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<