 think we we should get underway we're just a tad behind thank you all for thank you all for coming on this rainy morning I think just promises to be a really a really good day for for this conference and for transmission let me let me make a few kind of logistical announcements feel free to get up and get breakfast or coffee as the session goes along we'll keep this very informal I'm I'm sure you want to know that the men's room is down that way the women's room is over here at this end of the hall breakfast is is out in the near the elevator the the materials for this session include a lot a lot of wires reports we brought as many copies as we could without giving ourselves a backache but you will find them all on our website www.wiresgroup.com and I am I'm hopeful that you find them both interesting and and insightful the the the panelists presentations today will be posted on our website after the conference and we have a couple of panelists who I think are going to bring their materials on a thumb drive we'll post those as well although they may not be available in hard copy today so the only thing I would I would ask and would urge is that you have lots of questions for our panelists we will try to leave enough time for you to to quiz our experts there there are the the panels I think are really terrific the congressman will be here at 915 I hope you know how that works on Capitol Hill we had a bit of bad luck because the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee decided to confirm to furk commissioners today and that's happening as we speak and so we may have we may have some late attendees once that concludes should be a pretty straightforward hearing and quite frankly I think you'll learn more here than you probably would by watching that hearing although you if one never knows so I would I would just start with with a few general remarks and an apology for having my picture plastered all over the place if you look closely at that picture you'll see what happens if you spend too many years doing energy law it's really really unfortunate but we have we have a we haven't and look at this how interesting gosh I'm I had no idea well the the digital goolies have been messing with my computer so it's going to be pretty interesting the there we go that the whole emphasis on infrastructure which we're going to be talking about today it has been around for a long time I don't know if you remember Felix Wright and Warren Redmond back the turn of this century spent a lot of time urging people to pay and pay more attention to rebuilding America and their their wishes have largely fallen on deaf ears although we have invested quite a bit in electric transmission and other infrastructure if you if you read the report of the American Society civil engineers you'll you'll know that we have a long way to go on most of our basic infrastructure but the the the question for for us today is number one is is transmission the kind of infrastructure that we are now focused on the policy makers on Capitol Hill and in in state houses do they believe that that this is something that requires our attention just as much as roads and bridges and sewer systems and other other basic infrastructure I think the the the grid is fundamentally different than it was several decades ago it's a modern phenomenon what we're talking about and if you look at what it was in 1978 and what it is fairly recently you'll see that indeed high voltage transmission has expanded has integrated but we still have a lot of empty space out there in in transmission in the transmission grid what what I would just say by way of introduction for for the materials that are going to come in the the panels that are going to come later is that wires believes that that transmission is something that will give us a very flexible robust economy electric economy in the future and that it provides optionality obviously we don't know what 2040 or 2050 is going to look like but we will be in a position to adapt to the increased penetration of electricity into the economy and to new technology developments if we have a grid that's capable of moving electrons around the the pan first panel today is going to spend quite a bit of time kind of setting that stage and talking about what what that future grid needs to look like why we need to invest now and so forth we you most of you a lot of familiar faces here so I I know you recognize that transmission investment is a matter of some of some urgency given the age of the grid and and the changes in the generation mix the emergence of new technologies and you'll hear a considerable amount about that today and it's it's suffice it to say that we we believe that more sessions like this are needed in order to familiarize policymakers with with the need for for transmission the and before I go any further I want to correct a critical omission we are we are co-sponsored today by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association and and the grid wise alliance as well as the Environment Energy Study Institute all of these organizations are committed I think to the idea of providing as much good technical information as possible to policymakers so they can make appropriate decisions and you will you will hear a lot from them in the future one of the most disturbing and amazing and interesting things I've seen as my friend Patrick Hughes from NEMA over here had created something called shoots and ladders which is a chart of the permitting process for electric transmission and it it when you see it all portrayed graphically you can understand what what a complicated process it is it looks more like a bowl of pasta than than a than a planning process and I hope we can maybe put that up on the website sometime soon the the the investment in transmission over the last decade is has recovered we spent 25 years not investing in the grid at all and actually disinvesting in some areas so we're in a better position but we still have planned transmission incrementally for reliability purposes largely and we are not thinking about about what the future is going to demand of of the grid and so grid modernization everybody has their own definition of what that might entail is is something that you're going to hear a lot about and we're going to try and give that some definition today and and talk a little bit more about some things you know we talked a lot about citing challenges and various kinds of permitting problems and and and so forth but there there are things that we don't talk about so much which is the demands on the system being made by distributed generation by the development of new technologies that actually complement the grid and could help make it more flexible and adaptive and and I think we this session today will focus on that probably more than than we have in any prior wires university today's today's panels are basically going to attack these these issues and I hope you're all able to stick around for the whole day as I said the first panel and what do we mean by by modernization of the grid you know there there are lots of wonderful stories out there about demand is flat and we can we can walk away from the grid or we can all just have rooftop solar and and forget about investment in anything like the high voltage system that we we have now well I think you'll find that that is a very problematic assumption and as a matter of fact in many ways the reverse tends to be the case that that we will continue to need the wires network will continue to need to lean on it even if we have and and maybe because we have a more distributed decentralized kind of generation of baseload and I think our first our first panel after the congressman has gives us some some a few words will explore that the second panel this morning is going to look at some of the some of the issues that the specific things that wires can provide we're all pretty I think comfortable with the idea that location constrained or remotely located wind and solar are typically not near big loads kind of large concentrations of customers and we need to we need to move that power to to major markets what we don't talk about again it is is the implications of transmission investment or the lack of transmission investment on on labor we have I have heard express some some serious concerns about the future of the skilled workforce in the electric power industry going forward we have I I think the number is about 60% of the of linemen and and people with those in those skilled trades are due to retire or leave the industry in the next decade and and that presents us with a real challenge engineering schools need more to crank out more engineers and we need more apprentice programs and the skill workforce that maintains this vital infrastructure is always a little bit in in doubt and I think the second panel again into that Arnie Quinn from FERC is going to be here to talk a little bit about bulk power markets in relation to transmission and so I think that'll be a varied discussion I guess another topic that doesn't come up a whole lot is cross-border trade one of our wires members from Manitoba hydro is here to to talk about how integrated the US and Canada are potentially Mexico and and how that how that generates some very not only wealth but a lot of flexibility and and operational flexibility for for both countries and both economies and and and I looked forward to that the third panel is all about capital we have we have a lot of a lot of questions about who pays for transmission expansion is is do we need a big federal program to fund a grid expansion you've probably seen proposals draft proposals from both sides of the aisle that that would lavish investment tax credits or other kinds of taxpayer money on the on this industry there there are some real questions as to whether that's appropriate at this time that may be very important for merchant transmission it may not be very helpful to to other kinds of transmission providers the real challenge it that the transmission faces and we're not spending a lot of time on that today as is kind of a dysfunctional regulatory approval process for transmission lines we're going to talk a little bit about returns on equity we're going to talk a little bit about some macroeconomic factors that will affect investment in infrastructure and and some of the unique challenges that the technology faces in that area and then we're going to wrap up with a little more on on distributed energy resources digital technology and our last panel is going to explore a little more in depth what what is going to be a very profound change in in the electric industry over the next quarter century I'd say and that is that you know all the electromechanical stuff is going to go away we're going to be highly digitized and it's going to be a system that has think of it as a Christmas tree with a lot of distributed this and that and the other on it and storage and demand response and and how does that work in relation to the traditional wires and substations network that we are so used to talking about I am delighted to to give you as much of a background on on our wires projects as you want I think there are two or three page summary of what our what our studies have shown so far and we've got a couple coming out this year that I think will be unique contributions to the wires library the we've summarized them a little bit for you and we've got some copies over there but most of you probably don't want to lug these things around so you will find them on the on the website and I think that's probably a better way to to access those things but are there any questions anything that I can feel right now we we are a few minutes away from Congressman McNerney and any of you have tried to schedule a congressman for anything and probably know I've got my fingers crossed these folks are so busy and today is a flyout day there they're all thinking about Memorial Day vacations and going back to visit their constituents so we'll leave it at that right now and we'll be back in a in a few minutes as soon as he arrives and and I'll be happy to answer any questions yes sir they won't have a vote today that today is just a hearing when they get back from Memorial Day vacation I expect the committee will have a business meeting and that's where they take a vote on the nominees there are two FERC nominees and one and the deputy secretary of energy they will be voted out by the committee I expect and then it'll go to the floor so I think we can expect all these people to be confirmed certainly within the next month there because of the quorum situation you know everybody's a little anxious to get going and that includes people on the gas side there's some major gas pipeline projects that are hung up so I think I think this will hopefully be accelerated what depends on how smart they are I guess these are pretty distinguished individuals but you you know looking at FERC policy from the outside and then getting in there and finding that an individual case has a record about that thick and and you need to you know work your way through the the data and find a staff and I'd say you know the getting up to speed time is probably six months but they'll start voting right away the staff has been generating materials briefs doing some delegated orders in the interim but I I don't expect that that even with a quorum that things are going to happen instantaneously they've got a lot of backlog to make up so take some time anything else I can do to I can tap dance okay we'll be back in a few minutes with Congressman McNerney who is by the way the co-chair of the grid innovation caucus over on the house side and he's always got some great things to say so we'll see you then