Articles

This article was originally published by the Washington Examiner.

By Callie Patteson

The House of Representatives is poised to vote this week on several bills aimed at boosting the reliability and stability of the national grid.

The House Rules Committee is set to send at least three pieces of legislation to the floor that address energy security while also propping up the production, import, and export of fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and natural gas. 

Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH) has sought to pass one of the bills since September 2024 and secured support within the Senate for similar legislation earlier this year, making it more likely that it will be signed into law.

The bill, known as the Guaranteeing Reliability through the Interconnection of Dispatchable, or GRID, Power Act, favors certain energy projects to skip the lengthy interconnection queue and start pumping power into the national grid.

The average time it takes for a power plant or energy facility to plug into the grid has dramatically increased in recent years.

The Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that a typical project seeking interconnection approval now has to wait an average of five years in line, compared to less than two years in 2008.

Renewable energy projects dominate interconnection queues, as they are some of the fastest to be built compared with nuclear power and natural gas. In 2023, solar and batteries alone made up for 80% of new energy capacity entering the queues.

This, combined with the Biden administration’s efforts to retire aging coal power plants, has compounded the growing supply and demand problem facing the grid today, as power needs brought on by artificial intelligence advancements continue to outpace new energy growth.

In line with the administration’s renewed focus on fossil fuels, Balderson’s bill seeks to expedite the interconnection process for “dispatchable” power plants. This terminology typically excludes solar and wind power projects, as they are intermittently dependent on weather conditions.

The bill, if passed, would allow power plants using energy sources such as coal, natural gas, or nuclear to skip ahead of the traditional interconnection queue if they are able to improve grid reliability and grid resilience.

It would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue a rule prioritizing these projects, fast-tracking their construction and connection to the grid within one year.

A similar bill under the same name was introduced by Sens. John Hoeven (R-ND) and Todd Young (R-IN) in February.

Also up for a vote this week is the Promoting Cross-border Energy Infrastructure Act, which aims to simplify approvals for natural gas and oil pipelines and electric grid connections with Canada and Mexico.

Additionally, the House is poised to vote on reauthorizing the National Coal Council, an advisory committee within the Energy Department.

The 50-member committee was first established during the Reagan administration to advise the energy secretary on the future of coal technologies and markets. The committee lapsed under the Biden administration in 2021 but was reinstated by Energy Secretary Chris Wright in April.

Typically, the law requires advisory committees to terminate after two years unless renewed by the administration. However, the bill put before the House this week would not subject the National Coal Council to that timeline.

Click here to read the original article published by the Washington Examiner.