The newest member of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said today at a Platts Energy Podium that a proposed rulemaking on electricity-transmission planning and cost allocation is likely to be one of the most important undertakings of FERC during her term.

"The nation has significantly underinvested in transmission," Cheryl LaFleur said at the Platts event in Washington. Moreover, there is a great need for the U.S. to ensure grid reliability and safety, to address how the costs of new lines will be allocated and to facilitate the environmental policy goals of the states and Obama administration. "Transmission is critical to all of those values."

With goals of expanding and modernizing the grid, as well as fixing deficiencies in an order on open-access transmission planning, FERC in June issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require regional and interregional planning and take steps to resolve the cost-allocation debate.

One of the biggest challenges will be moving regions to broader thinking on cost allocation, said LaFleur, who joined the commission in July. "We're thinking more broadly about beneficiaries," she said.

Although the proposed rule is a major undertaking, FERC took a measured approach to it and "didn't jump a quantum leap to some sort of nationwide cost allocation," she said.

In her first four months at the commission, LaFleur said she has made it a priority to travel and attend as many meetings as possible to learn about the issues and concerns of different regions.

"You hear a lot of the same issues around the country," she said. "Everyone is grappling with what ... the future energy supply [is] going to look like, what is the future grid going to look like, how we are going to pay for it."