UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ELECTRICITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING ...

234 Pages·2016·0.72 MB·English

by  Lejla Gjini

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

ELECTRICITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING

Arlington, Virginia

Wednesday, September 28, 2016
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1 PARTICIPANTS:

2 JOHN ADAMS
Electric Reliability Council of Texas
3
AKE ALMGREN
4 Orkas Energy Endurance Inc.

5 GLEN ANDERSON
NCSL
6
WILLIAM BALL
7 Southern Company

8 PATTIE BARFIELD
Department of Energy
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JEREMY BEDINE
10 Johns Hopkins University

11 KURT BILAS
Midcontinent ISO
12
GIL BINDEWALD
13 Department of Energy

14 ANJAN BOSE
Washington State University
15
LANEY BROWN
16 Modern Grid Partners

17 MARILYN BROWN
Georgia Institute of Technology
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MERWIN BROWN
19 California Institute for Energy and Environment,
University of California
20
CAITLIN CALLAGHAN
21 Department of Energy

22 JAY CASPARY
Southwest Power Pool
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1 PARTICIPANTS (CONT'D):

2 PAUL CENTOLELLA
Paul Centolella & Associates, LLC
3
KERRY CHEUNG
4 Department of Energy

5 CHRISTOPHER CLACK
University of Colorado, Boulder
6
MEGAN CLEVELAND
7 NCSL

8 LELAND COGLIANI
Lewis-Burke
9
MEGHAN CONKLIN
10 Department of Energy

11 PHYLLIS CURRIE
Pasadena Water and Power (Ret.)
12
LIZ DALTON
13 Department of Energy

14 JOCELYN DURKAY
NCSL
15
KATE GEHRINGER
16 Department of Energy

17 CLARK GELLINGS
Independent
18
DEVIN GLADDEN
19 Department of Energy

20 PATRICIA HOFFMAN
Department of Energy
21
GORDON FELLER
22 Cisco
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1 PARTICIPANTS (CONT'D):

2 RACHEL FINAN
ICF
3
PATRICK HUGHES
4 National Electric Manufacturers Association

5 PRAVEEN KATHPAL
AES
6
JOYCE KIM
7 Department of Energy

8 CATHERINE JOHNSON
University of Wisconsin
9
JIM LAZAR
10 Regulatory Assistance Project

11 JANICE LIN
Strategen Consulting
12
KEVIN LYNN
13 Department of Energy

14 MAUREEN MALLOY
ICF
15
ELI MASSEY
16 Department of Energy

17 DAVID MEYER
Department of Energy
18
JEFF MORRIS
19 Washington State House of Representatives

20 CHRIS NELDER
Rocky Mountain Institute
21
JAMES OKULLO
22 Midcontinent ISO
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1 PARTICIPANTS (CONT'D):

2 DALE OSBORN
Midcontinent ISO
3
WILLIAM PARKS
4 Department of Energy

5 MELISSA PAULEY
Department of Energy
6
CHELSEA PELLECCHIA
7 ICF

8 MICHAEL PESIN
Department of Energy
9
PAUL ROBERTI
10 Ernst & Young

11 MATTHEW ROSENBAUM
Department of Energy
12
HEATHER SANDERS
13 Southern California Edison

14 MATTHEW SCALLET
ICF
15
PAM SILBERSTEIN
16 National Rural Electric Cooperative Association

17 MICHAEL SKELLY
Clean Line Energy
18
CAITLIN SMITH
19 ICF

20 BENJAMIN STAFFORD
Advanced Energy Economy
21
SUE TIERNEY
22 Analysis Group
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1 PARTICIPANTS (CONT'D):

2 DAVID TILL
North American Electric Reliability Corporation
3
REBECCA WAGNER
4 Wagner Strategies

5 LINDSAY WESTFIELD
Direct Energy
6
CARL ZICHELLA
7 Natural Resources Defense Council

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1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 (1:12 p.m.)

3 CHAIRWOMAN TIERNEY: Good afternoon

4 everybody. My name is Sue Tierney. I think I

5 know many if not all of you and it is really great

6 to see you. We have a really great way to start

7 the day and that's with an ethics briefing and

8 we're going to do that even before we go around

9 for introductions because I know that you don't

10 want to wait a minute before your ethics briefing.

11 So after that we'll do some ground rules and

12 introduce new members. The first person we're

13 going to here from is Kate Gehringer. Kate is

14 from the General Counsel's office at the

15 Department of Energy and as you know we are a

16 Federal Advisory Committee and we have special

17 duties and responsibilities including ethical

18 behavior. So Kate, it is all yours.

19 MS. GEHRINGER: Thanks Sue. I know I

20 was joking about scheduling the ethics training at

21 o'clock, which is the post lunch sleepy

22 time but hopefully we can do this quick and
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1 interesting enough to keep you all awake. I know

2 that there is a mix of special government

3 employees and representatives on this Committee so

4 I'm thankful for the representatives sitting

5 through this even though some of this won't apply

6 to you. I think the overall principles are

7 important for you to sort of be aware of. I also

8 know that some of you have sat through this

9 presentation a couple of times already in prior

10 years so that is where I count on you to correct

11 me if I'm wrong.

12 The first thing we're going to talk

13 about is conflicts. We have two types of

14 conflicts. There is a financial, conflict and one

15 that is based on relationships. In general, the

16 overarching principle is that federal employees

17 including those serving as special government

18 employees who are on advisory committees are

19 prohibited by a criminal statute from

20 participating in a particular matter that has a

21 direct and predictable effect upon their financial

22 interest or the financial interest of those whose
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1 interests are abutted to them and that means your

2 spouse, a minor or dependent child, if you are a

3 business partner in an organization. So we'll

4 start with what is a particular matter and then

5 we'll talk about how your duties here could

6 directly affect a financial interest.

7 So there are three types of particular

8 matters and we like to think of it sort of in a

9 funnel. The first types are matters that are

10 broad, theoretical discussions where you can't say

11 with certainty who or what will be affected.

12 These are generally where they are large policy

13 issues. These don't present a conflict.

14 The second level, the middle of the

15 funnel is where there are Committee matters that

16 are more specific and you can identify a

17 particular group of entities that will be affected

18 by your duties. So if you are making a

19 recommendation that will affect all national

20 laboratories and you work for one of the labs so

21 that's where we're funneling down and your

22 financial interest is more affected.
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1 The third level is where there is a very

2 narrow focus on an entity or a person who is

3 specifically effected by the matter. This is

4 going to be things like a grant, a contract,

5 things like that. If a specific grant were to

6 come before this committee for discussion that's

7 the kind of thing we'd be talking about there.

8 So we're going to go back through the

9 funnel and say how do we handle conflicts that are

10 presented by those. So the broad issues like I

11 said those aren't really going to present a

12 conflict because we can't find a direct and

13 predictable effect on any one entity by those.

14 For the middle of the funnel when the conflict for

15 those that are affecting the identifiable group of

16 entities there is an exemption for special

17 government employees where if your financial

18 interests is arising from your employment interest

19 you do not have to recuse yourself from those

20 matters. So that means that in general, if I had

21 an outside job as a federal employee I would have

22 to recuse myself from anything that would affect