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Supporting the Electricity Reliability Act

April 2004, UCS joined nine other environmental and public interest groups in calling on the Senate to support the Electricity Reliability Act of 2004. The bill, S. 2236, aims to increase the reliability of our electricity grid to avoid blackouts like the one that occurred across the Northeast in August of 2003. 

Consumers Union – Defenders of Wildlife – Earthjustice – Friends of the Earth – National Environmental Trust – Natural Resources Defense Council – Public Citizen – Sierra Club – Union of Concerned Scientists – U.S. Public Interest Research Group

April 8, 2004

Please support the Electric Reliability Act of 2004

Dear Senator,

Last summer's blackout demonstrated the urgent need to modernize America's electrical grid. Senator Maria Cantwell, with a bipartisan group of senators, has introduced stand-alone reliability legislation that will be a critical first step in addressing our outdated electrical grid by enacting mandatory electric reliability standards. Several months after the blackout plunged much of the eastern United States into darkness, these important reliability standards are still being held hostage to a deeply flawed, and presently stalled, energy bill. We urge you to support Senator Cantwell's stand-alone electric reliability legislation (S. 2236) as a first step in preventing future blackouts and protecting consumers. 

The need for immediate action on electric reliability was reinforced in the recent report by the joint U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force. According to the report, "the single most important step in the United States" is for Congress to enact reliability provisions that are both mandatory and enforceable, with penalties for noncompliance. However, the report does not specify that the standards need to be passed as part of a comprehensive energy bill. In fact, the Task Force argues that these reliability standards need to be put into place immediately in order to prevent future blackouts and protect consumers. Congress should take steps now to pass electric reliability standards as stand alone legislation. The Task Force's recommendation mirrors other calls for mandatory reliability standards from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC). 

The importance of stand-alone reliability legislation is heightened because passage of other provisions in the energy bill (H.R. 6) would actually put consumers at increased risk. The energy bill could increase the risk of blackouts by weakening industry accountability and subsidizing more large centralized dirty power plants. It does little or nothing to increase the efficiency of our electric grid or diversify into smaller cleaner sources. Instead, it further entrenches our reliance on outdated energy sources. In addition, the current bill opens the door to new Enron-style abuses by repealing the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) and failing to create new consumer protections. The energy bill also puts our communities at risk to more air and water pollution, opens up more of our public lands to oil and gas drilling, and funnels billions of taxpayer dollars to polluting industries. 

The Electric Reliability Act of 2004 (S. 2236) contains bipartisan-supported reliability language that will establish mandatory electric reliability standards across the country to upgrade the electrical grid and begin the process we need to avoid a repeat of last summer's blackout. We urge the Senate to take up and adopt this important legislation and defeat the harmful energy bill. 

Sincerely,

Debbie Boger
Deputy Legislative Director
Sierra Club

Katherine Morrison
Staff Attorney
U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG)

Wenonah Hauter
Director, Energy Program
Public Citizen

Matthew Niemerski
Government Relations Associate
Defenders of Wildlife

Sara Zdeb
Legislative Director
Friends of the Earth

Mark Wenzler
Director, Global Warming & Energy Programs
National Environmental Trust

Adam Goldberg
Policy Analyst
Consumers Union

Randy Moorman
Legislative Research Associate
Earthjustice

Alden Meyer
Director, Strategy and Policy
Union of Concerned Scientists

Karen Wayland
Legislative Director
Natural Resources Defense Council