- Letter
U.S. Climate Alliance Supports Improved Long-Term Regional Transmission Planning from FERC
August 17, 2022
Better proactive planning of the transmission system is needed to ensure grid reliability and resilience, maintain consumer affordability, and deliver generation resources needed to decarbonize the electricity sector. We support the timely adoption of a final rule that establishes anticipatory long-term regional transmission (LTRT) planning designed to respond to the needs of a changing electricity grid.
Current transmission planning and cost allocation methodologies are not meeting our nation’s needs and have been too piecemeal in nature. As a result, we have become too reliant on locally planned projects without having a robust process to consider the full range of alternatives provided by regional and interregional transmission. Ultimately, this has led to missed opportunities to size transmission lines for greater benefits or maximize opportunities to upgrade existing lines. Effective transmission planning processes must be long-term and proactively plan for changes in generation supply and demand. Our nation’s electricity mix and consumer demands will not remain as they are today, and our grid cannot continue to operate as it did a decade ago — we must be prepared to build for the future.
About the Alliance
Launched in 2017 by the governors of Washington, New York, and California to help fill the void left by the U.S. federal government’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the Alliance has grown to include 24 governors from across the U.S. representing approximately 60 percent of the U.S. economy and 55 percent of the U.S. population. Governors in the Alliance have pledged to collectively reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26-28 percent by 2025, 50-52 percent by 2030, and 61-66 percent by 2035, all below 2005 levels, and collectively achieve overall net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as practicable, and no later than 2050.
The Alliance’s states and territories continue to advance innovative and impactful climate solutions to grow the economy, create jobs, and protect public health, and have a long record of action and results. In fact, the latest data shows that as of 2023, the Alliance has reduced its collective net greenhouse gas emissions by 24 percent below 2005 levels, while increasing collective GDP by 34 percent, and is on track to meet its near-term climate goal of reducing collective greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
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