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AMERICAN PUBLIC P� IV ��TM ASSOCIATION Powering Strong Communities ISSUE BRIEF January 2017 Vegetation Management Summary impacted 7.5 million people across fourteen states,two Ca- The proper management of vegetation near electric infrastruc nadian provinces,and parts of Mexico.An August 14,2003, ture located on federal lands is important to ensure electric blackout caused by a falling tree led to an outage for 50 million electricity customers across the Eastern and Midwestern United reliability and prevent wildfires.Vegetation that has made contact with electric infrastructure could result in power outages States. and forest fires.These serious and sometimes devastating out- As a result of the 2003 blackout and other reliability con- cerns at that time,what was then the North American Electric comes can be prevented with proper management of vegetation. Legislation to enable vegetation management was approved Reliability Council(now the North American Electric Reliabil- by the House Natural Resources Committee and included in ity Corporation or NERC)finalized vegetation management standards and guidelines for the electric industry in 2005.In the comprehensive energy legislation approved by the House of same year Congress passed,and the President,signed the Energy Representatives in December 2015.The American Public Power Association(Association or APPA)supported these efforts by Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct05),which directed the creation of nationwide mandatory electricity reliability standards to avoid Congress to facilitate vegetation management on federal lands, including hazardous and high-risk vegetation located outside of widespread electricity blackouts.EPAct05 contained a reliabil rights-of-way(ROWs). ity provision(Section 1211) that sought to ensure that federal agencies responsible for approving access to electric transmission or distribution facilities located on federal lands expedite any Background/Congressional Action approvals necessary to allow the owners or operators of such When a ROW is properly maintained to prevent vegetation facilities to comply with any reliability standard under Section from encroaching on power lines and other electric transmission 215 of the Federal Power Act pertaining to vegetation manage- and distribution facilities on federal lands,it produces multiple ment. Unfortunately,despite this directive in EPAct05 and over a benefits.These include everything from operational efficiencies, public safety,and environmental protection to cost-effectiveness. decade since its passage,the vegetation management issue on federal lands has not been resolved.The Department of Energy's Ultimately,the costs of operating,maintaining,and repairing these lines and facilities on federal lands are borne by utilities 2015 Quadrennial Energy Review(QER) stated that"reliability and their customers. and resilience projects have also included operations and main- Since 1996,the vegetation within electric transmission and tenance activities,such as aggressive vegetation management. distribution line ROWs located on federal lands have caused While it might be considered low-tech,vegetation management several large-scale power outages in the United States and Can- is an essential activity—both the 1996 West Coast and 2003 ada.Lands managed by the U.S.Forest Service(USFS) include East Coast Midwest power outages started from trees along 3,000 electric transmission and distribution facilities,account- transmission lines." ing for nearly 18,000 miles of electric ROW.Meanwhile,the However,in order to inspect the infrastructure to operate Bureau of Land Management(BLM)has over 71,500 miles of and maintain these lines and facilities,electric utilities must seek electric transmission and distribution lines.This accounts for permission and approval from the federal land management nearly 90,000 miles of electric transmission and distribution agencies.In addition to being focused on managing vegeta- lines. tion within a ROW,electric utilities are also concerned about On August 10, 1996,three power lines in the Pacific North- adjacent vegetation outside the corridor that are high-risk and west sagged on to untrimmed trees,causing an outage that potentially hazardous.Many utilities with infrastructure on PublicPower.org 15 197