Now if we take a look at the impact of wildfires on the u. S. Electric grid, mitigation technology, Forest Management and power system reliability. Good morning everyone. The committee will come to order. Last hearing of the year here. Theres a lot going on this morning so i think we will have people popping in and out but we do have a pretty hard to stop at 11 00 oclock this morning. A series of votes that are beginning at 11 00 a. M. And we are going to observe an actual ten minute clock, we are told. It will be the first time in Senate History but that is the goal. We want to be able to hear from everyone this morning and have an opportunity for the very, very important conversations regarding this issue. We are here to discuss the impact of wildfires on the reliability of our electric grid and efforts to mitigate wildfire risk and increase good resiliency. In recent years devastating wildfires and related electricity blackouts in california have drawn National Attention to the challenge of maintaining grid resiliency in the face of extreme conditions. Tragically as you remember the campfire in the deadliest and most destructive fire in california history which incinerated the town of paradise, killed 85 people. State investigators determined the fire was caused by degraded 97 yearold powerlines during the socalled fire whether it its consisted of strong winds, low committee, dry vegetation and heat. The camp fire was a sobering wakeup call on the inherent risk of maintaining thousands of miles of aboveground powerlines across fire prone landscapes. California ringleaders in several of the states largest utilities to increase their use of Public Safety power shutoffs or ps ds bands as a precaution against possible wildfire during high wind events. In canada the measure of last resort plans call for utilities to deenergize powerlines in extreme weather conditions and block out large portions of their service territory. From june through november at least nine ps ps advance cut power for more than 3 million californians. For some these blackouts lasted a few hours and brothers power went on for nearly six days. These blackouts occurred not only with the rugged terrain of northern cal for a nap but also in the greater metro areas of san francisco, san diego and los angeles county. Repeat scenarios could be with us for a very long time. According to the testimony that we will hear today wildfire blackouts could be californias new normal for the next ten, 30 years or perhaps even longer. One would expect to see such Living Conditions in developing countries but not in some of our most populated and prosperous places here in the United States and certainly not in a state with some of the highest electricity prices in the nation. This challenge is not limited to california but dense vegetation and hazard entries interfering with powerlines are not an uncommon cause of wildfires. Neither integrated energy infrastructure. Our National Basis the u. S. Forest Service Estimates more than 277 fires from 20172018 can be traced to powerlines. Several of the fires emerged into the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfire was started by wind to downed power. Its a great Smoky Mountain wild bears were the deadliest in the eastern u. S. Since the great fires of 1947. In my home state of alaska buyers north of anchorage are believed to be connected to powerlines in a region that has pretty high spruce bark beetle mortality. An investigation is still pending but a tree falling onto a registration line is expected because of the mckinley fire this summer which resulted in the loss of 56 homes. The danger in alaska, like elsewhere in the nation, is powerlines are necessarily located near homes and schools and businesses and that is just a fact. Private change, drought, in fact insect infestation and poor forestation has made forest more susceptible to fire and is more people build homes and the wild and urban interface or dispersed communities the chances for utility related wildfires are sure to increase. In this era of mega fires congress has stepped in to ensure the federal government is not a roadblock to clearing dense vegetation and hazard trees from utility right of ways. In 2018 we passed the electric liability as part of the 2018 consolidated appropriations act. That law directs federal land managers directs light the clearing of vegetation within 100 feet of powerline corridors on federal land. It is my understanding the bolts apartment of the interior and the Forest Service are now incrementing that important measure. Now, we must turn our attention to what can be done to harden our energy input structure and improve the resiliency of our grid in high fire risk areas during these extreme weather conditions for this is a compex problem that will require collaboration at all levels and partnerships with the electric industry so i think those of you who have joined us this morning to provide important testimony and i think colleagues for being here and i will now turn to senator manchin for his comments before we begin the panel. Thank you, chairman murkowski. I want to take a moment of personal time here if i can. Today will be the last meeting of a person whos been with me for a long time in my committee and she has been with me in my state office, not the state office but my dc office and my chief counsel there and moved over when i became raking member as the director of the Ranking Member staff and theyve done a tremendous job. Sarah has a new little baby so she now has two little babies and things then and life changes and we are just so sorry that she wont be on the committee are working in committee or leading this staff but she will always be near and dear to us by her phone and we will not let her escape to far. With that, sarah, i want to thank you for your services. [applause] chairman murkowski, thank you for holding your hearing today on the electric grid. Wildfires are a threat to cripple infrastructure including the electric grid but as we have seen in several instances of equipment failure they can spark wildfires. This is especially true for western states. We have seen several catastrophic buyers and calpurnia for this impacts eastern states, too. In my home state of West Virginia it is not been exempt. Overthinking and weekend the fire burned 1300 acres in West Virginia. Fortunately no homes were damaged but other homes have not been so lucky. Over the last few years california has been extremely hard hit hard by wildfires and the impacts have been devastating. Last year the campfire alone killed 85 people and destroyed 14000 homes in the town of paradise. I appreciate mr. Bill johnson, president of pg and e, corporation being here today and willing to talk about his companys understanding of the respects that were made, Lessons Learned and the operational changes pg andy is changing to ensure this never happens again. Wildfires are increasing in intensity, size and frequency and we will need a new approach to mitigate their devastating impacts and insure electricity and for structure isnt starting the fire spread they also are getting harder to control due to Climate Change, lack of Forest Management and role fire for areas but this is affecting millions of people and i look for to hearing from our panel about Available Technology and Management Practices and what Innovative Solutions are needed to reduce risks. The department of Energy International labs including [inaudible] are working on modernizing the electric grid and we need to address this relationship between wildfires in a grid both in terms of wildfires impacting the grid and also electricity and per structure wildfires and there is no Silver Bullet but we can and should look to learn from the utilities that made their grid most resilient to wildfires and those that have the best service delivered the schools for maintenance and infection practices, installations of new and improved technologies to detect problems early, Risk Mitigation like tree trimming or powerlines and deenergizing powerlines as a last resort. Of course the last resort should not bar which pg andy and other utilities have done proactively several times in recent months during high winds. I can imagine how disruptive that was plans of customers and businesses that event every day on electricity you provided so i hope you will explain to us today why that was a step you took in those particular circumstances and how effective they were. I understand during one of the pg e shut off 218 instances of wind damage were discovered and 24 would likely have started wildfires if you had not taken precautionary actions. The shut off me and prevented several fires but also came at a great cost but it raises the question that if we have to shut off the power how can we do it in a way that causes the least harm to customers. Finally, i look forward to hearing from the witnesses about ways that congress can be hopeful. I know we took a big step forward providing the provision in the 2018 omnibus to make it easier for utilities to do the required maintenance especially for the smaller role of electrical coops. I welcome your thoughts and additional actions that we can take to make it easier to clean up and an area of wildfire including the timber from the trees killed by the fire before the timbered rots. It makes no sense to me at all. We want to avoid the devastation caused by wildfires and have a reliable, grid to power our homes and businesses. In the face of increasing wildfire risk we need to do every thing we can to manage and reduce the rising risks. I look forward to hearing from witnesses and what they have to say about how to do that so thank you, chairman murkowski and i think our witnesses for coming and making it to be here today. Thank you, senator mansion. We will begin with our panel this morning again. Thank you for being here and the contributions that you will make to this important discussion. The panel will be let out by mr. Bill johnson and mr. Johnson is ceo and president for Pg E Corporation. I know that this has been a very difficult time for you for all within the pg e family. It is and has been a significant challenge and i know you have made every effort to be open and transparent as you deal with this and share these Lessons Learned grid we are appreciative you are here with us this morning. The doctor michael where is here with the Senior Research into student scholar at Stanford Scott corwin is the executive director for the northwest public power association. We appreciate your contributions this morning bring carl inhofe is the manager for the electricity organ sector at one of our fabulous National Labs at Pacific NorthwestNational Laboratory. We are thankful you are here. The panel will be rounded off by doctor russell. He is professor and director of Power System Automation Laboratory at the department of electrical and Computer Engineering at texas a m university. We appreciate you being here today. We ask you to keep your comments to about five minutes with your full statements will be included as part of the record and then we have an opportunity for them back and forth with mr. Johnson, welcome to committee. Thank you so much good good morning fred im bill johnson, president and ceo of Pg E Corporation but i appreciate the invitation to be here in the committees interest in wildfires. In the impacts to electric grid reliability and resilience. As has been mentioned in california and throughout the west we seen a dramatic increase in wildfires as a result of a changing climate. Which has a dramatic effect on our electric system and how we operate and just seven years ago 15 of Pg E Service Area was designated as having elevated higher risks. That number is over 50 today and will continue to grow so in the seven years the risk of fire more than tripled for our service area in Northern California and california is experience the most destructive wildfires in the past two years and its deadliest pg e is deeply sorry for the role that our equipment had in those fires and the losses that occurred because of them and were taken action to prevent prevented from happening again. We invested over 30 billion in our electric system over the last decade including more than 3 billion in Vegetation Management and today we are taking that work a step further by increasing Vegetation Management in the highrisk areas, incorporating analytic and predictive capabilities and expanding the scope and intrusiveness of our inspection process. This year we expected every element of our electric system within the high threats fire areas, examining almost 730,000 structures and 25 million discrete related components in about four months. We deployed 600 weather stations and 130 High Resolution cameras across our service area to bolster Situational Awareness and Emergency Response. We are using satellite data and modeling techniques to predict wildfires spread and behavior and hardening our system in those areas where the fire credit is highest by installing stronger and more resilient poles and covered lines as well as underground team. This year we took the unprecedented step of intentionally turning off power for safety during a string of severe wind events where we saw 100 mileperhour winds in Northern California. This decision affected millions of our customers and cause them destruction and hardship even as it succeeded in the goal of protecting human life. The nature of this risk the potential consequences of it requires to plan, operate and maintain our systems differently than we ever have and this will require a focus on resilience as well as reliability. That is where the lessons here are applicable to the beyond california and the committee has noted this resilience and reliability are related but they are distinct. Our customers including Critical InfrastructureFirst Responders have long depended on Reliable Service but today more than ever our ability to provide Reliable Service depends on the cumbrians of societal approach to resilience. Congress addressed reliability to section 15 of the federal power act nearly 15 years ago and congress could address resilience now to potential actions that include directing doe to develop a framework and process for Economic Cost benefit analysis of resilience investment, increased eligibility and funding for existing Energy Assistance and Community Resilience programs and support research and of element of new technologies and forward thinking data and promoting publicprivate partnerships to establish voluntary resilience zones and building codes and standards. Specific to address the wildfire threat we believe the federal government should continue its focus on funding Forest Management and Fire Suppression activities, and plummeting forest and Vegetation Management policies advanced by senator daines and congressman schrader. Ensuring access to federal lands for prevention and response and authorizing federal agencies to share satellite data wildfire detection. We know that addressing this risk starts with us and our own operations and why we are focused on riskbased approach mitigating the dynamic risk facing the company and this industry. Let me conclude by saying pg e remains committed to doing every thing in our power to build a better and safer future for all and that is what our customers deserve. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you, mr. Johnson. Doctor, welcome. [inaudible] senator murkowski, senator manchin, thank you very much for having me before the committee to discuss this issue there are real [inaudible] at least in the california context these threats raise significant questions regarding how and elements of the Transmission System across hydrant areas should be operated during increasingly common and increasingly dangerous late fall dry, high wind events. As bill johnson just discussed pg e headspace, enormous threats to its system and has for the first time this year used widespread Public Safety power shutoffs as a tool to create safety and as you mentioned in her opening remarks this is not just an issue for rural or more california but it directly impacts millions of people in metro areas in california as well. The use of ps ps is preventing wildfire and caused widespread disruption families and businesses especially in Northern California. These events though they do to radically include safety are very costly to the health of the economy, especially in smaller communities. My best estimate using tool develops of the laboratory indicates that pg e events of 2019 likely because customers more than 10 billion. Failure of transmission components during high winds is not a new