The electricity grid that powered America through the 20th century will not work for this one. America is entering a new frontier of electricity demand. Growth in domestic manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and the electrification of heating and transportation are driving an anticipated 25% increase in power demand over the next 10 years. Meanwhile, the problems with our existing grid have been building for decades, and they will not be solved by fragmented upgrades and tedious bureaucracy. Americans need a power grid that’s bigger and better. But America needs Congress to act to help build the energy infrastructure it needs faster.

That’s why a bipartisan group of Congressional leaders has been meeting to craft changes to federal permitting rules. Businesses can’t invest in and build the grid we need for the next era of innovation and industry until we reform the way we build transmission lines. Our transmission networks, the wires and towers that carry electricity over our heads and across the country, were not built for our modern energy system. Much of the power grid we rely on today was constructed in the 1960s and 1970s; for years, incremental upgrades and Band-Aid fixes have helped the country keep the lights on. To meet the extreme escalation in energy demand we’re facing, the United States must double its regional transmission capacity and quadruple its interregional capacity by 2050. That won’t happen as long as complex and outdated planning, siting, and approval processes continue to make constructing and updating transmission lines more difficult than ever.