard, the building blocks would likely require some sort of legislation. the timing legislature meets for a 40 day a 40 day session and the 20 day session alternating. it's a budget session. something can be brought forth the legislature in a

meaningful way through and term topic studies as well. >> in indiana i legislature does not meet year-round. we'll have authority we don't have authority for building blocks two three, four. >> we have a three-year process which i submit this would be one. we'll have authority over building blocks. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. i'm stunned by the states attitude states that are doing this prosper and five more than your state. it is okay. okay. i want to ask mary nichols

is question where they said actually these rules could mean that we would be increasing carbon worldwide because some companies will leave the states. and we found companies running away from california? last i checked silicon valley was booming, everyone coming increases in manufacturing. i wrong? >> not wrong. we are experienced growth across the board. we are the leading state in terms of investment in technology and renewable energy. right now solar energy in particular is booming. we have some natural advantages whatever.

only implemented are uncovered missions with the training program there were many who were concerned about the rising cost to much's -- electricity to a a manufacturing sector. it is a critical concern for everybody along with reliability. no state or government can afford to take risks with the lights going out there state. that is job number one, in a manner how much we care about the environment or greenhouse gases. we know that our job is also to make sure that the lights stay on. i think it is important to recognize that this proposal that the epa is put out does have within that the flexibility and the time needed. i recognize the concerns of my fellow states and think they are legitimate but assert that the puzzle is epa has put it which

admittedly they will be modifying can address those concerns. >> i think that is an important.because you make it very clear that we need transition. epa gets that. she is sensitive to the states. i wanted to ask you last year former epa administrator christie todd whitman who served under george w. bush testify before our clean air subcommittee that it was settled law that the clean air act can be used to control, pollution. the proposed carbon standards supported by the terms of -- the three supreme court decisions? june 232014. >> yes they are.

massachusetts versus epa recognize the authority under the clean air act regulate greenhouse gas emissions. the connecticut versus american electric power case was one new york was involved in seeking to get at the same emissions the epa clean power plan is going to get out and the supreme court in that case told us that with federal common-law nuisance not applying because section 111 speaks directly to these power plan emissions. but do expect to the last decision you mentioned the supreme court reaffirmed the authority of the clean air act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and found that under the acts permitting program if you are in many a

certain amount of conventional pollutants you have to apply the best available control technology for co2 emissions. ..

to collaborate with other states to meet them. do you agree with rocky mountain power that wyoming should -- would be best served by completing a stay compliance plan? >> i can't speak specifically to the comments of rocky mt. empowered but what i can say is that our valuation when we look at the entirety of the plan doesn't work for wyoming because as it showed in the charge that we displayed the options and the building blocks as presented by epa and the proposal don't work for wyoming and so we would say the plan is stated because we have more than one utility. >> i totally appreciate that. last question, have you told epa your concerns and have you given options to the epa because they really want to work with the states. have you let them know how you

feel and specifically what's wrong with what they are doing for wyoming? >> yes, we have provided comments from the public service commission and we have had discussions. >> good, thank you. >> thank you senator boxer. senator rounds. >> thank you mr. chairman. during that time that we were on the campaign trail this last year and i'm new to the committee and new to the process up here one of the items we talked about a lot was the anticipated cost to the average american family with regard to an increase in their costs for electric rates. the united states chamber of commerce last summer i believe estimated the average cost of the average american family would be approximately $1400 more per year than their electric rates. i was curious mr. parfitt in a

recent statistic that comes in the case of my state of south dakota that our electric rates would increase probably about 20% or more as the result of the clean power plan. this is significantly more than 8.8 cents per kilowatt hour they are paying now. according to the wyoming public service commission compliance cost for the 111 b. proposals could well exceed -- what impact will this have not only on wyoming but also ratepayers and surrounding states? i know the people of south dakota receive power from wyoming and wyoming as you indicated earlier supplies power because of your location to the natural resources available and you have been an exporter of power. could you share about what this will do to the rates for other

states as well? >> we do provide power to many other states and our compliance path as we have viewed it based on the proposal results in the premature closure of plants and the stranded assets that would likely result in raising of rates for all the customers, not just those in wyoming that would be shared across the network. >> what does the epa proposed or how does the epa proposed that you respond to those stranded costs? what is their expectation? >> this is an issue that we have raised with the epa before the proposal was put out to notice in hopes that would be taken into consideration and in our view that hasn't been taken into consideration and we don't see at least at this point the

offramp and we have expressed this concern to epa in our comments so we are waiting to see how they might respond in june when they come out with the final proposal. >> so you have not had a comment back or there is not a process in place to get a response back for the cost that you have indicated your state would have to pass on to other states but also expect the places where your organizations have contracts with ongoing electrical power? those costs you don't know how those will be handled? >> at this point the epa has not conveyed how they would address that particular comment. the conversations we have had with epa have been primarily to get clarification on some of the corrections we pointed out within the proposal itself.

>> bpa claims of the rules give states flexibility to create their own plans but it appears that overlooks the fact that electricity transmission does not stop at the state borders. many states including south dakota plant -- rely on neighboring states to ensure the reliability of the grid. epa's modeling suggest under the 111 d. proposal wyoming could cut his generation by 7.5 million megawatts or a million megawatt hours. how will wyoming continue to -- how will you continue to power the regional economy with cuts like this and is that an accurate statement? >> as far as how we would continue if we are looking at closing down existing power plants that would create a reliability issue however this is getting a little bit out of my expertise within the

expertise of the public service commission in terms of how to maintain the brea -- reliability of service to all of its customers. >> thank you. appreciate your time. mr. chairman i yield back. >> thank you senator rounds. senator carper. >> thanks mr. chairman. each of you welcome. thanks for the work you do and thanks for sharing your thoughts with us in responding to our questions. i come not as a sitting senator but as a recovering governor wants to share the perspective from the state of delaware. from a guy born in west virginia so i was -- so i come from a lot of different perspectives. i know you are trying to be in compliance with clean air standards and we would have been out of compliance and the reason why is because the folks creating cheap electricity to the west of us came our way. we are at the end of america's

tailpipe so is maryland and so is pennsylvania and so is new jersey and new york. i am a firm believer in the golden golden rule treating people the way you want to be treated. i think they're important concerns and we have to be mindful of them. epa needs to be mindful of them as well but i as well for violation of their note their other folks that are personally affected by your ability and some people in our country to develop cheap electricity dirty electricity and we suffer the consequences. i don't like it. we have not liked it. we have tried to gone to court and we have finally succeeded in doing that. get in your car with me and use your imagination. going to southern delaware and we were driving down pine brook road to the east to dover bay. we get to the delaware bay and is to be a parking lot there, big parking lot there. it's not there anymore. actually it's underwater. you look off to the right you

will see a booger sticking up out of the water about 500 feet out. there used to be 500 feet on land. now it's 500 feet out into the water. something is going on here. we don't just make this stuff up. the key is for us how can we have cleaner air how can we address the issues of rising waters? delaware is the lowest lying state in the country. in order for us to address this we need to work on it together. i'm not interested in jamming anything down your throats but i'm interested in working on this together. my understanding of the rules that are being contemplated here you don't get a lot of credit for that and a credit i guess goes to california and those other states. we have to be able to figure out how to deal with that. we ought to be able to figure out how to deal with that, pay?

the lady from california sounds to me like the economy is doing well and a cleaner environment is stronger economy think you have answered that. we think the answer is yes you can. i think most of you at this table would agree with that. a couple of things and folks in california you are a situation where he acted early. you have been a good citizen, good steward and my sense is you are going to be punished for it. we are in the same situation. we don't like that. what do you think we should do about it? >> i think your comment earlier about states needing to work together is exactly correct. to my friend from wyoming my local utility the los angeles water and power concluded a large agreement with a new wyoming wind company to import wind generated electricity from wyoming to help replace some of the coal-fired energy that they have been relying on.

they are actually taking responsibility for being the largest in our state even though the electricity we were using was coming from utah as it happens and there will be costs associated with transitioning away from the cold and into the wind but overall the net of it is that los angeles ratepayers will still be doing okay because the utility is taking steps to help their customers become more efficient in their use of energy and that i think is kind of the critical ingredient here that if our rates go up because of new investments that we are making that has to be offset in some way in order to shield the ratepayers from rate shocks and things that would just make it untenable for them to go forward

on this cleaner electricity plan that we are on. given some time for the transition we can do it. i do think it was right to come up with a crediting mechanism. i think epa needs to do this they want to encourage regional kwok ration as they say they do. they are going to have to allow states to work together either bilateral or regional basis to come up with programs where they can effectively share the cost and the benefits. that is what we are doing right now there are agreement with the canadian province of québec where we now run literally a bistate by national trading program with emissions allowances. it obviously not everybody is going to want to go that far afield but the concept is one that has been proven to work. >> three briefly can you give me what you think is a fair compromise.

the issue of wyoming generating this clean energy and shipping it off to california and other places and not getting the credit for it. what's a fair way to deal with this? what is a fair compromise ms. nowak really quickly? >> i didn't fully understand your question. >> mr. parfitt can you answer this as it pertains to you? >> as it pertains to the claim power plant i think the tuition their three issues here play in the first is the attribution of fossil fuel emissions co2 emissions being attributed to the energy producing states and the other issue that is at play here is the renewable energy generated in wyoming which 85% is shipped out of state. applying an escalator to that 100% of that to the producing

state it's unfair. >> mr. chairman i will say this. we have a significant compromise here and you will have to help us. >> senator capito. >> i would like to thank the panel and ranking member. let me say a few words about my home state of west virginia what we have had to say about the clean power plan. our own epa has called it patently illegal invading the province that has been put forward with the finesse of the ball in a china shop. we have joined, i would note in the comments at 32 states have submitted negative comments or the comments of great concern to this rule while the numbers that have submitted comments are much smaller in terms of states. i want to talk about the reliability issue. west virginia has joined with other states, probably several of yours to block this plan and

we will be hearing this suit in the next several months. the epa in west virginia or the db in west virginia said the schools are unattainable and we have heard some testimony to that. with that in mind i would like to talk to mr. easterly because we have a lot in common in terms of your production of electricity predominately with coal. we have 95% of our electricity generated by coal for obvious reasons. we have a lot of coal although not as much as wyoming. epa has indicated it does not have significant concerns about reliability. last week pjm interconnection released analysis that found clean power can trigger 49 gigawatts of generating capacity. let me quantify 9 gigawatts is the equivalent of electricity used to power 50 million homes. this is one of the studies recently released that i think i'll tend to question the

reliability issue. are you concerned about reliability and indiana? i would note that ms. nichols did note the reliability as an important month but i would like to hear your comments on that. see i guess we are. we have another group that deals with reliability but here's a fundamental problem. even apa's best that process has more fossil fuel fired productions the new generation of renewables and lands and other things. the plan necessarily forward is the flexibility of our electric supply in the united states. add this to the fact that we have had record pjm demand days. they are a little better handle this year than they were with the polar vortex and so we have increasing demand decreasing supply and the renewables a pro i is valuable but it's not

reliable. so sometimes the wind is blowing and sometimes it's not and sometimes the solar panels don't have clouds or snow on them and sometimes they don't say you can't count on them for everything. their capacities higher than a generation and they are not always available when you need them. i am very concerned as are a lot of people in the industry that we will see some catastrophic results sometime during implementation of this plan. we just don't know where or when. >> ms. nowak deal to comment on the reliability issue? >> we have significant concerns from the perspective of system reliability. the modeling program used by the epa to evaluate the building blocks and whether the goals are achievable it uses less robust data been possessed and used by her own rtl. they are responsible for maintaining our grid. unfortunately the epa never asked to do any studies of the

grid prior to releasing this proposal. examples of the work we think needs to be done gathering information on deliverability for gas-fired units plans for a placement in its impact on the increase of an event renewable resources on reliability and considering the electrical grid location deliverability of units to be expected to be retired. again the modeling used by the epa doesn't appear to consider any of these fundamentally necessary factors. >> in my state we are heavily reliant on coal. to transition these plants to natural gas is not a realistic endeavor. it's an exceedingly expensive to build new ones takes a lot of time and a lot of energy. you will expect energy to move forward on this as well. you have also recently closed one of your nuclear plants in

wisconsin and your plan that was put forward for you under this clean power plant does not take into consideration your loss of nuclear power. that has to be a problem in terms of meeting the challenge. >> eventually that will be replaced with a carbon-neutral source. that will increase costs of the proposal for wisconsin to comply. >> but me ask you a quick question. we have a hearing last week on ozone and the new regulations that will be put into effect. does every county in california compliance with current ozone regulations that we have presently? >> nau senator we are not. we have remaining challenges in southern california and the central valley. and the new ozone standard will

add an extra challenge as well as extra time to that effort. >> you put that on top of what we are doing with clean power. >> we care about the health of virus citizen senator. >> i care about that. >> we rely on the science. >> in terms of how we are going to meet this challenge and in terms of our timeline's extension of timelines extension of measures what is going to be the best and i will ask mr. parfitt from wyoming what's going to be the easy thing to knock down on this clean power plan is going to make the biggest impact to meet the challenges? deadlines, timelines lower standards, less reductions? c certainly timelines are a big component of this when you consider developing a plan in and the time involved with that in the complexities and the

amount of agencies in states that would have to be involved in that discussion let alone the legislation and the rules we have mentioned here and the time that would take seem to be problematic. >> thank you senator capito. senator murphy. c thank you very much mr. chair and underlying business discussion is a challenge we have a carbon methane pollution and the impact it's having across the world. we don't have to look across the world. we look to my home state of oregon and indeed we are seeing that the fire season has grown by 60 days over the lateral decades and a number of acres of forest that has been burned has increased dramatically. we have an oyster industry that's having great trouble because baby oysters have trouble forming shells because the ocean is 30% more acidic than it was before the

industrial revolution. we have a farming community that is suffering significant repeated worst ever droughts because the soil pack in the cascades is steadily declining in this year's one of the lowest ever. while rain earlier in the year can fill a reservoir if you don't have the snowpack, august you are in trouble. as spc this impact on farming and fishing and forced rewrite now we are not talking 50 years, 100 years into the future. just like delaware senator carper was talking about land that is now underwater. should the entities that are being damaged by carbon pollution be able to sue those who are generating the carper proportional to their contribution mr. easterly? >> i'm not a lawyer so remember the environment of our earth has been changing for all of recorded history.

indiana used to be under huge ig. there are natural variations in the things you talked about some scientists would say or do to the oscillation and they are likely to continue. >> mr. parfitt would you like to answer? >> i would echo those comments. this is a legal question that i'm not an attorney that can address that. spin attack okay legal question but the principle you understand when you do damage to your neighbor shouldn't you bear some responsibility as a basic fundamental principle? >> i think this is a complicated question. >> okay thank you. >> users may have some responsibility so from a legal standpoint -- >> if you don't want to answer the question that's fine. ms. nowak. >> if they are following existing law and regulation i would think it would be a

chilling effect and an it objected to legal claims. >> everyone in the first year of economics learns about externalities things that are not reflected in the market. certainly our libertarian friends would say when he do damage to your neighbor you should compensate for that damage. the fact is carbon and methane is produced in a million giveaways and there is no state that doesn't produce a lot of both but we are seeing a differential in all states are taking us on. oregon is now 70% of its electricity is produced in fossil format and ms. nichols uber referring to a 2020 goal of wonder but that didn't include hydropower. what is it with hydropower included? >> if we included the hydro that we received we would be above are 30%, 33% goals.

so we chose not to add it or the legislature chose not to edit or nuclear because they were trying to push forward solar wind geothermal biomass. >> if that percentage was included with other non-fossil? if you include the other non-fossil? >> we would be about 40%. >> you have got to aim for oregon. we are at 70%. we often respect greatly the examples you are setting particularly you have set up a marketplace. if we turn back in time there was a proposal that came really from a right-wing think tank about using markets to regulate sulfur dioxide to take on acid rain. the concept was not to regulate every smokestack but to proceed to set up a marketplace and verify the most cost-effective solutions would be adopted.

how did that work out or do you have memory of that? >> senator that was the assistant administrator at epa when we implemented the program and i'm very proud of the success of that program. it did reach its goals in terms of the amount of sulfur dioxide that was reduced and it did so less expensively. we relied on that plan into signing our cap-and-trade program in california. the marketplace works well and lower costs and faster results than anyone anticipated. it was an off the charts success success, congratulations. why would the same strategy worked well of carbon dioxide? >> we believe it would. it was as you know defeated here but within california it was actually put on the ballot and voters chose to keep that system and the effect because they i think they became convinced that it would lead us to cleaner

energy future. >> they want to see carbon dioxide reduced in the most cost-effective manner to receive positive results. isn't the clean power plan based on the states developing their own plan through a range of different choices? that's a possibility. >> it's clearly allowable. it's not required. i know epa was very familiar with their program when they designed the rule but i also understand they tried really hard doesn't seem like they have quite succeeded just yet anyway to indicate to states that they would have the ability to design a plan that fit their own unique situation. >> thank you. >> thank you senator merkley. senator barrasso would be next but he is graciously conceded to senator boozman. >> thank you very much.

i appreciate it. following up on senator merkley's question you are out of compliance for ozone and the epa's regulatory impact analysis says the annual in costa california would be 2.2 billion dollars per year. if you like individuals should be able to sue for noncompliance? >> under the clean air act citizens have the ability to sue epa and directly the state for noncompliance with any element. california has submitted a state implementation plan and we are in compliance with their plan. we are moving forward steadily every year bringing down our levels of ozone and we have come into compliance and many counties. >> your argument is if you are doing things as required by law

then you shouldn't be sued? >> one of the reasons why we are here to defend the carbon plan the epa plan is that it helps us with their ozone standard as well. we need all the help we can get. >> with regard to the question do you agree with ms. nowak in the sense that if you are in compliance with the regulation requires you shouldn't be sued. >> mr. boozman i went to law school too and we were taught that anybody can file a lawsuit. >> i didn't go to law school. >> anybody can file a lawsuit. >> i guess what i'm saying what she is saying is that would wreak havoc. when do you feel like you were going to be ozone compliant? >> at this point we are protecting off into the future. we are working as hard as we can but it will probably be as

challenging if not more challenging to meet the ozone standard as it is to meet the greenhouse gas standard and that is exactly why we are supporting the epa rule. it will help us with both. >> do you agree it will cost you 800 million to 2 billion -- to 2.2 billion a year? >> i can't verify that number but the economic analysis that epa did in advance was using all the tools that we would have used in the same way. >> okay. thank you mr. chair. >> thank you senator. >> thank you chairman and thank you to the panel for being here. let me ask first commissioner nowak and 2013 commissioner nowak the "milwaukee journal sentinel" published an editorial in your home state that said and i will quote climate change is happening. human activity plays a huge role

in that. the consequences of doing nothing could be dire and expensive. do you agree with the milwaukee journal sentinel on that? >> thank you for the question. my role as a regulator we ensure reliability of the grid. i did not or do not endeavor to take on the policy behind what is before us. my role has been analyzing it and the rules that come before us. i look for three things. the environment a to rule this coming does it compromise the affordability, the safety and reliability of our great? that's the lens that i looked through this rule. >> no amount of our mental costs would figure into your analysis then. >> no, that's not what i said. see that that's exactly what you