WASHINGTON (Might 13, 2024) – Right now the Federal Power Regulatory Fee (FERC) announced its Grid Expansion Rule, which can assist modernize how the U.S. connects to and transmits energy alongside the nation’s grid. The rulemaking improves long-term regional transmission planning processes to help a clear power transition in methods which might be cost-effective for communities and helpful for wildlife.
“The U.S. wants long-term transmission planning to construct a extra resilient and dependable grid that meets future power wants in ways in which profit folks and wildlife,” stated Alice Madden, senior director of local weather technique on the Nationwide Audubon Society. “As Audubon’s Birds and Transmission report lays out, planning should take into account siting and land-use early within the course of with suggestions from impacted communities in addition to conservation organizations. This can help extra strategic regional planning and assist us quickly increase transmission capability to guard in opposition to probably the most excessive impacts of local weather change whereas additionally avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating impacts on fowl habitats and native communities.”
In 2022, Audubon submitted joint feedback as a part of the Conservation and Renewable Power (CARE) coalition in response to FERC’s Discover of Proposed Rulemaking, emphasizing the necessity for a powerful, clear rule that responsibly addresses environmental and power justice planning and siting standards.
Improved regional planning is required to handle regulatory hurdles and assist streamline and speed up the transmission buildout. In response to a study from the Department of Energy, america should double its current regional transmission capability to satisfy its clear power objectives by 2035. Audubon’s report, Birds and Transmission: Building the Grid Birds Need, notes that growing transmission capability is required to help the clear power transition and keep away from the worst impacts of local weather change for birds and folks. The report shares finest practices grounded in science for easy methods to decrease collision and habitat impact-related dangers to birds.
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About Audubon
The Nationwide Audubon Society is a nonprofit conservation group that protects birds and the locations they want at the moment and tomorrow. We work all through the Americas in direction of a future the place birds thrive as a result of Audubon is a strong, various, and ever-growing pressure for conservation. Audubon has greater than 700 employees working throughout the hemisphere and greater than 1.5 million energetic supporters. North America has misplaced three billion birds since 1970, and greater than 500 fowl species are susceptible to extinction throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Birds act as early warning programs concerning the well being of the environment, they usually inform us that birds – and our planet – are in disaster. Collectively as one Audubon, we’re working to change the course of local weather change and habitat loss, resulting in more healthy fowl populations and reversing present traits in biodiversity loss. We do that by implementing on-the-ground conservation, partnering with native communities, influencing public and company coverage, and constructing neighborhood. Study extra at www.audubon.org and on Fb, Twitter and Instagram @audubonsociety.
Media Contact: Megan Moriarty, megan.moriarty@audubon.org
