Thirty-six states have enacted laws requiring electric utilities to supply between 10% and 33% of their electric energy from renewable or alternative energy sources (variously defined). Congress is considering a law requiring that 15% of all electric energy be supplied from renewable sources (with higher state requirements permitted). These “renewable portfolio standard” (RPS) statutes are already responsible for billions of dollars of investment in alternative energy, primarily electricity from wind. Yet the country is nowhere near even the low end of the range required by these laws, and will be unable to achieve the levels of renewable power use they contemplate without significant investments in the interstate transmission grid.
For two decades, electric industry experts have been warning that the industry is not investing sufficiently in new transmission assets to keep up with growing demand and to accommodate new uses of the bulk power system in a competitive market. As a result, Congress enacted provisions in the 2005 Energy Policy Act giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission additional authority to site transmission lines within national interest electric transmission corridors designated by the Department of Energy, and directing the FERC to promulgate rules offering rate incentives to public utilities that invest in new transmission facilities. See Energy Policy Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-58, § 368(c), 119 Stat. 727-28 (2005), codified at 42 U.S.C. 15926(c) (2006) and 16 U.S.C. 824s (2006); Promoting Transmission Investment Through Pricing Reform, Order No. 679, 71 Fed. Reg. 43,294 (July 31, 2006), FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,222 (2006); order on reh’g, Order No. 679-A, 72 Fed. Reg. 1152 (Jan. 10, 2007), FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,236 (2006); reh’g denied, 119 FERC ¶ 61,062 (2007), appeal dismissed sub nom., American Pub. Power Ass’n v. FERC, No. 07-1050 (D.C. Cir. May 14, 2007).
