Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives For The Nation Act Of 2007--Continued

Floor Speech

CREATING LONG-TERM ENERGY ALTERNATIVES FOR THE NATION ACT OF 2007--Continued -- (Senate - June 19, 2007)

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Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I rise today in support of my amendment to create clean energy corridors, which will greatly enhance our grid system to transmit clean and renewable energy.

Much of the debate in this Energy bill has focused on renewable energy. How much renewable energy should we use? How should it be produced? Who should be required to use it? However, this debate has overlooked a key component in this argument, which is, how do we transport this energy from areas with high concentrations of renewable resources to areas with high demand for electrical power?

Oftentimes, clean, renewable sources of power are located in rural areas with low demand for electricity and limited capacity to transmit large amounts of power long distances. At the other end of the spectrum, States with larger urban areas are passing State laws that require the use of renewable energy. In many cases, it is more economical to import that energy from other areas of the country.

It is critical that we create the infrastructure to allow that movement of energy to happen. I have to point to this chart to illustrate exactly how my State of South Dakota serves as a prime example of this dilemma. In South Dakota, we are blessed to have abundant sources of wind. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, South Dakota has enough wind to produce 566 gigawatts of electric power from wind, which is the equivalent of 55 percent of the Nation's electricity demand.

I will refer to the chart. If you look at these red areas and the pink areas, the purple areas around the country, all these different colors demonstrate varying amounts of wind energy.

Of course, as you can see, South Dakota and North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, have enormous amounts of wind energy available. Although South Dakota has an abundant source of wind, this renewable resource is dramatically underdeveloped in my State.

In fact, we have less than one-tenth the wind energy production of our neighboring States, even though our wind resources are far superior. The fundamental problem is we don't have the population markets to use large amounts of wind power within my State's borders.

More importantly, we lack the transmission capacity to carry wind power from rural areas in South Dakota to urban areas in other areas of the country. This amendment includes simple provisions that would significantly improve transmission development for renewable sources of energy.

First, this amendment would direct the Department of Energy to identify areas with transmission constraints that increase costs to consumers, limit resource options to serve load growth or limit access to sources of clean, renewable energy, such as wind, solar, geothermal energy, and biomass.

Upon completion of this study, after verifying all alternatives and public comments, the Department of Energy could then designate these areas as ``National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors.''

These corridors, which enjoyed broad bipartisan support as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, are important tools for transmission development. Under current law, these corridors are targeted toward areas experiencing heavy grid congestion. My amendment would expand the designation of these corridors to include access to clean, renewable sources of energy.

This amendment also directs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to establish regulations that allow public utilities to allocate and recover costs associated with building the additional transmission infrastructure for wind and other forms of renewable energy. It ensures that rates associated with this development are reasonable, just, and nondiscriminatory.

By overcoming some of the inherent obstacles associated with transmitting renewable energy long distances, I believe this amendment promotes clean, renewable sources of energy in a commonsense fashion.

This amendment will serve as the blueprint for the 21st century grid by facilitating the national scale designation and construction of clean energy corridors that will enable the delivery of clean, sustainable, reliable power to consumers across this country.

As I have met with people from the industry, as I have traveled my State, as I have talked with those who invest in energy projects, it is clear that this is one of the issues that presents a major obstacle to wind energy development in this country. This amendment helps address that by creating and opening these corridors, clean energy corridors that would allow clean green wind energy to make it from areas where it is in abundance, places such as the State of South Dakota, to places in the country that desperately need affordable power.

So I hope my colleagues in the Senate will support this amendment and do something that will significantly address and further the production of wind energy and affordable electricity to America's consumers.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

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Mr. THUNE. Before I yield back my time, I thank both Senators from New Mexico. They have both been great leaders on the energy issue.

The 2005 Energy Act was a landmark accomplishment in the Congress. It set a lot of new policy with regard to energy and moved us in a direction that gets us less dependent upon foreign sources of energy and more energy independent, which I think is what this debate is all about.

I argue with respect to this amendment that it builds upon the work we did in 2005. In fact, that amendment that was talked about in 2005 which deals with those areas which are experiencing heavy grid congestion--this simply expands that designation to those corridors to include access to clean, renewable sources of energy, which I believe is what a part of this debate is all about; that is, how do we take energy sources in this country, make them more available to people across the country, and lessen the dependence on foreign sources of energy?

I use my State as a prime example. There are lots of different regulatory bodies, whether it is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Western Area Power Administration, the Midwest Independent System Operators, whether it is the Public Utilities Commission of the State of South Dakota, there is a balkanization of networks out there that has evolved over time that has created these barriers in the grid to getting power from where it is generated, where it is produced, to where it is needed. My State is a good example of that. On the border of South Dakota, we have what is called a pancaking problem where there is a stacking of fees that makes it difficult to get wind generated in South Dakota across State lines into other areas that could benefit from it.

This is fairly straightforward and consistent with the good work that was done in the Energy bill in 2005. It doesn't in any way undermine or contradict that but complements it in a way that is consistent with what our priorities should be and what our objectives are in terms of energy policy.

I appreciate the comments of both of my colleagues from New Mexico, and I yield back the remainder of my time.

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