Grid Acceleration Coalition Urges FERC to Overhaul Transmission Rules

In reply comments filed this week, the coalition—representing a coalition of hyperscalers, labor groups, and utilities—asserted that the current competitive bidding process is a shell game. By focusing on initial bid prices rather than final project costs, proponents of the status quo ignore the reality that these solicitations add years of administrative delay before a developer is even selected. According to Purvi Patel, vice president of regulatory strategy at ITC Holdings Corp., the urgency of the power challenge posed by AI and data center expansion renders these bureaucratic hurdles unsustainable.

The coalition also dismantled a recent report from the R Street Institute, which had defended the existing solicitation framework. The group pointed to R Street’s reliance on a thin sample size and inconsistent timing baselines, which skewed data to make competitive projects appear faster than they truly are. When these inconsistencies are corrected, the data confirms that directly assigned projects consistently outpace those trapped in the solicitation process. With grid interconnection capacity now a primary constraint for the U.S. economy, the coalition maintains that FERC must act immediately to remove these chokepoints and prioritize the rapid deployment of high-voltage transmission lines.