New Electric Transmission and Permitting Reform: Can't Have One without the Other

Abstract

A May 4, 2023 Editorial in the New York Times conveyed very well a strong message that industry leaders have been talking about and stressing for years. “The United States needs to dramatically expand the electric grid between places with abundant wind and sunshine and places where people live and work. And it needs to happen fast.” While many mainstream news publications have shared this same view, and industry trade publications have talked about this need for decades, only now have federal and state policymakers found a path forward to take new transmission project siting and permitting reform. Retail energy providers, electric distribution utilities and their unregulated subsidiaries, and renewable energy developers have done all they could to highlight the need and costs to consumers of a congested electric grid that cannot easily move power among and between electricity markets and states, or from remote renewable generation sources to load centers.