OLYMPIA — Senate Democrats propose putting the state at the forefront of building and expanding electric transmission lines by creating an agency with the power to condemn private property and bypass the state’s fundamental environmental law.

Senate Bill 5466 would set up the Washington Electric Transmission Authority, overseen by a nine-member board picked by the governor and charged with assessing the grid and possibly financing and building new lines.

The unelected board would have the power to push through new transmission lines by eminent domain. Transmission upgrades would be exempt from the State Environmental Policy Act.

Washington’s transmission system is inadequate to move a growing amount of wind and solar energy, according to the measure. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Sharon Shewmake, D-Bellingham, said March 17 the state will lose out on new industries if the grid isn’t upgraded.

“I think that’s a shame, and I think somebody should do something about that, and that’s us, isn’t it,” she told the House Environment and Energy Committee.

SB 5466 passed the Senate this month on a 29-20 vote. No Republican supported it. “We’re asking the (state) government to solve a problem that we think industry and our federal government are already working on,” Sen. Matt Boehnke, R-Kennewick, said before the vote.

Washington’s energy strategy is to shut down coal- and natural gas-fired power plants and replace the electricity with wind and solar power, and batteries. The strategy requires transmitting a large amount of electricity from east-to-west over long distances.

Renewable energy advocates and union electrical workers support setting up a state agency to plan, build and then sell new transmission lines.

The Washington Public Utility Districts Association opposes the bill. Utilities are concerned the state authority will regulate them, policy director Nicolas Garcia said.

“It shouldn’t be able to dictate transmission costs to individual utilities, nor should it force utilities to build resources they don’t believe they need,” he said.

As proposed, utilities would not be represented on the authority’s nine-member board. They should be, Garcia said. Utility representatives would bring expertise and could warn the authority against starting projects that interfere with planning by utilities, he said.

Puget Sound Energy, an investor-owned utility, supports the bill. Under the measure, investor-owned utilities would be allowed to raise rates and increase return on investment as an incentive to upgrade transmission lines.

The provision will shift costs onto ratepayers, said Brandon Housekeeper, a lobbyist for the Alliance of Western Energy Consumers, an organization that represents large industrial electricity users.

Starting and running the authority would cost $4.4 million over the first two years and require hiring six new full-time state employees, according to a fiscal report. The proposal comes as the state faces an estimated $12 billion budget deficit.

The authority’s budget would include $700,000 to assess the grid.

Regional groups already assessing transmission in the West include the Bonneville Power Administration, Northwest Power Conservation Council, Western Electricity Coordinating Council and the Western Transmission Expansion Coalition.