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Federal energy transmission planning project won't move forward in Oklahoma

Hundreds of Oklahomans wait to hear state officials speak about the NIETC process Thursday at the Creek County Fairgrounds in Kellyville.
Graycen Wheeler
/
KOSU
Hundreds of Oklahomans wait to hear state officials speak about the NIETC process Thursday at the Creek County Fairgrounds in Kellyville.

Oklahoma’s next House Speaker, Kyle Hilbert, says the state is no longer in the running for a massive federal energy transmission planning project that would have spanned from the panhandle to the Arkansas border. Landowners and lawmakers had been lashing out at the NIETC designation process.

A federal proposal aimed to designate a 645-mile-long “energy transmission corridor” across Oklahoma and incentivize companies to build transmission lines along it. After public opposition, that project is dead, according to the state’s incoming Speaker of the House.

Oklahoma House Speaker-elect Kyle Hilbert had just filed a legislative resolution Thursday opposing the corridor. And he said that pressure, along with a deluge of public opposition, worked.

Oklahoma House Speaker-Elect Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, is the youngest state representative to lead the chamber.
Abi Ruth Martin
/
Legislative Service Bureau
Oklahoma House Speaker-Elect Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, is the youngest state representative to lead the chamber.

Hilbert and other lawmakers addressed hundreds of Oklahomans gathered at the Creek County Fairgrounds Thursday night to oppose the federal transmission corridor.

“This afternoon I received a call from the United States Department of Energy,” Hilbert told the crowd. “The Delta Plains Corridor will not be a possible national corridor as of Monday.”

That corridor was part of the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) designation process. The federal program aims to identify areas in the U.S. that need more electrical transmission infrastructure over the next decade and eventually provide funding for companies that build transmission lines to fill that need.

One of ten proposed corridors, the Delta-Plains Corridor ran approximately 645 miles from the Oklahoma panhandle to Little Rock, Arkansas. According to the Department of Energy, the region will need more than 5 times as much transmission capacity as it currently has by 2035.

But since the list of preliminary transmission corridors was released, Oklahomans have been pushing back. Much of the concern is about the potential use of eminent domain within the corridor.

Several lawmakers and Attorney General Gentner Drummond had come out in opposition to the project.

"Everyone in Oklahoma should be concerned by this federal land grab attempt if the NIETC designation is granted," Rep. Brad Boles, R-Marlow, said in a statement.

Creek County residents picked up signs protesting the transmission corridor.
Graycen Wheeler
/
KOSU
Creek County residents picked up signs protesting the transmission corridor.

The resolution sponsored by the lawmakers vowed “to take all legislative action available to prevent the establishment of an eighteen-mile wide federal energy corridor in Oklahoma.”

But according to an FAQ page for the NIETC process, the designation did not mean “any immediate transmission construction, use of eminent domain to acquire land, or impacts to existing land uses without further process.”

Before the meeting, Dylan Reed with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office said public feedback had been the goal at this point of the NIETC timeline. He said the idea is not to take an 18-mile-wide swath of land but to work with landowners within that area to identify space for an approximately 100-foot-wide transmission line.

“We intentionally made some of these proposed corridors wide because we don't know these areas as well as the people who live there,” Reed said. “People told us, ‘Hey, you can't do that here because of these local concerns.’ And that was very helpful to hear that.”

Hilbert said Reed called him to inform him the DOE was removing the corridor across Oklahoma from the preliminary list of NIETC options.

The NIETC areas were meant to incentivize companies to build transmission lines where the DOE thought they were needed. But those companies would still have needed to go through all the permitting processes and land acquisition negotiations required for a transmission project outside the corridor. For similar transmission projects, companies often access through an easement agreement.

A DOE spokesperson confirmed that when a list of proposed corridors moving on to the next phase of the process is announced next week, the Delta-Plains route through Oklahoma will not be on it.

Although the NIETC project will not incentivize transmission projects across Oklahoma, there’s nothing stopping private companies from pursuing them. Multiple companies are already in the process of building transmission lines through the would-be NIETC area: Invenergy’s Cimarron Link project and Transource’s Sooner-Wewika project.

The NIETC process arose under the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It’s unclear whether or how the program could change under the incoming Trump administration.

Hilbert is optimistic it won’t mean new transmission projects for Oklahoma.

“The best news for this is what happened the first week of November when President Trump went back to the White House,” he told the crowd, which responded with cheers.

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Updated: December 16, 2024 at 2:45 PM CST
Another potential NIETC includes a small part of Oklahoma. The proposed Southwestern Grid Connector Corridor could involve around 70 square miles in the very western tip of the Oklahoma panhandle. Most of that is state or federal land.

The Southwestern Grid Connector Corridor is advancing to Phase III of the NIETC designation process. You can view the proposed corridor on a map and submit feedback. The current public comment period is open until Feb. 14, 2o25.
Updated: December 13, 2024 at 9:43 AM CST
This article has been updated to include confirmation from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Graycen Wheeler is a reporter covering water issues at KOSU as a corps member with Report for America.
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