power grid

Lawmakers Debate Location of Power Grid

Monday, February 23, 2009 2:53 PM
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WASHINGTON – Democratic congressional leaders and the Obama administration indicated Monday that they will push for greater federal authority to locate electric transmission lines, saying a national power grid stands in the way of developing alternative energy sources.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he will soon introduce legislation that includes giving federal regulators authority to override states on electric grid placement decisions as part of a package of energy proposals the Senate is expected to take up in the coming weeks.


"We cannot let 231 state regulators hold up progress," Reid said, referring to the members of state public utility commissions that decide on transmission locations in the states. He said states should be given every opportunity to participate, but that "there may come a time when the federal government will have to step in," including directing the taking of land for grid corridors.


A clean energy conference that included former Vice President Al Gore and former President Bill Clinton focused extensively on the need for a national "smart" grid to transport electricity, including an expansion of the system to bring wind and solar energy from remote locations to the nation's cities.


Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was ready to open energy corridors on federal land, but that the power grid of today cannot move renewable energy from where it is located to where it is needed.


"In the end, unless we are able to solve this juggernaut and deal with the transmission issue we're simply going to be standing in place," Salazar told the conference, which was organized by the Center for American Progress.


The conference included 28 panel participants, among them congressional Democrats and members of the Obama administration, labor and the energy industry. The discussion focused on the need to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, develop renewable energy such as wind and solar and modernize the electric power grid.


States have fought to maintain jurisdiction over the location of the power grid.


Fred Butler, who is chairman of New Jersey's association of utility regulators, said state officials are willing to work with the federal government on placement issues. "We are opposed to the federal takeover of the siting authority," he said.


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also called for expansion of the nation's power transmission grid and development of a "smart grid" that allows increased efficiency and access to remote wind and solar energy resources.


Former New York Gov. George Pataki, one of the few Republicans at the conference, said the federal government must get more involved in establishing power transmission lines.


"If you try to run a wire through someone's community that becomes about as contentious as you get," said Pataki, and if that power is going through a state "you don't have to take a poll, no one is going to be for it."


Gore warned against allowing lower oil prices to stall efforts to put a price on heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions to combat climate change.


Gore, the Nobel prize winner who has focused on global warming since losing the presidency in 2000, told the conference that oil prices are like a roller coaster and will go up again. He said that the country must reduce carbon dioxide pollution from the burning of fossil fuels and "we've got to wean ourselves from this dangerous foreign oil."


"Let's don't undersell the efficiency investment angle," said Clinton, who also warned against being misled by falling oil prices, which have plummeted from a high of $145 a barrel last summer to the $35 range.


In the past, Clinton said, "oil dropped and everybody said give us our Hummer back."




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