Western governors establish multi-state task force to update the region’s transmission lines

A bipartisan group of 11 Western governors signed a letter endorsing the establishment of a multi-state task force to develop a study and action plan to update the region’s energy grid. 

The effort was announced Tuesday in Park City during the last days of Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox’s tenure as chair of the Western Governors Association in which he pushed an “energy superabundance” agenda.

Joining Cox, governors of Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico and Washington signed the letter endorsing the Western Transmission Expansion Coalition, or WestTEC.  

“WestTEC is an industry-led effort that takes a new collaborative approach to one of our region’s most pressing infrastructure challenges, recognizing that this grid system is a team sport, we can’t just fix the grid in Utah. It won’t help everywhere else. We have to do it everywhere,” Cox said on Tuesday surrounded by a group of governors at the posh Deer Valley resort.

The study, according to the governors’ letter, must “promote open, competitive markets by reducing bottlenecks that restrict choice and limit access to lower-cost power,” provide a thorough assessment of transmission needs across the region, and offer a roadmap for expanding transmission infrastructure “that will improve reliability, reduce congestion and dispatch costs, strengthen the regional grid, and achieve energy superabundance.”

The hope is that a unified voice helps push permitting reform across the finish line, Cox said. While permits are being issued quicker under the second Trump administration, states can still coordinate better to expedite timelines.

“We cannot move enough electricity under the current national system,” New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said. “The West has already demonstrated that they can do transmission better and faster, and that demonstration means that we can alleviate some of the consternation about what is possible and what isn’t.”

Much of the West’s power system was built more than 60 years ago, Cox said. And transmission lines are aging or expanding too slowly to meet new energy demands.

“We often talk about energy and energy production, it’s of course paramount to everything that we need to do as a country moving forward,” Cox said. “But that energy production and generation really doesn’t matter if we can’t move those electrons across the grid.”

The governors also committed to establishing a group that would start taking the first steps to coordinate between states and the federal government to accelerate the development of new transmission lines.

“We’re going to cut through the red tape, we’re going to do this together, we’re going to get projects moving much more quickly, and we’re going to fix our grid. Modernizing our grid will show that we can continue to increase economic competition, ensure energy security, and mitigate environmental hazards,” Cox said.