The dispute over power-line siting authority surfaced in Washington, D.C. last week. And it has the potential to derail all of the well-intentioned renewable-energy programs now underway in Colorado and the West.

Simply put, there are not enough transmission lines to handle existing and projected loads on the nation’s energy grid, much less get electricity from remote sources of renewable energy to the consumers and businesses that need it.

The federal Energy Information Administration has predicted that U.S. electricity demand will rise 30 percent by 2030, but power lines have only been expanded by 6 percent since 1996.

Everyone agrees that some form of regional or national program for building - and, equally importantly, locating - new transmission facilities is critical to creating new and sustainable sources of power in the next decade. Just how to get there, however, remains a matter of argument.

At a congressional hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources last week, Jon Wellinghoff, acting chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, argued that only a national transmission strategy crafted by a federal agency - i.e., his agency - can effectively locate and build transmission lines to serve the national interest.

“A single federal agency having the responsibility and the authority to make siting decisions with regard to projects that affect the national interest is clearly the most efficient way to site major energy projects,” Wellinghoff stated.

In fact, three years ago Congress actually expanded the Commission’s jurisdiction “over the 300,000 miles of transmission lines that deliver the nation’s power,” as a UPI story notes — but that authority was challenged by a recent ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said such authority violates states rights.

Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, has introduced a bill that would override state authority, giving FERC ultimate power over transmission decisions, once and for all.

Agreeing with the Court, Western states and utilities are adamantly opposed to giving FERC say-so over power-line siting. States don’t want the federal government telling them where to build their grids; utilities, which often wield significant authority with state utilities commissions, don’t want the feds looking over their shoulders. Complicating matters is the fact that under the auspices of the Western Governors Association, “Western states already are working with the U.S. Department of Energy on the Western Renewable Energy Zones initiative, which will expedite the development and delivery of electricity generated by renewable energy” throughout the region, according to a WGA release last month.

Led by Utah’s Jon Huntsman, several governors from the region met last month with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Carol Browner, President Obama’s assistant for energy and climate change, to press that case.Alluding to the brewing conflict at the Colorado Governor’s Energy Office symposium on the Obama Administration’s energy stimulus package, Tom Carr, an attorney and economist with the Western Interstate Energy Board (an offshoot of the WGA) was diplomatic: The Energy Board is “watching with great interest” what happens with the Reid bill, under which “siting authority would be taken away from the states and given to FERC,” Carr said. “We suspect” that the Western Renewable Energy Zones initiative (known as WREZ) “would be something they respect,” added Carr - but at this point “siting is an open issue.”

Open it will remain, unless Congress passes a bill to overcome state resistance. Along with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Reid is planning to fold the measure to give FERC siting authority into a budget reconciliation bill this summer - meaning the Senate could pass it with a simple majority, rather than needing 60 votes to stop a filibuster. That tactic would likely raise opposition from congressional Republicans, already sympathetic to states’-rights arguments. That doesn’t mean it won’t work.