Steering Committee Co-Chair

Director, Energy Geosciences Division

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Dr. Jens Birkholzer is a Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab). As an internationally recognized expert in subsurface energy applications and environmental impact assessment, he currently serves as the Director for the Energy Geosciences Division (EGD) in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area (EESA). He received his Ph.D. in water resources, hydrology, and soil science from Aachen University of Technology in Germany in 1994. Dr. Birkholzer joined LBNL in 1994, left for a management position in his native Germany in 1999, and eventually returned to LBNL in 2001. He has over 300 scientific publications, about 120 of which are in peer-reviewed journals, in addition to numerous research reports. He serves as the Associate Editor of the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control (IJGGC) and is also on the Board of Editorial Policy Advisors for the Journal of Geomechanics for Energy and Environment (GETE). Dr. Birkholzer leads the international DECOVALEX Project as its Chairman, is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, and serves as a Senior Fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology.

President, Petroleum Engineer, Program Manager

ALL Consulting 

Mr. Arthur is a registered professional petroleum engineer specializing in fossil energy, planning/engineering, the entire lifecycle of water, resource development best practices, gas storage, and environmental/regulatory issues. He has 30 years of diverse experience that includes work in industry, government, and consulting. Mr. Arthur is a founding member of ALL Consulting and has served as the company's President and Chief Engineer since its inception in 1999.

Prior to founding ALL Consulting, Mr. Arthur served as a Vice President of a large international consulting engineering firm and was involved with a broad array of work, including supporting the energy industry, various federal agencies, water and wastewater projects (municipal/industrial), environmental projects, various utility related projects, and projects related to the mining industry. Mr. Arthur's experience also includes serving as an enforcement officer and National Expert for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a drilling and operations engineer with an independent oil producer, as well as direct work with an oilfield service company in the mid-continent.

In 2016, Mr. Arthur was appointed to serve on a Steering Committee for Natural Gas Storage for the California Council on Science and Technology. Mr. Arthur's role on the Committee is primarily focused on well construction, integrity and testing based on his expertise, but also included overall analysis on issues such as global climate change and other issues (e.g., induced seismicity, gas markets, etc.). In 2010, as the shale boom was heightening, Mr. Arthur was appointed to serve as a Sub-Group Leader for a National Petroleum Council study on North American Resource Development. His Sub-Group focused on technology that is and will be needed to address development (e.g., hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling, production, etc.) and environmental challenges through the year 2050. Mr. Arthur was also appointed to a U.S. Department of Energy Federal Advisory Committee on Unconventional Resources. And lastly, Mr. Arthur supported the U.S. Department of Energy through the Annex III Agreement between the United States and China to provide support relative to coal bed methane and shale gas development in China.

Mr. Arthur routinely serves as a testifying and/or consulting expert on a broad variety of issues that range from basic engineering to catastrophic incidents. He has also served to advise management and legal teams on a plethora of issues in an effort to avoid litigation, reach settlements, or develop strategies for future activities. His experience and continued level of activity on such issues has expanded his experience on a variety of issues, while also exposing him to an array of technical and forensic approaches to assess past activities, claims, etc. Mr. Arthur is also a member of the National Association of Forensic Engineers (NAFE).

Mr. Arthur has managed an assortment of projects, including regulatory analysis (e.g., new regulation development process, commenting/strategizing on new proposed regulations, negotiating with regulatory agencies on proposed regulations, analysis of implementation impacts, etc.); engineering design (including roads, well pads, design of various types of wells; completions/fracturing; water and wastewater systems, and oil & gas facilities); life cycle analysis and modeling; resource evaluations; energy development alternatives analysis (e.g., oil, gas, coal, electric utility, etc.); feasibility analyses (including power plants, landfills, injection wells, water treatment systems, mines, oil & gas plays, etc.); remediation and construction; site closure and reclamation site decommissioning; reservoir evaluation; regulatory permitting and environmental work; geophysical well logging; development of new mechanical integrity testing methods, standards, and testing criteria; conduction and interpretation of well tests; restorative maintenance on existing wells and well sites; extensive hydrogeological and geochemical analysis of monitoring and operating data; sophisticated 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional modeling; geochemical modeling; drilling and completion operations; natural resource and environmental planning; natural resource evaluation; governmental and regulatory negotiations; restoration and remediation; environmental planning, design, and operations specific to the energy industry in environmentally sensitive areas; water management planning; alternative analysis for managing produced water; beneficial use of produced water; water treatment analysis and selection; produced water disposal alternatives; facilities engineering for wastewater handling (e.g., disposal wells, injection wells, water treatment, water recycling, water blending, etc.); construction oversight; contract negotiations and management; contract negotiation with wastewater treatment companies accepting produced water; data management related to water and environmental issues; property transfer environmental assessments; and data management of oil and gas producing and related injection well data and information. He maintains experience with the technical and regulatory aspects of oil and gas and underground injection throughout North America. He has given presentations, workshops, and training sessions to groups and organizations on an assortment of related issues and has provided his consulting expertise to hundreds of large and small clients - including several major international energy companies and government agencies.

Specific to unconventional resource development, Mr. Arthur has gained experience in all aspects of planning, development, operations, and closure. Mr. Arthur has supported the evolution of various activities through this process that have included technical issues such as water sourcing, well drilling techniques, cement design, well integrity analysis, fracturing design & analysis, well performance assessment, production operations and facilities, well plugging & abandonment, site closures, and regulatory compliance. Mr. Arthur's experience covers ever major unconventional play in North America and on other continents. Moreover, Mr. Arthur's experience also includes work with horizontal drilling and various types of completions in both conventional and unconventional reservoirs and with various types of unconventional reservoirs (e.g., shales, limestones, coal).

Principal Engineer

Earth Science & Technology Directorate, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Mr. Riley Duren is Chief Systems Engineer for the Earth Science and Technology Directorate at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He received his BS in electrical engineering from Auburn University in 1992. He has worked at the intersection of engineering and science including seven space missions ranging from earth science to astrophysics. His current portfolio spans JPL's earth system science enterprise as well as applying the discipline of systems engineering to climate change decision-support. His research includes anthropogenic carbon emissions and working with diverse stakeholders to develop policy-relevant monitoring systems. He is Principal Investigator for five projects involving anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane emissions. He has also co-led studies on geoengineering research, monitoring, and risk assessment. He is a Visiting Researcher at UCLA's Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering and serves on the Advisory Board for NYU's Center for Urban Science and Progress.

Vice-President of Policy and Client Services

California Independent System Operator (ISO), Retired

Ms. Karen Edson has nearly 40 years of experience involving state and federal energy issues. Most recently, she served as Vice-President of Policy and Client Services for the California Independent System Operator (ISO) from 2005 until her retirement in 2016. She performed a key role in building and maintaining strategic partnerships with responsibilities that included overseeing the outreach and education needs of a diverse body of stakeholders, state and federal regulators and policy makers. She was also a leader of internal policy development and oversaw internal and external communications. Her work in the energy field began in the seventies as a legislative aide and state agency government affairs director, leading to her appointment to the California Energy Commission by Governor Jerry Brown in 1981. After her term ended, she founded a small consulting firm that represented non-utility interests including geothermal and solar energy providers, industrial firms with combined heat and power, electric vehicle interests, and several trade associations. Ms. Edson holds a Bachelor's degree from the University of California Berkeley.

Practice Director, Energy Economics

Aspen Environmental Group

Elder has 30 years of experience working in the natural gas and electric generation business and leads Aspen's Energy Economics practice, specializing in assistance to state energy agencies, public power entities and others. Elder worked on both federal and state-level natural gas industry restructuring as an employee of Pacific Gas and Electric Company beginning in the mid-1980's. She has reviewed fuel plans and advised lenders providing nonrecourse financing to more than 40 different gas-fired power projects across the U.S. and Canada, and has served as the Chief Gas Price Forecaster both for consultancy R.W. Beck and for the State of California's then-record $13 Billion financing of purchased power arising from the 2000-2001 power crisis. She holds a Master in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and an undergraduate degree in Political Economy (with Honors) from the University of California, Berkeley.

In starting her career at PG&E, Elder helped develop the policies and rules that to this day govern the natural gas market and regulatory framework in California. These include the unbundling of gas from transportation, the development of independent gas storage, and efforts to allow larger customers and marketers to bid for pipeline capacity in an auction whose results would have been used to establish priority of service. (The latter was abandoned in favor of a simpler mechanism in settlement.)

Since leaving PG&E in 1991, Elder worked for two years at law firm Brady & Berliner as its internal consultant, working often with Canadian natural gas producers selling natural gas in the U.S. She then joined Morse, Richard, Weisenmiller & Associates as a Senior Project Manager in Oakland, CA. From 1998 to 2003 she was a Principal Executive Consultant at Resource Management, Inc, in Sacramento, which ultimately became Navigant Consulting. At Navigant she performed independent reviews of natural gas markets, gas arrangements and disconnects between electricity and natural gas markets in support of nonrecourse financing by large financial institutions. She also reviewed the gas arrangement included in many of the tolling agreements put in place by the California Department of Water Resources during the 2000-2001 power crisis and developed the natural gas price forecast used by the state to project gas and electricity costs underlying the associated $13 Billion bond financing. In 2003 she joined consultancy RW Beck, as its natural gas market expert and chief price forecaster, and in 2009 joined Aspen Environmental Group. At Aspen, Elder leads the Energy Economics practice. Key clients have included the American Public Power Association, for whom she authored a major report in 2010 entitled "Implications of Greater Reliance on Natural Gas for Electricity Generation," and the California Energy Commission. Elder has served as the independent fuel consultant for lenders to more than 40 natural gas-fired power projects across the U.S. and Canada.

Elder is an Ex Officio Steering Committee member, due to her role as a lead author and technical expert for each of the three key questions of the report. Serving as an ex officio member ensures regular interaction with the rest of the Steering Committee and improves the quality of the final report. She is responsible for her portion of the report, and is not responsible for portions she did not contribute to.

Staff Scientist

Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Jeffery Greenblatt has been involved with modeling pathways of low-carbon energy future since 2006. He has published a number of studies including the groundbreaking California's Energy Future study (sponsored California Council on Science and Technology), an analysis of California greenhouse gas policies in Energy Policy, an analysis of US policies in Nature Climate Change, and a review of the future of low-carbon electricity forthcoming in Annual Review of Environment and Resources. He also works on the life-cycle assessment of emerging technologies including artificial photosynthesis and autonomous vehicles, was involved with both DOE's Quadrennial Technology Review and Quadrennial Energy Review efforts, and recently started a consulting company focused on space technologies. He has more than 15 years of experience in climate change and low-carbon energy technology assessment and modeling. Prior to joining LBNL in 2009, Dr. Greenblatt worked at Google on the Renewable Electricity Cheaper than Coal initiative, at Environmental Defense Fund as an energy scientist, at Princeton University as a research staff member, and at NASA Ames as a National Research Council associate. He received a Ph.D. in chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1999.

He is an Ex Officio Steering Committee member, due to his role as a lead author and technical expert for each of the three key questions of the report. Serving as an ex officio member ensures regular interaction with the rest of the Steering Committee and improves the quality of the final report. He is responsible for his portion of the report, and is not responsible for portions he did not contribute to.

Professor and Chair

Earth Sciences Department, Stanford University

Robert B. Jackson is Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor and chair of the department of Earth System Science in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. He studies how people affect the earth, including research on the global carbon and water cycles, biosphere/atmosphere interactions, energy use, and climate change.

Jackson has received numerous awards. He is a Fellow in the American Geophysical Union and the Ecological Society of America and was honored at the White House with a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering. In recent years, he directed the DOE National Institute for Climate Change Research for the southeastern U.S., co-chaired the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan, and is currently CHAIR of the Global Carbon Project (www.globalcarbonproject.org).

An author and photographer, Rob has published a trade book about the environment (The Earth Remains Forever, University of Texas Press) and two books of children's poems, Animal Mischief and Weekend Mischief (Highlights Magazine and Boyds Mills Press). His photographs have appeared in many media outlets, including the NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today, US News and World Report, Nature, and National Geographic.

Disclosure of Conflict of Interest

In accordance with the practice of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST), CCST makes best efforts to ensure that no individual appointed to serve on a committee has a conflict of interest that is relevant to the functions to be performed, unless such a conflict is promptly and publicly disclosed and CCST determines that the conflict is unavoidable. A conflict of interest refers to an interest, ordinarily financial, of an individual that could be directly affected by the work of the committee. An objective determination is made for each provisionally appointed committee member whether or not a conflict of interest exists given the facts of the individual's financial and other interests, and the task being undertaken by the committee. A determination of a conflict of interest for an individual is not an assessment of that individual's actual behavior or character or ability to act objectively despite the conflicting interest.

We have concluded that for this committee to accomplish the tasks for which it was established, its membership must include, among others, individuals with research and expertise in the area of natural gas storage facilities and Aliso Canyon gas leak disaster in order to assess the longterm viability of underground natural gas storage facilities in California.

To meet the need for this expertise and experience, Professor Rob Jackson was proposed for appointment to the committee even though we have concluded that he has a conflict of interest because of his participation in a study at this university that is funded in part by an entity that could be affected by the results of the study.

As his biographical summary makes clear, Professor Jackson is a recognized expert in global carbon and water cycles, biosphere/atmosphere interactions, energy use, and climate change.

After an extensive search, we have been unable to find another individual with the equivalent combination of expertise in energy law as Professor Jackson, who does not have a similar conflict of interest. Therefore, we have concluded that this potential conflict is unavoidable.

Professor and Chair

Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles

Dr. Michael Jerrett is an internationally recognized expert in Geographic Information Science for Exposure Assessment and Spatial Epidemiology. He is a full professor and the chair of the Department of Environmental Health Science, and Director of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Jerrett is also a professor in-Residence in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Jerrett earned his PhD in Geography from the University of Toronto. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Jerrett has researched how to characterize population exposures to air pollution and built environmental variables, the social distribution of these exposures among different groups (e.g., poor vs. wealthy), and how to assess the health effects from environmental exposures. He has worked extensively on how the built environment affects exposures and health, including natural experimental design studies. He has published some of the most widely-cited papers in the fields of Exposure Assessment and Environmental Epidemiology in leading journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, and Nature. In 2009, the United States National Academy of Science appointed Dr. Jerrett to the Committee on "Future of Human and Environmental Exposure Science in the 21st Century." The Committee concluded its task with the publication of a report entitled Exposure Science in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy. In 2014 and 2015, he was named to the Thomson-Reuters List of Highly-Cited Researchers, indicating he is in the top 1% of all authors in the fields of Environment/Ecology in terms of citation by other researchers. In 2016, Dr. Jerrett was appointed to the National Academy of Science Standing Committee on Geographical Sciences.

Jackson has received numerous awards. He is a Fellow in the American Geophysical Union and the Ecological Society of America and was honored at the White House with a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering. In recent years, he directed the DOE National Institute for Climate Change Research for the southeastern U.S., co-chaired the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan, and is currently CHAIR of the Global Carbon Project (www.globalcarbonproject.org).

An author and photographer, Rob has published a trade book about the environment (The Earth Remains Forever, University of Texas Press) and two books of children's poems, Animal Mischief and Weekend Mischief (Highlights Magazine and Boyds Mills Press). His photographs have appeared in many media outlets, including the NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today, US News and World Report, Nature, and National Geographic.

Professor

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering/Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Southern California 

Dr. Najmedin Meshkati is a (tenured, full) Professor of Civil/Environmental Engineering; Industrial & Systems Engineering; and International Relations at the University of Southern California (USC). He was a Jefferson Science Fellow and a Senior Science and Engineering Advisor, Office of Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State, US State Department, Washington, DC (2009-2010). He is a Commissioner of The Joint Commission (2016-; a not-for-profit organization that accredits and certifies nearly 21,000 healthcare organizations and programs in the United States and operates in 92 countries around the world, http://www.jointcommission.org/) and is on the Board of Directors of the Center for Transforming Healthcare. He has served as a member of the Global Advisory Council of the Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) Global, chaired by Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering (2013-2016).

For the past 30 years, he has been teaching and conducting research on risk reduction and reliability enhancement of complex technological systems, including nuclear power, aviation, petrochemical and transportation industries. He has been selected by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and National Research Council (NRC) for his interdisciplinary expertise concerning human performance and safety culture to serve as member and technical advisor on two national panels in the United States investigating two major recent accidents: The NAS/NRC Committee "Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants" (2012-2014); and the NAE/NRC "Committee on the Analysis of Causes of the Deepwater Horizon Explosion, Fire, and Oil Spill to Identify Measures to Prevent Similar Accidents in the Future" (2010-2011).

Dr. Meshkati has inspected many petrochemical and nuclear power plants around the world, including Chernobyl (1997), Fukushima Daiichi and Daini (2012). He has worked with the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, as an expert on human factors and safety culture, on the investigation of the BP Refinery explosion in Texas City (2005), and served as a member of the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Human Performance, Organizational Systems and Maritime Safety. He also served as a member of the NRC Marine Board's Subcommittee on Coordinated R&D Strategies for Human Performance to Improve Marine Operations and Safety.

Dr. Meshkati is the only full-time USC faculty member who has continuously been conducting research on human factors and aviation safety-related issues (e.g., cockpit design and automation, crew resource management, safety management system, safety culture, and runway incursions,) and teaching in the USC 63-year old internationally renowned Aviation Safety and Security Program, for the past 25 years. During this period, he has taught in the "Human Factors in Aviation Safety" and "System Safety" short courses. From 1992 to 1999, he also was the Director and had administrative and academic responsibility for the USC Professional Programs, which included Aviation Safety, as well as for the Transportation Safety, and Process Safety Management (which he designed and developed) programs. He has worked with numerous safety professionals from all over the world and has taught safety short courses for private and public sector organizations, including the US Navy, US Air Force, US Forest Service, California OSHA, Celgene, Metrolink, Exelon, the Republic of Singapore Air Force, Singapore Institution of Safety Officers, China National Petrochemical Corporation, Canadian upstream oil and gas industry (Enform), Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Republic of Korea), etc.

Dr. Meshkati is an elected Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES); the 2015 recipient of the HFES highest award, the Arnold M. Small President's Distinguished Service Award, for his "career-long contributions that have brought honor to the profession and the Society"; and the 2007 recipient of the HFES Oliver Keith Hansen Outreach Award for his "scholarly efforts on human factors of complex, large-scale technological systems." He is the inaugural recipient of the Ernest Amory Codman Lectureship and Award (form The Joint Commission for his leadership and efforts in continuously improving the safety and quality of care). He is an AT&T Faculty Fellow in Industrial Ecology, a NASA Faculty Fellow (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 2003 and 2004), and a recipient of the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1989.

He has received numerous teaching awards at USC, which include the 2013 Steven B. Sample Teaching and Mentoring Award from the USC Parents Association, the 2000 TRW Award for Excellence and Outstanding Achievement in Teaching from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering; the 1996, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2016 Professor of Year Award (Excellence in Teaching and Dedication to Students Award) from the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering; the Mortar Board's Honored Faculty Award (2007-2008) from the University of Southern California's Chapter of the Mortar Board; and the Outstanding Teaching Award from The Latter-day Saint Student Association at USC (April 11, 2008). He was chosen as a Faculty Fellow by the Center for Excellence in Teaching, USC (2008-2010).

He is the co-editor and a primary author of the book Human Mental Workload, North-Holland, 1988. His articles on public policy; the risk, reliability, and environmental impact of complex, large-scale technological systems; and foreign policy-related issues have been published in several national and international newspapers and magazines such the New York Times, International New York Times (International Herald Tribune), Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Houston Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, MIT Technology Review, Japan Times, Korea Herald (South Korea), Gulf Today (Sharjah, UAE), Times of India, Hurriyet Daily News (Istanbul, Turkey), Strait Times (Singapore), Iran News (Tehran, Iran), South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), Winnipeg Free Press, Waterloo Region Record, Windsor Star (Canada), Scientific Malaysian, etc.

As chairman of the "group of expects" of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), Dr. Meshkati coordinated international efforts which culminated in the joint publication of the United Nations' International Labor Office (ILO) and IEA Ergonomic Checkpoints: Practical and Easy-to-Implement Solutions for Improving Safety, Health and Working Conditions book in 1996, for which he received the Ergonomics of Technology Transfer Award from the IEA in 2000. According to the ILO, this book has so far been translated and published into 16 languages including Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysian, Chinese, Estonian, Farsi, French, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese. The second edition of this book was released by the ILO/IEA in 2010.

Dr. Meshkati simultaneously received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and a B.A. in Political Science in 1976, from Sharif (Arya-Meher) University of Technology and Shahid Beheshti University (National University of Iran), respectively; a M.S. in Engineering Management in 1978; and a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering in 1983 from USC. He is a Certified Professional Ergonomist.

Professor

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering/Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Southern California 

Dr. Najmedin Meshkati is a (tenured, full) Professor of Civil/Environmental Engineering; Industrial & Systems Engineering; and International Relations at the University of Southern California (USC). He was a Jefferson Science Fellow and a Senior Science and Engineering Advisor, Office of Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State, US State Department, Washington, DC (2009-2010). He is a Commissioner of The Joint Commission (2016-; a not-for-profit organization that accredits and certifies nearly 21,000 healthcare organizations and programs in the United States and operates in 92 countries around the world, http://www.jointcommission.org/) and is on the Board of Directors of the Center for Transforming Healthcare. He has served as a member of the Global Advisory Council of the Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) Global, chaired by Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering (2013-2016).

For the past 30 years, he has been teaching and conducting research on risk reduction and reliability enhancement of complex technological systems, including nuclear power, aviation, petrochemical and transportation industries. He has been selected by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and National Research Council (NRC) for his interdisciplinary expertise concerning human performance and safety culture to serve as member and technical advisor on two national panels in the United States investigating two major recent accidents: The NAS/NRC Committee "Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants" (2012-2014); and the NAE/NRC "Committee on the Analysis of Causes of the Deepwater Horizon Explosion, Fire, and Oil Spill to Identify Measures to Prevent Similar Accidents in the Future" (2010-2011).

Dr. Meshkati has inspected many petrochemical and nuclear power plants around the world, including Chernobyl (1997), Fukushima Daiichi and Daini (2012). He has worked with the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, as an expert on human factors and safety culture, on the investigation of the BP Refinery explosion in Texas City (2005), and served as a member of the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Human Performance, Organizational Systems and Maritime Safety. He also served as a member of the NRC Marine Board's Subcommittee on Coordinated R&D Strategies for Human Performance to Improve Marine Operations and Safety.

Dr. Meshkati is the only full-time USC faculty member who has continuously been conducting research on human factors and aviation safety-related issues (e.g., cockpit design and automation, crew resource management, safety management system, safety culture, and runway incursions,) and teaching in the USC 63-year old internationally renowned Aviation Safety and Security Program, for the past 25 years. During this period, he has taught in the "Human Factors in Aviation Safety" and "System Safety" short courses. From 1992 to 1999, he also was the Director and had administrative and academic responsibility for the USC Professional Programs, which included Aviation Safety, as well as for the Transportation Safety, and Process Safety Management (which he designed and developed) programs. He has worked with numerous safety professionals from all over the world and has taught safety short courses for private and public sector organizations, including the US Navy, US Air Force, US Forest Service, California OSHA, Celgene, Metrolink, Exelon, the Republic of Singapore Air Force, Singapore Institution of Safety Officers, China National Petrochemical Corporation, Canadian upstream oil and gas industry (Enform), Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Republic of Korea), etc.

Dr. Meshkati is an elected Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES); the 2015 recipient of the HFES highest award, the Arnold M. Small President's Distinguished Service Award, for his "career-long contributions that have brought honor to the profession and the Society"; and the 2007 recipient of the HFES Oliver Keith Hansen Outreach Award for his "scholarly efforts on human factors of complex, large-scale technological systems." He is the inaugural recipient of the Ernest Amory Codman Lectureship and Award (form The Joint Commission for his leadership and efforts in continuously improving the safety and quality of care). He is an AT&T Faculty Fellow in Industrial Ecology, a NASA Faculty Fellow (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 2003 and 2004), and a recipient of the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1989.

He has received numerous teaching awards at USC, which include the 2013 Steven B. Sample Teaching and Mentoring Award from the USC Parents Association, the 2000 TRW Award for Excellence and Outstanding Achievement in Teaching from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering; the 1996, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2016 Professor of Year Award (Excellence in Teaching and Dedication to Students Award) from the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering; the Mortar Board's Honored Faculty Award (2007-2008) from the University of Southern California's Chapter of the Mortar Board; and the Outstanding Teaching Award from The Latter-day Saint Student Association at USC (April 11, 2008). He was chosen as a Faculty Fellow by the Center for Excellence in Teaching, USC (2008-2010).

He is the co-editor and a primary author of the book Human Mental Workload, North-Holland, 1988. His articles on public policy; the risk, reliability, and environmental impact of complex, large-scale technological systems; and foreign policy-related issues have been published in several national and international newspapers and magazines such the New York Times, International New York Times (International Herald Tribune), Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Houston Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, MIT Technology Review, Japan Times, Korea Herald (South Korea), Gulf Today (Sharjah, UAE), Times of India, Hurriyet Daily News (Istanbul, Turkey), Strait Times (Singapore), Iran News (Tehran, Iran), South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), Winnipeg Free Press, Waterloo Region Record, Windsor Star (Canada), Scientific Malaysian, etc.

As chairman of the "group of expects" of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), Dr. Meshkati coordinated international efforts which culminated in the joint publication of the United Nations' International Labor Office (ILO) and IEA Ergonomic Checkpoints: Practical and Easy-to-Implement Solutions for Improving Safety, Health and Working Conditions book in 1996, for which he received the Ergonomics of Technology Transfer Award from the IEA in 2000. According to the ILO, this book has so far been translated and published into 16 languages including Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysian, Chinese, Estonian, Farsi, French, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese. The second edition of this book was released by the ILO/IEA in 2010.

Dr. Meshkati simultaneously received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and a B.A. in Political Science in 1976, from Sharif (Arya-Meher) University of Technology and Shahid Beheshti University (National University of Iran), respectively; a M.S. in Engineering Management in 1978; and a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering in 1983 from USC. He is a Certified Professional Ergonomist.

Geological Senior Scientist

Energy Geosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Curtis Oldenburg is a Senior Scientist, Energy Resources Program Domain Lead, Geologic Carbon Sequestration Program Lead, and Editor in Chief of Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology. Curt's area of expertise is numerical model development and applications for coupled subsurface flow and transport processes. He has worked in geothermal reservoir modeling, vadose zone hydrology, and compressed gas energy storage. Curt's focus for the last fifteen years has been on geologic carbon sequestration with emphasis on CO2 injection for enhanced gas recovery, and near-surface leakage and seepage including monitoring, detection, and risk-based frameworks for site selection and certification. Curt Oldenburg is a co-author of the textbook entitled Introduction to Carbon Capture and Sequestration.

He is an Ex Officio Steering Committee member, due to his role as a lead author and technical expert for each of the three key questions of the report. Serving as an ex officio member ensures regular interaction with the rest of the Steering Committee and improves the quality of the final report. He is responsible for his portion of the report, and is not responsible for portions he did not contribute to.

Chief Mechanical Engineer

Engineer Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Dr. Perfect is the Chief Mechanical Engineer for the Engineering Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). In this role, Dr. Perfect provides leadership ensuring the safety and technical quality of mechanical and related engineering activities conducted throughout the 1600-member Engineering Directorate in support of the Laboratory's diverse missions. Along with the Chief Electronics Engineer, he oversees workforce management and employee development activities within the Engineering Directorate.

Dr. Perfect received his B.S. in Civil Engineering and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Perfect began his career at LLNL in 1986 as a member of the Experimental Physics Group, designing hardware, conducting experiments, and performing computational simulations in support of the Defense and Nuclear Technologies Program. After three years in that assignment, he joined the Structural and Applied Mechanics Group where he conducted large-scale nonlinear finite element analyses in support of many projects across the LLNL mission space. His prior leadership assignments are Associate Division Leader for the Defense Technologies Engineering Division and Group Leader for the Structural and Applied Mechanics Group. He has published in the areas of vehicle crashworthiness, nuclear material storage and transportation, magnetic fusion energy, biomechanics of human joints, laser crystal stability, single-crystal plasticity, hydrogen storage, and weapon systems.

President

JKM Energy and Environmental Consulting

Terence (Terry) Thorn is a 42-year veteran of the domestic and international natural gas industry and has held a wide variety of senior positions beginning his career as Chairman of Mojave Pipeline Company and President and CEO of Transwestern Pipeline Company. He has worked as an international project developer throughout the world.

As a Chief Environmental Officer, Terry supported Greenfield projects in 14 countries to minimize their environmental impact. He wrote and had adopted company wide Environmental Health and Safety Management Standards and implemented the first environmental management plan for pipeline and power plant construction. In attendance at COP 1 and 2, Terry has remained involved in the climate change discussions where he is focusing on international policies and best practices to control methane emissions.

Residing in Houston, Terry is President of JKM Energy and Environmental Consulting and specializes in project development and management, environmental risk assessment and mitigation, business and policy development, and market analysis. He has done considerable work in the areas of pipeline integrity management systems including audit systems for safety and integrity management programs.

He currently serves as Senior Advisor to the President of the International Gas Union where he helps drive the technical, policy and analytical work product for the 13 Committees and Task Forces with their 1000 members from 91 countries. He also serves on the Advisory Boards for the North American Standards Board where he co-chaired the gas electric harmonization task force, and the University of Texas' Bureau of Economic Geology's Center for Energy Economics where he helped found the Electric Power Research Forum. Terry is also on the Board of Air Alliance Houston which focuses on Houston's greatest air pollution challenges in collaboration with universities, regulators, and partner organizations.

Terry has published numerous articles on energy, risk management and corporate governance and was author of the International Energy Agency's 2007 North American Gas Market Review. As advisor to European gas companies and regulators he co-authored The Natural Gas Transmission Business -a Comparison Between the Interstate US-American and European Situations, Environmental Issues Surrounding Shale Gas Production, The U.S. Experience, A Primer. As a participant in the National Petroleum Council Study Prudent Development: Realizing the Potential of North America's Abundant Natural Gas and Oil Resources (September 2011), Terry wrote in coordination with the subject team the section on electric gas harmonization, co-authored the chapter on electric generation, and advised on the residential commercial chapter. Most recently he has completed market research projects on electricity markets and gas markets including modeling the US gas markets 2015-2050. Gas Shale Environmental Issues and Challenges was just published by Curtin University in 2015. His most recent papers are "The Bridge to Nowhere: Gas in An All Electric World," "The Paradigms of Reducing Energy Poverty and Meeting Climate Goals," and "Making Fossil Fuels Great Again: Initial Thoughts on the Trump Energy Policy."

Vice Chancellor of Research and Economic Development

University of California, Merced

Dr. Samuel Justin Traina joined the University of California, Merced in July 2002 as the founding director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. Prior to beginning his UC Merced duties, Dr. Traina was a professor at Ohio State University.

Dr. Traina received his bachelor's degree in soil resource management and his doctorate in soil chemistry from UC Berkeley, where he also served as a graduate research assistant and graduate teaching assistant. Immediately following, he moved to UC Riverside to conduct postdoctoral research and work as an assistant research soil chemist in the Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences.

In July 2007 Dr. Traina became the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Dean. As of July 1, 2012 Dr. Traina became solely the Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development.

Associate Professor

Stanford Law School

An expert on energy and environmental law, Michael Wara's research focuses on climate and electricity policy. Professor Wara's current scholarship lies at the intersection between environmental law, energy law, international relations, atmospheric science, and technology policy.

Professor Wara, JD '06, was formerly a geochemist and climate scientist and has published work on the history of the El Niño/La Niña system and its response to changing climates, especially those warmer than today. The results of his scientific research have been published in premier scientific journals, including Science and Nature.

Professor Wara joined Stanford Law in 2007 as a research fellow in environmental law and as a lecturer in law. Previously, he was an associate in Holland & Knight's Government Practice Group, where his practice focused on climate change, land use, and environmental law.

Professor Wara is a research fellow at the Program in Energy and Sustainable Development in Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, a Faculty Fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, and a Center Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment.

Disclosure of Conflict of Interest

In accordance with the practice of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST), CCST makes best efforts to ensure that no individual appointed to serve on a committee has a conflict of interest that is relevant to the functions to be performed, unless such conflict is promptly and publicly disclosed and CCST determines that the conflict is unavoidable. A conflict of interest refers to an interest, ordinarily financial, of an individual that could be directly affected by the work of the committee. An objective determination is made for each provisionally appointed committee member whether or not a conflict of interest exists given the facts of the individual's financial and other interests, and the task being undertaken by the committee. A determination of a conflict of interest for an individual is not an assessment of that individual's actual behavior or character or ability to act objectively despite the conflicting interest.

We have concluded that for this committee to accomplish the tasks for which it was established its membership must include among others, individuals with research and expertise in the area of natural gas storage facilities and Aliso Canyon gas leak disaster in order to assess the longterm viability of underground natural gas storage facilities in California.

To meet the need for this expertise and experience, Professor Michael Wara was proposed for appointment to the steering committee even though we have concluded that he has a conflict of interest because of investments he holds.

As his biographical summary makes clear, Professor Wara is a recognized expert in environmental, climate, and energy law.

After an extensive search, we have been unable to find another individual with the equivalent combination of expertise in energy law as Professor Wara, who does not have a similar conflict of interest. Therefore, we have concluded that this potential conflict is unavoidable.