"While it is understood that the electricity transmission network has deficiencies in terms of its stability and its capability for dealing with new major power sources such as wind and solar, the Board believes that there are serious questions about whether any need to upgrade the grid is being used more to favor the status quo of dirtier electric power sources rather than as an opportunity to help more intentionally and unreservedly transition to cleaner energy sources while simultaneously taking serious steps to reduce demand.

In contrast to the American Lung Association's national policy of encouraging the transition of power plants from burning coal, it appears that a significant outcome of implementing PATH would be to assist the coal-fired mode of electricity generation to become even further entrenched.

Indeed, in the words of Bill Raney, President of the West Virginia Coal Association, in a May 18, 2009 letter to the West Virginia Public Service Commission in support of PATH, "Enhanced transmission capacity helps increase the amount of low-cost, coal-fired generation dispatched into the regional grid. This helps preserve the future of existing power plants already on line, justifies additional investment in these plants and increases the likelihood that new, clean-coal electric fired generation will be constructed in the state."

Despite Mr. Raney's claim for producing electricity using "clean-coal'' generation, it is the Board's observation that, on several counts, ranging from land degradation to water contamination to, of course, air pollution, the promise of “clean coal” has not come close to being achieved. Given the increased likelihood of new coal-fired electricity generation appearing along this transmission corridor, it is the burden of American Electric Power and Allegheny Energy to demonstrate that such a consequence of the implementation of their PATH proposal would in fact result in no deterioration of air quality. That this demonstration could be prepared seems unlikely to the Board."

http://www.psc.state.wv.us/scripts/WebDocket/ViewDocument.cfm?CaseActivityID=281306