Regarding the Oct. 31 editorial “An environmentalist’s case for permitting reform”:
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act sets deadlines for environmental reviews and gives opponents 150 days to sue, not six years. If passed, it would let the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hand developers the power to condemn land and would assign the cost to ratepayers by formula.
Since 2005, FERC has held a “backstop” power to permit a transmission line to be built over a state’s objection, but only within Energy Department corridors. No line has ever been built under that authority. The bill would abolish the corridors and extend the override to nearly everywhere outside Texas. If a state says no or sits on an application for a year, FERC must grant the permit once the line meets the bill’s tests, and the permit carries the right to condemn private land.
The bill takes away a state’s right to refuse a line and keeps the formula. California requires 100 percent clean electricity by 2045. Say a developer proposes a line to carry wind power there through a state that never adopted such a mandate and that state says no. If FERC finds that the state’s customers would benefit, families there pay a share, and the Supreme Court has determined that their regulators must give FERC-approved rates binding effect.
A line worth building will find customers willing to pay for it. A state that says no shouldn’t be made to pay anyway.