Kansas University graduate and former state Rep. Bill Brier hopes last month’s massive blackout sheds some light on the need to improve the country’s electrical power system.

Brier is vice president of policy and public affairs for the Edison Electric Institute, the largest trade association of U.S. electric companies.

The position makes him one of the leading advocates for a proposed federal energy bill that would invest more in the country’s power grid and try to decrease the likelihood of blackouts like the Aug. 14 incident that left much of the northeast in the dark.

“Our power grid is basically a two-lane highway and we’re trying to run four lanes of traffic on it,” Brier said Monday while in Lawrence talking with area power officials. “I don’t want to say we’ve been too reliable, but the industry has been kind of out-of-sight, out-of-mind for too long.”

Brier said part of what was needed to improve the country’s electric transmission system, or the power grid as it is often called, was a decrease in regulations that would spur new, large investors to the industry.

For example, he said large investors like Warren Buffett had expressed interest in entering the utility business but were concerned by the prospect of state and federal regulators having access to the financial information of many of their nonutility businesses.

Consumer concerns

One of the state’s top consumer advocates said he was wary of efforts by the electric industry to capitalize on the recent blackout.

“It is political opportunism, and I’m concerned consumer pockets are going to get picked,” said David Springe, consumer council for the state’s Citizens Utility Ratepayer Board.

Cars try to navigate their way through New York City during the worst power outage in U.S. history. Investigators are looking for causes of the massive Aug. 14 blackout. Bill Brier, vice president of policy and public affairs for the Edison Electric Institute, told Kansas officials Monday that the country's power grid is in need of improvement. He is calling for more investment and less regulation.

Springe said he was particularly concerned about proposals from the industry to weaken the Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act. That’s the legislation that gives regulators the authority to ensure investors aren’t using revenues from public utility companies to prop up nonutility businesses.

“What they seem to want is less regulation. They don’t want you to see their books, they want to be able to buy and sell freely, and they want very high returns,” Springe said. “None of this sounds very consumer-friendly to me.”

Brier, though, said other regulations would protect consumers. He said the industry needed new investors to help it emerge from a rough financial period that included the collapse of Enron and, more regionally, the decline of Topeka-based Westar Energy and Kansas City, Mo.-based Aquila.

“The financial health of the industry is not as good as it needs to be to move forward,” Brier said.

Increased demand

Specifically, Brier said the industry needed to begin investing an additional $2.5 billion a year during the next 10 years to improve the country’s power grid. Brier said the additional investment would amount to about a 2 percent increase in the average residential utility bill.

But Springe thinks the industry’s estimates on potential increases to utility bills are low.

“I think consumers are going to be on the hook for a lot more than that,” Springe said.

Springe also said he was not convinced that the power grid was badly broken.

“The system really has worked pretty well,” Springe said. “It is not like these blackouts happen every day, or every year, or even every decade.

“Look at Kansas. When have we had a blackout like they had back east? I’m not sure we’ve ever had one. Do we really need to upgrade our transmission system here? And if it needs to be upgraded on the East Coast, do we really need to pay for that in Kansas?”

Area utility officials disagreed. They said not only was the grid lacking in technology, but it was becoming more stressed as computers and other devices created more demand for electricity.

“We don’t quite have a Third World power grid, but it is antiquated to the point that it is approaching it,” said Al Butkus, vice president of corporate communications for Aquila.

Congressional committees are debating the energy bill. Leaders have said it could be put to a vote by the end of the month.