{"id":417383,"date":"2025-12-14T17:31:53","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T16:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=417383"},"modified":"2025-12-17T22:19:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:19:47","slug":"one-states-green-mandates-can-become-another-states-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=417383","title":{"rendered":"One state\u2019s green mandates can become another state\u2019s nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

States that have adopted \u201cclean-energy\u201d mandates are accustomed to having ratepayers in other states help them pick up the tab for their headlong march to a green utopia. This is especially true when this involves stringing high-voltage transmission lines across vast expanses to conduct intermittent wind and solar power generated in remote locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no longer willing to serve as innocent bystanders in the schemes of others, a growing number of voices are calling for a halt in the practice. \u201cStates must pay the costs of their own goals. That\u2019s a basic principle of cost allocation \u2013 and it\u2019s being ignored across the country right now,\u201d notes<\/a> Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND). \u201cFamilies and businesses in states like North Dakota shouldn\u2019t be paying higher electricity bills because other states choose unrealistic, expensive mandates.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fedorchak has recently introduced a bill, the \u201cFair Allocation of Interstate Rates (FAIR) Act,\u201d that targets the current practice of having regional authorities spread the cost of long interstate transmission lines across all<\/em> consumers in the region regardless of who benefits. This cost-shifting serves the interests of states aggressively pursuing renewable-energy mandates. But it is a \u201cbad-neighbor\u201d policy that drives up electricity costs for everyone and encourages the use of eminent domain on private land to make way for the unwanted transmission lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing ire among farmers and ranchers who see valuable acreage sacrificed on the alter of somebody else\u2019s green agenda prompted Fedorchak in September to pen a letter into the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in support of her state\u2019s formal complaint challenging the regional cost-allocation formula used by the Midcontinent Systems Operator (MISO) to charge customers for new transmission lines.\u00a0 MISO is the electric grid operator for 15 states in the central U.S. and the Canadian province of Manitoba. North Dakota was joined I its complaint by Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Montana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calling the current cost-allocation arrangement a \u201csubsidy scheme,\u201d Fedorchak wrote<\/a> that,\u201d The massive build out in the MISO region is driven by the aggressive decarbonization goals of several MISO states, but North Dakota is not one of them. States must pay the costs of their own goals.\u201d  In her letter, Fedorchak was joined by North Dakota Senators John Hoeven (R) and Kevin Crammer (R), who have introduced companion legislation to the FAIR Act in the Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hundreds of miles south of North Dakota, the Mississippi Public Service Commission endorsed Fedorchak\u2019s bill, saying,<\/a> \u201cPolicies that promote these unequitable transmission expenditures and promote cross subsidization should be stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fedorchak\u2019s bill<\/a> to put an end to the socialization of the costs of transmitting green energy would:<\/p>\n\n\n\n