President Obama promoted "green energy" as a signature theme in his presidential campaign. During his first weeks, he reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to renewable resources. In a radio address, he promised to double the nation’s alternative energy capacity within three years and to construct a 3,000-mile transmission grid to "convey this new energy from coast to coast."
The advancement of clean energy and the accompanying "green jobs" are a cornerstone of the newly enacted $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In signing this stimulus plan legislation, the president again focused on the inextricable linkage between renewable power and a 21st-century transmission infrastructure: "Today, [our] electricity... is carried along a grid... that dates back to Thomas Edison, a grid that can’t support the demands of clean energy....[The stimulus plan represents] an investment that takes the important first step towards a nationwide transmission superhighway that will connect our cities to the windy plains of the Dakotas and the sunny deserts of the Southwest."
Political Change Necessary
At one level, the president gets it: Energy policies that promise green power without also committing to the massive development of transmission infrastructure are disingenuous and will necessarily fail. However, the president’s transmission initiatives appear to be based on the premise that the federal government possesses the authority to jump-start the national grid. To the contrary, the jurisdictional reality remains that individual states retain power over transmission projects. As a federal court recently explained: "The states have traditionally assumed all jurisdiction to approve or deny permits for the siting and construction of electric transmission facilities. As a result, the nation’s transmission grid is an interconnected patchwork of state-authorized facilities."
Accordingly, the development of most transmission projects, even if they are a key priority for a popular president’s agenda, currently must pass political muster in every state to be crossed. Local constituencies thus retain the power to effectively veto transmission lines of statewide importance, and individual states can unilaterally defeat multistate projects based on the most parochial considerations (such as if the project benefits an adjacent state more than the one erecting roadblocks).
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