Greedy Schemers Want To Build New Transmission

Be careful how you vote, transmission opponents.  The greedy schemers who build and own transmission want to lock in many more years of profit for themselves while strangling more localized energy supply that they can't profit from.

This article reveals the scheming going on at a recent Energy Bar Association conference, where the players expressed angst that

If regional grid operators and utilities fail to build enough transmission capacity, power companies and developers will take a financial hit as customers continue to move toward distributed energy resources such as rooftop solar and behind-the-meter batteries...

"I do think that we need to come to the realization that if we can't get there with transmission planning, customers are going to take the matters into their own hands," McAlister said. "They are and will continue to find ways to localize supply and avoid transmission altogether."

So, if we continue to reject huge, new greenfield transmission projects, other solutions will manifest themselves?  Perhaps more local, distributed and democratic solutions that don't enrich huge bloated investor-owned utility conglomerates?  Tell me more!!

This isn't something new.  These greedsters have been hyperventilating over it for nearly a decade now.  Way back in 2013 the lobbying organization for investor-owned utilities published a paper titled "Disruptive Challenges" that predicted a mass exodus from large, centralized power suppliers and new reliance on local, distributed resources.  And apparently the concept is still scaring them silly because it's truer than ever.  Streetcars, film cameras, and land line telephones are soon going to be joined in the dinosaur zoo by investor-owned utilities.

But can they stop it by building a whole bunch of new transmission with decades of crushing, new utility debt that would be paid by customers under current regulatory schemes?  No.  Read the report... the more the utilities build centralized infrastructure, the higher electric rates climb.  And the higher rates climb, the more attractive investments in localized power sources become.  As customers leave, others must assume their share of the debt, further increasing costs and making local investments even more attractive.  The more people leave, the more people will leave.  Like a snowball rolling down hill... until nobody is left to pay the utility debt and the transmission owner goes belly up.  It can happen.  It will happen.  Trying to stop it by building new transmission is like trying to stop a speeding bus by jumping in front of it.  Dumb!  Dumbest idea ever!

So, what's the real problem?

"It's hard to get big interregional projects built without federal siting and eminent domain authority, and I think the record shows that even when FERC has that authority, it's hard sometimes to get gas pipelines built," Emery said. "It's certainly hard with interstate [electric] transmission."

In many cases, state commissions "simply balk" when confronted by local landowners who are upset about environmental and other impacts without seeing local benefits associated with large power transmission lines, Emery said.

Big Transmission is dead.  Transmission opposition is a huge success story.  They can't get any new, big projects built... because of us.  The focus now is on devising ways to thwart us.  Ways to step on our necks while they use federal eminent domain to take our property for their unneeded, for-profit renewable energy transmission lines. 

For a hot minute, there was hope among them that states would come together to support their money-making scheme to build a bunch of new transmission to ship renewables thousands of miles.  It was only an unrealistic pipe dream.  States aren't giving away their independence to make their own energy policy decisions, like allowing renewable energy companies or the federal government to decide where their energy comes from, or whether they should become a fly-over highway for energy sales between other states.  States are becoming increasingly active participants in directing their own energy decisions.  Need renewables?  Build them instate and keep the economic development and energy dollars at home!  State are no longer passive parasites expecting someone else to provide for their energy needs from far away.   Clean Line Energy Partners spent a decade trying to sell transmission capacity for just such a scheme and ended up with no takers.  It doesn't work!

Now the greedsters have a new scheme.  Pie-in-the-sky dreams of passing new legislation making transmission siting and permitting a federal responsibility.

While U.S. electric grid operators, states and utilities will need to achieve a high degree of cooperation in the coming years to accommodate a surge in renewable generation, federal lawmakers may also need to get involved in promoting system planning, a panel of energy experts said Oct. 13.

"I think interregional planning is probably going to take congressional action," Beth Emery, senior vice president and general counsel at Gridliance, said during an annual fall forum hosted by the Energy Bar Association. "I hate to say that. Everybody has been talking about getting the states on board, but I'm not sure the states are going to be able to do it without a prompt from Congress."

"It's hard to get big interregional projects built without federal siting and eminent domain authority, and I think the record shows that even when FERC has that authority, it's hard sometimes to get gas pipelines built," Emery said. "It's certainly hard with interstate [electric] transmission."

Transmission hurdles have received some recent congressional attention, with House Democrats releasing a proposed energy and climate bill in January that would direct FERC to issue a rule improving interregional transmission planning. But one former FERC chairman said the bill's transmission section "failed miserably" by not giving the commission the authority it needs to implement a national transmission plan.

In a nutshell, let's anoint the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with the power to pick winners and losers in energy resource games and render the states as passive consumers?  Not a chance!  Been there, done that.

Emery noted that in passing the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the U.S. Congress intended to give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission backstop siting authority when state commissions deny permits for interstate transmission lines located within national interest corridors.

However, a 2009 ruling by a divided panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit held that FERC read too much into an ambiguously written statute when it adopted new procedures for parties asking the commission to exercise its new authority. The U.S Supreme Court eventually declined to review the case — Piedmont Environmental Council v. FERC (No. 07-1651) — and the issue of whether FERC actually has federal backstop siting authority remains murky.

Emery has no clue what Congress intended to do, and it's not her job to interpret their "intentions."  That's a job for the courts, and a court determined that Congress only intended to give FERC backstop siting authority when a state could or would not act.  Denying a permit for new transmission is an action, therefore denials do not create FERC authority.  Over and done!

But this is an avenue that the greedy utilities now want to explore anew.  Would Congress really take transmission siting and permitting authority away from states?  Seems like a hard sell, considering that Congress is composed of state representatives.  How much lobbying and corruption would it take for state representatives to sell their states down river and get booted out of office at the next election?  The pushback from the voters on just such a scheme would be huge.  Be careful how you vote!