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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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CONTACT: Tom
Andrews |
Majority Leader Bill
DeWeese |
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House OKs DeWeese resolution to repeal Energy Act
Majority Leader will submit testimony to Department of Energy
HARRISBURG, June 12 – The state House of Representatives today adopted a resolution sponsored by House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese urging Congress to repeal a portion of the 2005 Federal Energy Act which would usurp state’s rights to site electric transmission lines.
“If section 1221 of the Energy Act is not repealed or modified, it will unnecessarily strip states of their right to govern their own future when it comes to the location and construction of high power transmission lines. Public participation and regulatory review be damned,” said DeWeese, D-Greene/Fayette/Washington.
“We understand the need for reliable power, and we are willing to do our part to ensure that we can continue to meet the needs of American consumers and companies up and down the east coast. But we should not be willing to allow the federal government to impose its will, indeed its long arm, into our backyards, our green spaces or our lives.”
After being adopted by the House 188-11, copies of H.R. 297 will be sent to members of Pennsylvania’s Congressional Delegation and to the presiding officer of each House of Congress.
Under the federal act, the Department of Energy may designate areas of the country as national interest electric transmission corridors. Within these areas, state authority over transmission lines may be pre-empted and new federal eminent domain authority would be available for approved electric utility projects.
In April, the DOE released its proposal for a Mid-Atlantic Area National Corridor. Geographically, the corridor designation encompasses all or parts of eight states and the District of Columbia, including 50 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. It encompasses more than 100,000 square miles and a population of almost 50 million people. On Wednesday, the DOE will hold a public meeting in Pittsburgh on the designation and DeWeese will submit written testimony. However, the agency has not revealed whether it will hold a meeting in any of the other affected counties in the Commonwealth.
Earlier this year, DeWeese traveled to Washington, D.C. to testify before the U.S. Congressional Subcommittee on Domestic Policy for the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding the 2005 Energy Act.
On Friday, Gov. Ed Rendell sent a letter to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman opposing the NIETC designation through Pennsylvania.
“At the end of the day, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission should make the determination if a proposed power line is in the public interest – not the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,” DeWeese said.
“This federal law offers no protections for any nonfederal property falling within a corridor. Therefore, agricultural land preserved under conservation easements, agricultural and forest reserve land preserved under the Clean and Green Program, historic battlefields, historic land and places, school yards, and all commercial and residential private property falling within a national corridor could be subject to taking by the federal government to build new power lines,” DeWeese said.
DeWeese has been a vocal opponent of a power line in his area: the 240-mile, 500 kilovolt high voltage Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line through southwestern Pennsylvania, including 40 miles in DeWeese’s district, proposed by Allegheny Energy
“The health and welfare of my constituents is of extreme importance to me. I submit that their opinions and positions regarding the feasibility and suspected health consequences of a high voltage transmission line should neither be discounted nor superseded in favor of a project that will not and is not designed to improve the reliability of the electric infrastructure in the 50th Legislative District,” he said.
DeWeese is sponsoring an online petition in conjunction with other groups dedicated to stopping the TrAIL. Several hundred residents of southwestern Pennsylvania already have signed the petition which can be found at http://www.pahouse.com/deweese/Power_line.asp.
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