This may also help employment in areas like the construction industry, which has suffered disproportionately from the terrible employment situation.

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"In the long term, certainly anything that the federal government can do to expedite the creation and ... construction of power plants, of transmission lines will improve the situation, " said Tim Gallagher, NERC manager for technical services.

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This situation is reminiscent of the decision by Ronald Reagan in 1981 to eliminate construction subsidies for commercial shipbuilders because the aid was a market distortion.

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