[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 62 (Thursday, May 12, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S5168]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. CANTWELL (for herself, Mr. Jeffords, and Mrs. Clinton):
  S. 1031. A bill to enhance the reliability of the electric system; to 
the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce the Electric 
Reliability Act of 2005, which I am pleased to introduce with my 
colleagues, Senator Clinton and Senator Jeffords. This legislation 
would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission--FERC--authority to 
devise a system of mandatory and enforceable standards for the reliable 
operation of our Nation's electricity grid.
  Enactment of this bill is long overdue. The provisions of this bill 
have passed the United States Senate many times. They represent crucial 
steps forward in the effort to modernize our Nation's electricity grid 
and reform the rules by which it is operated. I believe this body can 
and must make necessary progress in upgrading our electricity grid.
  As surely my colleagues recall, in August of 2003 much of the 
Northeast and Midwest suffered a massive power outage, affecting 50 
million consumers from New York to Michigan. This blackout, the biggest 
in our Nation's history, has underscored the need for mandatory and 
enforceable reliability standards--as envisioned in the Electric 
Reliability Act of 2005. To date, the system has operated under a set 
of voluntary guidelines, with no concrete penalties for those that 
break the rules and jeopardize the reliable energy service that is the 
foundation of our Nation's economy.
  Following the August 2003 blackout in the NE, a joint report issued 
by the United States and Canada the following April recommended a 
number of policy changes on both sides of our shared border. The first 
recommendation in that report was to make reliability standards 
mandatory and enforceable with penalties for non-compliance. The 
Electric Reliability Security Act of 2005 does exactly that.
  While the August 2003 blackout was certainly a potent reminder, the 
call for reliability legislation dates back at least another 5 years. 
In 1997, both a Task Force established by the Clinton administration's 
Department of Energy and a blue ribbon panel formed by the North 
American Electric Reliability Council--NERC--determined that 
reliability rules for our Nation's electric system had to be made 
mandatory and enforceable.
  These conclusions resulted, in part, from an August 1996 blackout in 
the Western Interconnection, where the short-circuit of two overloaded 
transmission lines near Portland, OR, caused a sweeping outage that 
knocked out power for up to 16 hours in 10 States, including my home 
State of Washington. The blackout affected 7.5 million consumers from 
Idaho to California, resulting in the automatic shut-down of 15 large 
thermal nuclear generating plants in California and the Southwest--
compromising the West's energy supply for several days, even after 
power had mostly been restored to end-users.
  As outlined in Economic Impacts of Infrastructure Failures, a 1997 
report submitted to the President's Commission on Critical 
Infrastructure Protection, the blackout was estimated to exact between 
$1 billion and $4 billion in direct and indirect costs to utilities, 
industry and consumers. The report also detailed the risks the outage 
posed to public health and safety, including an exponential increase in 
traffic accidents, hospitals forced to rely on emergency back-up power 
generation, and the grounding of more than 2,000 airline passengers.
  While it took time to develop consensus, the Senate recognized the 
human and economic stakes associated with the reliable operation of the 
electricity grid. Stand-alone legislation very similar to what I have 
introduced today passed this body in June 2000, when this Chamber was 
under Republican control. And even as the majority has twice changed 
hands since then, the United States Senate has twice passed the very 
provisions included in the Electric Reliability Act of 2005 as part of 
comprehensive energy legislation.
  Today I am introducing the Electric Reliability Act of 2005 as I 
believe it is time for this body to take concrete steps towards 
ensuring the continued reliable operation of our electric grid. This 
legislation would mark a substantial achievement in the effort to 
upgrade the reliability of our Nation's grid and insulate our economy 
from the disastrous impacts of electricity outages.
  I ask my colleagues to support this bill.
                                 ______