DOE To Participate In Developing Clean Line Transmission Project

On March 25, 2016, the United States Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, announced that the Department of Energy ("DOE") will participate in the development of the Plains and Eastern Clean Line Project ("Clean Line"). As a result, the Clean Line project will be the first transmission project that DOE helps develop directly, pursuant to the authority delegated to DOE in Section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 ("EPAct 2005").

Clean Line was originally proposed as a qualifying project under Section 1222 of EPAct 2005 in July 2010. According to DOE, the $2.5 billion Clean Line is intended to tap abundant, low-cost wind generation resources in the Oklahoma and Texas panhandle regions to deliver up to 4,000 megawatts of wind power to the mid-South and Southeast United States via a 705-mile direct current transmission line. DOE has also noted that Clean Line is intended to address infrastructure challenges outlined in DOE's 2015 Quadrennial Energy Review ("QER"), which