The Western Business Roundtable applauds the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for moving forward quickly in approving a Record of Decision formally amending 92 land use plans in support of the designation of more than 6,000 miles of energy transport corridors on federal lands in 11 Western states

“The designation of federal energy corridors is an important step forward in efforts to close the energy infrastructure gap that has developed in the West,” said Britt Weygandt, Executive Director of the Roundtable. “These BLM corridors will go far in encouraging the responsible development needed to bolster electricity grid reliability and support the vast range of resources in the American West, including wind, hydro power, solar, clean coal and natural gas,” she added.

The Roundtable has long been a pre-eminent voice calling for the need to improve planning relative to energy infrastructure development in the West, and has been heavily involved throughout the West Wide Energy Corridors process, including providing recommendations to the federal agencies during the initial corridor evaluation process.

The BLM ROD is based on analyses presented in the Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) released on November 28, 2008, by the BLM and the U.S. Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and Defense as part of their work to implement Section 368 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The PEIS identifies energy corridors to facilitate future siting of oil, gas, and hydrogen pipelines, as well as renewable energy development projects and electricity transmission and distribution facilities on federal lands in the West.

“Our region has seen dramatic growth over the past decade. The transmission system has not kept up. This situation was serious when the EPAct05 was enacted. It is dire now," stated Weygandt.

Weygandt points to a range of recent studies that have outlined frailties in Western energy infrastructure, particularly in the regional electricity transmission system:

• Experts forecast that U.S. electricity demand will grow by 18 percent in the next eight years. The projections put that demand increase at 30 percent by 2030.
• In its October 2008 study, “2008 Long-Term Reliability Assessment,” the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) found that long-term capacity margins on the nation’s transmission systems are already inadequate to protect these systems from interruptions such as brownouts or blackouts. Absent immediate investments, this condition will worsen over the next decade. 
• A recent NextGen Energy Council study, citing NERC data, notes that U.S. baseload generation capacity reserve margins "have declined precipitously to 17 percent in 2007, from 30-40 percent in the early 1990s," A 12-15 percent capacity reserve margin is the minimum required to ensure reliability and stability of the nation’s electricity system. NextGen estimates that the U.S. will require about 120 gigawatts (GW) of new generation just to maintain a 15 percent reserve margin. That will require at least $300 billion in generation and transmission facility investments by 2016. Click here to find the referenced NextGen Energy Council study.
• According to NERC data, the U.S. will require more than 14,500 miles of new electricity transmission lines by 2016. The Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) may require nearly 7,000 of those miles.

Successful implementation of the procedures outlined in the BLM ROD will ensure that the citizens of the West will continue to enjoy reliable, affordable energy, while minimizing the potential impacts the environment," Weygandt noted.

Click here to access the maps approved in the final PEIS. 

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Contact: Britt Weygandt, 303-577-4616

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