:: Da' Militant One's Lair ::

:: Friday, August 15, 2003 ::

Memo to Conservative Republicans:

Here's more on the failure of Bush to address the upgrading of the energy grid. This article was on the Nema Publications web site and was dated February 2001:

NEMA Urges Bush Energy Team to Promote Stable Power Grid

In response to a request by the Bush transition team, NEMA has submitted a white paper urging the Administration to enact "rules and incentives to maintain adequate supplies of power at the lowest possible cost, and for maintaining electrical system reliability."

In the transmission white paper, NEMA notes that the development of competitive power markets, coupled with the emergence of retail markets, has resulted in significant new uses of the interstate transmission grid. The grid has thus been subjected to flows of energy about which little is known, created transmission bottlenecks, and increased reliability problems. Experts believe that additional investment will be required to expand transmission capacity.

That investment may be difficult to come by, however. The association’s white paper points out that uncertainties surrounding financing, facility-siting, post-deregulation ownership, and policies governing the transition to regional transmission organizations, are making utilities reluctant to invest in new transmission facilities.

It also notes that the permitting process for the construction of new transmission facilities or expansion of existing ones is becoming ever more problematic. In the past, for instance, transmission lines were built primarily to meet state requirements to serve a utility’s "native loads." Today, new transmission facilities in most locations are no longer likely to exist primarily to benefit a utility’s customers or a regulator’s constituents, but for other purposes like the support of regional, multi-state, power markets.

NEMA thus contends that, "state commissions and local authorities are less likely to authorize the development and construction of new transmission facilities. This raises the question of a larger role for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in jurisdiction over transmission facilities."

The North American Electric Reliability Council has estimated that annual investments in new transmission facilities have been declining by about $100 million a year for the past two decades. While that precipitous drop was taking place, load growth was moving in the opposite direction. EPRI has estimated that in the ten years ending in 1999, electricity demand in the U.S. rose by approximately 30 percent, while additional transmission capacity grew by just 15 percent. The trend continued to ramp up in 2000, above the ten-year trend, due to weather extremes and the increased use of computer data centers. The diverging trend lines strongly suggest that an immediate, powerful remedy is badly needed.

To insure that increased consumer demand is met and at the lowest possible cost, NEMA recommends a series of measures that combined will (1) increase the reliability of the grid; (2) facilitate the expansion and upgrade of existing transmission facilities and promote the role of technology in achieving this objective; and (3) encourage increased investment in new facilities and technologies.

Specifically, the NEMA position statement delivered to the Bush transition team says NEMA supports "policies that create enforceable and mandatory reliability standards to ensure that the interstate transmission grid is not operated in a manner that adversely affects system reliability. To protect consumers, NEMA urges Congress and the Administration to act quickly to enact the NERC consensus language on electric reliability—either as a stand-alone bill that provides a first step towards improving reliability, or as part of comprehensive electric restructuring legislation."

NERC developed language included in major electric restructuring bills introduced in the House and Senate in the 106th Congress. S.207 was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate, but neither bill passed both houses. The NERC language, providing a framework for the development and enforcement of mandatory reliability standards, was endorsed by virtually all segments of the electric utility industry.

NEMA’s white paper recommends further that the foundation of any new transmission policy should rest upon the creation of a regulatory structure that:

Promotes the use of technology to protect and enhance the integrity and reliability of the existing interstate transmission grid in the near term;
Removes siting and permitting impediments that currently serve as a barrier to the construction of new facilities;
Ensures, through use of rate incentives and other similar market measures, that investments in new transmission facilities will be recovered and a competitive return for the investment made;
Provides authority to states to allow them to enter into regional compacts to address siting issues; and
Provides FERC with the authority to require utilities to enlarge, extend, or improve transmission facilities upon application and after referring the matter to a joint federal-state board.
Finally, NEMA recommends that Congress make sure that the Department of Energy’s Transmission Reliability program is adequately funded and its programs applied "in a manner that complements and encourages industry’s own efforts."

NEMA Vice President for Government Affairs Tim Feldman, the association’s representative to the transition team, said NEMA’s position was hammered out in full consultation with representatives of the organization’s policy committees. "We’re comfortable," he said, "that if our strategies are implemented, the difficult transition we are experiencing in California and other parts of the country can be smoothed, that consumers will benefit, and that power reliability will be assured at a reasonable cost."END



There you have it! More than two years ago, Bush was warned about the power grid and the need for upgrades. What did he do? Well judging from yesterday, not enough!

Da' Militant 1

:: DM1 8/15/2003 10:25:00 PM [+] ::
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