Energy Department to Rethink Its Ruling on Power Lines (Washington Post)
The Washington Post reports today:
The Energy Department announced yesterday that it will reconsider its decision to designate a portion of the mid-Atlantic region — including the District, most of Maryland and Northern Virginia — as a priority area for the placement of new power lines.
Saying they want to listen more closely to opponents’ concerns, federal authorities will reconsider their October decision to declare two areas of the country as “National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors,” broad swaths of land across several states designated to allow for more power line construction.
“To give these requests full consideration, [the Energy Department] will take additional time to thoroughly evaluate the basis of their requests,” agency spokeswoman Julie Ruggiero said in a statement.
Federal authorities had ruled that energy companies would be able to submit power-transmission expansion plans to federal agencies for the mid-Atlantic region over the wishes of state and local officials. A successful application to federal authorities would allow the companies to make use of the government’s condemnation powers to obtain a right of way.
Battles have been waged in many places over proposals for power lines that advocates say are necessary to avoid future blackouts as the nation’s energy grid ages and demand for electricity rises.
Opponents have called the proposed power lines environmentally damaging and unsightly. Environmentalists and local activists, for instance, have opposed a 300-mile line proposed by Pepco Holdings that would stretch from Virginia through Maryland to New Jersey, as well as a 240-mile line sought by Dominion Virginia Power that would extend through parts of Warren, Fauquier, Loudoun and Prince William counties.
Both high-voltage lines would pass through parks and near Civil War battlefields.
The government will also reconsider its decision for another targeted area in the Southwest, which includes seven counties in Southern California and three in Arizona.
Virginia’s top officials, including Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) and Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R), have said that the state’s inclusion in the proposed corridor was unnecessary and did not comply with federal law.
Yesterday both men said that the Energy Department’s decision would give them another opportunity to state their case.
Virginia’s power in deciding such matters should not be usurped because such decisions have been made “by the State Corporation Commission and similar bodies in other states,” Kaine said in a brief interview. “And the notion that the feds would preempt states’ action, take away our land-use powers and even use eminent domain to grab property is a bad idea.”
McDonnell said in a statement: “The inclusion of Virginia . . . fails to consider a number of local environmental, cultural, historical and aesthetic considerations. During the formal rehearing we will make this case again, and I look forward to a full and fair hearing from the Department of Energy.”
But opponents of the high-voltage power line that Dominion Virginia Power has planned for rural Northern Virginia said they were far from celebrating. As federal officials take another look at the program, energy companies can still apply for the special rights the program offers, threatening property rights and natural and historic resources, said Robert W. Lazaro Jr., spokesman for the Piedmont Environmental Council. “We were hoping that they would just put in a stay and say, ‘We’re not moving forward with any NIETC,’ ” he said, referring to the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors. “We’re not popping any champagne bottles yet.”
A spokesman for Dominion said the company had no intention of subverting the state’s wishes. “We do not intend to use the federal process,” she said. “This is a state decision.”
Since announcing the project in the summer, Dominion has encountered well-organized, sometimes emotional opposition from landowners, conservationists and others who say the line would scar the landscape and encourage the construction of polluting coal plants.