[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Pages 27944-27945]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            NATIONAL INTEREST ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION CORRIDOR

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to address not only a major 
public policy issue for the State of Pennsylvania but also a 
fundamental issue of fairness and the proper role of Government, which 
I think will have an impact on the country as a whole.
  Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy designated 52 counties--52 
out of Pennsylvania's 67 counties--as part of a power transmission 
corridor, more formally known as the National Interest Electric 
Transmission Corridor. This means the Government will be able to turn 
three-quarters of the State of Pennsylvania into a superhighway of 
transmission towers.
  Their authority to designate this corridor was granted in the Energy 
bill passed in 2005 in the previous Congress. This designation would 
allow the Federal Government to override State authority and construct 
high-voltage power transmission lines wherever they please--virtually 
wherever the Federal Government pleases. They could place the lines on 
farmland, through neighborhoods, through someone's backyard, and, for 
example, through a beautiful vineyard such as the one I saw most 
recently in Greene County in the furthermost southwestern corner of 
Pennsylvania, so virtually anywhere in the Commonwealth and anywhere in 
the country.
  Earlier this year, the Department had a public comment period where I 
and other public officials and most importantly my constituents spoke 
out loudly in opposition to the draft corridor plan. That draft plan is 
virtually identical to the final plan.
  Let me give my colleagues a sense of what we are talking about here. 
This is a map which depicts the draft Mid-Atlantic and Southwest area 
national corridor. There are people in Washington who for years have 
been talking about creating opportunities for more power, and this is a 
national priority, they say. Yet we can see just by the dotted areas 
that there are a lot of States in the Northeast that will be impacted--
obviously, New York and Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and a 
few others, and then out West in the furthermost reaches of the 
Southwest of our country, principally in the State of California. So 
for all of the talk about a national priority, there is very little 
that impacts the middle of our country.
  I sent letters, as Senator Specter did, to the Department of Energy, 
but so far, I am not happy to report the Department of Energy has 
ignored my constituents. I think this is an outrage, for a government 
bureaucracy to ignore the people they are supposed to serve. They pay 
their salaries--those taxpayers pay their salaries. The least this 
Department should do is respond not just in a timely way but to respond 
completely. But we haven't seen that yet.
  Last week, I met with an Assistant Secretary of Energy to discuss my 
opposition to the transmission corridor as it is presently drafted. I 
have sent letters to the Energy Secretary, Mr. Samuel Bodman, most 
recently in early October. We are still waiting for a response to that, 
a letter signed by both Senator Specter and me, waiting for a response. 
I know people get busy, but I think it is time now to respond to that 
letter. We are also waiting for Secretary Bodman to respond to my 
request for a meeting. We are getting a little resistance there as 
well.
  So while I am waiting for these responses from the Energy Secretary, 
I want to put him on notice and I want to put the Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission--which we know by the acronym FERC--I want to put 
FERC on notice and I want to put the Senate on notice that I have grave 
concerns, as a lot of people in Pennsylvania have grave concerns, about 
this transmission corridor as presently designed or drafted. I am 
outraged by how my constituents have been treated so far in this 
process. I would argue they have been ignored in this process.
  So I intend to use every means at my disposal--every means at my 
disposal--to prevent the National Interest Electric Transmission 
Corridor from moving forward until Pennsylvania is at a

[[Page 27945]]

minimum treated equitably. So I intend to place a hold on the 
renomination of Joseph Kelliher, who is now serving as the Chairman of 
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as FERC. I will place a 
hold on his renomination, and I will be introducing tomorrow, in 
connection with the amendments to the farm bill, an amendment to 
prevent the use of eminent domain to take farmland for use as a part of 
this power transmission corridor.
  One more chart before I conclude. The second chart here depicts the 
number of counties affected in the northeastern corner of the United 
States. I will speak just of Pennsylvania for today--52 out of those 67 
counties. Basically, what the Federal Government has told us, in 
essence, implicitly--this is what I derive from their failure to 
respond to the State of Pennsylvania--is there is going to be a 
superhighway of power lines across Pennsylvania, and there is nothing 
anyone can do about it. The Federal Government is going to take over 
this effort and put those lines across the State of Pennsylvania.
  Well, I have news for them. Pennsylvania is full of a lot of people 
who are concerned about this, whether they are in small towns or urban 
areas, and, as we are going to be speaking to tomorrow, rural areas in 
Pennsylvania, farm communities. Most of those counties designated there 
are in rural communities. If the Federal Government and the Department 
of Energy or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or anyone else in 
this town wants to fight about this, we are ready to fight, and we will 
fight morning, noon, and night until our State, the Commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania, is treated equitably.

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