 Thank you everybody. I am I am delighted to have the opportunity to introduce Pat McCormick. Pat is Chief Counsel of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and along with several other people, several other of our later rivals probably was participating in the hearing this morning to confirm two new FERC commissioners and Deputy Secretary of Energy. So we are we're moving on in those in those areas. Pat has been a friend for a long time. He he has worked on the committee, oh gee, a number of years with part was in private law practice and and worked for or with southern companies. Pat is someone I think you can rely on as a real straight shooter in the in the Senate environment and we rely on him quite a bit for for his insights and his advice. So I'm not going to delay this any longer because he's done the favor of moving his speaking slot from from 9 30 this morning until whenever and now is whenever. So Pat, good to see you. Thank you. First of all, I apologize for not having been here this morning, but I whenever I am invited to speak, I always say, of course, I will speak unless there is official business that intervenes. And as Pasha Mahjdi, who's I see sitting over there knows, who used to work on the committee staff, official business for us means whatever our chairman needs whenever she needs it. And this morning, of course, we had a hearing on the confirmation of Dan Pryet to be the Deputy Secretary of Energy, but perhaps of greater significance for this group, the two FERC nominees, Rob Palsen and Neil Chatterjee. And so as a consequence of that hearing, I wasn't able to speak with you this morning, but I'm delighted to have the invitation. Now, I will begin with the standard disclaimer, which the best expression of which I learned from one of my colleagues on the minority staff of our committee who said, he said, of course, my views are my own only. I'm speaking only on my own behalf. And then he added, but if I say something that you like, thank my senator. And if I say something that you hate, blame me. So with that thought, I'll go forward. I'm going to just really talk for just a few minutes, and then I thought perhaps I'll just take your questions. Your agenda is quite interesting, and I think quite timely. And the economic policy and technology benefits of transmission investment is a subject that has been close to my heart for about 20 years. Jim Hecker may remember when he was the chairman of the FERC, and I was in private law practice, and I represented a group of companies, including a man who worked in the company along with Bob Horn is another guy here. His name is Joe Welsh, and most of you probably know Joe. But at that time, he was the manager of a division inside what was then Detroit, what was DTE Energy Company. And Joe was a visionary, and not only Joe, but we also had companies, Jim mentioned Southern Company, but we had companies that now are on the other side of the issues that wires is on. So it's kind of interesting. But transmission investment, I believe, is very, very intensely needed by the United States. And while we have an electric grid that is the envy of the world, as you all know, better than most, it needs a lot of help. And that's not to criticize anybody. Wires is free to criticize people. Chief councils of Senate committees do not. But it is the case that the country is really in need of significant transmission investment and more transmission infrastructure, especially if we want the grid to do all the things that if you've been following the deliberations of our committee, just in this Congress alone, it needs to do by way of strengthening the security of the grid, but also making it more flexible and better able to accommodate the changing nature of the, on the resource side of the various electric resources and on the customer side of the various uses to which the customers will increasingly want to put their electricity to. So it's good to be with you in that regard. One of the things that the, this group that I formally represented, which by the way called itself the informal coalition, because in those days no one wanted to be associated or maybe their CEOs wouldn't let them with the idea of promoting transmission investment openly. And when you fill out a lobby disclosure form, the form gives an example, at least it did in those days, of perhaps an informal coalition. So the group was known as the informal coalition. But the informal coalition conducted a congressional delegation educational opportunity at Goldman Sachs on January 20th and 21st of 2000. And Andy Veezy, who's a guy that many of you probably know, used to be with Ernst and Young, and I haven't heard from Andy in a while, gave a presentation that I can share with your panelists, and I won't bore you with it. But it's fascinating. I pulled it out of my file, as I was preparing these remarks, because it is after all 17 years old. But it, it, it said, Andy argued that transmission needed to be transformed so that the transmission system, quoting Andy Veezy now, could be a network facilitating commerce in a competitive energy market where every consumer is a potential repackager and reseller, and everyone is connected to the network, everyone connected to the network as a customer. And I thought that, looking at this from a perspective of 17 years, I thought, wow, that's pretty good. That's the good news for Andy. The bad news for the rest of us is that we're still talking about it. And, and so the question might arise, well, okay, so you work for the Senate, what, what, what are you willing to do about that? And again, as I pointed out at the beginning, I don't have an election certificate. So, so I'm, you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm certainly someone who is keenly interested. But of course, our senators are the ones that decide about legislative priorities. However, I would say that our committee has been very keen and our chairman for whom I work, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has been very keen to see energy legislation move forward. And in part, really, to show that regular order can prevail and legislation can move forward. And we had a pretty good year last year, but not, not good enough. We were able to get a bill through the Senate 85 to 12. And we negotiated with the House at the staff level. We had the cofferies met once or twice, but mainly negotiations were at the staff level. And we negotiated at all but one or two, depending on whose point of view you adopt, of about 1200 pages of legislative text. But the House wasn't able to take up the bill in the in the time that we had. And so we're, you know, we're eager to start again. Now, you might say, well, okay, what was in that bill for transmission? And the answer is, well, I think, perhaps not as much as you would like, or, or I don't really know your legislative agenda as well as I ought to do. But we did have provisions that that would that would strengthen cybersecurity that would, and we were successful in the in the prior Congress of codifying the authority of the Department of Energy to be the sector specific agency for cybersecurity. I know that's not at the center of your agenda, but it's an increasing concern. But we frankly weren't taking on any big ticket issues on transmission, actually a provision on vegetation management on federal lands, which you thought might have been an easy one turned out not to be easy at all, which gives you again, I mean, not not again that this audience needs this, but it's it gives you a sense perhaps of the difficulty of transmission issues. After all, linear infrastructure is always controversial. Fortunately, the Senate did not adopt an amendment to repeal a provision in the 2005 act that was important to a number of transmission developers, particularly clean line. But but the larger bigger question is the problem with transmission is it affects all the other sectors of the electricity value chain. That's why transmission investments so important, I think, and why a return on it is so good for the electric system. That's the good news again. But the bad news is that has a political impact on everybody has a business impact on many. And that business impact turns into a political impact. So I guess I would say that regular order legislation is probably good. Not probably it is good. It's good for the countries. And I would argue it's good for you. But if you have a specific agenda, the more specific you can be, the more targeted you can be and the support you can build, the more important that will be. In terms of the committee's agenda for this Congress, then we want to get the energy bill moving. Senator Cantwell as a ranking member and Senator Murkowski have agreed upon that and they've been in public forums recently saying that. And so after we get back from this state work period, look for look for some movement there, I hope and expect the committee as other important roles. Of course, we have as the whole Senate has the obligation of senators, not staff, but senators have the constitutional obligation to give their advice and consent to nominations that the president makes for appointments that he would make for officers of the United States. Now that's a mouthful. Why did I put it that way? And I put it that way to emphasize the seriousness of it. We've got about about three dozen presidential appointments that require Senate confirmation that are within the jurisdiction of the committee. And here we are four months into a presidential term, and we've confirmed exactly two. We have held hearings now on four additional ones, including this morning, the two FERC nominees. So the senator is very committed to moving through the committee as quickly as possible, the nominees that we have. And and she announced at the hearing, those of you who weren't able to watch it, that senators should expect that when we get back from the break, they will be asked to vote on the nominations that they have now had hearings on, which would include the two FERC norms. So obviously, going over those nominees and seeing that they're vetted and all that, and then rendering what Senator Murkowski hopes will be our vigorous consent. And in FERC's case, getting the agency past the quorum, it's deeply, deeply regrettable that President Obama chose not to nominate anyone to the commission, who was of a party other than his own. And as Jim will tell you, having been chairman, or as maybe you know, the Federal Power Act requires that only three of the members of the commission may be of the president's party. So it was a longstanding tradition. I think there may have been one occasion where the Federal Power Commission was without a quorum. I don't think the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was ever without a quorum. You may want to correct me. Maybe a very short time. Yeah, I think the FPC may be... I suggest that it might have been a few days and I was aggressively acknowledged. So the point being that there's been a tradition that when the president, that the president will nominate even those members who are not of his party, President Obama chose not to do that. Commissioner Mueller left in 2015, about two years ago. Commissioner Clark in 2016, no nominees. And then, of course, that was a risk of no quorum. And that risk came into reality when Commissioner Bay resigned well in advance of the time his term was over. So we're in the regrettable situation of no quorum. Senator Murkowski says, has told the president and everybody else as much as they would listen. She wants to get that done. She said that again this morning. So we're hoping to move that along. The third thing that the committee does is oversight. And here's where I think maybe, you know, some further... And this is why the deliberations of this conference could be important. I know this is the Wires University. I know you have another conference later in the summer. I guess this is the graduate school of Wires University. So that's why I'm assuming a high level of knowledge about these things. But I think, you know, the kinds of topics you're discussing here are ones that I think our senators will benefit from hearing. And I would really encourage you to keep that dial on going. So committee's agenda for the year, get the energy bill restarted. And in your case, that'll be look out for floor amendments. And then, of course, do confirmations. In your case, that would be let's get these furknums across the line. Let me just say, don't make digress here very briefly, to say that I think they're qualified, well qualified. Neil Chatterjee is more personal to me because I've worked with him for five years. And he's Senator McConnell's energy policy advisor. And he, as the senator said at our hearing just a little while ago, he is really known for being a consensus builder. And indeed, when Senator McConnell introduced him this morning, he quoted Senator Boxer in a nice letter Senator Boxer had written to him. And she finished that letter by saying, I hope this won't ruin his career that I'm praising him. But, but he's he's worked with almost every senator on our committee, Republicans and Democrats alike. And I think that kind of consensus building, again, as Jim could tell you, and I, you know, I was a more junior guy when I worked at the Commission, obviously much more junior than chairman. Although I did have the job that Jim had when he was a staff guy. And and at least in the days when when I worked at the Commission, and I think if you talk to Cheryl, the floor, she would say this is really needed ever more so. Commissioners who really want to engage with one another on the substance of the matters that are before them. Senator Murkowski has said repeatedly now for years, that what she really wants from FERC is to be the expert agency that we all know that it is and should be. And that it she always says, you know, if FERC were more boring, that's a good, good thing. That's a good thing. And so, and so with with Neil, I think you have somebody who's a consensus builder, I would say with respect to Rob Pelson, I don't know Rob as well as I know Neil, I've known him through industry things and through he serves on the advisory committee of EPRI and he's been active in NARUC and so I've met him in those circles and he's very well regarded by his colleagues. He did well at the hearing this morning. He was very conversational. He he praised those things in the agenda of Chairman Wellinghoff and and Chairman Bay that he could praise. Of course, he has his own policy views and they're distinct. But again, I seem to me that that that was a good that was a good tone to strike. And so Senator Macaulay is very, very, very much in favor of him as well. And so if you all are concerned about this question of the quorum, I think it's very, very important immediately to get to senators, particularly on the Democratic side, you know, and here's maybe we're again, where Jim's help can be useful to you on the Democratic side to make the point that, you know, the the long standing tradition, the constitutional, not standard, it's really more of a practice, but the constitutional practice over the vast history of the country for almost all senators has been, and this particularly true for independent agencies or for courts, that what we look for are people who are qualified. And if they are qualified, well, then their policy views will be what their policy views are. So I'm hopeful that the reason we the reason we have not confirmed more nominees, of course, we we haven't gotten nominees on the pace that that we would like fair enough. But the two norms that we had right out of the box, the cabinet secretaries, in contrast to their predecessors in the first Obama term, who were confirmed by UC unanimous consent on inauguration day, were not confirmed until in the case of Secretary Zinke late February and in the case of Secretary Perry early March. So, you know, Senator Reid changed the rules so that you couldn't filibuster a nomination. And so now the minority parties only have a way to express its displeasure, perhaps on whatever nominee wants to, is to slow down the process for all of them. And that's unfortunate. And so if you can, I think, discuss with Democrats the importance of getting on with the business of the agency, I think that would be very helpful. So, so so of course, again, are getting the gnomes done. And in oversight, always open for your ideas on that. And so with that, I'll, I'll stop and, and, and I'll be happy to answer your questions. Questions for the path. Let me ask you two completely unfair things. Oh, actually, I think there was one. Yeah, there was one over there. Well, on May 4, you know, Chairman Murkowski and your committee organized an excellent hearing on EMP vulnerability of the grid, and so on. And a number of us over the last year, the Climate Institute and a number of environmental Native American groups and, and, you know, grid security groups have really been looking at the possibility of combining something would be very good for bringing in more wind and solar energy by essentially interconnecting the three US alternating current grids with a HVDC overlay burying the bulk of it underground and traveling around traveling as much as possible along existing rights way, highway rights way, rower rights way, so you could cut a decade or so from the time because you're not dealing with 20,000 landowners, you're dealing with a handful of governors and railways and utilities. And I wondered, do you do you think there would be a lot of receptivity in the Senate for this combined approach that builds a kind of broad based coalition for grid reform from environmental groups on one side and from generally right of center security groups on the other? Well, I think coalitions, assuming they really are substance based, are always helpful, you know, to the extent you're bringing people with disparate points of view and different political philosophies together. I think that that's a good thing. You know, so I center always encourages people to come together when they can. So I would say, say, yes, on the question, the larger question of, you know, linear infrastructure and how you cite it, that's an enormously complex question. And I think, you know, here again, I think groups like yours have a lot of have a lot of good thoughts to offer. I'm sure about that. And so I'll just leave it that I'll also say that I participated in a conference that was organized by by CIRA in I think some like 2002 or 2003 about how what would happen in the future of transmission. And they had all these people that they invited to come and and the group basically deliberated for a couple of days and concluded that transmission, unfortunately, was going to have to muddle along for 10 or 15 years. And then somebody would come up with the idea of putting a DC grid over top it. And I remember thinking at the time, wow, that's really depressing. 15 years of mumbling along. But the DC thing could be really interesting. And so your question is really, really interesting one. I'm sorry to go on. I know you have panel and did you want to have another question? We always have other questions. But you have one. I did. I wanted to answer. I wanted to ask you something that you may not be able to answer. But I will anyway. What do you think the receptivity would be to delegation of FPA or Energy Policy Act 221 Backstop Citing Authority, the delegation of the DC part of that, which involves, you know, the congestion, the determinations to FERC, since FERC is in your chairman's view, the place where expertise really is. Yeah, I have not discussed that with the chairman, but I have heard that idea and and I had a really interesting conversation with Joe Kelleher about it actually. And and again, speaking for myself, you know, I think that's an idea that has a lot of promise. But I think that that, you know, that's I'll just leave it at that. I'll just leave it at that. I think I think it has a lot of promise. I think as a tactical matter, there are perhaps some things that people are in favor of it would want to think about. We can talk about that later. Okay, do you have any sense of whether adding the transmission of BPA and WAPA and CEPA to FERC's jurisdiction by selling off those assets as the president proposes, whether that would be something the committee would view favorably? Well, Senator Cantwell doesn't, right? She's already sent a letter, you know, expressing her, her deep, deep, deep concern about that. And and and those of us who are around know, I think about Bob Horn, who has been an expert in these things for years. I mean, that that idea has been proposed previously, and it hadn't, it hadn't done very well. But but we'll see, I guess. Yeah. Other questions for Jack Warner. We know that the DOE's got the study underway to take a look at how renewables might affect the reliability and the security of the transmission system as it gets integrated more into the power system, power supply system. Is this is the committee willing to take a look at that whole issue itself? And to determine whether micro grids, the, you know, the addition of renewable energy technologies into the power network is going to be positive or negative? Is it related to security and reliability of the system? Well, that's a good question. Several reactions to it. The first one is that the committee doesn't do independent studies, and we don't do investigations very often, none in the time that I've been there. We do have a pretty vigorous hearing schedule, and we have conducted hearings on the electricity system. We had, we had two in the last Congress, we had one in the Congress before that. We've had these cyber, we had, we've had, we had a cyber hearing, and a, at the full committee level, we had a cyber hearing on the electric grid at the subcommittee level, and we had the EMP hearing. So the committee is, and Senator Murkowski herself is very merits based. And you know, if you go on our website, it's out of date now, but Pasha was involved in this and was very helpful in it. There's a report there called Energy 2020, which is now a little bit out of date, but it's, it's 120 pages of energy policy, including a good section on transmission and just distribution and energy delivery. So Senator Murkowski herself is open to, you know, understanding more deeply the matters. I mean, for example, the, the efforts of ATC in Alaska have gotten her attention in a, she's, she's following, as an Alaskan, she's following that, she's interested in it. So we have an appetite for understanding the issues more deeply. We don't really have the bandwidth to conduct studies ourselves. And so what we did, there's only, there's only about 40 people on the committee staff when you include both the majority and the minority. On the majority side, I think we've got 21. And of course, we have the whole range of the committee's jurisdiction. But, but we do, we, you know, we did, when we were in the minority, we did a series of white papers. We did one on electric reliability, indeed. But, but I, I don't see us conducting our own study. I, I'm eager to see what the department comes up with. We haven't really talked with them about it. What I know about it is probably what you know about it in terms of its, of its, of the memorandum that Secretary Perry got from his Chief of Staff. Yes, I'm sorry. Thank you for my, I'm sorry I didn't mention that. Actually, I should have. That's, that's dear to Senator Mikowski's heart because of Alaska. I mean, you know, so in Alaska, the most of the population lives in what's called the rail belt, which is a region, you know, 350 miles or so from, from, well, maybe a little more than that, actually from Fairbanks down to the bottom of the Kenai Peninsula. That group, that, that, that area has a very, very, very rudimentary grid system. It's almost like you might have found in the lower 48 in the 1930s or 40s. And it has a load center that's, you know, roughly the size. Well, it's a, it's, you know, it's a couple thousand megawatts, maybe. And then in the rest of Alaska, the places are not on the grid at all. And it's really almost like a third world situation. And so micro grids are really crucial. And, and, and frankly, there's a lot of really good, innovative stuff. I'm so glad for your question, because I, I actually had that in my prepared remarks, which I didn't use because I was going to try and be brief, and now I've used up my time. So, so what's your, what, what specifically would you like to know about? Yeah, there's no, there's no mention of direct current in the, in that bill. There isn't, you're right. And we need direct current. Well, this is the second part of the definition. I'd like to hear, maybe later we can talk about what your ideas are on direct current. I think that, that would be a good thing. Okay. Okay, just, just direct current in the definition of micro grids in that bill, or whatever comes out of that. Okay, well, let's talk about that. Thanks. Let's talk about that later. Yes. Wait, wait for the microphone. So we get you. I'm, am I doing harm here? So this is right. Okay. Make this a last question. Okay. So Alaska Electric Cooperative have areas they're serving are not accessible by roads. transmission lines are hard to build. Yes. Minto is the only location that has access by road, right? Isn't it? I'm sorry, didn't hear the last thing. Minto is only one road that has access to the road from one city to other. Otherwise, you have to fly or take. Yeah, the road system, like 85% of Alaska communities are not on the road system. So are you looking at drones or AI technologies to actually develop any transmission lines, new ones to what really good bridges? We're not specifically, but at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, there is a very, very forward looking drone program. And the person who heads it is a is a PhD who was a fellow on our committee staff for about 18 months. And we are all following her work very closely. And as Senator Kowski is very interested in the that what drones can do to just generally to improve to improve things. And so I hadn't I know, I know some people are using drones to do overflights of transmission to be sure that that the system that the lines are not being encroached upon and such. But I'm not and I'd like to learn more when there's more time about how it is that drones can help in the transmission space. Okay, great. Thank you very much.