DOE Cancels the Last Three National Interest Transmission Corridors, Returning Siting to the States
- FERC & Federal Policy & Markets Regulatory
Marin Holt
- 0
- 9 minutes read
- Corridors cancelled: 3
- Original candidate list: 10 corridors
- Backstop siting authority: Federal Power Act Section 216
- Largest DOE transmission loan cited: $26.5 billion
- States affected: PA, CO, NM, OK, ND, SD, NE
Energy Secretary Chris Wright cancelled the last three proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors on August 12, 2026. The Department of Energy will not designate the Lake Erie-Canada Corridor, the Southwestern Grid Connector Corridor or the Tribal Energy Access Corridor. Those three areas cover parts of Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska. DOE picked them in December 2024 from a list of 10 candidate corridors. Nothing now carries the designation.
What Actually Changed
The Lake Erie-Canada Corridor covered parts of Lake Erie and Pennsylvania. The Southwestern Grid Connector Corridor covered Colorado, New Mexico and a small part of western Oklahoma. The Tribal Energy Access Corridor covered central North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and five tribal reservations.
DOE ran the process in phases. It started with 10 potential corridors and cut seven of them in December 2024. Two of the dropped routes were large. Midwest-Plains ran 780 miles across Illinois, Indiana, Kansas and Missouri. Delta Plains ran 645 miles across Arkansas and Oklahoma. Only three corridors survived that round. Wright has now cancelled those as well.
“Extensive review, including public feedback and stakeholder input, made clear that the current designation process for these three proposed transmission corridors should not continue,” Wright said. He also said the framework “proved ineffective in strengthening grid reliability and reducing electricity costs.”
What the Designation Would Have Granted
A corridor designation moves siting power from the states to Washington. Under Federal Power Act Section 216, DOE says a designation “allows the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to issue permits for the siting of transmission lines within the NIETC under circumstances where state siting authorities do not have authority to site the line, have not acted on an application for over one year, or have denied an application.”
Designation also opens federal money. DOE lists the Transmission Facilitation Program among the financing tools a corridor unlocks. A developer inside a designated corridor could reach both the backstop permit and the public-private financing. A developer outside one reaches neither.
State commissions now hold the whole siting decision in all seven states. A multi-state line needs every state along the route to say yes. One refusal stops the project, and no federal backstop applies.
What Did Not Change
DOE still lends against transmission. The same announcement lists four recent actions. It guaranteed a $1.6 billion loan to AEP Transmission in October 2025. It lent $26.5 billion to Southern Company subsidiaries in February 2026. It opened a $1.9 billion SPARK funding opportunity in March 2026. It lent $3.3 billion to AEP Texas in July 2026. The department also released a draft 2026 National Transmission Needs Study.
So the money side of federal transmission policy stays open. The permitting side closed. Those are different tools, and a loan does not move a line through a hostile state proceeding.
Why It Matters
Load growth from data centers and factories lands on transmission that takes years to permit. The backstop existed for one case. A state stalls or refuses a line that crosses it, and the developer goes to FERC instead. Cancelling the three corridors removes that option in the places DOE had judged most constrained. That includes the Colorado and New Mexico route meant to carry southwestern generation east.
Developers should read this as a schedule risk, not a funding risk. Capital is available through the loan programs above. Route approval now depends on seven separate state commissions with their own dockets, their own timelines and their own landowner politics.
Critical Perspective
Wright says the framework “proved ineffective in strengthening grid reliability and reducing electricity costs.” The announcement does not name the reliability metric the corridors failed, or the baseline it used. This round of the process designated nothing, so no line ever tested the authority. The ineffectiveness finding and the cancellation rest on the same missing evidence.
DOE answers the cancellation with a list of loans: $1.6 billion, $26.5 billion, $1.9 billion and $3.3 billion. None of those instruments moves a route past a state commission that has said no. Financing and siting are separate constraints. The release treats one as a substitute for the other.
The Tribal Energy Access Corridor covered five tribal reservations across central North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska. The announcement puts nothing in its place for those communities. It also does not say what they told DOE during the public feedback that Wright cites as the basis for stopping.
What Happens Next
DOE has not proposed a replacement framework for corridor designation. The Federal Power Act still authorizes the Secretary to designate an area, so a future secretary can restart the process. The draft 2026 National Transmission Needs Study is the next document that will show where DOE thinks the grid is short.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Energy, “Energy Secretary Announces Cancellation of Three Proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors,” August 12, 2026
- U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity, “National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor Designation Process”
- RTO Insider, “DOE Cancels Proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors,” August 12, 2026
- Utility Dive, “‘Good riddance’ says Oklahoma governor as DOE nixes 7 national transmission corridors, refines 3,” December 17, 2024
