With the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress gave broad powers to the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to identify “congested” transmission corridors in order to prioritize new high-voltage transmission development and to provide higher financial returns to transmission development companies. The idea created a lot of controversy especially in terms of alternatives analysis and jumping over environmental review procedures.  In February 2011, the Ninth Circuit court disagreed with the idea saying, “We cannot accept DOE’s unsupported conclusion that its final agency action that covers ten States and over a 100 million acres does not, as a matter of law, have some environmental impact.”

Read the full post over at our Energy Self Reliant States web site.