SEEC Clean Energy Deployment Task Force Co-Chairs Sean Casten and Mike Levin Celebrate Better Federal Coordination on Transmission

Washington, D.C. — Today, the Co-Chairs of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) Clean Energy Deployment Task Force, Reps. Sean Casten (IL) and Mike Levin (CA), released the following statement in response to the finalization of the Department of Energy’s new rule to streamline federal approvals for transmission.  

“We are pleased the Biden-Harris Administration is leaving no stone unturned in our shared goal to site, permit, and build the electricity transmission that we need. Today’s rule finally takes advantage of an authority granted by Congress to the Department of Energy as far back as 2005. While we are pushing Congress to advance permitting reform, the Biden-Harris Administration is taking action to streamline our existing federal processes while also ensuring developers undergo meaningful community engagement for their projects.

“This rule is an important step to achieve our transmission needs, but we know there is much more work to do. Building sufficient transmission at the pace and scale necessary will require a comprehensive legislative effort, which is why we introduced the Clean Electricity and Transmission Acceleration Act. We look forward to working with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to build on this Administration’s success and finally enact the necessary permitting reforms to unlock a clean energy future for all Americans.”

Background

Reps. Casten and Levin introduced the Clean Electricity and Transmission Acceleration (CETA) Act in December to serve as a consensus House Democrat vision to address the primary permitting and transmission issues holding back the American clean energy transition. The bill is endorsed by the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the New Democrat Coalition. Reps. Casten and Levin co-lead the bill with 79 of their House Democratic colleagues as cosponsors.

CETA will bring our electric grid into the 21st century to meet increasing energy demand from economy-wide electrification and data centers. This bill will accelerate the responsible build out of renewable energy on public lands and waters to meet our clean energy and climate goals. And CETA will center early and effective community engagement to ensure that projects have buy in from impacted communities to ensure their success.

In brief, CETA would:

• Amend the Federal Power Act to direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue new rules on improving interregional planning, siting, and deployment of transmission.
• Provide a 30% transmission investment tax credit.
• Incentivize development of renewable energy on priority areas within our public lands.
• Reform the Outer Continental Shelf Lands to encourage offshore wind deployment.
• Expand meaningful consultation with disadvantaged groups and communities in the permitting process.

The text of the bill can be found here.

A section-by-section description of the bill can be found here.

A one-pager on the bill can be found here.