From today’s Washington Post: Power Companies’ Reach May Expand
The key issues:
1) Federal vs. state authority
2) Granting private for-profit power companies the “power” of eminent domain to condemn private property owned by others.
In general, the United *States* probably needs a more robust electrical grid, but the federal government is not the right agent to bring this about, and private firms should not be given eminent domain powers without strong local oversight. But a free market does not exist today in electric power distribution, so the situation is quite distorted already.