water energy technology team? how are they addressing that issue of water security? >> we have a very -- for the last two years we've been ramping up this water energy nexus work, and there's several elements there. one, by the way, we are focused on besides new technologies, and we have proposed, by the way, in our fy 17 budget a newly roughly $25 million a year hub around water. it's not just about the membranes. it's about the system and how you clean up the water and everything else. in addition, i would note from our perspective, we think the quality and comprehensiveness of data on water is not up to where

it needs to be. this issue we're working on data, working on technology, and working on the systems issues are all critical. international partners are excited about working with us on, this and israel, which is so far advanced in these technologies is one that we are building up a stronger collaboration on. >> can you talk about the energy storage at the department? >> the energy storage program is one that we have expanded. a lot of congressional interest in that support, which we appreciate, so we are working -- we have a battery hub, which is doing extremely well. it is centered at argon. berkeley is the major partner.

we recently put out maybe a month ago a report on hydro and pointed out in terms of storage we still have a lot of capacity for pump hydro in the country, which today is the most cost-effective in the places where you can do it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. yield back. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from ohio for five minutes. >> i thank the chairman very much, and mr. secretary, thanks for being with us. i would like to touch on a couple of areas that you brought up in your testimony. one being fixing america's surface transportation under the fast act, and under the fast act provides the d.o.e. with a new authority to protect and restore critical infrastructure when the president declares a grid security emergency. how has this new authority changed the way d.o.e. works with critical infrastructure? >> so we are really ramping up

that intersection. in fact, our secretary just hosted a meeting with leaders from the electricity sector last week at our sandia laboratory. we have -- in fact, if i just mention, say, cyber security as an example of that, we have developed now with the private sector ceos of -- well, ceos and people who work for the ceos, a number of tools. partly it's something called crisp. i forgot what the acronym stands for, but it is a program of much more by directional exchange and situational awareness about cyber threats, including the exchange of classified information. secondly, we have developed what's called a maturity model, which allows the electricity

sector, but also we've extended it to the oil and gas sectors to get a much better understanding of where they are in their cyber capabilities and, third, we have just instituted in august a dd.u.e., an integrated joint cyber activity that knits together all of our capabilities from our laboratories on cyber to get faster response for faster iechksz and response of cyber threats. that's already shown its potential in a particular cyber threat that was identified much faster than was done in the industry itself. >> since you brought up the cyber side especially what's happening there, how is your cooperation been working with other departments and agencies in the government?

especially homeland security. >> i think it's been good and getting better. in fact, this information sharing crisp initiative is with d.h.s., and certainly we also worked, i might say, not if in electricity so much -- well, electricity too, but it's other areas. work extremely well with fema in temz terms of addressing issues. that included some of the flooding issues, for example. >> the fast act also requires you to submit a plan to congress by the end of the year evaluating the feasibility of establishing a strategic transformer reserve for the storage of spare large power transformers and emergency mobile substations for temporarily replace critically damaged equipment. can you tell me what the status of the review is and how to

complete that? >> we expect to meet that december target. >> one other thing if i could, it's one of the areas i'm always interested in, in your testimony you also brought it up in the opening statement that when you are talking about different things, that are either natural or manmade, where are we at on especially d.o.e. and trying to combat electromagnetic pulses, especially when they're manmade. >> we've done quite a bit of work on that in collaboration with epry. in fact, this is part of a report we have to share with you on resilient strategy. that was done with epry. we also have, of course, classified information that could be discussed in a different venue. >> well, thank you very much, mr. secretary. mr. chairman, i yield back the

balance of my time. >> the chair now is happy. recognize university of houston's biggest -- in florida, ms. caster for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. he says that because the university president used to be the provost at the university of south florida campus. we can take ownership of her too. i want to thank you at the hotel center for global sustainability dr. lidia secarra. your director at the office of solar technologies to give a presentation, and the room was packed even though we were in the midst of a huge rain event due to a tropical storm, and i think you're absolutely correct that american families and businesses across the country have so much interest in the growing renewable market and the potential to save money through energy efficiency. in fact, at the end of august during the primary election we

had a constitutional amendment on the ballot to provide a little help to solar industry, and it passed by 73%, and i think folks are frustrated in the sunshine state because we have no goals for renewable standards. they cut back on energy efficiency. what you say about the business models at the state level really hit home, and we can talk a little bit more about that, but the energy information administration is projecting that growth in renewable energy is going to grow faster than just go any other energy sector. in fact, they say over the past year we've exceeded projections month after month after month. you've said in this qer right now that it's outdated, that we've got to look beyond oil

security, and energy security needs to be more broadly defined to cover not only oil, but other sources combatting climate change is also essential to strengthening collecting energy security. how far behind are we? i know the big grid modernization effort is very important, but what else do we need? >> well, i think, first of all, in terms of the addressing the clean energy part, which was the third, fourth, and fifth principles, their major initiative that we put forward is the idea of doubling our innovation budgets over, say, a five-year period. we've been pleased that the concept has gotten i think very strong bipartisan support. that's got to get translated into numbers over these years, but i think that's very important. i might also add and it will

probably be referred to soon by mr. mckinley that i was in morgantown earlier this week for our 13th regional innovation meeting. we are emphasizing that we think regional portfolio management will actually be a real plus, and needless to say there's been a lot of support for that too. now we need congress to hopefully authorize that. that's on that side, but in terms of the more global aspects of energy security, i think since 2014 when those principles were put out, we have made substantial progress particularly in our discussions with the e.u., with the european commission, the european commission then adopted a very strong energy security policy in line with those principles, and

we work closely with them. there's still a lot of implementation to go in the european context, but that's been important. a lot of it was driven initially by the ukraine aggression. >> what i hear back home, they think they write it into the thermostat in their home. climate change. they see the cost right now after this recent tropical storm. they understand when you have salt water intrusion, the huge rain events are costing people money. flood insurance. emergency response. if we don't do more up front, it's going to be very, very costly, and i understand that.

>> i visited florida power and light, and they're doing a lot, but it cost money to harden the system because of the obvious sea level rise. >> gentlemenlady yields back. we recognize the gentleman from west virginia, mr. mckinley, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you again, mr. secretary, for coming to participate in that panel, and the trip to long view power plant. we hope it was beneficial to you. i have a couple of comments. i want to build up a little with my friends from california because when i read the written statements and listened to your opening statement, there were two it admissions that i heard. one is you didn't talk about water as being part of our national economic security, which i thought was -- but even more so you didn't mention -- i

think it deserved to have some mention as part of our national economic kurt of this country on that. let me go to some questions, however, quickly. we've had testimony from phil mohler when he was back, and he has since confirmed again that we've apparently talked about grid security reliability and that we've lost somewhere in the naubd of 70 gigawatts. it's an intermittent low. not a base low. we're still at a net loss, but

much of that gain that we've made that replacement is over renewables, which we can't count on because there's intermittent use with it. how can -- how can congress get involved in value iing just dependable base load power plants. whether that's using gas or coal. what do we do to incentivize that? we have a satisfactory grid then. we know -- we know we can't count on wind and solar to power our base load. in in effect, the grid is the storage system for wind and solar. now, as those penetrations, if they get much, much higher, of course, then we will have to manage the variability of those

sources. part of it is technology like storage, energy storage would take care of that, but your suggestion, i think, goes right to something i mentioned earlier. that is what is the way of valuing different services in the grid that are have not been part of the traditional regulated utility model, and one of those would be the question of value and base load, which, by the way,ing right now that's a major issue as well with nuclear power with the shutdown of a number of nuclear plants as well. in terms of response, the -- current i would say that there are certainly very few authorities in the federal government, certainly the d.u.e.

ferk is doing work on what they call price formation, which is a question of how do you value these other qualities and states are the center of the action. part of the house package and the senate package, the energy bill, there is the ethane storage skpk what we refer to as the appalachian hub. wepd be able to have storage of it in the northeast. are you aware of that? do you see an advantage of having a for energy security and national security. >> i would say that, of cour

course -- given the ethane production. it's extremely valuable commodity, but, again, i specifically on the issue of ethane storage, i have to admit i have not thought that through. >> just in the meantime, just quickly when you met with longview and they made the statement that as they are the most efficient, cleanest coal fire plant in america ahead of terk, but they said they can't get a permit to build off that. what would we learn -- what did you learn and how we could help another facility like that be constructed? >> well, again, as we discussed in morgantown, first of all, we continue to be very committed to carbon capture sequestration as a critical technology that we will need and everyone else says

that. they will need to meet our climate goals most economically, so that's very important. i thought the proposal that they made there about coal firing was quite interesting, and, in fact, i hoped -- i do get a spreadsheet on that to look at. meeting the clean power plant goals with the goal and gas. coal fire would be quite interesting. again, i'm happy to discuss it. a third one, which i mentioned, is a big game changer, if we can really solve it, but it's probably longer term, is the question of what are the technologies for economic -- very, very large scale utilization of co2. that's a big deal. if we can solve that problem. >> gentleman's time has expired. the number one houston cougars from houston. houston green for five minutes.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, mr. secretary. i appreciate the job that you are doing. let me start out on the strategic petroleum reserve. we have 7 million barrels a day. how long would it take if all of a sudden we had an embargo and we couldn't ramp up in our own domestic production, which i think we could and be able to drain -- draw anything out of it? >> we could certainly start withdrawing from it. i think it's a weak time frame, something like that. it's a rapid reaction. whereas, going to the uncompleted wells would be a several month activity. >> i was told it was much longer than that. that's why some of the things we did -- >> i'll check on that, but eebl it's more like -- it's not so much a technical issue as it is

getting all of the sometimes all of the bids required for the distribution of the oil. >> even though we have a great pipeline in louisiana and texas, like you said, the maritime issues that we have to actually get -- >> also because of reverse flows in some of the pipes to get incremental barrels out is probably going to require, as we said, much more maritime distribution. >> the main questions i have -- you've talked a little bit about it, is that in 2014 one-third of the intention cyber attacks targeted energy infrastructure. in your testimony speaking about cyber security you stated we are seeing threats continuing to increase in numbers and sophisticated. this evolution is profound impact on security and resilience of our energy sector. i hope our hearing today we can understand what's being done, and on more of what we can do in congress to protect against

these increasing hazards. it's not just looking at democrat or republican, but we're talking about refineries in east harris county and louisiana. you know, coal plants, natural gas facilities, and things like that. one of the most significant challenges in securing energy delivery systems against the cyber attacks. >> i'm just adding, if i may, that the point you make about the interconnectedness is very important and as we've pointed out that electricity problems have led to enormous refinery and fuels problems, et cetera, et cetera. it's really important that cyber is just a growing threat. i think the key as i said earlier, working with industry is -- i mean, at d.u.e., let me emphasize, we would have i would say three different kinds of cyber challenges.

someone a standard big entity administrative systems and personal information. the second is our nuclear weapons information, and third, in the hardest one in many ways is working with the private sector, the energy system. it's really information exchange, including making technology available to the private sector is really a key in many ways. a second key for us is to use all of our assets, including those at our laboratories and bring those to the table on cyber threats, and we've done enterprise-wide. the one thing that i would say is -- in terms of possible changes in maybe legislative and it's not only for cyber, but it's for other issues as well. we need to make sure there are

not barriers which could be competitiveness barriers, for example, that are out there for different parts of the industry working together on the response. >> well, i'll give you -- when we had hurricane ike come through east harris county, and it shut down the refineries in galveston bay in both united airlines. we said we would never light our airplanes out of houston, and we are having to do it, and the air force is there too saying -- we need to have this jet fuel. that's why we need that grid up. >> coordination. >> the plan has -- each plan has their own, but you can't run a plant for generators. you have to have the grid to help. that's why it's so important. i know in some areas like in east harris county, we have a partnership both for security and other things, but i just want to make sure that everybody is on the same page.

>> i might add that, for example, in may we ran a very big so-called table top exercise in the northwest, and lots of industry participation, many agencies, so that everybody could understand the challenges of everybody working together on the same page. that's important. another thing i just mentioned is that even though it's much smaller, you know, we have moved out in a couple of product reserves as opposed crude oil reserves, and that came into play with sandy when we released that to some of the first responders so that they would have the fuel to respond. >> that's another interesting discussion. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from the commonwealth, mr. griffith, for five minutes. >> thank you very much.

mr. secretary, thank you for being here as well. >> has time you were before this committee back in march, i expressed my appreciation for the folks at the department of energy working with me to set up the future of coal. about a month later david mohllor for clean coil and carbon management came to the coal -- a public symposium at the university of is a are have a's college at wise was held on the future of coal technology, innovation, and industry, and i also highlight after i did that with all the opinion shapers in the business leaders and the folks who work in the coal industry, your team went over to clintwood, which doesn't get many visitors. there's no four-lane highways in dickenson county to visit students at ridgeview high school, which is a brand new high school built with a lot of dollars from the federal government because the county is not wealthy. it's in central appealachiaeara

coal fields. that visit was particularly important for the students there in dickerson county because your team made it clear that there are possibilities in science that can affect the coal industry positively. i commend your folks for doing that. i also commend you for having the leadership to have folks. i think it speaks highly of the work that you are doing. while we may not always agree, i would have headed in your leadership the department of energy, and i appreciate that. >> maybe it's been provided to you, but just to make sure actually at the end of august we produced i think a very nice synthetic paper on all of the coal issues that we're dealing with, and if you have not seen that, we'll shoot it to your office. >> i haven't seen it, but my staff may have it. it's been one of those busy

times in d.c., as you know, when you have a few weeks, but i'll try to read that when i come home. we had a lot of good constitution discussions, and we talked about how to get our coal miners back to work and how we continued to refine the coal region in our economy and in our electric generation. it meant a lot to the people in southwest virginia and particularly in the coal fields in those counties, so i appreciate the hard work that you did in making all that happen. one of the main things that i found particularly interesting in our discussions is we talked about the need for research parody for clean coal technology and why you've touched today already on some of the things with carbon capture and sequestration. i think that's the hot button issue and probably a good source in the short run, but with research i'm convinced we can use our fossil fuels, not just coal, but the other fossil fuels as well in better ways. can you just take a minute and discuss some of the things you all are working on with all the

different fossil fuels and research and the importance of having parody? there's nothing wrong with renewables. parody with the renewables because we'll need the fossil fuels as well. >> on carbon capture, that's not only about coal. coal is obviously kind of the mark key application in many ways, but i believe ultimately we will need it for natural gas and very importantly, for a whole variety of industrial facilities. we also support, like, ethnatural plants and natural gas processing plants, et cetera. that's important. i want to emphasize we have spent $5 billion on ccs. we also have an $8.5 billion loan guarantee program open right now for fossil technologies, et cetera. one of the things that really excites me for the longer term

and would have -- i just mentioned one example of really breakthrough carbon management would have enormous implications for how fossil fuels can then be used in the economy. one of those is, as i said, the potential for really big scale co2 utilization, and if i toss out, you know, like a holy grail of that, sunlight water and co2 to hydrocarbon fuels. some of the fuels industry might be, you know -- would be challenged, but that would be, for example, a game changer. there are negative carbon technologies that we should pursue. i think in terms of coal -- i say coal -- there's three big thrusts. one is the jaebd around things

like ccs. another is the transitional assistance to economies and workers in coal country, and we just issued $39 million there. third is the really big breakthrough possibilities that could change the entire carbon management equation. >> thank you. my time is up. i yield back. >> the gentleman is back. recognize the gentleman from california. for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to echo what my colleague mr. barton said earlier, and thank you for being a pretty regular witness here on our committee over the ten-year at the white house. by all appearances you are very willing to answer all kinds of questions, which is the most pressing topic. thank you for the time you have spent with us. your testimony today indicates

this is a timely and pressing issue before us. we're currently in a conference level, a committee, of trying to negotiate an energy bill that will help define our energy landscape for the next decade. at the same time we know these threats from climate change are real, so bold action needs to be taken. communities across the nation are already facing the threats of climate change. in fact, i don't care call it a threat anymore as much as dealing with the outcomes, which we are experiencing, whether through increased storm severity or flooding or as in california, the crippling impacts of our drought. my area five-year drought. we're building -- it's very expensive. the technology is pretty precarious. the massive forest fires have been costly too. i believe it's time we stopped considering these conditions as anomalies and addressing --

start addressing them as the new normal. if we start implementing strategies to adopt the scenarios, and also to the extent possible to mitigate them by reducing our contributions to climate change that's happening. president obama has made real progress in laying out a framework to start this transition, but there's a lot more work that needs to be done. we must expand the existing green technologies, such as solar power and increased energy efficiency and invest in the new technologies that will carry us into the future. many of our research universities are really leading the way in doing this. it will benefit our energy security, and also our national security and our economy at the same time. can you -- you mentioned this in your opening statement, but i would like to give you more time to discuss the ways of renewable agencies and investment and

inefficiency will bolster our energy security. >> i think, again, the answer to the last part is pretty straight forward. the renewable technologies are not looking at -- there's no issue of importing or exporting the fuels. that's true anywhere. a mix maybe. that's true anywhere. the importance of this as an element of our energy and national security is quite clear. in terms of moving -- i, of course, maybe not totally objective, but i think innovation is absolutely core to this, and that's good news for us because we lead in innovation. we have to stay the leaders in innovation.

particularly because as one of my -- one of our ceo friends in the energy industry tom fanning, the head of southern company, says they can't keep the waves off the beach. i mean, we are heading in this direction in terms of lower carbon and the paris agreement. no matter what you think about it, it tells you that we are developing a multi-trillion dollar global clean energy technology business. the head of that train. now, cost reductions is critical, and we have -- through innovation and through deployment, they work together. more deployment, more innovation drives those costs down. we've seen that now for solar. we've seen it for wind. we've seen it for l.e.d.'s, which is not quite renewable energy, but uses less energy.

we need to have the cost reduction pathway going and do it for carbon capture, and do it for nuclear and do it for off shore wind. we just got to keep at this across the board. i remain an all of the above guy aimed at a low carbon future where hopefully our industries, all of our industries, all of our people can be part of that solution. >> just the right amount of time, but a word to say thank you because this path of progress during your administration, your leader shim at the department and to the extent that we are able to work with you is really made, i hope, significant progress although, as i said, there's a lot more work to be done. hopefully this is a movement now

that will not be questioned as much as it used to be, but that we'll see it as progress all along the way. innovation is a great word. >> gentle lady's time has expired. recognize the fellow texan, mr. flores, for five minutes. >> the u.s. is now the leading producer of oil and natural gas, and how is this new age benefitted our global competitiveness and allowed the u.s. to position itself as a global super power? >> oh, it's had an enormous impact on natural gas. first of all, we have not become major importers. we expect to be net natural gas exporters in 2017. domestically it has led to both

a tremendous renewal in manufacturing. $170 billion capital invested in just in the kind of chemical arena and, by the way, also reducing carbon emissions. on the oil side, again, we remain very large crude oil importers, but the dramatic decrease in our net oil and oil products imports has had a tremendous balance payments impact. both of them have changed the world energy scene and we are now looked at in a very different way. >> you haven't talked about the geopolitical implications. >> we are looked at in a different way. >> i'm talking about from a global stability standpoint. that's a different thing. moving on, you have talked about the failure of our nation's infrastructure to keep up with the new dynamics that we have in

this energy industry. not only with respect to transmission, but also transmission of natural gas. the lack of capacity of the recent opposition to new infrastructure means that the average consumer pays more for energy than they should, but we headed for price spikes because of lack of infrastructure? >> i -- i would not want to predict, but obviously there's a vulnerability if infrastructure is not there. another polar vortex or who knows what would happen. >> right. >> also, it's not just -- it's not even just wires and pipes, but also, as we pointed out in the q.e.r., inland waterways, dock -- i mean, ports, et cetera. >> and also.

>> it makes no mention of the issues that arise with cross-border presidential permitting in general or in particular of the keystone xl pipeline. do you agreure silent permitting process is the qer because it creates significant uncertainty. >> that's what the qer said. therefore, we -- >> it's -- that goes to the next question. that is how is the inability to render a decision in the keystone pipeline impacted other energy projects? >> again, i think the qer pointed out. i had forgotten to use that number. we have a lot of infrastructure crossing the border and certainly our electricity systems are essentially integrated with canada and now with mexico there's going to be increasing integration there as

well. >> right. >> are you -- >> texas and mexico, as you know, do trade electricity. including lead power as well. let me ask you this. let me ask you about the time it took to reach the decision on keystone? >> that's a question for the department of state. that's not my responsibility. >> okay. you're the head of d.o.e. i would say you have a dog in this hunt. >> that's a question for the department of state. >> all right. okay. is there room to establish a more uniform coordinated modern process for the consideration of the cross-border pipeline and transmission? i'm sure you have -- >> well, i think that the only thing i would say more broadly and it implies to also -- it does apply to other d.o.e. responsibilities is i think the congress has for good reason over the years put in all of

these statutory, you know, assignments the idea of national interest determinations. i think that is what we do for lng exports and that's what the state does for their responsibilities. we have it for cross-border electricity lines. >> in my opinion this is something congress needs to get involved with the stat other underpinnings of the decision making process with regard to this. i'm assuming you would be willing to provide technical assistance to congress? >> we're always happy to provide technical assistance. >> thank you very much. i yield back my time. >> the gentleman's time has expired. the chair calls upon a gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. doyle for five minutes. >> approximate secretary, first of all, thank you for your service. i've been in congress 22 yoerz and been through five or six secretaries of energy. you're by far one of the best, and you're going to be missed here. i want to say that right up front. just two quick things.

i know we all agree on the importance of carbon capture utilization of storage. there's international consensus that it be very difficult if not impossible to meet our climate change goals by 2050 without this in place, and also without additional investment in this sector, the electricity sector, if we try to limit global warming to the 2 degree scenario without it it's going to cost $2 trillion over the next 40 years. it's not only necessary to meet the goal, but it's necessary to meet the goal in an affordable way. i know the white paper that you recently listed several bills here in congress which would change tax credits or financing options for ccus. my question is you think what we're doing is substantial enough and what other options might we pursue. it seems like we've been talking

about ccs forever. it doesn't seem we're any closer to actually seeing, you know, implementation of this technology on a scale where it can be helpful, and as you said, it's not just coal. it's natural gas too. what do we need to do to sort of make this, you know, a moon shot and get this technology out there. the point is that there's -- there has not been a price signal to the private sector there, and i think that's what we need to have for sure. i would just make another point, if i might, on this kind of finance side. as you know, the administration has proposed now for two years

tax credits for carbon capture. both investment tax credits and storage credits. in congress there's a lot of discussion around 45q as -- they have some different numbers, but fundamentally the same idea. i think a point that's not been appreciated enough and is why i think, you know, congress addressing this with some urgency was called for is that big capital expenditures by utilities, by investors, et cetera, have a long gestation ti time. there are two signals that would be very powerful for pushing on ccu.s. one would be something like these tax credits that were put in place for a long period of time.

okay. now i understand. you know, what i'm getting into. secondly, of course, is the carb carbon. the power plant does that through the regulatory approach. there are other approaches, obviously, including a direct one, but all i'm saying, i think signals now. it's not, you know, saying ccs might be a big deal in 2030, so let's wait. you'll need the signals now if you are going to get those investments made. in 16 and 17 we have -- we are moving forward into pilot project scale, ten megawatt scale. we could take a lot bigger steps with more resources. i think those are the two areas that signal side on finance and carbon management and the

innovation. >> we're seeing some of these premature nuclear plant retiermts and that could cause a threat to our diversity, and i know during the summit, you emphasized some of the valuable attributes like carbon-free electricity, reliable service, fuel diversity, and explain that these are not systematically valued by electricity markets. you further stated that the department is prepared to take action to help address the economic market and valuation challenges for nuclear power, so could you explain the actions that the department has taken since the nuclear summit to insure nuclear plants are compensated for the energy security reliability, and other benefits they provide to the electricity? >> we don't have the authorities to take those regulatory actions, but what we've been doing and are doing is doing the studies of how to value those

attributes, and that will lead to some recommendations in our quadrennial energy review at the end of the year. that's one thing. we also continued to have discussions with ferk which does have some authorities in terms of the price formation on the wholesale level. that's going on. of course, a lot of the action is at the states, and certainly one of the notable actions was the new york initiative in august for the so-called clean energy standard and carbon neutral approach. that's very important. the other thing is in terms of the nuclear plant shutting down is clearly the clean power plant implementation plans and, you know, neck year we are rather confident on the courtside.

2018 is when the implementation plans are due. now, it would seem ironic to have lost zero carbon assets just as states are going forward with implementation plans. that's why something like the new york activity and illinois is considering something similar. i think they are quite important. >> mr. secretary, i do want to ek quo the comments of some of my colleagues. it's been a pleasure working with you over the last few years. i -- you know, as we talk about these important ideas around energy security, i am glad to hear you say that you remain an all of the above advocate.

i certainly hope that as you transition assuming that you transition out, someone else transitions in, that you will pass that advocacy on to your successor in the sense that, you know, we -- one of these days because we're problem solvers here in america. we always have been. you look back throughout our history. we won't go through the littany, but there have been a lot of them. someday somebody might soofl the problem of harnessing the sun's energy and storing it up so that it can be made available on the energy grid for base load. same thing with wind energy. other alternative energy forms. i just hope that we can return once again to kind of a commonsense approach to an all of the above energy policy where

we don't throw out the baby with the bath water and we're not killing jobs and that we're looking more for market driven solutions rather than solution from inside the washington beltway because i think the american people are -- are screaming for that. i don't think we can forget about the impact that we've made to our communities that have served our energy and national security needs, and i hope that we can continue to work together throughout the rest of your tenure and you will also pass along the importance of finding a long-term funding solution for those funding challenges at d.o.e.'s cleanup sites, like the portsmouth piped in facility. those are very important that we keep those projects on a path to completion so that we can

redevelop those properties and put them back into good use for the communities that have given so much already for our energy future. mr. secretary, you know d.o.e., as you well know all too well, is central to america's role in international civil nuclear commerce markets through what is known as the part 8-10 process under the atomic energy act doe authorizes certain foreign sbe actions supper as technical nothing transfer and assistance on commercial nuclear power plants provided by our domestic nuclear industry. this authorization process has been the subject of scrutiny from both gao and this committee due to a long bureaucratic approval process, and i recognize that d.o.e. has been working to address these criticisms over the last several years by developing and implementing an updated streamline process.

are you or the deputy secretary monitoring progress of these reforms? >> yes, we are. in fact, i would be happy to share with you some data that i saw just maybe two months ago, i think, in terms of some progress actually in terms of shortening the times because there were -- one of the issues is we've managed to -- with the inner agency because the d.o.e. is responsible, but we work with state and other agencies, and what i think we have succeeded in is eliminating a lot of different serial activity with some parallel activity, and so the data suggests that there's been some progress. i would be happy to hair is a those with you. >> can you send that over to us? that would be great. that would be great. in the remaining time, i understand d.o.e. after two years of talking about it has not yet deployed its ek will trong tracking system to incorporate transparency and accountability and to the

process and assist applicants. what is the source of that delay, and do you have an estimate for when this new tracking system will be active? >> on that i'll have to get back to you and respond. i'm not up to she'd speed on that. >> you can respond back on both of those. that would be great, mr. secretary. good luck to you. i too have enjoyed working with you, and i appreciate your sound reasoned approach on most of the issues that we've dealt with here. >> thank you. mr. chairman, may i just -- >> yes. >> i'm going back to earlier statements that on the job creation front i do want to emphasize that things like, you know, the renewable space, energy efficiency, we have had tremendous job growth, so certainly in the energy sector -- i'm not talking about oil and gas production. there's that too, but we've had tremendous job growth net.

we also recognize that there are distributional issues. that's not a uniform issue, and that's why working with our communities and talking about transitional activities is quite important, but the net job growth has been actually quite substantial. just solar alone is over 200,000 full-time jobs. energy efficiency jobs, which are a little harder to find, i would also be happy to share with you a jobs report that we did earlier this year. energy jobs report. it was quite surprising. it was 1.9 million jobs associated with energy efficiency in the country, but we have distribution problems, and obviously appalachianaa is prime among those. >> and the coal industry. it's pretty hard to get my folks to look at a jobs report that shows all of this optimism that you are reflecting when we're

seeing communities going to shut down mode because of the coal industry. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> the gentleman's time is expired. the chair now calls upon the gentleman from new york for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chair. mr. secretary, thank you for your bold leadership and for your visionary approach to what is a very difficult policy area. we have prospered from your knowledge base and your determination to make a difference. for the leadership of the past and i'm certain into the future. thank you. thank you for leading us. in the past tradition was you spin those meters, assess the bills, print those bills to the customer and all functioned. as we transition, transform with

technology, with renewables, with research, with distributed generation, with -- how do we bring the utilities along in that effort to make certain that they're able to tb a strong a player as possible assisting to grow for the commerce and responding to quality opportunities to the residential base and commercial base they serve and at the same time address national security. there is a big challenge there as we transition and transform. how can we best assist in that effort? >> well, i think with the link to security, certainly a critical element is their responsibilities and maybe opportunities to address resilience and reliability

together because that's a new challenge. now, that has to be typically, of course, appropriately internalized in rate structures, which tends to be a state by state activity. i think the congress would have to think through how we wanted to do that intersection with the states perhaps by incentiveiz g incentiveizing. the build-out of infrastructure that we need, particularly for resilien resilience, against that entire threat spectrum i mentioned earlier, including climate-induced threats, to physical threats, to cyber and the like. i think that is a very, very important part. the second part, which, again, would typically be at the state level, because it involves the distribution system as opposed to the high voltage transmission lines is the question of what

are utilities able to do regulatorily and what are they able to do in a business sense in terms of bundling new services to customers along with electricity supply because, again, as i said earlier, we don't anticipate a big growth in electricity demand. maybe even eventually increasing demand even as the economy grows. then that means a business model needs to evolve as well into probably new services. >> yeah. well, as you know in new york, my home state, the process is up and underway, and everyone is waiting for what that produces. i think it looks very strateg strategically at the transformation taking place in this industry. and, again, with having lived through superstorm sandy, we saw

what worked and what didn't. distributed generation had a major plus report card after that aftermath of superstorm sandy. >> new york is certainly a leader and also, i might say, not in the policy arena, but also integrated with its very strong and strong arm d as well. >> thank you for mentioning that. what do commitments to mission innovations, and other investments in clean energy research mean to a stronger outcome for national security. >> well, i absolu critical because aste we said, first off all, the whole clean energy pushes part and parcel of a modern energy security picture. so i've saidd itur before that think that well, i said it also

here.. there'st' also an energy econom opportunity thatec we have to te advantage of. and it wasn't exactly a question, but i want to emphasize that the question doubling our innovation budget, itt raises the question of, you know, do did you have the capacity to absorb it well? i think we have so much unused capacity for innovation in this countryy that that will not be problem. and i can go through examples like with arthur e. for example where we're funding younds 2.5% of the proposals in a program that is by any logical measure extremely successful. so i urthink, i think there's a big ipayoff for us in economy ad environment and security with that kind of investment. >> int agree. having watched some of those activities. the ripple effects of sound jobs, sound-paying