Wires, Rates, and States: Permitting Transmission for Reliable and Affordable Power
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House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 2
We should improve early planning to move power where it is needed, when it is needed. The planning, permitting, and payers are too complex, and Congress needs to address it. Plus, the increases in energy demand present an opportunity to build a modern electric grid and transmission system that meet the challenges of the twenty-first century and benefit everyone. And the good news is that when you invest in transmission, you save Americans money. For every $1 invested in well planned, long distance, high capacity transmission, we get $5 back in reliability and economic benefits.
These benefits aren't just hypothetical. If everyone in every region embrace robust transmission planning like the Midwest, we could save every household in The United States over $100 on their annual electric bill. A robust transmission grid also makes our energy system more reliable. In its long-term reliability assessment released this year, NERC highlighted how transmission can help grid planners take advantage of geographic diversity during extreme weather like winter storms. NERC called on policymakers to streamline siting and permitting processes to remove barriers to transmission development.
Utilities. Utilities currently spend about 35,000,000,000 a year on transmission. However, most of those investments occur in siloed local projects. Essentially, no major interregional transmission projects have been planned and built in the last decade. They made up only 2% of the new lines installed from 2011 to 2020.
Two years ago, NRCC recommended adding 35 gigawatts of interregional transfer capability to improve energy adequacy. Studies show that interregional transmission could save customers billions of dollars a year. And smart transmission policy insulates consumers from uncertainty. If we all agree that AI data centers should pay their own way, then let's address that so that the higher costs are not forced on ordinary consumers. Well-coordinated transmission helps the power system adapt cost-effectively to future changes.
And as our grid becomes more interconnected, it will be easier to bring low-cost generation online faster and get that electricity to where it is needed. Well, planned transmission must be a key part of our energy strategy, and Congress should pass thoughtful policies to reform the ways we plan, permit, and pay for it. It is clear what we need to do. In the near term, we must get more out of the existing grid that we've already paid for. We can pass policies that increase grid utilization and incentivize the deployment of grid enhancing technologies and virtual power plants.
These are quick, ready to deploy, and proven solutions that have scaled, could unlock hundreds of gigawatts of capacity, and save billions of dollars annually. On transmission, we should focus on targeted policy reforms such as streamlining the backstop authority for interstate transmission lines while providing guardrails to protect customers, benefit local communities, and respect state authority. Congress should clearly establish the benefits of transmission. The cost of that transmission should then be allocated consistently among customers who benefit. We've done this with the interstate highway system.
There is no reason that we shouldn't replicate that. We have the know-how. We have the experts. We can do this. This is the United States of America.
These are challenging issues, but this committee should be able to tackle complicated issues on a bipartisan basis. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today as we work towards solutions that result in a more reliable, resilient grid that can deliver affordable energy to our neighbors back home. Thank you, Nail.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much. The gentleman that yields back, and the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky, the chair of the full committee, for five minutes for an opening statement.
Speaker 3
Thank you. Thank you, mister chair. Appreciate the opportunity to be here and our witnesses for being here today. The American electric system is one of the most complex machines ever built. It delivers 4,400,000,000,000 kilowatt hours of power year-round, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to our homes and businesses.
Requires 1.2 1,200 gigawatts of generation, 3,000 utilities, 64,000 miles of high-voltage lines, and many millions more miles of distribution lines connecting to meters. With a few exceptions, amazingly, this engineering marvel was permitted and built under the jurisdiction of state regulators, not the federal government. And while the power act establishes FERC as a rate regulator that oversees transmission and wholesale rates in interstate commerce. Decisions about physical electric infrastructure have been a state responsibility under federal law. In today's hearing, we'll examine the long-standing role of states in permitting process and how best to ensure transmission, permitting, and construction is efficient, predictable, and provides for affordable and reliable power.
Testimony from utilities, grid operators, and state regulators before the committee, this Congress has repeatedly underscored their critical role of bottom-up integrated planning, which accounts for both generation and transmission, and when deciding what and where to build. As a practical matter, this enables consideration of what works best for communities in states that is most affordable for ratepayers in those areas. As we have heard throughout this year, there's been a lot of discussion about replacing bottom up integrated planning and state authorities with more federal control over what and where generation transmission should be built. Part of that, if you look back at the FERC issue order 1920, is to make it easier to socialize cost of transmission for renewable energy, thereby undermining state planning. I do appreciate the comment on the highway system.
And as you can drive, gosh. You can go I 10. Goes through North Florida from Jacksonville to California, but everybody along the way uses the interstate as they go. So we just wanna make sure it's an issue for us that if power lines travel through a state, but they don't draw off the power line, that it's not the local ratepayers paying the cost of that. So those are some things that we have to work together to figure out where we go.
We're going to need more transmission. I like the system that we have and where it has been built. We are also open. We're gonna be discussing where we go, and we're going to need more transmission. We must build in a way that works for rate payers and for taxpayers, and we need to ensure we have abundant energy.
We have to generate it. So what we need to come out of this next few weeks is, we need to generate. So we're gonna have to permit the generation. We need to generate more electrons. We need to transmit more electrons.
And so that's a discussion we'll have, and I appreciate the discussion and the words of doing it in a bipartisan way. Appreciate that, and I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank you. The gentleman yields back the balance at this time. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey, the ranking member of the full committee, for five minutes for an opening statement.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Chairman Ladder. We're here today to talk about affordable and reliable power, something that has been seriously lacking since President Trump was inaugurated for his second term. I'm sure we all remember Trump's promise that he would cut electricity bills in half in his first year. Well, 2025 has passed, and electricity prices have risen by as much as 13%, and they're not likely to go down as a result of the Republicans' big ugly bill, which is expected to increase prices by another 60%. And just yesterday, new inflation data showed that overall energy prices are up nearly 18% over the last year.
Republicans have spent the last few months scrambling to blame anyone but themselves for skyrocketing energy prices. But here's the truth. Republicans are threatening the reliability and affordability of our nation's power grid, and we have to find a way to fix it. The reality is that we're simply not expanding our grid quickly enough. In an era of rapidly increasing power demand, a critical way to keep power affordable for Americans is to build.
Yes, we need to build new power plants, but we also need to ensure that the electricity from those power plants can actually move around the country to where it's needed. If we don't have a big enough grid, we can build all the generation we want, but we simply won't be able to actually power anything with it. During winter storm Fern earlier this year, there was ample available power in the Great Plains, but it physically could not move to areas in need of power because of grid constraints. And this led to price spikes in the Mid-Atlantic, in the Southwest, and Texas that could have been avoided if we had a more efficient grid. It's always been important to ensure that transmission developers have the tools they need to enhance the backbone of our nation's power grid as efficiently as possible.
But the challenges associated with AI data centers have firmly moved a build out of our grid from something that was simply a good idea to something that is national, that's a national necessity. Our power grid faces unprecedented challenges. Unfortunately, Republicans have waged war on some of the cheapest sources of energy just because Trump doesn't like how they look. The Trump administration has illegally thrown billions of dollars of investments the Democrats made in our power grid into jeopardy. Now if those projects are built, they'll be paid for by higher monthly power bills for American families, just another way Republicans are increasing bills nationwide.
Instead of encouraging utilities to invest in new low-cost sources of electricity, Trump's Department of Energy is forcing old, inefficient, and expensive power plants to stay online despite local grid operators and utilities often begging the administration to let the plant shut down and be replaced by more efficient and affordable sources of power. So I'm afraid that Republicans are trying to move us backward rather than forward. In 2005, Congress recognized that the federal government should play a role in citing the most nationally important power lines. But, unfortunately, the new law never worked. In the 21 years since it passed, not a single power plan has been built using these authorities.
Surely now is the time for us to update the law to allow FERC to fulfill its intended purpose. And while we need to make it easier to build power lines, we must make sure that our process to plan them makes sense in the first place. Right now, planning processes are far too fragmented. Utilities each exchange in piecemeal planning, resulting in customers spending a lot of money on an inefficient power grid. If we build out the grid in a smart way, it will improve reliability and affordability.
So utilities and grid planners should be focused on building more efficient and cost-effective power plants, even when those lines may cross over the territory of several different utilities or may introduce competition that monopoly utilities would rather avoid. Finally, FERC should require utilities to engage in more efficient interregional grid planning and should determine who benefits from new power plants, new power lines, I should say, and therefore, who is responsible for the cause. Frankly, these shouldn't be controversial concepts. Planning smarter and making it easier to build the lines our nation's needs should be common sense, and should be bipartisan. But in any case, I appreciate having this hearing today, Mr. Chairman.
It's very important. Yield back the balance of my time.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time, and this concludes members' opening statements. The chair reminds members that pursuant to committee rules, all members' opening statements will be made part of the record. The subcommittee thanks our witnesses for appearing today and taking the time to testify. Each witness will have the opportunity to give an opening statement, followed by a round of questions from our members.
Our witnesses today are the honorable Tony Clark, former FERC commissioner and executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Mister Randy S. Howard, the general manager of Northern California Power Agency, mister Rob Gramlich, the president of Grid Strategies, mister Michael Skelly, the CEO and cofounder of Grid United, mister Clay Rickard, the senior vice president of system planning at the Southern Company, and the honorable Mark Christie, the former chairman and director center of energy and law at the Wyoming Mary Law School. Again, we appreciate you all being with us today. And just a quick thing. If you pull those mics up close when you speak, that'd be great.
And, also, just again, you probably heard about the lights. You each have five minutes. Four minutes will be green. The last minute will be yellow. If you could wrap up when it turns red, that'd be great.
So, again, we appreciate you all being here. Mister Clark, you are recognized for five minutes to give your opening statement.
Speaker 5
Thank you, mister chairman, ranking member Castor, and appreciate also the attendance of chairman Guthrie and ranking member Palone. It's a pleasure to be with you here today. My name is Tony Clark. I'm the executive director of NERUK, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. And I'll be testifying in that capacity, but we'll also be drawing on my experience, for about 16 years as a regulator either at the state or federal level, about 12 of those years at the North Dakota Public Service Commission, and a little over four at FERC.
I'll briefly summarize my testimony. There are really 5 main points that I make in it. The first is that on the issue of planning, regional planning, interregional planning, things like that, from a scenario planning standpoint within and across regions. States are generally supportive of the concept of planning. And now, why is that?
It's because state commissions depend on a set of facts in front of them to make decisions about what is the best mix of resources for customers. So more data and more information that can inform the process is a good thing. Now I say this even while acknowledging that there are sometimes questions about the outer limits, technically, of jurisdiction in planning matters, and sometimes our members may litigate some of those points. But, conceptually, the idea of planning, providing information to regulators, I think, is a sound concept that's generally supported by our members. Number two, given FERC's prescribed jurisdiction over many parts of the grid, states believe that these planning exercises should build upon and work in harmony with state public policies and decisions, with regard to planning.
Federal planning that doesn't build upon state decision runs the risk of contravening the decisions that are made in states and can sometimes result in plans that lead to transmission plans. It may be a suboptimal answer to what the best resource is for customers. States have the responsibility, given our authority, of ensuring that transmission, distribution, and generation work together to result in the lowest cost retail bill, and it states at the end of the day who has authority over that retail bill. Number three, states are generally supportive of common sense federal permitting reform to the degree that federal permitting reform is defined as reforming some of those federal statutes that have, in some cases, blocked needed transmission projects and pipeline projects. State commissioners have more interest in this than probably anyone, because we can see how certain investments may be able to result in lower costs for consumers.
And so once a need is established, getting that built is important. And there have been instances where federal laws have made it very difficult for the federal permitting agencies to get that done. And so reform of that kind, I think, is generally well supported by states. But this leads to point number 4. State commissions are generally opposed to permitting reform if it's defined as further preemption of state authority over these permitting decisions.
We believe that federal preemption of state authority can lead to a number of bad outcomes. Number one is with regard to that affordability issue because that assessment of need and comparing transmission projects to other potential investments is very important, and that, by necessity, has to be done at the state level because of the retail rate-setting authority that we have. And number two, from a landowner access to their permitting authority standpoint, we believe that transmission and other projects can be much more effectively cited in a way that doesn't lean on eminent domain and condemnation by having a local permitting authority that can work through those issues, as opposed to having those decisions made here in Washington. And then finally, I would say as a general matter, point number five, state commissions are concerned with just the general trend of greater federalization of electricity policy. Many of the cost drivers that are now showing up in folks' retail bills are things that are beyond the oversight of state commissions but legally have to be passed through.
Transmission charges are largely a federal responsibility. Wholesale charges for generation capacity are largely a federal responsibility, especially if you're in an ISO or an RTO. Even things with the distribution grid where states have more authority are being greatly impacted by decisions that are made in Washington, DC about investments that need to be made on the distribution grid. So all of these things can combine to create retail build pressure, and we think the general trend towards making this take decision making from those who oversee directly the retail bill to other officials elsewhere further up the chain is a concerning trend. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. And, mister Howard, you are recognized for five minutes for your opening statement.
Speaker 6
Good morning. Committee chair Guthrie, committee ranking member Palon, subcommittee chair Lata, ranking member Castor, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Randy Howard. I am the general, excuse me, general manager of Northern California Power Agency, which serves approximately 700,000 customers through 16 public utilities and communities across Northern and Central California.
I'm also here today on behalf of the Transmission Access Policy Study Group, or TAPS, which represents municipal utilities, cooperatives, and other transmission-dependent utilities serving communities in 39 states. For public power and other transmission-dependent utilities, transmission is not an abstraction. It's how we keep hospitals running, water systems operating, and communities safe and affordable every hour of every day. Your hearing title, wires, rates, states, captures exactly the balance Congress must strike. First, wires.
We do need more transmission. Load is growing in many regions, driven by industrial development, data centers, and electrification. Generation is changing in location and operating characteristics. A strong, well-planned transmission system is essential to the reliability and to accessing least-cost resources. But transmission is not just about building lines faster.
Done wrong, it can raise costs without delivering benefits. And that brings me to the second point, rates. Transmission is paid for by our customers. Every dollar of unnecessary transmission cost shows up in electric bills, especially for public power utilities that answer directly to the local communities. That is why speed alone is not success.
Permitting reforms must reinforce rather than bypass regional planning, alternative analysis, and cost discipline. If permitting shortcuts allow projects to leapfrog planning scrutiny, consumers may pay for infrastructure that is not the most efficient or cost-effective solution. Congress can help by ensuring that any special federal permitting pathway is tied to participation in regional planning and a clear demonstration that a project is the best solution among all reasonable alternatives. And third, states. States have historically led transmission, citing, and permitting, and that should continue.
States are closer to the local conditions, the community concerns, and environmental trade-offs. Broad federal preemption risks are more or not less controversial, and litigation and delays will be a big part of any preemption. That said, there are real federal bottlenecks, particularly when projects cross federal lands or require multiple federal approvals. Congress can improve the coordination, the modernization, environmental review, and establish clearer timelines without displacing states' authority. Let me emphasize three additional points that are often overlooked.
First, inclusive joint ownership works. When public power and cooperatives are meaningful joint owners of transmission projects, projects are better planned. Siding outcomes improve. Financing costs decline, and customer risk is reduced. Second, grid-enhancing technologies can help, but incentives matter.
Grid-enhancing technologies can increase the capacity and reliability at a lower cost in many situations. But mandatory shared saving incentives risk creating windfalls and driving up rates. A better approach is baseline expectations, transparency, and carefully targeted incentives. Third, something that's not talked about enough, but supply chain realities are constraints. Large transformers and other critical equipment now have procurement timelines measured in years.
Permitting reform alone cannot overcome these limitations. In closing, permitting modernization is important, but the ultimate goal is reliable and affordable power for our customers. That means focusing on smart transmission, projects that come out of transparent regional planning, respect state leadership, evaluate alternatives, and protect consumers through established federal Power Act standards. NCPA and TAPS stand ready to work with the subcommittee as you consider reforms that accelerate the needed infrastructure while safeguarding the ratepayers. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much for your statement. And, Mister Gramlich, you are recognized for five minutes for your opening statement.
Speaker 7
Okay. Thank you, Chairman Lotta, Ranking Member Castro, Chairman Guthrie, and Ranking Member Pologne, distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and for the mandatory civics lesson for my two kids sitting behind me. My name is Rob Gramlich. I am founder and president of Grid Strategies, a consulting firm providing research on the US transmission grid and power markets.
I would like to explain today the importance of transmission to consumers, and suggest some actions Congress can take. First and foremost, transmission can be part of a strategy to reduce electricity bills. The grid is congested. Congestion costs have doubled in recent years, meaning wholesale power prices are rising because of limited delivery capacity. It's like dozens of Straits of Hormuz all around the grid.
We see grid constraints also in the increasing time and cost of connecting new loads and generation. A few years back, in fact, when I testified in this committee, maybe 5 years ago, it was all wind and solar in the queue, and that's probably what you heard screaming about high congestion costs and interconnection. Well, guess what? It's a very different portfolio now. It's more diversified.
And if you're a gas plant or a new large load or anything else trying to connect to this grid, you're saying the same thing that they said five years ago. The interconnection costs and timelines are extreme, and that's because the grid is congested. Benefit cost ratios are very high typically right now for transmission, because of the congestion. If you unlock that congestion, you can flow more power to consumers. Transmission also supports reliability, perhaps more than any other single option.
Transmission lines themselves typically have 99.85% reliability or availability across all voltage levels, far higher than any generation source. And then what we see in severe weather events, we see this time and time again when there's a polar vortex or other type of severe weather. You have tens of gigawatts that are moving from one region to the next. That is when there is enough capacity, but often there is not enough capacity. And so lights go out because of insufficient inter-regional transmission.
Transmission also supports US global economic competitiveness in an electronic era. China, Southeast Asia, India, other leaders and competitors in technology recognize the importance of grid capacity. They are building at far higher rates, faster rates than we are. China was building 80 times more high voltage transmission than we were in this country in the last decade, and that's continuing into this decade. Planning can achieve the efficient scale.
Larger lines deliver much more power for less money. There are massive, in economics jargon, massive economies of scale in transmission. The cost per megawatt delivered is a quarter as much for 765 kV lines versus the smaller 230 kV lines, while also requiring a quarter as much land to deliver the same amount of power. So we want to minimize impact on communities and land use. We want the larger lines, which means you have to proactively plan for all the purposes together to get those efficiencies for consumers and efficient land use.
There's a lot of talk about data centers and on-site generation, and islanded or off-grid types of solutions because a lot of the new technology companies want speed to power. They wanted it yesterday. The grid is too slow. Utilities are too slow, etc. Well, if you really ask them, every single one of those customers would far prefer to be attached to the grid.
They want grid access. Yes. They'll do some other things in the interim, but only as a pathway to get full grid network access. And if you connect those loads to the grid, you have to bolster the grid not just locally, but around the region. Action in Congress is needed.
What you might say, well, you know, utilities are great organizations and companies are taking care of this problem. Why is Congress even, why are you even having this hearing? Action is needed because the fragmented grid we inherited cannot deliver what modern society needs from the power system. We have 3,000 owners of transmission around the system. That's how the industry grew up.
And yet in the eastern and western interconnection, they are two physically synchronous machines. They are single machines from Maine to Louisiana, to North Dakota, down to Florida. And yet, it's almost all managed at the local level. So we're not saying a federal takeover. I certainly cannot.
But we're saying more federal coordination or just fix the federal coordination that exists, the federal backstop citing that exists in law since the 2003 blackout. Congress put a federal backstop in the 2005 act. It's broken. It doesn't work, as chairman Palloon mentioned. So, just fixing some of these federal authorities and clarifying some other things.
Cost allocation gets a lot of discussion. What's being discussed in the senate really just defines what the benefits are so we don't litigate for ten years over those terms. And with that, my time's up. Thank you very much for the.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much. And, Skelly, you were recognized for five minutes for your opening statement.
Speaker 8
Thank you very much. Thank you, chairman Lotta, ranked members of the subcommittee. Thanks for the opportunity to talk about the urgent need to build out America's grid. My name is Michael Skelly, and I'm one of the founders and CEO of a company called Grid United, based in Houston, Texas. And we develop large multistate transmission lines, typically hundreds of miles long.
We focus on connecting the grids that Mister Graham referred to. We have several grids in the country, and we work on connecting the two, because that's one of the best ways to get a more reliable grid, a more secure grid, and a grid that can take advantage of all the resources that we're blessed with in this country. And our days are spent working with landowners, with communities, with state regulators, with county officials, with grid operators, with the supply chain, and with utility partners to put together these large, ambitious projects. And like almost all transmission that gets built, we are utterly generation-agnostic. We don't check what kind of electrons would go on to our wires.
As with all types of transmission, the grid is kinda open to all, and if you connect a generator, the electrons will flow. And so, we are open to whatever type of generation might connect to the grid because we're connecting the grid as part of a network system. Many of y'all on the subcommittee are, represent areas where we're active and take a great interest in our projects, and we appreciate that interest. And, thank you for your interest in this topic. So let me just talk for a moment about one of the big projects that we're doing called the North Plains Connector.
This line goes from Bismarck, North Dakota, to Cold Strip, Montana, and we connect the Eastern grid with the Western grid. And when you connect these two grids, you get a much more efficient system. Cheap power can flow in one direction or the other, and you also get a more reliable system. You've heard references to big weather-induced events when one region of the country is short on power and the other region needs it. Our lines can help solve that.
And this is typical of other transmissions. When you build transmission that's bigger than the weather, you can help solve some of the reliability challenges and meet new load growth that we very much want to meet. Our projects, we on North Plains Connector, we have brought together 10 different utilities, including some of the cooperatives that mister Howard referenced in his remarks. And we bring the projects together, and then utilities come and participate alongside us. So why do big projects, why does the transmission grid matter?
So as I was writing this testimony Sunday night, I checked in with the grid prices around the country. This is a dangerous obsession, I might warn you. But in most of the Midwest, power prices were around 3¢. In the East, the Mid Atlantic, they were 50% higher at 4.5 cents. In the West, they were negative in many places because we had too much power at the time.
And in New England, they were around 5¢. So these price disparities, which are not atypical, show you that something is wrong with the system. If we don't have infrastructure that can make markets work, then we're gonna be paying too much. So, what are the solutions? These, you'll have been hearing a lot about them, but the first big solution that we gotta work on is permit reform.
It takes far too long to get projects done. And our world, it's we live in a world where it's not death by a thousand cuts, it's death by a thousand delays. And it just takes too long to get through the processes. And we need processes that respect the different layers of government, but that also help us work towards the decision. And the other issue that we need to focus on is cost allocation, because we can come up with ways to measure the benefits of new projects and the cost of new projects.
And we have ways we do this at a regional level. We can do this at an interregional level to come up with projects that are beneficial to the grid as a whole, and we can come up with mechanisms to determine who benefits and who should pay. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much for your opening statement. And, Rickard, you are recognized for five minutes for your opening statement.
Speaker 9
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lotta, ranking member Castor, chairman Guthrie, ranking member Polonge, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of Southern Company. My name is Clay Reichard, and I'm the senior vice president of system planning, where I lead both generation and transmission planning. My job is to design the least-cost, most reliable system for all customers.
I appreciate the invitation to testify today to share Southern Company's story as an example of a region that is using smart planning to rapidly build generation and transmission to meet rising demand, while making sure growth is benefiting everyone, especially existing customers. The Southeast is experiencing unprecedented growth, and our electric utilities are moving quickly to continue delivering affordable and reliable power. Today, the demand for power across our electric service territories has culminated in 23,000 megawatts of contracted or late-stage load. Beyond that, there are over 75,000 megawatts in our queue, which, combined with what is already contracted, is more than double the size of Southern's existing system. The growth is real, and it is why Southern's operating companies are currently taking on one of the largest expansions in any utility in history, bringing more than 10,000 megawatts of diverse new dispatchable resources online, including over 4,000 megawatts of batteries.
We're also making substantial investments to enhance our grid by building over 750 miles of new line, reconducting or rebuilding over 1,300 miles of existing line, and installing grid enhancing technologies or Gets. And we are accomplishing all of this without any delays in our generator interconnection queue process. In short, we are relentlessly executing to make sure that energy is there when it is needed by our customers. Just as important in meeting this growth is doing it in a way that benefits our customers. Through smart planning and robust contracting, we're making sure that new large customers like data centers pay their full share, and that costs are not passed on to families and small businesses.
With this policy in place, we've committed to multiyear rate freezes in Alabama and Georgia, and further committed to customer savings of at least 1,600,000,000 in Georgia due to the results of the revenues from these large customers. We are proving that growth done right can benefit everyone. This success is due to our vertically integrated, state-regulated market structure and our long-term integrated resource planning or IRP process, which determines the least cost, most reliable energy solution for our customers. This transparent and orderly process enables us to holistically plan our system under the careful oversight of our commissioners who hold us accountable for reliability and affordability, and they are best positioned to understand the energy needs of their states. In addition to evaluating all forms of generation, demand response, energy efficiency, and power from other regions transferred across interregional lines, our IRP process also includes long-term transmission planning designed to deliver the lowest cost, most reliable power for all customers.
We run thousands of simulations to make sure that we are designing the most optimal grid for our customers. Our planning process does not prejudge outcomes. If a project makes sense for our customers, we will evaluate it. We also evaluate whether we have sufficient interregional transfer capability to import power from our neighbors. Importantly, though, we have never been transmission-constrained during a peak event.
We evaluate interregional lines as an option, and our experience is that these lines have not been economic compared to other solutions. If those lines were the least cost, most reliable solution for our customers, we would build them. Congress can do two things to enable transmission and energy infrastructure. First, Congress can enable growth and protect customers by allowing state processes that deliver reliable, affordable power, like our state-regulated IRP process, to continue working. While we recognize that there are areas of the country that experience challenges building transmission, and discussions about potential solutions are taking place, we respectfully request that Congress avoid actions that would disrupt the least cost reliability-based planning system that is working well in the Southeast.
Second, Congress can expedite critical energy infrastructure development, including transmission, by passing permitting reform, including changes to NEPA, the Clean Water Act, and judicial review, in order to provide more certainty in the permitting and construction process. These changes would unlock transmission, especially in areas of the country that struggle with transmission development. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee today. I look forward to your questions and explaining more about how Southern Company's holistic planning process is delivering growth and benefiting customers in the Southeast.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much for your opening statement. And, mister Christie, you are recognized for five minutes for your opening statement.
Speaker 10
Okay. Chairman Lata, ranking member Castor. I'm gonna recognize Chair Guthrie, and Ranking Member Palone. Thank you all for the honor of appearing in front of you again. I've spoken in front of you as a former FERC commissioner and chair.
And prior to that, I spent 17 years as a Virginia utility commissioner. So I'm speaking to you from the perspective of somebody who's been both a federal and a state regulator of the very issues we're talking about today. State regulators want to build transmission. I personally voted for well over 100 transmission projects in Virginia. State regulators want to build transmission.
The premise that they don't have to be overridden. Think it's a totally false premise. There are four points I wanna make in summary, for you. First of all, we need to build the transmission. I mean, as I say, regulator who voted for a lot of transmission, we need transmission.
But transmission is very costly. It's been one of the fastest-growing parts of consumers' monthly bills. And transmission ought to be built to serve consumers, with all due respect, not to serve transmission or generation developers. It ought to be built to serve consumers. That's my first point.
Second point I wanna make, transmission should not be considered in a vacuum. Transmission is part of the entire utility system, and has three major elements. Transmission is only one of them. The other two elements are generation and distribution. And all of those should be planned together as a process of what's called integrated resource planning, to produce a document with another acronym in this business, IRP.
State regulators have been doing this for decades. I said on a lot of IRP proceedings. And so state regulators are in the position of balancing the needs, whether the transmission solution is the best, whether the generation solution is the best, whether the distribution upgrades might be the best. That's all of what goes into integrated resource planning. State regulators do that.
Third point I wanna make, which is based on the previous two. So-called backstop citing authority is based on a false premise. The premise is that state regulators, number one, don't want to build transmission. So when they say no, a federal agency like FERC ought to swoop in and say yes. You're gonna build it anyway.
The false premise is, number one, that state regulators don't want to build transmission. They we do. When I was a state regulator, I'd say we. State regulators do want to build transmission. The premise of saying, well, let's give FERC backstop citing authority so they can override a state utility commission that says no.
First of all, why does the state commission say no? In all likelihood, they said no because hundreds of people came out and didn't want the project built. So you're really overriding the people of that state more than you're overriding the utility commission, which is inclined to say yes. Secondly, backstop citing authority violates the very principle that the utility system is not in a vacuum. It's part of all three elements: generation, transmission, distribution.
And all three ought to be considered and planned comprehensively. And when you slice out one part like transmission and say, if the state says no to a project, we're gonna take it to FERC, and let them override the state. And I can tell you, FERC, for having been there, FERC does not have the local expertise to be doing permits for literally hundreds of transmission projects across this country. Fourth point, and I know that's not the big issue today, but it's been proposed up here. Any proposal to do, a mandatory interregional transmission mandate where you tell FERC to enforce, pick two regions, pick two RTOs, and there has to be, like, x percent of transmission built.
Again, you're taking transmission in a vacuum instead of looking at it the way it ought to be looked at, which is it's a utility asset just like generation assets, just like distribution assets. And it should not be the subject of an a priori mandate that says we're gonna pick a number in order to be built. If you're really concerned about consumers, mandating literally tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars worth of transmission, which is very costly, to be built through some mandatory interregional mandate is not gonna serve consumers. It is not gonna serve consumers. And I would add this point.
Almost all the transmission that's built in America, certainly in the RTOs, is going into what's called rate base. The utilities, the transmission owners, are getting formula rate treatment at FERC. They're getting dollar-for-dollar recovery, plus they're getting a profit on it called ROE. Consumers pay every nickel. So if you're concerned about consumers, that's not the way to go.
So my final conclusion on this is we need a transmission. Transmission is costly. It needs to be built to serve consumers with reliable power. If you put consumers first, we'll build the transmission we need, along with other utility assets. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
I'm enjoying being here.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much for your testimony. And that will conclude our witness testimony today. And we will move into the question-and-answer portion of our hearing. And I will begin by recognizing myself for five minutes of questions. To both, mister Rickard and mister Howard, both Southern and NCPA work to build additional infrastructure to meet rising electricity demands.
What are your greatest impediments to timing, permitting, construction of energy infrastructure? Mister Rickard, if you'd like to go first on that. Oh, you want your mic, please?
Speaker 9
Thank you. Thank you for the question, chairman. You know, we are experiencing tremendous success right now, both planning with speed and executing with speed to meet this load, this growth in a manner that benefits everyone. I think if there's anything that could help us, it would be providing certainty. Building energy infrastructure is capital intensive, and our customers need reliable service.
And so providing certainty in that infrastructure expansion, both cost and time, would be extremely helpful. And I think permitting reform, including NEPA, the Clean Water Act, and judicial review, could help provide that certainty and, therefore, that cost protection for our customers.
Speaker 6
Thank you as well for the question. We're in the midst of building in a transmission path to serve a critical load, a military load, where there's a high fire risk area. And so one of the things that we've seen recently is just, again, the NEPA reform is necessary. We continue to have significant delays associated with that, as well as the multiple agencies to participate not being well coordinated. But, what we see is it's a sequential process versus a parallel process.
And then once we complete a lot of that permitting activity, we have to go out and then procure the materials necessary to build the line. And, again, we can do all kinds of things with permitting. But until we get to a better place as to the supply chain and the logistics, we're gonna continue to have very lengthy timelines associated with building new transmission.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Next question is to both Mister Christie and Mister Clark. Both of you reviewed and approved quite a few transmission cases at the state commissioner and regulated transmission service at the federal level. And, again, just to ask this question, why are states best suited to consider permitting within their own borders, mister Christie? Oh, is your mic on, please?
Speaker 10
I gotta learn. Because I know it by now. States, frankly, when you're a state regulator, you are an expert at the local conditions in your state. Everyone of the states is different. And so state regulators are well aware of the local conditions, the local challenges for their utility system, for their consumers.
FERC is not. It can't be. It can't be an expert in all 50 states the way states can. And so that's not only that, but, again, to reiterate my point, states are the ones who conduct the integrated resource planning where you look at the entire system, you look at generation, you look at transmission, you look at distribution, all of which are integral parts of one whole, the utility system. And states look at that in a holistic way to come out with the best deal for consumers, and that ought to be the goal.
What's the best deal for consumers at the least cost?
Speaker 5
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So two things I would say. Number one is the issue of assessment of need, and Chairman Christie has talked a little bit about that. Is this project needed in light of other alternatives that could be done to more equitably serve customers from a cost and reliability standpoint? So it's a needs assessment which states excel at.
And then number two is that local touch with regard to siting transmission. Having cited a lot of miles of it and sat in a lot of those hearings, I can tell you that when it comes to electric transmission siting especially, oftentimes, it's not really just pure NIMBYism. Like, don't build this project at all that a landowner will come to a commission about. It's, can you move the line from this side of my pasture to that side of my pasture, because my farming operations go on here and not there? And so it becomes a pole-by-pole, mile-by-mile analysis of what's the best way to site this particular project.
States are uniquely cited for doing that sort of thing. A lot of respect for FERC, served there for several years. They have a lot of areas of expertise. That type of expertise, citing transmission lines in the middle of North Dakota, is probably not the highest and best use of a federal agency as opposed to a state one.
Speaker 1
Well, my last 23 seconds, let me just follow-up with you real quick. On the federal side, have you seen that happen where the feds didn't listen to where to put lines because they weren't in the backyard there with people in my last twelve seconds?
Speaker 5
So federal siting tends to be on the interstate transmission gas line side. And it's a much different process with gas line siting. But I mean, just to reiterate my point, I think that states are gonna be more attentive to the individual concerns of landowners because they, I mean, if you're on a state commission, you've probably driven by that particular parcel of land however many times because you're from the state. You're familiar with the area. You're gonna have a better sense of that sort of local issues that come into.
Speaker 1
And thank you very much. My time has expired, and I recognize the ranking member of the subcometer, the general leader for four to five minutes for questions.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it's very clear that the status quo just is not working. And I hear a little bit of defense of the status quo, and I hope we can move beyond that because costs are high, and we know that our existing grid is old. It's inefficient. It's now more susceptible to these extreme weather events, putting people's lives in peril.
So, mister Gremlins, thank you for your very specific recommendations here. One is that I hear general consensus on interregional planning. I think folks understand the value in that, can save a lot of time and money doing that upfront. It seems like you get bogged down when we're talking about the cost allocation of things. How do you propose that we solve that?
Because people obviously don't want to pay in if they're not gonna receive a benefit.
Speaker 7
Yeah. Thank you for the question, and thanks for your leadership on these topics over recent years. Yeah. I mean, the large-scale transmission tends to benefit many people across many states. It is a public good.
It's a classic public good, meaning sort of everybody benefits, and you can't keep others from using what you pay for. So if it were only a voluntary pass the hat type of recovery of cost, you know, you put in this because you want to and you put in contribute that, you're gonna under recover. We, if you read, you know, anything about public goods across national security highways, anything else, you're not gonna fund the things we need that way. So there has to be, and that's what regulators are for. And it has always worked at the state level and the utility-specific level.
But now as we have a more regional grid, the reality is we do have and we do need more of a regional and interregional grid. We need to clarify what FERC's authority is on that. And the rule is beneficiary pays. If you don't benefit, you don't pay. We just need to clarify what those benefits are and put that in law, so again, we don't litigate for ten years.
Speaker 2
Okay. Florida is very special. It's very special, but it's also special right now, because people are burning their electric bills. They're just sky-high. The utilities get the highest rate of return in the country.
We have a very high rate of shutoffs also. A study last year by the Brattle Group found that the Southeast, including Florida, is the only major US region that has not pursued significant regional transmission projects over the past decade. And yet, in 2024, we have FERC's order 1920 that required grid operators to implement proactive long-term, multi-value regional planning. How should grid planners in my region use the evolving world to modernize their processes and invest in a regional transmission system? And if they won't do it, what should Congress do?
Speaker 7
Sure. Well, I don't wanna pick on any specific utility, and I don't know enough about the specific circumstances. But I will say, as a general matter, utilities do a great job there. They tend to be vertically integrated, meaning the generation, transmission, distribution, and a vertical line work. But they don't have an incentive to look outside that vertical silo.
We have a bunch of vertical silos all around the country, and there are many affordable options that tend to be outside of the silo. But that utility doesn't make any money from that, and you can't blame them. And you can't blame them for doing what they're obligated to do for their shareholders with their fiduciary responsibilities. So I think the role of policymakers, to answer your question, is to make sure that they do plan sufficiently outside of their borders as well as inside.
Speaker 2
Okay. Mister Skelly, you have some experience in that as well. What do you recommend? And I'm also thinking about the 2024 interregional transfer capability study, NERC. That NERC did.
They recommended Florida increase its transfer capability to neighboring Southeast regions by 1,200 megawatts, a 40% increase. What does that tell us about the need for a more integrated grid, and what are your concrete recommendations for us?
Speaker 8
So, without getting into the details of each particular region, what we can do and what we do to the way we plan the grid today is, for example, the Southwest PowerPool looks ahead at where we are today, and what do we need in the future, where do we expect low growth, what sorts of resources do we have. And then they plan the grid along those lines, sort of like the IRP process that we heard about from Southern Company, but at a larger scale. Okay? What we don't do is take those same planning principles and use those principles to plan interregional transmission. And that's where we leave a lot of money and a lot of efficiency opportunities on the cutting-room floor.
So if we can sort of widen the aperture. Mhmm. Then we can identify a number of projects for better connections among the grids that will enable a more reliable and more efficient system. Sort of like I talked about the prices. I think I looked this morning. Again, it's a dangerous obsession.
And prices in the Mid-Atlantic were about 50% higher than the Midwest. Okay? If we had better connections.
Speaker 1
Generally, this time has expired. Okay. Thank you very much. And the chair now recognizes the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Kentucky, for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 3
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I think all of us on this committee understand we need massive amounts of new power. So it can be affordable and that the grid needs to be updated and needs to be fixed. And so we're, that's what we agree.
We're trying to how do we get there. And so that's why we're having this hearing, because I'm trying to learn. And so as we look at, we know we need to update the grid, but I'm trying to understand what we're trying to fix with transmission reform. And so for mister Clark, you know, the proponents for FERC permitting the interregional transmission say there'll be reliability and affordability benefits, and rate payers should pay for those benefits. From your perspective, what's missing from the cost allocation argument when assessing what's best for rate payers?
Speaker 5
Mister chairman, thank you for the question. So I think there are sort of two issues. One is with regard to cost allocation, it probably does make more sense to have better signals for what cost allocation will look like for projects, so that they and the regulators who oversee them know exactly how those costs will be allocated out. And perhaps there can be more signals, given from FERC with regard to cost allocation. But cost allocation is a separate issue from the question of what other alternatives could be built that might better serve customers.
Sometimes the big transmission solution might be the right answer. Mhmm. There may be other times where locating generation closer to load, or maybe a state has had a public policy where they support nuclear, or they want gas cited closer to load, or they wanna lean into energy efficiency and demand resources and nonwires alternatives. All of those things have to be taken into consideration as well, and that really is what falls to states to assess and to state commissions to assess. So I think that's a very important part of the equation, and that we worry about greater federalization perhaps encroaching on that.
Because once federal government selects a line, cites the line, but it is not well integrated into what the individual states are doing, you can end up with a less cost effective solution for customers than if it works within the state planning process that drives towards least cost planning.
Speaker 3
Thank you. So this question for Mr. Riker. I said that correctly. Right? I knew some Rikers back where I grew up.
So maybe that instead of Richard Riker's. So, Riker and Mister Howard, you each plan for different types of utilities in different regions, Southeast and then California. So my questions are too if you get answered. So integrated planning enables you to evaluate the best options for ratepayers, generation, transmission, etc. Is that the process you follow?
And why is integrated planning critical for building utility infrastructure? So, mister Rocker, if you want to go first.
Speaker 9
Integrated planning is critical for designing the least-cost, most reliable system for our customers. We enjoy the benefits of all of our planners sitting around the same table: generation, transmission, distribution, and fuel, working off a common set of assumptions and inputs to design the fully integrated optimal solution. In this era of rapid growth and significant growth, it's important that when we're designing transmission, we know where the generation's gonna be sited, and we know where the load is going. Without that insight, you would lead to a suboptimal plan and, therefore, additional cost for our customers that they cannot bear.
Speaker 6
Mr. Howard? So similar in California for our agency where we have 16 different utilities. Many of the utilities develop their own integrated resource plan. They meet regularly with their customers, so they understand where the growth is, the timelines of that growth. We look pretty far out into the future.
At our agency, we combine all of those various integrated resource plans and make a master. We bring that forward to the California ISO as part of the transmission planning process. We identify the types of loads that we believe we're gonna see, the timelines we're gonna see those. We also try to identify what are the types of resources that we're gonna need for meeting those loads, because it might not all be the same. Some of those loads are just in the middle of the day.
Some of them are twenty-four seven with it's a large load like a data center. So we try to identify what will be those resources we're gonna need, where those resources are located, and then what is the best solution. Again, it could be a transmission line. Sometimes it's building local. Sometimes it's better to build a new gas line in, build a local generation versus building a
Speaker 3
Transmission, I'll ask Mister Cruise. So we do have these big weather events. It may be really cold in one region of the country, not as cold in the other, so you can move power. Is there a role for the federal government and transmission lines in terms of just being able to move power around the country as we need it? Or can that happen with local planning?
Speaker 10
I think the role for the federal government is embodied in the federal power act, is FERC's job to be a consumer protection agency and protect consumers from rates that are unjust and unreasonable for both transmission and wholesale sales. That's what the federal power act says. The planning process, we have RTOs who actually do a very good job at planning. Certainly, PJM historically has done a very good job at planning. I've always had a lot of respect for PJM planners.
And to follow-up on your question on cost allocation, mister chairman, as a Virginia regulator in PJM, cost allocation worked fine as long as PJM was designing projects that serve consumers with reliable power. The curveball that came in is when they were told to start planning projects to incorporate the state public policies. Then that's when cost allocation became a much tougher, not to correct.
Speaker 1
Excuse me. The gentleman's time has, are you barred? And yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey, the ranking member of the full committee, for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For years, Democrats have called for reforms to the way our power grid is permitted, planned, and paid for. And I'm glad the Republican majority has finally decided to have a hearing on this topic, but a hearing is not enough. We actually have to make policy changes, not just talk about them. But, Gramlich, I was struck by a mention in your testimony where you talked about how the cost to deliver energy over a high voltage transmission line is just a fraction of the cost of delivering energy over a smaller, less efficient line.
And Americans are hurting due to the sky high electricity prices that we are seeing. So planning for a more cost effective grid makes a lot of sense to me. So, let me ask you a question, Mr. Grammar. Can you talk about how regional and interregional grid planning requirements can drive investments towards cost-effective lines and away from inefficient investments? And why do we need these planning rules to dissuade utilities from building a more fragmented, expensive power grid?
I have three questions for four minutes, and I'm gonna come back to you. So maybe a minute or so.
Speaker 7
Thank you for the question. Yes. There are massive economies of scale and the larger scale transmission, which means if you plan proactively to achieve all of your short, medium, and long term needs and multiple purposes, reliability, and economic needs, then you can plan those higher voltage lines that are much more efficient. Utility incentives matter in this regard as well. They definitely get to own and build what is in their local area.
They don't necessarily get to own or build what is outside of the region. So we've seen a trend where there's a little bit more activity. In fact, we're spending about $30,000,000,000 on transmission around the country, but almost all of that is on the local system and not so much on the regional and barely anything on the interregional system.
Speaker 4
Well, thank you. I'm gonna come back to you, but I wanted to go to Mr. Skelly. I'm glad we have a witness today with experience developing power lines outside the traditional utility model. And one thing you mentioned in your testimony was the importance of having a one-stop shop for federal coordination of permitting efforts, similar to the role FERC plays for natural gas pipelines. So my question, Miss Visco, is why is that one-stop coordinating role so important in getting projects across the finish line, and how can we enhance it?
Speaker 8
So, we have a couple of projects that are working through a system called CYTAP, which the DOE uses under the Energy Policy Act, and that process is moving fairly quickly. We the project that I mentioned a few minutes ago will be less than two years in and out of the NEPA process, and that's thanks to really great leadership on the part of the Department of Energy. And that's a permitting process. Okay? That process does not confer rights of eminent domain or some of the other issues that we've heard express concerns about.
It's just a coordination of the dozen or so federal agencies. It's important because there's a federal entity that kind of leans in and wants to make a project happen. So we find that leadership is really important and helpful to move things along.
Speaker 4
Alright. Well, thank you. And I wanted to go back to mister Gramlich again, but I wanted to point out that a lot of the ideas Democrats are talking today aren't that drastic. Fixing the backstop transmission citing authority that we gave two decades ago just seems like common sense to me. My question, mister Gramwick, would a fix to FERC's backstop citing authority to make it usable really be that radical given the Trump administration's proposals related to connecting data centers or forcing coal plants to stay online?
Speaker 7
I mean, as you say, it would be just fixing an authority that’s there. A lot of the theme of a lot of permitting reform is streamlining. Right? And the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor Program has DOE go through a whole process with NEPA at one agency. And then for the same line, FERC go through the whole same, it's double NEPA.
What's the point? Just streamline that.
Speaker 4
Alright. I appreciate it. Thank you so much, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much. The gentleman yields back the balance at this time. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia's 12th District for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 11
Thank you, chairman Lata, this is for holding this important hearing today to discuss transmission policy. I thank the witnesses, particularly Mister Rickard, from Southern Company, my home state of Georgia, Georgia Power, for your testimony before the subcommittee. As our energy demand increases, it is critical, and I think we all recognize it, that we build the infrastructure necessary to meet the growing demand. I'm a big proponent of how we run our energy policy in the Southeast, and that is why Georgia has been named the best state to do business in 12 years in a row. Folks, it's all about energy.
And, the result of strong state oversight, integrated planning by the utilities has resulted in significant economic development, while also protecting our everyday customers. This has resulted in Georgia Power committing to freezing. And, unlike, as mentioned here earlier about electricity costs going up, look at what we're doing in Georgia. At least $1,600,000,000 in cost savings for our customers. Maybe Washington needs to come down to Georgia to see how we're doing business.
I read your testimony, and I appreciate the detail about how you plan the transmission systems for Southern Company. A lot of what this committee and our colleagues in the Senate have considered around transmission seems to be trying to fix problems that Southern Company and Georgia Power have already solved. You're not having transition constraints. You're not having interconnection queue delays, and you're able to get generation connected quickly. I mean, we had the worst hurricane in history in my district.
150 years, we haven't had a hurricane, and we had power back in ten days, and it wiped out everything. You have the right amount of transition transmission that you need to be able to import power from your neighbors, but you do not have more than you need, which would result in higher cost for your our customers and my constituents. Mister Rickard, can you please explain how your planning process works in detail and why it has already solved the issues that much of this legislation we see around transmission is trying to address?
Speaker 9
Thank you very much, representative Allen. And we would love to host this subcommittee in Georgia anytime you want to come down.
Speaker 9
Thank you for that. We're very happy, and we're very proud of that success you just mentioned. And I will tell you, I think it stems from one advantage the Southeast has that other regions don't have, and that is our vertically integrated state-regulated business model that allows for holistic integrated resource planning. Again, like I said earlier, all the planners working together to find an integrated optimal solution that results in least cost and high reliability. I think our transmission planning process is a perfect illustration of how that coordination works.
And if you don't mind, I'd like to quickly walk through that. It starts with understanding the demand, understanding the growth, but not only the magnitude, but where it's going. We have multiple data center customers that have peak loads greater than 1 gigawatt. That is larger than a single unit at the Plant Vogel. And transmission is highly location-dependent.
It matters where you put the load. But then the second step is for us to model our entire system. We model every line, all 27,000 miles of line, enough line to go around the Earth. We model all 3,700 substations, but more importantly, we model all 550 discrete generating units. And that's not just the existing generators, that's the ones we're planning for.
And that's the value of our generation planners and our transmission planners working together, because that transmission line is only as good as the generator on the other end. Once we have that model, we can then run thousands of simulations to account for things like the simultaneous loss of a line in the generator, so that we can keep the lights on in all those situations. And by modeling that, simulating that, we can see where a constraint occurs on the system, whether it's a thermal overload or drop in voltage support. Once we identify that constraint, we then look at our entire menu of solutions. There is no one size fit all solution for a complex energy system.
We look at standard conductors, advanced conductors, grid-enhancing technologies, and we apply the right solution for that constraint. The result is we are embarking on our largest transmission expansion in the history of our company. We're deploying 750 miles of new transmission, reconducting or rebuilding over 1,300 miles of existing, and over half of that is advanced conductors.
Speaker 11
Okay. Well, I'm out of time. Okay. Don't wanna cut you short, but I noted too what you were requesting Congress to do. We need to get this done so you can continue this progress, and hopefully, others will ask you to continue on with exactly what we're doing here.
And, mister chairman, I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank you. The gentleman's time has expired, and he goes back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California's 50th district for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 12
Thank you, mister, I do wanna thank you for having this hearing. It's been something I look forward to for a long time. Here's our challenge. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation or NERC has said that an additional 35 gigawatts of interregional transfer capability across the country would reduce grid congestion, lower cost for consumers, and generally enable us to better meet load growth. At a recent study showed that transmission connections among US regions would have saved in 2022 between 5.8 and 7,100,000,000.
That's when natural gas prices were a little higher. In 2023, between 3.4 and 5,000,000,000 in 2023. The issue we have is that we have a national interest in interregional transmission. A lot of the discussion has been about in-state or very localized transmission. But we up here in congress, we have to figure out a way to recognize these savings and build out interregional transmission at least to the extent of 35 gigawatts.
And I'd ask unanimous consent that we can admit to the record a utility drive right above this study that says more regional interregional transmission could save consumers billions.
Speaker 12
Mister Skelly, there's a process in theory that's outlined in law that we do these national quarters of interest where the government decides where to site power lines, where the government decides what's needed. You're actually doing something called merchant building, where you look at the market and you try to, as a business matter, connect one place to another where you decide as a business person what the need is. When you do a multistate transmission line, can you tell us what permits you need and what agencies you need to work with, and how those challenges contribute to the willingness of companies to invest in transmission?
Speaker 8
Yes. So let me just reference back to first this study that you mentioned. So what you've said is with this investment, you get huge savings. That's generally our experience, is that we're able to show that if you connect two spots on the grid that are not connected otherwise, that this produces big savings, and that's why we're able to attract utilities that wanna invest in the projects because that produces savings for their customers. So I completely agree with many of the finest in the study.
So what we do is we work through the process. So we get out and talk to landowners. We work to find a route that works for them. We heard mention of, you know, the front of the pasture.
Speaker 8
of the pasture. That's the kind of stuff we're doing all day, every day. Then we work with counties to get county approvals. Sometimes there's township approvals as well. Then we'll go through a state citing process where you go to the state commission, and you propose a project, and they look at your routing and how you came up with that particular route.
Speaker 8
At the and then at the federal level, we would have on a given project probably a dozen different federal agencies that would have a say on the project and whether or not the impacts of the project are too much or really properly considered. Right. And then they come up with a record of decision. So we're in the middle of those processes.
Speaker 12
Would be helpful to you if a federal government had standards by which we judged who pays for the benefit. Right? Yes. Okay. Mister Graham, like, what is the number one barrier to connecting new energy resources to the grid?
Speaker 7
It's really the transmission capacity. There's been a lot of work on the process, and further work, I think, would be helpful on the process of generator interconnection. But, really, what we find, especially if you look at when, say, an RTO actually plans transmission and the lines get approved in the plans, automatically, the generator interconnection quickly becomes faster and cheaper because those lines are assumed, and you don't have individual generators having to pay for a regional network that benefits everybody across, you know, a dozen or more states.
Speaker 12
Mister Record, I just wanna comment on your testimony. I thought it was very well written and very impressive. There's nothing about a federal process that could that was trying to do interregional transmission that might say, as you suggested in your testimony, interregional is appropriate in other places, but maybe Georgia's good on its own. Right?
Speaker 9
No, sir. I would, we are, I would respectfully disagree with my fellow witnesses here. We are highly incentivized to look at any solution that is for the benefit of our customers.
Speaker 12
I'm just saying if we had a federal process that tried to decide where to put interregional transmission, a federal process that took the evidence you gave us in your testimony might say, okay, maybe Georgia doesn't need interregional transmission. Right?
Speaker 9
If it is a line from California or a string on a kite, if it's a good deal for our customers, we will evaluate it.
Speaker 12
Okay. I'm saying you're not gonna be forced to do anything if the numbers don't show it.
Speaker 9
Right? Our concern about prescribed outcomes is it will lead to costly solutions for our customers, and we think our integrated resource plan results in the best cost solution for our.
Speaker 12
customers. You'll accept my question as a statement then, because you didn't really acknowledge it. But I think there's nothing about a federal system of planning that would require you to do anything. I would just say, I hope we can solve this because it's part of a bigger plan to get a lot of the other things that you need, including NEPA reform and pipeline reform. Let's see if we can come up with a solution other than leave it the way it is.
I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank you. The gentleman's time has expired and yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Alabama's 6th district for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 13
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Record, your testimony mentions that all transmission in the world cannot fix generation shortfalls. You also note that during Southern Company's peak events, transmission capacity was not so much the concern, there was not excess power to buy from other regions of the country. Building more transmission has been a debate in this committee for years, but it seems to me the problem is more about the need to build dispatchable baseload generation. Can you expand on that if additional transmission would have solved the shortage, and explain how you're making sure that the comp has enough generation to serve the customers?
Speaker 9
Yes, sir. Thank you for your customer. Transmission, again, is only as good as the generator on the other end. And much like our transmission planning process, our generation planning process is just as robust. One of the key metrics for resource adequacy is something called the reserve margin.
It's essentially the percent of capacity you carry above your projected peak load. It's your insurance to account for things like extreme weather events or the loss of a major unit. We go through an extremely detailed analysis to figure out what is the economic optimum amount of insurance we should carry for our customers. If we're overinsured, we're gonna crush them with costs. If we're underinsured, we expose them to more reliability events.
And by the way, we have not shed firm loads since 1977, and we're very proud of that. The other step is each technology provides a different value proposition. There's a difference between capacity and energy. Capacity is knowing that on that cold winter morning when we need heat, that I can go to that technology and it will produce megawatts. Firm dispatchable capacity like gas generation has higher capacity value than, say, an intermittent resource.
But intermittent resources have an energy value as well. So we are gonna always pursue an optimal mix that not only hits that target reserve margin, but at the lowest cost. And I think the thing that really differentiates us from the rest of the region is that everybody has a target reserve margin. We're the only market, a vertically integrated state-regulated market, that has the mandate to build or buy to meet that target reserve margin because our state regulators hold us accountable for maintaining reliability, and that's why we haven't shed firm loads since 1977.
Speaker 13
Well, one of the things about building transmission lines, and usually when we're talking about it in this committee, it's about wind farms or solar farms. And, we don't talk so much about it, in the context of what we need, in terms of the dispatchable power. And one of the things that I think gets lost is the longer the transmission line, the less efficient it is in delivering power. I also look at the whole issue of battery storage. Again, most people think of that in the context of renewables when the wind's not blowing or the solar panels not producing the power you need.
But it's also essential for peak periods, even with dispatchable power. And I think, Southern Company has done a lot in that area. One of the things that I wanna ask you about is to just highlight what Southern Company's plant Vogel is doing. And as you mentioned, the reliable, sustainable, scalable energy is one of the most prominent needs in The US. Nuclear energy is one of the options to see that through.
It's the first newly constructed nuclear unit in the United States in, what, over 30 years. So what do you believe has been the key to success in initiating the commercial operations? And it's also a model. I mean, I met with representatives from Poland. They wanna build a Vogel type generator in Poland.
Sir. I think a minute left, if you could be as concise as you could be.
Speaker 9
Yes, sir. I think the key to our success, again, is our vertically integrated model and our constructive state regulatory environment. Plant Vogel is 2,200 megawatts of carbon-free energy, but it's also firm dispatchable capacity. It will be there on that cold morning. And working with our regulator, we were able to demonstrate that value and also drive that to completion.
And it is going to be an asset that operates for 80 plus years and has tremendous value to the citizens of Georgia.
Speaker 13
You're looking at 750 miles of new transmission. That's one that's not a transmission line. That's multiple transmission lines. I think it's important to note that because, with the permitting problems that we've got right now, it takes ten to twenty years to build transmission lines. But I'm also very concerned about our reliance on China for critical components.
And a lot of the components that we manufacture here are relied on China for rare earth elements and critical minerals that only China processes and refines. So are those some of the concerns that you have about some companies' ability to build these transmission lines? Having been able to get it done in a reasonable amount of time, having a certain level of certainty that will not drive capital investment away, allow you to get affordable money.
Speaker 9
No, sir. We are open for business, and we will remain open for business because we're coordinated with us.
Speaker 1
I'm sorry. The gentleman's time has expired, and he is back. And the chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey's 8th district for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 14
Thank you, chairman. Building out and upgrading grid infrastructure is a key piece to meeting addressing skyrocketing energy bills and growing energy demands from AI data centers. Mister Gramlich and mister Skelly, just yes or no, would you agree that building transmission is essential to meeting the growing electricity demand?
Speaker 14
And we hear from Republicans on this committee about the need to compete with China when it comes to energy, in the AI race. That's their justification for propping up fossil fuels and attempting to revitalize coal, despite China's embrace of all types of energy. Mister Gramlick, your testimony describes China's efforts to build out transmission lines. Would you say that China is outpacing us in terms of building out transmission?
Speaker 14
Yeah. According to The New York Times, China built roughly 25 times more transmission than the United States. They're connecting energy from where it is to where it is needed. So China's building out their interregional transmission to take advantage of all types of energy sources. Mister Gramlich, would building out interregional transmission help us meet our growing energy needs, and in turn help us to compete with China?
Speaker 14
And building out our grid and interregional transmission can help lower energy bills in the process. Is that correct? Yes. Could you briefly describe how?
Speaker 7
It provides access to cheaper generation, which is not necessarily always one generator in a location. It goes both directions. At any given time, the cheaper generation might be to the East or to the West. Transmission is bidirectional. So at any given moment, transmission allows access to the cheapest generation.
Matching supply with demand. Yes.
Speaker 14
House Republicans and President Trump have spent the last 16 months rolling back investments in clean energy to prop up fossil fuels, canceling hundreds of energy projects across the country, and now they're arguing against interregional transmission, which will allow regions to tap nearby generation sources with lower energies. But by contrast, China is embracing all forms of energy and rapidly building out the necessary infrastructure to connect resources to where they are needed. Meanwhile, House Republicans and President Trump are actively hamstringing our ability to harness all tools at our disposal to truly compete with China, to bring down energy costs, and are proactively choosing energy winners and losers in the process despite almost every witness before this committee agreeing that we need an all the above strategy to energy production in this country. Now let's talk about permit reform. Mister Gramlett, can you talk about the need for meaningful permitting reform to deliver the grid upgrades we should all know we need?
Speaker 7
Yes. I mean, simply, we like to describe it as the three p's: planning, permitting, and paying. Paying being who pays how much, and just defining the benefits on that. But there are good efforts, I think, in the well, there've been good bills from here sent over to the Senate. Good ideas, in the Senate Energy Committee, on the and EBW, on that.
Speaker 14
been bad bills. Last year, Republicans attempted to pass a permitting package that only helped the fossil fuel industry and did nothing to support cleaner and cheaper energy that is needed to meet the skyrocketing demand. They even went as far as to amend a bill to explicitly attack offshore wind. Mister Gramlich, would permitting reform that favors one energy source and significantly disadvantages another help us to meet our energy goals?
Speaker 14
Yeah. I agree. We need to have meaningful discussions on permitting reform, but that's hard to do when House Republicans and the Trump administration have yet to show they can be trusted to implement any deal in a way that is balanced and does not harm cleaner and cheaper energy. Since Trump took office, electricity prices have risen as much as 13% nationwide. In New Jersey, electricity bills have risen as much as 20%, and the one big beautiful bill, as described by Republicans, is expected to raise electricity prices 61% over the next decade.
And for the folks back home, those who are listening, if you hear about Trump's Paypayer Protection Pledge, know that it is nothing more than a handshake deal with big tech companies. Instead of thinking about a balanced, comprehensive approach to America's energy policy, Trump and House Republicans are more occupied with settling political scores, and in doing so, are crushing Americans with increased energy costs at a time of an affordability crisis. And yesterday, the president said the quiet part out loud when he stated that he doesn't think about Americans' financial situation. Unfortunately, House Republicans in this committee and in this Congress, their actions have shown they don't care either. Thank you.
Now you're back.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much. The gentleman used back the balance of his time. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio's 12th district for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 15
Thank you, chairman Lata, and thank you all for being here today. My first question is for Mr. Howard. Mister Howard, thank you for being here. While Ohio does energy policy differently than California, I think we can agree on one thing. Your local utilities matter.
Based on your experience, what practical value does regional and local expertise bring to planning and siting transmission lines that a federal agency like FERC, no matter how much staff or authority it has, just can't replicate from Washington. Excuse me, sir.
Speaker 6
Thank you for the question. Excuse me. I think as we've stated earlier, the integrated resource planning from the bottom up, really identifying what are the needs, what are the types of alternatives we have available to us. Those are very well done at the local level and determining where those resources might be located that we wanna access, and then bringing that up to what is the transmission that's necessary. What is the size of the transmission?
Can we do it through upgrades of existing versus building new? Looking at all those options, we're really better at the local level and the regional level to do that.
Speaker 15
Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. My next question is for Mr. Christie. Mister Christie, thank you for being here. Some folks seem to think that renewable intermittent projects in the interconnection queues could solve the resource adequacy problems facing the electric grid all on their own.
During your time at FERC, you worked on order 2023 to modernize the generational interconnection process. What do these thousands of gigawatts of renewable energy mean to resource adequacy, and what problems do you see facing the interconnection queue process? Well, we made a lot of.
Speaker 10
progress under rule 2023. The queues have been rationalized. The whole point of 2023 was to go from a first come first served to a first ready first served, so that the generators who were ready to go, they had financing, they had site control, would move up to the head of the line. And we already see in PJM, for example, they had about 60 gigawatts of new applications that were ready to go. So it is 2023, I would tell you, is working.
The issue about, you know, intermittent versus dispatchable, we have to have dispatchable resources because there's a huge difference between energy value and capacity value, and you have to understand that to understand how to evaluate a generating resource. Wind and solar have very good energy values, and they're cheap. They have a low marginal cost, but they have very low capacity value. You have to have the dispatchable resources like gas, nuclear, and coal to have the capacity value. Now in PJM, and I'm very familiar with PJM coming from Virginia, PJM has retired way too much in the way of dispatchable resources over the last twenty years because of the market structure.
That's an hour-long conversation. But we have to have both. We have to have sufficient dispatchable resources with high capacity value to make sure that the lights stay on. That's literally a reliability issue. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 15
I appreciate that. My next question is also for you, mister Christie and mister Reichard, and I'll let mister Reichard go first. There has been reference to the NRIC findings that increasing interregional transfers of power will benefit reliability and affordability. Would you each comment on whether FERC should mandate some amount of interregional transfer capacity based on this congressional requested study? This is the first question. And then to follow-up with that is, is there a way to plan the system without federal mandates that will better assure reliability and affordability for our constituents?
And, Mister Reichard, you may go first, please.
Speaker 9
While we appreciate the NERC study, it is admittedly incomplete by NERC. It fails to consider cost-benefit analysis. As a part of integrated resource planning, that is all we do. We do a full accounting of the costs and benefits. And our concern with a federal mandate is it will prescribe outcomes that are uneconomic for our customers, and that our IRP process already finds the least cost solution for our customers, and our state commissioners hold us accountable to do that.
Speaker 10
The nurse study didn't say that we needed a mandated minimum amount of interregional transmission. What the nurse study said was we need interregional transmission. I agree with that. Of course, we do. We already have interregional transmission.
During Hurricane Yuri, power was shipped from PJM into MISO and from MISO into SPP. So we have inter-regional transmission. We need more interregional transmission. But the point NERC was making, and I would certainly make that point too, is an interregional line needs to be evaluated individually between the two planning regions to make sure that line is the most cost effective for consumers. That's the way you do any utility asset.
If you look at the facts of the individual asset, whether it's transmission, generation, distribution, and make a decision that serves consumers, not some preexisting mandate before you've even looked at the facts. Agree.
Speaker 1
Thank you. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California's 15th district for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 16
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. There are indeed major challenges to building transmission lines in this country. And as many of you have noted, we need solutions to improve the permitting, planning, and proper allocation of costs for grid infrastructure. One promising approach is to site transmission lines on existing transportation rights-of-way.
For example, near railroads and highways, this could eliminate pushback from private landowners, make it easier to access for maintenance, and unlock new financing models for transmission. Several states such as Iowa, Montana, Wisconsin, and others have recently passed laws allowing dual purpose rights of way. So, mister Gramlech and then mister Reichard, what are some challenges to building transmission and infrastructure on transportation rights of way, and how can Congress help address that issue?
Speaker 7
I think building transmission in highways is a pretty daunting challenge for most developed. There are many rules and regulations that apply. Any effort that the federal DOT or state DOTs can execute to make that easier would be welcome and is often a very good solution. There's a great line on I 94 in Wisconsin after a state law passed there, that, you know, uses land well and I think could be a good model.
Speaker 9
Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. You know, physics determine transmission paths, but we are highly interested in any time we can expedite transmission siding, transmission construction, and we're very interested in this potential legislation, how our customers could benefit from it.
Speaker 16
We know nothing is easy in this regard, but I introduced a bill earlier this year directing the Department of Energy to lay the groundwork for a path forward with this approach. And I look forward to working with my colleagues in a bipartisan way to advance that effort. So, I'd like to now focus on grid component supply chains, a challenge some of you noted in your testimony. Right now, there is a nationwide shortage of transformers, circuit breakers, cables, and other materials that have doubled in prices and pushed procurement lead times out by years. If congress is going to address this issue, we have a few levers to pull.
For example, incentivizing domestic manufacturing, investing in workforce development, and accelerating the commercialization of new grid technologies. So, mister Skelly, then mister Howard, if you will, could you describe the supply chain challenges your companies are facing right now? And more importantly, how federal support could help alleviate those challenges.
Speaker 8
So, these challenges are real. It's very difficult to get everything from towers to wires to HVDC equipment that we rely upon. Then you mentioned some of the things that the federal government is doing. I think the best thing the federal government can do is give us a little more certainty around the ability to get projects done. Because we a couple years ago, we placed an order for some about a billion dollars of high voltage direct current equipment from a company called Hitachi.
And we did so with some trepidation because we weren't really sure if our projects were gonna move along or not. And so to the extent that we can create more certainty in terms of project timelines and we don't need guaranteed outcomes, but some assurance like, okay. We're gonna go through a process. And if you get through this process, you will build the project. That's probably the best thing because then we and others can step up and make commitments that will be the sort of underpinning of more investments in the manufacturing sector.
Speaker 6
So thank you for the question. We do need more manufacturers of some of this equipment, and appropriate incentives for that. But I would also echo what Mister Skelly put forward, and that is, in the project that we're working on, we're waiting almost to the end of the permitting process before we're ordering these very lengthy, long duration materials, instead of doing it in parallel because of the risk of not getting the special permits that we need and not knowing for sure that we're gonna build it. So it's such a high-risk, high-cost type of process. The other thing is some of the procurement rules now have changed dramatically, you know, as a public agency, putting very large deposits upfront for something you might not receive for 4 or 5 years out, and then having maybe sequential payments.
And then they're not firming the end price until six months before delivery because of the potential of changing of cost of the materials. So the procurement rules for us are very daunting.
Speaker 16
Thank you all for that. I look forward to working on legislation, on all those issues.
Speaker 1
And thank you very much. The gentleman yields back, and the chair now recognizes the, oop, gentleman from Texas 11th District for 5 minutes for questions.
Speaker 17
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate the witnesses being here. The discussion is so important to our future, our security, and the ability for us to continue to produce what we need, with demand growing. It's just this is such a it's not just a timely discussion. It's something that, quite frankly, we're behind on.
So thank you for that. And I strongly support the every aspect of generating more power, of getting that to consumers, of competing with China, you know, and there's so many different things. And I think we should be clear eyed on this: it is a competition with the Chinese Communist Party that would really like to take data centers in particular back to the Mainland of China instead of allowing them to be here. So, yes, I think we can do all of it. And I've got a couple of questions that I'll jump into.
You know, there's a variety of ways to do this, but when lines are built and they go through private land, I think the onus is on all of us to really tell that story about what we're doing. And there's a lot of concerns back in my home district, so know that I'm supportive of having lines transmit electricity, more electricity. But we've heard a lot of concern, and this is mostly a state level issue in the state of Texas. So, less federal interaction. But I think the nexus here is I'll start with Mister Clark on just what the, what are the best practices for ensuring that landowners and the local communities can have a meaningful voice in transmission siting decisions.
Speaker 5
Congressman, thank you for the question. The first thing I would say is that if I'm making recommendations to project developers, the best recommendation I would have is make sure you have really good land agents because that's where it starts. I've seen a number of occasions where a project will really get off track.
Speaker 5
It can be pipelines, too. But if you have land agents who aren't working well in the community and with landowners, that can be a problem. A second recommendation I would have is anything that you can do from a congressional standpoint to open up opportunities to use things like rights of way, to streamline the federal permitting process, so that project developers don't avoid multiuse federal land. I've seen many projects where it would be better to place it on the multi-use federal land, keep it off of private landowners' land. But the project developer won't choose that route.
Even though it's most cost effective, it would be better put on we're not talking about wilderness areas or things like that, multi use land. But they don't go that way because they don't trigger a federal nexus, which then triggers all sorts of federal permitting. So I think those two things will help with landowner relations and get projects done more quickly and efficiently.
Speaker 17
Thank you. And I'll come back to that in just a second. Your point as well taken there, I wanna go to Chairman Christie. Do you believe states are better positioned than the federal government to weigh landowner concerns and to deal with that?
Speaker 10
Absolutely, Congressman. I'll give you an example. So we had a very controversial project when I was on the Virginia commission. It was called the Trail Line. It ran from Pennsylvania through West Virginia into Virginia.
It was the largest regional line in PJM. And we had hundreds of people that came out to high school gyms, complaining, opposing the line. No one came out in favor of it. Hundreds came out against it. And but they had their chance to speak.
They had the hearings. And, ultimately, we decided that the facts showed that line was needed to avoid line overloads, which would have caused blackouts and brownouts. So the facts justified the line. We approved the line. It continued to get litigated for years.
We won all the litigation. We got it built. The lesson is state regulators are in that position to listen to the people, to give the people a chance to come out by the hundreds, literally, and speak their will. But at the end of the day, when a state regulator says, the facts show this needs to be built, we had a credibility that came from the fact that we were a state utility commission. Bottom line is I don't think FERC would have that.
If we had said no to that line and FERC had come in and said, well, we're gonna order you to build it anyway, I think, frankly, the political blowback would have been so fierce that the members of congress from Virginia would have wanted to do away with backstop signing authority. That's true. Another reason it's never been used. Say regulators have a credibility with the people of their states because they're there all the time, and they know what the states need. And that's why I think from a credibility standpoint, the states have got the credibility that FERC is just looking at.
Speaker 17
me, real quickly. Thank you. Mister Clark, existing rights of way, also bolstering the existing system and making these lines more productive. Can you quickly, and then in writing, follow-up on how we should be looking at that and what impact that'll have on our ability to transmit electrons?
Speaker 5
Happy to do so. I think state regulators are definitely interested in ways that the existing system can be bolstered, increased capacity utilized without requiring new siting of transmission and infrastructure.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. The gentleman's time has expired and yielded back. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Virginia's 4th district for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 19
Thank you, Chair Lada and ranking member for this important hearing today. Thank you to our witnesses, and especially my former constituent, Mark Christie. It's nice to be on this side of the dais with you at the table. Energy demand in the United States is forecast to explode over the next few years, and we must upgrade our grid, increase transmission capacity, and improve efficiencies in the grid's ability to transmit energy, especially during emergencies or periods of extreme weather. We must advance meaningful reforms to expedite grid and transmission modernization in order to address skyrocketing energy prices and prevent greater harm to Americans in the future.
And in a world in which US households have an average of roughly 21 connected devices, our current grid cannot handle the increase in energy generation necessary to support the increased electrification of everything from transportation to advanced manufacturing, data centers, and AI. And one of the themes of today's hearing has been getting the proper balance between the federal government's responsibility and the state's responsibility. And as a former state legislator, I get it, and I agree how important it is to get that balance right. But what's been missing from our discussion today is the sheer difference in permitting an interstate natural gas pipeline versus an interstate transmission line. For the natural gas pipeline, it's a one-stop shop.
You go to FERC, you apply for a permit, FERC gives you the permit. For transmission lines, you have to apply for a permit from each state's utility commission that your line touches. Mister Gramlich, does that make a lot of sense to you? And given fears around all the power lines being cited at the federal level, how many transmission lines do you expect these reforms will actually impact in real life?
Speaker 7
Thank you for the question. Well, for sure, it is easier to build interstate natural gas pipelines than transmission. We have a whole federal regime for natural gas. The Natural Gas Act and FERC's authority there. There are certainly proposals and discussions of moving the electricity system to replicate that and have full parity of transmission with natural gas.
Sort of being a practical purpose person, I'm aware that there's an opportunity in this congress to do something that's much more modest than that and simply clarify the federal backup citing authority that exists. And even if that is done, that would really, I think, only affect a small minority of lines, less than 10%. Some people say a couple of percent of the transmission line. So states would stay in the lead and would still, by and large, permit most transmission. But there would be that, you know, narrow view for the bigger lines, multistate lines that where there would be a federal role.
Speaker 19
And I wanna switch gears to data centers. Mister Graham, like, I think you correctly noted that state utility commissions are addressing the most important questions in electricity policy these days on how to best shield families from paying for infrastructure used by data centers and other large users of electricity. And as a matter of fact, the Virginia SEC just adopted a new rate class for Dominion Energy for large industrial users like data centers as one example. So, Gramlich and Mister Skelly, can you talk about how establishing certainty around the question of who is responsible for paying for specific infrastructure will help us build everything: clean energy, transmission infrastructure, and facilities like data centers that use a lot of power more quickly?
Speaker 7
Well, I'll start on the, you mentioned large load tariffs and a lot of the state initiatives. And, you know, I'd agree with Tony Clark and the Nehruk testimony. The states are doing a lot in that regard, and that's really important work, and that these are retail customers that it is currently in state jurisdiction. And that's really important. It's providing, first of all, dollars into the system to pay for the grid, also shielding existing rate payers, also improving our forecast because when they pay up, then you know how much to plan for on the system.
So that's really helpful. Now, the broader question is, well, you know, again, they do want to connect with the grid, and the grid is strained, and we need more capacity. And the grid is, by its physical nature, a multi-state machine. And so there has to be also a federal role with, again, clarifying who pays what are the benefits that define who pays how much for those lines.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much. The general I yield is back. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Tennessee's 1st district for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 20
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today. I'd like to take time to recognize the great work of the Tennessee Valley Authority done on transmission. They built more than 16,400 miles of line to provide upwards of 35,000 megawatts of energy to 10,000,000 people across seven states, and that's no small feat. They've been successful at building the transmission they need at the rate they require, without FERC getting unnecessarily involved. In return, we're seeing TVA operate to the benefit of the ratepayers by keeping those costs low.
And Tennessee residents have some of the lowest electricity rates in the nation, even with the skyrocketing demand. In the Western part of the state, we have AI's colossus in Memphis, and Oak Ridge's frontier in the east. And what are they doing to make sure that ratepayers have affordable and enough electricity is that they're building transmission. But more importantly, they're building a lot of new assets, and TVA is in the works to bring online 6,200 megawatts of new energy, prioritizing permitting reform to rapidly build more energy generation, just a critical piece to meeting new demand and keeping prices low. And it's not just about transmission.
So, mister Clark, I have your letter to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee outlining Dorook's permitting reform priorities. In your letter, you write that undue delays do not come from the state regulatory process, the creation of a federal nexus. And can you give some examples of what the delays are in that federal nexus?
Speaker 5
Sure. Thank you for the question. I mean, first of all, as we state in the letter, state commissions have permitted something like close to 3,000 miles of 345 kV and above lines over just the last five years. Just so lines can get permitted through the state process. In terms of some of the federal stoppages that we've seen that have caused concerns, I'll give you just a couple of examples.
One I had just mentioned, which is projects that I saw personally as a state regulator where developers and it didn't stop the project, but it added cost and time to the project to have to avoid federal lands, to avoid, yeah. Triggering federal nexus. So that's sort of one negative outcome. A second one that is just a concrete example that I'll give you. 2010, 2011, there were a tranche of different projects that were determined to be needed in the Upper Midwest, interregional projects, crossing state lines, interstate projects.
Most of them were built, cited by the states, and handled very efficiently. Took a few years to get done, but they got done. There was one that was hung up for, I think, 13, 14 years. It's the cardinal of the Hickory Creek line. The states had done their job.
The Iowa regulators had done their job. The Wisconsin regulators had done their. There's the problem with that one particular line: it crossed the Mississippi River, and it triggered federal jurisdiction relative to certain public lands. That triggered all of the opportunities to hang that project up in federal court, through federal litigation for year after year. Those are the sorts of federal permitting reform efforts that we think can speed transmission, but without impinging on.
Speaker 1
Some of those developers of the major transmission lines are pushing back on Eric's position, and they say the states are blamed.
Speaker 20
What kind of examples where states have you seen states denying permits?
Speaker 5
There are a few. As I said, I mean, the vast majority of lines are getting permitted across country, but there's a few that states have declined to permit candidly. Usually, when it happens, as I identify in my testimony, it's one of three issues. Yeah. Number one, it's a project that leans very heavily on eminent domain and condemnation, and it creates a lot of landowner. Yeah.
Concern. Number two is there may be a need for cost benefit analysis that happens that hangs the project up. That recently happened with one in Pennsylvania that then became subject to a federal court litigation. The state lost in that case, and they thought that was a disappointing decision. But, it was related to the commission decided that that project was no longer the least cost alternative for the customers in Pennsylvania.
And then sometimes there are, give an example of a project, Sunsea, which was delayed for a long time in the Southwest. That was both a federal and state issue. It crossed a lot of federal land, and so it triggered a lot of federal litigation. Originally, the state did decline that application. It was because it was deemed to be a deficient application.
A project developer later came on, a more experienced developer, who had built some of those projects and was able to get state certification once.
Speaker 1
So it's really the states are pretty good at doing the permitting. It's just sometimes it gets caught up like in Mississippi with the federal nexus, things of that nature. And I've got more questions for the record. But with that, I'll go back. Thank you very much.
The general lady yields back the balance of her time. The chair now recognizes the general lady from California's 7th district for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 21
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanna thank all the witnesses for being here today, and I wanna extend a special welcome to Brandy Howard of the Northern California Power Agency. This power agency serves the city of Lodi, which is now part of my district, and the city of Roseville, which borders my district. Now most of my district is served by public power utilities, and we enjoy some of the lowest rates in California. So I'm particularly grateful to the Northern California power agency and our Sacramento public utility, SMUD.
I'm glad Republicans are holding another hearing on transmission capacity, because I think the solutions the Republicans proposed in the previous hearing were incomplete. I support advanced transmission technologies, but we need a more comprehensive approach that also ensures we can build new long-distance transmission lines on a reasonable time scale. It starts with good planning. Mister Grahamlick, your company has published a transmission planning report card for a few years that shows California is leading the country in regional and interregional transmission planning. Mister Gramnik, what is California doing differently?
Speaker 7
Yes. The California ISO has been proactively planning transmission consistently for the last 15 years. So the only ones who have really been doing it consistently.
Speaker 7
Yes. California's been doing a lot both within the region and accessing resources around the entire West with new lines.
Speaker 21
Alright. Good planning is a prerequisite for good projects, and that's why supported legislation like the Energy Bills Relief Act will improve the interregional planning process. Let me see now. Transmission cost saving. Now, apparently, this all comes back to cost.
Inadequate transmission capacity has significant cost that gets paid by ratepayers. Mister Graham, like, your company has written about congestion costs, including during winter storm Fern. Can you explain what that means, and how much money we're talking about?
Speaker 7
Sure. There we in that storm, there was about a $100,000,000 value, just if you had sort of been able to bring power from Chicago to here in DC just during that.
Speaker 7
Short period of time. And that's what happens as the clog transmission prevents that power flow.
Speaker 21
Sure. Now a bigger, more efficient grid is more reliable and more cost-efficient. And that's why the California grid operator, Kaiser, recently launched a new West Side energy market, the so-called day ahead market. Mister Howard, can you explain how the day-ahead market works and how you expect it to improve reliability and save costs?
Speaker 6
Thank you for the question. Today, we operate the energy imbalance market, which is a real-time market. It's about the hour, fifteen minute, and five minute. And it's currently saved about $8,000,000,000 since it came into inception in 2014. The parties that have been doing that are around the West, and the decision was let's go to the next step, which is the day ahead, to the extended day ahead.
And that's just started up earlier this month, and we're already seeing some very significant benefits. So it's how do you optimize, sure. The current transmission system ensures that the best resources are being utilized to save our customers.
Speaker 21
Okay. Thank you. Delay also has a cost that can be passed on to the ratepayers. Mister Skelly, in your experience as a developer, how do permitting delays for a new transmission line impact the overall cost of the project?
Speaker 8
Well, if you know, in our business, time is money, and so that's a big factor. But I think the biggest issue is that because it's so difficult to permit things, there's a lot of projects that nobody even tries to do. And, therefore, the penalty that we pay as a society is we have congestion and higher prices than we need because people simply think it's impossible to do some of these projects.
Speaker 21
Okay. Thank you. Mister Howard, it's important to make the most of the grid we have. I understand the Silicon Valley Power, which is one of your member companies, is pioneering the flexible operation of data centers. What does that mean, and how can flexible operations help save time and protect ratepayers?
Speaker 6
Currently, in Santa Clara, we serve about 60 data centers, with expansions planned for additional data centers and growth in the existing data centers. Because of the timeline associated with the infrastructure necessary to serve them, there's a pilot program going on with NVIDIA, the utility, and a company called Emerald AI, which is based here locally, to try to use software and ensure that these loads are flexible, meaning that they can work within the existing system today and recognizing that they could reduce load requirements under extreme weather events or loss of a generation, loss of a transmission. So we're working with these large loads to ensure that, going forward, we can use the infrastructure we have while we're building out additional infrastructure.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. General lady's time has expired and yields it back. The chair now recognizes the general lady from Florida's 15th district for five minutes for questions. The questions flow sometimes.
Speaker 23
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by acknowledging something that doesn't get said enough, and that is that the American electrical grid is one of the greatest engineering achievements in human history. Hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines, millions of interconnected components, delivering reliable power to 330000000 Americans virtually around the clock. And here is the remarkable thing. The system wasn't built by a federal mandate.
It was built state by state, utility by utility, with state regulators who understood their communities, their geography, their customers, and their specific energy needs better than any federal agency ever could. The Southeast and Florida today are the strongest proof points of the model that reliable, affordable, growing, and end results can be done without burdensome political intervention from Washington. Mister Reichardt, Southern Company's vertically integrated, state-regulated model has delivered retail rates more than 10% below the national average. Frozen base rates in Alabama and Georgia, no generator interconnection queue backlog, and you have never been transmission-constrained during a peak reliability event. At the same time, NERC's own study, the one that Congress mandated specifically to inform this debate, concluded that transmission decisions should be based on region-specific reliability findings and coordination, not broad federal mandates.
My concern is that the region's most aggressively pushing for federal interregional transmission mandates are largely the same regions that retired dispatchable generation ahead of adequate replacement, creating their own capacity shortfalls, and are now facing NERC reliability warnings of their own making. If Congress imposes a federal mandate with regional cost allocation, aren't we asking Southern company customers in Florida or in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida ratepayers who are served by Florida Power and Light and Duke Energy who have absolutely no role in creating these reliability failures to subsidize expensive transmission lines that exist primarily to paper over the consequences of other regions' policy decisions?
Speaker 9
Thank you for the question, and yes, potentially. And I would love to answer that question in terms of how we evaluate regional transmission because we do a full accounting of all the benefits and all the costs. There could be energy benefits. You could pick a day where you see other regions might have cheaper energy than us. But if you look at a 45 year transmission asset, what we have seen, and because of lease cost planning, the spreads between regions are not very significant.
The other benefit, and you mentioned this, is capacity or reliability benefit. Our state commissioners hold us accountable for building enough or buying enough resources to maintain reliability, and NERC has identified that we're really good at that. So we don't see any reliability or capacity benefit from regional transmission. On the cost side of the equation, a
Speaker 9
Of time gets spent on the cost of the line, but we don't talk about other cost components. There are network upgrades on each side of that line that are required to be done. It would be like building an interstate with no off-ramps or local roads if you didn't do those upgrades. And those upgrades can be hundreds of millions of dollars. And then the other cost that you have to consider is if you look at a 400-mile transmission line that's carrying 2,000 megawatts, we have to be ready for a storm or something else to take that line out and respond immediately to maintain reliability.
That's fuel costs that our customers have to pay. And then the last cost you have to consider is, you know, physics are undefeated. Load needs voltage, and a great source of voltage or megavars is the local generation. So if we're relying on long-haul transmission, we've gotta spend money on local solutions to provide that voltage support. So what we have seen is the whole business case, the full accounting of costs and benefits, the costs far outweigh the benefits for our customers.
Speaker 23
Thank you. And, mister Clark, in your prior writings, you raised concerns that FERC order 1000 could weaken state authority over transmission planning and potentially shift costs onto states like Florida that are outside organized wholesale markets. Now that it is more than 15 years since implementation, how do you view order 1,000, and can you speak to that?
Speaker 5
Congresswoman, thank you for the question. That's a bit of a blast from the past for some of my writings at FERC. I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, my concern when I was at the commission thinking back is that some of the planning mandates coming out of order 1,000 may be inappropriate for certain situations.
And Florida was a great example where it's a peninsular state, not a lot of interconnection with other regions. And overriding the directives potentially of the Florida commission who really looks at serving local consumers might end up with suboptimal solutions.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York's 20th district for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 24
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members across the aisle have said that it is a national security and economic imperative that we compete with China, especially in the AI race. So I really hope that this hearing can be a first step toward acknowledging that to fully compete, we must enable the expansion of our electricity system on a national level. I would welcome the opportunity for us to work together to actually address some of the very real hurdles that are currently preventing good projects from being considered, let alone successfully developed. I've seen it firsthand in New York state, but I'm excited that we're finally expecting the Champlain Hudson Power Express to be energized next month.
I've been on record supporting this project since 2011. And when it's completed, this one high-voltage line is expected to fulfill some 20% of New York City's electricity needs with Canadian hydropower. So, mister Skelly, I know you have experienced developing similarly large projects. Can you tell us how much harder and more expensive it becomes when a project drags on for ten or fifteen years? And does that lead to more expensive financing or other cost overruns?
Speaker 8
So there's two big costs. And I'm glad you mentioned that project because it's a great project, and we'll do a lot to improve air quality in New York City, which is, I know, a big issue for y'all. In Houston, we build transmission into the city, and that helps us with our air quality as well. So in terms of the cost, there's really two costs. One is sort of the time value of money, and the other is the risk premium.
So if you have a project like in this case, it's Blackstone, they carry that project on the books for, like, it'll be 15 years of development costs and a lot of uncertainty. And investors are like normal people. If they're taking a lot of risk, they'll want a premium associated with the amount of risk that they're taking. And developing transmission is a fairly risky enterprise, so people will look for higher returns during that risk period. Now once you get a project over the finish line, the risk drops dramatically because you have mechanisms in place where it's a nice consistent revenue.
So the costs are uncertain. And then the other huge cost is all the projects that we don't do, that those cost the country a lot.
Speaker 24
Thank you for that. And I'm looking at reports from the EIA and the Brathoe Group, where they indicate about $30,000,000,000 is spent annually on transmission infrastructure. The Bradford Group also did some analyses, finding that most transmission investments in 2023 were reliability projects. Other big drivers of investment include addressing aging infrastructure and load growth, which, in a sense, are also a function of maintaining reliability. So, Mister Gramlich, does this track with your understanding?
Is most of the $30,000,000,000 spent annually on transmission investments to improve system reliability?
Speaker 7
Yes. And it's somewhat frustrating. We're spending all this money, close to $30,000,000,000 a year, and we're not actually expanding the capacity. Now we do have to spend almost all, if not all that money, because the lines are 75 or more years old and need replacement, or severe weather requires us to, you know, upgrade them or just pay to rebuild when they get blown down in the storm. So that's a lot of spending, but we also need to expand the capacity.
Speaker 24
Thank you. And I also want to focus on a point you made in your testimony. Even if there were to be significant changes in how we plan, site, permit, and cost-allocate major transmission projects, this wouldn't change the fact that states and regions, not the federal government, will still have primary responsibility for considering major aspects of the overwhelming majority of transmission investments. Is that correct?
Speaker 7
That's correct. I outlined in my testimony many roles that states will continue to play even if, you know, a transmission title and permitting reform pass.
Speaker 24
Right. And what are some of the characteristics of a transmission project that may warrant it to be given elevated national significance?
Speaker 7
Yeah. I'd say the higher capacity, longer line, multistate nature of those lines would, you know, put them in another category.
Speaker 24
Right. I fully acknowledge that not all transmission proposals are going to be good, but it is clear that well-planned projects can reduce congestion, improve reliability, and unlock access to low-cost generation. But if grid planners constrain themselves to only regional and local options, they may overlook projects that provide access to low-cost resources from neighboring regions. And when regions don't need to plan together, it makes it more unlikely that an interregional project will be planned at all, and that means consumers may be missing out on hugely beneficial projects. So why is it so difficult to get regions to jointly conduct interregional planning?
Speaker 1
Well, I'm sorry. The gentleman's time has expired, and he will submit that question for you in writing. Thank you very much. And the chair now recognizes the vice chair of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas' 14th District for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 18
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mister Christie, I'm gonna come back to you for a couple of questions. Can you endure that?
Speaker 18
Okay. Well, we know you will. The lady from Virginia earlier talked about transmission lines and pipelines as if they were one and the same, should be traded the same, and, you know, all that kind of stuff. How do you think transmission and pipe, you know, wires, if you wanna comment, and pipelines are different?
Speaker 10
Well, pipelines are different in several ways. First of all, it was congress, I think, made the decision back in World War two to give what was in the Federal Power Commission the permitting authority. I think it's a wartime measure. But another difference is a pipe and we permitted those at FERC and did a lot of them. A pipeline is financed differently.
A transmission line is gonna be financed by consumers because it's gonna go into something called rate base. It's a utility asset. And consumers are gonna pay for it really from the in RTOs, consumers pay for it from the minute it goes into the regional plan. They start paying. Even if it doesn't get built, I can give you an example called the PATH project, which never got built, and a quarter billion dollars was spent and charged to consumers in Virginia, for a project that never got built.
It doesn't happen with pipelines. Pipelines are financed by shippers, so the shipper pays for the pipeline. So it's really not a utility asset in that sense. A pipeline might serve a utility like a local distribution company, which is a state-regulated utility. But the pipeline itself is gonna be paid for by shippers who sign contracts called precedent agreements.
And at FERC, don't approve a pipeline unless there's sufficient market demand in the form of precedent agreements to pay for the pipeline. But a transmission line, consumers are gonna pay from the second it goes into a regional plan.
Speaker 18
Right. That's a good analogy. People, I wanna come back to you. People often tout the interregional transfer capacity report from NERC as evidence of the benefits of interregional transmission. Since you were chair of FERC at the time, you may have a different opinion.
You know what I'm talking about. What was the conclusion of the report, and what should Congress take away from that report's findings?
Speaker 10
Well, I reported the preliminary findings from NERC last August, when I was chair. What NERC said was, yes, we need interregional transmission. I think there's no disagreement on that. I fully agree with it. We benefited during Hurricane Uri, winter storm Uri, from interregional transfers.
The first point was we need interregional transmission, but there's no basis for an ex ante mandate plucked out of the air, where you say, okay. I can think there's a Senate bill that said 15% of the load in two regions. You had to build the transmission to that degree. That's gonna submit a lot of money on transmission that hasn't passed a cost-benefit test. We need interregional transmission.
What FERC's point, NERC's point was, we need interregional transmission. It needs to be done on an individual basis where the regions come up with individual fact-finding that supports the individual project, which, by the way, is the way all utility assets ought to be built if you want least cost pro-consumer results.
Speaker 18
Yeah. Leave it to the states. I think I hear you're saying, and, boy, I'll tell you, we experienced that February 2021 winter storm URI in Texas. Unfortunately, ERCOT was, you know, on track with things. So, Miss Clark, I'm gonna come back to you for just a minute.
Do you kind of agree with his assessment that pipelines, electrical lines are different, or do you have a different perspective?
Speaker 5
No. Congressman, thank you for the question. Have exactly the same perspective and would have answered that portion of it the same way that Chair Christie did. I would add a couple of other things to it, where I think there's differentiation between pipelines and transmission lines. With pipelines, there was a decision made at the national level that, look, there's really just one source area that you're attempting to collect the gas from to deliver to one demand area.
So you have to connect it via a pipeline, and there's not a lot of other decisions to be made in that regard. In addition to the fact that it's actually the shippers paying it as opposed to sort of everyone in a rate base, the transmission is totally different. There are lots of different ways that you can deliver power. You can have generation close to load.
Speaker 5
place or another. It's a much more dynamic process. It doesn't lend itself to federalization in the same way.
Speaker 18
And it's good for the ratepayers. Would you agree with that, Mr. Howard?
Speaker 7
I think there's a federal role for transmission and a grid that is a single machine across dozens of states.
Speaker 8
I think we heard from other witnesses that interregional transmission is necessary and helpful, but, so we need to come up with mechanisms to make it happen.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas' 33rd district for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 25
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll gentlemen, I'll tell you what really worries me right now is the fact that the Chinese Communist Party is leveraging state-directed investment to build grid infrastructure, and we simply just aren't matching it. I don't know how we're going to keep up. If we can't power AI at scale here, that industry will just migrate to jurisdictions that can. A grid that can power the future is a strategic that cannot, I'm sorry.
A grid that cannot power the future is a strategic liability. Luckily, in Texas, we show that we don't have to be reactive. The CREAS program proved that proactive planning unlocks massive private investment. We built about 3,600 miles of high-voltage lines, and the private sector responded with billions in new generation. We are currently failing to apply that Texas speed at the federal level.
We've seen recently ratepayer protection pledges. But as experts note, vague pledges don't build substations. We have to have real institutional architecture that converts data center capital into public grid investment. And we also need to move toward a model where large loads like these hyperscalers don't just connect to the grid but actually help finance the modernization that benefits every residential taxpayer in the district. We can't continue to ask companies to commit billions if the federal government can simply pull the rug from under them midstream.
That is not a good way to do business. Investors need to know that a final permit is exactly that, that it is final. If we can provide that certainty, we shouldn't need federal subsidies. We need federal stability to let private capital do the work. And I wanted to ask Mister Gromlich, how can federal policy move away from the current reactive interconnection model and towards a proactive planning framework that anticipates load growth, like the data center boom we're seeing?
Speaker 7
Yeah. Those transmission lines, built right around 2010, 2013 in Texas, were a huge benefit to the state, enabled a lot of load, a lot of generation to be connected. They were, in fact, a model for then in the Upper Midwest. Mister Clark was involved in Upper Midwest states doing that proactive multistate regional transmission development in the Midwest. Southwest Power Pool followed California.
A number of other states have been doing this regional approach that were all sort of the model for first quarter 1920, which hopefully will be fully implemented nationally. But we're still not doing it yet in most of the country. So that proactive transmission approach with also Texas' example of simpler and cheaper interconnection for generation really has been an effective model for the rest of the country.
Speaker 25
Do you think there's anything that Congress can do? Do have a lever that we can pull to help these other states that aren't quite there yet?
Speaker 7
Sure. I do think the planning, permitting, and paying to proactively build out the grid and not try to do what we do in most of the country, which is try to build a national interstate grid through the interconnection process, which is a crazy way to do it. You know, the next straw on the camel's back has to build, you know, the whole new camel. Ran out of my metaphor there. But you get the idea that the network should be built as a network, not just in response to a single generator.
That would be a good model. You could also, if you wanted to do something closer to the generator interconnection approach of Texas, Congress could say, FERC should fix what is supposed to be that energy resource interconnection service, but it never really worked out that way. That could be a direct improvement of that to go back to its original intent could be a directive in a law.
Speaker 25
Yeah. No. No. Thank you very much. Mister Scalia, I wanted to ask you.
You're in the business of putting steel in the ground, and, you know, time is the enemy of many major infrastructure projects. When you're looking at a multimillion-dollar project, how does the idea that a permit can be undone after years of work impact your ability to secure financing? Because if you ain't got financing, you ain't got no project.
Speaker 8
Well, I, you know, I would say that the thing that perhaps most keeps us away, and we do everything we possibly can to do great work in terms of community consultations, working with tribes, working with all the different federal agencies to come up with a record of decisions on NEPA that's as strong as possible. But the prospect of somebody challenging that decision five, six years down the road is that'll keep you awake at night.
Speaker 25
And then, yeah, I can imagine that you do. So in my last few seconds here, just wanted to ask you, you can answer it quickly. Is finality in the permitting process just as important as the speed of the initial review, because we don't talk about that enough around? Yes. Yeah.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina's 7th District for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 26
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the witnesses for being here. I don't think it's any surprise to anybody in this room that energy demand is rising rapidly in the United States. The EIA estimates that annual growth rates ranging from 3.7% to 15% by 2033 or 2030. At the same time, reports show that generation, resources, and transmission development are not keeping pace, as you've all talked about.
Meeting this demand obviously requires new energy infrastructure in a timely and efficient manner, which is somewhat the opposite of what Washington does on a routine basis. Federal permitting reform has been a major concern of this committee. I've seen this at the state level and, for sure, at the federal level. A reform should focus on streamlining existing federal processes and not necessarily preempt state authority and oversight. Permitting delays are largely the result of federal bureaucracy. It's not on the states oftentimes.
For example, over the last six years, twice as many transmission lines over which states have primary jurisdiction were built compared to natural gas pipelines where federal agencies have jurisdiction. So Mister Clark and Mister Christie, section 216 as amended of the Federal Power Act established a backstop transmission siting process in which the Department of Energy would conduct an evaluation in consultation with states to identify national interest transmission corridors. Under this process, as the law now requires, if a state rejects a transmission project developed in one of those corridors, the applicant can go to the FERC for another assessment, and FERC may override the state. Mister Christie, is that roughly how this process works?
Speaker 10
It's how it's written in the law. There's never been a project actually built because the state said no. So I it's sort of virtue signaling, frankly.
Speaker 5
So the two sections, the backstop sighting authority and something we haven't talked about today, is actually for the first several years of it, there was a reason that it wasn't used and that there was actually some court cases that came through that made it prohibitive for it to be used. But I believe it was through the IIJA that it was reformed. So we've only had a few years since the reform happened. Then, as chairman Christie noted, there hasn't been an application under that statute. We think that exists.
It's there. It's possible to be used if an entity qualified for it, and we would be very concerned about broadening that in such a way that it creates sort of a loophole where it no longer becomes backstop citing authority, but it becomes federal primary citing authority as a mechanism to get around state processes.
Speaker 26
Which you've cautioned against the federal citing authority. Mister Christie, there are proposals to eliminate the role of the Department of Energy, a cabinet agency responsible for national energy policy, to eliminate the NIETC process and to put FERC, a rate regulator, in the driver's seat to determine whether individual interstate transmission projects are in the national interest and overrule states that object. Seems a little bit misguided to me. Is FERC positioned to determine what is in the national interest, especially when looking at just one component of the electric system outside of the normal planning process?
Speaker 10
No, congressman. But I don't think the Department of Energy is either. I don't think either federal agency is in a position to make a better decision than a state regulator on when a transmission line is appropriately cited and should be built.
Speaker 26
States make a lot of decisions that may affect the cost of surrounding states. State renewable portfolio standards drive out reliable generation in some places, which puts a reliability burden on the grid in other states. If FERC has given authority to assess the national interest, should it also assess the national interest implications of state environmental policies on other states?
Speaker 10
Well, I don't think FERC should be given the authority to draw a national interest corridor because I don't think FERC has any more expertise than anyone else, nor does the Department of Energy. I don't think it's a federal role. I think it ought to be a state role. So I wouldn't give FERC any add-on authority as you mentioned. None.
I wouldn't give them either.
Speaker 26
Alright. Good. Mister Reichard, as a system planner, you said that studies advocating for large scale, large scale interregional transmission build outs often rely on over, or on simplified power flow models that do not fully reflect the complexities of real time operations. Could you briefly explain how accounting for actual power flow physics can add cost and complexity, and why planners must consider full system costs and alternatives before selecting interregional transmission?
Speaker 9
And the gentleman is 15 seconds. Yes. Thank you. And we think interregional provides value as long as a full accounting of the cost-benefit happens. One of the aspects I think you're referring to is the need for voltage support, which local generation can provide.
Speaker 1
You're right. Yield back. Thank you. The gentleman yields back, and the chair now recognizes the general lady from Washington State for eight minutes for question or five minutes for question from district 8.
Speaker 27
Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you to all of our witnesses here today. I just first wanna express my sincere appreciation to the majority for holding this hearing on transmission permitting. It is desperately needed to meet the energy demands now and in the future, and the energy sector of the West, including utilities, regulators, consumers, environmental advocates, and more, all agree that we need more interregional transmission. In fact, in February, a broad coalition of these experts released a ten-year, West-wide transmission study that found interregional transmission build-out is simply not keeping pace, with steeply increasing need driven by load growth, new resource capacity, and extreme weather events like cold snaps and heat waves. So experts agree that we need this more nimble and resilient, flexible grid that can transfer large amounts of power, and so I'm grateful for the hearing.
Mister Groundlick, as you know well, the West is developing two day ahead markets to purchase and sell wholesale electricity. And barring any major departures from the current plan, it appears we will have both SPPs and Kaiso's markets bordering, meshing, sometimes entangling each other at the market seams. And I know Grid Strategies has studied this quite a bit. I was wondering if you could talk about how small, strong, smart transmission planning can play a critical role in reducing seams, reducing congestion, making things work smoothly.
Speaker 7
Sure. Well, our perspective on that is, I was working for the FERC chairman when we approved some very awkward configurations of RTOs, and we thought, well, let's just put seams agreements in place. And the reality is they didn't work. They just never actually resolved the seams problems and the inefficiency and the harm to reliability from power flow looping through different systems. A colleague on my team used to run markets for MISO, and he says, yeah, those SIEs agreements just don't work very well.
So the lesson that we have is configuration matters. The organization that you join makes a big difference, and you can try to fix it with seams, and you have to if that's where you end up. But you really should try to work on a good configuration that's consistent with power flow in order to improve reliability and efficiency.
Speaker 27
Is the idea. Okay. Thank you. Mister Skelly, you previously mentioned the North Plains connector that will help connect the Pacific Northwest with the plain states. And Grid United puts the real estate work and the relationship building with landowners and locally impacted stakeholders ahead of permitting, like getting the permission from the people impacted before the permitting.
Can you talk about that model? And as we look forward to federal permitting reform, how can lawmakers smooth this process and incentivize more of that kind of work?
Speaker 8
So what we do is, you know, it's sort of a question of sequence. So we believe that to deconflict the permit process, and we're not the only people who do this. Lots of oil pipelines, in particular, do this because they don't have federal authority. So we go out and talk to the landowners first, and then we move up the chain of approval. So it's not sort of unique to us.
Many other folks do this as well. So what can we learn at a national level to that's instructive? I mean, I think to the extent that you're thinking about, like, diff reapportioning authorities, it should be a very high bar if there's a state backstop federal backstop authority. So Iowa, for example, says you gotta have 85% of the land signed up before you show up. I think in Montana, it's like 70%.
So there should be a very strong showing. Most state commissions expect that as well. So that's one way to do it. I'm sort of with
Speaker 8
Mister Christie, on this filling of gymnasiums, if you don't do this right, you're gonna get run out of town. And so, you could introduce that sort of provision before.
Speaker 27
Socialize it first. Yeah. Okay. Last question. And, this one is for you, mister Graham, like, within, like, sixteen seconds.
Bonneville's about to get a new administrator. We need a lot more transmission. If you were giving advice, what would you recommend to build out more transmission and Bonneville's responsibility in it?
Speaker 7
Yeah. Well, I would say regional proactive long-term transmission will work for the Northwest just like all the other regions.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back, and the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas 12 for 5 minutes for questions. Thank.
Speaker 28
You, Mister Chairman. Thank you, panelist, very much for being here. Mister Clark, Texas has been a national leader in successfully planning and building transmission under state oversight through ERCOT and the PUC, the Public Utility Commission. Why is it so important for states like Texas to retain primary citing and permitting authority rather than expanding federal control from Washington?
Speaker 5
Thank you for the question, congressman. So I think the short answer is because especially in the electricity space, one size really does not fit all. The solutions that Texas has created for it was some really kind of unique circumstances, which is most of the state is within ERCOT, not federally jurisdictional. It's contained solely within the state of Texas. The answers that Texas has been able to come up with their market structure has worked very well for Texas.
But that same resource base doesn't exist in other parts of the country. There are a lot of other dynamics at play. I think about a place like the Upper Midwest. How you generate power in the Upper Midwest is very different than Texas where you have various different resources and you have different system peaks, and you have a different configuration of state's utilities and ways to deliver the least cost power. So I think the answer is the reason that we vest so much authority and should at the state level on these issues is because one size does not fit all, and doing it all from Washington, DC could end up with some very suboptimal solutions for consumers.
Speaker 28
Alright. Thank you very much. Mister Christie, as a former FERC chairman, you've warned that expanding FERC's backstop, siding authority, or imposing federal mandates will drive up costs for consumers. Texas has successfully built major transmission projects under state authorities to support load growth. Why should Congress maintain states' primary role in permitting transmission projects rather than expanding federal override power?
And should this approach apply equally to states within FERC jurisdiction?
Speaker 10
Well, I think states should retain the authority they have now to permit and site transmission projects. That's who's doing it now. That's who's getting projects built. And projects are getting built, and states are approving transmission projects. If you're a state regulator and you see the need for a project, you want it to get built.
I mean, we proved well over 100 on my tenure on the Virginia commission. I don't think we turned down one, not because we were a rubber stamp, but because we looked at the facts and said these projects are needed. So I don't see where a FERC backstop authority is, because the presumption of that is the state regulator doesn't wanna build the project. The state regulator wants to be an obstacle. That's the presumption of that.
And so the basis is, well, if the state regulator is gonna be in the way, we need FERC in Washington telling a regulator in Texas or Utah or North Dakota, we know better than you do. You said no, but we think you want you to say yes. I just don't think it's politically tenable. I also don't think it's going to get projects built because a 765 k line, a 500 kV line, these are big parts of the built landscape. You don't hide them.
They're not underground. And frankly, everybody in the vicinity is gonna be affected by it. And to get those built, you have to have local buy-in and local acceptance of a decision, which is going to be extraordinarily controversial. You're not gonna get that with FERC saying you have to do it, even though your state commission said no.
Speaker 28
Thank you, sir. Mister Howard, most witnesses have noted that the biggest delays in transmission projects usually come from federal processes such as EPA reviews or crossing federal lands, not from state processes. Can you give examples of projects where states like Texas were ready to move forward, but federal requirements slowed them down?
Speaker 6
I can't give specific Texas examples, but I have plenty of examples where the federal processes where we wanted to upgrade existing lines, where we've determined that the lines are no longer, they weren't designed or engineered for the types of extreme weather events that we're seeing today. And we wanted to upgrade those lines, and you had to go through a federal process, a NEPA process, that made you even look at the line as if it had never been built from the beginning, instead of saying, no. You have an existing corridor. You have a disturbed land. You have everything there.
All you're trying to do is reengineer the line so it will withstand the conditions that it's now going to be subject to. And that's been a more common issue. The other is when we have these big wildfires in the West and we've burned down transmission, and we wanna build it back more resilient than it was when it burned down. Your first and foremost is you need to get the power back on for those customers, but we're having to go through a NEPA process if we wanna make it more resilient than it was.
Speaker 28
Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Texas' 7th District for five minutes of questions.
Speaker 22
Well, thank you, chairman Lata, for making it possible for us to have this important hearing today, and thank you to our witnesses for being here. I have been a bit of a broken record on permitting reform since I've been on this committee and in Congress, because it's such an important issue to the people that I represent at home in Houston, who are involved in every aspect of our energy system at home and around the world. And they have told me how essential it is to have permitting reform of all kinds to keep us moving forward, to keep the lights on, to keep the costs down, to keep our competitive advantage, and maintain our energy security and national security. And I am lucky to have so many Houstonians with so much expertise to learn from, and particularly glad that one of the people that I've looked to for thoughtful, informed, and realistic guidance on energy issues of all kinds is one of our witnesses today. So thank you, Mr. Schelley, for sharing your thoughts with us here today.
It is clear that improving our ability to build transmission efficiently will mean a more affordable and abundant energy supply, whether that energy is generated from traditional or renewable sources. And without better transmission, the development of innovative technologies, technologies that a lot of people on this committee have expressed great interest in, like geothermal and small modular nuclear reactors, can be held back by inefficient and uneconomical connections to the markets. So what do I mean by that? Right? Like, the generation we want won't be able to get where we want it to go.
And all the generation in the world isn't gonna solve energy shortages if we can't move it. So as we discussed in last month's legislative hearing on this topic, it seems to me that any meaningful permitting reform package has to address the core barriers to building transmission and scale. And that's planning across regions, which I think everybody here today has said they support. Permitting certainty, which everyone everywhere wants, and workable cost allocation. And I think that's really the sticking point here.
So as we've heard throughout this morning, I think this is where the committee needs real guidance. And I'd like to get a better sense of how the committee should think about fairly allocating the cost of building interregional transmission and protecting consumers from high rates. But before I get to my question, I wanna follow-up on something Mister Goldman was just asking about, and note that we've heard concerns today from some of the witnesses, some of my colleagues, about Forks Backstop Siding Authority for interregional transmission projects. And at least part of this, the explanation we've heard today is based on community input, and community input is vitally important to the permitting process for all forms of energy, and we should incentivize a robust public input process. That's hugely important.
I've been saying that here for a long time. But when we are facing a national shortage of available electricity and projects that are clearly in the national interest, we need a mechanism to reconcile regional input and local buy-in with all the other concerns. And I've heard a lot of proposals from my Republican colleagues on this topic for permitting interstate gas pipelines. And, look, I share them, and I certainly understand those concerns. I absolutely share them.
It's a huge issue in my district at home. But we need to consider these solutions equally for all forms of energy infrastructure. I think that's really important. So with all that in mind, and not a lot of time left, Mister Skelly, you've talked about regional transmission. And cutting right to the question, can you just share a little bit more of your thoughts?
You got cut off earlier, but on how you think we can address cost allocation. What benefits should be considered when allocating costs for a new line? And just generally, how better rules of the road around cost allocation can help provide low-cost energy to consumers.
Speaker 8
So maybe it's helpful to use an example. So let's say that Colorado and Utah develop a lot of their geothermal resources. Okay? And Kansas doesn't have very good geothermal. And they, there's an opportunity to connect those regions.
Okay? Now this is between the Eastern and Western grid, so it makes that thought experiment a little bit easier. If you did connect those regions, the West that built the geothermal would get some reliability benefits, because they could lean on Kansas during extreme events. Okay? It also gives them an opportunity to export power to Kansas.
Now Kansas, in this case, would benefit a little bit more because they're getting access to this cheap energy from the West. So if we had a process where you could align what's proposed like that, the costs and benefits would be measured just the way we measure costs and benefits in the existing RTO process. And then costs would be assigned to each of the states or each of the regions. And then we'd get the economic development, a more reliable grid, cheaper power, etc.
Speaker 22
Okay. Well, and that's super helpful. And I've already gone over my time. So I have more questions for the record. I wanna thank you all, and you're gonna see some more questions from me from the record.
But thank you very much for your testimony today, and I yield back.
Speaker 1
Mister Jones. Thank you very much. Gentlemen, his time has expired and yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Colorado's 8th district for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 29
Thank you, chairman. Ranking member, thank you, of course, to our witnesses for coming today. Last week, I spent it in my district, visited a lot of small businesses, and I heard from families, veterans, and small business owners. Energy prices are top of mind in Colorado. Unfortunately, the ruling Democrats in my state are continuing to raise electric bills through climate mandates that are impossible to meet, overregulation on municipalities and utilities, new taxes, and new fees on traditional energy resources.
And Coloradans now pay higher bills to receive 2,000 gigawatt hours less generation and a less reliable grid. There's no doubt in my mind we can reduce electricity prices through federal permitting reform and integrated planning to improve generation, transmission, and distribution, and we gotta have all of that. Why would we build transmission if we don't have generation to support it? Why build generation if we can't get that power to where it needs to through transmission and distribution? We have to prioritize all of those things together to have affordable, safe, and reliable energy.
And I think it starts with permitting reform. I'm working on a lot of different bills, cosponsoring the SPEED Act, leading to bipartisan bills here, the FIRE Act, the CERTAIN Act. Unfortunately, in Colorado, it has become more expensive to permit energy projects at times than it is to actually build them. That's unacceptable. I have a local utility in Colorado.
They had to fight for 5 years to get two redundant permits to upgrade an existing line in an existing right of way in order to lower wildfire risk. Five years and all of that associated cost is too much. So, mister Rickard, first question is to you. Can you talk about robust permitting reform policies that prioritize judicial review and shorter permitting timelines, and how would that reduce costs for ratepayers?
Speaker 9
Thank you for the question, and it absolutely would reduce costs. Like I said earlier, energy infrastructure, both the fuel pipeline, the generation, and the transmission. This is a capital-intensive endeavor. And anytime we can provide certainty to both the cost and the timeline, our customers benefit. So, for example, on judicial review, if we can limit the time for challenges, some type of statute of limitations, that provides that much-needed certainty that our customers need.
Speaker 29
Thank you for that. Mister Grahamlitch, my next question will be to you. Beyond just permitting reform, what other reforms do you think are needed to ensure timely and affordable generation? We're gonna need another 170 gigawatts by 2030. Generation and transmission that prioritizes local input early and often.
What else do we have to do?
Speaker 7
Yeah. Well, I would encourage requiring more proactive planning, regional and interregional, and then clarifying the benefits that are used for cost allocation, some further interconnection reform directives. I would also say we haven't had enough conversation today about advanced transmission technologies, but those can really help speed access to power in a very cost effective way.
Speaker 29
Thank you. I'm gonna go to Chairman Christie next. I hear concerns from farmers in Colorado about eminent domain. I represent a big ag producing region, but it's also adjacent to a major metro area. So a lot of growth, and a lot of the farmers and ranchers that I talk to are dealing with land grabs from the state and their leftist climate mandates for noncritical political pet projects.
And this can hurt public support for essential infrastructure like generation and transmission. So first, is it true that both states and FERC already have eminent domain authority?
Speaker 10
State well, states have eminent domain authority. If you're building a transmission line and you permit the line, the utility that's building it gets the eminent domain authority, which is a big reason why states are in a far better position to permit a 765, a 500 kV line, which are very big projects that are seen from 30 miles away, they're very controversial. So the eminent domain authority is there with the state, and that's why you want that local buy in. When FERC approves the only eminent domain authority FERC has if it approves a pipeline that carries eminent domain authority with it because that's part of the statute. But, again, back to the point about the transmission lines.
These are controversial projects. These are big physical projects. And without the local buy-in and understanding of why it's being built, why it's needed, why we have to build it, and that includes use of eminent domain to take private property, which is a huge thing in the United States. You have a much better chance of getting the local acceptance of that if it's a state entity that approved the line, as opposed to, in your case, Colorado, all the way back in Washington.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much. The gentleman's time has expired and yields back. The chair now recognizes the at-large member from the state of North Dakota for five minutes for questions.
Speaker 30
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here. It's great to see a great panel of experts, including a dear friend and fellow North Dakotan, Tony Clark. Thank you, mister chairman, for continuing to bring forward important discussions like this that get to the heart of affordability for Americans and citizens in my state. And today's hearing really gets to the heart of that principle.
Transmission costs are rising, and, largely, families, businesses, and others who are utility customers are paying the bill. We continue to hear we need to spend more money to save money. And utility ratepayers are frustrated by that. Mister Christie, wanna start with you. Mhmm.
As you can see from the chart display behind me, transmission costs are far outpacing the cost of generation in terms of their growth and cost to utility customers. Can you help explain this to me and help talk about what some of the drivers of those costs are and how federal policies like the tax incentives may have contributed to this?
Speaker 10
Well, distribution costs have been going up because a lot of the utilities have been required and are doing it. They're hardening the systems, particularly against inclement emergency weather events like hurricanes. The distribution costs, which are under local state regulation, have largely been driven by trying to harden the system appropriately against storms. Transmission costs are going up. Again, it's another utility asset.
One thing people need to understand is, know, there's a former state regulator. Most of your utility bill is for utility assets. They go under rate base, and the cost amounts year by year, which is what you've seen with transmission. I think, personally, that we've got a major regulatory gap in transmission. FERC regulates transmission rates in most parts of the country.
And in those parts of the country that went into RTOs, there's no local review of local projects, which is the largest part of the cost. So there's a, I think there's a regulatory gap because in the RTOs specifically, with the lack of local authority to look at local transmission costs.
Speaker 30
K. Thank you for that. Mister Clark, thank you for representing Nauru can state regulators here. State regulators are constantly dealing with multiple challenges. A few years ago, it was electrification, but it seems like today's challenges are largely focused on meeting large load demands.
I have another question for you. But first, would you agree with that that's one of the biggest challenges for state regulators today? The large load demands?
Speaker 30
Awesome. Thank you for that. And thank you for all the work that state regulators are doing through large load tariffs to address some of those issues. In our last hearing on transmission policy, every single panelist, regardless of party, agreed that Americans should not be burdened with costs from energy infrastructure that they don't cause. There's a term beneficiaries pay.
We've heard it today. It's widely used. Tony, could you talk a little bit how a loose definition of a term like that that encompasses both congestion relief and broad policy goals, could be forcing families to subsidize projects that they neither use nor need?
Speaker 5
Sure, Congresswoman. Thank you for the question, and I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge you're a former president of NABRIC. So thank you for the service to our association as well. Having too loose a definition of what a beneficiary is can cause problems because consultants can get studies to say a lot of things. Right?
And what regulators try to do, it's a bedrock principle that cost causers should be cost payers. But if that definition is too loose, it can encourage project developers to avoid the trickier question, which I've talked about throughout the course of this, which is what is this investment compared to something else? And that's really the key question that state regulators are especially focused on, is what is that alternative comparison that you could have invested in that might have caused rates to go down. But once you build a project based on perhaps a top-down planning mandate, once you build that project, it can basically make other investments that would have been a better investment uninvestable because you've sunk cost into a huge fixed cost network that has to be recovered from captive ratepayers.
Speaker 30
Thank you. I wanna just close the loop here closely, quickly back to you, Mr. Christie. I've been talking a lot about cost causers driving the need, rather than beneficiaries. Could you speak to that and how that would help ensure the costs are properly allocated to the drivers, not to the beneficiaries?
Speaker 10
Right. The benefits can be grossly inflated, the independent market monitor, MISO, said their latest tranche. The benefits were grossly inflated, and he critiqued it on that basis, which means you're gonna get cost allocation spread across people who didn't cause the cost. Equal focus needs to be on the causation of the cost as well as some made-up benefits, which is what the IMM said was happening in MYSA.
Speaker 30
Thank you, sir. I'm over my time. I yield back. I would love to work with the rest of you on some kind of comments.
Speaker 1
Fired yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania's thirteenth district. Five minutes for questions.
Speaker 31
Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you for holding this important hearing, and for our witnesses for participating here today. My home state of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is home to vast energy resources and to strong generation assets. And because of this, we often see large-scale transmission projects proposed to move that electricity either elsewhere within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or to address the demand of adjacent neighbors. At the federal level, I have worked on legislation that would ease bureaucratic red tape to help with the timely permitting and completion of all types of critical energy infrastructure projects. We've all seen energy demand rise.
My top priority remains that these projects and those who regulate them are responsive to the needs and concerns of those who will ultimately live with the effects and with the costs of this new infrastructure. Mister Christie, thank you for being here. With your personal experience both at FERC and at state public utility commissions, can you provide any additional examples of how, as a state regulator, you were able to respond to local concerns with a precision that would be impossible from a federal position?
Speaker 10
We do that all the time because if when you're doing an IRP proceeding, when you're looking at your major utilities, our major utility in Virginia is Dominion. That's our largest utility. So you do an IRP proceeding. You're looking at what are their generating resources that they have coming in, coming down the line, and what are the distribution costs that they have. You look at the whole thing, and you look at what the transmission costs.
So you can look at, on a real time basis, what is going to be needed to serve the millions of people who are in Dominion's territory. And just doesn't do that. FERC doesn't do integrated resource planning. It has, first of all, it's not its fault. It doesn't have the authority under the Federal Power Act to do integrated resource planning.
States do. And that's where the rubber hits the road, so to speak, about making sure that the utilities that serve consumers are on top of their game and are actually getting the resources they need. Generation, transmission, distribution, because it's all an integrated whole. It's all part of the same utility system.
Speaker 31
You talked about when the rubber hits the road, and I like that analogy because it's so important, because at the state and then subsequently at the local levels, that is so important. Do you feel that you are empowered at the state level to make sure that the consumer, that my constituent, knows that rubber hitting the road, that there is an advocate for them?
Speaker 10
I think, frankly, if states that went into an RTO, if they unbundled their transmission, one of the problems is you gave up control of your transmission costs to the FERC. And I think that was a mistake. I think states were better off if they had kept the transmission costs under state regulation, because that's a huge part of the bill. Congresswoman Fedorchak put the chart up, showing how much transmission had gone up. Well, that's been under FERC control.
So I think it'd be better off under state regulation because state regulators are the ones who have to do the retail rates that people pay in their bills. The state regulators are the ones who are the most sensitive to what actual costs are, far more than FERC.
Speaker 31
Mister Clark, do you have any additional examples of the sorts of details and precise changes that can be made by state regulators to benefit the local landowners and local consumers?
Speaker 5
Congressman, yes. Thank you for the question. I'd mentioned it just briefly in my opening statement. But having sat through these transmission hearings, and citing transmission, electric transmission is very different than a pipeline. With a pipeline, and I've cited a lot of both.
A pipeline, it's 36 or 48 inches underground. It's sort of out of sight, out of mind. Once it's cited, a transmission line is very different. It impacts the land in a very different way. So what state regulators are able to do and local officials who work on these permits is ensure that when a project is built, it's done in such a way that the landowner can accept it, that it's put in a place on, say, farming operations where it makes the most sense for that farmer's land use.
It's things like that that can be teased out in a forum that state commissions excel at doing. That I worry would fall in the gaps if they feel.
Speaker 31
That landowners and their concerns often do fall in those aforementioned gaps that you just talked about?
Speaker 5
I think moving those decisions to Washington, DC, would almost certainly ensure that there would be more of those gaps. I think their ability to access their local commission is much greater than it is if it gets bounced to a federal citing process.
Speaker 31
I think I agree with you that local input is paramount, that local control and responsiveness to the local landowner must be heard and must be acted on. We all share the same desire to see affordable and reliable energy available to support the local consumers and local industries. As we build out the necessary infrastructure, state regulators must hold protecting local consumers and local landowners as their number one priority. I again thank you for testifying here today. Mister chairman, I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. The gentleman's time has expired and yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia's 1st District for five minutes of questions.
Speaker 32
Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you all for being here. This is extremely important. We all know that when we talk about the need for energy, we typically just fill our focus on generation of energy. But we've got to also understand how important it is that it is to be able to move it. If we can't do that, then having all the energy in the world doesn't help us.
And we've gotta be able to move it. And one of the strengths of our energy system is that states can choose the transmission model that works best for their region. And in Georgia, we're very fortunate where utilities like Southern Company operate largely outside of FERC jurisdictional RTOs. We've had success seeing economic growth and reliability. Mister Rickard, I want to ask you.
We're hearing a lot about issues building infrastructure in this country, but my understanding is that Georgia Power is moving with speed to build energy infrastructure. Can you tell us how Georgia Power and Southern Company are able to quickly meet growing demand?
Speaker 9
Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. It is really simply our vertically integrated, holistic planning approach. Because we are coordinated, we have headlights on the future. We see needs both fuel generation and transmission well in advance.
And because of our constructive state, regulatory environment, and the fact that we make prudent investments, they allow us to make those investments in a timely manner, so that we can maintain reliability and affordability.
Speaker 32
I wanna remind everyone that Georgia for the past 12 years in a row has been the number one state in which to do business. One of the reasons for that is the availability of energy and the power and the affordability of it. So thank you for that. Thank you for your contribution to making us the number one state in which to do business. Other parts of the country are not as fortunate as Georgia.
We hear stories about transmission lines and energy projects that take years and years to permit and to build. And it's essential that we address those permitting delays while we're making sure and ensuring that states get the transmissions rights that are not impacted. Georgia doesn't experience some of the transmission-permitting issues that are prevalent in other parts of the country. Mister Rickard, how do we ensure that federal permitting reform is not one size fits all and that a solution does not negatively impact states like Georgia?
Speaker 9
I really appreciate that question because it also gives me an opportunity to circle back to a question I think I misunderstood from representative Peters, and that we evaluate all solutions. We evaluate interregional solutions. After we do our bottoms-up approach, are there better ways? Are there better cost solutions for our customers? I think one way we can protect our customers and maybe even avoid the cost allocation conversation is
Speaker 9
Make sure that we're not prescribing outcomes, prescribing mandates that will result in uneconomic transmission. And I think that is one way we can do it. We're also, though, very open to further conversations about is there a better interregional transmission process that we can work with this group on to find.
Speaker 32
Great. Mister Christie, let me ask you whether we're deploying grid enhancing technologies or streamlining the interconnection queues or even utilizing existing right of ways. What are the consensus items that Congress can act on immediately that could be included in a broader permitting package without getting derailed by the larger jurisdictional and market structure fights?
Speaker 10
Well, there get the term gets, which is the acronym you hear all the time, grid enhancing technologies covers a wide array of technologies. Some of them work really well. Some of them don't. Some of them work some places, not other places. Important thing is the engineers ought to make the decision.
The engineers ought to decide whether it's an advanced conductor ring. It works in some places. It works for others. It works better in some places. And before you charge consumers for it, and this is my whole point, don't charge consumers until you know they're getting value for the money.
The utilities are being urged and required to consider gets, and they should be. You don't want a federal mandate that says you always have to use all gets in all places because it from an engineering standpoint, it's not gonna work, but yet consumers are gonna get charged for it. So I think, frankly, you ought to let the utilities and their regulators handle that issue of the use of grid enhancing technologies and let them figure out where, let the engineers decide where it works, and don't make consumers pay when it doesn't work.
Speaker 32
And this kinda goes back to what I was talking about earlier on this one size fits all that we think that, you know, we just used a cookie cutter model.
Speaker 10
Right. In this utility field, when I've been in it for 22 years, in this utility field, advanced mandates. Mandates that say you have to build x amount of transmission without any factual basis. Mandates that say, you have to use a guess without any factual basis of individual situations. Mandatory renewable.
This says you have to use this kind of generation to the exclusion of other types. They don't work in the long run because you're ignoring the facts in the field of individual cases. That's what utility regulators do: we look at the facts in individual cases, whether it's generation, transmission, distribution.
Speaker 32
Side is thank y'all for being here, and we've got a great utility regulator, by the way, who we appreciate being on this committee.
Speaker 1
Okay. Well, thank you very much. The gentleman's time has expired and yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Iowa's 1st District for five minutes of questions.
Speaker 33
Thank you, Chairman Ladan, Ranking Member Castor. She's here for holding this hearing, and I thank our witnesses for being here. Demand is rising rapidly, as we all know, and while we agree more transmission is needed, we lack agreement on how to evaluate it, value it, and talk about it. From Iowa's experience in MISO, and let me say that Iowa is a state that has any of the above when it comes to energy generation, I've seen the strengths of collaborative intra-regional and inter-regional planning. How different regions legitimately weigh costs and benefits in different ways.
Across regions, stakeholders may describe the same benefits differently because they hold distinct local, state, and regional perspectives. Order nineteen twenty-a starts the work of creating a shared language for those perspectives, but more clarity is needed so regions can compare benefits without erasing their differences. Mister Clark, you state that when transmission is truly needed and cost effective, states typically site and permit projects expeditiously. But I want to dig into that phrase. How do different state commissions define truly needed, and how do they define cost-effective?
Are those definitions consistent across state lines? And when a project requires two or more states with different definitions of those terms to agree upon whether to build, and how to share the cost. What happens to the process?
Speaker 5
So, congressman, thanks for the congressman. Thanks for the excellent question. It's a little bit driven by state statute. Some states have need processes. Some are just a permitting statute, which is just the physical infrastructure itself.
And in some states like the state of North Dakota, it depends on who the project developer is that brings the project, whether there's a need analysis and or an environmental analysis. So a bit of it is driven by state statute. In the context of interstate lines, it, again, depends on the region, getting back to this issue of one size does not fit all. In the Upper Midwest, for example, in the MISO region, which serves much of Iowa and the Upper Midwest, there's often a regional planning process that takes place. And what I found as a state commissioner from that region is when something went through a thorough and rigorous process where a line was determined to be needed by multiple states and everyone benefited from it, you didn't have issues of states unreasonably blocking lines.
So what it took was that sort of analysis that allowed the state regulator to be comfortable that this line, while the beneficiaries might be a little different in different states, everybody benefited from it. If you couldn't meet that standard, that's when you started having some issues with getting lines cited. But, honestly, when you look across the country, states are doing, I think, a tremendous job of getting needed projects built. It's just you have to demonstrate that need in a record.
Speaker 33
Thank you. Mister Christie, you describe voting to approve controversial 500-kilowatt lines after fully litigated proceedings with public hearings. What, in your experience, are the biggest points of contention in those proceedings? What gets litigated most heavily? And has the nature of those disputes changed over the last 10 years?
Speaker 10
Well, when you have a big line like that, 500 kV, 765 kV are big lines, they generally cover a lot of distance, 50, 100, 150 miles. So there's a lot of people impacted. You don't hide a transmission line like that. You can't put it underground. It's gonna dominate the built landscape for miles around.
So, of course, people who don't have it in their view shed right now are not gonna want to see a 765 coming through. They're not slightly. And so they're gonna be controversial, but you have to give the public the opportunity, which state regulators do, to come out and voice their opinions. And most of them are gonna be opposed. Again, I every high school gym I went to with three or 400 people, everyone was against the line.
Nobody came out and said, yeah, we wanna build something to mess up my view. It's the nature of building that kind of asset. People will ultimately, I believe, accept the intrusion on their landscape, even imminent domain where the property is actually seized. If they think that they had a fair shake in voicing their opinion, and most importantly, that a state agency seriously did its due diligence, looked at the facts, and came out with a credible opinion as we did in several controversial cases that said, if we don't build this, we're gonna have brownouts. We're gonna have blackouts from line overloads.
And the public ultimately accepted that even though they didn't want to look at a 765 kB. I think that's the only way you get stuff built.
Speaker 33
Yeah. We're facing some of those challenges in Iowa now, I appreciate it. I also have some questions for the record I'd like to submit, Mr. Chair. And with that, yield.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much. The gentleman yields back. And seeing no other members wishing to ask questions, we want to thank our witness for appearing for the subcommittee today. Members may have, and it sounds like we'll have, additional written questions for you. And I remind members that they have 10 business days to submit additional questions for the record.
Ask our witnesses to do their best to submit their responsibility and attend business days upon receipt of those questions. I ask unanimous consent to insert in the record the documents included on the staff hearing documents list. Without objections to order, and without objection, the subcommittee stands adjourned. Thank you very much.
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