is that it is indeed important to build transmission lines faster. For example, if national priorities include quickly putting low carbon generating plants on line to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to speed the introduction of electric vehicles, then a rapid permitting process may be critical.1 Looking forward and assuming the “imperative” is established, systemic improvement will need to follow. Transmission permitting is still a stateby-state patchwork that must navigate inevitable and intractable interstate disagreements on environmental impacts, consumer cost allocations, land use and eminent domain acquisition. This dynamic was again evaluated in a 2020 report requested by Congress from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission which detailed the “barriers and opportunities” for high voltage transmission concluding that navigating state processes and stakeholders can cause transmission projects to take “in excess of a decade.”2
Interstate Gas Pipeline Paradigm This is in stark contrast to the regulatory and legal paradigm that supported the building of pipeline infrastructure to support the shale revolution. That paradigm — based on the 1938 Natural Gas 3. http://www.transwestexpress.net/about/history.shtml
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