State utility regulators reiterated their concerns about FERC’s efforts to promote transmission development at the Feb. 28 meeting of the task force established for that purpose. 

The issue of federal authority usurping state and local control has been raised repeatedly since plans were announced to create National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs) and to give backstop authority to FERC. (See What are National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors and Why Do We Need Them?) 

Grid constraints are a potentially fatal obstacle to the electrification goals set by the federal government and many states. Siting new transmission to address those constraints can be slow and difficult, particularly for lines that cross regional boundaries. NIETCs and backstop authority are two ways to potentially address this. 

The Feb. 28 meeting was the eighth for the Joint Federal-State Task Force on Electric Transmission, formed under a June 2021 FERC order (Docket AD21-15-000). FERC Chair Willie Phillips and Kimberly Duffley of the North Carolina Utility Commission co-chair the task force. 

Phillips said Feb. 28 that FERC has already heard the concerns of states and stakeholders during the comment process, “but there is something to be said for sitting around this table and hearing from you directly, and face-to-face.” 

Moderator Jonathan Raab opened the discussion by asking task force members to identify the transmission siting challenges that exist in their regions. 

Kansas Corporation Commission Chair Andrew French said the growth of renewable generation on the Plains has created difficult optics. 

“More and more,” he said, “as energy becomes exported, there’s at least a perception that Kansas land is increasingly being used to benefit faraway customers in other states to satisfy their policy goals.” 

Riley Allen of the Vermont Public Utility Commission had good things to say about the transmission siting process in his state and in the ISO-NE region. But he noted it typically takes 13 to 20 months in Vermont, which exceeds the 12-month threshold that is one of the triggers proposed for FERC backstop action.  

“But I think there’s room for improvement,” he said. “I think backstop authority will certainly add some life to the timeliness of these things going forward.” 

Darcie Houck of the California Public Utilities Commission said complications frequently arise when working with federal land management agencies, particularly when coordinating joint environmental processes. Also, federal technical studies supporting permitting often are delayed. And the PUC must coordinate with tribal nations and local governments, creating a complex process with many stakeholders.  

“Another challenge to timely siting of transmission comes from substantial community opposition,” Houck added, which often includes legal challenges demanding PUC response. 

Tricia Pridemore of the Georgia Public Service Commission listed several complicating factors nationwide, including regulations on federal land, local opposition, disagreements over environmental reviews and cost allocation, interconnection queue delays, supply chain constraints and multilayered planning processes with multiple responsible entities.  

These usually are not an issue in the Southeast, she said, due to its market structure, but major transmission projects there still take years to build, due to their complexity — seven years or longer for a 50-mile, 500-kV line. 

“The intensely local and regional differences are of course what makes one-size-fits-all transmission policies very challenging,” Pridemore said.  

She welcomed changes to federal policies that would remove barriers to transmission development but added: “From the vantage point of the Southeast, we must also ensure that those changes do not upend processes that are working so well.” 

The task force retained a collegial tone, but Pridemore was not alone with concerns; others cited other potential sticking points. 

Wyoming PSC Chair Mary Throne said whatever new federal process emerges should allow state and local review to play out before initiating a parallel federal process. 

“Concurrent proceedings are probably not ideal,” she said. “Certainly, in Wyoming’s case and most places in the interior West, I don’t think it’s the state and local proceedings that are slowing down the processes — not that we are incapable of our own bureaucratic delays and duplication. But understanding the local lay of the land before you start is essential.” 

Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Vice Chair Kimberly Barrow made a similar point: “A simultaneous prefiling process that’s going on while the state process is ongoing will be problematic.” 

States appreciate the need for speed and efficiency, but parallel proceedings would be confusing for stakeholders, she added, and it would be a conflict of interest for PUC staff to participate in both at once. 

Allen said the idea of simultaneous state and federal reviews is his one significant issue with the backstop proposal. “I would much rather see the processes sequenced,” he said, adding that stakeholders should be directed toward the state review because state processes have been groomed over the course of decades and inherently are local in character. 

That said, Allen does support the idea of backstop authority. “I just worry that if we push too hard in parallel it’s going to create some complications that are going to undermine the longer-term objectives,” he added. 

French urged that FERC not make some existing problems worse as it addresses others. “While I think that our planning does need to get more anticipatory, more holistic, solving multiple needs,” he said, “I think as you do those things, it becomes much more difficult to communicate to the public and to landowners why your state needs to build this project that is maybe serving lots of different stakeholders.” 

Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority Chair Marissa Paslick Gillett said many utility regulatory agencies are having trouble recruiting engineers and other staff to do the work needed, and many of those hired are early in their careers, so technical assistance from federal agencies is helpful. 

“I will say however, sometimes it’s difficult to even take advantage of free assistance.” That might sound like an oxymoron, she acknowledged, but if a state requires a contract and a fixed timeline for anyone involved in the process, it is not. 

New York PSC Commissioner John Howard urged greater federal control over a specific area of concern for his state: getting the mandated 9 GW of electricity from offshore wind turbines to land, and someday more than 20 GW. New York has finite opportunities for radial transmission lines from each wind farm to land because of its geography, he said. A meshed offshore grid that spans RTO boundaries from New England to the Mid-Atlantic is a better solution. 

“Now is the time to begin planning for this multi-ISO meshed network,” he said. “I would pose the question to this group and to FERC: Is it time to acknowledge that the Atlantic Ocean may be a national interest corridor in and of itself? That is something we should come to grips with very quickly.” 

Howard added: “I don’t believe that the states alone will be able to find the individual leadership necessary to move this process forward.” 

Houck said California supports the goals of NIETC and backstop, but she picked apart some of the details of those proposals. Twelve months may not be enough time for a state to approve a complex project, she said, but at the end of those 12 months, the state might be able to conclude the process more quickly than FERC would if it started a backstop proceeding. 

She called for a more nuanced approach than a one-size-fits-all solution. 

Michigan PSC Chair Dan Scripps said if a proposed transmission line is entirely within a state and will serve only that state, great deference should be given to the local siting authority. “It’s unclear to me why FERC would substitute its judgment for the local siting authority — for a single-state project.” 

If a multistate RTO project benefiting multiple states is being blocked by one state, there could be a role for backstop authority, Scripps added, but FERC should limit itself to siting, and leave cost allocation and planning to the RTO.  

French made a similar point: ”If a state is, in FERC’s opinion, acting too parochially in looking at the need for the line, not considering regional and interregional benefits,” he could understand FERC stepping in. 

But if FERC finds it needs to override a state decision, he said, it should do so as narrowly as possible, and defer as much as possible to the state’s underlying proceeding, particularly on the routing of a proposed line — review of which is a large part of the state regulator’s workload. 

French also urged clarification on what exactly a FERC siting permit would entail — just routing, or also things such as interconnection and cost recovery mechanisms. “I think there is a lot of angst from folks about what approval of a line through the backstop siting process really means.” 

Duffley said she thought that with the Feb. 28 meeting, the task force had covered the ground it set out to cover. “FERC’s final rule on transmission issues, we’re all anticipating that it will be issued soon,” she said.