'BIG WIRES' Act provides power benefits

The Building Integrated Grids With Inter-Regional Energy Supply (BIG WIRES) Act is a promising bipartisan bill in Congress that offers a wide range of benefits: reducing the risk of electrical power outages, lowering carbon emissions and energy costs, and increasing national security.

The recent gas pipeline rupture in our region gave many of us a taste of how a blackout in winter would feel. Extreme weather events damaging power stations and overloading the grid are on the rise.

The bill will require each U.S. transmission-planning region to be able to transfer at least 15% more of its curren...