National Urban League and ACORE Send Letter to FERC Urging a Strong Final Transmission Planning Rule

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The CEOs of the National Urban League and American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) encouraging the expeditious completion of a strong final rule on transmission planning and cost allocation.

“Recognizing the critical role of transmission planning in enhancing reliability, ensuring that costs paid by consumers are ‘just and reasonable,’ and enabling our grid to better withstand the climate challenge, we respectfully urge the Commission to expedite the completion of a strong final rule on Building for the Future Through Electric Regional Transmission Planning and Cost Allocation and Generator Interconnection,” wrote National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial and ACORE President and CEO Gregory Wetstone.

The organizations expressed their agreement with the key touchstones that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer listed in his July letter to FERC, and were also incorporated in ACORE’s comments on the proposed rule. These include (1) a prescribed set of benefits, including those that accrue during times of system stress; (2) a mechanism to determine a cost allocation method when the states are unable to agree; (3) the use of long-term scenarios that include a high penetration of renewable resources; and (4) the incorporation of non-wires technologies and reconductoring of existing lines.

The National Urban League and ACORE previously co-authored a special section in the 2023 State of Black America report entitled A Climate in Crisis, which chronicled how Black, Brown, and underserved communities suffer the most when our electrical grid is unable to grapple with the increasingly frequent severe weather associated with our changing climate.

“It is clear that such disadvantaged communities could be at grave risk should there be a grid failure,” Morial and Wetstone added.

Click here to read a copy of the letter the two organizations submitted to FERC.

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About ACORE:
For more than 20 years, the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) has been the nation’s premier pan-renewable nonprofit organization. ACORE unites finance, policy and technology to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy economy. For more information, please visit www.acore.org.

About National Urban League:
The National Urban League is a historic civil rights organization dedicated to economic empowerment in order to elevate the standard of living in historically underserved urban communities. The National Urban League spearheads the efforts of its 92 local affiliates through the development of programs, public policy research and advocacy, providing direct services that impact and improve the lives of more than 3 million people annually nationwide. Visit www.nul.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: @NatUrbanLeague.

Media Contacts:

Alex Hobson
Sr. Vice President, Communications
American Council on Renewable Energy
hobson@acore.org | 202.777.7584 (o) | 202.594.0706 (c)

Dylan Helms
Associate, Communications
American Council on Renewable Energy
helms@acore.org | 202.891.7868 (o) | 727.290.8804 (c)

Teresa Candori
National Urban League
tcandori@nul.org | 212.558.5362