Data Centers Raise the Question: <i>Who</i> Does Transmission Planning?

This column focuses on prudence within the context of US electricity supply transmission planning. Prudence is one of the two fundamental pillars of US regulatory common law. An invention of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in the 1920s, prudence became the essential gateway through which investors committed capital to provide US public utility services. Practical and politically‐minded commissioners guard that gateway—judging in their state or federal jurisdictions what investments the public will support for safe, reliable, and economical public services.