States that have adopted “clean-energy” mandates are accustomed to having ratepayers in other states help them pick up the tab for their headlong march to a green utopia. This is especially true when this involves stringing high-voltage transmission lines across vast expanses to conduct intermittent wind and solar power generated in remote locations.
But no longer willing to serve as innocent bystanders in the schemes of others, a growing number of voices are calling for a halt in the practice. “States must pay the costs of their own goals. That’s a basic principle of cost allocation – and it’s being ignored across the country right now,” notes Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND). “Families and businesses in states like North Dakota shouldn’t be paying higher electricity bills because other states choose unrealistic, expensive mandates.”
Fedorchak has recently introduced a bill, the “Fair Allocation of Interstate Rates (FAIR) Act,” that targets the current practice of having regional authorities spread the cost of long interstate transmission lines across all consumers in the region regardless of who benefits. This cost-shifting serves the interests of states aggressively pursuing renewable-energy mandates. But it is a “bad-neighbor” policy that drives up electricity costs for everyone and encourages the use of eminent domain on private land to make way for the unwanted transmission lines.
Growing ire among farmers and ranchers who see valuable acreage sacrificed on the alter of somebody else’s green agenda prompted Fedorchak in September to pen a letter in to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in support of her state’s formal complaint challenging the regional cost-allocation formula used by the Midcontinent Systems Operator (MISO) to charge customers for new transmission lines. MISO is the electric grid operator for 15 states in the central U.S. and the Canadian province of Manitoba. North Dakota was joined I its complaint by Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Montana.
Calling the current cost-allocation arrangement a “subsidy scheme,” Fedorchak wrote that,” The massive build out in the MISO region is driven by the aggressive decarbonization goals of several MISO states, but North Dakota is not one of them. States must pay the costs of their own goals.” In her letter, Fedorchak was joined by North Dakota Senators John Hoeven (R) and Kevin Crammer (R), who have introduced companion legislation to the FAIR Act in the Senate.
Hundreds of miles south of North Dakota, the Mississippi Public Service Commission endorsed Fedorchak’s bill, saying, “Policies that promote these unequitable transmission expenditures and promote cross subsidization should be stopped.”
Fedorchak’s bill to put an end to the socialization of the costs of transmitting green energy would:
- “Prohibit cost allocation of policy-driven transmission to consumers in states that did not approve or benefit from the underlying policy.
- Restore state authority and protect ratepayers and landowners from subsidizing projects they do not need.
- Require FERC to issue implementing regulations within six months.”
“Our legislation protects the principle of “user pay” by ensuring that if activists in Los Angeles, Chicago, or Minneapolis mandate expensive, unreliable energy, they foot the bill for their decisions,” Crammer said.
Efforts to spare ratepayers and landowners the cost of other states’ renewable-energy mandates are now caught up in a larger congressional initiative aimed at speeding up the notoriously slow federal permitting process for infrastructure projects. While the bipartisan “Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act,” as currently written, does much to trim red tape and curtail litigation challenging infrastructure projects, it runs the risk of being hijacked to serve the interests of wind and solar power developers. Specifically, the bill could end up containing language facilitating the installation of transmission lines connecting remote wind and solar farms to the electric grid – all in the name of “permitting reform.”
If developers of wind and solar farms want to see their remote facilities connected to population centers where demand for electricity is high, they should pay for the transmission lines themselves. This, of course, would be prohibitively expensive to an industry already reeling from the phase-out of its federal subsidies. Lawmakers eager to upgrade the nation’s grid to accommodate soaring, AI-driven demand for electricity, should think twice before throwing a life-line to an industry incapable of surviving without some form of taxpayer handout.
The vaunted energy transition in whose name green mandates were imposed is being rapidly superseded by the realities of 21st century technology. Offloading the costs of those mandates to consumers in states that never adopted them is an extraterritorial abuse of power.
This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy
I must object.
> ““Our legislation protects the principle of “user pay” by ensuring that if activists in Los Angeles, Chicago, or Minneapolis mandate expensive, unreliable energy, they foot the bill for their decisions,”
National energy policy is not limited to those urban areas.
WE ALL PAY.
But there doesn’t seem to be a national energy policy. There is a California – Oregon – Washington energy policy, and a New York – New England energy policy, etc.
While we all pay for the electricity costs, we should not “all pay” for the transmission costs. These vary substantially.
As I read this article, this is PROPOSED legislation that would in theory force the localities or the speculative generators to pay for the transmission themselves and not have it subsidized by all rate payers.
Excellent. It has always bothered me to have to pay for the boondoggles of the Pacific Coast states. Good luck to these solons. I am sure that my representatives from Wyoming are in agreement.
Once again we must conclude that RE (Ruinous Energy) wind and solar have no role on a modern electric power grid. It provides nothing positive to the environment and only makes electricity more expensive. Truly, a national tragedy. N2N, Natural Gas to Nuclear with SMR leading the way.
Local photovoltaic that matches local air conditioning load on hot sunny afternoons is OK….although where you need AC, probably the real estate cost for solar farms is going to hurt the economics.
The global tab for grid expansion – only to accommodate intermittent renewable energy – has already exceeded several $TRILLION. Of course, those who adopt wasteful practices should pay for them. It is not only fair, but it is right.
Wind and solar don’t work, stop building them. Stop charging the rest of us for your stubborn ignorance.
California likes to tout it is the 4thg or 5th largest economy in the world, but how would it do if it didn’t get preferential water importation and power generation from the rest of the nation?
California has run out of its own money and to keep their utopian dream alive will run out of other states money as well. Typical elitists behavior. They must have missed Margaret Thatcher’s warning.
It’s not just a transmission problem for wind & solar. Here in West Virginia (WV) they are trying to run a power line from power generated in Pennsylvania to the DC area in order to provide power for AI installations down there. The proposed line is not even connected to our grid. We get no benefit from it. Even if it ends up that we won’t have to pay for it with increased rates (an open question right now) we still lose use of the land under it, and it will destroy the view for thousands of acres on either side and along it. Can your imagine having that run through your back yard?
While we still provide transmission lines to the DC area, at least the power is generated here in WV and, thanks to ex-Governor Joe Manchin, those help keep our electric rates low.