January 18, 2024 3:00 a.m. 

Oregon’s U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have joined Senate colleagues in sending a bicameral letter to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Willie Phillips, urging the agency to strengthen its proposed transmission planning and cost allocation rule in order to address the growing need for reliability, affordability and clean electricity.

The lawmakers wrote, “In recent years, we have witnessed numerous examples of grid resilience issues, which have highlighted the inadequacy of the grid to handle changing load patterns, interconnect new clean energy resources, and respond to increasingly frequent and severe weather events”. The letter continued, “FERC’s final rule should ensure that transmission planners account for these factors by requiring a long-term, forward-looking, 20-year planning horizon that addresses the changing circumstances and the evolution of our energy system”.

The lawmakers said that with a strong final rule, FERC can play a critical role in “…achieving these goals, fulfilling the promise of the most consequential infrastructure and climate laws in history”.

The letter was led by Senators Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Edward Markey of Massachusetts. Along with Wyden and Merkley, the letter was cosigned by 17 other senators. In addition to the senators, 112 members of the House of Representatives sent an identical letter to FERC.