By Kennedy Maize
A group of nine Midwestern and Southern electric utilities, facing the prospect of demand for increased high-voltage transmission, are asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (EL-26-58-000) to render a key provision of long-standing commission Order 1000 — competition in new electric transmission projects — a dead letter.
Calling themselves the “grid acceleration coalition,” the advocates of FERC changing the rules of the transmission road petitioned the commission in early April to suspend a key provision of its landmark order for five years. The group is led by Michigan’s ITC Holdings, a transmission-only subsidiary of Canada’s Fortis energy holding company, along with ATC, Ameren, Cleco, Entergy, The Empire District Electric Company, Evergy, and OG&E.
They ask FERC to restore a “right of first refusal” (colloquially known as “ROFR”) for incumbent transmission owners in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) and Southwest Power Pool (SPP). FERC eliminated the first refusal right in order to promote competition and benefit consumers in its landmark order. FERC proposed the order in 2010 and enacted it in 2015.
The proposal is generating substantial opposition from industrial and manufacturing electricity users, consumer groups and advocates, retailers, and public power systems, organized as the Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition. It claims “more than 93 organizations from all 50 states.” They charge that the aim of the utilities is to boost profits at the expense of consumers, restoring monopoly power that FERC overturned.
The competition advocates argue that “FERC has a clear mandate under Order 1000 to require competitive bidding for new transmission projects. For too long, monopoly utilities have avoided competition through loopholes and exemptions. It’s time for FERC to enforce the law and restore competition that protects Americans.”
The utilities hang their argument on the current furor over artificial intelligence and the enormous electricity consumption of AI data centers, creating a new demand for transmission, fast. In a news release, the company coalition claims that “outdated federal rules implemented during an era of flat demand are now adding an average of 16-20 months to many transmission projects, postponing customer connections, increasing costs and delaying savings.”
Politico’s E&E News describes the political background of the utility claims: “The push leans into the Trump administration’s Speed to Power initiative, which aims to give the U.S. an edge over China in developing AI by enabling a rapid build-out of the grid to enable data center development,” and that the alleged delays “cost consumers and the nation’s economy.”
Those claims are entirely bogus, says Paul Cicio, executive director of the competition advocates and veteran Washington advocate for American industrial interests. He’s scornful of the utility push at FERC. “It’s not about speed,” he told The Quad Report. “It’s about profits,” as competition reduces the cost of new transmission, reducing the cost basis for utility returns on investment.
Electric Transmission Competition Coalition
Cicio noted that the same group of utilities “spent three years and $104 million” lobbying the states in the region to get state ROFR laws passed. They failed. They then turned to FERC and are seeking a five-year moratorium on competition for transmission in the two regional transmission systems.
The assertions of the competition opponents that it slows the process of developing new transmission are false, says Cicio. He notes that when large transmission projects are not competitively awarded, “there are significant cost overruns by the incumbent utility. Fifteen recent projects, without competition and without cost overrun protection provisions, had an average cost overrun of 89%. Almost half of those projects were in either MISO or SPP.”
When competition forces the bidders to cut costs, he adds, the results are clear: “Nineteen recently awarded projects with cost overrun protection, schedule discipline, and accountability had an average cost reduction of 34%. Fourteen of these projects were in SPP or MISO.”
Ironically, noted Cicio, “The utilities that filed the complaint were the losers in the competitions.” So they turned to the states for relief. When that failed, they turned to FERC.
The bottom line, according to Cicio: “Halting competition, even temporarily, would deprive ratepayers of the cost and schedule protections built into the competitive selection process, without providing any offsetting or meaningful benefits. This would run counter to FERC’s mandate, the administration’s energy dominance and AI growth goals, and our broader national interest. The anti-competitive utilities are choosing profits. FERC must choose the people.”
In their FERC petition the utilities, perhaps presumptively, ask the independent commission for an “action date of July 16, 2026, or as soon thereafter as possible…” That’s the scheduled date for the commission’s July public meeting.
They assert. “The need for both Fast Track processing and action by July 16th is especially acute in SPP. SPP is preparing to issue solicitation RFPs for two critical 765 kV projects: the Crawfish Draw – Woodward project and the Anthem–Seminole project, potentially as early as mid-July 2026.”
FERC sets its own agenda and schedules and is not bound by requests from petitioners.
The Quad Report