Director of our Electricity Law Initiative Ari Peskoe spoke with Staff Attorney Hannah Oakes about electric transmission regulation and how it has disincentivized regional transmission build out. They discuss Ari’s work in recent FERC transmission proceedings, and how Congress, states, and utilities can help catalyze transmission development to enable the clean energy transition.

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Hannah-and-Ari-transcript.pdf

Links they discuss include:

The Electricity Law Initiative’s Comment on FERC’s proposed rule on long-term regional transmission planning responds to FERC’s proposal to reinstate rights of first refusal and discusses the benefits of retaining competitive transmission development.

Comment is here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Harvard-ELI-RM21-17-NOPR-Comment.pdf

FERC rule is here https://elibrary.ferc.gov/eLibrary/filedownload?fileid=2fae9f65-2968-cdf2-94ba-804ef7300000

ELI's comments on FERC oversight of transmission rates proposes new oversight mechanisms, including an independent transmission monitor, designed to protect consumers from inefficient transmission investments. Link is here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/AD22-8-AriPeskoe-PreTechConStatement.pdf

At around 30 minutes, Ari mistakenly says that Congress’ 2021 infrastructure law provides $5 billion for resilience and reliability investments. The law actually provides more than $10 billion for such investments.