Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, before I begin my remarks this morning about the Energy Policy Modernization Act, I wish to acknowledge my colleague from Massachusetts. I come from a very large, remote State. About 80 percent of the communities in Alaska are not connected by a road, so one would think that our isolation would insulate us from some of the scourges that we see when it comes to drugs and drug addiction. Unfortunately, that is not the case. In my State we are seeing the same level of addiction. While the numbers might not be as eye-popping as Massachusetts or New Hampshire and other parts of the country, that is because we have fewer people. But on a per capita basis, the numbers are staggering and very worrying.

As my colleague from Massachusetts notes, this is not something that should be a Republican or a Democratic problem or have a Republican or Democratic solution. This should have all of us working together because what is happening and what we are seeing is simply unacceptable. It is destroying families and communities, and we must work together. I appreciate his comments here before the body this morning.

Mr. President, I hope the Senate is prepared for another good, busy day of debate on our broad bipartisan energy bill.

Late yesterday, while we were not taking votes, we were in session for a few hours--but what we were able to do during that time period was approve eight more amendments by voice vote. We are now up to 19 amendments accepted so far. The latest batch from yesterday featured a proposal from Senators Gardner, Coons, Portman, and Shaheen to boost energy savings projects that will limit the cost of government and save taxpayer dollars.

We also approved an amendment from Senators Flake, McCaskill, and Booker to evaluate the number of duplicative green buildings programs within the Federal Government. I think we all appreciate the need to be more efficient, but do we need to have dozens and dozens of duplicative programs to build this out? That is what that amendment addressed.

We also approved an amendment from Senators Inhofe, Markey, and Booker to renew a brownfields restoration program run by the EPA.

So we did OK yesterday, approving eight amendments by voice votes, which is not bad for a Monday around here when we were not scheduled to have votes, but I think we can do better than that. I think we can pick up the pace, and we are ready to do that.

We will have two rollcall votes that are scheduled for 2:30 this afternoon. The first one is an amendment by the Senator from Utah, Mr. Lee, amendment No. 3023, and it would limit Presidential authority to permanently withdraw Federal lands as national monuments. This is an issue that I have joined the Senator from Utah on, as well as many Senators from around the West, who have concerns that we would see vast areas of our particular States permanently withdrawn--something that again resonates very strongly in my State, where 61 percent of our State is held in Federal land. I am pleased that my colleague from Utah has offered this amendment, and I am hopeful the Senate will adopt it.

The second amendment we will have this afternoon is the Franken amendment No. 3115. This would impose a nationwide efficiency mandate. This is a matter that we had before the energy committee when we were in markup in July, and many Members are already familiar with it.

I am aware that some Members are still filing amendments, but I think my advice to them is to know they are chasing the train down the tracks at this point in time. We had a total of 230 amendments filed as of this morning, so we have a lot to sort through as we are trying to deal with the debate and just kind of keep things moving.

A number of Members are also hoping to secure a vote on their priorities, so we have a line now. Those who are just thinking about filing should know where you are in this process. Senator Cantwell and I intend to continue to process amendments as quickly as we can and we ask for the cooperation of Members to help that effort move along.

I do want to thank the ranking member on the energy committee. Senator Cantwell and her staff have been working very hard and very well with me and my staff as we are working to process this bill. The level of back-and-forth has been very constructive, very helpful, and I appreciate it, and I want to give special recognition to the yeoman's work that the staff are doing right now.

We will be setting up additional rollcall votes today. We will hopefully be able to reach agreement on amendments that we can clear on both sides as well.

As we have moved through the debate process on this important Energy bill, we have seen some good, strong amendments. I mentioned some already. We have had amendments from both parties. We have had them offered by Members from all areas of the country. We have seen some particularly good ones that focus on hydropower. I wish to take a few moments this morning to speak about hydropower and the amazing supply source that hydropower provides for our Nation.

Hydropower harnesses the forces of flowing water to generate electricity, and it has many virtues as an energy resource. It is not only emissions free and renewable, it is also capable of producing stable, reliable, and affordable base power. How about that: stable, affordable, and reliable base power. It is emissions free. It is renewable. It is not defined yet as renewable, and we address that in this bill. Right now, hydropower produces about 6 percent of our Nation's electricity and nearly half of our renewable energy. That is more than wind and solar combined and enough electricity to power some 30 million American homes.

Up in Alaska, hydropower provides--the number is right about 24 percent of our electricity. It provides energy for communities throughout the State, most notably in the southeastern part of the State where I was born and raised. It is very significant there. It is also in what we call the railbelt area. It is an amazing contributor to our State's energy base. We continue, though, to have vast potential with hundreds of sites in Alaska alone just waiting to be developed. We are a leader on hydropower, but we are hardly alone in having untapped potential.

According to an official from the Department of Energy who testified before the energy committee back in 2011, our country could realize ``an additional 300 gigawatts of hydropower through efficiency and capacity upgrades at existing facilities, powering nonpowered dams, new small hydro development, and pump storage hydropower.''

So let me repeat what that really means: An additional 300 gigawatts of hydropower, not through some big megadam but through efficiency, through capacity upgrades at existing facilities, powering up our nonpowered dams, new small hydro development--we see a lot of that in Alaska--and pump storage hydropower. With that, 300 gigawatts of additional power.

Putting it into context, 1 gigawatt can power hundreds of thousands of homes. We have an estimated 300 gigawatts of potential hydropower--a huge benefit to our country in terms of what we could get from our hydro resources, and it will not take much to start taking advantage of it. That is the beauty of it.

It may surprise some to know that right now only 3 percent of our Nation's existing 80,000 dams around the country currently produce electricity. Just 3 percent of 80,000 dams that are already out there are producing electricity. Think about what we could do if we electrify just the top 100--just the top 100 out of 80,000. We could generate enough electricity for nearly 3 million more homes and create thousands of jobs. Meanwhile, simply upgrading the turbines at existing hydropower dams could yield a similar amount of additional electric generating capacity.

We talk a lot about efficiency around here. Well, let us apply the efficiency with what we have with our existing facilities. What most of us agree on is that hydropower is a great American resource. It is renewable, it is affordable, it is always on, and nearly every State has potential in some way. Yet, despite all of this--despite the tremendous benefits that it provides and despite our tremendous untapped potential--America's hydropower development has stalled. Why? It has stalled, quite honestly, because of redtape and environmental opposition.

This was the subject of a recent op-ed piece that I cowrote with Jay Faison, who is the founder of the ClearPath Foundation. It is called ``Stop Wasting America's Hydropower Potential.'' It ran in the New York Times last month, and we have gotten some pretty good, positive comments.

14, 2016] Stop Wasting America's Hydropower Potential (By Lisa Murkowski and Jay Faison)

President Obama has described climate change as one of the biggest challenges facing our country and has said he is open to new ideas to address it. He can start by supporting legislation to increase the nation's hydropower capacity, one of our vital renewable energy resources.

Hydropower harnesses the force of flowing water to generate electricity. It already produces about 6 percent of the nation's electricity and nearly half of its renewable energy, more than wind and solar combined. This is enough electricity to power 30 million homes and, according to the Department of Energy, avoids some 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year. That amounts to taking about 40 million cars off the road for one year.

But we could be doing much more to harness the huge potential of hydropower, even without building new dams.

For instance, only 3 percent of the nation's 80,000 dams now produce electricity. Electrifying just the 100 top impoundments--primarily locks and dams on the Ohio, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas Rivers that are operated by the Army Corps of Engineers--would generate enough electricity for nearly three million more homes and create thousands of jobs.

And upgrading and modernizing the turbines at existing hydropower dams could yield a similar amount of additional electricity-generating capacity.

Despite the benefits of this technology, American hydropower development has stalled because of government red tape and environmental opposition. Less capacity has been added each decade since the 1970s, even as our infrastructure ages. Half of our plants use turbines or other major equipment designed and installed more than 50 years ago.

At the heart of the problem is a broken federal permitting process that has created an unnavigable gantlet for hydropower projects. While mandatory environmental reviews must be stringent to protect waterways and wildlife, federal bureaucrats insist on duplicative, sequential processes that exacerbate regulatory uncertainty, delay approvals and drive up consumer costs.

Compounding the roadblocks are environmental groups that claim to adhere to sound science but hold remarkably outdated views of hydropower and its benefits. Rather than acknowledge technological advances and the environmental safeguards in our laws, these groups have filed lawsuits to dismantle dams or stop their construction.

Add it all up, and it can now take well over a decade to relicense an existing hydropower dam. For the California customers of Pacific Gas and Electric, relicensing costs have run as high as $50 million a dam--all for the privilege of continuing to operate an existing renewable energy project.

One-third of the nation's hydropower dams will require license renewals by 2030. We need to make this process more efficient by reducing bureaucratic and administrative delays that end up increasing electricity rates and slowing hydropower's expansion.

Fortunately, Congress has stepped in to get hydropower development back on track. Legislation in both chambers, including a measure in the Senate that was approved by a bipartisan vote in committee, would direct agencies to expedite the permitting of new projects and the relicensing of existing ones, and would advance the use of hydropower nationwide.

But while Congress has chosen to lead on this important issue, President Obama has threatened to veto the House bill, claiming it would undermine environmental safeguards. The challenge is finding a way to bring state and federal agencies to the table with the applicants at the beginning of the process so they can identify potential problems and coordinate environmental reviews. The legislation would not change the authority of federal agencies to impose environmental conditions.

There is much more that we can do. Upgrading existing dams is just one of the approaches that holds big promise. Coordinating hydropower projects on a regionwide basis might allow for permitting on a more timely basis and provide better opportunities for environmental mitigation. There is also tremendous potential for electricity generation using new marine hydrokinetic technologies that convert the energy of waves, tides and river and ocean currents into electricity. And it is important to recognize the huge, untapped potential for hydropower in Alaska.

With hydropower, Congress has given the president an opportunity to address climate change and ``bridge the divide'' between parties. If he is serious about expanding the use of clean, renewable energy, he should at last give hydropower the attention it deserves in his final year. ____ [From the Register-Guard, Jan. 20, 2016] Preserve Hydro Assets

On Sept. 29, 1963, a crowd of 1,800 people gathered near the headwaters of the McKenzie River for the dedication of the Eugene Water & Electric Board's Carmen Smith project. A band played, box lunches were served, Gov. Mark Hatfield spoke and power flowed from a hydroelectric complex for which Eugene voters had approved a $23.5 million bond issue three years earlier.

Carmen Smith has been generating electricity ever since, and now its license to operate on a public waterway needs to be renewed. EWEB submitted its relicensing application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 10 years ago. The relicensing process--along with improvements to the project, most of them related to fish passage--will cost an estimated $226 million.

It is costing 10 times as much and taking more than three times as long to relicense the project as it did to build it in the first place.

To be sure, a million dollars isn't worth what it used to be, more is known about the environmental effects of hydroelectric projects than was the case half a century ago, and appreciation of the importance of the McKenzie River's fish habitat has grown. Still, the high cost of relicensing has tipped the value of the Carmen Smith project into negative territory. Low power prices are to blame--but another factor is a relicensing process that is predicated on the notion that hydroelectric projects are valuable enough to carry a heavy load of added costs.

The $226 million price tag for relicensing stems in part from an agreement that EWEB negotiated in 2008 with government agencies, environmental groups and Native American tribes. The other parties to the agreement pledged to support a new license of Carmen Smith, and EWEB agreed to retrofit its components to improve fish passage and make other improvements. With electricity selling at $100 per megawatt hour or more, power generated by the Carmen Smith complex would easily cover the costs.

In today's markets, however, electricity is selling for one-third that amount on a good day--and sometimes, buyers can't be found at any price. Without a reduction in relicensing costs, Carmen Smith will become a money loser. Parties to the 2008 agreement are close to accepting a revision that would lower the costs by $55 million to $60 million. EWEB would close a relatively small generating turbine at the complex's Trail Bridge Dam, eliminating the need for a costly fish screen. Even with that change, prospects of a positive cash flow from Carmen Smith are dicey.

EWEB is not the only utility whose hydroelectric plants are being weighed down by relicensing costs. One-third of the nation's dams will need new licenses by 2030. These are mostly dams whose construction bonds have long been paid off, an advantage that until recently allowed the relicensing process to become a vehicle for the addition of environmental, recreational and other improvements. In some cases, such improvements are no longer affordable. In other cases, the costs of licensing acts as a barrier to the electrification of dams or other impoundments, blocking the development of a reliable, carbon-free power source.

Many hydro projects need environmental upgrades, and should not be relicensed without them. But the process should not drag on for a decade, and it ought to recognize the environmental benefits of hydropower--benefits in danger of being buried under a mountain of relicensing costs.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. At the heart of the problem is a broken Federal permitting process that has created an unnavigable gauntlet for our hydropower projects. It can now take well over a decade to relicense an existing dam. I will say it again. We are not talking about licensing a new dam; we are talking about relicensing an existing dam--a process that can take over a decade. For the California consumers of Pacific Gas and Electric, relicensing costs have run as high as $50 million per dam simply to continue an existing project. We are not building anything new. We want to relicense it. It is costing $50 million and taking over 10 years.

There was a recent editorial in a Eugene, OR, newspaper, the Register-Guard, which called for the preservation of hydropower assets, and it noted that the existing Carmon Smith project has been mired in the relicensing process for over 10 years, with a pricetag estimated at $226 million. It amounts to 10 times as much and 3 times as long as it took to build the project when it was constructed in 1963. What is wrong with this picture? Taking 10 times as much--requiring 10 times as much money--$226 million--and taking 3 times as long to build as when they built that project back in 1963. We are going in the wrong direction. This is not progress. We are headed exactly in the wrong direction.

We can change that. Let us put it in the context of what we have existing in this country right now. I said that right now hydro is providing about 6 percent of our energy and about half of our renewables. One-third of our Nation's existing hydropower projects will require license renewals by 2030. One-third of the existing facilities are going to have to go through this decade-long relicensing process, which will cost millions of dollars. What we need to do is make the relicensing process more efficient by reducing bureaucratic and administrative delays that end up increasing electricity rates, slowing hydropower's expansion, and actually delaying the adoption of environmental mitigation measures. If you are concerned about the environment, you ought to be interested in making sure we have a better process because if we fail to improve the relicensing process, we are going to start losing hydropower projects, and we will backslide as other forms of generation replace them, just as we are seeing with nuclear power in some parts of our country. We are going to go backward.

Whether your issue is climate change or whether it is electric reliability or just good, affordable energy, we should be able to agree that this is a situation we want to avoid. We do not want to be going backward on this.

Coming from Washington State, Senator Cantwell understands and clearly appreciates the value of our hydropower resources. I have been very pleased to be able to work with her on many of these initiatives, as well as with many other members of our committee, on some of the bipartisan reforms we have contained within the Energy Policy Modernization Act. What we realize is that our current policies are holding this resource back and that we need to update, we need to modernize them, if we ever want to harness the amazing potential of domestic hydropower. Our joint hydropower language attempts to bring State and Federal agencies to the table with the applicants at the beginning of the process so they can identify where the potential problems may be and coordinate environmental reviews.

Because hydropower licenses are issued by the FERC, our bill authorizes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to be the lead agency so they set a schedule and they coordinate all the needed Federal authorizations. The schedule is to be established on a case-by- case basis, in consultation with other agencies, and if a resource agency then cannot meet a deadline, the White House Council on Environmental Quality is then tasked with resolving these interagency disputes.

In terms of a step that is long overdue, we formally designate hydropower as a renewable resource for the purpose of all Federal programs.

When I first came to the Senate some years ago and focused on energy issues, I just really had a hard time with the fact that hydropower was not considered a renewable resource.

I was born in Ketchikan, AK. It is in the middle of a rainforest. I was raised in southeastern Alaska, where the annual precipitation is something that would take most people's breath away. If I were to tell the people of Juneau or Wrangell or Ketchikan that what is coming out of the sky today is not a renewable resource, I would be laughed out of the room. Hopefully we take care of this and formally designate hydropower as a renewable resource for the purposes of all Federal programs.

We have very good, commonsense ideas carefully crafted within our bill. Our language does not alter the authority of Federal agencies to impose mandatory environmental conditions or weaken the stringent environmental review process. For those who are afraid that somehow or another we are going to run roughshod over the environmental regulators, that is not the case. What we are doing is, through efficiency, streamlining, and some coordination, we are going to be able to make a difference in our Nation's ability to develop hydropower, and that is why the members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee overwhelmingly supported the hydropower provisions in the bill we have before us today.

There is always more good news we can add. We have looked at the amendments other Members have offered. We have already accepted an amendment from Senator Daines to extend the deadline for the relicensing of a hydropower project in Montana. We also have a number of other amendments from other Members from both sides of the aisle, and I am hoping we will be able to add them to the bill. For example, Senator Gillibrand has filed an amendment to extend the deadline for a hydroproject in her home State of New York. Senator Burr has filed an amendment to extend the deadline of a hydroproject in his home State of North Carolina. Senator Kaine has filed an amendment to extend the deadline for hydroprojects in his State of Virginia. All of these projects would add power to nonpowered dams. These projects already have licenses, but what they need is more time to deal with the technical and regulatory issues that often arise before construction can begin.

We have a fair number of our western Members who are understandably prioritizing hydropower. Senator Barrasso is filing an amendment to authorize the use of active capacity of the Fontenelle Reservoir in southwest Wyoming. Senators Flake and Feinstein have come together with a pretty good amendment to improve the way the Army Corps of Engineers operates dams to increase their efficiency. Is this not just good common sense?

It probably comes as no surprise that I have a couple of amendments that will benefit Alaska, including one that will expand the existing project at Terror Lake and allow the local community there--Kodiak--to remain powered almost entirely by renewable energy. Right now they are 99.7 percent powered by renewable energy between wind and their hydrocapacity. We want them to get to that full 100 percent.

Finally, I want to recognize the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Markey, who has a proposal to encourage the development of pumped storage hydropower assets--one of the best ways to store baseload power and a technology that could help to smooth out the intermittency of other renewable resources. We are working on that one--checking it out--but it looks good.

These are good proposals. As we continue our voting and clearing process here today, I am confident we will be able to accept many more of them.

Again, I want to acknowledge the work and partnership I have with Senator Cantwell on many of these hydro issues. Her State certainly enjoys the benefit of lower cost energy because of the investments made in hydro.

We have more work ahead of us. I know Members are anxious to talk on their amendments that they may have an interest in moving toward this afternoon, but this Senator is glad to be back on the bill, and hopefully we will have an exciting and energetic day.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, we are making some good progress here in the intervening hours since we came to the floor this morning and began business.

Working with the ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, we have come to an agreement to announce a series of amendments that will be voted on. I want to acknowledge the effort that has gone back and forth on both sides to make sure folks have an opportunity to weigh in and vote on amendments that are important to them. I think we have a good series here that we will announce.

It is our hope that as we move to vote on these amendments, we will also continue the good work we have done to try to advance some other measures that will be able to go by voice votes, and we will be working on those throughout the day.

3182, Rounds, as modified; No. 3030, Barrasso; No. 2996, Sullivan; No. 3176, Schatz; No. 3095, Durbin; and No. 3125, Whitehouse; that following the disposition of the Franken amendment No. 3115, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the above amendments in the order listed with no second-degree amendments in order prior to the votes; that a 60-vote affirmative threshold be required for adoption; and that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to each vote.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I would note that there will now be a series of eight votes when we commence at 2:30 this afternoon, and recognizing that there are committees meeting and other Senate business going on, we would hope to be able to process these votes relatively efficiently, respecting that 10-minute vote parameter, so that we can move through them in a manner that respects others' schedules.

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