Nation's Governors May Unite On Electricity Issues

BOISE, Idaho, July 16, 2002 (ENS) - The National Governors Association (NGA) today named Kentucky Governor Paul Patton as its new chairman at the closing session of the its annual meeting in Boise. Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne was named vice chairman. "The strength of this association is the ability we have as governors to unite around our commonalities and leave our political differences at home," Patton said in his acceptance speech.

Kentucky Governor Paul Patton accepts the chairmanship of the National Governors Association (NGA) (Photos courtesy (NGA))

In its first report released Monday, the NGA Task Force on Electricity Infrastructure recommends the creation of multi-state entities, in part to solve environmental problems that arise from electricity generation and transmission.

The report, "Interstate Strategies for Transmission Planning and Expansion," was released by steering committee members outgoing NGA Chairman Michigan Governor John Engler and Kentucky Governor Patton, who until today was NGA vice chairman.

Formed in the fall of 2001, the Task Force was charged with developing recommendations for revitalizing the nation's electricity infrastructure, which is experiencing a fundamental shift in its use.

(from left) Governor Patton and Governor John Engler of Michigan in Boise

For nearly 100 years the nation's transmission system was designed to deliver power from regulated monopolies that owned the generation source, transmission lines and customer distribution networks.

Today, in a partially deregulated electricity market, these transmission networks are being used to trade wholesale electricity in regional electricity markets, a function many are ill equipped to handle.

Environmental issues arise from the "enormous variety among state siting and certification processes," the report says.

"Land use, social and environmental burdens associated with the siting of a new interstate transmission facility," writes author Ethan Brown, "may be distributed inequitably across states."

Brown outlines the complications that can arise when the lands of several states and the federal government are needed for the siting of electrical transmission lines. For example, in the American Electric Power (AEP) transmission project in Virginia and West Virginia, coordination problems among federal and state agencies caused more than a decade of delay.

The 113 mile line, proposed in 1991, was to run between Wyoming County, West Virginia to Cloverdale, Virginia. Approval was needed from the two states, and three federal agencies. "The line had potential for adverse impacts on populated areas and would cross ecologically sensitive areas in the New River, the Appalachian Trail, and the Jefferson National Forest. As a result it faced controversy from the outset," Brown writes.

The AEP line is still awaiting approval from the U.S. Forest Service.

Transmission towers march across Colorado (Photo courtesy NREL)

As electrical supply markets have become increasingly regional, one state can end up bearing the majority of the economic and land use burdens of transmission lines while its neighbors may receive the bulk of the benefits.

Multi-state entities would elevate the state role in regional planning and support a "one-stop" regulatory process for regional lines, Governors Engler and Patton said in their introduction of the report.

Multi-state entities would provide a regional forum where states could resolve impasses that threaten to derail important projects and facilitate state's ability to determine the necessity of additional transmission lines.

"Decisions regarding transmission expansion can have direct and indirect environmental impacts, detrimental or beneficial," Brown writes. Decisions "not to build also have environmental implications."

"A decision to substitute generation for additional transmission to resolve a bottleneck carries not only land use but air and water quality implications," he writes. The use of new management techniques or technologies instead of constructing new lines can "confer environmental benefits, including a reduction in power plant emissions and land use burdens."

The need for multi-state entities has grown out of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's effort to empower Regional Transmission Organizations with the ultimate authority over regional transmission planning, said the NGA in a statement introducing the task force report.

This "creates the potential for jurisdictional conflicts between federal regulators and state authorities," the NGA said in its statement introducing the task force report.

"I fully support the concept of a multi-state entity," said Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Pat Wood.

"This voluntary process fully retains state authority, and requires each state to consider neighboring states' needs so that regional solutions are developed. A regional process, which considers benefits for an entire market territory, is vastly superior to a process that pits the interests of individual states against each other," said Wood.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham briefed the governors Monday. At right is Natural Resources Committee Chair North Dakota Governor John Hoeven. (Photo courtesy NGA)

Secretary Abraham briefed the governors on the new mission he announced Monday for the Idaho National Environmental and Engineering Laboratory as a center of nuclear energy research and development. "While environmental cleanup remains a priority for us at Idaho, the importance of advanced, safe nuclear energy for the future demands that we return the Idaho labs to their core mission of nuclear technology research, development and demonstration," Abraham said.

Abraham gave the governors a progress report on the administration's energy policy recommendations in Senate and the House, and promoted the administration's clear skies policy, a voluntary program under which utilites can choose how to reduce the emission of three pollutants.

While the NGA Task Force on Electricity Infrastructure report was financially supported by the Department of Energy (DOE), Secretary Abraham has not had an opportunity to review its recommendations, and has no immediate response to the report, according to Joe Davies, DOE deputy director of public affairs.

In the future, the NGA electricity task force will address generation capacity and the development of regional electricity markets.