Sen. McCormick’s Power Agenda

**Peter Hamby** (0:05)
Welcome to The Powers That Be, everybody. Today, we have a special Saturday episode starring my Washington colleague, Leigh Ann Caldwell, who sat down with Senator Dave McCormick at the top of the Riggs Hotel this week for a Puck Power Breakfast, sponsored by the Edison Electric Institute. The Pennsylvania senator is hyper-focused on energy, of course, because Pennsylvania is the second highest energy producing state. But they also talked about the war in Iran, permitting reform and his very interesting relationship with Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, and whether McCormick is trying to get Fetterman to switch parties. Please enjoy this Saturday Conversation.

**John Kelly** (0:48)
Hi, I'm John Kelly, I'm the founder of Puck. Thank you so much for being here on this jury morning. I don't know if this is an overcast guy or the Canadian wildfires, but we're going to make the best of it. The Riggs Rooftop is my favorite place in town, and even on an overcast day like today, it's really a wonderful way to get started.
We've been running this breakfast event series for about a year and a half now, and this is unquestionably the high water mark. I can't tell you how much respect I have for Senator McCormick. It's very easy to be cynical about politics these days, about the actions of a number of candidates. But when you see someone like Dave, who has served our country, who's run one of the most consequential businesses in the entire financial sector and really frankly, one of the most consequential financial firm is in the world, who's also an educator and you think that in the prime of his life, he's decided to give back to his country.
What are we talking about? That's the most extraordinary gift that we could ever possibly ask for. So I can't wait to hear Dave in conversation today with my partner, Leigh Ann Caldwell, but first, I want to thank our friends from Edison. I want to bring up my pal Drew to give a quick opening remarks. Thank you so much for being here, guys. I really appreciate it.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:05)
Well, thank you, John. Great for hosting us here today. I am very excited.
If you don't know EEI, we are the Investor Owned Utility Trade Association in DC.
We power 250 million Americans, so three in four Americans receive power from us. We connect 3,200 new households every day, 200 new businesses every day. But most importantly, we operate the electric grid, which is the most critical engine for national security and economic security in this country. If you think about the number of devices and appliances in your home, it's over 100, and every day they work. And just a couple of weeks ago, we had the highest heat during the July 4th celebrations here in Washington, DC.
And we had record output of electricity output. And why did that work? It's because over the years, we've invested more than $200 billion a year in making sure the electrical grid is resilient and reliable. And that's really critical to why we're here, and we're going to talk with Senator McCormick today. But let me have one sort of personal note. I started this job about a year ago.
And on my second week of the job, I went up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to join Senator McCormick's Energy and Innovation Conference. And it was an amazing gathering of bipartisan leaders and business executives trying to figure out how do we continue to attract investment and innovation in Pennsylvania and across the United States. And the one thing I came away with is what's really critical is regulatory certainty. It's easy for politicians to shoot shots at different people out there. But what's critical is we're investing over a 30 to 50 year period. So we really need that regulatory certainty. And I know that Senator McCormick, with his investment background, really appreciates that. And that's why he led that Innovation Conference not only last year, but did it again this year in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. So no more to say for me. I just want to introduce Leigh Ann Caldwell, who's going to interview Senator McCormick.

**Leigh Ann Caldwell** (4:26)
Well, thank you all for being here. We're really excited for our next installment of Puck Breakfast happening right now, Senator Dave McCormick. Senator, you're on some pretty important committees on Foreign Relations, Energy, Banking as well. So we're going to get to a lot of things, but I really want to start with some News of the Day questions, which really intertwines with why we're here today to talk about energy. And that, of course, is the war in Iran. We're on our 10th straight day now of hostilities again with Iran.