Washington (Platts)--10Jan2008

A number of environmental groups Thursday said they have or will soon sue
the Bush administration to block US Department of Energy Department from
establishing two vast electricity transmission corridors in the US Northeast
and Southwest.

The groups last month promised to sue DOE over the so-called "national
interest electric transmission corridors," but did not unveil the specific
legal grounds for their suits until Thursday.

The Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson, Arizona-based
environmental group, challenged the corridor that DOE carved out across a
70,000-square-mile area in Southern California and western Arizona. The suit,
filed Thursday with the US District Court for the Central District of
California in Los Angeles said the corridor is illegal because DOE failed to
analyze how it would affect at least 95 animals and plants that are protected
under the Endangered Species Act.

"The Energy Department cannot turn Southern California and western
Arizona into an energy farm for Los Angeles and San Diego without taking a
hard look at the environmental impacts of doing so," said Amy Atwood, an
attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

The suit also takes issue with provisions in the corridor plan that would
allow the federal government to seize private property through eminent domain
and turn it over to electric utilities to build power lines. This so-called
"fast track" process would allow "utility companies to bypass state
jurisdiction and regulatory requirements and federal environmental
protections," the lawsuit said.

Meanwhile, 11 other environmental groups announced Thursday that they
would file a similar lawsuit over a transmission corridor that DOE designated
across a 116,000-square mile area from Northern Virginia to New York City.

That suit, which the groups plan to file Monday in the US District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in Scranton also takes issue with the
eminent-domain aspect of DOE's corridor plan.

--Brian Hansen, brian_hansen@platts.com