Political Quotes

“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.…”