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By James K. Mitchell
Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner LLP
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 provides for adoption of procedures to facilitate expansion of the national electric transmission grid where needed to relieve congestion. Pursuant to §1221, the Secretary of Energy is responsible for designating any geographic area experiencing electric energy transmission capacity constraints or congestion that adversely affects consumers as a "national interest electric transmission corridor."
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission then is authorized to issue permits for construction or modification of transmission lines within such national interest electric transmission corridors if state regulatory authorities either lack the ability to issue such permits or fail to do so within one year after applications have been submitted.
Congestion Study
The Department of Energy in August issued a National Electric Transmission Congestion Study in which it identified two critical congestion areas: the Atlantic Coast from metropolitan New York through Northern Virginia and Southern California.
The study also identifies New England, the Phoenix-Tucson area, the Seattle-Portland area, and the San Francisco Bay Area as congestion areas of concern.
Conditional congestion areas, which are expected to be impacted by construction of new generating facilities, were identified as Montana-Wyoming (wind); Dakotas-Minnesota (wind); Kansas-Oklahoma (wind); Illinois, Indiana and Upper Appalachia (coal); and the Southeast (nuclear).
Request for Comments
DOE has asked that comments on designation of national interest electric transmission be submitted by October 10, 2006.
Comments should address both the criteria to be used by DOE in designating such corridors and the propriety of designating the critical congestion areas, congestion areas of concern and/or conditional congestion areas as national interest electric transmission corridors.
To read DOE's Executive Summary and the Request for Comments from the study, click here.
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For more information about the issues covered in this report, please contact James Mitchell in our Washington office at 202-508-4002 or at jmitchell@thelen.com or contact your Thelen attorney. For more information about Thelen's Construction and Government Contracts Department, click here.
©2006 Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner LLP
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