Hurricanes and Electricity Infrastructure Hardening

This Insight discusses the measures undertaken by electric utilities to prevent or mitigate power outages resulting from severe weather events. Power lines and transformers used to provide electricity to customers are particularly susceptible to damage due to their exposure to the elements. (See CRS Report R42696, Weather-Related Power Outages and Electric System Resiliency.) The loss of life and extensive damage seen so far in the 2017 hurricane season has refocused the attention of Congress on the destructive potential of such storms. High winds, rain, and coastal surges can combine to create floods which exacerbate damage from hurricanes. Other severe weather …

Unlocking Private Capital to Finance Sustainable Infrastructure

This report introduces a framework to mobilize private finance for sustainable infrastructure projects. The framework’s focus includes: identifying suitable funding models, establishing performance measurement, managing diverse risks, and facilitating effective stakeholder engagement. The report’s findings are drawn from a comprehensive review of best practices and in-depth interviews with experts and thought leaders involved in the deployment, financing and market development of sustainable infrastructure. Interview participants included representatives from the public, private and non-profit sectors and experts in complementary fields including social impact investing, renewable energy, and community-development finance…

Catalyzing Green Infrastructure On Private Property: Recommendations for a Green, Equitable, and Sustainable New York City

A little more than 25 years ago, New York City faced a formidable challenge. To protect the drinking water of the eight million people who lived and worked in the Big Apple, it confronted construction costs of nearly $10 billion and operating costs of $365 million annually for a new system that would filter the 1.1 billion gallons of water that New Yorkers used every day. But instead of using a more traditional approach involving concrete and pipes—what’s often called “gray infrastructure”—it did something transformational. The City created an extraordinary partnership among government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and watershed farms and …

DOE study: Markets and infrastructure key to electric reliability and resilience

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) new report on the U.S. electric grid makes valuable recommendations for expanding access to reliable, low-cost electricity by streamlining approval of electric transmission infrastructure and using markets to procure essential reliability services. As a low-cost source of energy that can provide reliability services as well as or better than conventional power plants, wind energy will flourish with the expansion of markets and infrastructure…

Economic Impact of Infrastructure Investment

Infrastructure investment has received renewed interest as of late, with both President Trump and some Members of Congress discussing the benefits of such spending. Infrastructure can be defined in a number of ways depending on the policy discussion; in general, however, the term refers to longer-lived, capital-intensive systems and facilities, such as roads, bridges, and water treatment facilities.

Over the past several decades, government investment in infrastructure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) has declined. Annual infrastructure investment by federal, state, and local governments peaked in the late 1930s, at about 4.2% of GDP, and since has fallen …

Cybersecurity: Critical Infrastructure Authoritative Reports and Resources

Critical infrastructure is defined in the USA PATRIOT Act (P.L. 107-56, §1016(e)) as “systems and assets, physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health and safety, or any combination of those matters.”

Presidential Decision Directive 63, or PDD-63, identified activities whose critical infrastructures should be protected: information and communications; banking and finance; water supply; aviation, highways, mass transit, pipelines, rail, and waterborne commerce; emergency and law enforcement services; emergency, fire, and continuity of government services; public …

Office of Energy Projects Energy Infrastructure Update

Eastern Shore received authorization to place into service its White Oak Mainline Expansion Project which will provide
45 MMcf/d of capacity to Calpine Energy to serve its proposed 309 MW Garrison Energy Center in Dover, DE. Transco received authorization to place into service partial path of its Dalton Expansion Project. The Project will
provide 448 MMcf/d of capacity from Transco’s Station 210 in Mercer County, NJ through the proposed Dalton Lateral
to delivery points in Murray County, GA. Transco received authorization to commence partial path interim service from
the 210 station Zone 6 Pooling Point to the Holmesville interconnect in

Office of Energy Projects Energy Infrastructure Update

• Elba Express received authorization to place into service the Rincon Compressor Station associated with the EEC Modification Project in Effingham County, GA. • Dominion Cove Point LNG received authorization to place into service

• Dominion Cove Point LNG received authorization to place into service its Keys Energy Project which will provide 107 MMcf/d of capacity to Keys Energy Center’s 735 MW power plant in Prince Georges County, MD. • Rover Pipeline received authorization to construct and operate its Rover Pipeline Project which would provide 3,250 MMcf/d of capacity from supply areas in WV, PA, and OH to interconnection with …

Advancing Climate-Compatible Infrastructure Through the G-20

To date, 17 G-20 countries—which account for 67 percent of global greenhouse gas pollution—have officially joined the Paris Agreement, bringing the pact into effect sooner than anyone expected.1 If they follow through with their commitments to reduce emissions, it will represent unprecedented progress in the global effort to curb climate change.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, meanwhile, has suggested a number of actions, including dismantling the Clean Power Plan and pledging to “cancel” the Paris Agreement, that would drive the United States—and potentially other countries—in the opposite direction.2 In light of this, the G-20 summit in July 2017 provides an important …

Office of Energy Projects Energy Infrastructure Update

Natural Gas Highlights

Southern Natural placed into service its South Main Expansion Project which will provide 5 MMcf/d of capacity to serve municipal gas systems located across Southern Natural’s South Georgia Lateral. Dominion Carolina Gas received authorization to place into service its Columbia to Eastover Project which will provide 18 MMcf/d of capacity to serve International Paper Company’s pulp and paper mill in Richland County, SC. Rockies Express received authorization to place into service its REX Zone 3 Enhancement Project (except the faciltiies authorized at the existing Hamilton Compressor Station in Warren County, OH) which will provide 800 MMcf/d of