No electricity for you!

Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) vowed yesterday to block the renomination of a government energy board's chief until the Bush administration scales back its push for new high-voltage power lines in his state.

Casey took to the Senate floor to declare that he would put a hold on the renomination of Joseph T. Kelliher as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He denounced the boundaries of a "national interest electric transmission corridor" to promote the construction of new power lines in the Mid-Atlantic states.

The corridor, finalized earlier this month, includes most of Pennsylvania as it stretches from Virginia north to Upstate New York. It marks the first time the government has used new powers granted under an energy bill passed in 2005.

Senator, it is an unfortunate reality that your state sits right between New York and Virginia. That means, for better or for worse, that the transmission lines must cross your state as part of the national power grid. If you are that opposed to allowing it to do so, perhaps we can accommodate you by cutting off the Pennsylvania from our nations’ power supply – something that I’m sure many Pennsylvanians will object to come January when the temperatures drop into single digits. But if you want to cripple the energy distribution network, you and your state need to be taken out of it completely.