By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 3, 2007

The federal government announced yesterday that it was giving power companies new leverage to force landowners to permit the installation of electric transmission lines.

The Energy Department has declared much of the Mid-Atlantic region, including the District, almost all of Maryland and Northern Virginia, a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor. Energy companies that operate in an area that extends from upstate New York to Washington's far outer suburbs will now be able to submit power-transmission expansion plans to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission if they are stymied in state and local negotiations. A successful application to FERC would allow the companies to make use of government's condemnation powers to obtain a right of way.

"To help meet growing demands for electricity with the affordability and reliability we're all accustomed to, now, more than ever, we must look at electricity generation from a regional and national perspective," said Kevin M. Kolevar, the department's director for electricity delivery and energy reliability. He said that this "entirely new authority" is needed to protect, reinforce and expand the power grid.

Political battles have ignited in many places over proposals for power lines that opponents call unsightly and environmentally damaging. Environmentalists and local activists have opposed a 300-mile line proposed by Pepco Holdings that would stretch from Virginia through Maryland to New Jersey, as well as a 240-mile line sought by Dominion Virginia Power that would extend through parts of Warren, Fauquier, Loudoun and Prince William counties. Both high-voltage lines would pass through parks and near Civil War battlefields.

"I am deeply disappointed in the department's decision to go forward with this designation," said U.S. Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.). "It makes no sense and has the potential to destroy neighborhoods and desecrate huge swaths of historically significant land. . . . It is almost as if the department didn't listen to any of the arguments against creating these corridors."

But energy advocates say the nation's electricity needs are growing. Energy shortfalls were blamed for the August 2003 power failure that plunged the East Coast into darkness. In the blackout's aftermath, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which gave the Energy Department authority to override local decisions about power lines if a region's need for power had reached a "critical" level.

In the Northern Virginia case, Dominion applied to state officials in April for the right to add the new power line, and the company will continue to seek state approval, said company spokeswoman Le-Ha Anderson.

"We do not intend to use the federal process," she said. "We think it is a state decision, and the state needs to make the decision."

If the state responds in an "untimely manner," however, Anderson said, Dominion now could seek to obtain approval through FERC. "It gives us another authority, but it's not our intention to use that authority," she said.

Giving power companies the right to go over the heads of local officials is "eminently unfair," said Robert Lazaro, a spokesman for the Piedmont Environmental Council, an activist group that has opposed the proposed power line.

"For the first time ever, electric utilities will have access to eminent domain condemnation," he said. "It's so they can add to their bottom line. There's a ton of money to be made in energy transmission."

The government's use of eminent domain has proved increasingly controversial. In a recent case, the Supreme Court narrowly permitted New London, Conn., to proceed with a plan to use eminent domain to force homeowners to sell their houses to make way for a hotel and restaurant complex that the city said it needed to expand its tax base. After that decision, many states restricted the use of eminent domain to benefit for-profit entities. Eminent domain allows a governmental agency to force landowners to sell whether they want to or not, but requires the government to pay market value for the property.

Kolevar said FERC would only grant eminent domain power if companies prove a legitimate need for a new line, showing that they have a suitable location and that they have encountered unacceptable delays. He said that FERC would not offer companies an "automatic endorsement" and that eminent domain power would be used "responsibly."