The GOP no longer loves power lines. That’s bad for Biden’s climate goals.

In 2005, President George W. Bush declared that “new technologies such as superconducting power lines can help us bring our electrical grid into the 21st century.”

A lot has changed since then. For one thing, “We Belong Together” by Mariah Carey is no longer No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. For another, Republicans have become a lot less enthusiastic about long-distance power lines, complicating President Biden’s climate agenda.

The debt ceiling bill, which passed the Senate last night, is a prime example of this trend. Democrats and the White House pushed for the bill to include provisions that would spur the construction of interstate transmission lines, needed to carry clean electricity across the country.

But House Republicans balked at including these provisions, according to two people close to the talks, and they were ultimately dropped from the debt ceiling deal. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private negotiations.

Yet to meet one of Biden’s biggest climate goals — 100 percent clean electricity by 2035 — the nation will need a lot more power lines to transport clean electricity from far-flung wind and solar farms to urban centers.

Last week, negotiators were seriously considering including a transmission bill in the debt ceiling deal.

• The Big Wires Act, which is sponsored by Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), would require regions to transfer at least 30 percent of their peak electricity demand between each other.
• To meet this mandate — known as a minimum transfer requirement — regions could build new transmission lines or upgrade existing ones.

But Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), the chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), who chairs the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, Climate and Grid Security, raised concerns about including the bill, said the two people close to the talks.

• The two lawmakers argued that Republicans needed more time to review the bill and that the 30 percent requirement was too strict, the people said.
• Instead of including the Big Wires Act, the debt ceiling deal ultimately gave the North American Electric Reliability Corp. a year and a half to study transfer capacity between regions — an outcome that disappointed many Democrats and climate activists.

“I have a lot of respect for the climate ambition of the White House, but I did not come away from this process with the sense that those of us who care about transmission were rolling in the same direction as the White House negotiators,” Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) told The Climate 202.

Spokespeople for Rodgers and Duncan did not respond to requests for comment.

Two decades ago, the GOP was the party of power lines.

• Pat Wood, a Republican who chaired the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from 2001 to 2005, “pushed aggressively for increased federal oversight of power lines,” NBC News reported in 2005.
• And former senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said at a 2008 hearing that the “single largest impediment to the development of renewable energy” may be the lack of transmission capacity.

“It is odd that 20 years ago, it was Republicans leading all of these federal transmission policies,” said Rob Gramlich, the president of the consulting group Grid Strategies and a former adviser to Wood.

“It feels like the Democrats realized how important the grid was for clean energy and climate, so they pretty much aligned unanimously in support of transmission,” Gramlich said. “And then maybe Republicans looked and said, ‘Well, if they like it, there must be something we should dislike.’”

An official at the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for utilities, voiced concern that lawmakers could be rushing the transmission provisions.

“The transmission proposals being discussed potentially would make major changes to existing processes, so it is important for stakeholders to be able to assess and discuss with Congress the customer impacts of each proposal,” Brian Wolff, the group’s chief strategy officer and executive vice president of public policy and external affairs, said in an email.

Some energy experts suggested Republicans have shifted their stance on transmission in response to opposition from utilities.

“A lot of utilities are effectively transmission monopolies — they get to build all of the transmission within their territories,” said Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard Law School’s Electricity Law Initiative. “And if you have more inter-regional transmission, that weakens their position.”

The transmission debate on Capitol Hill is far from over. Lawmakers in both parties yesterday expressed eagerness to pursue broader legislation to overhaul the nation’s permitting process for energy projects, including power lines.

“I think we will do a permitting reform bill,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told The Climate 202. “I don’t see the dribs and drabs of permitting-related stuff in the debt limit bill as replacing permitting reform.”

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, agreed.

“There’s still an appetite to continue with permitting reform,” Capito told The Climate 202. “Certainly because the transmission portion is not in there, that drives a lot of Democrats.”

A group of 22 congressional Democrats is calling on the Federal Emergency Management Agency to redirect disaster recovery funds in Puerto Rico toward renewable energy, according to details shared exclusively with The Climate 202.

In a letter sent today to FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, the lawmakers asked the agency to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s fossil-fuel-based power grid after Hurricanes Maria and Fiona with an eye toward rooftop solar, community solar, energy storage and microgrids.

“Because Puerto Rico will continue to experience climate-fueled disasters and other climate emergency impacts, it is imperative FEMA focus on opportunities to fund resilient, distributed renewable energy and microgrid projects rather than doubling down on a centralized power system that continues to fail communities across Puerto Rico,” the lawmakers wrote.

Reps. Nydia M. Velázquez (N.Y.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) led the letter. Signers include Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Edward J. Markey (Mass.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.).

The letter comes after nine environmental and community groups filed a lawsuit in April alleging that FEMA is rebuilding the island’s grid, which fails almost every time a storm hits, without properly assessing the environmental impact or residents’ desire for renewable energy.

The Senate yesterday rejected an amendment to the debt ceiling bill that would have removed controversial provisions approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The vote was 30-69.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who introduced the amendment, railed against these provisions on the Senate floor, noting that the project developers have used eminent domain to seize private property in his state.

“It would be one thing if you could build pipelines in midair,” Kaine said. “But you can’t. To build a pipeline, you have to take people’s land.”

To speed up consideration of the debt ceiling bill, Senate leaders agreed to hold votes on 11 amendments, The Washington Post’s Rachel Siegel, Marianne LeVine, John Wagner and Leigh Ann Caldwell report.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged his colleagues not to support the amendments, which would send the bill back to the House, causing delays ahead of a Monday default deadline.