Renewable energy vs. the electric grid - Solar, Wind and Land: Conflicts in Renewable Energy Development - page 154

from regulators in only one of the two states involved in the project,
Southern California Edison never built the line as planned.
Federal- and state-level attempts to address the problem
In the United States, these sorts of challenges are attributable in part
to federal laws that allow individual states to retain significant control
over the siting of any new transmission facilities within their geographic
boundaries. At the federal government level, the primary U.S. agency
that oversees interstate transmission development is the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC). Under the Federal Power Act, FERC
possesses authority to regulate “the transmission of electricity in inter-
state commerce” within the United States. 22 However, that authority
extends “only to those matters which are not subject to regulation by the
States.” 23 Based on this language, individual states have historically held
independent approval rights for interstate transmission projects. When a
transmission line is proposed that would cross through multiple states,
each state in the line's path has its own separate authority to prevent the
project from proceeding. Such disjointed governance can be a developer's
worst nightmare: in one instance, a U.S. company reportedly spent 14 years
collecting approvals for an interstate transmission line that ultimately took
just 18 months to physically build. 24
In an effort to address these issues, the U.S. Congress enacted some
legislative changes in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005) aimed at
streamlining and simplifying the approval process for interstate transmission
lines. Among other things, the EPAct 2005 contained provisions purporting
to expand the federal government's preemptive authority in the context of
transmission siting. Congress sought through these provisions to empower
the U.S. Department of Energy to designate “national interest transmission
corridors” and to give FERC authority to preemptively approve the siting of
transmission projects within such designated areas under certain prescribed
circumstances. 25 Unfortunately, a pair of court decisions interpreting these
provisions has cast doubt on their enforceability. 26 Despite years of effort to
address the fragmented nature of transmission siting authority in the United
States, the problem largely remains.
Recognizing that a more effective federal government solution to interstate
transmission siting challenges for renewable energy is not likely to emerge
in the near future, several U.S. states have begun working together toward
developing alternative governance models. For example, 11 western U.S.
states and two Canadian provinces have formed the Western Renewable
Energy Zone Initiative, an advisory group that has collectively identified
those areas in the western United States that it believes are most suitable for
renewable energy development. 27 After several years of coordinated efforts,
the group agreed upon a set of “hubs”—areas having concentrations of
high-quality renewable resources and relatively low risks of environmental