These states aren’t waiting on Congress to expand their power grids

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Provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act touched just about every part of the clean energy economy. But perhaps that bill’s biggest omission, most experts agree, was language to accelerate the expansion of the transmission grid in the United States.

Lawmakers in Congress are still working to address this oversight.

Last month, for example, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D), the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, introduced legislation to establish a federal 10-year, 30% investment tax credit to support the construction of large-scale transmission projects and adoption of grid-enhancing technologies.

Heinrich also joined a bipartisan group of senators in introducing a permitting reform bill last month that likewise aims to make it easier to expand the grid.

But states with ambitious clean energy and climate targets are not waiting on Congress to build new transmission lines.

A new transmission authority in the Evergreen State

In Washington state, legislation (SB 6355) creating the Washington Electric Transmission Authority (WETA) took effect in June.

The problem in the Evergreen State, as outlined by lawyers with the Seattle and Portland offices of the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine (DWT), is that Washington needs new transmission lines to meet rising electricity demand and to decarbonize the state’s grid, but the Bonneville Power Administration, which “owns and operates roughly 75% of the transmission lines in the Pacific Northwest ... has built almost no new transmission lines since the 1970s.”

The new authority aims to break this logjam and hasten the construction of new transmission lines to carry wind and solar power from projects in eastern Washington over the Cascades to the state’s western population centers.

“The authority may help identify and advance new corridors, support upgrades to existing lines, coordinate siting and development activity, assist with permitting processes, pursue financing tools, own transmission facilities in appropriate circumstances, and ultimately sell projects or project interests,” write the DWT lawyers.

They added that “WETA must also consider non-wire alternatives, community microgrids, distributed energy resources, and energy conservation as part of broader transmission and capacity expansion efforts.”

The authority will operate as an independent entity, overseen by a 10-member board of directors, who will be appointed by the governor before January 1, 2027.

The clean energy industry welcomed the launch of the transmission authority.

“The passage of SB 6355 is significant for Washington’s clean energy future and for addressing infrastructure gaps at a time when access to affordable electricity is increasingly urgent,” Emilie Olson, senior principal with the national industry association Advanced Energy United, told me in an email.

“States across the West are shifting toward a more coordinated, multi-state approach to transmission, with Washington being the most recent,” she added.

“As more state transmission and energy infrastructure authorities take shape and connect across the region, it will be exciting to see how they might work together to advance interstate transmission initiatives that benefit the West as a whole.”

Unlocking transmission buildout in the Golden State

Another state transmission authority taking shape in the region is California’s Transmission Infrastructure Accelerator.

Last month, Governor Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation (AB 192) that builds upon a bill passed last year (SB 254) to create the transmission accelerator in California.

“AB 192 requires the accelerator to evaluate the California Independent System Operator’s transmission planning process and authorizes it to select eligible transmission projects that may receive public financing from the California Transmission Accelerator Revolving Fund,” reports Utility Dive’s Meris Lutz.

The bill earmarked $325 million for that revolving fund from the $10 billion climate bond approved by California voters in November 2024. The funding was allocated to the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) to be administered by the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (I-Bank).

AB 192 also authorizes the I-Bank “to provide loans, bonds, and other financial assistance for eligible projects through the revolving fund and establishes state tax credits equal to 20% of qualified transmission project expenditures, capped at $20 million per taxpayer per year, for taxable years beginning in 2026 through 2035,” according to an AEU bill summary.

“The point of this program is to lower the cost of these projects so that when there is a rate of return that California Public Utilities Commission approves, it will be lower to ratepayers versus just doing the process as it is now without any kind of public financing,” AEU California Director Brandon Garcia told me in an interview.

“The state right now is literally in the process of figuring out things like: How is the program is going to be set up? How much money are we going to spend per transmission project? How many projects will qualify?” he said.

Officials at GO-Biz and the I-Bank have until the end of 2027 to write guidelines for the transmission accelerator program, which is scheduled to expire at the end of 2035.

“We desperately do need more transmission, and we desperately do need more transmission that is cheaper. Those are conflicting but sometimes complementary problems,” said Garcia. “We have this twofold problem of we need to build more transmission because it’s constrained, and it being constrained means less projects get online. It’s like an infinite circle that eats itself.”

“You can’t be spending billions of dollars every single time on each project. You couldn’t do that normally. But today, specifically with the high costs ratepayers have to pay, you certainly couldn’t do that from a political angle,” he added.

“The point of this program is to drive down costs and to expand the type of transmission infrastructure we have.”

Garcia explained that California Independent System Operator, the entity that manages much of the state’s grid, identifies transmission projects that need to be built and then puts out a competitive solicitation to determine who gets to bid to build the lines.

“Concurrently, but separately, this program will look at those competitive bids and then do their own process to decide which of those projects should receive some public financing,” he said.