Supporters of the bill are doubtful that there are enough votes in the 50-member Senate to blast the bill onto the floor, meaning the bill is probably dead unless supporters are able to muster enough votes to force a floor debate.

And as representatives from utility companies, the energy industry and the banks that fund them convene to discuss the future of the state's power grid, local officials and residents who fought NYRI say they are hopeful their plans won't hurt local communities.

The farm bureau and cattle growers sided with environmental groups, with whom they often are at loggerheads, such as the Sierra Club, as well as grass-roots activists in rural communities such as the Cascabel Working Group north of Benson and residents in Picture Rocks northwest of Tucson.

Supporters of liquefied natural gas terminals have thrown a late snag into what has been an orderly process to create rules for developing multibillion-dollar energy corridors in Maine. LNG representatives want to extend the current moratorium on energy corridors and create a government commission to do more reviews. Their proposal was filed late last week with the special study group already debating policy for energy corridors.

Engineers say that if the power grid becomes more reliant on renewable energy, a lot of new transmission lines will have to be built at some point or there will be unhappy consequences. Mostly this problem has been predicted rather than experienced. But the future may have arrived last month.

This is a significant a approval in that it's the third agency to give the power company the go ahead, the okay. Opponents of the power link would suggest that this is not the end of the road. This is not the final approval, and some other things are needed. They will be challenging that along the way.

A power transmission line that could be the first in the United States to transport renewable energy might pass through Las Cruces and White Sands Missile Range, according to preliminary plans of the SunZia Transmission Project. A public scoping meeting was conducted Monday at Court Youth Center to provide interested residents with information about the project. Plans call for wind energy generated in east-central New Mexico, near Clovis, to be transported 460 to 560 miles to a substation in south-central Arizona.

Specifically, the Task Force on Wind Energy has been asked to consider reforming the state's eminent domain laws, but only as they pertain to electrical "collector" lines -- those lines needed to connect wind farms to major intrastate and interstate transmission lines. The challenge also forces lawmakers to delve into the complexities of interrupted viewsheds that are both public and private.

A $1.7 billion Southern California Edison renewable energy project under construction in three counties met with a legal challenge today from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The project is intended to create 250 miles of new and upgraded electrical transmission facilities and substations. The project will transmit electrical power from wind farms in Tehachapi.

But even in Texas - a state long accustomed to oil pipelines and other energy infrastructure - opposition to the transmission lines is mounting. Many landowners do not want to surrender their land to high-voltage power lines, even though they would be paid to do so. "The meters on the attorneys are running," said Robert Weatherford, the president of Save Our Scenic Hill Country Environment.

A Texas company planning a $3.5 billion transmission line project has applied to become a public utility in Oklahoma. The application by Plains and Eastern Clean Line Oklahoma, which is an affiliate of Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners, with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is only the second of its kind ever attempted, commission spokesman Matt Skinner said Friday.

Opposition to the construction of high-voltage transmission lines in Texas could result in a smaller-scale project than originally envisioned by state officials, State Sen. Kirk Watson told a crowd of local workforce leaders Wednesday at a conference on renewable energy and state politics. "Elected officials and regulators are working at scaling back and actually scrapping portions of the CREZ lines."

Sharyland Utilities, a unit of Hunt Consolidated, is one of the companies building a web of transmission lines to bring West Texas wind power to Dallas and other big cities. ...But Sharyland has proposed stringing one of the lines across the Palo Duro Canyon. ...Under three of five basic scenarios, the line would go from rim to rim of the second-largest canyon in the country. ...The Palo Duro Canyon power line is a dramatic example of the type of friction that accompanies the siting of many transmission lines. Other utilities building the wind lines face their own community concerns. PUC spokesman Terry Hadley said he expects most of the wind transmission lines to face opposition.

The state's Public Utility Commission, or PUC, approved the CREZ concept in 2008 in response to a directive from the Legislature in 2005. The plan calls for network of transmission lines to bring the wind power to cities in the Central and East Texas. ...Trouble is, between the windy plains and the cities demanding power lie many people who fear that their scenery will be despoiled.

"What we are trying to do is meet the regional's state's goals to provide a renewable energy source to New Hampshire and New England." But despite its worthy goals, the project has caused a furor in The North Country. ...Russ Johnson is a Columbia resident. "We the people of Northern New Hampshire don't want you. We don't want you defiling our landscape and our economy by forcing your way over our forests and mountains and homes and we will fight you every step of the way."

Wyoming is an ideal place to generate electricity from wind. But getting current from turbines to customers is a political and economic puzzle. How it plays out will have lessons for renewable-energy projects nationwide.

"Everyone has gotten so caught up in the ‘green is good' idea that they don't stop to think about the economics and the physics and the evidence. We're financing this with debt, which put the U.S. economy in the tank, and all the empirical evidence is against this producing enough energy to get us off fossil fuels," said Michael Delia, who owns a home near the Southeast Lighthouse.

Company officials announced Thursday ITCTransmission has received approval from the Midwest ISO for the Thumb Loop high-voltage electric transmission line project. The project will serve as the "backbone" of a transmission system designed to deliver wind power from Michigan's Thumb area to locations where it is needed.

Mr. Renzi said he would look into the effectiveness of a law that would ban transmission lines. Anne V. Dalton, spokeswoman for the Public Service Commission, said the organization complies with laws in existence. "We don't override laws. We follow them very strictly," she said.