A Bill to Establish a National Interregional Electricity Transmission Authority
Creates a new federal authority empowered to site and permit high-voltage interstate transmission lines.
Establishes the National Interregional Transmission Authority with siting authority over high-voltage interstate lines.
Federal siting decisions preempt state denials after a 24-month review period.
$3.2 billion seed appropriation.
FERC review.
Mechanical parts, sourced & timed
Use this as your pre-round checklist. Memorize the source citation. Time yourself to the delivery target.
- Bill / Number
- S. 1310 — A Bill to Establish a National Interregional Electricity Transmission Authority
- Funding source
- $3.2B seed appropriation from general fund.
- Timeline
- 24-month state-review window before federal preemption.
- Plausible — transmission lines historically take 10-15 years; this can shorten to 5-7.
- Enforcing agency
- Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
- Yes — FERC already has limited transmission siting under FPA §216; this expands it.
- Penalty for non-compliance
- State injunctions preempted.
- Source citation
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Millstein et al. (2022), 'Empirical Estimates of Transmission Value' — lbl.gov.
- Delivery time (read aloud)
- 1:10 (70s)
Federal preemption of state siting violates cooperative federalism and tramples landowners.
The 24-month state-review window respects federalism, and existing eminent-domain protections (5th Amendment) apply unchanged. LBNL (2022) showed transmission expansion would prevent $100B in customer costs by 2035 — federalism cuts both ways.