A New Plan To Run You Over and Take Your Land

I've spent the past week hopelessly wading through 165 different comments on FERC's proposed transmission rulemaking (at least the media says there are 165, I haven't counted them).  Average size of the filings are probably around 50 pages, but it seems like the "clean energy now" folks are trying just a bit too hard by submitting filings hundreds of pages long that include additional coma-inducing appendix reports (of course these "reports" are all paid for by special interest $$).

Some commenters agree with us, and some don't.  But some are just downright offensive.  That's where we're going to concentrate right now because there's a big ball of steam building that needs to be released before I take a deep breath and calmly wade back in.

It's the special interests that claim to speak for landowners.  Who the heck are these people and where do they get off claiming to speak for people they have never met, never spoken to, or interacted with in any way?

We'll start off light with what I'm going to call the "Big Green" comments.  These were signed by the typical environmental advocacy industry sycophants (yes, it's an industry since it supports itself with grants from corporations that will financially benefit from the ideas pushed forward.)  Just to name a few:  Sierra Club, NRDC, EarthJustice, Conservation Law Foundation,  and Acadia Center.  These self-serving blowhards commented:

"...we believe that the Commission’s Office of Public Participation is well positioned to play a leading role in ensuring that stakeholder concerns are heard early and are meaningfully addressed, and to develop principles and guidelines that strike an appropriate balance between addressing stakeholder concerns while also ensuring that transmission can be built at a speed and scope commensurate with the need to rapidly expand the transmission system and decarbonize the grid within the next 15 years, consistent with the United States’ goal of reaching 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035.

So, let's boil this down.  A landowner is to be "meaningfully addressed" but ultimately dismissed because she's standing in the way of the environmental utopia?  What the heck is "meaningfully addressed?"  It means absolutely nothing.  They also think that landowners would "benefit" from earlier interaction with the transmission developer.  Seems to me that the longer this power struggle goes on, the more the landowner hates the transmission developer.  What may initially be a mild and overly polite granny can turn into Nannie Doss (go ahead, look it up, I'll wait) if you give it enough time.  Don't mess with old ladies... they're generally all out of shits to give.  Trust me on this.

Who are Big Green to tell FERC how we shall be "addressed"?  Moreover what makes them think this will be successful?  It won't.  Big Green doesn't know crap about opposition to transmission.  In fact, they've recently been showing up in state permitting proceedings as cheerleaders for more transmission.  Would any landowner in his right mind let The Sierra Club represent his interests in a transmission line siting case?

Think you're mad now?  Think again, because the Niskanen Center puts the Big Green blowhards to shame.  If you're a regular blog reader, you won't be surprised in the least to find out that Niskanen is pretending that it represents landowners affected by new transmission.  Niskanen has had ZERO interaction with any transmission opposition groups.  That's probably because, like Big Green, they are cheerleading for more transmission.  Also stuff like this:

In doing so, expanding the total land area required for electric generation (apart from transmission) by a factor of 13, with wind and solar taking up 590,000 square kilometers, an area roughly equal to the size of Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Tennessee put together.

That's right... if Niskanen was in charge (and maybe they are if they make the right political moves) Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Connecticut, Kentucky, Tennessee Taxachusetts and another minor state would be filled end to end, border to border, with wind and solar installations (and little else).  This is not workable, financially or otherwise.

But not knowing squat about transmission opposition doesn't stop Niskanen from being an expert at it.  Why, Niskanen devoted a whole half-day to a workshop discussing ways to build an equally astounding amount of new transmission in the shortest time possible.  Wow!  A whole half-day?  I've been doing this for 13 years now, and I still haven't learned everything, but I have learned a damn site more than Niskanen.  Niskanen's plan is completely pointless when it comes to landowners and will do nothing but create more layers of delay.  But don't let that stop them...

Here's one particularly annoying passage from their "report."

Community attitudes are shaped by perceptions of project impacts on land, culture, landscape, aesthetics, and wildlife; noise, health, and safety; and economic factors such as landowner compensation, employment, tax revenues, and property values.

What's missing from this urban-focused list?  Impacts and obstacles to farming, which is likely the biggest factor for rural landowners who use their land to make a living.  But, what can you expect from a band of burghers who probably think vegetables are manufactured in factories?

Here's another:

For some new projects, communities ask for financial assistance for a new fire station or library or park.

Not once in 13 years has any group I've worked with asked for any of these things.  Who are these communities?  And, even if they did, giving a library to a town in exchange for privately-held land owned by someone who lives nearby is not compensation.  The town doesn't own the land being sacrificed.  It has no skin in the game.  If you don't believe me, there's this bridge in Brooklyn that I will sell to you for $10...

There's more... lots more... infuriating comments that could only be made by someone with their head shoved so far up their own keister that the oxygen levels are getting low.

What else could explain how their prattle about Clean Line Energy Partners is in need of a serious fact check?  For example:

The Clean Line proposals traversed multiple states with some new rights-of-way

Some?  Try ALL, sweetcheeks.  ALL of Clean Line's rights of way were new.  That's one of the reasons opposition was so emphatic and widespread, but not the primary one.  Two words:  Eminent Domain.

How about this?

CleanLine Energy Partners participated in a public-private partnership with the U.S. DOE that provided financial support and federal siting authority through a provision in Section 1222 of the EPAct of 2005.  This partnership was revoked when the administration changed in 2016. Though this dissolution followed a series of setbacks for the project, the political risks of executive branch solutions are salient.

Financial support?  No.  The government wasn't giving Clean Line a dime.  It worked the other way... Clean Line was giving the DOE money for its "participation."  The partnership was REVOKED not because of the changing administration, but because CLEAN LINE COULDN'T FIND ANY CUSTOMERS and the partnership agreement required Clean Line to have sufficient customers to pay for the project before it could move forward.  Clean Line collapsed because it could not find any customers.  End of story.  Niskanen got the whole DOE thing wrong because it was not involved and has not talked to any landowners who were.

Which bring us to the conclusion... Niskanen does not speak for landowners affected by new transmission, and never will.  Shut up, and sit down, you bombastic blowhards.

Okay, I feel better now.  I'm going back in... if you don't hear from me for a while, toss me a rope.  I may have gotten lost in there.