Kaine's proposed amendments seen as way to approval

By Garren Shipley -- Daily Staff Writer

Legislative amendments proposed by Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine would all but guarantee approval for new power plants and electric transmission lines — including one slated for the Northern Shenandoah Valley — local legislators and environmental groups said Friday.

But a spokesman for Kaine says his proposed changes to Senate Bill 596 are designed to strengthen, not undercut, the review process for projects like the Trans-Alle-gheny Interstate Line.

Dominion Virginia and Al-legheny Power are working together on the project, which if completed, would provide another link between lower-cost generation plants in places like western Pennsylvania and the energy-hungry East Coast.

Locally, the line would run from a substation just north of Middletown along existing rights of way to another substation in Loudoun County.

Building the line is critical for the region's electrical future, according to the utilities. Without it, rolling blackouts in Northern Virginia could occur as early as 2011. But Kaine's proposed amendment would gut the ability of the State Corporation Commission to consider conservation when determining if new projects like the line were needed, critics say.

TRAIL and other projects have been proposed as solutions to regional problems, so regional or out-of-state conservation programs should also be factored into State Corporation Commission's decision-making process, said Chris Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council.

The power line proposal would be much closer to reality if the amendments become law.

"That's what we believe," Miller said. "If you're going to look at congestion that's caused by factors outside the state, you reasonably ought to look at solutions that are going on outside the state as well."

Steve Walz, Kaine's senior adviser on energy issues, said he couldn't disagree more.

"It's clearly not all trying to back-door in that 500-kilovolt line," he said. "Clearly our intent was to strengthen [the existing review process], not undercut anything."

Environmental groups may be upset about the amendments, but so are manufacturing and industry groups who think the changes would keep the line from happening, he added.

The SCC does need to look at conservation's impact on the need for new facilities, Walz said. "It is a public policy statement that they can look at these things," he said. "The other side of it is that it needs to be reasonable."

Kaine's changes would require that the conservation gains be based on proven programs run by utilities.

Del. Clifford L. "Clay" Athey, R-Front Royal, took a much less charitable view of Kaine's proposed amendments.

As drawn, he said, the changes would not only require the State Corporation Commission to take a very conservative tack in calculating the impact of conservation programs on the need for future projects, but also strip away all other criteria for making the decision.

"They've taken that bill that was set up to require Dominion and Allegheny to have a real conservation program or the SCC to dictate what that program was going to be," Athey said.

"The only way you stop a transmission line or new power plant is to prove that you really don't need it," he said. Kaine's amendments would make it much harder to prove such things going forward.

"It's hard to get your arms around. It's just unbelievable," said Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Upperville. "It's so overt and heavy-handed."

The amendments to SB 596 mark the second time Kaine has attempted to make the change to state law this year.

A nearly identical amendment was tacked on to SB 718, brought by Sen. Linda T. Puller, D-Mount Vernon. Puller's original bill would have required investor-owned utilities to report on their annual conservation efforts.

But the Senate rejected Kaine's amendments in a 21-19 vote, with two Democrats crossing to the aisle to vote with the chamber's 19 Republicans.

That vote in March had more to do with other changes in the legislation, not the paragraphs cited by the Piedmont Environmental Council, Walz said.

"We listened to what we heard on the amendments to [SB] 718" and brought the changes back on a different bill.

Legislators return to Richmond on Wednesday to consider Kaine's amendments.

* Contact Garren Shipley at gshipley@nvdaily.com