With much respect to Chairman Guthrie, no Members that want affordable electricity should consider weakening the #BAAJA transmission title. The manager's amendment already compromised by retaining existing federal ROFRs and allowing only PUCs to report local projects to FERC.
SCOOP: House E&C Republicans led by Chair Brett Guthrie convened a meeting this morning with Energy Secretary Chris Wright where several members raised concerns about transmission provisions of BAAJA. They’re hoping for changes in Senate. Text subscribers got it first!
@DoctorVive Large load customers aren’t naturally incentivized to go off-grid. The status quo is a direct result of poor grid planning, permitting, and cost allocation processes, all of which BAAJA addresses.
Secretary Burgum’s point deserves saying out loud: when blocking infrastructure is the business model, families and businesses pay for it. BAAJA starts to change those incentives, for serial litigants and monopoly utilities alike.
“Pass the permitting bill…[stopping] a transmission line or a gas pipeline in our country has become not just an artform. It’s become a giant business model.” -Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. He’s right. Here’s how the Senate’s permitting plan, #BAAJA, takes on that challenge🧵
Want your utility bill dollars to be spent well? Utilities favor local projects over competitive, regional ones, and ratepayers pay the difference. A glaring regulatory gap (h/t @RockyMtnInst). BAAJA gives states new authority to report planning behavior that hurts customers.
New @rhodium_group analysis on energy system impacts of BAAJA!
Conducted w/ support from @CleanEconProj, the research finds the legislation could:
-reduce household bills by $50-78 annually
-drive up to 249 GW of add. clean energy
-reduce economywide GHG emissions by 1.5 Gt
“If we have any hope of cutting energy costs and creating more good-paying jobs to help hardworking New Mexicans support their families, then we need to be able to build big clean energy projects in a matter of years — not decades.”
That’s a quote from New Mexico’s senior US Senator, @SenatorHeinrich in his latest article discussing BAAJA and the benefits for his constituents- this applies to everyone who benefits from big infrastructure projects across the country too.
full article below ⬇️