Pushmepullyou: Disputes and Discussions on Grid Politics

By Kennedy Maize

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Poor Understanding of Grid Politics at the Grassroots

Rather than dip into the denizens of the “smart grid” devotees in Washington, I chose to sample the views of the opponents and proponents of what I have called the “strong grid,” although I can’t in fairness defend the PATH project as truly grid-strengthening. (It is, at least, more strongly visible than elements of the smart grid.) I wanted to scope out the local understanding of the prospect of federal preemption of state siting authority under the 2005 law rather than the pie-in-the-sky, let’s cash in, smart grid lobbyists meeting in D.C.

My working hypothesis was that the local folks, some of them my neighbors, had no understanding of the new authorities in the 2005 law and would be outraged when they understood what their elected representatives in Washington had done in terms of grid siting.

They didn’t have a clue. They were astonished. I spoke to several folks after the West Virginia session. They were gobsmacked when I told them that if the state regulators turned down the project, the feds could overrule the state. They also were flummoxed when I told them that their Republican members of Congress—Shelley Moore Capito (Arch Moore’s daughter) in West Virginia and Roscoe Bartlett in Maryland—had voted for the legislation that would allow giant transmission lines to tromp across their land, even if state regulators opposed the project.

“How the heck could that be,” a West Virginia high school teacher told me. “That doesn’t sound Constitutional to me. I thought the states had powers not enumerated in the Constitution.” What about the Commerce Clause and federal supremacy? “I don’t know what you are talking about. Electric regulation and siting of power lines has always been a state power.”

The reaction of locals to the prospect of Uncle Sam allowing giant investor-owned utilities to big-foot transmission that has no local benefits, in the name of national policy, is akin to, and ultimately more grounded in reality than, the “grassroots” rage that some folks expressed last August about the Obama administration’s aims for health care reform.

At the meeting at Shepherd State University there was no overt outrage by opponents, other than some applause at statements by opponents of the power line. But there was a deep-seated sense of shock that the government could do this to them: force a high-voltage power line across their land, without offering any benefits to folks underneath the line.

At the same time, local trade unions—the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the equipment operators union, the carpenters—were enthusiastic about the project. It represents high-paid construction and operating jobs. That’s entirely understandable, and the unions made their case both with testimony and their presence at the meeting. At least a third of the attendees were union members.

It’s up to the state regulators to make the first judgments. FERC may get the second-order decision. Ultimately, it will be up the courts to make final determinations.

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