Climate Crisis Committee to Hold Hearing on Modernizing & Expanding The Electric Grid

WASHINGTON - The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis will hold a hearing titled “Powering Up Clean Energy: Investments to Modernize and Expand the Electric Grid” on Thursday, May 20, 2021 at 9:30 a.m. ET. This hearing will take place remotely via Zoom video conferencing and will be broadcast live here. 

This hearing will explore the ways that upgrading and expanding the electric grid can create jobs, integrate higher levels of renewable energy, boost grid reliability, and protect public health. 

The committee will receive testimony from:

Linda Apsey, President and CEO, ITC Holdings Corp. Apsey is responsible for the strategic vision and overall business operations of ITC, the largest independent electricity transmission company in the United States. Based in Michigan, the company owns and operates high-voltage transmission infrastructure in Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma, with plans underway to expand to Wisconsin.
 
Donnie Colston, Director, Utility Department, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). Colston manages issues related to collective bargaining agreements, working conditions, safety-related work practices, and apprenticeship training. A utility lineman, he started his career in transmission and distribution construction before working as an electric troubleman. He has been a member of the IBEW Local Union 2100, which represents the employees of Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LG&E) and Kentucky Utilities Company (KU), for more than four decades.

Michael Skelly, Founder and President, Grid United. Skelly is a renewable energy entrepreneur and pioneer in the U.S. wind industry who currently leads Grid United, an early-stage transmission development company. He was previously the founder and president of Clean Line Energy, a company that successfully permitted some of the longest transmission lines in the United States in the last 50 years.
 
Emily Sanford Fisher, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Senior Vice President, Clean Energy Edison Electric Institute (EEI). Sanford Fisher manages EEI’s litigation and legal affairs at EEI, an association that represents all investor-owned electric companies in the United States. She also oversees and coordinates strategic clean energy engagement across EEI and across the federal government.

More information about the hearing, including a live webcast, will be available on the committee's website.