FERC's New Nightmare

S&P Global tells us that some transmission owners and former energy regulators aren't exactly gung-ho over the congressional infrastructure thing.  Two things stick in their craw... federal siting and permitting and taxpayer-funded anchor tenant contracts.

Strike up the band... it's not every day I agree with some transmission owners and former energy regulators!

On the possibility that FERC could take over siting and permitting of new transmission

"I think members of Congress are overestimating the federal government's ability to approve transmission lines in a speedy manner while underestimating the controversy this will foment amongst constituents," said Tony Clark, a Republican former FERC chair.

Oh yes, I've been fomenting since I was knee-high to  grasshopper and have big plans for my fomenting future.

Clark continued:

But strengthening FERC's hand in permitting may not resolve those issues and could even create new ones, former FERC member Clark said. Intervenors will still be able to challenge new projects at the federal level, according to Clark. And allowing FERC to override states' decisions not to condemn private property in support of a transmission developer's plans could put the agency "in a difficult position."

"It looks to me like a nightmare scenario for FERC," Clark said.

And so it shall be.  If FERC thinks it's finally gotten a handle on the gas pipeline protestors that have been disturbing their processes and haunting their headquarters for years, they've got another think coming.

And why would FERC want to attract this kind of attention when it could, instead, make transmission better and less likely to be opposed?  You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, FERC.  More on this coming soon....

On the issue of taxpayer-funded anchor tenants:

Some market participants have also expressed concern with the anchor tenant program. Transmission developer ITC Holdings Corp. said the Senate improved the proposal by specifying that projects funded through the program should not conflict with projects emerging through the regional transmission organization stakeholder process. But the bill still risks subsidizing uneconomic projects, while overall program funding of $2.5 billion "is small," ITC's vice president of federal and regulatory affairs Nina Plaushin said.

That's right... regulated companies that build regionally planned transmission projects are protecting their golden goose from unregulated, unplanned merchant transmission that would be the sole beneficiary of the completely misguided anchor tenant proposal.  In brief, this proposal would make the federal government purchase transmission capacity from a merchant project that doesn't have enough customers to become viable.  Of course, the government wouldn't USE the capacity, but the merchant transmission developer would USE the cash provided by the anchor tenant contract to finance its project.  But fake government customers do NOT make a merchant transmission project needed.  Merchant transmission is a market-based concept where transmission is built in response to a market need.  If there is no market for a particular merchant transmission project, then it should not be built.  These roads to nowhere should not be artificially propped up using taxpayer funds.  The whole idea is idiotic.

This entire article demonstrates that perhaps the "clean energy" crowd has proposed too many conflicting "good things" to encourage more electric transmission construction and that all these different goodie bags banging together are creating so much friction, it's going to blow the whole idea of new transmission off the map. 

They don't realize that they're killing their golden goose.