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Bipartisan Support for Regional Transmission Organizations Emerges From House Hearings on August Blackout

State governors at the heart of the blackout have called on Congress to increase its support for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) proposed system of regional transmission organizations (RTOs) as a way to improve reliability through better regional planning and system operations.

Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, a Republican, and Gov. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, a Democrat, told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that their constituents were depending on national leaders to be part of the solution, rather than perpetuating the current system’s shortcomings.

“I strongly support FERC’s proposal for an effective, empowered regional system that places direction and control of transmission with independent regional grid operators,” said Taft. “Congress should act promptly to support FERC’s plan for empowered, all-inclusive regional transmission entities. A three-year delay, as some are proposing, would impose an intolerable risk on the nation.”

“I believe we must support the joint U.S.-Canadian Task Force as it works to identify the causes of the blackout, adopt national mandatory reliability standards and establish a strong regional transmission system capable of upgrading technology, creating regional wholesale markets and managing the power grid so our lights will stay on,” he said.

Gov. Granholm told the committee that the push toward RTOs needs to continue and that letting the status quo linger is unacceptable.

“But, participation in an RTO is not mandated by the federal government, and there are no mandatory reliability requirements that RTOs must follow,” said Granholm. “The bottom line is that this contributes to a system where no one, myself included, knows who is ultimately responsible for ensuring reliability. That is an unacceptable situation,” she said.

Granholm was supported by the chairman of the Michigan Public Service Commission, J. Peter Lark, also a Democrat.

“There must be certainty in the operation of the transmission grid, and that cannot be achieved where reliability rules are optional, and RTO membership is voluntary,” said Lark. “Far too much is at stake to have a transmission system that allows a single utility to jeopardize the safe, reliable and economic electric utility operations of entire regions of the country.”

For more information, contact EPSA’s Gene Peters at gpeters@epsa.org
or Andrea Spring at aspring@epsa.org, or call (202) 628-8200.