Linda Apsey, CEO of independent transmission developer ITC Holdings Corp. (NYSE:FTXS), cuts to the chase when talking about the regulatory reforms needed to reach President Biden’s goal of decarbonizing the U.S. power system by 2035.

“FERC should repeal or modify unhelpful policies, like Order 1000, that have slowed regional transmission development and simply made it more complex,” Apsey said during a hearing before the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis on Thursday. “The introduction of so-called competition is not competition. It is nothing more than a regulated bureaucratic bidding process with little appreciable benefit to the consumer.”

Apsey was one four speakers at the hearing on expanding and modernizing the grid, where Democrats prioritized proposals in Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure package — such as a federal investment tax credit for transmission — and the jobs that a massive transmission buildout might create.

“We already have the innovative technologies needed to increase the efficiency, capacity and flexibility of our electric grid . . . and build new transmission lines so that every city, town and county can access America’s affordable, abundant wind and solar energy,” committee chair Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) said.

Republicans, on the other hand, called for revisions to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

“We’ve got to take a fresh look at that [law],” said Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), the committee’s ranking member. “Not to shortcut our review of the environmental impacts, but to make sure we’re truly focused on the best environmental outcomes but also focused on the project outcomes, the project objectives, because the worst kind of project in the world is a project that never gets finished.”

The industry view, laid out by Apsey and the other speakers, was more technical and pragmatic, focused on what they see as the key obstacles to getting projects built: planning, permitting and cost allocation.

“When it comes to planning across multiple transmission owners, across multiple states, across multiple regions, we don’t necessarily have the processes that facilitate that,” Apsey said. “We would also strongly recommend that FERC require planning studies to include state clean energy standards and realistic estimates for electrification growth.”

“Current processes focus on assigning costs to those customers who benefit immediately and directly from the investment,” said Emily Sanford Fisher, general counsel and senior vice president for clean energy at the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for investor-owned utilities. “This does not take into consideration the broader benefits of transmission for all customers. It may be necessary to broaden the scope of benefits and beneficiaries considered, particularly as the transmission system, the generation resource mix and policy goals change and are expected to change over time.”

Project delays that increase market uncertainty can also impact vital workforce development activities, said Donnie Colston, director of the Utility Department of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

“It takes three years to train a journeyman lineman to perform transmission line construction and maintenance,” Colston said. “And we anticipate the need for at least 50,000 new power linemen over the next 10 years. While projects are held up, we are losing valuable training time.”

The ITC Impact

A recent study from Princeton University predicts that the U.S. will need to increase its high voltage transmission capacity 60% by 2030. But many projects take seven to 10 years or more to even break ground because of long planning and permitting cycles, which in turn can make financing difficult. For some, the delays can be project killers, said Michael Skelly, founder and CEO of Grid United, an early-stage transmission developer.

Approved in 2011, FERC Order 1000 was intended to stimulate transmission planning and construction through competition, but Apsey and other industry insiders say it has not had the desired impact. (See ACORE Panelists Discuss Regulatory Role in Biden Agenda.)

Another study from the American Council on Renewable Energy found 22 transmission projects across the country that it classified as ready to go but expected only about half would be built. The report argued for a transmission ITC as a way to get the projects built. (See Transmission ITC Could Add 20 GW of New Capacity to Grid.)

“A well-designed tax credit for transmission can lower costs for large projects and make it easier to achieve cost allocation agreements, which is a key hurdle to project approval and construction,” Apsey said.

“What we need [are] some successes,” said Skelly, an industry pioneer who tried, unsuccessfully, to develop transmission to bring wind power from the Great Plains to the Southeast. “With a little push from things like the investment tax credit, we can get these projects done. They will unlock tens of thousands of megawatts of new generation, boost today’s level of renewable energy penetration to even higher levels and help address reliability issues.”

NEPA ‘Weaponized’

NEPA was signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon on Jan. 1, 1970. Under original regulations and guidance, a NEPA review was intended to take no more than a year, with final reports of about 150 pages or 300 for “actions of unusual scope and complexity,” according a 2020 report from the Council on Environmental Quality. The CEQ also found that between 2010 and 2018 the average review took more than four years, producing reports that averaged 661 pages.

Adding to delays, for many transmission projects, NEPA reviews have triggered litigation because, as Fisher said, “People don’t necessarily love living near infrastructure, even when they benefit from it.”

Speaking more bluntly, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.) said allocating trillions of dollars for infrastructure would be pointless if NEPA litigation is “weaponized” by environmental groups and the courts. “If we don’t address the permitting issues in this country, far more stringent than most developed nations, we’re never going to get to the part where we build more transmission,” he said.

Graves recently introduced the Building United States Infrastructure through Limited Delays and Efficient Reviews (BUILDER) Act, which would ensure “practical project review times” and clarify “the threshold determinations for preparing an environmental document under NEPA,” according to a press release on the bill. It would also require potential “litigants to have participated meaningfully in the NEPA process before filing suit.”

One solution utilities are exploring is using existing rights of way to “piggyback our infrastructure,” Fisher said. Similarly, the Biden administration is looking at using highway rights of way for transmission.

Apsey, on the other hand, called for transmission planning that first identifies areas of high solar or wind resources, as was done in Michigan and Texas, she said. “We know where the wind blows; we know where the sun shines. Right now, we build transmission to interconnect everywhere a generator may site, whether it’s optimal or suboptimal. If we build the transmission where we know the renewable potential is, those renewable developers will locate around the transmission line.”

But any effort to find common ground of permitting reform could be derailed by partisan politics, as seen at the hearing when Graves brought up Biden’s recent decision to waive sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

“We saw President Biden being deemed a hero for shutting down the Keystone pipeline,” he said. “The same administration … just lifted sanctions to allow the Nord Stream pipeline. I am really struggling with what appears to be the hypocrisy here, and I think we have to step in and make sure we are making the right decisions for the global environment, for our allies and for a clean energy future that’s based on America’s resources.”