Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Rep. Troy Balderson is reintroducing legislation to expedite the building of power plants stuck in a grid backlog — this time with a Senate companion and a supportive FERC chairman.
Why it matters: Balderson's teaming with Sens. John Hoeven and Todd Young on the Grid Power Act reflects a serious Republican push to grow the country's power supply.
- The bill is in line with Trump's support of fossil fuels and nuclear plants to meet growing demand from data centers.
Zoom in: The bill would require FERC to initiate a rulemaking to put a priority on "dispatchable" power plants — a term that generally excludes intermittent wind and solar.
- Fast-tracked projects would be approved to connect to the grid within one year, down from current wait times of five years, Balderson said.
- Grid operators would be allowed to speed up plants "capable of providing known and forecastable electric supply in time intervals necessary to ensure grid reliability," according to the bill.
- The bill seeks to reverse "'Green New Deal policies advanced under the Obama and Biden administrations" that led to the closure of baseload power like coal and nuclear plants, Hoeven said in a statement to Axios.
Mark Christie, whom Trump named FERC chairman last month, has expressed support for the idea.
Friction point: Renewable developers have cautioned against allowing certain projects to skip the line, pressing instead for changes that lower wait times for all power projects.
- FERC finalized a widely supported rule in 2023 that imposed penalties on developers for withdrawing projects and on transmission providers for not meeting certain deadlines.
The big picture: Roughly 2,600 gigawatts of project proposals — more than twice the power capacity currently supplying the grid — were in the interconnection queue at the end of 2023, DOE estimated.
- About 95% of the proposed projects were solar, wind and battery storage.
What they're saying: The interconnection queue is a "logjam of renewable projects," Balderson told Axios ahead of the reintroduction.
- "Those projects can still apply, they can still get in the queue.… But you've got to have something that's going to get authorized, get through the queue and get the power."
- Balderson said he's been in touch with Christie and plans to move the bill this session.
