The Energy Department pulled the project's $4.9 billion conditional commitment against the advice of its attorneys — and without career staff.

When the second Trump administration took office, LPO staff worried that a requirement to secure wind and solar contracts for a certain portion of the line’s capacity could prevent the loan from moving forward — particularly after the publication of an executive order that made it much harder to build wind power. Right up until the last few weeks, sources told Latitude Media, both the office and Invenergy were discussing how to bring the Grain Belt Express agreement more in line with the administration’s priorities, by expanding offtakers beyond wind power.

...LPO staff worried that a requirement to secure wind and solar contracts for a certain portion of the line’s capacity could prevent the loan from moving forward ...

Grain Belt Express has not proposed in its application, and we do not approve, selection or ranking criteria based upon the type of generation that a potential transmission customer might seek to interconnect.

Notably, the agreement didn’t require the federal government to shell out direct funds; instead, LPO agreed to act as a guarantor for the project, reducing risk for private lenders, but not making any payments itself unless the project failed.

To approve negotiated rates for a transmission project, the Commission must find that the rates are just and reasonable.  To do so, the Commission must determine that the merchant transmission owner has assumed the full market risk for the cost of constructing its proposed transmission project.

That decision, Latitude Media has learned, was made against the recommendation of career attorneys inside LPO, who advised the agency that rescinding the conditional commitment would constitute a breach of contract, and would be illegal. It was also made without the involvement of career staff who worked on the deal.

In the case of Grain Belt Express, DOE is asserting that the project isn’t going to meet certain milestones that are required to finalize the loan. 
But Grain Belt Express, which has already gone through two years of due diligence with LPO, still had a window of at least four months to reach financial close. Indeed, in the early months of this year, LPO career staff believed the project was moving in the right direction. 

...when Energy Secretary Chris Wright stepped in to order the cancellation of the loan guarantee in mid-July, DOE’s general counsel didn’t seem to look to offtake numbers for legal justification at all.

In the spring, the far-right Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri began to publicly take issue with the project and its impact on farmers...

The International Energy Agency estimates that nearly 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) of power lines will need to be added or replaced globally by 2040 in order to meet climate and clean energy goals

According to Rob Gramlich, president of the transmission and power markets-focused consultancy Grid Strategies, federal support could be particularly impactful for interregional transmission lines “where it’s hardest to find any other way to recover costs.” 
​
“It is very hard to find state regulators to approve cost recovery for a multi-state line like this,” Gramlich said. “I’ve always thought that DOE should have a big pot of money for interregional transmission, and that should be the main focus of DOE spending across all of its programs.”

NO EXPENDITURE OF AMOUNTS FOR GRAIN BELT EXPRESS LLC.
No funds appropriated under this Act or any other Act to the Department of Energy shall be made available for Grain Belt Express LLC.

Grain Belt Express LLC, (the Applicant), applied for federal financial assistance via a loan guarantee from the United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) (42 U.S. Code [U.S.C.] 16513), as amended. Section 1703 of Title XVII (the Clean Energy Financing Program) defines eligible projects as those that, “avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants or anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases [GHGs]; and employ new or significantly improved technologies as compared to commercial technologies in service in the United States at the time the guarantee is issued” (Public Law [P.L.] 109-58, Section 1703(a)).

For all these regulatory purposes, the legal lodestar is the regulatory statute. Most regulatory statutes tell regulators to act “in the public interest.” This command implies a statutory judgment—that absent regulation’s constraints and inducements, private behavior will diverge from the public interest; that whether the market structure is monopolistic or competitive, universal, reliable, safe utility service at reasonable rates won’t happen by itself. Effective regulation therefore aims to align private behavior with the public interest.  Regulation defines standards for performance, then assigns consequences, positive and negative, for that performance. The common purpose of all regulation is performance.

The White House on Monday said it was nominating Laura Swett, an energy attorney at Vinson & Elkins, to take the seat held by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Mark Christie.

Christie’s term expires June 30, although he can remain in his seat through this Congressional session, which typically ends around the end of the year.

The move to replace Christie appears to have been a surprise. “I learned this evening from a media inquiry that Pres. Trump has appointed Laura Swett to replace me when my term expires,” he said on social media. “I congratulate Laura and wish her the best.”

Christie said he would remain at FERC for a few weeks after June 30 to help get key orders out.

FERC's Mission: Assist consumers in obtaining reliable, safe, secure, and economically efficient energy services at a reasonable cost through appropriate regulatory and market means, and collaborative efforts.

Grain Belt Express provides open access delivery for all energy sources based on competitive contracts between electricity buyers and sellers. 

​The first paragraph of the Executive Summary states that in order to qualify for a loan, the
project must be eligible under Section 1703 of Title XVII (the Clean Energy Financing Program), which defines eligible projects as those that, “avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants or anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases [GHGs]; and employ new or significantly improved technologies as compared to commercial technologies in service in the United States at
the time the guarantee is issued” (Public Law [P.L.] 109-58, Section 1703(a)).
The DEIS makes this presumption: “The Project could also help reduce overall GHG emissions by allowing new renewable energy projects to access the electric grid, potentially leading to the replacement of existing fossil-fuel power plants, while providing additional power to expanding renewable energy markets.” (Table 3.1.1).
The DEIS further states that the No Action Alternative would not support attainment of the U.S. government’s established target to reduce GHG emissions by 50 to 52 percent from 2005 levels economy-wide by 2030 (The White House 2021). (Sec. 3.1.3).

“Kansans working to balance household budgets and run businesses want energy that’s affordable and reliable, and that’s what we are getting with Grain Belt Express, all without ratepayers being forced to pay for it,” said Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins.

“This announcement shows once again how much Missouri can contribute to big infrastructure projects like this transmission line, which will help bring energy savings and reliability to 39 municipal utilities across the state."

Leaders of the Maryland Technology Council, which organized the daylong session, had anticipated the ruckus. They briefed conference attendees on protocols and strategies for coping with the protesters and insisted that the proposed power line project is not directly connected to the Quantum Loophole data center campus, which is in the early stages of development in Frederick County.

While Quantum Loophole executives tried to talk to some of the protesters during the lunch hour, Rick Weldon, president of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce, later said some of the demonstrators at the community college Thursday didn’t have access to all the relevant information — and that some would be tough to persuade.

“Frankly, no matter what the subject, they’re going to hold up a sign and yell at you because they don’t want anything to change,” he said.

​The MPRP is a 500,000-volt (500 kV) transmission line designed to respond to growing electric needs in Maryland and the surrounding region. Transmission reliability is key to supporting Maryland’s energy future.

• Will PSEG want access to my property before I agree to grant an easement for the project?
  
• ​PSEG may request prior access to conduct preliminary work such as a survey, delineate wetlands and/or conduct an appraisal to determine the amount of land needed and the value of an easement. In that case, the land owner will be asked to sign a right of entry document allowing PSEG onto the property for only these limited purposes.