FERC and the Turn Toward Planning
FERC does not build or, by itself, site transmission lines; it writes the rules for how the interstate grid is planned, paid for, and priced. For decades those rules let planning stay reactive and local, fixing today's reliability gaps and connecting the next generator rather than planning the regional backbone tomorrow would need. The queues and congestion that followed were the predictable result. The turn now underway, embodied in the long-term regional planning reform and in national-interest corridors, is a deliberate correction: plan far ahead, across whole regions, for many futures, and settle who pays before the fight. It fixes the machinery upstream of steel, which is exactly where the decade of delay was hiding.
Knowledge check
What was the core planning failure FERC's recent reform is designed to correct?
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Transmission planning had been reactive, local, and near-term: regions planned mainly to fix identified reliability problems and to connect specific queued generators, rarely planning the regional backbone decades ahead, and they lacked an agreed, fair way to share the cost of large lines. The reform requires long-term, scenario-based, region-wide planning with cost allocation and broad benefit accounting settled in advance.