Lee, Mike: Good morning. The committee will come to order. Today, the committee will receive testimony on the current state of the bulk power system in the United States. Before giving my opening statement, I'll set forth how exactly we're going to proceed this morning. Ranking Member Heinrich and I will each give our opening statements followed by witness testimony, and then we'll move to questions. Members of the committee will be recognized in order of seniority, for those who are here at the gavel and based on the order of arrival for those arriving after the gavel. I want to thank Ranking Member Heinrich and his team for working with us on today's hearing. This hearing is one of a series on the importance of permitting reform to inform our committee's deliberations on the challenges facing the nation's bulk power system and what Congress should do to address them. We'll hear from three experts on this matter. They are Travis Fisher, the Director of Energy and Environmental Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Todd Snitchler, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Electric Power Supply Association, and Dr. Liza Reed, Director of Climate and Energy at the Niskanen Center. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank each of you for being here, and we look forward to hearing your testimony. We're facing a growing imbalance between supply and demand. Over the last decade, we in the United States have retired dozens of gigawatts of reliable, dispatchable generation. For a time, that may have been manageable. Demand was relatively flat. The system had some margin, but that's no longer the case. We're entering a period of sustained demand growth that will require more and more dispatchable energy. Data centers, advanced manufacturing, the electrification of vehicles and home appliances, these are structural changes in our economy that require really large amounts of electricity around the clock. Our grid was designed to meet peaks. Most of the time, it operates with excess capacity, but that cushion is shrinking. In some regions, the margin is already gone, and we're running out of headroom. Without additional supply, we face severe consequences, higher costs, greater volatility, and increased risks to reliability. Some look at this surge in new demand and suggest that the solution should be to limit demand, to slow or restrict data center development, to constrain growth. I don't believe that that's consistent with how this country approaches or ought to approach opportunity. The United States has never faced challenges, certainly hasn't ever solved them by capping progress. We solve them by building. The better path is to unlock new supply, to ensure that our regulatory framework allows infrastructure to be built in a timely and a predictable way, to ensure that markets are structured, to send the right signals, to attract investment, and to ensure that reliability remains the foundation of the system. The Federal Power Act envisioned a robust interconnected grid, one that spreads costs, one that provides redundancy built into its own system, one that delivers affordable electricity reliably to consumers. That idea still matters, but it requires a system that can respond to these changing conditions. Right now, we're falling behind that need. Permitting delays are slowing projects across all forms of energy infrastructure. Market distortions are affecting investment decisions, and the pace of innovation in the electricity sector is not where it needs to be. So we have an opportunity in front of us. If we allow supply and demand to function, if we modernize permitting, and if we ensure that markets are truly competitive, we can solve this challenge. But if we don't, the imbalance we're seeing today will become more severe, and the consequences will be felt by American households and businesses. So this hearing is about understanding those risks and identifying solutions to meet them. How can we reform permitting at the federal level? How can we build a regulatory framework that supports reliability and affordability? And how can we foster the kind of innovation the electric sector requires amid this very rapid demand growth? America needs to build, and we need to do it in a way that keeps ratepayers at the center of our decisions. This is the standard that we should be aiming for, the benefit to the consumer. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. And now the chair recognizes Senator Heinrich, the ranking member of the committee.