It's been an action-packed week for energy legislation, with the House passing two important pieces the same day -- HR 22, the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act and HR 8, the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015.
HR 8 and HR 22 give the Secretary of Energy broader authority to address grid security emergencies while facilitating the protection and voluntary sharing of critical electric information between asset owners and the federal government. This will help public power utilities avoid disclosing such information to potentially nefarious individuals or groups on account of state sunshine law requirements.
Both bills contain provisions to ensure that electricity generators will no longer be forced to choose between conflicting legal obligations when acting to comply with emergency reliability orders from the Department of Energy.
HR 22 also includes provisions to give the entire electric sector the ability to work with Department of Energy to formulate a workable plan regarding transformers. The transportation bill lifts the ban on Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act aid for water projects financed by municipal bonds to allow critical infrastructure investments to be made at the absolute lowest cost possible for state and local governments -- which build 86 percent of the nation's water and wastewater facilities -- and for homes and businesses served by these facilities.
"EEI applauds Chairmen Upton and Whitfield for their leadership and work on passing this important piece of energy legislation that will bolster the electric power industry's efforts to provide reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean electricity to our customers," said Tom Kuhn, president, Edison Electric Institute. "This legislation will enhance the Department of Energy's authority to respond to threats to the power grid, protect sensitive information about critical electric infrastructure, resolve environmental and grid reliability conflicts, make modest improvements to the federal permitting and licensing process for natural gas pipelines and hydroelectric facilities, and preserve all fuel options for powering federal facilities."
APPA has been advocating for provisions that would not limit or eliminate the flexibility of public power utilities to determine the most appropriate fuel mix to provide affordable, reliable, environmentally responsible electricity to their customer-owners. APPA also supports language in Section 1108 of H.R. 8 that would give FERC a role in major federal agency rulemakings that could impact electric reliability. This "reliability review" language would explicitly ensure that FERC gives its opinion on proposed rulemakings of a certain scope throughout the federal government, but does not give FERC veto authority over such proposals.
"We support H.R. 8's repeal of Section 433 of the Energy Independence and Security Act, which seeks to eliminate fossil fuel generated energy and direct use of energy in new and renovated federal buildings by 2030," said Joy Ditto, senior vice president, Legislative and Political Affairs, American Public Power Association. "While APPA and our members are fully committed to energy efficiency, we believe Section 433 will not reduce use of energy but cause taxpayer money to be spent on buying renewable energy certificates for compliance."
Not everyone feels as strongly.
"The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation today that represents a setback for energy efficiency policy at the federal, state and local levels. I am disappointed by the outcome of today's vote because of costly provisions in HR 8," said Alliance to Save Energy President Kateri Callahan. "While the Alliance recognizes that some provisions in HR 8 would deliver benefits, any such savings would be completely eclipsed by the costs of the bill's negative impact on building energy codes. The built environment is the largest energy consuming sector of the U.S. economy. Building energy codes have been a critical driver of efficiency improvements in homes and commercial buildings across the country."
The building energy codes provisions in HR 8 would prevent the continuance of locally-driven processes now in place for the development and adoption of building energy codes, Callahan contends -- the net cost of which would be a staggering $20 billion.
The Senate is expected to vote on energy legislation similar to HR 8, the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015 (S 2012), in early 2016.
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