The Trump administration is canceling a Biden-era effort to speed up power line construction in parts of Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nebraska and the Dakotas.
The Energy Department announced this week that it would not move forward with designating three areas as National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors, a move that could get them federal help to speed up power line build-out.
A press release from the agency said the previous administration had sought to designate these areas as a high priority “as a means to advance their Green New Scam agenda.”
“Transmission policy must serve the American people—not special interests or a climate-alarmist agenda that drives up costs, worsens reliability, and disregards the concerns of local communities,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a written statement.
The Biden administration identified three corridors to be part of the program: parts of Lake Erie and Pennsylvania; parts of Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma; and parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and five Native American reservations.
Designating power lines in these areas as being in the national interest would have allowed federal regulators to issue permits to approve them if states do not act quickly enough or deny them permission to build.
While electricity from various power sources including fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables are carried by power lines, a significant amount of new energy coming on to the grid is renewable and building out power lines could be crucial for getting new green power online.
Environmental advocates slammed the move to cancel the designation as being bad for the nation’s electric grid and potentially driving up power costs.
“Building long-distance transmission lines is one of the best ways to lower costs and secure and upgrade our grid — and strengthening our grid is wildly popular, too. Pulling the plug on these long-planned transmission corridors will pull the rug out from under billions of dollars in investments and tens of thousands of jobs for hardworking families,” Matthew Davis, vice president of federal policy at the League of Conservation Voters, said in a written statement.
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