West-Wide Energy Corridor (WWEC): Revisions

Figure 1. Electrical grid substation

Kevin Kilty

In remarks made at the Bipartisan Policy Center in May, 2023, John Podesta, a senior advisor in the Biden/Harris administration, spoke about revising energy policy. Within the very partisan boiler plate of this speech was this message:

“We’re proud of what our administration has accomplished so far to change our trajectory on clean energy and climate. But now, we need to up the pace and finish the job by lowering the remaining hurdles to achieve 100% clean power by 2035.

One big hurdle—and a big opportunity—is permitting. Right now, the permitting process for clean energy infrastructure, including transmission, is plagued by delays and bottlenecks.

These delays are pervasive at every level of government—federal, state, and local. We got so good at stopping projects that we forgot how to build things in America.”

The coded message was that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has become an inconvenience. In November BLM published a notice in the Federal Register regarding plans to revise portions of the massive Western transmission corridor cutting across 11 western states. These corridors were established in Section 368 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. There are 30 days in a public comment period, closing January 2, 2024, to voice general concerns.

The idea of Section 368 energy corridors began as a good idea. Consolidate pipelines and electrical transmission lines, plus associated roads, into narrow corridors to minimize sprawl and  environmental conflicts. However, no good idea ever fails to generate opposition, and after the official record of decision regarding these corridors, a number of environmental organizations, tribal units, and others filed a complaint in July 2009 against the agencies involved. Among other reasons the complainants said the corridors gave too much deference to fossil fuel interests and existing thermal power plants and showed not enough regard for development of renewable energy.

In a settlement reached in 2012, the Federal government agreed to list corridors of concern, provide for periodic review of corridors and produce a corridor study. Now, however, with NEPA proving itself to be as much of an impediment to renewable energy projects as it was to other sorts of endeavors, the Biden Administration seeks to revise what was settled.

There are a few big concerns immediately that I can see.

First, what transpired after the settlement in 2012 is that developers often just ignored the designated corridors and put transmission lines where they pleased. One can’t help but wonder if part of this effort on the part of the Biden/Harris Administration isn’t to provide a blessing after the fact of what these developers have gone ahead and done? This would establish the bad precedent that public policy is the pet dog being led by renewable energy interests.

Second, my cynical side senses an effort to build an effective shuffle to weaken NEPA. I have encountered this before in trying to speak sense to power over renewable energy projects. The shuffle works like this. Refer to the long line of agency reviews required for a project as in Figure 2.

Figure 2. The shuffle.

Suppose there is a controversial part of an application being identified in a public hearing with Agency A. Agency A, luckily, has an out because they can point to Agency C which is also tasked with analysis of this particular issue. Agency C is being advised by Agency B. Agency B can point back to Agency A who raised no objections to the application originally. This works better still with more agencies involved. Place a generalized Enviromental Impact Statement (EIS) or a cursory Environmantal Assessment (EA) in place of a couple of agencies, and you have a variation on the shuffle.

Finally, in order to reduce costs, many renewable energy projects seek to locate near existing electrical transmission lines. Thus, revised corridors might be specifically placed to aid this tendency. However, the fact that a corridor has been reviewed, in a cursory manner, to avoid generalized environmental concerns, does not guarantee that its general environment is also suitable for renewable energy projects.

An example of this is the proposed Rail Tie wind plant in southern Wyoming. It is sited near existing WAPA transmission lines and it’s possible the project would never be economically reasonable if not for the “subsidy” that these lines provide. Rail Tie is located in a picturesque region of the Laramie Range, and likely presents wildlife conflicts and also viewshed and sound conflicts with the moderate density of privately owned ranchettes in the area. Even an attorney known for his work promoting wind plants in Wyoming said that Rail Tie is very poorly sited.

Will this effort to revise these Section 368 corridors become a cat among the canaries? Interested persons can visit this informative URL (https://corridoreis.anl.gov/) for further information and make a comment before the new year.