Rather than “blaming just about everyone and everything” for thereliability problems on the electric transmission grid, SenateEnergy Chairman Frank Murkowski (R-AK) last week urged EnergySecretary Bill Richardson to take “immediate and meaningful action”to address the situation in the short term, while Congress tries towork out a longer term solution.

Although “it is too late to instantly reverse the cumulativeeffects of seven years of bad energy policy” by the Clintonadministration, “it is not too late to take some meaningful actionto protect consumers this summer and to begin to provide for thelong term,” Murkowski, an avowed foe of the administration’s energypolicy, said in a letter to Richardson on July 10.

For starters, he called on Richardson to coordinate the actionsof other federal agencies – particularly the EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Interior – “to ensurethat they do not further damage electric reliability.” Moreover,Murkowski proposed that the Department of Energy (DOE) send a”directed rulemaking” to FERC giving the agency the authority toimmediately respond to reliability problems. Under the DOEOrganization Act, “you have the statutory authority to direct FERCto take action. You should use it.”

Under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978(PURPA), Murkowski reminded DOE it has the authority to orderelectric reliability councils and “any federal agency” to “examineand report” back to it on reliability issues. Also under PURPA,”you have authority…..to develop and recommend electricreliability standards to the industry ‘to adequately and reliablyserve the needs of electric consumers.’ Have you done so? If not,you should.”

Rather than pinning the reliability problems on Congress for itsfailure to pass restructuring legislation yet, “it would be morehelpful to consumers and our economy for you to lead the formationof an administration-wide task force to develop a coordinated andeffective strategy to ensure that the generation and transmissionwe need to power our growing economy will be built,” Murkowskiwrote to Richardson.

Ironically, the senator failed to heed his own advice about”blaming” others for the problems with electric generation supplyand the transmission grid. He cited a laundry list of actions bythe administration that have “harmed” the power market, includingFERC’s delay in “making crucial determinations on therate-of-return on transmission for more than three years;” thedelay in the construction of “new generation, even extremely cleannatural gas-fired generation,” because of the “stringentrequirements” of the Clean Air Act; and the failure of DOE and FERCto penalize utilities for taking unauthorized power from the grid.

It “is these actions and the other energy policy failures ofthis administrations over the past seven years that have led us towhere we are this summer,” Murkowski told Richardson. The “sixsteps you announced this spring to address this summer’sreliability problems will do nothing meaningful to ensure that thelights will stay on.” As a result, he said “we have already seenthe electric power system stretched to the limit and beyond on hotdays ” in the Northeast, the Northwest and in California.

Susan Parker

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