House Panel Begins Blackout Hearings

[newyawker99]

Congress is under increasing pressure to impose federal reliability rules on the national power grid as it looks into the massive electricity blackout that darkened a huge swath of the nation from Michigan to New York.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, scheduled to be the leadoff witness Wednesday before a House committee investigating the blackout, was expected to shy away from trying to pinpoint the cause of last month's outage, which also hit parts of Canada. His U.S.-Canada task force investigation is still only in the beginning stage of its inquiry.

Abraham will call on Congress to enact federally mandated transmission reliability rules, instead of the voluntary system now in place. The proposal has broad bipartisan support.

The governors of Ohio, Michigan and New York were to testify in favor of new reliability requirements, as was the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which under several proposals would enforce the regulations.


Another waste of time?

[shirlden]

1. Why do we get hearings on a stupid blackout

caused by dereg and greed, but we can't get a hearing on the criminals in our gov and corporate board rooms. We know what caused the blackout and a hearing will accomplish nothing positive. The final findings have all ready been written and a hearing will just be a nauseous photo op for a few congresspeople. The jury is rigged, folks.