Institute, the association that represents all u. S. Investorowned electric companies. Im addressing you today in my role as one of three cochairs of the electricity subsector coordinating council. We collaborate closely with power utilities and cooperatives on the escc. Im please today address the subcommittee and to share the steps the electric power is taking, allowing us to continue to deliver affordable and reliable power. The 2017 Hurricane Season highlights the critical importance of cooperation and coordination among Utility Companies, the government and other key infrastructure industry to assure fast, efficient recovery for customers. The electric sector faces constantly evolving threats to the energy grid. The industries Risk Mitigation strategy emphasizes a defense in debt approach. We focus on preparation, response and recovery with emphasis isolation of and enhanced protection of critical asset. While this hearing is focused on storm response and recovery, our companies do not bill the energy grid or security responses to meet only one type of threat. We must prepare and plan for them all, whether man made or natural, malicious or unintensal. Relating to the cyber or physical security or a combination of threats. Weather is unavoidable in our business and the industry works to identify gaps, compile Lessons Learned and disseminate best practices. As an industry we strive to be better today than yesterday and better tomorrow than we are today. Since Superstorm Sandy five years ago this week, the electric Power Industry has combined efforts across all segments of the industry and worked with government partners to streamline restoration efforts and prepare preparation for those and those were visible the past several months as the industry and federal government worked for to prepare for and respond to the hurricane. There is an understandable urge to compare storms, but the reality is, that each storm is different. The common threads, however, are the need for resilient infrastructure, a plan for response, and recovery, and the awesome nature of our industrys ability to respond to emergency. Before i close, id like to underscore the importance of the escc. During the most recent storms, the escc held daily coordination calls among impacted companies and government officials to address critical operational issues, such as identifying specialized equipment needs, removing temporary flight restrictions, for both manned and Unmanned Aircraft to assist with aerial Damage Assessment and coordinating how they could reenter disaster areas and coordinating response efforts with the oil and natural gas, telecommunications, transportation and water and waste water factors. Energy secretary rick perry was on every call. And was frequently joined by other officials such as homeland security, acting secretary elaine duch, and these were essential in the response and recovery effort. The reliability and resiliency of the energy grid are of paramount importance. Our customers expect the lights to go on when they flip a switch. When the power goes out, our customers expect it will be on soon. The electric power sector will continue to strive to meet those expectations through a multilayered strategy to invest in smart energy infrastructure, continuous enhancement of our industry Government Partnership and the grit of the amazing men and women who make the energy grid workday in and day out. The subcommittee is showing great leadership with focus on preparedness and we look forward to working with you on this critical topic. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the fc krchc and i lo forward to your questions. Thank you, mr. Fanning. And we call on the executive director of the Virgin IslandsWater Power Authority suffering devastation from two hurricane hurricanes. Good day, mr. Chairman. And other honorable members of the committee. Im at the Virgin Islands water and Power Authority. On behalf of the governor of the Virgin Islands and the members of the governing board, i thank you for the invitation to provide testimony on passage of hurricanes irma and mariamemaria. There were two back to back earthquake had hurricanes within two weeks. And greater than 157 miles per hour. There were cases in the hurricane irma. Winds sustained above 190 miles per hour. Wapas transmission were destroyed by two hurricanes. Due to irma and the electrical Transmission System suffered significant damage. The st. Thomas system sustained damages approximately 80 . St. John approximately 90 . Approximately two weeks later on tuesday, september 19th, 2017, Hurricane Maria caused damage to almost 60 of the transmission and Distribution System on saint croix. Other islands didnt receive significant damage as a result of Hurricane Maria. To date the authority has approximately 536 linemen and other related offisland personnel in the territory restoring wapas electrical structure. With the assistance of fema, naval vessels and cruiseships have been brought in to provide sleeping quarters sincele of the guest houses and who he tells remain closed after sustaining damage due to the hurricane. By far the biggest damage one id like to focus on today, is the vendors in the future storms. Without question, these hurricanes have des meated wapas finances. While we appreciate the assistance that has and will be forth coming to rebuild the systems that were damaged, one of our primary concerns as the authority is the ability to meet prestorm expenses. Prior to the hurricane, revenues were approximately 26. 5 million per month. Since the hurricanes events and unable to provide Electrical Service and bill customers, revenues dropped below 2 million a month. Wapa has payroll, insurance, debt service and previous contracts and Financing Agreements it must pay. To address this dramatic shortfall, the authority has sought through the Virgin Islands support loans. Any assistance you can provide in this regard is appreciated. One of the evidence taking from the recent damage territory wide is that there is not is an urgent need for wapa to repeal view the Transmission System and harden it to a point where its resistent to wind storms. Wapa believes would be reduce the posthurricane time period moving away from wooden poles and introducing composite poles under major distribution circuits and wapa must address its grid since its too susceptible to wind storms. Wapa has a plan to construct microgrades, each will be a group of local facilities working in tandem or an option to disconnection where they can stand alone. In the event of the power and the main grid is disrupted, its generating its own power. Currently having to work on the island of saint croix and thats going up for bid and provides power to Battery Storage to our airport facilities, our waste treatment facility, our correctional facilities and basically Police Station at this point. What we actually are attempting to do here as a utility moving forward is to harden our system, number one and make it more resilient by having microgrids. Id like to thank you for the opportunity to testify and am available for any question you have on this matter. Thank you, mr. Rhymer. And from American Fuels and pert Chemical Manufacturers. Five minutes for an Opening Statement. Thank you mr. Chairman, and im the president and ceo of the petrol Chemical Manufacturers representing the refining and petrochemical injuries. Our members representing 120 refineries and 140 petrochemical facility and i represent capacity, more than half located along the gulf coast. Hurricane harvey interrupted our supply very hard. Hurricane irma impacted the fuel supply change, but largely in florida, while impacts on our assets were minimal. More importantly, combination of harvey, irma and maria were devastating to people in the gulf coast, particularly houston and the beaumont area and florida and puerto rico, many of part of our extended family and our hearts and prayers go out to those who continue to struggle to recover and we stand by to help them as much as we can. As a result, the subject of todays hearing is particularly important to our industry so id like to limit my time this morning or this afternoon to only three key points of my written testimony. The refining and Chemical Industries weathered the storms fairly well and proved to be very resilient. This did not happen by accident, rather, it was the result of lots of hard work and preparation, and with the help of an incredibly dedicated work force in federal, state and federal first responders, the true heroes coming out of the events. If you wanted to draw the storm up that could wreak the most havoc, harvey was it. It moved up the east coast, stalled largely over houston, which is the epicenter of the refining and petroChemical Industries. It dumped over 60 inches of rain in some locations and more than a trillion gallons of water across texas and louisiana. At its peak harvey knocked 24 of our refineries off line and represented 25 of all u. S. Refining capacity. It had a similar impact on our petrol chemical members and knocked 60 of the capacity down. Thats 80 of the capacity found in the gulf region. Harvey also had a Significant Impact on the entire fuel supply chain. It shut down ports, pipeline, terminals, rails and certainly gasoline stations. Our facilities couldnt get feed into our plants and couldnt get products out. This had the potential to be catastrophic for the fuels and petro chchemical supply chains,n the end it wasnt. Two weeks after harvey made landfall. 20 of the 24 facilities that went down had restarted and the petro chchemical facilities mad progress as well. This was not by accident. Facilities were prepared by the storm that applied many of the Lessons Learned in the aftermath of previous storms like katrina and rita. For example, our facilities developed more sophisticated plans and improved storm monitoring and hardened infrastructure. Elevated pumps and generators and secured parts to be ready to move with Recovery Efforts after the storm and upgraded our i. T. Systems to help us locate employees and assure that they had the assistance that they needed. All of this made a difference and we came back online much faster than we did after prior storms. The second point id like to make, the federal and state response was significantly improved compared to previous storms. One of the lessons that weve learned, we have to better coordinate with state and local governments. Over the last few years weve been working hard in that record and working closely with doe and dhs to improve our relationships. The results on harvey were excellent. We were in Constant Contact before, during and after the storms. The improved coordination was most evident and quick review and approval of wavers. Helping us to get fuel where it was needed quickly and efficiently. Our federal and state partners, administrator pruitt, governors abbott and scott deserved kudos for the improvements. If i had to identify one area that we could improve better communication by our government to consumers about the fuel supply chain and the challenges that often accompany events like hurricanes. For example, the governor could help explain the timelines for getting facilities back onlien and product back to distributors and discourage panic buying that accompany these events and thirdly, identify and apply Lessons Learned. Although we did fare fairly well, there are things we can improve upon to make future responses even better. We would caution anyone to result to any knee jerk reactions or conclusions, particularly those based on a few isolated events before the full assessments are in. Im running out of my time. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today and thanks for our incredible work force and first responders. Thank you, im happy to answer any question. Thank you. Calling upon max mcbrar, and he you have five minutes. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the Retail Community response efforts to the 2017 Hurricane Season. Im the chief supply officer and chief Financial Officer of rays petroleum, inc. Im testifying on behalf of the gas stores. And the operating Convenience Stores across 12 states and nearly 9,000 team members. 2017 season had a devastating effect on the markets. And Hurricane Harvey shut down fuel pipelines. This put severe strain on the domestic fuel supply. Hurricane irma led to increased demand for fuel in florida and further, causing prices to rise sharply. Natural disasters directly and severely affect the retail fuel markets. Margins on fuel sales between 2 and 20 cents and retailers must constantly react to changes in supply and demand to ensure their prices remain competitive. During any Severe Weather event wholesale fuel prices become more volatile as the market tries to assess and predict the supply availability. And the retailers respond to meet their cost. Due to the infrastructure damage, compliant fuel inventories became strained leading to escalating wholesale prices. Retail market prices reflect rapid increase in the price. In this case, retailers made individual the decisions whether to increase prices and potentially lose customers or keeping them low and not covering increased wholesale costs. Despite the tough situations the fuel market was supported by the actions of both the federal government and the state government. The governments worked with us to deal with the issues before, during and after the hurricane. Communication and coordination initiatives were particularly important. For example, the governors of texas and florida held Conference Calls with industries and government stake holders that were where they listened to concerns and rendered prompt assistance. In florida, specifically the Governors Office waived certain restrictions for highways, mehelping to ensure that ports, moving the product to retail locations. At the federal level, Disaster Response spanned a number of agencies and ultimately issued more than 30 waivers to help deal with the issues. And for drivers providing assistance to affected areas. These waivers were the difference between getting fuel to our customers in a reasonably timely manner and not getting there. And they eased restrictions on the type of product that retailers could sell, for example, epa temporarily waived certainly reformulated gasoline requirements under the clean air act. Despite the major disruptions to the fuel Distribution System after the hurricanes, the impact on consumers and the economy was less than what occurred with katrina hurricane and rita in 2005. This is because the government worked with the private sector to respond appropriately. There are still important lessons to be learned, however, theres no good coordinated efforts to make sure that consumers were enveloped of the status of fuel supplies via social media. As the hurricanes approached. We believed that much of the panic about fuel availability was a totally unnecessary pull on the fuel supply. Panic lessened when information was shared with the public. Additional bottle necking at ports and terminals was a problem that the government could have done more to alleviate. Finally in the hurricanes aftermath Truck Drivers and other employees found it difficult to get to affected areas quickly, anything that can be done to remove hurdles will speed up the effort in future hurricanes. Race track believes that the coordination between public and private sectors is critical to the successful response effort. We are proud to have been able to serve the communities that we operate in and i thank you for the opportunity to provide it this testimony. Thank you, mr. Mcbrayer. And the chair calls on an attorney of law, former distinguished member of the senate of puerto rico. You have five minutes for an Opening Statement, sir. Thank you, chairman, Ranking Member bobby rush, members of the subcommittee. I had the privilege to serve the people of puerto rico senator of san juan and chairman on commissioner of energy and i currently practice law in puerto rico, i want to thank the chairman for this opportunity to discuss puerto ricos energy challenges. And ive suffered the problem associated with the lack of electricity for more than 40 days and the Current Energy crisis is destroying our economy and our way of life. Nobody with the challenges of repairing the grid in puerto rico. Most of the challenges, to turn the lights back on in puerto rico are not natural or geographic, they are man made. They support the Power Authority grid that was obsolete and lacking maintenance. The recent whitefish was specific aid of the as the Energy Options for puerto rico, we must be particularly alert about the disaster, who may try to take advantage and profit off of our people