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Transmission lines may be coming your way, through federal pre-emption of state processes that give transmission lines the scrutiny they require. They’re working to transfer jurisdiction of transmission siting out of the hands of the states and into the hands of FERC, we’ve been hearing about this for a while, they’ve got the authority to do it, and now there are specific transmission corridors proposed. Well, as specific as you can get with a 100-200 mile wide corridor!

Is this what you want? Do you want the feds to have power of eminent domain to give utilities what they want — YOUR LAND? Do you want these National Transmission Corridors through your yard? Do you want them to get away with characterizing transmission of market transactions, bulk power transfer, as necessary for “national security?”

NATIONAL ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION CORRIDORS WERE ANNOUNCED LAST WEEK. NOW’S THE TIME TO REGISTER YOUR COMMENTS!

HERE’S THEIR MAIN SITE

How to Submit Comments – details CLICK HERE

“Public Comment Form” HERE

Public Comment Period is 60 days, beginning on April 26, 2006, and ending on (I think) June 25, 2007 (depending on how they count!). They claim that comments received or postmarked within the 60-day comment period will be considered, but I recommend making sure it GETS THERE by the deadline, I hate to rely on their statement about postmarks!

They have the above Public Comment Form on their site, and if you use this, I’d recommend printing it out so you have a record of it.

They ask that you specify the docket you’re Commenting on, i.e., Docket No. 2007-OE-01 (the draft Mid-Atlantic Area National Corridor), comments must be marked “Attn: Docket No. 2007-OE-01” and for Docket No. 2007-OE-02 (the draft Southwest Area National Corridor), comments must be marked “Attn: Docket No. 2007-OE-02.”
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This is the proposed Mid-Atlantic Area National Corridor, I’d heard questions about this from Pennsylvania and New York, and it seems it covers half the state of Delaware (that doesn’t take much):

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This is the proposed Southwest Area National Corridor:

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is holding three public meetings on the two draft National Corridor Designations announced on April 26, 2007. The meetings are being held in two eastern locations and one southwest location, and they’re not readily accessible. The one in Washington, D.C. is held at a hotel where parking is $18/day and not on a Metro stop — it seems that there MUST be somewhere with a sufficiently large meeting room with parking and more direct accessibility — but who wants that pesky “public” there anyway!
Two public meetings will be held on Docket NO. 2007-OE-01 (the Draft Mid-Atlantic Area National Corridor Designation) – in Arlington, VA, on May 15, 2007, and in New York, NY, on May 23, 2007 – and one public meeting will be held on Docket NO.2007-OE-02 (the Draft Southwest Area National Corridor Designation) – in San Diego on May 17, 2007.

Arlington, VA Meeting on May 15:

Doubletree Hotel Crystal City-National Airport
300 Army Navy Drive
Arlington, VA 22202-2891
Phone: 703-416-4100

(hotel says parking costs $18!)

San Diego, CA Meeting on May 17:

Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego Hotel
One Market Place
San Diego, California 92101
Phone: (619) 232-1234

New York, NY Meeting on May 23:

Park Central New York Hotel
870 Seventh Avenue at 56th Street
New York, NY 10019-4038
Phone: 212-247-8000
From their blurb:

DOE invites all interested parties to participate in the public meetings and to provide oral and written comments at these sessions in addition to submitting comments in response to the Federal Register Notice on Draft National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor Designations.

Agenda

Each of the three meetings will have the same basic format:
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Registration Desk Open
10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. DOE Opening Remarks and Presentation
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Public Comments
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Lunch (on participants own)
1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Public Comments

Advance registration is not required to attend. However, participants who would like to provide oral comments must sign up in advance.

Sign-up to Provide Public Comments at the Meeting

If you would like to present oral comments at one of the meetings, you must register in advance. The opportunity to comment will be limited to 2 minutes per presenter. Those wishing to provide oral comments will present on the day of the meeting in the order in which they are received. Sign-up here to provide public comments.

Each public meeting will be transcribed and the transcript will be posted on the web site following the meeting. To supplement oral comments, written comments may be submitted.

For More Information

For general information on the Draft National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor Designations, please visit http://nietc.anl.gov.

Contacts
Poonum Agrawal (Technical Contact)
Manager
Markets & Technical Integration
Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability
U.S. Department of Energy
Phone: (202) 586-6048
Email: poonum.agrawal@hq.doe.gov

Lauren Giles (Logistics)
Program Manager
Energetics Incorporated
Phone: (410) 953-6250
Email: LGiles@energetics.com

Here’s a link to PJM Transmission Maps. Most of the affected area is in PJM, though not all.

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