 But Bob is now at my firm and making a great contribution as a long-time friend and acquaintance of the Congressman. I've asked Bob to introduce him and give you some insights into Congressman Wahlberg's background. So, Bob would you do that please? I mean when you're a dinosaur the introductions go back further and further so seriously a minute I've been privileged to work with this industry for many many years and I've seen it evolve and we've had giants in the Congress like a John Dingell for example who basically had the vision to bring us all together and to help form this this grid system that we're talking about today. We've got a new a newbie on the block a fellow that I've known for a long time going back to the time he was in the Michigan legislature but he is someone who became a politician because he was a man of faith and he believed that he could make a contribution and was open like some of the previous heroes on behalf of the industry to learning all about us. So what one of the reasons I wanted to introduce him to you was because I felt that if we're talking about the next generation of leadership in the Congress we have a responsibility to articulate our concerns and what I can tell you about Tim Wahlberg he listens. So it's really a privilege to introduce Tim to you and I hope it's the beginning of a really very good relationship between him and this industry. Tim? Well to lay any concerns he mentioned that that I'm a man of faith I was a pastor pastor for 10 years before going to the dark side in politics. I was also in high school and college a wrestler and a boxer but I promise any questions asked today I won't body slam anybody. That's all I've been asked about in the three interviews this morning starting out would you body slams? No, no, no I won't do that. So it's good to be here with you. Truly a newbie on the committee this is my first term on on energy and commerce. Most people three tries is the charm. Took me four tries to get an energy and commerce and delighted to be there. Michigan's seventh district is arguably the energy district in the state of Michigan with consumers energy and DTE and all the power plants that we have there we we produce about 30% of all of the energy produced in Michigan is produced in in Michigan's seventh district with all of the above and I think that's the direction that I certainly want to promote and all of the above energy plan using a grid that is constantly upgraded developed resourced and produced to make sure that that happens. We have nuclear we have coal we have natural gas we have wind we have solar all sorts of stuff plus the corn growing producing some of the power and the garbage that is producing some of the power opportunities that that add to the infrastructure of energy across Michigan and other states surrounding us as well. So today I was I was asked just to bring you a little update on as as a person whose intent on understanding what's going on in energy specifically rated related to infrastructure in the grid from the perspective of energy and commerce committee. To just give a little thumbnail sketch looking at the near term it's an all of above plan that we're looking at. Sitting on a the subcommittee on energy with Fred Upton as our chairman who understands from a long time process of indeed sitting under the tutelage in many ways of John Dingell learning much from him and then sharing the full committee for his six years and now chairing that subcommittee Fred and our subcommittee as well as committee is committed to finding an all of above plan that works that allows expansion that reduces barriers barriers to expansion and opportunities improving the existing infrastructure but realizing that existing infrastructure has some age on it. And how do we develop the tools the resources and yes the funding that moves that forward. Medium term we're looking at Department of Energy Comprehensive Review and authorization plan and looking at a fishing efficiency standards review. This is the time to do that. Everything that was old is new again and all of the new that's in place right now has some uncertainty that allows us to establish parameters. The long term looking at electricity system and power markets review looking at promotion of technological innovation and new digital information technologies. It's interesting being out in the Silicon Valley a week and a half ago with our Education Workforce Committee looking at some of the new economy gig economy sharing economy all of that's digital that's going on out there. You got to have a grid you've got to have infrastructure to achieve that. And it's amazing the creativity and the solutions that are just waiting to happen with the creativity and mindset that that's there. Looking at the ability to kind of push back to some degree on the aggressive environmental regulations mandates tax policies distorting federal competitive markets. And we have plenty of that and we have plenty of inertia that we have to push back on in our long term look and long term solutions. We're also looking at the implications of state generation choices on on interstate commerce competition and consumers. But probably more interest is looking at the crystal ball. I talked with Mac to try to find out where the crystal ball is actually housed on energy and commerce committee. Mac we haven't found it yet have we. So I'm going to make it up as I go here. Just from kind of talking around and under trying to get some understanding on what energy and commerce infrastructure bill that we'll be looking at is going to be energy and commerce is currently developing a infrastructure package. The timeline for working on it I'm told is in June. I've told other told other timelines for working on other major projects and generally it may start there. But it expands. But June is the beginning of the markup. I'm told on a infrastructure package as the committee process continues. It's imperative that we hear from you. Now I'm sure you hear that from politicians in the past. And I see some indications of skepticism about that. Well make me a liar. Let's hear from you. I got in touch with my chairman of education workforce two weeks ago at a round table looking at issues relative to joint employer fiduciary etc. Workforce issues. I chair the workforce subcommittee on on help health and employment labor and pensions. And I looked out at the assemble group group of special interests. All with a great amount of knowledge in those areas as I've developed and chairing subcommittees in the last six years on those issues. And I said I appreciate you coming to this this round table. We want to hear from you today. But when we call for you and called your association and say we want someone to testify in front of us from the real real world. No offense. Bob we don't want attorneys necessarily. We'll take the attorneys. But more so we want people that are practitioners in the field. And I got a literal elbow on the side from my chairman saying quit preaching. Well I think we want to hear that. We're ready to hear from you. We'd like to take real world ideas concerns issues to the committee. And I'm a freshman. I don't know that we can't do that or we can. So I'm asking you today. Sincerely give us give us your ideas. So we attack tackle the the challenges with the appropriate issues ideas in hand. The committee is also looking at ways to develop and maintain a viable energy workforce. So that we have skilled labor that's necessary to maintain what's necessary in developing the infrastructure for years to come. I'm pleased to say I've seen some of that as a result of consumers energy DTE in my district developing actual training sites at community colleges freestanding training centers that are talking to junior hires and high school students even saying if you want a true job that goes on in the future that will pay dividends immediately. If you don't mind working outside you don't mind working long hours. You don't mind working sometimes in in dangerous situations that give a lot of excitement. We will train you and we'll further train you beyond that. And if you see this is something you want to expand on we'll train you into engineering fields we'll send you to university and college is necessary but we need people trained in these in these areas. So from what I found in just the few months that I've been on that committee and the several years of having tutelage coming from places like consumers energy and DTE the utility companies are investing over a hundred billion dollars each year in critical infrastructure to make the U.S. electric grid smarter more innovative resilient and efficient and reliable. We know that and we need to make sure that our citizens understand that and that's the privilege of doing town halls on these issues in my district and talking about what's taking place. We also know that money will not tackle the issue on its own but it sure can be helpful. It's it's crucial that Congress meet industry investment with practical cost effective public policies that bring more sensible approach to what is traditionally an onerous federal permitting process. So that's something we need to do to make sure that care is taken but done efficiently. The key is finding a happy medium between the environmental concerns and I think we can. I majored in forestry and land management I don't take a backseat to anybody on environmental concerns but I also understand that we enjoy the environment much more if we also have a good economy and we have all the tools that are necessary to make our life and our living our employment opportunity greater. And I think we're doing a pretty good job in the process of achieving environmental. We just need to make sure that our permitting process follows suit as well. So we're reforming federal regulations removing red tape stream streamlining the permitting process and coordinating multi agency reviews will help not only spur industry investment but also help maximum maximize its use. In addition reducing regulatory and permitting relief. It's very important that Congress also focus on energy workforce development as I as I mentioned to you. Just last week we had the opportunity in the Education Workforce Committee. That I've been given a waiver to stay on. Where we unanimously approved H.R. twenty three fifty three the strengthening career and technical education for twenty first century act. In that bill it was key to promote education for real world jobs in the area of infrastructure specifically energy infrastructure and technology that goes there. We wanted to make it opportune for people to receive training by moving back a great deal of decision making back to where the jobs are. So that we can have community colleges. We can have career and technical training centers. We can have apprenticeship programs in the industry as well as in the private sector or the government sector capable of having dollars as well as the opportunity to use those dollars to train students in the careers that you're interested as well that passed I'm delighted to see that it was unanimous effort. It's it's a bipartisan I believe bipartisan issue to make sure that we have a career force that are trained to take on the jobs that are there for us. Let me just mention a couple other initiatives that I've been personally involved with before opening up for any questions you might have or comments. Sent a letter not too long ago to the president encouraging him to prioritize the appointing of commissioners so FERC could have a forum forum. And right now I'm glad to say that maybe even as we're meeting here that there are two FERC appointees Neil Chatterjee and Robert Paulson who are before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today looking at confirmation opportunities so we need to move that forward. I know in my district in my state there are projects right now being held up because we don't have a quorum on FERC and that's a necessity. Also HR 1109 amends the Federal Power Act to include a minimum monetary threshold of FERC review of acquisitions of facilities that fall under FERC's jurisdictions. There was a drafting area error in the 2005 EPA Act and it basically said that they could give oversight into projects that had zero cost just opened it all up with no limit or minimum standard. This bill will go a long way in dealing with that problem. Having said all of that I've exhausted all of my knowledge about the field and hopefully the questions won't go beyond that. Thanks. Let me ask a question sort of kick things off. Thank you very much for giving us at least a basic timeline for infrastructure legislation sort of at least how it begins. And we certainly hope that transmission infrastructure is one of the components of a bill like that. We had a really good panelist before you got here Congressman that dealt with workforce issues, cybersecurity issues, a lot of different things. One thing I'd love to ask you about is what kind of priority do you think cybersecurity and physical security of the grid will receive in the committee as it deliberates on infrastructure? I think it's going to receive some significant concerns. Cyber yesterday in fact we had a round table looking at whole issue and discussing the processes that are already in place for training people and preparing them with tabletop problems, real-world situations relative to cyber attacks on the grid and how communities are being prepped and prepared to handle that. I think that gives a good indication from our committee our interest seeing what's going on in a crazy world right now and the capabilities of shutting us down, really degrading all of our military capabilities along with it of having grid shutdown forces us in that situation. I think that will be a major part of it. We had also had a brief film and some observations on workforce issues which is something we don't talk about nearly enough. I'm sure you're aware that as much as 60% of the workforce in the electric utility and natural gas industries will, those workers will be leaving either for retirement or to go to other industries in the next decade. You had some suggestions about how Congress can help with that. Certainly community colleges, union training programs, that kind of thing is important. Is that an issue that you feel a committee can deal with? Since one of the reasons that workforce tends to decline is the decline in the number of big projects in the pipeline. Not to mix my metaphors. We're talking about electric transmission and how to get it built. Getting those projects into the real world and on the on the ground is really an important issue. The education committee is certainly moving that direction. Last year we were successful as you know or many of you know. We passed the skills act which really devolved federal government from many of the career training programs and pushed those back to the states and pushed in a good way of saying that's where the training ought to take place and that's where the dollars ought to be on the ground to meet those training needs. We gave great amount of latitude for the states to come up with their own solutions. The community colleges, the various trade training areas, I think of Jackson area manufacturer association in my district that's doing a great job in developing that plus some of your apprenticeship union and otherwise apprenticeship programs to let the emphasis reside back in the states and the local communities. We know in my industry with the various energy companies they have those training plans in place. They're frustrated times of running across mandates that come from the federal government in the past. We reduced that. Speaking with the new Secretary of Education she is firmly committed to implementing Waiia as we intended it and as President Obama signed it that took the strings off and many of the mandates off from the federal level. The other issue is the fact that for too long we gave the impression that every student needed to go to a four year college or university. I mean I think we all agree that every student needs continuing lifelong education. I certainly need that. But they don't need necessarily go to a four year college university. And so to release dollars and programs and authority to start to build up those trades training. Yesterday I had a group of underground contractors in my office and they said the same thing you did that one of the biggest problems is that number one we haven't trained people or pushed them to that field saying that is a sweet spot for many of you. You don't have to go to university or college four year program. You don't have to take on a student loan debt. In fact you may come out of these programs without a debt at all. In fact there may be an organization or company that pays you to go through that. But also the point of view was that we've got to get parents to understand that these jobs are there. These are jobs that are needed. Secondly if we grow an economy where we have these projects in place and this is what the underground contractors are saying we lost a lot of people simply because we aren't building them. We weren't doing infrastructure. So they went other places. They found jobs in other industries. And now it's going to be hard to lure them back. We've got to overturn that. And that's that's a consistent process that we have to undertake. And I think we've started it in Congress recognizing those in a bipartisan way. And moving it forward and it'll help your industry as well. Well thank you. Well on behalf of Wires and the National Electric Manufacturers Association and EESI and the grid wise alliance. Thank you so much for being here. We hope to see you again. Thank you and I hope to see you and thanks for the job you do.