On Thursday, March 6, Rep. Tom Allen (D-ME), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, along with Reps. William Delahunt (D-MA), James McGovern (D-MA), and Mike Michaud (D-ME) introduced H.R. 5547, the Consumer Protection and Cost Accountability Act. The bill is identical to S. 2660, introduced in February by six New England Senators under the leadership of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The House bill also garnered the support of the Maine Public Utility Commission and Maine Public Advocate.
Now that the legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate, NEPPA Members should write or e-mail their Members of Congress and request that they cosponsor H.R. 5547 and S. 2660. The more support the bill has, the more impact it will have on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the New England Independent System Operator (NE-ISO). Secondly, if your Member of Congress committed to be an original co-sponsor, please send a thank-you letter on behalf of your consumer-owned utility.
In a related development, Lori Pickford of Morgan Meguire and Scott Strauss of Spiegel & McDiarmid plan to meet, later this week, with the staff of the American Wind Energy Association's (AWEA) to discuss S. 2660/H.R. 5547. As you know, the wind industry has raised some preliminary concerns with Sen. Sander's office on the bill - inquiring if the "cost-benefit" requirement could discourage renewable energy development. Pickford and Strauss plan to inform AWEA that it is not the intent of the legislation. Instead, the intent is to make clear to all RTO/ISOs that their mission must be expanded to ensure that they acknowledge the need to operate in a cost‑effective manner, and that RTOs and ISOs make express the cost-benefit tradeoffs inherent in their design initiatives. Moreover, the legislation is sufficiently flexible to permit the assessment of costs or benefits to include, among other things, increasing our nation's energy independence and addressing, over time, important global warming/climate change concerns.