Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) regulators are planning to write to the federal Department of Energy (DOE) to oppose the concept of federally designated electricity transmission corridors. The ACC is poised to take a position different from neighboring regulators in California who once opposed the concept but now support it.

“It is likely that the commissioners will draft and sign a letter to DOE, based on their comments at the federal DOE hearings in Phoenix in mid-June,” an ACC spokesperson told NGI on Thursday.

“Any national corridor designation by DOE in Arizona is unwarranted, unfounded on available information, and unneeded in any location in the state,” said Jeff Hatch-Miller, a former ACC chairman who is still one of five elected commissioners on the panel. He objected to the DOE characterizing a corridor between Arizona and California as having his state as the “source” for power and California being the “sink” for absorbing that power.

(The ACC May 30 unanimously rejected a proposal to build a second Devers, CA-to-Palo-Verde, AZ high-voltage power line, fearing that the neighboring state would drain badly needed future supplies from Arizona. Southern California Edison Co. recently appealed the decision.

Arizona regulators continue to express widespread mistrust of California, and Hatch-Miller summarized this feeling when he said that they believe having the federal government designate transmission corridors leaves Arizona in the role of “rescuing Southern California from a looming energy crisis.” He said “California’s self-imposed ‘progressive’ policies have actually backfired.”

Another regulator offering the same tenor of remarks was Bill Mundell who said his state has an open, flexible process that is working. It has produced approval for 13 separate generation projects totaling more than 10,000 MW since 1998 and 20 major transmission projects, ranging from 115 kV to 500 kV, covering 600 miles collectively since 2000, Mundell said.

In California, the state’s chief regulator, Michael Peevey, once agreed with his Arizona colleagues but now sees a need for federal intervention in certain cases, and ironically, it was the ACC’s rejection of the DPV-2 line that prompted him to change his mind. The head of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), Yakout Mansour, earlier in June told a clean energy forum that he supports federal corridor designations.

However, CAISO’s spokesperson qualified that to note that California officials recognize that states clearly have a role to play, but the “federal government has decided it needs to be there as a backstop, and we agree with that.”

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