The U.S. House of Representatives voted against a bill June 20 that would have put a one-year moratorium on the federal government's ability to allow the construction of electric power lines along the eastern corridor without state approval. Supporters, including Rep. Frank Wolf (R-10), said they will continue to work on the bill and bring it forward again.
"Congressman Wolf and his colleagues will pursue other avenues in the House, including the energy and commerce committee," Dan Scandling, Wolf’s spokesperson, said.
The corridor under question would run north from Virginia, including most of Maryland, all of New Jersey and Delaware and large sections of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
THE BILL, which was attached to the annual spending bill that funds the Department of Energy, would have prevented any money from being spent on the power lines during the next year. Before the vote, Wolf warned his colleagues that unwanted power lines could also come to their districts.
"How will you explain to your constituents, to your neighbors, to your friends, to your local elected officials, to your farmers that you had a chance to slow this down and you didn’t," he said. "This is a time-out that will give us a chance to re-examine the process. We need to make sure we take time to do it right."
In addition to the House, the U.S. Senate must still vote on its portion of the bill. There is no date on when the Senate would take up the issue, but Scandling said it could happen by late summer.
WHILE THERE ARE no specific plans for Loudoun under this large-scale power-line corridor, it could affect the local area if the planned route for Dominion Power lines is rejected.
Dominion Power has proposed a power-line route through parts of Loudoun, Prince William and Fauquier counties.
"If Dominion doesn’t get what it wants, it can go through this [proposal]," Scandling said.
Supporters of both power-line routes have long said they would protect against wide-scale blackouts, but opponents are concerned about the possible effect on Civil War sites and the rural landscape.
"The fight’s not over," Scandling said. "There are still a lot of other ways to go at this."