Allowing Companies Seeking To Export Electricity to Make Up Any Standard They Want is Illegal

In a public comment on a Trump administration proposal to allow energy companies to “simply allow applicants to include information the applicant deems relevant” when a company wishes to export energy, Public Citizen today argued that the proposed rule is ill-conceived and unsupported by the plain text of the Federal Power Act.

Read the full filing here.

Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, issued the following statement:

“For nearly a century, the law has been very clear that the government has a responsibility to assure an abundant supply of electric energy throughout the United States and can only permit electricity exports after a finding that such exports would not ‘impair the sufficiency of electric supply within the United States.’

“In a radical, reckless and unsupported deregulatory act, the U.S. Department of Energy proposes replacing the current standard of review with whatever energy companies suggest, as the proposed rule literally ‘will simply allow applicants to include information the applicant deems relevant to such an authorization for consideration by the DOE under the Federal Power Act.’ In our opposition to this inane proposed rule, we argue that DOE cannot ignore a clear statutory mandate by Congress, and the proposed rule must be rejected. The Trump Administration proposes eviscerating a core consumer protection of the Federal Power Act to promote the agenda of financial traders and energy companies at the expense of American families.”