Big US energy transmission projects inch closer to approval

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. government has finished another environmental review of a proposed multibillion-dollar transmission line that would send wind-generated electricity from rural New Mexico to big cities in the West. The U.S. Interior Department also announced Thursday plans to review two other projects designed to funnel renewable energy across parts of Utah and Nevada. The regulatory steps come a day after the Biden administration announced a $2.5 billion initiative to make the nation’s power grid better able to withstand catastrophic disasters caused by climate change. The project in New Mexico has been more than a decade in the making. A final decision is expected this summer.