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WASHINGTON - The U.S. Transportation Department on Wednesday announced a nationwide initiative that would open parts of highway and railroad rights-of-way for electrical transmission lines, fiber optic cables and water pipelines, casting transportation corridors as a new route for utility infrastructure.
The voluntary program, called "America’s Great Corridors of Commerce", would use existing transportation property to speed infrastructure construction, lower costs through shared use and generate revenue for maintaining roads, bridges and railroads. If carried out as planned, the effort would give highways and railroads a broader role in moving electricity, telecommunications and other essential resources alongside people and freight.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy tied the proposal to the nation’s energy needs, saying that combining transportation routes with utility infrastructure could "make energy more affordable and fuel American industry for generations to come."
He also said "we will lose the race to develop the technologies of the future if we cannot lower costs and get the government out of the way."
Under the plan, state transportation departments and railroads would lease portions of their rights-of-way to private companies. Those companies could act as "corridor managers", handling the design, financing and operation of utility infrastructure placed along the routes.
The Transportation Department said using existing rights-of-way for power lines and other utilities would reduce the need to acquire new private property at potentially high cost. The public-private approach also could benefit from environmental waivers granted by the federal government to some projects, which could shorten review and permitting timelines.
The Federal Register notice described contracts that could last as long as 50 years.
Transportation officials said the scale of repair needs across the country’s infrastructure system requires a different approach. "America can’t wait decades for modern utility and transportation infrastructure", said Morteza Farajian, executive director of the Transportation Department’s Build America Bureau.
The Bureau has identified five transportation rights-of-way as the first multi-use corridors, and the Transportation Department is seeking public comment on them until Sept. 12.
The department unveiled the corridor program the same day President Donald Trump declared a national emergency aimed at protecting the nation’s electrical grid from cyberattacks and foreign sabotage.
Trump signed an executive order barring utilities from importing and installing foreign-produced equipment, applying mainly to transformers, inverters and battery storage systems. The ban restricts imports from nations subject to U.S. sanctions or arms embargoes, such as China.
The executive order and the land-use initiative arrived as warnings have mounted that U.S. energy production and infrastructure are well below market demands, leaving them more exposed to catastrophic failure and cyberattacks.
"The rapid growth of advanced manufacturing, data centers, artificial intelligence, and defense production has increased the nation’s dependence on abundant, reliable electricity", Executive Order 14420 says.
Trump’s executive order creates uncertainty around supply lines for utility infrastructure that could be built under the Transportation Department program, because significant portions of electrical equipment are imported.
Even so, electrical industry groups including the Edison Electric Institute said they were encouraged by the incentive Trump appears to have created for American manufacturers.
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