Senate Standing Committee on Rules

All right. Well, good afternoon. On behalf of the entire Senate Rules Committee, we want to welcome you. Thank you so much. We apologize. We're starting a few minutes late. We appreciate your patience. Why don't we get started here and call the roll. Let's establish quorum. Madam Secretary, can you please do so now?

[ROLL CALL]

Quorum has been established. I do know that Senator Laird is living the dream currently in Education Committee. He will be with us shortly. There are going to be Members of the Committee going in and out based off of votes in other committees. Not at all trying to be rude, but it is a busy time.

I will be needing to be out at approximately 2:00 for meeting right off of the dies here. But I will be back and the Vice Chair will keep the roll open for any individuals who may not be here, to be able to vote when they return from their Committee.

With that said, welcome again, happy 4th of July. Let's now go to our agenda. We're going to start out with with governor appointees not required to appear. As we go there. We're going to ask each of the board members from the ISO to please come on forward. We are going to welcome Ms. Schori and Mr. Borenstein.

If you could please advance. To our board members from the ISO, what we're going to do is take care of some administrative business as you come forward and then we're going to come right back to you. And we appreciate you being here today. So, ladies and gentlemen, let's get started on our administrative portion of today's agenda.

The first item is governor appointees not required to appear. These are items 2 D through F discussion or debate or we'll also take a motion. We have a motion by Madam Vice Chair. We're going to see if there's any discussion or debate. Last call. Hearing, seeing none. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

[ROLL CALL]

5-0 vote. That is completed. We're going to close the roll. We're now going to be moving on to bill referrals. Again, this is one of the most exciting parts of today's agenda, according to Leader Jones. This is item three, discussion things.

Oh, that'd be really great. Yeah, exactly. Hot damn. Oh, boy. Here we go. We love you, Jonesy. My goodness. We're going to see if. All right, we have a motion. A motion. And already people are voting. We're doing well. All right. We have a motion by Madam Vice Chair. Last call for discussion or debate. Hearing, seeing none. Can we please call the roll?

[ROLL CALL]

5-0 vote. We're closing the roll. Thank you so much. We're now going to be moving forward to floor acknowledgments, items 4 through 9 on our agenda. Discussion, debate or motion? We have a motion by Madam Vice Chair. Last call for discussion or debate. Hearing none. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

[ROLL CALL]

5-0 vote. We're closing the roll. That vote is final. We're now going to be jumping back up to the start of our agenda. We want to welcome Dr. Borenstein and Ms. Schori. Thank you so much. Here for potential appointment on the Independent System Operator Governing Board. I want to start out by saying thank you.

Thank you for your work. We live in interesting times right now, if I, I think, to say the least. And I think the role that the ISO has is more important than ever. And just want to say thank you for your service to the people of California.

We'd like to talk a little bit about the run of show here. We're going to first start with Ms. Schori. Then we're going to turn it over to Mr. Borenstein to be able to provide opening comments. Each of you will be given three minutes for opening comments.

During those opening comments, we request that you acknowledge any individual or individuals who are here watching or online to be able to acknowledge them then. And then, of course, we are looking forward to your testimony. After you have both completed, we're going to open it up for the Committee for questions, comments, raising any concerns.

We'll then go to public comment and then look for a formal vote by the Committee. Again, I want to say thank you, both of you, for your incredible work. Board Member Schori, we're going to start with you, then we're going to go to Board Member Borenstein. Madam Board Member, welcome. The floor is yours. You have three minutes.

Thank you very much. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss my pending confirmation to the California ISO Board of Governors. We certainly all understand the critical role electricity has in our economy and our daily lives, and how important the ISO's reliability responsibility is to the citizens of our state. Decarbonizing the energy sector is our state mandate.

SB 100 requires that we supply our energy needs with carbon free and renewable resources by 2045. The independent system operator's role is to help ensure that the lights stay on and that the grid operates reliably while we make this transition to a clean energy future.

Over the past three years we've had a good record of successfully meeting all of our summer reliability needs, strengthening our resource adequacy, and improving our transmission decision processes. I spent almost 30 years at SMUD, Sacramento's publicly owned electric utility, first as a lawyer and general counsel, and then as the CEO.

And then I spent the next 12 years on the NERC board working on national grid reliability and security issues.

I joined the ISO board four years ago and have been impressed to see the capabilities and the technical excellence of the ISO staff in action as well as the good balance of skills and experience of my fellow board members.

I think I have helped bring some practical operational experience to the Board's deliberations and I would appreciate the opportunity to continue my service on the board, in order to assure that we continue our steady progress on our path to achieve the state's energy policy goals while ensuring that the electricity grid remains reliable. Thank you.

Board Member, we're very grateful for your service. We love us some SMUD and I think as the former leader of SMUD, Cheaper and Greener, but we get into that now. I come from an NCPA. You're darn right, exactly. But thank you so much. Dr. Bornstein. It's wonderful to see you here. Thank you so much. The floor is yours.

Thank you very much. I'm honored to be considered for a third term on the CAISO board. I've served for six years. The challenges have changed and in some ways remain the same. The good news I think is that we do have a very good handle on supply in the short and medium run in California.

We're certainly in much better shape than we were in 2019 when I joined the board. But there are ongoing challenges to determine resource adequacy in the medium and longer run, to make sure that we maintain physical and cyber security, which is always a challenge, and to build the grid out to meet California's goals for decarbonization.

There are also new challenges, as you're aware, I'm sure. California was flooded with new requests for interconnection on the supply side over the last few years to the extent that the interconnection queue more than tripled and suddenly we needed to make big changes. We have and we've really gotten that under control.

But it's been a real challenge. Of course, everyone's hearing about demand growth and both on the decarbonization side and on the industrial side and regional cooperation as we try to navigate the changes that are occurring throughout the West.

So I think there are many new challenges along with the ongoing responsibility of a board member which is to maintain outstanding personnel running the board, running the corporation, and doing so in a first rate way. I have been just overwhelmingly impressed by the CAISO since I came on board as a very high functioning organization.

I think probably as board members, our major responsibility is to maintain that so that we can face these new challenges. And I hope I will be able to continue to serve on the board to do that.

Thank you, Dr. Borenstein. Thank you so much. We're grateful you're here. What we're going to do for each of you, we're going to open it up for any questions, comments, concerns that this Committee may have. With respect, we're going to start with Madam Vice Chair. Vice Chair Grove.

Thank you, Mr. Pro Tem. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Borenstein. Number one, when I was in the Assembly, you gave us an incredible tour of the ISO. It was amazing. And I think we were there when you were actually discussing and describing the duck curve or yes, the duck curve is. That's what it's called?

It is called the duck curve.

The duck curve. And to see it on those massive big screens across the whole part of the operations center or whatever you would call it, is pretty incredible that we lose that much power at that moment in that part of the day, every day.

And you have to figure out how to make sure that people still be able to turn the lights on when that drops. So it's pretty impressive. So thank you for that. I noticed in the opening comments that you had, Madam Schori.

I noticed you said that we are well on our way to our goals for 2045 for a carbon free future. Two refineries have announced their closure. We still consume 1.8 million barrels of oil every single day. We've brought Diablo back online and we have other issues facing us.

And I'm not saying you misstated or are not speaking the truth. I know that you are just responsible for implementing the policy that comes out of this building. But I would like to know from either one of you, realistically, is that an achievable goal to completely decarbonize the entire system by the set goal? I think it was SB 1 and Senator De Leon, regarding the decarbonization of our entire State of California by that date.

If we look at. I'll go ahead and start then you can. If we look at what we've been able to accomplish, I will tell you maybe this is my background at SMUD. I always like to have a long term goal that I'm trying to get to.

And here it's been set by the state, by this body, it is the law, it is what we have to accomplish. In California, of course, trying to figure out, first you got to figure out what's the load going to be. That's the Energy Commission's job.

Then you have to come up with the portfolio of clean resources that will be available to cover that load at any particular point in time. That's the Public Utilities Commission's job. And then you have the ISO.

So we have kind of a three part crowd working on this whose responsibility is to operate the system in real time to make sure we don't have blackouts, but also to make sure that the transmission connections are available for the resources that have been identified.

So I will simply say that I always want that long term goal, but I also measure success each year. Are we getting where we're supposed to be getting? Did we hook up what we were supposed to hook up this last year? So we have added 7,000 megawatts of new clean generation in the last year.

We're seeing lots of solar, lots of batteries. You talked about the duck curve. We are covering that net peak period from 5pm to 9pm when the sun starts to go down. But the load is still there because it's still hot, at least in Sacramento, maybe in your part of the state as well.

So it's very important that we have fallbacks. But when I came on the ISO board, which is now four years ago, we had slightly more than 200 megawatts of batteries on the system. We have more than 12,000 now. So we are making very good progress.

And admittedly there are a number of issues associated with all of these technologies as we move forward. But we're making good, steady progress. We develop a transmission plan that looks out over 20 years now.

But we also try and figure out what are we actually approving for this year, for next year, what are we committing to in terms of contracts, because affordability of race is also a key issue. So I guess I would tell you I think we're making very good progress.

That's why I said that in my statement in terms of accomplishing what we need to. But we also understand we have to be prepared for fires. We have to be prepared for heat storms. We have to be prepared for potentially lesser snowpack that affects then our hydro system.

So climate change is there, we're seeing the real impacts of it and we need to be flexible and adaptable as we move forward and make sure that our goals reflect, reflect the realities of the time.

Well, Jan didn't leave me a lot to talk about. I will say that I think that the electrical system in California is going to be the easiest part. You asked a larger question, Senator Grove, about decarbonizing the California economy, which isn't just the electrical system. It's reducing use of natural gas and eventually eliminating that.

It is having carbon free transportation. I think that we are making very good progress and looking out 20 years, I think it is completely plausible that the electrical system will be completely decarbonized at that point.

The last 5 or 10% might be particularly challenging and that's going to require some new technologies or agreeing that we are offsetting that last 5 or 10%, such as through carbon sequestration.

I think the transportation side is a bigger lift and I think moving off of natural gas in buildings particularly is going to be a very big lift. So I think I'm very optimistic on new technologies. I'm an economist by training, so it's easy to be optimistic about things you don't know as much about.

But, and I've seen tremendous changes in technology and progress over the last 15 years. If we get that much again, I think we have a good shot at it. But I think we'll have to see how fast technology changes.

And that's just something, we can give the right incentives and we can support the people who are doing that research, but we can't guarantee the outcomes.

So thank you for that. I appreciate that you guys are looking at new technology. We have a technology that the previous administration, the Biden Administration recognized in my district of two individuals, a scientist and then a kind of a marketing guy put it together.

The scientist is just, he's just an older guy that was like this will work. And he's proven it on a model. Model gives you a thousand hours of battery storage every single day. It operates on a minimal footprint on the surface and it uses existing infrastructure that we already have.

But it's hard to get new technology permitted in the State of California or some agency to say it's their responsibility to do that. They keep shifting you around. So the last four years, even though the Biden Administration had gave them, I think it's $150 million, they haven't been able to get California to move on it.

So I think it's new technology. I'm glad you guys are interested in that and I really appreciate that. I guess what, what are some of the challenges that you see or you face?

Again, I'm very impressed with both of you, especially you, Mr. Borenstein, with, you know, just having that conversation, spending I think four hours with you when we went on that tour. You, I felt like, I felt like other people in the room, and I'm not being negative, but other people were like, oh no, we're gonna, this is gonna happen and we can make that happen.

But you had a reality like you had a real world view of we can do that if this happens or we can do that if this happens. Just like you said now. The transportation or the fuel cars would be a heavy lift. The building with natural gas would be a heavy lift.

And I come across a lot of people that think, oh yeah, we can make that happen. But you have a real reality, a real world view of that's going to be difficult to do, but it can be attained if we put some right things in place. So I appreciate your, your approach to that.

Thank you.

What are some of the things that either of you see in the grid's transmission capability? And I know we have transition lanes in Kerns that go into non contiguous counties and for solar and wind. I have to, I often say that we produce, out of 58 counties, we produce 53% of the energy.

My planning director yelled at me the other day after I made the comment on the floor that she was walking. We are up to 80% of the solar and wind in the State of California with one county and we have the ability to transmit into non contiguous counties.

So I know that transmission is a huge issue, especially in other parts of the state instead of just Kern. So what are some of the grids transmission capacity issues that you see?

I don't know about the other legislators on the dais, but my phone rings off the hook with Southern California Edison and PG&E that they wait years for connectivity and it stifles progress. So what are some of the issues that you see that face the grid?

Well, I think that we do need to continue working on the interconnection queue. We really have made tremendous progress. The backlog has been cut by two thirds in the last years, last year, by changing the rules, we were essentially saying everybody who wants to get a slot in the line, come on in.

And there were frankly speculators who were just coming in hoping they got a slot and if they did, they were flipping it and selling it. And that's not happening nearly as much as I said in my testimony. To be honest, I would have done it slightly differently. I'm an economist.

I would have focused more on financial incentives for people applying. But I think we've really made a huge change. But we're going to have to keep working on that, on the supply side because there's still interconnection queue that we really need to whittle down.

We now have to start working on the demand side interconnection queue because we have data centers. We're going to need upgrades to the grid as more and more electrification occurs. So we are going to have to make sure that we have a system in place to handle demand side explosion after we, I shouldn't use the word explosion.

Explosion of demand in as we see that increase just as we've had to work on it on the supply side. And that's one of the challenges on transmission I think.

So that kind of brings up. And I can miss Schori, I could put that to you, with the Arkansas based Southwest Power Pool that's coming online right now.

Right.

Do you think that's going to be a competing market? I think it's called Markets Plus.

Right.

Markets Plus. And are there concerns about competition or potentially western regional organizations around what Arkansas is doing, moving towards the east, so that we don't have that same pool here in the western regions? Is there a concern there?

Yes, we're actually dealing with that right now. We have been approved to institute a west wide extended day ahead market.

It's called EDAM and we were approved and we have signed up companies that are already participating with the expectation that that market will build on the success of the very short term real time market that we operate right now, which has already generated about $7 billion in benefits to the 22 participants in 11 states that are part of that.

And we have been very hopeful that we could get as many of those participants to join the new day ahead market and actually maximize both the economic values, the efficient use of the grid, potentially development of additional renewable resources across the west, and have more options on the table to deal with energy shortages.

But we are now up against direct competition with SPP and they are moving forward with signing up entities. We are going to have to manage that because some entities in the west are looking like they will go with that organization. Which means we will have what in the electric business we refer to as SIEMS.

We're going to have we manage SIEMS right now. Let me just say that we have plenty of balancing authorities where we are already having to address how do you get from one market to another.

But the goal and the benefits are clear that the bigger the market is, you get the geographic diversity, you get the load diversity, you get the weather diversity. So the bigger our market ultimately ends up being in EDAM, the better it will be.

California has basically gotten a little more than 2 billion out of the 7 billion out of the existing real time markets. So there's real money on the table.

And for all of us and all of you that are concerned about affordability of rates for consumers, it's certainly an idea that's worth pursuing if it can be successfully done and we are moving forward. We do have Pacific Core, Portland General Electric signed up to start.

They're getting ready now and we're expected to roll it out for them next year and then the following year as you probably heard. And this is, in my long career in California utility, the California utility business, this is the one time I've seen every utility balancing area in California join up.

We have IID, we have Turlock, we have the Cal ISO, and we certainly have SMUD through Bank and we have Los Angeles. So that is kind of a remarkable statement that in California the balancing authorities, the load serving entities in this state think this is really worth pursuing and want it to be a success.

Thank you. And I guess just because you brought it up, and I know the Senate Pro Tem has to leave, but this is particularly for him, EDAM, did he have any participation in coming up with that slogan? Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Madam Vice Chair. We're going to turn it over to Senator Laird, then we're going to go to Senator Jones ,and then Senator Caballero. Senator Laird, the floor is yours. Good afternoon.

Thank you very much and thank you for meeting with me. I apologize due to.

Committee assignments. It was abbreviated, and I know that for I think at least two of us, this is your second time around for us on the Rules Committee. And so I know we felt good about your appointments last time, and here you are. And the Vice Chair asked about some of the things I wanted to ask about, and I'm glad she did. Regionalization was something. And so let me just ask a couple of quick things. One is if we are successful in the two lease areas and offshore wind, it's going to require tremendous transmission.

And I know that Senator McGuire and I each have a lease area off of our districts, and we at least have Diablo Canyon for some of it. The transmission Humboldt is challenged in a different way. Do you have a vision of how we're going to deal with transmission for offshore wind in time to make it work if it comes on? And I don't know who wants to go for it. As opposed to the former inland electricity director.

Yeah. So the 20 year transmission plan that CAISO put out is a plan that includes offshore wind and accommodation of the wind that is planned at this point. But what I want to point out is this is a difficult balancing act because we don't know how much offshore wind is actually going to get built.

And on the one hand, we want to be ready when the wind actually is available. And on the other hand, we don't want to commit billions of dollars in transmission resources for something if it's not going to be available. So I have been very impressed with the transmission planning group at the CAISO in thinking that through carefully and staging it in ways that say, okay, what's the timeline.

When are these likely to be on board, what's going to be available, and in some cases, as I'm sure you're aware, what's going to substitute out for other energy sources. And so we continue to do that. We continue to update that plan every year. And I'm confident that we will keep the transmission... I guess I would put it, not that we will have the transmission no matter what, but that we will keep the transmission plan in step with the generation plan so that when the generation's actually there, the transmission's there as well.

But we will, I think, through careful oversight, avoid the possibility that the transmission plan gets so far out ahead that we end up spending money on transmission that doesn't end up getting used. And that's the difficult balancing act that the CAISO faces.

I appreciate that, and I think, Commissioner Schori...

I was just going to add that the PUC's approved plan does include offshore wind, and the ISO is being responsive to that and having just approved the development of a major project up in the Humboldt area. Because as you pointed out, there is some surplus transmission that's available kind of in the Monterey area, but there really is not much in Humboldt.

And I will tell you that I have personally spent 10 years attempting to license a transmission line in Northern California, and it was kind of miserable. It's extremely difficult. There are so many issues to weigh, community issues, tribal issues, environmental issues, all of that. So it can be very challenging. And that's part of why you do have to start early. These are long lead time types of projects to deal with.

But the reason I think it's important to keep it on the table is that, Severin mentioned a little bit about the overwhelming number of generating requests that we got that, wanted to get into the queue to line up for transmission. They're almost all battery storage and solar. And there is an interest, I think, in preserving some resource diversity in the mix of generation that is serving California.

So it is worthwhile, at least preserving options while you can, as long as they don't cost you an arm and a leg and as long as you preserve some flexibility to adapt to circumstances as they may change over time. So I think it's good that we have this approach that we are following. Whether or not we're going to get there, it'll be quite challenging. It will be the first time anything on the West Coast like this has been developed.

Thank you. I really appreciate that. You teed up my other question, which is that three years ago one of the big subjects in your confirmation and surrounding it was just how long it took to get transmission online. And you just mentioned that. And do you... Have you seen in your time any improvement in that or do you see challenges that we can help you with? I mean, what's...

Yes and yes probably is the answer.

And don't be monosyllabic.

What I will tell you is one of the significant changes that came out of our transmission reform on the queue last year is the creation of zones and making more public information to project developers so they know where they might be able to connect, where there would be some space for them.

Because all of that was fairly confidential, it was not released. Project developers, as a result, line up, but they're not sure if they're in the right place and they don't know if they can really develop an affordable project because they don't know what the system upgrades will be that will be needed.

So the new zonal approach and the new analysis which we're going to try and get a lot more micro with to figure out where are the real places people could connect more easily. Because my experience is it's new transmission, trying to develop new transmission.

We are in the new, in the plan we just approved, for example, we're using some new technologies. Conductors, not superconductors. Advanced conductors. Excuse me, advanced conductors. So you can take existing facilities and get more power pushed through them.

We want to figure out how to work with what we already have, make it as efficient as we can, get as much pushed through it as we can before we actually have to build new. Because the building new is what becomes very, very challenging and takes a lot of time.

And there are probably things that are going to have to be addressed in terms of everything from siting issues to addressing community needs. All those sorts of things that we're going to have to work on going forward on the new facilities. But the, the ability to best utilize what we already have, we've put a lot of time and attention on that.

Do you have anything you'd like to add?

No. That covered most of it. I think that we have, the way we're doing the planning has really improved the ability of developers to know where they're going to be able to utilize transmission. There is this separate issue and frankly not one that is sort of under the CAISO's control of permitting and getting through the sort of land acquisition process.

And that is something we're well aware of. And certainly people in the transmission planning group are cognizant that these delays exist, but not one that we have direct control over. So not one that we've really focused on as much or focused on trying to change as much as trying to work with.

Thank you both. I thought those were very complete and helpful answers.

Thank you, Senator Laird. Senator Jones.

Just I think, briefly, and I know this isn't a direct part of your job, but it's important, I think, for people in California kind of learn where leaders in the energy sector are on this particular issue. And that's nuclear. Some of us have had an opportunity to travel to France and look at their nuclear development and the United Kingdom with the small modular nuclear reactors that they're developing. France currently is about 70% nuclear. The United States as a whole is 20%.

The State of New York is 20%. New Hampshire is 61%. South Carolina is 56%. We're way behind at 9% and continuing to want to close down the nuclear that we do have. The reason I'm asking is there is some admission from some environmental groups and leaders that to get to zero emissions is going to require some nuclear development. Safe, clean, and reliable nuclear because it's also zero emissions.

And there's actually some folks in the Legislature that are starting to talk about that, which I'm very happy about. I don't think we're right yet. We're not at the point yet where I think somebody's going to come up with a bill or a plan to build something right away.

But I will give credit to the New York Governor last week announcing that she's going to require her nuclear development group to start looking at building a new power plant. And your answers are not, there's no right or wrong answer. I'm just trying to figure out where you are on this and it's not dependent upon my, I'm going to support you. You both are doing a great job. I just wanted to find out where you are personally on that issue because we are going to need some people to kind of get out in front of this, I think.

Do you want me to go? Well, first off, as you pointed out, nuclear is carbon free. And so that is why I think around the country people are taking a hard look at it. I do have to preface my comments by saying that the ISO is fundamentally resource agnostic. We have the obligation to utilize the power that's the best fit and least cost to get to the best prices for the power that is coming through our markets for consumers to use.

So we don't actually make decisions on which technologies fit California's footprint. That really is at the PUC. They are the ones that make the resource adequacy determinations, the resource planning decisions, and especially longer term resource planning decisions. There's a lot of discussion now going on about small reactors. I'm not too knowledgeable about that. But I did work at SMUD through all the Rancho Seco Nuclear years.

And so I will simply tell you that nuclear is a very expensive technology from my personal experience. The safety requirements are very significant. The federal government has not made really any progress on dealing with waste disposal issues, and that becomes a huge stumbling block for folks that are attempting to figure out how you would address that kind of issue. To be honest, the fuel here in Sacramento at Rancho Seco is still sitting in dry cast storage.

The government was supposed to take it, and it is still sitting out there very securely, I will say for the record. But it is, there are those challenges which still remain and it makes it very difficult. To me, dealing with the waste disposal issues and dealing with the cost. The nuclear industry is not known for its cost effectiveness. I'll just be frank about that in my opinion.

Yeah, I'm all in favor of all technologies. Small modular reactors I've been hearing about certainly for more than a decade. And I really hope that they turn out to be cost effective and something we can build quickly. There is this fundamental problem you identified, which is we have to be able to balance the system when we have renewables, variable renewables on there.

There are many ways to do that. Clean firm power is certainly one of them. Trade with other areas is one of them, and I think it's one we're going to make some progress on. Storage is one of them, and demand flexibility is one of them. And I am optimistic that we can make progress in all those areas.

I'm not a technologist, so I'm not going to know how quickly, but I know some people I respect quite a bit who have made real investments and put their reputations behind small modular reactors. Personally, I would like to see us do more on demand flexibility. I think that's just an incredibly large resource that we have done a really bad job of tapping, not just in California, but across the country.

Let me make sure I understand what you mean by demand flexibility because I think this might be the first time I've heard that. I'm taking that to mean moving demand from 4 to 9 o'clock in the afternoon to other times of the day. Is that correct?

For instance, yes. Or, you know, getting people to... I mean people, I often raise residential examples, but probably the bigger resource is the commercial and industrial resource. I have spent a lot of time in the last few months talking to load data centers about their flexibility because intuitively it seems like they should be pretty darn flexible.

That 30 or 60 hours a year, which is where we really need the resource, they should be able to shift some of that operation to a different data center. I think they can do that. From talking to the engineers at the major hyperscalers, I've pretty much had that confirmed. But what they've said is, you know, we just don't have the incentive to do that.

So I want to also understand what you just said to make sure I understand that correctly. In all of the 365 days a year that we're generating and using electricity in that entire period of time, there's only 30 to 60 hours in a year that would be considered crunch time that we need to move major amounts of demand to a different time of day.

Well, if you're going to say major, maybe it's a couple hundred hours a year, but...

It still doesn't seem extraordinary to me.

Right. If you look at... I can't, I don't... If you look at a graph of demand over the hours, what you will see is that it's very low most of the time and then there are a few hours a year where it's incredibly high. I'll give you one example. The CAISO control area on a typical summer afternoon, not particularly warm, will have load in the low 30 gigawatts.

On a hot summer afternoon, that load is in the low 50 gigawatts. That difference is basically all air conditioning. So if we can make slight changes to air conditioning or to things that can take pressure off in those few hours a year, we can have a huge effect. So I'd like to see that tapped as well.

That's an interesting commentary. I never knew that. So thank you for sharing that. And if you want to continue on with your...

Yeah. That certainly is not any sort of negative on nuclear or on clean firm generation generally. I think we're going to need that too. I think that the right answer is going to be a combination of all four of these because I think inter-regional trade also has huge value in being able to shift that. And we've seen it. We've been able to import at times when California has been tight, and most recently we've really helped out the Northwest when they've seen in one case a real heat spell and in another case a real cold spell.

Thank you, Senator Jones. Senator Caballero.

Thank you very much, Madam Vice Chair. Thank you for being here. Really appreciate it. And I also did a tour and found it fascinating. And as a visual person, seeing things really helps me to understand where we're going and where we've come from and what the needs are and appreciate the discussion that you just had.

Let me just say that, you know, the work that's been done to try to manage a system that has extreme highs and lows and make it... I really appreciated the comment. To control cost, to make sure that energy is available, and to have it meet our climate goals are all really, really important.

And at times it seems like they're in conflict with each other. And so as we've, as you all have created the Western Energy Imbalance Market and the energy day ahead market, what is left? What is the benefit of a bigger regionalization effort? And what are the benefits and the liabilities that you see in moving to that kind of structure? I've heard a discussion about it twice, but I think that the challenge for me is really ISO, CAISO controls California, our future and our use, right.

To go to a larger region and give up control makes me nervous, mostly because the Legislature, we're all term limited out and we all leave. And I remember the energy crisis when we deregulated, I guess is the best way to put it, and all of a sudden had these spikes where you had to buy it from whoever could produce it because people needed the energy.

Maybe I'll go first. So I was in the midst of the California electricity crisis talking to the Governor and legislators. And I think that the good news is the risks of that have been greatly mitigated. There was really an under appreciation of both the problem of hitting capacity constraints and of firms manipulating the market when we get into those tight situations. And there is much greater recognition and preparation for those situations. We had essentially no market power monitoring when the California electricity crisis hit.

No organization that was really ready to be able to dig into market manipulation. We had no capacity market when that crisis hit. So basically it was what was called an energy only market with very little long term planning. We now have those. So I think that that is not a risk from going to more regional cooperation.

And I really do want to point out this is regional cooperation. First of all, it's voluntary. And second of all, the advantage of it is that we are able to buy power from other places, and California is a big net importer of electricity, when we need it. And also sell power, which we now have at certain times of the day, abundance of, particularly in the spring and when solar is producing very high levels. So there's huge value to that sort of trade.

But I think when we get into these discussions of regional markets, we often get too focused on, you know, these numbers of the gains that CAISO and others put out that, you know, how big is the value creation in dollars? The bigger value is in reliability. And we've seen that both in the examples I just gave where we've actually helped out other parts of the west. And in examples where we have been helped out, such as in September 2022 when we ran into a very, very tight market.

I think the real benefit... And in both of those cases what happened was we were able to, in real time, in seconds, re-dispatch the western grid so that more power would come in. Without a market of that sort, you literally are on the phone or on emails trying to line up power to come in, whereas here you have an operator who is able to move that power immediately.

So I think the reliability value is actually much greater than the sort of economic calculation of the re-dispatch. Both of those are significant. It's also important to understand the alternative. The alternative is not to stand where we are right now. SPP is trying to form a regional organization in the west.

And I think there's a real risk that, if California isn't able to really bring people into what I think is a more successful, more established market, we're going to be facing a new market at the border. It's not like they're going to withhold power from us, but it's going to be more difficult to trade and that's going to really undermine the gains.

Can I add 2 cents on that too? Maybe it's probably more than 2 cents. But the ISO first off is not involved in the legislation that is currently being debated in both houses. So that's not what I'm going to comment on. But we're familiar with the general pathways proposal. We've had presentations at the board meeting from regional representatives. There's kind of a core problem, which is that the WEIM, our day, the real time market that we run now has been very successful for everybody.

Good reliability benefits, good greenhouse gas reductions, lots of opportunity to sell surplus renewables from California out of state, and everybody has made money. So it has been a success all around, which is why everybody is ready to take this next step to do a bigger market, a day ahead market.

However, they never really have liked the fact that Severin and I and the other three board members that run from a institutional perspective, the ISO are gubernatorial appointees, to be frank. And to put you in sort of the shoes of these other states. If California were evaluating joining a regional market and found out it was being governed by appointees of the Governor of Nevada or Wyoming or whoever, California might be somewhat cautious and would be saying are we sure that decisions won't be made that would be biased in favor of that particular state.

So we have been hearing that pushback, to be frank, from regional representatives for several years. And that is what is really behind the, the Pathways Initiative, which is extremely different than anything I think that has gone through the Legislature before. It's not a regional transmission organization. If you look at it, California, the ISO will continue to run the markets. California is still its own balancing authority. It still has its full reliability responsibilities. It still has the obligation to follow state policies to achieve the climate goals that the state has set.

So it's very important to look at transmission planning remains with the State of California. So if you look at what is being moved to this new independent entity that is being characterized as an RO within the Pathways discussion, it's the tariff decisions, it's the Section 205 filing rights at FERC over the two markets, EDAM and the EIM.

California can still participate in that in a number of different ways, including our PUC commissioners and the ISO balancing authority itself. But that's the fundamental reason that we're here with this issue, is that the regional representatives, as Severin pointed out, are not standing still.

They are basically saying, we would like some independent governance, and we're willing to do it as minimally. We like the ISO's operation of the EIM market. We're happy with what's being characterized or what's being laid out for the EDAM market, but we'd like independent governance, at least on the market rules.

Everybody will continue to do their own thing in their own states with their own policies, et cetera. So it is different than what you've been asked to look at in the past. But it's why we have been incrementally moving forward as best we can. Because as Severin said, they really do look like there's good...

We're still buying about 20% of our energy, as I understand it, in the, to meet California's load. We have lots of surplus solar that can be sold out of state, so there's a lot of companies in California that are getting access to other markets. We have a lot of people that want to sell to us.

That means the rates are probably better. The price of power will get... The more competition you have, the better the price of power. But the big thing to me is these heat storms. If you watch what we've been seeing over the last couple of years, when it's cooler in Seattle, they have stuff to sell to us.

When it's cooler here and they're hot up there, a lot of times we can make that trade. That's been the pattern of the west, and that's why we're trying to build on what we've already been doing over the long haul. But addressing this kind of fundamental issue that the regional folks would like to see somebody independent making the market rules. We can participate, but they'd like us to be the same as other people at the table in terms of participating.

That's the best explanation I've ever heard. Quite frankly, I'm a big believer in regionalism. But the challenge is, as it's been explained to me, is we give them all the authority. I didn't realize the WEIM and the EDAM we're going to stay within...

The operation will still be with the California ISO. But in the path, I don't know what's in the Legislature. In the Pathways proposal that has been discussed with all of the regional participants and that you're probably all familiar with at this point. That proposal does contemplate that the ISO will continue to run these two markets, but they will do it under tariffs that will be filed. The market rules will be done under tariffs that will be filed by the new entity with the ISO balancing authority and other state representatives participating in that process. So it's not like we would be shut out. It's just we wouldn't have the final decision making authority.

Yeah, I think that's... Thank you for that. I do appreciate it. I actually appreciate both of the comments because it's not an easy, easy area to just jump into and understand. But if the goals remain the same and there is the opportunity for information to come to us in a way that we can understand long term what the reliability is going to be, whether we're going to meet our goals and then finally that there are some cost controls, I think that's going to be really important. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Madam Vice Chair. I don't have any further questions. I'm really impressed with both of you.

Thank you, Senator Caballero. Senator Laird has a follow up question.

Yes. And it comes from that discussion and also out of Senator Jones. And it occurs to me when you were talking with Senator Jones and just now you're talking about more demand management in some ways. But if you look at the, it was an education to me when I was negotiating, become familiar with Diablo Canyon, which is in my district, that that 9% of the load fires up for a week and is not able to be modulated.

And so what was happening is, is that we were dumping a lot of solar or wind if because we couldn't modulate that. And then when that first was happening we didn't have a lot of battery storage. And so we had to hope to either sell it outside if it was remotely possible or try to develop enough battery storage. And now on battery storage, we are still sort of having an excess of solar and wind and it had to be sold out of state.

When that happens, how are we balancing all that demand with the unmodulated nuclear, the storage not keeping up with the wind and the solar and what we have to do that now of course fits into the regionalization. If we can't sell it easily in reverse. I mean, Member Borenstein was describing one person and going right to them and being able to get. But it actually goes the other way at certain times given the conditions. How are we managing all that together?

You go first. Or I will.

Well, I was going to say, first off we have excellent staff but the point that you're making is a valid point. We still have periods, times where we end up having surplus solar and they have to be told that they have to scale back because we just don't have enough load or enough uses on the grid to support the full scale implementation.

And you have certain resources like Diablo Canyon, as you say, that's called a resource that will not load follow. Those are, those are the terms that we would use. And so once it's being dispatched, it's going to be on the grid and you have to... You have to work around.

There are certain resources that just have to run all the time in a nuclear plant, although they've talked about the ability to do load following with nuclear, but I don't think they're there yet. It is run as a base load resource. Everything else gets stacked on top of it.

Now you always take your cheapest stuff first, so you're going to use the maximum amount of solar because it's free fuel if you can. But you do end up having that challenge. And that is part of one of the arguments for the benefits of regionalization is that there are others out there that may be able to use it when our loads are not as significant.

You have to have the transmission. Obviously the big thing that we're doing now are these co-located plants where you put the batteries right next to the solar so you end up being able to charge the battery so it's ready for the net peak using solar energy to get the batteries going. And obviously we've seen a huge increase in, in that. I probably...

But just to follow up. So the planning for how to deal with that in your long term plan is more transmission to move it out or more battery storage to store it. Are those the two ways you try to deal with those?

Those are two of the ways. We also actually just had a one day retreat at the CAISO to talk about load flexibility, demand flexibility, and how demand flexibility can play a role. And I think there are some real opportunities that haven't been exploited sufficiently. And clean firm generation is going to continue to play a role, whether it is nuclear or geothermal or possibly fossil generation with carbon sequestration. I think all of those are on the table as well. We don't want to make...

We don't want to have massive amounts of curtailment, but we also don't want to make an issue that we should never curtail. Because solar has gotten so cheap, the panels have gotten so cheap that it can actually make sense to build huge solar farms and then not use all of it. That's not the best use.

The best use is if we can actually export it and find other demand that can use it. And I think we're doing a good job of making those possibilities, of exploiting those possibilities, but it's going to be a continued challenge. I will add one thing which is that, and two of you have mentioned visiting the CAISO.

CAISO gets visitors every week from, not just within California, but from outside California and outside the country because there are so many areas in the world where the grid is transitioning. And they are looking to understand how do you run the grid in a reliable way when you have very high levels of renewable resources.

And I'm very proud of the fact that we have delegations coming from China, from Europe, from Asia all the time to find out how does CAISO do it. And, you know, I, of course, don't understand the technical end of this, but I think it's a real statement about the success of this organization that so many other organizations look to us to see how do you keep a grid in balance.

Thank you. That is a very helpful addition. I appreciate it. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

Thank you, Senator Laird. With no other comments, I'm looking at the dais. We'll now open it up to public comment. Those that are in support of the nominees, please come to the microphone. State your name and a brief reason why.

Thank you, Senators. I'm Jan Smutny-Jones. I'm with the Independent Energy Producers Association. I don't have any coal, I don't have any nuke, but I represent one of everything else that's supplying electricity to California. I also had the honor at one point in time of being the Chair of the ISO during startup. And it's come a long way in the 27 years or whatever it's been. And I think these are two of the most qualified people we've had on our board in that, in that duration. And I would strongly support you advancing their confirmation. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Welcome.

Good afternoon. Tiffany Phan on behalf of a few folks in support of both appointees. First, the California Efficiency and Demand Management Council, or CEDMC, Intersect Power, and lastly, MCE. All in support of both appointees. Thank you.

Thank you. Hey.

Good afternoon. Mike Robson here on behalf of the California Municipal Utilities Association in support of both the, I guess, board members, existing board members. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else in support? We'll take those comments in opposition. If you're in opposition and would like to come to the microphone, please do so. Seeing none, we can bring it back to the dais for additional comments or a motion.

I would move that we advance both appointees to the Senate Floor for full confirmation.

Thank you, Senator Laird. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call] Four votes.

So that is four to zero. And we are going to leave the roll open for Pro Tem McGuire, and he should be back before we close out the Rules Committee. Thank you and congratulations. We're going to take a brief recess while we transition to our next nominee required to appear.

Oh, sorry. Brief break, not recess. Play on words, apologize. We're not recessing. We're going to take a brief break. And on governor's appointees require to appear, it's item 1C, the appointment of Bret Ladine, the JD, as a director to the Financial Informational System of California. And give us just a minute to change out the names, and we'll be back.

Well, we are back. Welcome Director. Thank you for being here today. We'll do the same thing that we just did with the previous nominees. We'll give you three minutes to just share a little bit about who you are and why you're doing this and introduce anybody. If you would like to do that as well. We'll move it back to the dais for questions after that. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair and Members of the Rules Committee. It's an honor to be here today and I'm particularly grateful to be supported by a few people in the audience. First, my mom, Mimi Ledeen, who like me, is a Modesto native.

My wife, Jacqueline Cantu, who, in addition to being an amazing partner, is proof that people are leaving Texas for California. I'm also pleased to have Fi$Cal's senior leadership team here. A special thanks to Chief Deputy Director Subaru Mapparaju, whose deep knowledge of Fi$Cal has greatly facilitated my transition in the past few months.

Of course, I want to thank the Governor for this appointment and I'm excited to be working under the GovOps agency led by Secretary Nick Maduros. When I began working in state government in 2016, FI$Cal was something I read and heard about from time to time. Not everything was positive.

Fi$Cal was a uniquely challenging project and some weren't pleased with some of the early results. But that was then. Much has improved about Fi$Cal in the past several years and a lot of measurable progress has been made. The vast majority of departments have been onboarded to Fi$Cal, with additional deferred departments being onboarded each year.

The accounting book of record migration, long awaited, is in sight and on track for next July. Our transparency platform, open FI$Cal is available to the public and is updated regularly and important system enhancements continue to be delivered that keep the Fi$Cal system up to date. Why is Fi$Cal a smoother operation today than it used to be?

Strong management under the prior two directors and the team sitting behind me, applying lessons learned from each of those onboardings to better serve users more effective collaboration with our partners at the Treasurer, the Comptroller, the Department of Finance and DGS, and Legislative Oversight that provided a clear roadmap that FI$Cal has followed.

It's my job to ensure that FI$Cal continues to progress on that roadmap and that we communicate that progress. We will continue to onboard deferred departments and even some exempt departments. The accounting book of record migration will happen next July.

We will make further improvements to Better serve users and we will implement efficiency oriented enhancements to the system, all while improving system security. Five months into the job, I feel good about where FI$Cal is headed and it's a privilege to have the opportunity to lead the Department. Thank you again and I look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you. Thank you very much and welcome to your guests that are here with you. We'll bring it back to the dais. Does anybody have any questions or want to start? Senator Caballero. Go ahead, ma' am,

So I can welcome. And I looked over at my. My good friend and colleague, Senator Laird. He and I were Both working for Governor Brown when FI$Cal was started. And so we have our own more stories about Fi$Cal. But let me just say that thank you for taking on this task.

It's gargantuan to get rid of legacy systems that make it very difficult to prepare reports and to show accountability to the public that want to know where is the money going and how is it being used? And that's really. FI had a whole bunch of goals in mind, but that was one of the biggest that I recall.

Can you tell us, and let me just say that I'm very familiar with bringing in new systems, new technology to help improve either. You know, I. Well, let me just cut to the chase. I was, I got hired right at the point that I had to sign the paperwork for Brees to be started.

And so it was a lesson to me in quite frankly, an inefficiency of needing a new computer system and then having to go through the process we go through in order to be able to purchase it and then have it be six years down the road when the technology has already changed and it's much better.

So I do appreciate the challenge of making the transition, building the system at the same time and then fixing what needs to be fixed. So, again, thank you for the work that you're doing.

Can you tell us how many deferred departments there are at this particular point in time and if you could estimate the percentage of the departments that will eventually migrate to the system?

Yeah, so there were 10 deferred departments. Two were onboarded last year. That brought us down to eight. And as of yesterday, two more are in progress. So we've been working on Caltrans for a while and as of yesterday, the Department of Justice is also in progress. So that will take us down to 6.

There were also some, I think it was at 1.9 or 10 that were not just deferred but exempt from using Fi$Cal from onboarding. And I think one of the many positive stories about Fi$Cal is that more than one of those exempt departments has actually opted in to using Fi$Cal.

And as of yesterday, one of those exempt departments, the State Auditor is offering onboarded they're in. So I think that is very, very good news. We expect probably one more of those exempt departments to hop in. So we feel good about the numbers.

There's now with as of yesterday about 151 departments that have been onboarded to Fi$Cal and depending on how you count, about 14 that are still remaining.

And you know, we have a, we have a pipeline, we have a timeline to get through the deferred departments and it will take until about 2032 as outlined in the, in the legislative roadmap.

So in regards to the lessons learned are there, if you could give us a real concise lessons learned in terms of the migration or the purchase of the system, that would be pithy for us to help us make better decisions in the future about how we, how we purchase our systems because we're the largest and many, many times we're the largest user of those systems.

In other words, they're sold to us, but nobody bigger than ourselves has used them. And so it becomes a challenge. If. You'Re buying off the shelf type of products.

Yeah, in Fi$cal's case, there was a lot of change involved. You had every Department with its own system. There was some, there were people who had spent their whole careers doing things a particular way and there were some integration challenges there.

And I think those were some of the sort of the biggest issues that were confronted, you know, some 10 years ago when the bulk of the onboardings were going on. And I think we learned through successive onboardings that there's a way to do it.

And that involves a lot of additional training, a lot of previewing of the system. So we've refined that onboarding process over time. It continues to be reflected find even having done it 150 times, it can only get better. And you have to be able to look at some of the results.

If you're streamlining the onboarding and you think you've made it better, are you making it better? What kind of metrics are you looking at to see if it's actually working? And one of the ones that we look at is your ability to close your year end close month end close reports on time.

And the percentage of departments that that have been able to do that has steadily climbed over the years. It's now well over 90%. A few years ago it was down in the 70s. So we see the departments have gotten, you know, they're onboarding the Fi$Cal, they're learning the system and they are doing things efficiently and on time.

And, you know, to the extent people have issues that arise, we have a lot of resources at Fi$Cal to address inquiries that come in. And they do. We handle a lot. We handle them as quickly as possible. And I think that has gotten a lot smoother over time.

And that's why you see a lot of our internal metrics, which I think we're really proud of. And I think a lot of departments would gladly trade theirs for ours. They're that good in a lot of areas. Those are the kinds of things that I think people should be attuned to when they've made such a massive change.

That was expensive.

I appreciate that and I appreciate the reports. The on time reports are really important. And the complaints in terms of having to do them, it's never easy. Change is never easy. And the migration to FI$Cal forced many departments to do things entirely different. And so there was a lot of pushback on that.

So I don't hear that anymore, which is a really good thing. And I congratulate Fi$Cal for making the transition as difficult as it's been. It really is about accountability and being able to issue those reports on time. So I appreciate that. Thank you very much for being here and for. For your answering my questions as well.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Senator Caballero, Senator Laird.

Thank you and thanks for the meeting. And I think my staff and I were marveling at your career trajectory from the Times Picayune to a congressional press secretary to a General counsel. It's not a straight line, but it's a good line. So I really appreciate that. And I think along with Senator Caballero, it's.

I was budget chair and I haven't been budget chair since 2008, when fi$cal was first funded in the state budget or the start of the planning. And then we were cabinet secretaries when it was really launched.

And I think the interesting question that we talked about and I thought it might be good for you to reflect to the Committee was just the issue of the fact that this has been going for 13 years of implementation planning before that.

And the world of technology has changed during that with the growth of the cloud and other things. So as Fi$Cal has been implemented, how has it kept up with sort of the changes in technology? How Is it not outmoded as it's taken so long to implement it in the the departments?

Yeah, we look back to about 2012 is kind of the date to look at, you know, how old or mature the fi$technology is because that's when the system integrated was hired and that that wasn't yesterday. It's been some time. We continually enhance the system and provide updates to the system we are planning.

We have a phase migration to the cloud that's well underway, multiple phases, one phase haven't been complete, one in progress.

And then ultimately looking toward the future several years out, particularly after the accounting book of record migration is done next year and you have a fiscal year or two after that, there will be a good time to allow some of our core software, those technologies to mature and an opportunity at some point to modernize those several years in the future.

But in the meantime, talking about, specifically about the enhancements we are doing and they are very much modernizing and efficiency oriented enhancements, just this year we're going to have several key efficiency oriented enhancements rolling out. And that's electronic invoicing, electronic funds transfer.

These are things that have been in development for a while and are the product of feedback from users. I might add that when implemented by departments reduce the manual processes of those departments. Electronic invoicing is a huge deal because departments everywhere are, they're using paper copies, they're scanning it at fi$cal or they're taking it from an email.

At scale, the ability to change, that is a massive change. And that's something that, you know, Fi$Cal is a living system and we like to say that's a living system because it does change, it does evolve and it can improve repeatedly long before we ever have to sort of change the core technology years into the future.

And maybe a follow up question on that because Here it is 13 years from the time that it's really been implemented. And yet there's always a life to these and it seems like there's a lesser life looking forward than from the time it started.

So how long do you expect this system to work for state government and need either a fundamental change or upgrade or something new?

Well, the good news is that our core technologies, which are Oracle, PeopleSoft and Hyperion, are both live on the market tools out there and they are both supported for about another 10 years. So we know that they are not approaching obsolescence.

The vendors are very much still alive and constantly updating their products, which makes it easier for us as well. So it's not as if the 2012 version of Fi$Cal, when the system integrator was brought on, is that it's frozen in time and we've got this thing that's 13 years old.

It's constantly being updated, and the ability to update in a robust fashion continues for about 10 years. But nonetheless, we will be planning before then, particularly after the accounting book of record migration occurs, to see the most sensible way to go about eventually modernizing the system.

But in the meantime, we're avoiding hardware costs where possible, and moving to the cloud where it makes sense and trying to go about things as efficiently as possible.

Well, as a layperson, I don't totally know what it means to be supported for 10 years. Oh no, I get the cloud at least. So what does that mean?

Does that mean they could decide that, that this is good, there's upgrades, they could support it for longer than 10 years, or does it mean that in about three or four years we have to start planning some migration or some. A fix that's 10 years out? How do we. What's the situation?

We have, we have 10 years of a period where there is, there's active support for the product from the vendor that if there are, there are errors, there are problems and they're. And they're upgrading their software in the meantime. So it's not.

No, I sort of get that, but I don't get what the 10 years means. Does that mean it's all over or does that mean there's a chance that they make improvements and it's longer than 10 years and we don't have to have that discussion about a migration, a whole new system, taking it on ourself, whatever it is.

It wouldn't be all over. But you run the risk of essentially the vendor not available to stand behind the product as much. But it's worth noting that the support has been extended for 10 years for those products. They've been repeatedly extended over time. It's possible they could be extended further.

In fact, perhaps likely that incrementally as these tools are adopted by all kinds of users all over the place, in the case of some, even the US army having I think picked up PeopleSoft in the last year or two. So these are tools that we have that other large entities are using and trusting for some time.

Okay, thank you.

I really appreciate the responses.

Thank you. We just recently in my business updated our software, our hardware and then our software, the major server and then the program, and we did the same thing, but we have. And again, it's way Smaller than the State of California. It's a small business.

But we have the option to extend a contract for updates and support services and new information or new updates. And I would assume the state would be the same. Yeah, I had questions, but all of my questions were asked. I was curious about the accounting, the integration or migration, like, how are we going to do that?

You answered that. The status of the timeline and what that is, and you answered that. And then the expected outcomes. And you answered that. So I will turn it over to Senator Jones, who. You're good. Okay. Any other comments?

So seeing no other comments from the dais, individuals in the audience that would like to come forward and provide support, please do so. Come to the microphone. Identify yourself, your organization and the reason for support. Call for support one more time.

Seeing none, we know his family's in support. They're just not walking to the podium.

See no one in support to walking to the microphone. I will take individuals in opposition that wish to testify in opposition. Seeing none, I will bring it back to the dais.

I would move that we forward the nomination to the Senate Floor for a full confirmation.

Thank you, Senator Laird, for that nomination. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

Mcguire. Grove, aye. Grove, aye. Caballero, aye.

Caballero, aye. Jones. Jones, aye. Laird, aye. Laird, aye. Four votes. So that is four to zero, sir. Congratulations. We will keep the roll open for Pro Tem Mcguire. Once we obtain his vote, we will forward the nomination to the full Senate Floor.

Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you, your family, for being here today. And welcome to California, Miss Texas. South Texas, Tiny town. Carm City south of San Antonio.

So the Senate rules will be on break for just a few minutes. Thank you for your patience and we will be back shortly. It.

So the Rules Committee is back in. In not session, but back from our brief break. The Senate Pro Tem is here. We're going to open up the roll and Madam Secretary, will you please call the roll on item? I will get there in just one second. Sorry. Item one A and B first.

Severin Borenstein and Jan Shorey, Members of the independent system operating governing board. McGuire. McGuire, aye. 5 to 5-0. That motion is passed to the full Senate Floor. And then on item one C. Madam Secretary, will you open the roll? [Roll Call] Thank you.

We'll close those rolls and that confirmation is headed to the Senate Floor. And I apologize, I should have gave it back to you to do that. Okay, thank you. And the Senate Committee on Rules is now closed, going into Executive session. So we'd ask all staff or who's not supposed to be here to leave the room session.