FERC’s rule hits a balance
But FERC seems to have struck a tentative balance with its proposal Thursday — not to mention securing bipartisan consensus that has eluded some of its other major rulemakings. The commission indicated it may revisit a 2011 rule that eliminated utilities’ ability to build transmission lines without a competitive bidding process, securing industry support. Clean energy advocates, meanwhile, were thrilled by the proposal’s broader efforts to reform cost allocation and long-term planning, two significant hurdles to getting necessary transmission built in the U.S.
“From both an economic and climate perspective, … all of the analysis that we’ve seen shows the need for a lot of transmission, but there’s barriers to building that transmission,” said Chaz Teplin, a principal at clean energy think-tank RMI’s Carbon-Free Electricity program. “And FERC today, we think, took two important steps towards overcoming some of the barriers that we see.”