Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Energy’s streamlined rules for companies seeking permission to export U.S. electricity are at odds with the department’s finding that there are “energy emergencies” across the United States that justify keeping power plants from retiring, Public Citizen said Tuesday.
- The DOE should reconsider the final rule on power export authorizations it issued on June 22, in part because it prevents people and groups from intervening in export authorization proceedings or protesting them, the consumer watchdog group said in a rehearing request filed July 21.
- If the DOE dismisses Public Citizen’s rehearing request, the group will “likely” sue the department to overturn the new rule, Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s energy program, said in an email Wednesday.
Dive Insight:
In May 2025, the DOE began issuing a series of emergency orders under the Federal Power Act’s section 202(c) to keep generating units at six power plants from retiring as planned due to what the department says is an inadequate power supply. In some cases, those power plants are in regions that export power to Canada.
TransAlta’s coal-fired Centralia power plant in Washington is one of the plants DOE ordered to keep running instead of retiring on Dec. 31 as planned. The department said the power plant needs to stay online due to an energy emergency in the Northwest.
Meanwhile, the DOE is reviewing a dozen export authorization applications, including one from TransAlta Energy Marketing (U.S.), which is seeking to extend its authorization to export power to Canada across power lines in the Northwest, Midwest and Northeast.
The DOE’s streamlined export authorization rule removes timing, content and reporting requirements for export applications that the previous rule contained, and it reduces the ability of groups to participate in the authorization proceedings, according to Public Citizen.
Before utilities and power marketers can export electricity, the Federal Power Act’s section 202(e) requires a finding from the DOE that the exports won’t “impair the sufficiency of electric supply within the United States.”
In justifying its rule change, the DOE rejected Public Citizen’s argument that it contradicts President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring a national energy emergency.
Power marketers that export electricity are not obligated to serve a franchised territory or native load, according to the DOE.
“Thus, exports are not drawn from resources earmarked for specific domestic customer obligations,” the department said. “DOE finds that absent demonstrable flaws in these markets, exports authorizations do not impair the sufficiency of electric supply within the United States.”
Further, the DOE noted, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. oversee grid reliability through mandatory reliability standards.
“Reliability coordinators and balancing authorities have the authority and responsibility to manage power generation and transmission, ensuring adequate reserves and, when necessary, curtailing or denying scheduled flows, including exports, to maintain regional reliability and prevent system disturbances,” the DOE said. “This multi-layered enforcement mechanism provides assurance that approved exports will not lead to operational reliability issues on the domestic transmission system.”
In its rehearing request, Public Citizen said the department’s reasoning was flawed.
For example, power marketers are not the only entities that are allowed to export power, the group said. El Paso Electric, a utility based in El Paso, Texas, has two pending export authorizations and Idaho Power, Portland General Electric and Puget Sound Energy are among the utilities with existing export authorizations.
“Any export of power (whether earmarked or not) necessarily makes that power unavailable to domestic customers,” potentially contributing to inadequate supplies for a region, Public Citizen said.
Also, the old rules set specific content that export applications had to contain. Removing those requirements makes it difficult for a group like Public Citizen to assess whether an application should be challenged, the group said.
The new rule improperly establishes a regime under which the DOE will “consider” comments on applications, Public Citizen said. “Commenters, however, lack full party status with the right to seek a hearing or judicial review of adverse Department actions,” the group said.
