By David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle

For several years, officials in California and states throughout the West discussed merging control of their electricity grids to create one vast, integrated power market that would span the entire region.

A unified grid, they reasoned, would be more efficient, keeping costs down. It could also help states more easily tap renewable power generated outside their borders.

 Then Donald Trump won the presidency.

Suddenly, California legislators started wondering whether combining grids could expose the state’s climate and energy policies to a new line of attack from a hostile administration. Interstate commerce, after all, falls squarely under federal control.

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