DOE scraps three transmission corridors, contradicting its own grid study
The Department of Energy has ended the designation process for three proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors, a move that runs counter to its own July analysis warning of extensive grid needs.
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The Department of Energy (DOE) has halted the review of three proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs), a decision that sits awkwardly with the agency's own recent assessment of grid requirements. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced on Wednesday that the designation process for the Lake Erie–Canada Corridor, the Southwestern Grid Connector Corridor, and the Tribal Energy Access Corridor would not continue.
Collectively, these three corridors covered more than 3,500 miles. They were part of a list of ten potential NIETCs the DOE identified in 2024; the other seven were removed from consideration in December of that year. Had they been designated, projects within these corridors would have become eligible for federal loans, a step intended to speed up the construction of high-voltage transmission lines.
Wright attributed the cancellation to the extensive review process, including public feedback and stakeholder input. In a statement, he said: "Transmission policy must serve the American people—not special interests or a climate-alarmist agenda that drives up costs, worsens reliability, and disregards the concerns of local communities." He added: "The Trump Administration is committed to strengthening America’s electric grid with common-sense policies that prioritize delivering affordable, reliable, and secure electricity to American families and businesses." Wright also described the corridors as a "means to advance (a) Green New Scam agenda and accelerate decarbonization."
The move comes just weeks after the DOE's Office of Electricity released a draft 2026 National Transmission Needs Study in July. That document identified extensive transmission needs driven by growing electricity demand, pointing to a clear requirement for both interregional and intraregional development. Thousands of gigawatts of projects are currently queued for interconnection across the United States, many waiting on transmission capacity.
The Lake Erie–Canada Corridor was designed to provide interregional connections between Canada and the PJM Interconnection, the grid operator serving much of the eastern United States, with the aim of maintaining or improving reliability and resilience. The Southwestern Grid Connector Corridor sought to ease congestion and accommodate future generation and demand growth by cross-connecting the Southwest Power Pool and WestConnect. The Tribal Energy Access Corridor was intended to reduce consumer costs and improve clean energy integration while supporting Tribal energy and economic development.
The NIETC framework dates back to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which directed the DOE to establish such corridors and gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission additional authority over transmission line siting within them. The first designations came in 2007, with the Mid-Atlantic Area and Southwest Area corridors. The Mid-Atlantic NIETC covered more than 116,000 square miles, touching parts of eight states and Washington, D.C., while the Southwest Area NIETC stretched through Southern California and Arizona.
Those 2007 designations did not survive long. In February 2011, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case titled California Wilderness Coalition v. U.S. Department of Energy, overturned and voided both. The court found that the DOE had not properly consulted with the affected states and had not carried out the environmental reviews mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act. As of 2013, FERC's siting authority is limited to stepping in only when a state fails to act on a transmission siting permit within a year.