Board and Committee Activities

 

Following are:

 

I.     A synopsis of Board actions and Board activities in support of WGA initiatives

       since the October meeting in Seattle;

II.   A review of the committee structure of the Board; and

III.  A report on the activities of the Committees since the Seattle meeting.

 

 

I.                   Synopsis of Board Actions Since October Meeting in Seattle

 

 

Work with Western Governors

 

            Federal Electricity Legislation 

 

Transmission Financing White Paper:  Since October, WIEB has provided the staff support to the WGA Transmission Financing Committee, which was asked by Western governors to prepare a white paper on options for financing transmission expansion.  The WGA Transmission Financing Committee, headed by John Carr of PacifiCorp, is a group of diverse stakeholders, including state/provincial members [Wally Gibson (NWPPC), Phil Carver (OR), Carl Linvill (NV), Denise Mullen-Dalmer (BC), Larry Nordell (MT), Grant Swinksi (NV)].  The Committee met on December 13-14, 2001.  Subsequent to the meeting, various drafts of the white paper were prepared and reviewed via email and conference calls.  In February 2002, the committee delivered its report on transmission financing to the Western Governor’s entitled “Financing Electricity Expansion in the West.”   While there is dispute about how the two financing options (“market-driven” model and “total system cost” model) were characterized, there was agreement on the recommendations.

 

Permitting of Interstate Electric Transmission Projects:  A task force headed by John Savage (OR OE) was created at the October CREPC meeting to refine the draft multi-state protocol on collaboration in the review of proposed interstate transmission lines.  The recommendations from the October CREPC meeting were reported to Western governors at their December 3, 2001 meeting.  The governors directed that efforts be made to add detail to the protocol.  The governors also directed that efforts be made to invite federal agencies, tribes, and interested Canadian provinces to join the discussion.  In December, the task force, which also includes Prasad Poturri (NM PRC), Phil Carver (OR OE), John Harja (UT DNR), Jeff Burks (UT DNR), Steve Weissman (CA PUC), and Cynthia Praul (CEC), reviewed a more detailed protocol.  In January, the draft protocol was sent to CREPC members and WGA Staff Council members for review. Following revision, on March 13, WGA Chair Arizona Governor Hull sent a draft of the WGA Protocol Governing the Siting and Permitting of Interstate Electric Transmission Lines to Secretaries Rumsfield (DOD), Norton (DOI), and Venneman (USDA), the major federal land owning agencies in the West, to ask them to review and, hopefully, sign the protocol.  On April 24-26 in Salt Lake City, Western governors will hold their second environmental summit.  At that time, the protocol will be reviewed by diverse stakeholders throughout the West.  The protocol is expected to be signed by the Governors during the Western Governors’ Association meeting in Phoenix this June.

 

WSCC/WECC:  On April 18, 2002, the WSCC is merging with the Western Regional Transmission Association and the Southwest Regional Transmission Association to create the Western Electric Coordinating Council.  The WECC Board will include four state/provincial members.  WIEB staff will be conducting the state/provincial class voting at the meeting.  Members of the WECC board will have a fiduciary responsibility to the board, therefore, these will not be honorary-type positions.  Western governors have actively encouraged formation of the WECC and wrote to the new Board regarding their expectations.  LINK TO WGA LETTER.  One of the issues to be discussed at the CREPC meeting in San Diego involves whether or not the WECC budget should include funds for a Western Regional Advisory Body, as provided for in pending federal reliability legislation.

 

WGA/Federal Agency MOU:  Little progress has been made with federal agencies, particularly DOE, in implementing the memorandum of understanding Western governors signed last August with the Departments of Energy, Interior and Agriculture, the EPA, and the President’s Council on Environmental Quality.  A work plan proposal submitted to DOE in July 2001 has languished.  WGA Staff Council reviewed the governors’ energy priorities at their meeting in early April and focused on three items:  (1) developing an information/analysis/planning system to ensure adequate electricity-related information to policy makers and market participants; (2) improving procedures for permitting energy infrastructure; and (3) expanding discussions on North American energy trade.  A revised proposal to DOE to fund the information/analysis/planning system has been developed with assistance from WIEB staff. 

 

Environmental Summit:  Western governors are holding their second environmental summit on April 24-26, 2002 in Salt Lake City.  WIEB staff organized the renewable energy and permitting discussions.  The two renewable breakout sessions focus on a regional “green tags” market and expanding renewable energy production on federal and adjacent land.  Jeff Burks (UT) is heading the “green tags” session.  Kathleen Clark, BLM Director, is heading the federal lands and renewables session. The two permitting sessions focus on the draft protocol on permitting interstate transmission lines developed by CREPC and the permitting of other types of energy projects.  Roger Hamilton (OR) is heading the session on the transmission permitting protocol.  The Council on Environmental Quality is heading the second permitting session.  In San Diego, the Board will discuss any new directions by the governors as a result of the Salt Lake City summit.

 

Energy and air quality

 

The Board has two on-going projects related to using energy efficiency and renewable energy measures to meet regional haze objectives.

 

·        The Board continues to provide some staff support to the Air Pollution Prevention Forum of the Western Regional Air Partnership.  This activity is funded under the WRAP’s grant from EPA.  Modeling of the renewable and energy efficiency recommendations is underway and a presentation on the final report will be made to the WRAP in July.

·        Under a subcontract with the WGA, WIEB is helping to develop a guidebook for incorporating renewables and energy efficiency into regional haze State Implementation Plans (SIPs).  A workshop for state energy and air directors is being planned for the summer.  This activity is funded by a grant from DOE to WGA.

 

People

 

II.  Committee Structure

 

The Board has three committees.  The committee structure allows subgroupings of states/provinces to pursue particular issues in depth.  One committee, the Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation, is a joint committee of the Board and the Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners.

 

The Board chair appoints committee chairs.  (The exception is the chair of the Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation, who is jointly appointed by the chairs of WIEB and the Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners.)

 

Board members make appointments to committees of interest to their state/province.  Typically, Board members have appointed the state/provincial experts in a particular topic to such committees.  Often committee appointments are from agencies other than the Board member's agency.

 

In pursuing their issues, the committees have developed working relationships with outside parties, such as:  the Reclamation Committee's work with the Office of Surface Mining and the Interstate Mining Compact Commission (which represents eastern states);  the Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation's relationship with the Western Systems Coordination Council, western regional transmission groups, DOE, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; and the High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee's relationship with DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, the Department of Transportation, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

 

The following chart shows the Board's committees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

III.  Committee Activities Since October

 

 

Reclamation Committee

 

[The Reclamation Committee includes the states of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Mike Long, Director of the Colorado Division of Mines and Geology, chairs the Committee.]

 

Activities Since October

 

On April 5, 2002, the Reclamation Committee held its first meeting in over a year.  The Committee has been awaiting the confirmation of a new director of the Office of Surface Mining. 

 

The April 5 meeting with Jeff Jarrett, the new Office of Surface Mining (OSM) director, focused on:

 

  1. Presentation of examples of Western state innovations in coal mine reclamation programs; and
  2. The following policy concerns –
    1. National guidance on Probable Hydrologic Consequences (PHC) and Cumulative Hydrologic Impact Assessments (CHIA),
    2. Actions in the East, particularly in West Virginia, that may have implications for the West, including a programmatic EIS and related issues of bonding, blasting, stream buffer zones, and role of EPA in reclamation decisions under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA),
    3. The status of a programmatic agreement on national historic preservation,
    4. Ensuring adequate funding for SMCRA Title V state regulatory grants,
    5. Inquiring how receptive the OSM would be in exploring modified revegetation standards to facilitate bond release and facilitate ecosystem development,
    6. OSM action on subsidence rules governing water replacement and how such rules fit with Western water law,
    7. Coalbed methane development impacts on coal mine regulatory programs,
    8. Using the opportunity presented by significant retirements at OSM in the next few years to reallocate resources more effectively.

 

Over the past several years, the relationship between Western states and OSM has been excellent.  The objective of the Committee was to impress upon the new director that his focus should be on sustaining this productive relationship and using OSM’s resources to help states expand the innovations already underway.  A second objective of the meeting was to better understand controversies in Eastern states that could spillover to the West.

 

On April 4, the Reclamation Committee met to discuss issues to be raised the following day and to plan a strategy to work with Western governors on expected legislation to reauthorize the Abandoned Mine Land fee on coal that is set to expire in 2004.  Western governors have existing policy calling on the federal government to live up to a provision in SCMRA to provide states with at least one-half of the abandoned mine collections made in a state.  The federal government has failed to appropriate monies due the states and, as a result, Western states are owed more than $400 million.  It is unlikely that AML reauthorization will move in this Congress, but it is likely to receive attention next year.

 

High‑Level Radioactive Waste Committee

 

[This Committee focuses on issues related to the transportation of commercial spent nuclear fuel and high‑level radioactive defense waste (SNF/HLW) under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA).   Ken Niles of the Oregon Office of Energy co‑chairs the Committee.]

 

Activities Since October

 

·        The Committee has not met since October.  However, in early April, Committee Co-Chair Ken Niles (OR) began canvassing Committee members on their views of whether the Committee should become more active in light of the President’s recommendation that Yucca Mountain be designated as an HLW/SNF repository.  The response from Committee members in Arizona, California, and Nebraska has been that the Committee should become active, if the State of Nevada’s veto of Yucca Mountain is overridden by Congress.  Niles spoke with DOE about funding for the Committee and was informed that DOE has no transportation funds in the current fiscal year, but has requested transportation funds in the fiscal year beginning in October 2002.  However, there is no assurance that such available funds would be provided to WIEB.  Reflecting the direction given by Western governors, the WIEB HLW Committee has been critical of DOE’s transportation efforts.  The Committee continues to operate without funding from DOE’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.  OCRWM eliminated funding for its regional cooperative agreement groups (including WIEB) in 1999, and shelved further development of its transportation program.

 

·        Captain Allan Turner (CO), co-chair of the Committee, has resigned.  He accepted a new position in Colorado state government.  Ken Niles (OR), the other co-chair of the Committee, recommends waiting for a decision on reactivating the Committee before appointing a new co-chair.

 

·        Yucca Mountain developments

o       The Department of Energy took several steps leading up to President Bush recommending Yucca Mountain as the site for a high level radioactive waste repository.

§         On January 10, 2002, DOE Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham notified Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn and the Nevada Legislature that he would recommend to President Bush that the Yucca Mountain site is scientifically sound and suitable for development as the nation's long-term geological repository for nuclear waste.

§         On February 14, 2002, “The Final Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada” was released. 

§         On February 14, 2002, Energy Secretary Abraham formally recommended to President Bush that the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada be developed as the nation's first long-term geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste.

§         On February 15, 2002, President Bush wrote Congress, “I consider the Yucca Mountain site qualified for application for a construction authorization for a repository.  Therefore, I now recommend Yucca Mountain for this purpose.” 

o       On April 8, Nevada Governor Guinn notified Congress that he had disapproved of the site and delivered detailed documentation on his reasons.  Congress now has 90 days to override the Governor’s veto. 

o       On December 21, 2001, the Congressional General Accounting Office issued a report: Nuclear Waste: Technical, Schedule, and Cost Uncertainties on the Yucca Mountain Repository Project. GAO-02-191, December 21.  The GAO concluded that recommending the site to the President could be premature since it would be several years before DOE had the necessary scientific data to apply to NRC for a license.

o       On December 17, Nevada filed a lawsuit in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging DOE’s Yucca Mountain Siting Guidelines that became effective on December 14, 2001.  The new guidelines changed the criteria for evaluating the suitability of the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

o       In April, the State of Nevada, Clark County, and the City of Las Vegas filed a lawsuit on NRC’s rule entitled Disposal of High-Level Radioactive Wastes in a Proposed Geologic Repository at Yucca Mountain, claiming the rule is inconsistent with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2002/nn11657.pdf

 

 

·        PFS interim storage proposal

o       Private Fuel Storage, a group of eight electric utility companies, plans to build a facility to store spent fuel rods on the reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians in Skull Valley, Utah.  Last year, Utah passed laws that would prohibit the storage of spent nuclear fuel on the reservation.  PFS and the Goshute tribe have filed suit against Utah.

o        On January 3, 2002, the NRC and three other federal agencies that participated in the environmental review released the Final Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed PFS facility.

o       In Utah, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission scheduled hearings in April and May to explore the issues raised by the Utah state government and other critics of the temporary storage site, such as military training flights over the area, possible earthquakes, and alternatives to the train-connection facility.

 

 

Committee On Regional Electric Power Cooperation (CREPC)

 

[This is a joint committee of the Board and the Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners.  It includes all the states and provinces in the electrically-synchronized western grid, plus Saskatchewan.  The Northwest Power Planning Council is also a member of the Committee.  Marsha Smith, Commissioner of the Idaho Public Utility Commission, chairs the Committee.]

 

Activities Since October