A Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee staff draft bill would revolutionize the siting of new power transmission lines in the United States, with regional planning entities designated by FERC submitting plans for the Commission’s approval. FERC would have siting and fast-track certificate authority for any high-priority transmission project of 345 kV or higher. Any delays could be appealed to the president.

“For years, we’ve tried to get the states and regions to get together on this. Now we’re taking it to the next level,” a committee staffer said. “We’ve got to start stringing some wire.” The bill is sure to raise opposition from states’ righters and locales that have used local permitting power to block development of an efficient reliable overall power grid.

Under the draft bill now being circulated under the direction of committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, (D-NM), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) would be required “to issue a request for applications for entities to assume the role of regional planning entity for the Eastern and Western Interconnections. FERC [then] designates one entity to serve as the regional planning entity for each interconnection.”

Within a year the regional planners must submit an interconnectionwide plan. If they do not, FERC will assume the role of planning coordinator. If states or sub-regions submit sub-regional plans, FERC must consider them. Plans must take into consideration support for the development of new renewable generation, opportunities for reduction of emissions from regional power production, cost savings resulting from congestion reduction and other efficiencies, enhanced fuel diversity, reliability and other national priorities.

The bill’s provisions would not apply to Alaska, Hawaii or the Electric Reliability Council of Texas unless they request to participate. Costs of the regional planning entities could be funded by a regional surcharge.

Regional planning entities would also file a cost allocation plan for the recommended projects and FERC would determine if the rates are just and reasonable and not discriminatory.

Details of the bill provide:

The bill is one of several that have been introduced to foster the development of the national grid. The committee is to hold a hearing Thursday on the bills. A bill introduced last week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) appears to contain many of the provisions in the committee draft.

FERC was given backstop authority in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which allows the federal regulator to take over when a state commission has “withheld approval” of a permit application for a transmission project for more than one year after it was filed. Last month a federal appeals court in Richmond, VA, rejected FERC’s “expansive interpretation” of congressional language, which granted the federal agency preemption authority over the siting of electric power transmission projects when a state regulator has “withheld approval” of a permit application for more than one year. The court minced words, saying “denial” of a project by a state does not constitute “withholding approval.”

The draft committee bill is available at https://energy.senate.gov/public/ under “Draft Electricity Siting Text.”

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