 I'm Jared Blum, I chair the ESI Board of Directors and we decided to give Kara a little break, go up to the lobby and visit the booth and meet with some of the members of Congress that are stopping by. The third session that we're working on is entitled Renewables and Efficiency, Driving Growth and Jobs. And as you heard before in the presentation, the issue of jobs and job creation with respect to energy efficiency is really a growing and more realized positive sign on what the future is with renewable and energy efficiency industries. From a standpoint of productivity, I think we all know, and I don't know whether we're going to get into this in one of the discussions, is that the productivity, energy productivity in this country has increased over the last 10 years directly related to the utilization of renewables. And we've actually diverted between energy use and productivity in this country that can only get better as we move more and more for the renewables and efficiency side. So our first presentation today is going to be by Ruth McCormick, she's Director of Federal and State Affairs for the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, a group that I've worked with very closely over the years and have a high degree of respect for. Ruth? All yours. Thank you, Jared. Thank you to Carol and her entire team at EESI for the work that they've done to host today's event. I'm Ruth McCormick and as Jared said, I'm with the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. It is an organization of clean energy businesses and trade associations from the renewable energy, energy efficiency and natural gas sectors. We also have a partner organization that we work with called the Clean Energy Business Network, which is made up of the small to medium sized businesses from that same space, renewable energy, energy efficiency and natural gas. And together our two organizations have a pretty broad reach both with respect to the technologies that we represent but also our reach across the country. Between the two of us, we are in 350 congressional districts across the country. One of the things that we have learned, and I know you've been hearing from some panelists who've been talking about policies, but one of the things we have learned is the importance of having factual information on the market trends for policy makers so that they have the best and most up to date information upon which to make policy decisions. So to that end, we have been producing over the last seven years a report in conjunction with Bloomberg New Energy Finance that we call the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook. I brought a copy, a hard copy of it, but it's available online on our website along with some collateral material. So there's a lot of information in there about each of the specific sectors that we represent on a granular basis but also the aggregation of those technologies and what kind of an impact they're having in the energy markets and the ways that they are helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So some of the key trends that we have found over the last year are that one, that the U.S. electric grid is decarbonizing thanks to the growth and increased use of renewable energy and energy efficiency and natural gas. I know that natural gas is not a focus of the expo here but it is represented in our organizations. So between renewable energy and natural gas, natural gas represents now 35% of the electric grid which is up 25% from where it was five years ago and then renewable energy generation with all the different technologies that are represented in our coalition, the renewable energy sector now represents 18% of our electric generation which is on par with our nuclear fleet. So they're about equal and there's been an increasing use of those technologies. So together, renewable energy and energy efficiency have accounted for 94% of the capacity additions on the electric grid. In addition with respect to energy efficiency, investment in energy efficiency through some of the formal contracts and organizations of abilities such as like property assessed clean energy bonds, utility energy savings and energy savings performance contracts as at an all-time high. So $15 billion in energy efficiency investments in the last year. Electric vehicle sales have increased and grown in traction. We're tracking that as well. In the fact book this year, there are also other forms of alternative fueled vehicles that are represented within our organization but that's clearly a positive sign. There's a lot of growth potential in that area. Employment has grown too for all of these sectors. Again, I know that is a focus of this panel. We now with between renewable energy and energy efficiency account for 3 million jobs in the United States. And again, there's a lot more granular information in the fact book that breaks that down into the amount of growth among the renewable energy sector versus the energy efficiency sector and between the different types of renewables. So I would recommend that you look at the fact book if you're interested in getting that information. We have found the importance of having these facts in front of policy makers so that they have the best possible information upon which to make their decisions. So we're up on the hill here a lot talking about these facts and sharing this information with policy makers and we found that they're very interested in having this information. And we also know that policy makes a difference. While this is not a policy focused session today, I would just say that while there's been positive momentum in the markets, there's a lot of work to be done and policy really matters. In cases for us, we're focused a lot on energy policy and there's different aspects of energy policy that affect different industries differently so there's no one size fits all for all of those industries because they're very individualized and they all have different needs with different development cycles. We are finding work in energy policy and we're very pleased to see that there's been some attention directed to that both in the House and in the Senate. There's a lot to be done but we know for example that the House Science Committee is looking at reauthorizing and revising and updating some of the authorization legislation for the Department of Energy, which is a positive sign and that's encouraging. Over in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, they're looking to mark up some pieces of energy legislation for natural gas, energy efficiency, and energy storage and they're looking to mark that up next week so that's a positive sign on some individual concrete pieces of legislation for those industries. We are also in addition to energy policy very focused on tax policy. You can see in the Factbook the impact that tax policy has had on certain technologies both for those that have benefited from long-term certainty in tax policy as well as those that have not had the long-term certainty because our tax policy has not really impacted all industries the same and so that has definitely had an impact and is of great interest to many of these clean energy industries. So that's another area that Congress continues to look at and that we encourage them to take urgent action on. We are also interested in on the research side both in the authorization of the work that the Department of Energy does in researching for innovations in these technologies but also in the appropriations to fund the research that the Department of Energy is doing and that they are doing in collaboration with the private sector. There's a lot of work to be done in those areas and things are very fluid in the markets. We see positive trends. We also have seen some downturns. For example, our greenhouse gas emissions declined last year or they did not decline in the way that they have previously so they've gone up. Also our energy productivity stalled. So there's a lot of work to be done and that's why we continue to be involved on the policy front in advocating for policies that will increase the deployment of these clean energy technologies because we're really at a critical stage where we need to deploy more of the technologies both in terms of our infrastructure that needs to be modernized and updated and better prepared for some of the disasters that we are anticipating as well as some of the climate challenges that we are experiencing. So we welcome your involvement in this area as well and would be pleased to talk with you about ways that we can work together. So thank you for the opportunity to share information. Thank you, Ruth. And to restate, the fact book is available online, www.bcse.org. All right, great, great. Our next presenter is going to be Alexandra Wyatt who is the Policy and Regulatory Manager with Grid Alternatives in the Mid-Atlantic. Thanks very much for the introduction. It's nice to be here. It's nice to be back here in my role before this one. I was an energy and environmental attorney with Congressional Research Service and I can leave you with two things. The second one would be if you're not reaching out to CRS frequently for help with all the many things that you do on the Hill, you're really missing out. But if I can leave you with one thing, it's the importance of deliberate efforts to make sure that all of the many benefits of the growing renewable energy economy are actually accessible to everyone. So in that context, I'm very excited to be working now with Grid Alternatives, which is the nation's largest nonprofit solar installer. We work exclusively in low and moderate income and disadvantaged communities. And we use a job training model to do that. Our vision is a transition to clean renewable energy, again, that includes everyone. And that's clearly only possible and the scale of change that we need to achieve is clearly only possible with a broad workforce in the solar industry and related clean energy industries that expand opportunity to everyone who wants and needs those opportunities. And that takes intentionality and real work on the part of policymakers, but also industry and other groups like nonprofits like mine. So Grid is definitely particularly committed to making our job training opportunities inclusive of groups that are traditionally underrepresented in solar. And that still includes women, people of color, people who have been incarcerated and have other barriers to employment. We're a proud member of the Solar Training Network, a solar foundation program funded by DOE's Sun Shot Initiative. And so we have a few programs across the country to expand the pipeline into the renewable energy career fields, provide training and connect employers to job seekers. So I'd like to tell you about a few of those, but I'd like to do that in the context of laying out a few primary principles and best practices that Grid Alternatives has learned through its years of doing this work combining job training and expanding access to renewable energy. So one principle is just the enormous opportunity in this space for comprehensive solutions and maximizing all sorts of co-benefits. Solar workforce development and job training works especially well when it's well integrated with other things that people are talking about here, weatherization and energy efficiency programs, transportation electrification. All of these things when put together can really multiply the benefits of meaningful economic benefits, especially for lower income households, many of whom have very steep energy burdens. A significant percentage of their household outgoing spending in any given month can go to utilities and rooftop solar and community solar can really make a dent and help people stay in their homes and afford things that are important. Also another benefit, absolutely crucial of course, the carbon emission reductions. But in addition, the strong career paths in a fast growing industry that you can support a family with, there are good wages in renewable energy industries. They can't be outsourced or automated. And you can combine these things further with resilience, especially through energy storage and other kind of broad minded benefits. And at Grid Alternatives, we install solar at different scales too. So for individual single family homeowners who are income qualified as well as renters through multi-family affordable housing and the increasingly important community solar option for people who don't have rooftops necessarily that are suitable for solar. All these co-benefits together just also mean that solar isn't just a job. The people that we train are very excited to be making a meaningful difference, not just for the future of our environment and our climate, but also very immediately for the people who are helping with their utility bills. And so a second principle or best practice is community driven solutions and partnerships, scaling up is enormously important. But the clean energy transition can't be entirely top down. The people closest to the problems, whether that's environmental justice problems, economic problems, communities at the front lines of the climate emergency. Those people are generally closest to the solutions, very practically in terms of what works and they can and really must lead on how renewable energy can help their communities. So in living with that principle, we work with community based organizations, local agencies and job centers, local companies and others. Not just for, so that solar energy savings and solar jobs reach folks facing a lot of intersecting barriers. On the job side, intersecting barriers to employment, they can't necessarily just kind of waltz into an apprenticeship, let alone a full time job without the experience and skills that employers are looking for. So to dive in briefly to a few of our different programs and program components around the country, they involve different levels of training for our earn sellers that we train through our mid-Atlantic office here in DC. We have a paid 12 week training through the district solar works DC program, which has them well on their way to good jobs in the local industry with relevant experience and the certifications and resume skills and interviewing skills to show it. Further along the career path, apprenticeships can also be important. But having these bridges to get people to those sorts of experiences is crucial for a lot of folks, the summer version of solar works DC has run for six weeks over the summer through DC's summer youth employment programs, the Green Zone Environmental Program. So just illustrating the ways that existing programs can tap into the renewable energy economy and the ways that renewable energy industries can tap into existing community efforts and initiatives. We also have a women in solar initiative that encourages the inclusion of women in the industry at all levels. So just to wrap up, what can people do? I encourage folks to visit our table outside. We do have a table at the expo. You're welcome to sign up to volunteer. Our workforce development model has expanded and it's layered on to sort of how grid alternatives started out, which was sort of as the habitat for humanity of solar. And when we still are that, so people are welcome to volunteer with us to install solar for people who can benefit directly from it the most. Members of Congress are also more than welcome to visit and see us in operation. Of course, we'd also love if you could donate and spread the word about what we're doing. And finally, please feel free to hit us up, hit me up for more information and stories on how our experience really shows what works with making renewable energy more accessible to all and how important that is as we're in this enormous transition. Thank you, Alexander, for pointing out two very important parts of this moving target. We call it low carbon or carbon free economy. The workforce training issue and delivering the electricity to others who might not necessarily be able to get it. And our next speaker is actually going to address that latter issue directly. He is Keith Dennis, excuse me, Senior Director of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. It's an organization that ESI has worked closely with over the years in precise of that issue. How do we deliver electricity to consumers who ordinarily might not be able to afford renewable or even afford reliable electricity? Thank you. My name is Keith Dennis. I'm with National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, so known as NRECA. I am going to kind of talk a little bit differently about this issue and focus on the end use of electricity. So how we can take advantage of the great things that are happening in the electric sector. First, our trade association is a group of about 900 electric co-ops. Electric co-ops are owned by their members. We have 43 million members. We're in 48 states. Most of the rural United States is served by co-ops. About 100 years ago, or in that time frame, there wasn't really electricity on farms or in rural areas or outside the cities because it didn't make sense, economic sense to bring electricity there. And through the New Deal, the co-ops brought electricity to the country. So the first light bulbs to the farm and everything that electricity does. And 100 years later, we're sort of in another phase of electrification. And it's really exciting to us because electrification is in our DNA. And it's really a great opportunity because now we can switch to these great electric products that we have and take advantage of what's going on and help solve some pretty big challenges. So why now, I'm talking about this idea of beneficial electrification. And it's because there's a lot of trends that are going on in the electric sector. First off, as I think the other panelists mentioned, the electric sector has seen steep declines in greenhouse gas emissions, 28% since 2005. And that's unprecedented over time. So you see greenhouse gas emissions going down, down, down, down with the electric sector. And that means that anything that's plugged into the wall, plugged into the grid, if it's an electric water heater, if it's an electric car, is getting better for the environment over time without doing anything, without upgrading it or without changing the way you're using it, turning it off, over time, if you've had something plugged in since 2005, it's 28% better for the environment than it was back then. And if you think that trend's going to be just as good or get better, it's going to continue. And so in five years, that same appliance or same device is going to be better than it was before. On top of that, the stuff that we're plugging in is incredibly efficient now. Think about the old light bulbs, those aren't really around anymore. And then you think about CFLs, the squiggly ones. You can barely buy those anymore. Now it's LEDs, those are extremely efficient. The same thing's happening with products that you probably don't think about every day, space heaters, water heaters, heat pumps. Electric vehicles are much more efficient than the kind of vehicles that burn gasoline or diesel. So the products that we have are super efficient and the emissions are going down, down, down. On top of that, we're trying to integrate renewable energy. And renewable energy is not like fossil fuel energy where you plug something in and then you say, hey, let's burn some more of something and make the electricity. It's more like nature says when it's going to be produced. And it might be in the middle of the night, it might be in the middle of the day. And so we also need things that people plug in that can respond to that. And that's called flexible loads. And so the more that you're choosing electricity and electricity in a way that is compatible with that renewable energy, then better we're going to be at kind of integrating renewables. So there's just a lot of trends going on all at once. There's a consensus that we need to electrify more things. It's probably about five years ago states and academics started saying, how do we get to a low carbon future? And they did these things called pathway projects. What's the path to a low carbon future? And they found that you need to electrify things. If it burns out, you can't really get to a low carbon future driving around in millions of vehicles that burn gasoline and you can't burn natural gas and propane and fuel oil and millions and millions of homes. You need to switch to electricity. And that's tough because in the United States we have customer choice. And when a customer is sitting in front of an electric product and a gas product or a propane product at a Home Depot or something, they're not thinking about any of this. It'd be hard to say what they're thinking about, but you would ask them which one uses renewable energy. And I don't know that the average consumer would know that in order to use renewable energy, you have to pick an electric product. So that's a huge challenge. And turns out that a lot of the stuff that we buy, we don't buy very often. You don't buy a new car every year. You buy one every 10 years, 20 years. Same thing with your water heaters and your space heaters. You only have a very limited opportunity. And most people just buy what they've already bought. So it's a huge challenge. It's also a big opportunity because as I mentioned, folks are looking at greenhouse gases and saying that's a big challenge. And the electric industry also faces a potential challenge. A few years ago there was an idea of a utility death spiral where all the energy efficiency and all folks generating renewable energy was gonna make it difficult to recover the costs of all the poles and wires that we have out there. This opportunity is a growth opportunity. So it's really an opportunity for sort of different interests to come together. Maybe folks who are interested in more pro-growth strategies and folks who are interested in environmental can get together and say, hey, this electrification concept is something that we can get behind. Historically, when you're talking about electricity and the environment, the idea has been that you need to use less electricity. And that was the only way to do it. And that's how all the rules are set up for energy efficiency and energy programs use less electricity because mostly it was generated by inefficient coal and gas plants. Now with this renewable energy and the opportunity to take gasoline cars and diesel cars and fuel boilers off the system. There's a chance to replace other products with electricity and you actually might end up using more electricity. And that has a lot of policy implications. And if you're in the details of energy policy, you'll know that just goes to the core of everything that's done for energy efficiency, appliance standards and customer benefit programs and other programs where utilities set aside money to do energy efficiency. Generally speaking, energy efficiency isn't about promoting electric vehicles or promoting electric products, it's more about upgrading a product that's already out there. So there's a lot of work to be done on that. I think you'll hear a lot about electrification in the vehicle space. It's something that everybody can understand. But the ideas are the same for other things that are less interesting. And it's important to know that whether or not the vehicle space takes off is one thing. But there's a lot of space heating and water heating and industry and all sorts of things that burn fossil fuels that need to electrify too. If we're gonna achieve these goals. Things like some examples I'll give you just practical things, forklifts. Forklifts generally run on propane. They are loud. When you have them in a building, you need a vent because it fumes. With electric, it's quiet. You don't need a vent anymore. It could be using renewable energy. It could be charged anytime, it could be charged when the wind's blowing. Mining equipment's the same exact way if you're in a mine and things are combustion down there, you don't really want that electric product. Electric things tend to have attributes that people like. Lawn mowers, they don't spit out fumes. That you don't have to have oil on your hands. That you don't pull the cord, you push a button. All these things are just better products and there's attributes besides just the environmental attributes that also make electricity attractive. And if you're really gonna meet these goals, we need to be pushing on all fronts on figuring out ways to get electric products in people's hands. So, I think that's my talk. Thanks. Thank you, Keith. And last and definitely not least from the transportation sector, I think everybody here knows the role transportation plays in our overall CO2 emissions profile. And I'm really anxious to hear about this discussion because I've had the pleasure of going to Japan and doing the bullet train. And in France, the Lien à la Grande Vitesse, they get there right at Grande Vitesse, which is another very fast way to go. And I've taken the trains in this country and I need not say more. So, Andy, please tell us what's going on high speed rate rail. Thank you. And thank you for having me here. We're happy to be here part of this. We decide to enter this expo to show that there's actually a different way of thinking about energy efficiency of not necessarily changing the fuel, but actually changing the entire system from the ground up. And the previous speaker talked a lot about the importance of electric products. Well, high speed rail is the ultimate electric product. It's the entire thing is electric. So, it's super clean. It's super efficient. Can be powered 100% by renewable energy. And it's needed because now that we're making our buildings and our energy sectors, so they're getting cleaner and cleaner. Transportation has now moved up to be the number one dirtiest technology, the biggest carbon producer of all sectors. And so, the fastest way to really reverse that is with high speed rail. Because high speed rail can literally change entire travel patterns for an entire region, and this has proven out all over the world. Every single new high speed rail system that opens in the world, they immediately get about 50% of the travel market from aviation. And about 20% of the travel market from cars. And that usually grows over time up to in many quarters in the world. The rail has 80 or 90% of the market share. Just because it's so much more efficient, it's so much more easier, more comfortable, a much more pleasing way to travel. And it takes you right into the city centers where people are usually going. So, with that, we laid out a national map. And that we have brochures, if anyone would like one, we also have a booth over here down the hall. This is our national map we laid out for the whole United States. 17,000 mile high speed rail system built in phases to be completed within, say, 30 years or so. And when we first put this out, we were kind of called out, this is a little bit ridiculous and all that. But since the ten years we've existed, China literally built this map in their country. They built more than this map, they built 19,000 miles of all brand new state of the art high speed rail all over China. And so now they are the most efficient nation on earth in terms of their productivity of their people, moving back and forth between meetings or wherever they're going between their entire economy cutting back on their oil consumption, cutting back on their carbon output. Because again, it's all powered by electricity. So it really has shown that it can deliver. And EESI themselves actually in June of 2018 put out a great fact sheet here all about high speed rail development worldwide. I would recommend you all, they have a few of these at their desk down the hall. Or you can find it on their website, really good report. And then also just recently CNBC did a full, I think it's about a 40 minute show all about high speed rail. And if you want to watch that, it's absolutely the best show we've ever seen. Literally talks about the whole systems in the world, why America's so far behind, what these do for their countries, how they get built. You can go to our website, it's USHSR.com. And the video is right there on the top of the homepage. It'll start playing right away. It's probably one of the best stories and full comprehensive shows we've ever seen about high speed rail and the importance of it. And we're way behind. I mean, there's right now more than 20 nations have high speed rail. And as the gentleman said, Japan was the first to do this 50 years ago. So I mean, this is not even new. This is like a very mature, perfected technology that has that many years of proof of concept and proof of all the things and the benefits that we promise it'll deliver. All those nations actually show that it does deliver them. And those in terms of business friendly transportation, economic savings, energy savings, congestion relief. They can be powered by 100% renewable energy, like I said. It is a real estate stimulus. It creates hubs of activity around the station. So it stimulates infill, it stimulates new development around stations and more compact, smart growth type development. It's also the safest form of transportation. And it's also extremely convenient. So with that, I do want to mention we're having an event in November. We're partnering with Microsoft, who is now funding a study to do the high speed rail system in the Pacific Northwest. They're going to get it built between Vancouver, British Columbia, Seattle, Portland, and Eugene. And Microsoft is funding the studies to do this because they say because of all the traffic congestion in their region, it's too hard to get employees. It's too hard to have meetings in the middle of the day if they want to get a bunch of engineers and people together to brainstorm about some new software or something. They can't even do that because it takes a whole day to get anywhere, or you've got to fly in the night before. So they're looking at it as a way to get a bigger access to employees, a way for their staff to get around, a way for the whole region to function more efficiently and more sustainably. So the benefits are showing through, and now you have big companies like Microsoft, and they're actually mentioned in that CNBC video. In addition to Microsoft, there's two private sector groups that are now building high speed rail in this country. So that shows that there's actually profit to be made in this as well. So they're not kind of the endless subsidy system like a lot of the think tanks try to paint them as. They're actually a very profitable system for the operators. So they don't need to be subsidized. Once they're built, they actually make money and can feed back into the government or back into the operators or to the communities. So when you look at it from all those aspects, it really does offer a lot of benefits. And we have this flyer that we created for this event. We have a stack of those on our table. It's pretty interesting because it shows the energy consumption by mode, aviation, cars, and rail. It's literally 11 times difference. So in other words, an airplane uses a person flying on a trip from a city to a city will use 11 times more energy than if they took that same trip on a high speed train. So in terms of efficiency and energy and climate, this is a huge solution. Until recently, we've kind of been overlooking this as a nation. We've been focused pouring all our money into roads and aviation while we starve our rail system. And so what we've been saying all these years is it's time to flip that script and now start investing in the transportation that is the greenest and that can carry us into the future into a post oil era. It can be run on wind 100%. So with that, I wanna thank you for having me. And if anyone has any questions, again, we have a booth and we have these flyers for you all. Thank you, Andy. I think it's important to note the word you used, profitable, when you're talking about it. And I think it's important to note that one of the great things about the expo this full day, the confluence of advocacy and business practicality and we're bringing industries to the table as well as environmental advocates to the table and they're all working together and we're all seeing a profitable future not just a carbon-free future. Thanks very much. Do we have any questions? We have a couple of minutes for questions. Yes, sir. Can we speak up a little bit? Yes, sure. My name is John Roshain and I work for a company called GHG Engineering. And I had a question regarding the high-speed rail. I was wondering if you could comment on the status of the initiatives in Maryland in DC as far as, I guess it, the Elon Musk Initiative and then the other, the DC, Baltimore, Corridor. Thank you. Yes, I actually forgot to mention that we actually have several systems. There's one, actually the biggest one is actually under construction right now in California, 119 miles or so and they're about to expand at almost at 200 miles. The second one that's about to go to construction is in Texas between Dallas and Houston and then there are some slower rail systems that are actually up and running now in Florida. That's a privately led one as well. And then there's several proposed, as you mentioned. There's a proposed one from DC to Baltimore. That would be phase one and then phase two would go from Baltimore all the way to New York. And then there's another one being proposed between Las Vegas and Los Angeles which now the Virgin Group has purchased that and they'll be funding that one as well. So there's quite a few that are actually in the work. So this is actually about to get big in this country even though we've been talking for so many years and not seen anything, now we're gonna actually start seeing real results. Do we have time for one more question or are we all ready for lunch? Well, thanks again to this wonderful panel and we'll see you in five minutes. We're gonna start another panel.