does the u.s. epa need to play a bigger role since the last time they did an assessment there were not residents living on the island. the navy refused our invirtual invitation to appear today to inform us on the cleanup. they have been the subject of scrutiny by regulatory agencies due to their infraction. they were not willing to speak to the board of supervisors and i hope they will be more engaged moving forward. we have the california department of toxic substance control, california department of public health, whistleblowers on treasure island. i have a number of questions as i'm sure you do. the treasure island development authority and san francisco department of public health are on hand to answer questions, as well. they will not be presented. i want to note here on your committee, as someone who knows as much as treasure island environmental issues as anyone, that's supervisor that peskin. to end my opening comments, my concern here is for the t housands of residents currently living on the

does the u.s. epa need to play a bigger role since the last time they did an assessment there were not residents living on the island. the navy refused our invirtual invitation to appear today to inform us on the cleanup. they have been the subject of scrutiny by regulatory agencies due to their infraction. they were not willing to speak to the board of supervisors and i hope they will be more engaged moving forward. we have the california department of toxic substance control, california department of public health, whistleblowers on treasure island. i have a number of questions as i'm sure you do. the treasure island development authority and san francisco department of public health are on hand to answer questions, as well. they will not be presented. i want to note here on your committee, as someone who knows as much as treasure island environmental issues as anyone, that's supervisor that peskin. to end my opening comments, my concern here is for the t housands of residents currently living on the

does the u.s. epa need to play a bigger role since the last time they did an assessment there were not residents living on the island. the navy refused our invirtual invitation to appear today to inform us on the cleanup. they have been the subject of scrutiny by regulatory agencies due to their infraction. they were not willing to speak to the board of supervisors and i hope they will be more engaged moving forward. we have the california department of toxic substance control, california department of public health, whistleblowers on treasure island. i have a number of questions as i'm sure you do. the treasure island development authority and san francisco department of public health are on hand to answer questions, as well. they will not be presented. i want to note here on your committee, as someone who knows as much as treasure island environmental issues as anyone, that's supervisor that peskin. to end my opening comments, my concern here is for the t housands of residents currently living on the

we need the u.s. epa to re-evaluate treasure island for inclusion as a superfund site. i hope to have the state's support in making this request. i want to sincerely thank to residents who called in today as well as mr. tibee and mr. anton for their courage and fearless r advocacy and whistleblowers. and all other advocates who worked tirelessly. and my staff, courtney mcdonald, who has been working on this for months closely with the residents and did a ton of work for preparation of this. >> supervisor melgar: thank you supervisor haney. supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, madam chair. i want to do something i rarely do and thank supervisor haney for calling what is probably one of the better or best hearings that i have seen in a long time. thank you to your staff and everybody who helped that come together. this is the tip of the iceberg. and i'm happy to join you and thankfully we don't constitute a majority of the committee so we can do this off line. i think you are on to something, supervisor. >> supervisor melgar: supervisor peskin can you pleas

u.s. was really a real burden. as secretary of north carolina department of environmental quality, you signed a letter regarding epa's 2019 rule repealing the 2015 waters of the u.s. rule. in this letter, you stated that the epa should, and i quote, try to promulgate a clear definition of waters and has should allow states the flexibility to regulate waters necessary to achieve the goals of the clean water act and in a manner that ensures the health, safety, and economic prosperity of their citizens. but you also may oppose the epa's final navigable waters protection rule. do you support a rule such as the 2015 rule, which had roughly one-half of the country operating on one regulatory construct and the other half of the country operating on another? >> thank you for that question, senator. and you know, as the secretary of deq, having to respond to both rules, there are a lot of lessons learned -- pragmatic experiences or pragmatic solutions that we've learned from experiences. i've spent a lot of time with a lot of small farmers. i've spent a lot of time with a lot of environmental groups. and what i would say is,

epa administrator during the obama administration. thanks for waking up with us. as you know, there are three major energy grids in the continental u.s., one basically for the east, one for the west, and then there is texas, that is effectively an island here. is it time for texas' independent grid to join those more national systems? what's the federal government's responsibility here? >> well, we certainly have been talking about all of the challenges in texas and the first thing i have to say is my heart goes out to everyone in texas and i know that president biden has sent a team of folks out not just fema, but across the federal government to bring blankets and generators and food. so, hopefully, folks will be stepping up here for the people in texas. in terms of the failure in the power grid, i think that texas has been recommended to really connect and make sure there is resilience in the system to be able to seek help from other states and other areas when these types of disasters hit. you're right. this is one of those weather events that we shouldn't think of being unpredictable at this point. we are going to be facing extr