Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS of California. Madam Chair, 2 years ago, on September 8, 2011, San Diego and much of southern California, Arizona, and parts of Mexico suffered a huge electric power failure. This was the biggest electric power failure in the history of California.

Millions of people were left without electricity when a 500-kilovolt high-voltage transmission line from Arizona to California failed, knocking a major nuclear power plant offline. The electricity outage led to school and business closures, flight cancellations, suspended water service, and dark traffic lights.

And when the power goes out, it's not just our lights that are affected. In the heat without air-conditioning, we're putting the health of our seniors and vulnerable populations at risk of health failures. So the risks to public safety and health increase, and economic disruptions can be hard to recover from.

We are putting greater load on our grid each day, and the grid faces also threats to its cybersecurity. In addition, we've seen extreme weather events wreak havoc on the grid. DOE is making great strides to strengthen our grid and make it more resilient to all threats, and we need to protect this critical infrastructure.

The Appropriations Committee has recommended $80 million for electricity delivery and energy reliability, which is a cut of $32.49 million from FY '13 levels. My amendment would increase electric delivery and energy reliability by $10 million, with an equal offset reduction to the DOE's Departmental Administration account. This increase will strengthen the electric grid and provide greater power reliability for all Americans.

And the amendment would support the research and technology to improve grid strength and reliability. These are more important investments than this particular Departmental Administration account.

This is spending reduction in the long run. The cost of energy outages are much greater than what we put in to modernizing and strengthening the grid. Every dollar that we put towards making our infrastructure more resilient yields $4 in future savings.

When power goes out, there are huge economic costs. Our modern world can't function and perform business transactions without electricity, and we need to ensure that the power's there. If it goes out, we need to make sure that it gets back on quickly.

A better grid will save taxpayers money. A better, smarter, more modern grid will lead to fewer outages, getting power back faster, and savings in costs.

Madam Chair, I ask for the support of my colleagues, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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