It is obvious who rules the electric lines --- it’s not the Feds; it’s not the states; it’s the NIMBYs, the Not In My Back Yard activists. NIMBYs are many and varied, ranging from local organizers to environmentalists to members of congress. Their goal seems to be the acceleration of the de-industrialization of the United States by attacking literally every energy project that is proposed.

What is so disconcerting is that while the administration, Congress and even environmentalists push green energy and the smart grid they completely ignore the fact that it is the radical environmental groups and our lawmakers that allow energy and grid projects to be attacked and delayed until ultimately the drain of resources kills the project.

A wake up call was certainly issued by Senator Feinstein a few days ago when she "announced her intention to introduce new legislation to establish a national monument to preserve hundreds of thousands of acres in the Mojave Desert." Sounds good right?

Well let’s see what it would do. Not only would this bill bar the installation of industrial solar facilities in the California desert, but it would probably make it very difficult (if not impossible) to construct the Green Path North, a renewable transmission line from the Imperial Valley to Los Angeles.

Attempts to kill transmission such as in California are occurring at the same time the state has a mandate to obtain 33% of its electricity from renewable energy, e.g. wind, solar, geothermal. We must start educating the public about the fact that every day NIMBYs are attacking everywhere and are intent on stopping energy and grid projects.

As a first step in public education the U.S. Chamber has launched a web site: www.projectnoproject.com. Here you will find the gory details on the delays that almost 300 energy projects have experienced. And yes, 62 of these projects are renewable energy projects and 11 are grid expansions.

The site is interactive. We are asking every member of the public, all state and local chambers and the business community to email and tell us what projects NIMBYs stopped in their areas. All of these dead projects represent lost economic development; lost jobs, lost revenue for local communities, and lost investment in the United States.

Let’s educate Congress and the American public on who rules the electric lines and the adverse economic impacts of their actions

.We hope that by listing these projects on the website the absurdity of all that is happening will become evident and policy makers will stop talking and start walking. To the store! To buy a pair of scissors! To cut the "green tape!"

Limiting the use of expanded transmission grids to renewable energy would be short sighted and increase electricity costs for U.S. households and consumers. According to the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration, U.S. demand for electricity is projected to rise by about 25 percent between now and 2030. While renewable energy from non-hydro sources is projected to increase over time, most increases in U.S. electric generating capacity will come from non-renewable sources. The reasons are that electricity from renewable energy (except hydro) tends to be more expensive than conventional fossil fuel or nuclear sources and renewable resources are often geographically remote.

U.S. economic recovery will depend, in part, on access to energy; historically, each one percent increase in GDP is accompanied by a 0.3 percent increase in energy use. Restricting the use of an expanded transmission grid to renewables will raise energy prices and slow economic and job growth.

Succinctly put, all this talk about federal, state and local collaboration in transmission siting is fine and good. But the cows will have all come home before we get much additional transmission capacity via such collaboration unless the federal government has the clear power, not to mention the will, to step in and act when lower levels of government dither. Perhaps those states and localities that stand in the way of new transmission capacity because they can't see how it benefits them ought to be excluded when carbon allowances are handed out.

New transmission policy reform should, first and foremost, focus clearly on renewables, and avoid negative consequences for our wildlife and our treasured landscapes. The narrow focus on renewables is critical. We need a transmission policy in this country that gives a green light to green energy and a red light to the polluting coal plants that are fueling global warming.

Decisions on where to site renewable transmission lines must be made carefully, with the explicit goal of protecting the wildlife, air and water quality, and natural and cultural resources that help keep American communities healthy, safe, and prosperous. Energy efficiency and distributed generation technologies are also important contributors that satisfy energy demand without the need for expensive new transmission lines.

And finally, the question we need to ask isn’t “Who rules?”, but “Whose rules.” Historically, the states have had a strong role in transmission siting, especially as it pertains to wildlife. This expertise is critical to careful planning. That said, there is a clear and important role for the federal government, as well. Transmission lines that prioritize renewables are in the nation’s interest, and the federal government should play a coordinating role to ensure these abundant—but under-served—resources can play a large role in our clean energy future.

The best way to overhaul the national electricity grid is to develop a transmission policy that allows for the best of both worlds: a consistent federal role in coordinating, prioritizing, and providing incentives for renewables, combined with the attention to local concerns and details that can only come from the states.

The debate over building new transmission lines is intensifying in Washington. The Obama administration is promoting construction of new high-power electric lines on federal lands, worrying some environmental advocates.

Meanwhile Senate Majority leader Harry Reid wants the expanded grid to be available only for renewable energy projects, while Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman Jeff Bingaman opposes any limitations on the new grid lines.

How should these issues be settled?

Because renewable energy resources like solar, wind and geothermal are located in rural areas away from developed population centers and require new transmission lines to bring the energy to consumers, they can have significant impacts on natural habitat regardless of whether approval rests with state or Federal governments.

It is in such rural places where the most important remaining habitat for plants and animals is located. This does not mean that we should oppose alternate energy facilities; it does mean that energy production facilities and transmission corridors should be carefully planned and sited to avoid the most critical areas and to offset the damage to natural systems that cannot be avoided. The federal and state agencies that have the most knowledge about and responsibility for managing wildlife and overall ecological resources in any region or location should be involved in planning for energy facilities and transmission corridor selection.

For example, wind farms are sited in easily mapped areas of high average wind speeds many of which are in prairie regions of the mid-west and west. The majority of these potential sites do not affect critical wildlife habitat, but some are in places important to endangered ground nesting birds and, if constructed would destroy nesting habitat. These sites can also be easily mapped.

In evaluating permits for facilities and transmission corridors government agencies should work with developers to look across whole landscapes, seek to avoid critical nesting sites, and require the developers to fund restoration and protection of prairie habitat to offset damage that cannot be avoided. This will not only save important species, it will speed up siting decisions.

So from the environmental perspective both federal and state agencies might be involved in the permitting of production sites and transmission corridors to ensure that permitting is accomplished in a systematic way to minimize site based environmental impacts while striving to reduce impacts on Earth’s overall climate.

This week, since I will be away, I'm asking Rob Gramlich, our director of policy, to post a response. Ron is an expert on transmission policy.

The federal government and the states should work together to plan and authorize new high-voltage transmission lines needed to deliver power from remote renewable energy sites to population centers. Insufficient transmission is the biggest long-term obstacle to the development of renewable energy. Some states that are renewable energy leaders have also become transmission leaders, namely Texas, California, Minnesota, and Iowa. However, the current utility-by-utility and state-by-state transmission approval process is not well suited to the new national agenda of building high capacity regional lines. Most states are limited in factors that they can consider in siting and authorizing cost recovery for a transmission line that will serve users beyond an individual state. That’s why the wind industry is supporting federal legislation that would substantially reform the regulatory structure for these facilities. There are now bills in Congress that address the 3 P's of transmission siting: planning, permitting, and paying. Planning would be interconnection-wide for high capacity lines needed to meet national renewable energy goals, in a process that includes state input but with a federal government "determination of need." Permitting could be consolidated at FERC under certain circumstances. All users in the region would pay for the lines through a simple cost allocation method. With these key barriers addressed, there would be substantial private capital interested in building lines, and ample opportunity for states to guide the plan development and to be involved in local routing decisions. This policy would allow the nation to grow wind energy development from approximately 25 Gigawatts today to over 300 GW by 2030, creating 500,000 jobs, as in the department of Energy's 20 percent wind report.

From the State perspective, expanded federal transmission authority, if enacted, must remain limited in scope. Accordingly, although NARUC continues to believe that no additional federal authority over the grid is necessary, we recently approved elements of a new transmission policy should Congress act.

This new policy, available on the NARUC website recognizes the indispensible role State regulators have played, and will continue to play, in planning, siting, and allocating costs of new transmission. As NARUC Second-Vice President Tony Clark of North Dakota told Congress last week, States and regions must be “more than just stakeholders, but key drivers in developing new energy infrastructure.”

Our policy emphasizes a “bottom-up” approach recognizing the importance of giving the States and regions priority in the planning and siting process. States and regions have been doing this for decades and it makes no sense to throw this essential expertise away. This means that any additional federal siting or construction authority should be limited in scope. Expanded federal authority should not be extended to intrastate lines of local concern, or to retail ratemaking, the mitigation of local environmental impacts already under State authority, the interconnection of distribution facilities, or the siting of generation. Importantly, to address concerns of landowners and consumers, the State function that provides for participation by affected stakeholders in State and/or regional planning processes must be preserved.

This recognizes the reality that the States– individually and at the regional level – are responding to the need to strengthen transmission infrastructure. As Commissioner Clark reported, in the Midwest, the Upper Midwest Transmission Development Initiative has been working across State lines to bring the ample wind and other renewable resources from the rural, low-population areas to big cities. We’re seeing similar developments in the Northeast, the West, and all over the U.S.

The problem, though, is that regardless of where regulatory authority is lodged, building transmission lines will face substantial local and environmental hurdles. Many view the natural gas siting model as proof that interstate energy transportation systems can be built in a few years. If an interstate pipeline can be built in a few short years, why can’t we move faster on electricity transmission?

There are several reasons why this comparison is inapt. First, there are far fewer alternatives to transporting natural gas than building a pipeline, while there will be an array of alternatives to siting a transmission line. For example, New York or New Jersey may be better suited to building an off-shore wind farm with a smaller transmission line than importing wind power from the Midwest on an intercontinental power line. Also, there may well be energy efficiency measures that can be implemented that reduce the need to import energy in the first place.

Of course, pipelines are buried in the ground. For safety and economic reasons, burying thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission is far less practical.

NARUC Electricity Committee Chairman Garry Brown of New York said at a recent congressional briefing that siting electric transmission is like siting natural gas “times 100.” The local opposition and due process concerns that exist now will continue to exist no matter who has the final say. In our view, ratepayers and landowners affected by proposed transmission projects will reject dealing exclusively with a distant agency in Washington, rather than the convenience and transparency of the established siting process in their States. While the State and regional process can be lengthy and contentious, it does provide each and every party with a voice.

State regulators understand the need for strengthening the nation’s transmission grid to serve State and national economic and environmental goals. However, it is frankly unrealistic to think that the federal government can wave a magic wand and make all the challenges with siting, planning, and cost allocation disappear. This begs for a bottom-up partnership that takes advantage of the ongoing work and expertise in place at the State and regional level.

As America moves toward a national grid system for electricity, elected officials are taking a look at how well the natural gas supply system has worked to see if applying the principles that have worked so well for natural gas can be used to benefit the nation’s proposed new electrical grid. In 1938 Congress granted authority to the Federal Power Commission (which later became the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - FERC) to regulate and site interstate natural gas pipelines and indeed, gas pipeline siting is a success story in which the electric transmission grid would do well to emulate. Today there are over 215,000 miles of natural gas pipelines which quietly and safely deliver clean natural gas to homes, businesses and industrial users. According to National Transportation Safety Board statistics, America’s modern integrated pipeline systems are the safest and most economical method of transporting products.

With the upcoming rush to generate more electricity from solar in the Southwest and wind power in the less-populated windy mid-section of the United States, America will quickly need a large number of new power lines to transmit power to its more populated areas. That will not be simple. For instance, appliances require that our electrical currents operate at 60 Hz, a special service that can only be offered by a dispatchable fuel. Clean natural gas-fired generation fulfills that reliability requirement even when the wind slows or clouds interfere. In short, natural gas makes wind and solar viable. We will need them all to construct America’s next power grid.

Kevin Knobloch is on vacation. Alan Nogee, Clean Energy Program Director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, is filling in for him this week.

An economywide cap on global warming pollution and a strong federal renewable electricity standard should be central to our national energy policy. At the same time we need a workable federal process that increases the electricity grid’s reliability and efficiency and maximizes the integration of renewable resources within it.

New transmission lines will be needed to connect our nation’s rich renewable energy resources with distant population centers. To get the job done, we’ll need to reform how transmission lines are planned, sited, built and managed. States and regions should be encouraged to work out transmission agreements, but the federal government should be able to step in when states can’t agree. Legislation giving the federal government that authority would ensure that needed transmission lines can be built in a timely manner.

A federal system of transmission oversight and planning must be carefully designed to advance national policies on renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate change. It must ensure that the transmission planning process involves a broad array of stakeholders, including states, utilities, developers, environmentalists, ratepayers and unions to address immediate concerns and avoid delays later in the process. Additionally, it should take into account state, regional and utility analyses and initiatives already underway. Most importantly, it must ensure that new transmission plans are environmentally responsible and protect sensitive lands and important natural and cultural resources.

The Bingaman Committee staff draft legislation would be a very good start. It addresses the three critical barriers -- planning, siting and cost allocation -- in a responsible way. Without legislation like this, the current stalemate will continue and renewable resources located in the West, the Midwest and the upper Northeast will continue to be stranded.