The House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Energy Subcommittee recently held a hearing titled, “Oversight of FERC: Advancing Affordable and Reliable Energy for All Americans.” Topics covered in the hearing included reliability, cybersecurity and data centers. Transmission was also discussed at the hearing, as well as electricity markets.
All five Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners participated in the hearing.
Reliability was a top concern of committee members, with nearly everyone speaking on the subject in some capacity during their remarks, the American Public Power Association reported in a summary of the hearing posted on APPA’s Engage platform.
Broadly, the witnesses committed to addressing the issue and spoke to FERC’s current work on prioritizing affordability and reliability. Transmission, cost allocation, and FERC’s role in interregional transmission planning were notable topics of discussion.
The hearing may be viewed here.
Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA) asked FERC Chair Laura Swett about competing electricity markets and their impact on utilities in the Pacific Northwest, while Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) asked her about cybersecurity initiatives at FERC.
Data Centers
Multiple members spoke on data centers with some expressing concerns about their impact on rising demand and electricity rates.
In his opening remarks Subcommittee Chair Bob Latta (R-OH) said FERC has made substantial progress on addressing jurisdictional lines between federal and state authority over co-location and flexible power arrangements, which is helping states ensure that costs associated with data center development are not being left to rate payers.
In response to questioning, Swett and Commissioner David Rosner said they believe that FERC has authority to act on DOE’s proposal to streamline the interconnection of large loads, including data centers.
In response to a question on the subject from Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA), Swett said FERC is committed to allowing and facilitating large load connections within its jurisdiction in a way that ensures consumers pay reasonable rates.
Commissioner Judy Chang said that she is committed to ensuring that new large loads must cover their costs.
Transmission
Kathy Castor (D-FL), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, said that the country needed to “streamline siting and permitting, particularly for transmission,” and said that she hopes her “Republican colleagues can finally get serious about working to upgrade America’s transmission infrastructure.”
Rosner said in his opening remarks that “This year, FERC will be positioned to act on electric transmission providers’ proposals to implement FERC Order 1920, which modernized the long-term transmission planning process.”
Rosner had an extended back and forth with Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA) on transmission and cost allocation.
Peters said that he agreed with the provisions in Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (commonly known as EPRA) that would have standardized the definition of transmission benefits for cost allocation so that only widely agreed upon benefits would count towards cost sharing, and contentious items like state-specific climate policy benefits would not be included.
He continued, “how do we get to that point where cost allocation that happens routinely within regions can happen in the same way [with] the same confidence as interregional high voltage transmission?”
Rosner replied, “one of the ways we worked on transmission cost allocation under [FERC] Order 1920 was to give the state regulators a much bigger voice from the beginning of the process so they get to see the model runs [and] get to set the scenarios...they get to decide what their region should consider.”
He continued, “I think it is very important to get more consensus and we’re seeing that process unfold in a really positive way in the PJM region.”
Rosner said that he thought the same model could be applied to interregional transmission.
Peters asked if that is something that Congress needs to lay out.
Rosner responded that FERC has not spent as much time on interregional transmission as it has on regional transmission and, “if this is a priority for Congress, [he] would welcome [Congress’] direction.
