Include Albert Einstein and steve jobs. And on American History tv on cspan3 on saturday the civil war cowboys in postcivil war years. How the cowboy became symbolic of unified america. Andly well sturtour the house that was the headquarters of collarlara barton. Let us know about the programs youre watching. Call us at 2026263400. Email us at comments cspan. Org. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. This sunday on q a, neuro scientist dr. Francis jenson on recent discoveries about the teenage brain. They dont have their frontal lobbies to actually reason. Their concepts of actions are not very clear to them because their frontal lobes are not at the ready. They have frontal lobes, its just connections arent at the ready for split second decision making. And dont forget the hormones are changing in both young men and women and the brain hasnt seen these yet in life until you hit teenage years. So the brain is trying to learn how to respond to these new hormones that are rolling around and actually locking on receptors of different types so theyre trying to sort of trial skper and error. I think this contributes to this roller coaster kind of experience that we watch as parents. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. On tuesday the head of the federal Energy Regulatory commission talked about energy policy, and our agencys role in implementing new epa rules on power plants. From the National Press club, this is an hour. Good afternoon and welcome. My name is john hughes. Im an editor for bloomberg first word. Thats the breaking news desk here in washington for bloomberg. Im also president of the National Press club. The club is the worlds leading professional organization for journalists. Were committed to our profession through programs just like this. And we work for a free press worldwide. For more information, visit our website press. Org. And to donate, check out our Journalism Institute website. Thats www. Press. Org institute. On behalf of members worldwide id like to welcome our speaker here today, and those of you attending the event our head table includes guests of the speaker as well as working journalists who are club members, members of the public attend our lunches, so any applause you hear today is not necessarily a lack of journalistic objectivity. Id also like to welcome our cspan and public radio audiences. You can follow the action on twitter. Use the hash tag npclunch. After our guest speaker concludes, well have a question and answer period. I will ask as many questions as time permits. Now its time to introduce our head table guests. I would ask each of our head table guests to stand briefly as your name is announced. From your right, chris newcomit, editor and chief of platz. Clair picard cambridge, bureau chief here in d. C. Julia piper, Senior Writer for green tech media. Kurt longo cochief of staff to cheryl le flur and a guest of our speaker. Marilyn geewax, member of the npc of board governors. Bill kunsic the husband of our speaker and a guest of our speaker. Jerry zrimsky, Washington Bureau chief of the buffalo news. Jerry is the chair of the Speakers Committee and hes a former National Press club president. Going over our speaker for a moment, rod pekoe the Speaker Committee member that organized todays event. Thank you very much, ron. Jen gebhart guest of our speaker. And ed bozarth writer of the report. A Senior Writer and frank rosano senior principal at bracewell giuliani. [applause] so the presence of so many people here in this room today says volumes about how the federal Energy Regulatory commission, or ferc, as many of us call it has emerged from the bureaucratic shadows. The commissions job the commissions job is to regulate interstate Natural Gas Pipelines and electric transmission lines. Ferc plays a central role in the debate over how these industries should evolve in the 21st century. There are questions, for instance, about what, if any role ferc should play in epas plan to curb Greenhouse Gases. Should ferc ensure that the epa plan doesnt harm the reliability of the grid . Questions such as that show why the commissions profile has never been higher. In the center of the spotlight, of course, is our guest speaker today, Cheryl Lefleur. She was nominated to the commission by president obama in 2010. She has been acting chairman and then chairman since november of 2013. She joined ferc after a career as a senior Utility Industry leader in the northeast. She retired in 2007 as acting ceo of National Grid usa which delivers electricity to 3. 4 million customers. The first person in her family to go to college, she holds an undergraduate degree from princeton and a law degree from harvard. According to our National Press club archivist, she is the first chairman of ferc to speak at a National Press club luncheon. Please join me in giving a warm National Press club welcome to Cheryl Lefleur chairman of the federal Energy Regulatory commission. [applause] thank you so much, john, for that very nice introduction and you introduced all the folks at the head table and im so happy to see so many familiar faces and new friends here in the audience. I am deeply honored by the opportunity to be the first ferc chairman or commissioner to speak at the National Press club. I see at least one former commissioner in the audience who we should probably call up book her for next month and i really would like to thank rod cooper for organizing this. When i was nominated to ferc five years ago i definitely learned, if i didnt already know, that it wasnt exactly a household word because i spend most of my time explaining to people what was this acronym to which i had been named. And so even though john did a bit of it i thought i would just take a minute for those who might not be familiar and say a bit of what our responsibilities are. We are responsible for because the energy world is very complicated in terms of the number of people who have responsibilities for different elements. And our duties are to the interstate transmission and natural gas pipe lineslines. We do both rates and permanence of pipelines. We are also responsible for whole wholesale rates, both gas and electric, and wholesale markets as well as licensing of hydrofacilities across the United States and the pricing of Oil Pipelines and the reliability and Security Standards that govern the security of the bulk electric system. So a bit of an eclectic mix but all mostly about intrastate or wholesale work in the United States. I forgot to say we have a whole passel of folks both from my office and senior staff from ferc in the back of the room, and i would like to acknowledge them as well. Now, since i was in the industry for more than 20 years, i know in those days i did not read very many ferc orders. Maybe 1888 or some of the real biggies. So where did i get my information on what ferc did . From the people in the front of the room. What energy daily or platz said ferc did is what it did, as far as i knew. So thats what i read in the morning because that was the record of what happened. Or snl, or any of our other wonderful people who cover us. Now, im not a washington lifer. Ive been here a relativelily short time compared to most people in the room a little less than five years. But i am more or less an energy lifer because ive been in the energy world for more than 30 years, mostly in the northeast. And in that role i was able to be part of the major transformations that have happened in energy in the last few decades. I cut my teeth on the battles to get nuclear licensed in the 1980s and to build the first generation of utility conservation programs. We call them conservation instead of energy efficiency. I was very much in the midst of industry restructuring in the 1990s, including the advent of open transmission access, generation did ivestiture and closing gaps. At ferc for the past five years, i get to respond to todays Energy Issues. Especially the growth of domestic natural gas and its increased use to generate electricity. The introduction of new technologies across the whole spectrum generation, transmission, storage and end use technologies, new threats to grid reliability and security from cyber and physical security to natural threats like gma magnetic disturbances, and the growing awareness of the impact of energy on our climate leading to what i think is the most challenging environmental issue we have faced together. Now, what ive learned from everything ive looked at in the last 30 years is that all Energy Issues really come down to the same thing. And thats balancing three values reliability, cost and the environment. No matter what the issue theyre usually buried somewhere in the discourse. And inevitably there are tradeoffs between the values. And because different people value different elements differently, its hard to get agreement on how to strike the balance. Perspectives vary based on a number of factors. Idealogy certainly but also economic interest and commercial position and geography. As my homie the late great tip oneal said, all politics are equal, and thats definitely true with what were facing at ferc. So weighing factors is complicated by the fact that our nation has a very fragmented and disorganized system of Decision Makers which can make even finding a forum a challenge. There are lawmakers and regulators in 50 state capitols, numerous federal agencies. I know ferc is not the federal government, not even close. Everyone we regulate is regulated by a myriad of other agencies as well and divided branches of government that work on the same issues. So there is a cacophony of different voices and it often seems like theyre not even having the same conversation. But making progress particularly on balancing reliability in the environment requires real conversation about tradeoffs about the real costs and consequences of our choices, and about the effort that it will take to get us where we need to be. And for better or for worse i feel like little old ferc has been thrust into the position of being a forum for these discussions and for the discussion of the many pressing Energy Issues that our generation is facing. Whether theyre in our jurisdiction a little bit or a lot, theyre at our doorstep. One of the most polarizing Energy Issues were facing today is how our electric sector will respond to the epas Clean Power Plan under section 111d of the clean air act. Im going to devote the rest of my remarks talking about fercs role in that response. Hopefully they wont be too geeky so youll invite ferc back. Over the past several months at ferc, weve had a steady stream of visitors at our door from groups across all segments and regions who have a wide range of views on the Clean Power Plan. From those who say that the lights will go out to those who think the epa did not go nearly far enough and pretty much everyone in between. Now, im honored to lead an agency thats bipartisan and independent by design and that build up credibility due to all the people that came before us over decades. Because of that independence and credibility, people both for and against the Clean Power Plan are looking to us to publicly validate their views. Ive taken a pretty firm line that i dont think thats fercs role. Ferc is not an environmental regulator. Blessedly blessedly, were not tasked with writing the final rule this summer. Epa is reviewing their millions of comments and they will put out the final rule. But make no mistake, i think ferc will have a central role to play at the Clean Power Plan and our response to climate is implemented. I believe that we as a nation can achieve real environmental progress, including on Climate Change, but only if were willing to build the infrastructure, both gas and electric, and build the Energy Markets to make that possible. Both infrastructure and market changes will be necessary if the values of reliability and cost are sustained as we make progress on the environment. And thats where ferc comes in. I think we will have responsibilities across three areas infrastructure, markets and to be an honest broker for the discussion. Starting with infrastructure, i think additions to both the gas and electric infrastructure will be needed to carry out the Clean Power Plan. And in the case of Gas Pipelines and gas compressure stations ferc is the one who does the review, permits them and decides the rates. The Clean Power Plan, which is likely to come from the large amount of power production, comes from existing plants across the country. Thats existing plants. I believe, based on everyone ive talked to, that meeting the goals of the Clean Power Plan will also lead to the construction of a lot of new Gas Generation. Because most of the people ive talked to said that can be the most Cost Effective way to meet some of the goals, and epa has given people the flexibility to meet each state goal in the most costeffective way. We are very fortunate to have abundant and relatively affordable domestic natural gas. If we didnt, if we were where we thought we were 20 years ago the gas was in the ground but we didnt know it was abundant and affordable when we thought we were running out of it in the 90s. If we were there our climate goals and our climate aspirations would be much more difficult, if not impossible to achieve with todays technology. But utilizing that gas to meet climate goals require the expansion and construction of Gas Infrastructure, both pipelines and compressure stations to get it where it needs to be to keep the lights on. But while gas is critically important to our climate goals and other environmental goals, it has issues of its own. Pipelines are facing unprecedented opposition from local and national groups, including environmental activists. These groups are active in every ferc docket, as they should be as well as in my email in box seven days a week, in my twitter feed at our open meetings demanding to be heard and literally at our door closing down 1st street so ferc wont be able to work. We have a situation here. We take the views of all stake stakeholders seriously and try as hard as we can to thoroughly consider issues that are relevant to the decisions were required to make. But fercs responsibility under the natural gas act, because were a creature of congress is to consider and act on pipeline applications after assuring that they can be built safely and with limited environmental impact. Under fercs regulations and policy, its market demand and specifically contractual commitments for Pipeline Capacity that determine what Pipeline Infrastructure is needed. The days that ferc went in and said, heres a certificate of need, we need it from here to there, ended with order 630 years ago. We evaluate the need for the project based on market demand. Do they have people signing up for the gas . Then we go in and look at the environmental and safety aspects in detail of the proposed project. Were plesdblessed to have a wide range of engineers and scientists and we look at a wide range of Environmental Issues water, soil, geology fish and wildlife and others. We also look at air quality including Greenhouse Gas emissions. But our review is project specific and confined to the information in the docket. Speculating about unquantifiable impacts is not part of that process. I think that our nation is going to have to grapple with our acceptance of Gas Generation and Gas Pipelines if we expect to achieve our climate and environmental goals. As far as ferc i think our work on gas permitting Gas Infrastructure is going to be essential to the successful implementation of the Clean Power Plan, and im dedicated to ensuring that the process is fair clear, timely and transparent transparent. Because the worst place we want to be is closing down the old stuff and not being able to build the new stuff because were not willing to do the work to get it there. Were also going to have a role to play on electric transmission thats built to support compliance with the Clean Power Plan. Here were not responsible for citing. Thats done at the state level. But were responsible for planning and funding of intrastate transmission. Changes in generation requires changes in transmission. Duh. The grid was built to support whats out there now. Mostly you put a coal or Nuclear Plant an hour or two from the city, build a line to connect them, maybe an extension cord to your neighbors you were done. Thats the old world. Thats not where we are anymore. Building block 3 of the Clean Power Plan is the increased reliance on renewable generation, like the wind tha