Press Release - Transcript of opening statement of Senator Pia S. Cayetano

This meeting is called to order. This is a joint hearing with the Committees on Energy, Ways and Means, and Finance. On the agenda today are SBNs 217, 486, 1612, and 2348 amending the Electric Power Industry Reform Act otherwise known as EPIRA of 2001, filed by Senators Tulfo, Gatchalian, and Villanueva, and Senate Bill 487 the Energy Regulatory Commission Governance Act by Senator Gatchalian.

I know it's a complex law, and given the amount of time we have before Congress goes on break in February. Everyone has told me that there's not enough time to completely amend EPIRA. So, what we will do to ensure that we do have time to amend some substantive provisions is to focus on amending the provisions that affect the ERC.

What I'd like to do for an orderly flow of our discussion is to ask everyone, we're focusing on ERC, and if your particular agency that you represent does not have any direct, specific contributions to that discussion, then you still have the floor. You can just quickly summarize general concerns you have on EPIRA.

My general rule in all my hearings is don't read your position papers to me. That's my job to read the position papers when I'm on my own time. During this hearing, you just summarize these concerns, point out what is the most important. It is fine to really express your grave concerns about the issues at hand, but don't read the position paper to me. Just tell me it's there, and I will take care of reading that myself. Yeah, so that's our objective for today.

For the sake of the public that can watch us, our goal, of course, is energy security. Our goal is that people have access to electricity in a reliable manner and not in intermittent energy. And we need our regulatory bodies to be on the ball, to be able to react quickly and not 3 years later and not 5 years later.

I am new to this. Most of you have been here longer than me, but I know enough to know that this contributes to the problem, that our regulatory bodies are not able to efficiently resolve pending approvals that are with them. They are not able to address concerns that are being raised. So that's what our goal is in the long-run. I know you have had initial hearings in