US House transmission corridor foes push for repeal of 2005 law

Washington (Platts)--3May2007

US House members opposed to special federal designations for siting power
transmission lines on Thursday urged their colleagues to help thwart the
process by repealing the 2005 law that authorized the federal government to
permit power lines and by cutting the funding for the process.

Nine House members from both parties in New York, Pennsylvania and
Virginia Thursday asked the House appropriations subcommittee with
jurisdiction over the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Department
of Energy budgets to insert a "funding limitation" for the "national interest
electric transmissions corridor" program in its annual spending bill.

Signing the letter were New York Democrats Maurice Hinchey, Michael
Acruri and John Hall, New York Republican John McHugh, Virginia Republicans
Tom Davis and Frank Wolf, Pennsylvania Democrat Chris Carney, Pennsylvania
Republican Todd Russell Platts, and Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva.

The House members also asked the House Energy and Commerce Committee to
consider their legislation, H.R. 809, to repeal section 1221 of the Energy
Policy Act of 2005 -- now part of the Federal Power Act -- which creates the
national interest corridor program.

Under the provision, DOE may designate corridors in which new interstate
transmission is considered critical and FERC would be authorized to issue
construction permits for projects within the corridors if state regulators
failed to do so within in a year.

Another bill, H.R. 829, the members are pushing would require
transmission developers to prove that state regulators had no valid reason to
go beyond a year to consider their application, provide protections for
federally or state preserved land, and require that DOE consider all
alternatives to building new transmission before designating a special
corridor.