"The Obama administration on Wednesday moved to speed up permitting and construction of seven proposed electric transmission lines in 12 states, saying the projects would create thousands of jobs and help modernize the nation's power grid."

"The projects are intended to serve as pilot demonstrations of streamlined federal permitting and improved cooperation among federal, state and tribal governments. The projects will provide more than 3,100 miles of new transmission lines in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

In all, the projects are expected to create more than 10,000 direct and indirect jobs, help avoid blackouts, restore power more quickly when outages occur and reduce the need for new power plants, officials said."

Matthew Daly reports for the Associated Press October 5, 2011. [2]