 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Prepared Witness Testimony The House Committee on Energy and Commerce
Blackout 2003: How Did It Happen and Why?
Full Committee on Energy and Commerce
The Honorable Spencer Abraham
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the August 14th blackout and the work of the joint U.S.-Canada Task Force that is investigating the cause or causes of the blackout and the reasons it cascaded to encompass such a wide area. Given that the U.S.-Canada Task Force has not yet completed its investigation, I will not speculate today as to why the August 14th blackout occurred or why it was not better contained. Such speculation would be premature. The Task Force will follow the facts wherever they lead us. We won't jump to conclusions. Our investigation will be thorough and objective. At the appropriate time and in consultation with the other U.S. and Canadian members of the Task Force, I will report to you on the Task Force's findings and recommendations. In the meantime, I want to describe for the Committee how the Task Force was formed and how it is conducting its work. On August 15, 2003, only hours after the blackout had occurred, President Bush announced that he and Canadian Prime Minister Chretien had agreed to form a Task Force to investigate the causes of the blackout and to make recommendations on how to minimize the risk of future outages. The President and Prime Minister determined that, given the international scope of the August 14 event, a bilateral investigation would be more efficient and would end the counterproductive international finger-pointing that began immediately after the blackout. President Bush appointed me to serve as co-chair of the Task Force along with Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Herb Dhaliwal, appointed by Prime Minister Chretien. On August 20th, I met in Detroit with Minister Dhaliwal. That day, we agreed on a joint communiqué expressing our determination to work cooperatively and quickly in carrying out the Task Force's work. Based on our discussions with each other and with relevant government agencies in each country, we also agreed on the membership of the Task Force and to an outline that lays out the working structure for the inquiry and the initial questions that the Task Force will address. The U.S. members of the Task Force are Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland Security, Pat Wood, Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and Nils J. Diaz, Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Canadian members are Deputy Prime Minister John Manley, Kenneth Vollman, Chairman of the National Energy Board, and Linda J. Keen, President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Minister Dhaliwal and I agreed to a narrowly focused investigation to determine precisely what happened - in phase one, to identify why the blackout was not contained, and in phase two, to recommend what should be done to prevent the same thing from happening again. Our recommendations will focus on technical standards for operation and maintenance of the grid, and on the management of the grid, in order to more quickly correct the problems we identify. Because of the complexity of the work before us, the Task Force established three working groups to support the fact-finding phase of its work - an electrical system working group, a security working group, and a nuclear issues working group. These groups are chaired by the U.S. and Canadian agencies best able to carry out the work. In addition, as was stated in the August 20 statement issued by the U.S.-Canada Task Force, the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) "and the affected Independent System Operators and utilities have agreed that their investigations will supplement and contribute to the work of the Task Force." Even before my meeting with Minister Dhaliwal, and shortly after the blackout occurred, I used my authority as Energy Secretary to assemble and dispatch a number of individuals to begin investigating the blackout. I also asked industry officials with involvement in the blackout and the recovery process to preserve all data of potential relevance to our investigation. The Task Force team has grown larger since those first days and is working hard to collect and review the massive amounts of data involved, as well as to interview officials from NERC, the relevant utilities, and the independent system operators. As I have repeatedly stated since being named Task Force co-chairman, we are not setting a deadline for completing our work. We are focusing on doing the job right - not on meeting an arbitrary deadline. The complexity of the challenge demands no less than our full attention and enough time to do a complete and thorough job of assessing what happened and putting forth our recommendations and solutions. Finally, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your complimentary remarks concerning my efforts with respect to the investigation. I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
|
|||||||||||
|
