Lawmakers worry about grid reliability as new regulations near

Lawmakers in both chambers are raising alarms about a January cold snap that brought parts of the Mid-Atlantic perilously close to a major blackout.

The polar vortex that swept through the country early last month pushed the PJM Interconnection, a regulatory entity that covers a swath of the Midwest, Appalachia and the Mid-Atlantic, to the brink of collapse. Some electric utilities and lawmakers argue that a slate of scheduled retirements of coal-fired power plants next summer to comply with a new federal rule would lead to a breakdown in a future extreme weather event.