Debate on Upgrading Power Grid Heats Up

As the water here became drinkable again and electricity returned to all but a few thousand of the millions of people affected by last week’s blackout, policy makers and industry officials Sunday began debating how to improve the nation’s aging and underpowered electrical grid.

The utility that owns the Ohio transmission lines suspected of triggering the blackout said glitches in its system alone probably did not account for the massive failure.

The Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. said that problems in the Eastern Interconnection, the main grid east of the Rocky Mountains, surfaced about noon Thursday, two hours before its first plant went offline and four hours before the blackout.

“Based on what we know now, changes ... were occurring elsewhere in the area -- frequency and voltage fluctuations, and load swings on the grid,” said FirstEnergy spokeswoman Kristen Baird.

“Clearly, there were some very unusual conditions in the broad region, not just our system. What happened that day seems to be far more complex than a few tripped power lines.”

The head of the industry group that aims to keep electricity flowing cautioned against blaming FirstEnergy, saying that problems at other power entities might also have fueled the widespread outages.

“Although we may have identified the area where the cascading outages began, any attempt on our part to identify the cause ... would be speculative and premature,” said Michehl R. Gent, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Council, or NERC.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Sunday that he had dispatched teams of investigators to sites in the Northeast and the upper Midwest in a federal inquiry of the blackout.

As they look for answers, it is clear that officials studying how to upgrade the electrical grid will also be forced to grapple with such issues as states’ rights, federal oversight of private enterprises and varying electricity prices around the country.

On Sunday, the Bush administration called on Congress to require that utilities either comply with reliability standards designed to keep electricity flowing or face sanctions.

NERC, which was created following a major blackout in the Northeast in 1965, has been asking Congress for two years for the authority to enforce such standards.

Compliance with the standards is voluntary.

Another problem in the largely deregulated utility marketplace has been convincing utilities to invest in new lines, power plants and other infrastructure. Abraham said Sunday the way to provide utilities with the incentive to reinvest was to pass some of the cost on to consumers.

“The people who benefit from the system have to be part of the solution here,” Abraham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “That means the ratepayers are going to have to contribute. We think the rates need to be sufficient to incentivize the building of new transmission.”

At the same time various regulatory bodies are pushing to enforce reliability rules and work toward a more even, standardized system, utilities opposing reforms have found company among some states.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, has sought to construct a system of regional grid managers, which it argues would improve the flow of power nationwide.

On Sunday, the Bush administration said it would seek at least a three-year delay of such a system, which is already opposed by several states, especially in the South and Northwest.

The South regulates its own system and enjoys some of the lowest electricity rates in the country. Officials there contend that federal oversight will merely drive up prices.

In the Northwest, electricity prices soared during the California utility crisis, and FERC did not step in. The less oversight by FERC the better, say many Republican lawmakers in the Northwest.

“The [FERC] measure,” Abraham said on “Fox News Sunday,” “goes to the question of whether or not we would mandate and force down the throats of regional areas of the country a federal approach to deregulation of the marketplace.”

Opponents of the regional management idea saw their argument dramatically, if unfortunately, bolstered Thursday: The blackout occurred despite the fact that in the Northeast the grid is organized in a way similar to that proposed by FERC.

Meanwhile, as most parties call for more transmission lines, Congress has been unwilling to grant FERC the powers of eminent domain. So even when a utility decides to foot the bill for a new line, opposition from neighbors often quashes the deal.

“This is not a partisan issue,” Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.), head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“It’s not Clinton’s fault, it’s not Bush’s fault. It’s a problem with weak grids around the country ... because people simply don’t want to have power lines in their back yards.”

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who served as Energy secretary under President Clinton, argued Sunday that the lack of strong, unified oversight had allowed the utilities to continue to profit without reinvesting in the grid infrastructure. He said it was time for Congress to more aggressively oversee the industry.

“The utilities, I think, have to step up to the plate, along with the Congress, which has failed to pass mandatory reliability legislation,” Richardson said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

“The Congress has failed to give authority to [FERC] to promote regional transmission efforts so that there’s a single operator and utilities have less control.

“And the Congress has not given incentives for utilities to invest in these new technologies and transmission lines.”

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the House Energy Committee, argued on “Fox News Sunday” for FERC to act as the authoritative body in “a system like you have with the securities industry, where the stock markets are essentially self-regulatory bodies operating under the authority of the [Securities and Exchange Commission].”

As policymakers debated the future of the industry, residents from across the upper Midwest to New York took advantage of something they used to take for granted: power on demand.

At a Marriott hotel in Cleveland, guests who two nights ago dined only by candlelight could watch any of three television sets.

City officials lifted the advisory to boil water for parts of the city, which was put in place after the municipal supply became tainted when pumps that draw the water from Lake Erie shut down during the outage.

“I’m going to go find a drinking fountain,” said Betty Taylor, who was visiting Cleveland from Florida. “I’ve spent about $25 on bottled water.”

In Detroit, residents were advised to continue boiling water, but they hardly needed their air conditioners, with temperatures in the high 70s.

“It’s business as usual,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in New York, adding that he expected no problems during today’s rush hour.

The transit system was operating normally in the nation’s largest city, and the police and fire departments reported a quieter-than-usual Saturday night.

Still, Bloomberg exhorted New Yorkers to forgo unnecessary air-conditioning.

“We just don’t have a lot of extra power,” he said. “When something happens, you lose a transmission line, you lose a power plant, then you can get into trouble. You saw that happen Thursday night, so be careful.”

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Times staff writers Richard A. Serrano in Washington, D.C., John J. Goldman in New York and Reed Johnson in Detroit contributed to this report.