The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday designated nearly all of Southern California, parts of Arizona and much of the northeast as "national interest" energy transmission corridors, an action that allows federal regulators to approve new high-voltage towers and lets private utilities condemn homes and land even if a state agency won't.
The action is potentially an enormous boost for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Southern California Edison Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., all of which have faced fierce local opposition to proposed transmission lines that would stretch for hundreds of miles through numerous communities and counties.
All California utilities are up against a tough state deadline to obtain 20% of their power from renewable sources by 2010, which in most cases means shipping in wind, solar or geothermal energy from elsewhere.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, following direction from President Bush and Congress, designated six California jurisdictions in their entirety as "national interest electric transmission corridors," including Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Kern and San Diego counties.
"We're not talking about a huge new transmission tower on Wilshire Boulevard," said Mary O'Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. But it's not clear how newer, fast-growing communities in the Antelope Valley or the Inland Empire would be affected. Small towns in rural areas and private land preserves around national parks could be early targets.
Kevin Kolevar, assistant secretary of the Energy Department's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, said "critical areas of congestion" had been identified in both the southwest and the northeast by federal energy researchers, including coastal Southern California and the Inland Empire. Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the federal energy commission will now be able, as a last resort, to designate badly needed transmission corridors between states to ensure reliable power reaches those areas, Kolevar said. The commission would act only if a state had not acted on an application by a utility within a year or had turned it down, he said.
A spokeswoman for the California Public Utilities Commission said its staff was researching the decision and had no further comment. But utilities and other business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce and Edison Electric Institute, a national electric industry lobbying group, praised the announcement. Residents in rural areas expressed concern.
