U.S. Sens. Clair McCaskill (D-MO) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) have partnered on a bicameral bill to protect power generators from environmental statues while improving the reliability of the power grid overall.
Reps. Gene Green (D-TX), Peter Olson (R-TX) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) joined McCaskill and Blunt in introducing the Grid Reliability Act. The legislation would prevent any conflict resulting from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s statutes, which order power plants to improve their grid reliability and then punish the power plants for violating environmental statutes.
“It is completely unacceptable that utility providers in Missouri and across the nation are forced to violate the law and face costly lawsuits for simply doing their job,” Blunt said. “This bipartisan bill provides certainty to the people responsible for keeping the lights on and protects utility providers from citizen lawsuits or environmental fines when the government forces them to operate for reliability purposes.”
Over the past few years, conflicting laws, heavy fines and lawsuits have created a no-win situation for electricity providers.
“This is an issue of basic fairness and common sense,” McCaskill said. “The government has created an inherent conflict by forcing electricity providers to take action and then punishing them for taking that action. Our bipartisan bill gets rid of that conflict by allowing utilities to improve grid reliability without fear of these conflicting, burdensome environmental regulations.”