Ariz. wants feds to block power line for Calif.

The Arizona Corporation Commission said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shouldn't even let Southern California Edison formally apply for FERC permission to build the line.

If Edison, which has been contacting FERC since February on the matter, makes a formal request, it would be the first such application filed with FERC under a 2005 federal energy law that authorized designations of critical energy corridors.

Rosemead, Calif.-based Edison wants to build a 200-mile, 500-kilovolt line to link a switching yard serving generating plants near Phoenix with a substation near Palm Springs, Calif.

The Edison International subsidiary says the line is needed to reduce congestion in the Arizona-California-Nevada energy corridor while allowing utilities to improve access to power supplies, including electricity from renewable sources.

The California Public Utilities Commission approved the proposal in January 2007.

FERC officials did not immediately respond to inquiries Friday, but Edison spokesman Paul Klein said the pre-application contacts were continuing.

A letter signed by Chairman Mike Gleason of the Arizona commission and sent Thursday said the state body has approved numerous generating and transmission projects. But the Arizona commission was justified in rejecting the application in June 2007, Gleason wrote, because it had weighed environmental concerns and economic benefits associated with the proposal.

The letter said benefits for the regional grid are questionable and Edison has "other resource options at its disposal," such as building new plants and using renewable resources.

Acting under the 2005 law, the U.S. Department of Energy designated large swaths of southwestern Arizona and southern California as a "national interest electric transmission corridor." The only other corridor is in the mid-Atlantic region.