In response to a request for information issued by Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND) on energy and artificial intelligence, APPA highlighted policies necessary for public power utilities to meet growing demand while maintaining reliability, security, and affordability.
Specifically, APPA recommended:
• Congress should enact legislation to provide the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) with a formal role in determining the potential reliability impact of federal regulations;
• Congress should continue to provide oversight of FERC’s ongoing efforts to speed up interconnection queues, recognizing that resources needed by load-serving entities for reliability must be prioritized in any efforts to streamline or prioritize interconnection;
• Congress should enhance the coordination between the natural gas and electricity sectors, including higher standards for delivery, notification, and transparency from the natural gas industry.
In addition, APPA said Congress should enact infrastructure-neutral permitting reform and work with public power and the broader electric sector to ensure a robust supply chain of critical components is available and accessible for electric utilities and preserve tax-exempt municipal bonds and elective pay tax credits.
Congress should also recognize that the electric sector has mandatory and enforceable standards for cyber and physical security and cyber incident reporting requirements and recognize that utilities must be able to coordinate with government partners on emerging security issues, including AI and large loads, it said.
APPA also stressed the importance of flexibility and local decision-making in how utilities address demand from AI and other types of data centers and large loads, providing examples of different approaches taken by public power utilities, as reported in APPA’s Public Power Current newsletter and Public Power Magazine.
