With the White House last week reiterating its support for a voluntary approach to regional transmission organizations (RTO), FERC Chairman Pat Wood on Wednesday said that if his agency doesn’t have the “tool” of being able to order mandatory participation in the regional grid operators, the Commission will effectively be crippled in its efforts to set up regional power markets.

FERC earlier this year issued a white paper related to its pending standard market design (SMD) proposal in which the federal agency said that the SMD final rule would require public utilities to join an RTO or independent system operator. The agency noted that almost all public utilities already have joined, or have committed to join, an RTO or ISO.

At a press briefing following the agency’s regular agenda meeting on Wednesday, Wood was asked whether U.S. power grid reliability may be threatened down the road if FERC doesn’t have the power to order mandatory participation in RTOs.

“I’m concerned that without the tool…which is the core legal finding of our rulemaking in the SMD and the white paper, that if we do not have that tool in our tool chest, we are crippled,” Wood said.

“Not irreparably, but we have one less tool to effectuate good, regional grids for reliability and for infrastructure expansion planning that we need to have,” Wood said.

A reporter noted that some power industry participants opposed to FERC’s SMD and RTO efforts have highlighted the fact that the massive Aug. 14 blackout hit parts of the country that are in advanced stages of setting up regional power markets, namely the Midwest and Northeast.

“Is AEP in an RTO? Is FirstEnergy in an RTO?,” Wood retorted at the briefing. “No, they’re not,” he noted. “I just have not yet heard a remote semblance of the case for why you wouldn’t want to have more regional coordination,” Wood added.

Kyle McSlarrow, Deputy Secretary of Energy, on Wednesday told a Senate hearing examining last month’s blackout that the White House supports the creation of voluntary RTOs in the U.S.

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