The annual meeting in Atlantic City. It covered electric grid, the permitting process and broadband access. This is 45 minutes. Welcome. The governors action accelerate projects here to open the session is executive director of the governors association. Great. Thank you. Come on, everybody. [applause] thank you. Thank you all for being back. Hope you had a great lunch. We will move forward here. A panel led by two of our great governors. North carolina governor roy cooper. A big welcome to them. All right. I think you will open us up. Thank you. Welcome, everybody. Infrastructure is one of the most common topics that we were asked about as governors. When will the new bridge be built, when will the potholes be fixed, when will my Community Get high speed internet, why is this taking so long to finish. Just take your pick. The pipeline,e, grid upgrade, solar projects, you name it. The United States is among the slowest nations approving and completing infrastructure projects. Permitting reviews for Energy Projects in the u. S. Six years longer than in china, india or other European Union nations. That is according to the analysis froma bcg. Taking up to 10 years to fully permit a pipeline project. It takes about six months to build them. You know the process gets drawn out due to agency overlaps. Bureaucracy as well as litigation. There is one company, i will leave their name out, this is an existing pipeline that is trying to retrofit for carbon sequestration. It will take 10 years to get that new project approved. This really makes no sense. That is why governors are working together across party lines and state lines on Common Sense Solutions to try to speed up the process to deliver energy and infrastructure benefits nationwide for all americans. You know, in oklahoma we are working with our neighbors with the governorr of louisiana and also arkansas on a hydrogen hub. This is a really cool project. Publicprivate partnership that will lead to development and employment of a Hydrogen Network oklahomas energy story is and all of the above energy story. Oklahoma is like number three and natural gas production. Number five in oil production. We are also number two in wind energy production. One of only four states that over 45 of our energy comes from renewables. We believe that you need and all of the above approach to really have an Affordable Reliable Energy grid. Tore prioritize the importance f project delivery for projects like theve hydrogen hubs, the governors here, we have created an energy and Infrastructure Working Group in february 2023 that focused on solutions to streamline the permitting process to address legal challenges and tackle procurement issues. Both congress and the Biden Administration recognized the urgency of the problem. Governors welcomed their auctions to include several, we had several meaningful permit reforms in the recent debt ceiling legislation. Those reforms are a great start. We believe that much more is needed including judicialt reviw that is some of the things we will talk about today. We havebu a great panel. We need to speed up the energy all across w all of our states. Now i want to turn it over to Governor Cooper from the great state of North Carolina. Thank you. We have an amazing panel here to talk about infrastructure today. We are the third Fastest Growing state in the country for the second year in a row. We have been named a top state by msnbc. When you look at their rankings and why they choose what they choose as to what is good for business, number one is obviously workforce. Number twoy is infrastructure. We have welltrained dedicated workforce. We know how important infrastructure is. Not only to businesses, but everyday families as well. Right now, we have a generational opportunity to invest in infrastructure across this country. We have had plans before about things that we needed to do to connect highspeed internet to fix our roads and bridges. Now we actually have the funding to do with. What we will be talking about here is how to do it. The first thing that my entire E Administration knows is that e will first compete for every federal dollar. When you do that, i think it is important to bring in everybody. Much like President Biden to appointed mayoro landrieu to ty to coordinate things, i have appointed a Pandemic Recovery direct or who is helping to coordinate our applications for federal funding. We are working closely with local governments, community colleges, universities, private businesses, regulators and our federal partners and already we have seen some significant success as have many of the states across the country. We know that highspeed internet is aav critical part of infrastructure. We have already started this process. We were doing it with state money. We had a process going. As soon as we had American Rescue plan funding we started using that money. Now, we are going to get a billion and a half which will help us, truly, connect all families and businesses to highspeed internet. We also know that connecting people is not just the viper, but also being able to afford it. That is why i set up the first in the Country Office of Digital Equity and literacy. I know that many of you all are working to w try to get more family signed up for the affordable connectivity program. We have almost 900,000 North Carolina families on it. Givess them 30 a month. We have also competed for offshore wind and the great improvement program. We went in with duke energy. Building off the coast of North Carolina, we have to have the grid to get the electricity back in. With bridges and with charging infrastructure, with the inflation reduction act, so many opportunities and water and wastewater were already distributing hundreds of millions of dollars to help our small towns and our businesses connect with water and wastewater. We do have permitting issues and challenges. There is a way to do all of this to protect our air and water and make sure that hermits move faster. One thing we are doing in North Carolina is ive appointed liaisons between our department and all the new companies coming into north or alina to make sure that Everybody Knows what to do. It is important to make sure we Work Together to get this done. We have three super panel is here today. First we have Calvin Butler who is the president and ceo of exelon. We have scott warner who is the president of national grid. New england. Obviously, they are working offshore wind. And we have tony lewis who was the regional Vice President of state Public Policy and Government Affairs for horizon with some North Carolina ties. Calvin, we will started off with you, if you will. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Let me begin by saying thank you to the governors for bringing this important topic to the forefront. I thinky the fact that you have put this special committee together to talk about this issue goes to show you the change of our industries right now. Whento you talk about the transformation of the Energy Industry and the infrastructure needs of our country, think in terms of the industry that we will undergo more change in the next 10 years and we have in the last 100. I say that, as you guys have both said, it is very exciting. It is not only exciting for the communities that we serve, it is exciting for the 19,000 employees. It is exciting for the 10 million customers that we have the privilege of serving and the great state of new jersey through Atlantic City electric. I just need to stay on Tyler Anthony and their team. They are here today. Our customers in delaware, our customers in maryland, baltimore, chicago, and the district of columbia. Why are those districts important and why did i mention them . Exelon is uniqueic a in the poit that we serve some of the most diverse metropolitan cities in the country. But we also serve coastal areas in maryland and new jersey. We also serve rural areas where farmland is locked in. They have the same challenges of infrastructure needs, but how you address them are very different. The governor talked about that portfolio approach to addressing this. At exelon, we have to take that same approach where we had the privilege of being a combination gas and electric utility meaning that gas business represents 12 of our portfolio. We do believe it is important for reliability and resiliency of the grid that must be in all of the above approach. Why else is that important . It is also important for the affordability factor. Also important for the affordability factor. Because my biggest job is a ceo, through this transformation, is ensuring that this transition is an equitable one for all of our communities that we serve. Because the belief is that if you leave any of your customers it also goesd to what are the challenges so the challenge is to that permitting question getting something done when you were talking i almost saidco am. Because i can relate to it. The challenge becomes our ambitions as a country pure iij the Infrastructure Investment andme jobs at 1. 2 trillion that is then set aside to go into infrastructure buildout how quickly can we get that within these jurisdiction and make a difference. Whats happening is the ambition is there by their actions are counterintuitive. We are still operating off of 20, 30, 40yearold rules for todays problems. Therefore we are looking at her own jurisdictions and i share this with you because its important. As governors youve all been very aggressive in Economic Development goals and you have a committee within the nga around Economic Development. Youre setting policy and we go is your host utility to implement those goals. So the need for us to collaborate break down silos in this process is critical to get this moneyey to work and to buid up our communities and the last thing i will say those to what you were saying the workforce. This transformation cannot be done without a qualified workforce. The Community Member the question that i get is where do i see myself in that yes you are talking about reliability and resilience. No one who lives in our community is working on a pipeline no one is playing that type. So again it must be an equitable transition to get this done so again thank you for the opportunity and i look forward to any questions. He makes the border here and thank you for the opportunity and great remarks and i agree completely with everything you said. I appreciate the governors pulling together. It should be a thoughtful discussion in our industry because we are at an inflection point. The work we are going to do or the next five, 10, 1520 years is the will far surpassing the work we did. We are committed to delivering a fair clean and Affordable Energy transition for all customers and communities and to do that we know we need to be smarter and building a smarter stronger and cleaner Energy System. I will highlight three things that are consistent with remarks you heard from my colleague. We need to be grounded in what needs to be accomplished and what needs to be built. We need to be clear how we will Work Together and we need to address, a significant carrier barrier to getting projects done which is a permitting process we follow in the industry. To give you a feel for the size and scale to give you some examples in new england and new york we serve 7 million customers with power and heat and those are homes and businesses. That e means hundreds of towns d cities across the commonwealth of massachusetts. I served twothirds of those 350 some towns that we have. The beautiful part of the u. S. As you all know. Delivering energy we are in a world where we are experiencing more extreme weather whether it requires us to take actions to build a a more resilient system and we are trying to drive down greenhouse emissions at the same time and convert customers and bring more loads onto her electric import to their monumental volumes of Clean Energy Systems that need to be built. To meet the goals of the region we need to build an electric grid thats two to three times bigger than today. That means a ballpark of 15 or more transmission lines to connect wind for more power to serve the region which we send that load to and its if not triple and that shift with the summer peaking in the winter peaking regions with a guard to electric demand. We need to install thousands of miles of new and upgraded distribution lines and hundreds of new and upgraded substations and more robust and secure Communication Networks that will enable us to efficiently identify issues and expand where necessary and avoid unnecessarys disruptions. The good news is our region understands the challenge and in massachusetts we along with other utilities will be submitting whats called an electric sector modernization plan making investments that are required to be made during the next five, 10 to 25 years to meet the goals. In new york supported the climate leadership and Community Protection act we have identified the need for transmission upgrades to our network at any given plum moment we have 150 largescale projects on the way and another 150 nobodys projects require engagement with the host community. And the agencies secure the rightofway to accomplish this work. Another example is the collaboration work we are doing with efforts to support bat in a state the previous he did not have it. This is a massive investment and collaboration of the private partnership in new york and more broadly or states are working together to advance proposals to the department of energy to offset the cost and accelerate the investment in this new infrastructure. Examples of the hour brayden retiring at brayden Brayton Point area for bringing in offshore winds. Both of these will connect and create opportunities for wind and other renewable sources to renew Energy Supplies and help lowerof energy costs on the commodity side. Theres also the northeast club which involves seven states and recognizes the need to look for more danced carbonized fuels to leverage the networks that exist today. St the projects will and initiatives like these that i mentioned have in common is this work is being done collaboratively with public and private sector partners multiple stakeholders and communities that are coming together to get this work done. As we move from creating this bold ambition into this execution phase where we are getting these projects but we recognize their challenges around getting projects cited and builtin challenges around the cost of securing the necessary supply chain and securing the necessary people workforce and acquiring Property Rights are just a few of the challenges. Additionally we have challenges and i think theres a lot agreement here we have challenges to make an orderly transition to cleaner more affordable and more just Energy Future. If we Work Together those decisions will be much easier. For example we know we need to make decisions around changing the way we permit larger infrastructure problems projects and approval for multiple agenciesou to process d more streamlined transparent to all. Thanks to the indiana governor separatists abated in the working group this challenge was spot on and we are pleased to new york and massachusetts both are actively working to address theses challenges. Governor haley and her demonstrations in massachusetts have launched a task force to identify policy gaps to accelerate the process while not compromising community involvement. The legislature is advancing bills to do the same and the good news is theres a resounding agreement acrosstheboard of what needs to be done. We know that no Single Technology noer single project will meet all of their needs and it will take all of us working together to make these hard decisions about where we need to make investment in this orderly transition to cleaner more secure Energy Future and make sure all of our customers and communities are brought to new heights. I think you and thank you to my fellow panelists. Well said. Thank you to all the governors who areiv here today and thank u for the opportunity. You set the tone with one word generational opportunity. We talk about some things that we should do right now to ensure that generational change happens now. So couple of facts 65 billion is available for broadband, 42. 5 billion of that is to build network for those unserved and underserved. Lets make sure we are clear on that opportunity. Absolutely the right thing to do. This program the largest investment in broadband ever in these United States, ever so was set up as a shared responsibility and the opportunity for us to be here with you today is a demonstration that we all understand that. It is a shared opportunity to take advantage of this. Fiveyear plans need to w be but in every state involved in that type of plant could be but they dont have today. We believe they can be simplified so engine will we in the Commerce Department used the fccs broadband maps allocated all these dollars and it goes from 100 million in our nations capitol to 3. 3 billion in taxes. So we have a map across our state and now we have got six months. They can bee done. Dont take the whole six months. Some of you are already active. Those plans should be in place and ready to go and i would suggest by the summer. The faster you get those plans in place the faster the allocation of funding will come to your state so why should the plans look like . Very clear. One, think about this. Let the experienced and strong labor stem Companies Benefit you. This is generational so its critical that we rely on what we know works and we know the typs ofof companies and workers that will work in order to not onlyis build this network. Maintain it for generations that we are talking about. Im gladpe you mentioned acp. Use it. Its a marvelous program. Its there and they are almost 20 Million People involved in that. It satisfies the requirements of the plan and a say it again it satisfies the requirement. So lets use that. Critical that all of us push for that in the last one you heard already streamlined permitting absolutely essential to get these networks built. In simple terms we build the networks that move us forward. Right now we have got people around the country and every one of these states underground on line in Network Operation centers caring for those emergencies that we know that we have seen this week and last week and last month than last year will require the type of network that can sustain the empire meant we are in today. I personally am happy to report and i see some of my good friends out there that dont have partnerships with states and other programs. In new york Governor Hochul in pennsylvania and delaware we have worked together many years ago broadband. Maryland and virginia. La we are active. We have thousands of locations already being dealt but what matters most is that one person that finally gets broadband is in North Carolina. We have an opportunity to get this done but i want to give you one quick example of how what already works and i dont think Governor Shapiro is here but have you noticed what happened when the tragedy of i95 and the collapse of that infrastructure that impacted every part of this country. He said a few things in his remarks. He talked about speed, innovation, a simple, quick path. Experienced workers matter and he said all hands on deck and not a single moment and he said this is Good Government in action. We can take that example recently and apply it to what we are talkingme about right now which is building great broadband. Thank you governor. Tony you have that generational plan in place and successful Adult Children never leave their cellphones [laughter] you wont have that problem. Governor stitt thank you and thanks to the palace. We will open up to q as for governors and we are goingg to start with the great governor of utah spencer is cox who cochairs its working groups so governor cox. We do all agree this is a bipartisan issue. Thank you for your leadership in this preview worked with the white house on this issue for a long time. I look versus governors to take some of the credit for some of the reform we have done in weighing and i think its helpful and theres certainly more to do. I just want to bring up and asked some of you to weigh in if you would on the importance of litigation reform. We got some and the lowhanging. We are going to get some sequential decisionmaking, some shot clocks put in place to do it more quickly but the endless litigation a lot of what takes so long for these products to move forward is just litigation. Id love to hear your thoughts on that. Governor thank you. I agree and you take some of these regional transmission organizations it all sits in with the jurisdiction and directly to your point if a project of someones is not chosen the first step we are going to do is to litigate. As the process unfolds it goes, continues to move on and every step along the way the next thing you know youre five to six years out and mind you if the process is being litigated the company that is suing does not even half to have all the checks and balances of a workable project. They are just bringing litigation based on them not being chosen. One of the things that is important as a transmission owner through this process is that theres a proprietary information of the litigation process is often used to reveal information that otherwise they would not have access to so you are absolutely correct. I know pjm and the leadership is lookingl at what reform they he adapted to tear point its not moving quick enough. From a broadband perspective with the opportunity for these plans and what can be done to themem in the process of litigation it can slow this to a crawl if we are cautious. If we are True Partners there always solutions that taking the first solution of litigation should not be the way we move forward to ensure the people that make it the most get it. I agree with you. A lot at the broadband in the United Statesho is so that reformad is important and will never get broadband to the places. They hit the places that are easy. We have hit the places that are easy. Thank you to my fellow governors for all the work done in the working group on this important directive in the far east and energy in our future is something we are all commonly outlined on trying to figure out our partners. Im newan to this. Looking at permitting another performs, i wanted to read something with respect to community and Community Engaging engagement in building a project whether its for more flexible accommodating electric grid or anything related to cleanb Energy Construction requires a community by and and referencing the litigation. I dont want to see time on that or money on that but do you have an approach about how you engage in building out equitably and the other question is related to weather in preparing applications and getting ready for construction upgrades, new transmission lines, how can we think about Community Engagement and good Community Engagement and by and that will help move things along and remove some of the friction in all of this . Governor haley thank you for your leadership on this and so many other matters and your partnership as we build the Energy Infrastructure massachusetts. You and your team have beenen absolutely clear that we need to build towards this Clean Energy Economy and getting to your specific question when they think about what projects need to be built with think about the community and where it needs to be built and we firmly believe those who host infrastructure should benefit from that. That is simply stated that. Examples. E you some whenho you think about the stats projects that i mentioned earlier we just submitted it for d. O. E. Funding for the program. You and governor sununu are familiar with these projects. Its a 1200megawatt bidirectional highvoltage direct current line down from quebec. C. It will act as a stabilizing resource as we bring additional renewable sources on to the grid in new england. That 170mile long transmission line levels existing right of ways which makes it them a simpler and through our partnership with clean energy what we did is we went through the dozens of communities that are around that and spoke with each of those communities about the project and what might benefit those communities as we come through there. As a result we have tremendous support from these communities and the governors and the legislatures and all the jurisdictions that are involved. More than two other Public Officials and dozens of towns and Community Groups and environmental labor organizations are coming out to support the project. We havent even secured funding at the best example of an approach we need to take on all of our large of the structure, community by community and street by street. We started early with that approach believing that those who have infrastructure should benefit benefit from it and ill leave it there. We talked to the communities and we talked to them and explained what they projects were in what the benefits werent put together a Community Benefits package that works for that community and designed with input from that community. Governor i would add i agree with everything that was said about engaging in the Committee Early and often that i would take it as that further for this utility distribution of utility we had to look at how we for rate cases because we were always coming in afterthefact on an annual basis and we made a decision across most of our jurisdictions up that we were going to do multiyear plans and for those that dont know what a multiyear plan as we put together a Capitol Investment plan, a great plan to invest over the next three to four years and why was that important . The stakeholder process and developing that Investment Plan engaged all theov Community Whether you were a small business, residential we laid out for the commission in a collaborative nature this is our strategy for investing in the community. As result people started saying why are they doing that in asking questions and through the process we were answering them and now the commission in that tenmonth processor seven month process whatever it was went to the hearing and went through the litigated process not in terms of law. Everyone having an input and now when its done you have an Investment Plan for the community for the next three to four years. That process alone engages the community into steves point we also approached it from the Vantage Point of Economic Development and job creation. This is what it did. When you pass legislation and whether its transportation decarbonization whatever those fiber networks, whatever it was we were able to associate this investment creates this result and as a result of that you hold us accountable as your utility to do what we say youre going to do and if we dont you hold us accountable for that. We took thatre im partnership with the regulatory body in its made a huger difference. We are still going through the process and now they get to run our business and do what we do best and thats infrastructure, collect on it and bring it back. Thats also a key driver. I will add governor im so glad you brought up engaging with the committees. We have k the benefit of having over 100,000 people in neighborhoods in the churches, in your Grocery Stores at the Civic Centers and they are part of the fabric of the communities. We use them to ensure as we reach out to communities where reaching the right organizations. As i said earlier its all about partnerships. We are able to do what we are able to do because we rely on everyone understanding what we are doing and not leaving anyone behind listening to concerns in finding a collective solution. You do that when you engage and i had to tell you we have departmentsin that focused on local engagement and not that we set up an employees to do that but they reach out to our committees. The Housing Project in new york city out there with those residents ensuring that they understand why the network is being built and how it can benefit them, the boys and girls clubs of america, the brothers big sisters all these organizations around the country we tap into because they know whats happening in those communities. Some of them are employees and some are friends and family but we want to use them to better engage our community. Thank you for the question. The next one is from the governor for a rico governor pierluisi. Damage caused by Hurricane Maria over 5000 permanent Construction Projects on the way that the more critical ones relate to the Energy System to electric infrastructure which still is too fragile and equate it and so one so just in the sector we have in excess of 11 million as fema to rebuild our grid to improve it because at the same time we are moving away from burning oil to generate our Energy Moving to renewable and the sooner the better. Its a complex efforts of secretary granholm and i were concerned about having duplicate regulatory things going on. What i ended up doing was issuing an executive order basically in the context of this emergency which it has been declared an emergency of infrastructure. We issued a directive to state agencies in puerto rico to give reciprocity to refuse by fema and Historical Preservation refused by fema. Epa reviews, the corp. Engineer permits, fish and wildlife reviews and approvals. Basically im telling them if the federal authorities ask first rely on those purporting purposes and i did that. Its a creative way to expedite this major project on the way. Having said that my question to you coming from the private sector is what can we do as governors tog facilitate, expedite major structure projects and it could be a broadband and the telecommute occasions k area or could be energy or highways. Is there anything we can do to expedite the project reviews and the cost of this project, thats the question i have for you. I will start. I think you should hold us accountable and make sure we are getting input from the communities in considering those benefits. Work with us to say okay not everyone will be happypy but we had to make a decision and then partner with us and show that leadership is necessary to move these projects forward. I think governor part of the problem we all encounter as we are trying to partner is the forces of uncertainty and we have got to find ways to step on and then step two and three and onward. So often we see the big problem and we wring our hands and say we will have do these 50 things when theres always a first step. I would encourage us to always look for that first opportunity and in that first opportunity could createe the momentum, the fly will flight well its necessary to move the project forward and i say that recognizing its a much broaders death then im articulating. What to get started once people see that you are dedicated together to this end you have the opportunity there. Governor puerto rico is a wonderful example of how our industry came together to support and assist and we talk about the energy when you were in the need. Everybody got together and is an amazing example to the next stage is to rebuild. I will give you two things that i think would go a long way. Established very clear expectations of what you want to be Crystal Clear about what youre looking for from organizations that are going to come and invest and build and keep a timeline around it. What happens when you are clear and have a timeline how the engineering to get it done. I think those are the two biggest opportunities we have and those companies were able to step up to that challenge will. Thank you so much. Time is passed quickly that we are deeply grateful to calvin, steven tony for their input and what their companies are doing. Governor stitt i appreciate you leaving this panel discussion. As we meet this challenge of infrastructure there may not be a group more important in this country than the nations governors right now because we have the opportunity to bring in the local government, the private businesses, the federal government and the regulators to get this done. We have an unprecedented opportunity here and its going to be up to us to make sure that it gets done efficiently, effectively and as quickly as possible. I look forward to working with each of you to make sure that happens in this great country and thank you guys very much. Thank you. [applause] thank you everyone. We will see you at the reception this evening and at the governors could head on over to the private event now. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] historian martha hodes at the time to love you on that flight are the foods he teaches 19th century history for years only had fuzzy memories of those six days and nights in the desert as a hostage. In the past couple of years professor hodes decided to piece together her experience in the result is her book titled my hijacking a personal history of forgetting and remembering