Clean Line Energy signs ex-House staffer
Doug Bobbitt worked as a senior policy adviser on the House Appropriations Committee to former Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa), who retired in 2015 after 20 years in Congress.
Bobbitt registered to lobby for Clean Line last month. He’s employed by the Ingram Group, a Tennessee-based consulting firm led by Tom Ingram, former chief of staff to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).
He will lobby on electric transmission infrastructure issues, as well as on legislation introduced this year in the House (H.R. 1373) and Senate (S. 529) that would allow states to reject the use of federal eminent domain authority for energy projects.
Promoted by Arkansas lawmakers, that legislation targets a federal partnership with Clean Line’s Plains and Eastern line, a $2.3 billion, 720-mile transmission line that is set to send 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy to Arkansas, Tennessee and the southeastern United States (Greenwire, March 7).
Clean Line has said the project meshes with President Trump’s desire to create American jobs and strengthen infrastructure, but the Arkansas delegation has framed the Department of Energy’s involvement as federal overreach.