Jim Hoecker

Section on  RAIL ELECTRIFICATION written by James Hoecker on Behalf of the Rail Electrification Council. 

Multiple studies show the need for interregional transmission is growing and proposals for streamlining siting will help, but cost allocation remains a barrier 

The Trump Administration proposed to repeal EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which was adopted in 2015. The CPP required state regulators  to order reductions in  greenhouse gas and other emissions from coal-fired power plants.  The repeal was based on (1) a potential threat to electric  reliability from loss of baseload generation and (2) EPA’s alleged encroachment on FERC authority under the Federal Power Act.  As one of the “friends of the court” in American Lung Association v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Case 19-1140, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit – attached), former FERC Chairman Hoecker and other former regulators argued on brief in April that the CPP was a valid exercise of EPA authority and does not affect either  FERC’s regulatory authority or electric reliability.  The case has not yet been argued.  

 On December 19, 1999, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission enacted Order No. 2000, which encouraged the formation of Regional Transmission Organizations, under the leadership of then Chairman James Hoecker. In a December Op-Ed in Utility Dive, former Chair Hoecker, an ACEG Director, said that, “Order No. 2000, or ‘O2K,’ has long since exceeded our modest expectations in producing economic, reliability, and (I maintain) environmental benefits for electricity consumers.”