The Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation earlier this year that added new requirements for those eligible to vote. The legislation was passed this past spring but takes effect Jan. 1, 2012. Beginning with next year’s elections, potential voters will have to show government-issued photo identification if they choose to cast their ballots at the polls.

The photo ID law was implemented to safeguard elections against voter fraud. The new requirement will have little impact for most voters — at least those who are licensed drivers. As of Oct. 2, 4,341,325 Tennesseans age 18 and older had valid photo Ids issued by the Department of Safety and Homeland Security. There were 4,150,645 with valid photo driver licenses and 188,196 with valid state photo Ids issued by the department.

“It is very important to us that people understand this new requirement so they are not surprised when they get to the polls next year,” Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins said. Tennesseans who do not have a valid photo identification can get state-issued Ids, free of charge, at driver license offices around the state.

For those without photo identification, the law creates a need for proper identification. To ease the transition for Tennessee residents who need a photo ID, the Department of Safety and Homeland Security now opens 19 driver service centers on the first Saturday of each month for the purpose of issuing voter photo Ids only. The centers will be open during normal business hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. In addition, 30 county clerks’ offices across the state are converting, free of charge, nonphoto driver licenses to photo driver licenses for voters who need them.

Driver service centers will be open on the first Saturday of each month in the following counties: Davidson (Centennial Boulevard and Hart Lane), Hamilton (both locations), Knox (both locations), Shelby (East Shelby Drive and Summer Avenue), Sullivan, Sumner, Rutherford, Washington, Williamson, Montgomery, Blount, Bradley, Putnam, Greene and Carter.

“In the last several weeks, we have seen a significant increase in the number of voters obtaining photo Ids from the department,” Commissioner Bill Gibbons said. “I urge any voter who needs a photo ID to obtain one without charge from the department.”

If you vote by absentee ballot, you will not be required to have a photo ID. The law also allows people who forget to bring photo Ids to the polls to cast a provisional ballot. These voters will have two business days after the election to provide their county election officials with proof of identity. (For the full requirements of what qualifies and what doesn’t, see the notice on the following page.)

It’s important to vote in every election — whether you’re electing a school board member or the president of the United States. That’s a right and a civic duty that you do not want to lose. So, if you plan on voting in upcoming local, state and national elections, you’ll have to consider the new laws. To learn more, contact your local county election commission or visit the state of Tennessee’s website at tn.gov.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2012, in order to vote during the early-voting period or on election day, voters must present a state or federal ID containing the voter’s name and photograph.

What photo Ids are acceptable?

• Tennessee driver license with your photo — even if expired;
• United States passport — even if expired;
• Department of Safety photo ID — even if expired;
• Photo ID issued by the federal or state government — even if expired;
• United States military photo ID, including a Veteran Identification Card — even if expired;
• State-issued handgun carry permit card with your photo — even if expired.

What photo Ids are NOT acceptable?

• A college student photo ID
• A photo ID not issued by the federal or state government such as your discount club or bank card with your photo

What if I have a photo ID but I forget to bring it to vote?

• You will be allowed to vote a provisional ballot, which is a paper ballot, at your polling location; and
• Within two business days after the election, you must bring your valid photo ID to your local county election commission office for the election officials to make a copy of the ID.

Who does not have to show a photo ID?

• Voters who vote absentee by mail;
• Voters who live in licensed nursing homes or assisted living centers and vote at the facilities;
• Voters who are hospitalized;
• Voters who have a religious objection to being photographed;
• Voters who are indigent and unable to obtain photo Ids without paying a fee.

Need additional information or assistance or have suggestions? Contact:

• Disability Law & Advocacy Center of Tennessee at 800-342-1660
• Tennessee Disability Coalition at 888-643-7811
• Secretary of State Division of Elections at 877-850-4959

What if I have a disability and do not have an acceptable photo ID?

• Any person with a disability, physical or mental, that substantially limits one or more life activities who does not have a Tennessee driver license can obtain a free photo ID from one of the Department of Safety Driver License Testing Centers.
• To obtain this free photo ID, you must bring a letter from your physician verifying your disability and a document that verifies your identity.

What if my polling place is not accessible?

• You can vote during the early voting period at the county election commission office (photo ID required); or
• You can file an affidavit with the county election commission office stating that your polling location is not accessible and you wish to vote at the county election commission office on election day. The affidavit must be filed at least 10 days before election day (photo ID required); or
• You can request an absentee ballot.

What if I am indigent and cannot get a photo ID without paying a fee?

• When asked for your photo ID at your polling place, tell the election worker of your situation.
• You will complete and sign an affidavit, under the penalty of perjury, stating you are indigent and cannot get a photo ID without paying a fee — for example, if you can’t pay for a birth certificate for proof of citizenship.
• You will then vote on the voting machine. Every polling place has an accessible voting machine. If you need assistance, ask any election official.

What if I need assistance when voting?

You have a right to have anyone of your choice assist you during the voting process, except a candidate or poll watcher. If you need assistance, ask any election official for assistance during the voting process, and assistance will be given in a bipartisan manner.

Every Vote Counts

Almost three years ago, I wrote about the Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America Plan. During the 2008 presidential campaign, the candidates said their plan would “help create 5 million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next 10 years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future”

As of early September 2011, at least 1,100 of those new jobs aren’t there, nor is the $535 million that helped fund them. Solyndra LLC, which manufactured solar systems for commercial rooftops, suspended operations and filed for bankruptcy that month.

Next stop? Congressional hearings.

Without addressing any alleged improprieties surrounding the Department of Energy funding process, it’s obvious that the Solyndra loan was a bust to the federal government and private investors. Despite that failure, investing in renewable energy sources and creating new jobs still make sense, even though one congressman went as far to state that Solyndra’s downfall proves “that green energy isn’t going to be the solution.”

He’s partly correct — there is no “one” solution to our energy challenges. America’s cooperatives have long stated that there is no silver bullet that will magically solve all of our energy problems. That’s why we work hard to educate our members on ways to cut their energy consumption. But given growth in energy use and the relentless pressure to abandon coal as an energy source, utilities are forced to walk a fine line between investing in cleaner generation for the future while continuing to provide reliable and affordable generation for the here and now.

If our nation and our industry are to move forward, continued investments in research and development in energy sources are a necessity, despite the Solyndra debacle. According to the Washington Post, “The Energy Department’s loan-guarantee program, enacted in 2005 with bipartisan support, has backed nearly $38 billion in loans for 40 projects around the country. Solyndra represents just 1.3 percent of that portfolio — and, as yet, it’s the only loan that has soured … just a small fraction of loan guarantees go toward solar. The program’s biggest bet to date is an $8.33 billion loan guarantee for a nuclear plant down in Georgia.”

The Tennessee Valley Authority and electric cooperatives across the nation continue to be leaders in pursuing cost-effective renewable and low-emission energy strategies for their members. Building on the theme of multiple solutions, TVA has contracts in place that provide a large portfolio of wind power, solar generating facilities and methane throughout the Valley. As of July 2011, TVA’s owned and purchased renewable energy capacity was nearly 4,800 megawatts, including hydro, with commitments to add nearly 1,300 megawatts of combined wind, solar, landfill, methane and biomass.

TVA also continues to build and renovate its nuclear fleet. All of those generating sources emit far less carbon emissions than coal-fired generation.

What do all of those energy sources have in common? They’re all powered by the same source — funding, and lots of it. The electric utility industry is very capital-intensive, which is a very proper way of saying that it takes a tremendous amount of money to research, develop and build electric-generating units (even more so if those sources involve new or complex technologies).

However, investments in the future can’t be made at the risk of bankrupting the present. No matter what entity funds the investment in new technologies, the increased spending eventually works down to your electric bill or your tax bill.

As the Solyndra saga continues to unfold, let’s hope “the baby doesn’t get thrown out with the bathwater.” Government-guaranteed loans are a way to allow the government to outsource research and development costs. Properly evaluated, loan guarantees can speed development of carbon-sequestration technologies, nuclear generation and wind or other renewable generation. Each can play a role in our energy future — which we hope is an affordable energy future.

There are several misconceptions on what a “smart grid” is and the extent of its capabilities. One of the most troubling within our industry is the idea that our current grid is not already fairly intelligent in the way it operates. New technologies that are being deployed will greatly enhance the abilities of our current electric distribution network. But our existing network in the Tennessee Valley is reliable, durable and monitored around the clock by both man and machine. In particular, the high-voltage electric transmission system operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority is extremely reliable.

TVA balances generation and delivery and deals with challenges of weather extremes and unexpected emergencies. Add to those challenges maintaining interconnections with 13 neighboring utilities, providing power to a number of large, directly served customers and keeping 15,900 miles of transmission lines in service.

How good of a job does TVA do? Every year since 2000, it has achieved a transmission reliability rating of 99.999 percent. Just as your co-op’s goal is make sure that your lights come on when you flip the switch, TVA operates the transmission system with one goal: providing a stable power supply to the 155 distributors throughout the Valley.

Residents of southern California would certainly like to have our level of reliability. During the second week of September, a cascading failure in the independently operated transmission grid caused power outages that affected, by some estimates, 6 million people.

The culprit? A transmission path called the Southwest Power Link. The Wall Street Journal reports:

“Something happened at approximately 3:30 p.m. Pacific time to cut off the flow of power through the North Gila substation, triggering the disturbance. ‘It looks like operator error caused a short-circuit on a heavily loaded line,’ said Michael Niggli, president of San Diego Gas & Electric.

“A spokesman for Arizona Public Service said it is premature to pin blame on workers, saying it still wasn’t clear exactly what happened. But in a news release Thursday, the utility said the outage ‘appears to be related to a procedure an APS employee was carrying out at the North Gila substation.’”

We depend, rightly so, on hardware and software that make millions of decisions per second. Equipment is constantly checking and rechecking for problems that arise on the power grid.

What is too often overlooked in the smart grid conversation is the role played by the most technically complex component found at all utilities — humans

Skilled workers monitor the generation and flow of every kilowatt-hour that travels through the TVA transmission grid. The control center is in a protected, secure location and staffed 24 hours per day. A backup center is also available should some catastrophe occur. Many of Tennessee’s larger cooperatives have similar types of centers for their distribution systems.

TVA’s transmission crews and operators demonstrated their abilities by returning power to most areas within seven days following that destructive April outbreak of tornadoes across the Southeast. The storms caused unprecedented damage to the transmission system that delivers power to your local distributor’s substations.

“Immediately following the tornadoes we identified the lines that could be fixed quickly and restored power to customers using these lines,” said Rob Manning, TVA executive vice president of power system operations. “In a week’s time, 95 percent of the affected customer connection points were reconnected, yet only about a quarter of the structures were repaired. After a month, 102 lines were back in service.”

In the next month and a half, TVA’s employees and contractors continued the work, rebuilding 108 transmission lines and 375 steel structures, using 235 miles of wire and 1.4 million pounds of steel. What nature tore down overnight had taken literally years to build. Putting it back up took 74 days.

While we can’t say that what happened in California could never happen here, we’re confident in the technology and equipment, human and mechanical, that run the transmission and distribution network in the Tennessee Valley — a partnership of TVA and your local cooperative.

A slogan used by the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives probably says it best: “Our Power is our People.”

I’ve mentioned before that cooperative employees take pride in their daily work of providing service to our members. They also take great pride in providing emergency assistance — in their hometowns or several states away.

The Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association helps our member co-ops coordinate disaster assistance both within the state and with cooperatives in other states. We regularly meet with representatives from other regions to develop plans on coping with disasters. We recently held a meeting where we reviewed the past year’s ice storms, tornadoes and floods.

Though we can’t predict when and where the next disaster will occur, we can ensure that we have accurate information on whom to contact in each state so we know what equipment is needed (or available) and which states are helping each other.

Over the years, great progress has been made in effectively dealing with disaster situations. One colleague from Oklahoma has developed a sophisticated index that helps predict where ice accumulations may occur and the severity of each. That index was created with the assistance of the National Weather Service and is used by several NWS locations in their forecasts. We use it in Tennessee to warn systems of impending danger. We can’t prevent the icing from occurring, but we can be better prepared for it.

Another cooperative in Louisiana is developing a program for scheduling and tracking line crews that may be traveling hundreds of miles to assist fellow co-ops. The database will help co-ops facing disasters know what crews and equipment are coming to assist them. Co-ops providing the assistance will know when their crews have safely arrived. Though restoring power following a disaster is the focal point of the effort, each event creates a mountain of paperwork. The Louisiana system, when fully implemented, will be invaluable in providing timely, accurate records, which are ultimately reviewed by federal entities that may reimburse much of the costs.

Both of those endeavors have originated from electric cooperatives because of a desire to meet the needs of the members — as safely, as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible. None of the individuals involved in the projects has any intention of selling the work to the highest bidder, even though both projects could be quite valuable within the electric utility industry. Instead, the only goal is to create a tool that will improve our disaster assistance to our co-op neighbors.

We never have difficulty in getting volunteers from Tennessee to help other states — we’ve earned our “Volunteer State” nickname many times. This past year, we gave and were on the receiving end of emergency assistance: Crews from North Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky and Alabama assisted co-ops in Tennessee; our crews, in turn, helped co-ops in hard-hit Alabama.

This past year, Alabama was easily the hardest-hit. By some counts, 67 tornadoes crisscrossed the state, destroying lines, poles, substations and, more importantly, churches, schools, hospitals and homes. The devastation was simply unbelievable in many areas. Families must cope with the loss of nearly 250 loved ones from the April storms.

Sharing experiences with other cooperatives is important because no two disaster-recovery efforts are the same. To be as prepared as we can to meet restoration challenges, our planning must continually evolve as we face new challenges.

April’s storms brought a new aspect to disaster assistance with which we do not often deal. A co-op colleague from Alabama told our emergency group that it was the first time that linemen, on site to repair lines, encountered the bodies of those killed by the storms. Even for workers who daily face danger, these men were shaken by the scope of the disaster. Men who work around high voltage that could easily injure or kill them were moved to tears.

My colleague said he “could see in their eyes” the emotional toll the tragedy took on the linemen. His concern was not only for those impacted directly by the storm but a fear that an emotionally upset worker could have a momentary lapse during work and suffer a severe injury. Many had to take time to regroup before they went back to the task at hand.

The crews completed their work safely — and in record time. Crews that went to Alabama will forever remember the devastation they witnessed. And their experiences will help them the next time they volunteer to help cooperatives in need.

For most of us, nothing is more beautiful than a towering mountain vista, a scenic green valley or uninterrupted acres of farmland. As we drive across our state, it’s easy to let our minds wander as we admire nature’s handiwork.

For others, however, what constitutes beauty is decidedly different. If you ever take a ride with an engineer or lineman from an electric cooperative, you’ll discover that fact. Often, they are more apt to admire the wires, poles and substations as these are the major elements of their working “landscape.” Sounds far-fetched, but it happens.

We frequently joke about the engineers who design our electric systems and the operating personnel who run them. (For example, how do you tell an introvert engineer from an extrovert engineer? It’s easy: The introvert engineer stares at his shoes; the extrovert stares at your shoes.) However, there really should be a sense of awe involved when you consider the feat of taking 161,000 volts of electricity and safely bringing it to your house in a voltage that can power your bedside clock.

The next time you drive down the road, take a look at the expanse of electric wires running alongside. Before even one span of wire is strung, it takes a coordinated effort from a lot of people. System engineers have to determine the need for the line and the voltage required. Staking technicians have to determine the best route and design for the line. Linemen then do the dirty work of putting the poles into the ground and hoisting the wires safely into the air.

While those are the most visible of the co-op staff that you may never see, there are more people even farther behind the scenes: the purchasing agents who buy the correct equipment, the warehousemen who load the supplies, the office personnel who do the paperwork and the supervisors who coordinate the process.

Many others play critical roles every day, too, in building and maintaining the electric system around you. While the work they do isn’t very sexy, it is vital in ensuring that the lights come on every time you flip that switch.

Technologies in our industry are constantly changing and present another challenge in maintaining your electric service. Co-op managers have to evaluate which of these new technologies will improve your service, yet be cost-effective in an industry where 75 percent (or more) of our costs goes to purchasing wholesale electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Just as technologies are always changing, our employees must also adapt. To keep their skills sharp, continuing education is a must for co-op personnel. Some is handled in-house and at monthly safety meetings. Other educational opportunities involve more intense training due to the complex nature of the work.

At a recent conference, engineers, linemen and other workers from Tennessee and Kentucky met to gain more knowledge and insight on some of the challenges facing their electric distribution systems. Topics ranged from “Amorphous Core Transformers” to a discussion of wood poles — sessions that would put anyone but industry professionals to sleep in a hurry. Other topics covered the latest technology in LED lighting, mobile computing and substation security.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of personnel from various co-ops coming together is the sharing of problems and solutions. For example, one engineer told how his co-op had a rash of blinks and outages due to wildlife causing shorts on certain pole-mounted fixtures, new equipment that wasn’t damaged and hadn’t malfunctioned. The solution? A quarter turn in the base of the device took away the perch for a bird. It was a simple solution for a frustrating problem — for the engineer and member alike. Because of his sharing of that information, co-op members across the states could benefit from the exchange of information.

Whether the discussion involved investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in communications equipment or the no-cost turn of a screw, every aspect of the meeting focused on one issue: keeping the lights on. While not perfect — heat waves and summer storms take their toll — our electric cooperatives do a remarkable job of supplying our members with electricity. So much so that they make a difficult job look easy.

Our employees take pride every day in providing service to our members, both in the daily work and the never-ending honing of their skills. The next time you take that drive to admire the scenery, take another look at the poles and wires. Try not to think of them as an eyesore. Think of them as the end result of someone’s hard work.

The electric power industry and the bulk power system reliability watchdog are capable of responding to “the overwhelming majority of identified threats” to the system, a National Rural Electric Cooperative Association representative testified on Capitol Hill.

The self-regulatory model recognizes expertise throughout the industry and is the best means of maintaining a strong, reliable bulk power system, said Barry Lawson, NRECA associate director for power delivery and reliability.

Lawson spoke at a May 31 hearing by the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power examining draft legislation to protect the grid from physical and cyber threats and vulnerabilities. The bill, the Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense Act (GRID Act), is identical to a measure approved last year by the House.

The legislation seeks to protect the bulk power system and defense critical electric infrastructure from cyber attacks, direct physical attacks, man-made electromagnetic pulses and geomagnetic storms. Despite the industry’s readiness to respond to most identified threats, its lack of classified intelligence may make it less able to respond as quickly as needed to some “imminent and severe” challenges, Lawson acknowledged.

“In those limited circumstances, it is appropriate to provide a regulatory backstop,” he said.

That backstop — federal emergency authority — would extend until the threat subsides or the watchdog North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) could adequately address the threat through standards and/or alerts, Lawson said.

However, he added, the draft GRID Act creates new authority regarding vulnerabilities for FERC that would largely duplicate NERC’s existing authority, potentially undermining the existing reliability standards regime.

Lawson encouraged the House subcommittee to focus on immediate issues. One is the need for the federal government to issue emergency orders very quickly if the bulk power system is under threat of imminent cyberattack. The other is the need for the electric power industry to receive timely and actionable information from the federal government to facilitate responses to such threats.

The House panel also heard from a range of other witnesses. Joseph McClelland, director of FERC’s Office of Electric Reliability, said the agency’s current authority is not adequate to address cyberthreats or other national security threats to the grid. The legislation “would go a long way to resolving this issue,” he added.

Patricia Hoffman, Department of Energy assistant secretary for electricity delivery and energy reliability, testified that “it is important to have a comprehensive government-wide strategy for cybersecurity legislation.” The White House recently proposed a comprehensive cyber bill; it isn’t yet moving on the Hill.

Meanwhile, NERC President and CEO Gerry Cauley told lawmakers that the grid watchdog “has many tools available” to address threats and vulnerabilities in a timely and effective fashion. “These existing processes should be enhanced, not pre-empted, by cybersecurity grid legislation,” he said.

Some jobs are inherently more dangerous than others. Sitting at a desk is generally less dangerous than being a fireman or police officer, for example. One such extremely highrisk profession is that of electric utility lineworkers. Picture an office space that routinely involves working with electric lines placed high above the ground — often those lines have high voltage running through them. To avoid injury or death, you’ve got to pay full attention to the work at hand.

A few months ago, the host of Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” travelled to Wyoming to work with linemen at the local electric cooperative — Carbon Power and Light. Mike Rowe joined five linemen to remove an electric distribution line from a damaged wooden pole, erect a new metal pole and then install the line on the new pole.

While working with the crew high on the Wyoming mountainside, Rowe learned how to correctly test his safety equipment then climbed the pole and tested the line to ensure it was de-energized. While not as “dirty” as some of the other jobs he has done, it was tough and exhausting work.

Electric cooperative lineworkers across Tennessee perform that type of work every day, in all kinds of weather. Lineworkers do everything within their control to make each day injury-free. Crews engage in “tailgate discussions” at the worksite to ensure everyone knows what work is to be done and each worker’s responsibilities. Lineworkers also wear a variety of personal equipment that protects them should they encounter a malfunction or accident.

No matter how careful the practices of individual workers and crews, some things are outside of their control. Often a lineworker’s workplace is the side of a busy roadway, not on a remote hillside in Wyoming. That makes an already dangerous job even more hazardous.

When Gov. Bill Haslam signed Public Chapter 40 into law on April 5, that workspace got quite a bit safer.

Tennessee’s “move-over” law had already created a safety zone to protect police, firefighters and other emergency personnel. This revision expands the existing law by adding utility service equipment to the list of vehicles for which — when they’re properly marked and parked on the side of the road — motorists are required to either slow down or move over. Tennessee’s law also already covers highway maintenance vehicles and stationary recovery vehicles (wreckers).

Tennessee worked with two seasoned and well-respected legislators to craft the law. Senate Bill 1497 was introduced by Sen. Steve Southerland of Morristown, and the companion bill, House Bill 1654, was introduced by Rep. Phillip Johnson of Pegram. The bills passed both houses of the State Legislature by overwhelming margins.

The revised law becomes effective on July 1.

The idea of introducing this new law was discussed by electric cooperative leaders last year after North Carolina passed an expansion of its move-over law following the tragic death of a Duke Energy employee. Tennessee has been fortunate in never having a traffic-related lineworker fatality. However, there have been close calls in which permanent injuries have been sustained.

During discussion on the bill, one legislator mentioned that having motorists move over could actually cause an accident. While it’s possible that inattentive or reckless drivers could cause a mishap, an accident involving a vehicle and pedestrian is usually far more tragic.

The Tennessee Department of Safety reports that “each year, more than 100 highway and street construction workers die because of vehicle crashes or equipment accidents on the job. Another 20,000 are injured in those incidents.” Roadway crashes are the leading cause of occupational fatalities in the U. S.

Electric co-op vehicles aren’t the only utility vehicles covered by the change. So are all other utility service vehicles, including those used by municipal electric systems, telephone cooperatives or utility districts. All utilities are included with the revised law: electricity, natural gas, water, wastewater and telephone services.

To warrant move-overs by motorists, utility service vehicles must be stationary and giving a signal by the use of flashing lights. Specifically, drivers must yield the right-of-way by making a lane change into a lane not adjacent to the utility vehicle if on a four-lane highway with two lanes proceeding in the same direction as the approaching vehicle. If changing lanes would be impossible or unsafe, drivers are to proceed with due caution, reducing and maintaining a safe speed for road conditions.

The inconvenience of slowing down a bit is a small price to pay if it makes the difference in ensuring that a worker goes home safely after the end of a hard day at work.

For complete information on the change, go to www.moveovertennessee.com. For up-to-the-minute updates and other breaking utility news, follow us on Twitter at twitter.Com/TNELECTRIC.