Accelerating Interstate Transmission for California

A client report for the California Energy Commission on why interstate lines take a decade or more to permit, and which reforms could shorten that.

Prepared for Mark Hesters and Sean Simon of the California Energy Commission (CEC) · With Nadiyah Helal and Anna Nyfeler · Supervised by Steve Weissman of the Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley, 2023–2024

At a glance

Client California Energy Commission
Role Team of three; I wrote the case study analysis and co-wrote the policy assessment
Methods Comparative case studies of federal permitting records; policy options analysis
Skills Federal permitting, NEPA, interregional cost allocation, client writing
Available on request Nine-page writing sample (my case study section)

The question

California’s clean energy targets depend on importing wind and solar from neighboring states, but interstate transmission lines regularly take more than a decade to permit. The Commission wanted to know what slows these projects down and what could speed them up. The final report was also shared with the CPUC’s Public Advocates Office.

Milestones for the two lines in our case studies, from first filing to construction or service.

What I did

  1. Case studies. I analyzed two lines that made it through federal permitting: Ten West Link (Arizona to California) and TransWest Express (Wyoming to Nevada). The analysis traces how federal route planning, review split across several land management agencies, and cost-containment disputes added years to each project, and what the federal Permitting Council and the Rapid Response Team for Transmission did to coordinate reviews.
  2. Policy assessment. With Anna Nyfeler, I assessed newer tools: DOE’s National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor designations, the CITAP permitting program, federal backstop siting authority, NEPA reform, and changes to interregional cost allocation.

What it shows

Delays came less from any single review than from coordination across agencies and from disputes over who pays.

Ten West Link: the agencies that had to sign off, and the cost dispute still open at FERC.
  • Coordination is the first bottleneck. Every added agency brings its own schedule and record, so reviews wait on each other.
  • Cost allocation is the second. When no one has settled who pays for overruns, the dispute can outlast construction itself.
Federal tools mapped to the bottlenecks they address. Our report assessed them in 2024; status is updated to September 2026.
  • Reforms should coordinate reviews and settle cost allocation early. Federal tools now cover coordination and review time, but interregional cost allocation still has no answer.

The full report was prepared for the Commission. A nine-page excerpt of my section is available as a writing sample on request. Contact me.