Tag Archive for: House Energy and Commerce Committee

Here Are Three Unanswered Questions About Biden EPA’s Massive Green ‘Slush Fund’

As Republican lawmakers prepare to grill a senior Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official about one of President Joe Biden’s massive green grantmaking programs, several questions about the program’s structure and potential beneficiaries remain unanswered.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is sitting on a $27 billion fund known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a program established by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s landmark climate bill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is holding an oversight hearing on the program featuring Senior Advisor to the EPA Administrator Zealan Hoover on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., with Republican lawmakers describing the program as possibly spawning “the next big government boondoggle.”

The GGRF intends “to mobilize financing and private capital to address the climate crisis” using several subprograms, according to the EPA. The program’s expeditious timeline, as well as the connections that several of those groups share to the administration and the broader Democratic party apparatus, have attracted the scrutiny of government watchdog groups and elected Republicans alike in recent months.

How is the EPA ensuring that political connections do not interfere with selecting grantees?

Up to $14 billion of GGRF cash could go to so-called “green banks,” or financial institutions that provide financing specifically for climate-related investments, according to the EPA. Three of the five “green bank” consortiums reportedly on the shortlist to potentially receive multi-billion dollar payouts from the GGRF have considerable ties to the Biden administration or the wider Democratic Party and its allies. The coalitions are variously composed of environmental groups, nonprofits and smaller “green banks” that would distribute the awarded funds to projects they deem worthy of the material support.

“Many prospective recipients and sub-recipients are chock full of political operatives as well as individuals and organizations with ties to the current administration and its Democratic predecessors,” Michael Chamberlain, the executive director of Protect the Public’s Trust, a watchdog organization that has closely monitored the GGRF, told the DCNF. “This raises serious questions about the likelihood of the GGRF being used to advance partisan interests or reward former political appointees and those who helped elect the President or create the program.”

For example, the board of directors for the Coalition for Green Capital — one of the groups reportedly in contention for a major payday — includes David Hayes, a senior fellow for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and formerly a climate adviser for Biden; Cecilia Martinez, who is now the Bezos Earth Fund’s chief of environmental and climate justice after a stint in the Biden White House Council on Environmental Quality; and Julie Greene Collier, chief of staff for the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

The committee could choose to dig into these connections and call on Hoover to provide a detailed description of internal EPA safeguards to ensure a competitive grantmaking process on Tuesday, as well as whether the agency is concerned about potential appearances of ethical impropriety or political patronage with its award decisions.

Why did the agency meet with major green groups about the program in November 2022?

The EPA met with several organizations connected to officials in the agency and the wider administration behind closed doors to discuss the fund in November 2022, about 11 months before the application window closed in October 2023. The meeting served as a chance for groups like the NRDC and the Center for American Progress to “provide early feedback” and “ask clarifying questions” about the GGRF process.

“Holding a chummy meeting with special interest organizations with deep connections to political leadership isn’t a good look,” Chamberlain said at the time.

Protect the Public’s Trust described the meeting as “highly irregular” back in September 2023, and Republican lawmakers could test his theory by asking Hoover to explain why this meeting was held, what specific issues were discussed and whether it is standard EPA practice to meet with activist organizations about major programs like the GGRF behind closed doors before the application window has closed.

How is EPA ensuring due diligence while also rushing to get funds out by September 2024?

The agency is endeavoring to shell out the bulk of the GGRF money by September 2024 per the terms of the IRA, but elected Republicans have suggested that this timeline significantly raises the risks of inadequate oversight. Watchdog groups that have previously raised the alarm on the program concur.

“Haste really does make waste, as we should have learned from the government’s COVID response. When federal programs are fast tracked at the expense of appropriate oversight, they’re vulnerable to waste, fraud, and abuse,” Pete McGinnis, the spokesman for the Functional Government Initiative, told the DCNF. “The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund sure looks like a taxpayer-financed $27 billion slush fund for Biden administration insiders pushing unproven technologies.”

Other similar government programs designed to boost green energy development with taxpayer-funded cash infusions have also shelled out money with a sense of urgency, leading to potential lapses in the due diligence process. the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO), one such program reportedly trying to move funds quickly, agreed to provide one fledgling company a $375 million loan package while it was allegedly defrauding its investors, and another $3 billion package to another company that reportedly exploited elderly customers by having them sign long-term, expensive solar panel installation contracts.

Given the relatively quick timeline and the fact that GGRF grantees may serve as functional grantmakers outside of typical agency controls, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee could press Hoover for detailed plans that demonstrate the agency is prepared to give out the money in a way that appropriately mitigates the inherent risks.

“While we are heartened to see the GGRF on the radar of Congressional overseers, we are equally disturbed about the reasons it has come to their attention. Members of the committee have expressed similar concerns as ours about the tremendous potential for abuse, conflicts, and cronyism inherent in this massive program,” Chamberlain told the DCNF. “The more details that emerge about the $27 billion GGRF, the more disturbed we become of the possibility this could turn out to be a colossal Greendoggle, or worse.”

For its part, the EPA has expressed to the DCNF that it is administering the program by the book.

“All applications submitted to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund competitions are being put through a rigorous evaluation and selection process in line with the high standards of EPA’s Competition Policy, which ensures that the competitive process for EPA funds remains fair, impartial and free of undue influence,” an EPA spokesperson previously told the DCNF.

There are several key questions about the program that remain unanswered, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee has a chance to address the underlying risk factors when they convene Tuesday morning on Capitol Hill to hold a hearing examining the program.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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Terrorists attack CA Power Station: National Power Grid Vulnerable

Today’s  Wall Street Journal  (WSJ) had a front page story that raises question of the vulnerability of our national power grid to terrorist attack given an incident that occurred in Silicon Valley in April 2013. It is only now surfacing  in the national media, “Assault on Power Grid Raises Alarms”.

In the early morning of April 16, 2013, the Metcalf, California transmission substation in Silicon Valley was attacked by what federal investigators believe was a highly professional terrorist team .  That sniper  assault  caused 17 transformers to crash severing power to  Internet Service Providers  and other power users in  Silicon Valley.  Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) was forced to  increase and reroute power to the area served by the disabled transmission station.  The recovery  took 27 days for PG&E to repair and bring  the transmission substation back online.

Grid Attack diagram WSJ 2-5-14

Graphic of timeline of Metcalf attack. For a larger view click on the image.

Here is the time line of the Metcalf incident as compiled by the WSJ:

At 12:58 a.m., AT&T fiber-optic telecommunications cables were cut—in a way that made them hard to repair—in an underground vault near the substation, not far from U.S. Highway 101 just outside south San Jose. It would have taken more than one person to lift the metal vault cover, said people who visited the site.

Nine minutes later, some customers of Level 3 Communications,  an Internet service provider, lost service. Cables in its vault near the Metcalf substation were also cut.

At 1:31 a.m., a surveillance camera pointed along a chain-link fence around the substation recorded a streak of light that investigators from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s office think was a signal from a waved flashlight. It was followed by the muzzle flash of rifles and sparks from bullets hitting the fence.

The substation’s cameras weren’t aimed outside its perimeter, where the attackers were. The shooters appear to have aimed at the transformers’ oil-filled cooling systems. These began to bleed oil, but didn’t explode, as the transformers probably would have done if hit in other areas.

About six minutes after the shooting started, PG&E confirms, it got an alarm from motion sensors at the substation, possibly from bullets grazing the fence, which is shown on video.

Four minutes later, at 1:41 a.m., the sheriff’s department received a 911 call about gunfire, sent by an engineer at a nearby power plant that still had phone service.

Riddled with bullet holes, the transformers leaked 52,000 gallons of oil, then overheated. The first bank of them crashed at 1:45 a.m., at which time PG&E’s control center about 90 miles north received an equipment-failure alarm.

Five minutes later, another apparent flashlight signal, caught on film, marked the end of the attack. More than 100 shell casings of the sort ejected by AK-47s were later found at the site.

At 1:51 a.m., law-enforcement officers arrived, but found everything quiet. Unable to get past the locked fence and seeing nothing suspicious, they left.

A PG&E worker, awakened by the utility’s control center at 2:03 a.m., arrived at 3:15 a.m. to survey the damage.

Watch this video for the Santa Clara Police Department released in June 2013 published in the San Jose Mercury:

The WSJ noted that PG&E put out a news release saying it was “vandals” who caused the incident.  Note what former Federal  Electrical Regulatory Commission (FERC) head, Jon  Wellinghoff  uncovered after the event:

Mr. Wellinghoff, then chairman of FERC, said that after he heard about the scope of the attack, he flew to California, bringing with him experts from the U.S. Navy’s Dahlgren Surface Warfare Center in Virginia, which trains Navy SEALs. After walking the site with PG&E officials and FBI agents, Mr. Wellinghoff said, the military experts told him it looked like a professional job.

In addition to fingerprint-free shell casings, they pointed out small piles of rocks, which they said could have been left by an advance scout to tell the attackers where to get the best shots.

“They said it was a targeting package just like they would put together for an attack,” Mr. Wellinghoff said.

Mr. Wellinghoff, now a law partner at Stoel Rives LLP in San Francisco, said he arranged a series of meetings in the following weeks to let other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, know what happened and to enlist their help. He held a closed-door meeting with utility executives in San Francisco in June and has distributed lists of things utilities should do to strengthen their defenses.

A spokesman for Homeland Security said it is up to utilities to protect the grid. The department’s role in an emergency is to connect federal agencies and local police and facilitate information sharing, the spokesman said.

The WSJ article drew attention to the problem of replacing the transformers, the target of the Metcalf terrorist  attack:

The country’s roughly 2,000 very large transformers are expensive to build, often costing millions of dollars each, and hard to replace. Each is custom made and weighs up to 500,000 pounds, and “I can only build 10 units a month,” said Dennis Blake, general manager of Pennsylvania Transformer in Pittsburgh, one of  [only]seven U.S. manufacturers.

Given our work on the EMP threat to our national grid, there are 300 critical transmission substations like Metcalf that are vulnerable to such a terrorist assault. See: Interview with Jerry Gordon on The Electronic Armageddon -The … .   A rolling assault by trained terrorist  teams  against  these 300  sub stations  could  create havoc  and a shutdown of the national  grid  far in excess of the 50 million who lost power when the Northeast grid crashed in 2003.  The grid  vulnerability  is reflected in the limited  US manufacturing capacity for large Extra High Voltage (EHV) transformers.  Most of the world’s EHV transformer manufacturing capacity is located in China, South Korea and Germany.  A study by the National Academy of Sciences indicated  that  replacement of just the 300 EVH transformers from  limited US and offshore producers could take upwards of a decade. Further national security concern is the more than 100 military bases  connected to these vulnerable civilian grids. The WSJ article also illustrates the underlying problem of utility industry opposition to HR 2417: Shield Act sponsored by  Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) which would set standards including provision for standby replacement transformers. Based on work of the  Congressionally chartered EMP Task Force a thin shield for the national grid might cost $200 million, while a more robust program could run between $10 to $20 billion.  The impact on electric utility users would be an increase in electrical rates per user of less than $.20 cents per annum.

The  North American Electric Reliability  Corporation (NERC), the principal electric utility standard setting organization,  has opposed passage of the Shield Act calling the network “resilient”.  Au contraire  says  an official of Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) cited by the WSJ: “The breadth and depth of the attack was unprecedented” in the U.S., said Rich Lordan, senior technical  executive. “The motivation”, he said, “appears to  be preparation for an act of war.”  When we checked the websites of House Energy and Commerce Committee  Chairman  Fred Upton (R-MI ) and  Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) their major concerns as regards the security of the grid is vulnerability to cyber attack.  According to the WSJ  retiring  House Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA) raised concerns  about the lack of federal  authority to undertake protective actions regarding the safety of the national grid during FERC oversight hearings in December 2013.

Whether it is  a terrorist attack like the Metcalf substation incident, the threat of a massive geo –magnetic storm during   or an EMP caused by either North Korea or Iran , this latest WSJ report should embolden US taxpayers and electrical users to request serious  Congressional  consideration of HR2417: The Shield Act .   If any of those events occurred  that would  bring us back to pre-industrial times. If that occurs, the estimates are that more than 200 million Americans could succumb to a  pandemic  virus from lack of food, water, sanitation  and  medical treatment caused by the breakdown of industrial , transportation and communications networks.  If you are concerned about this lack of security of the national  grid, you should consider signing a petition requesting Congressional consideration of the Shield Act , here.

Listen to this August 2012 Electronic Armageddon Rob Schilling Radio Show interview with Jerry Gordon.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.