A coalition of Illinois landowners and Farm Bureau made good this week on their threat to appeal a recent FERC decision approving "continued" negotiated rate authority for the Grain Belt Express.

A couple months ago, FERC made an incomprehensible decision to rubber stamp GBE's request for "continued" negotiated rate authority, and then ignored the Illinois group's request for rehearing simply because it ran out of time.  In my opinion, FERC will find itself between a rock and a hard place trying to explain how its decision was logical to the court.  There's still time for FERC to change its mind and bolster its contradictory order, but that window is closing fast.

Perhaps FERC didn't think that the Illinois group would actually file an appeal.  Basing the legal durability of its decisions on whether or not FERC thinks the appellant has enough money and skills to file an appeal (and therefore making bad decisions that affect parties without means) doesn't always work out so swell.  Sometimes those parties  win the stare down contest and FERC ends up trying to defend the defenseless before some judges.  I might actually feel sorry for the FERC attorney who gets handed this dud, if it didn't cost so much time and money for the appeal to be filed.

​Here's what the Illinois group filed.

What happens next?  The Court will assign a procedural schedule that allows for initial and reply briefs, and may set the case for oral argument before the Court.

Stay tuned!

Bravo to the Illinois group for questioning what FERC wrote in its Order and filing an appeal!

Thousands of citizens across the country gave the U.S. DOE their thoughts and opinions about the potential designation of multiple National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs) across the country this week.  And it seems like nobody thought it was a good idea, except a handful of clueless congress critters playing politics.  I'm going to bet they didn't ask any of their constituents who would be impacted by NIETCs what they thought about it, and they suck up to the political teat at their own peril at the ballot box.

​This is probably my favorite line from all the comments I managed to read before they got sucked down into DOE's black hole.  This comment comes from the Inskeep family in Kansas.

Congress, the U.S Department of Energy, and the DC political machine never considered the thousands of people impacted by their desire to turn rural America into energy slaves for their glistening cities, nor put it into the context of how it will be remembered by the history books.

The midwestern state farm bureaus submitted excellent comments, and the Missouri Farm Bureau wrote this opinion piece.

These are the Missouri Farm Bureau's comments.

And these comments came from the Illinois Farm Bureau and a collection of impacted landowners in that state.

Further east, I submitted these comments on the designation of multiple NIETC segments in West Virginia for the purpose of shipping coal-fired power to Virginia's "data center alley" via new high-voltage extension cords.

Read the whole thing here:

A citizen asked DOE where they could read all the comments that were submitted.  DOE's response was

This is not a transparent process.  DOE is most likely up to no good, but how can we know for sure when the public is shut out of a process that could take their land and destroy their economic well-being?  What happened to "transparency" and "public participation"?  It's out the window.

Nevertheless, you inserted yourself into a process where you were not welcome.  It's the only thing you can do when your government is holed up with special interests and planning to take what's yours.  The legal challenges will come later.  Thank you to everyone who participated!

What's next?  The DOE plans to issue its decision this fall with "draft" designation reports.  You'll be allowed to comment on these reports, but DOE will have already made its decision and you'll be in the position of trying to change their mind.  Where has democracy gone?

For each corridor that receives a draft designation, the DOE will have to undertake an Environmental Impact Study, which is a multi-year process where they are required to involve the public.  But we already know what DOE thinks of public comment, right?  They have made that plain.  They are in a real big hurry to railroad this process forward before the election in November.  Don't forget to vote!

Well, here's another particularly noxious transmission project weed!  The so-called "Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project" or MPRP.  This industry loves its acronyms!

In 2023, regional grid manager PJM Interconnection devised a suite of new electric transmission projects designed to import new electricity supplies to new data centers in Northern Virginia, and for Frederick County's new Quantum Loophole project.  Data centers use so much electricity, it's equivalent to large cities sprouting up overnight in previously rural places.  New cities need new power supplies, especially because Maryland has been closing all its baseload power plants that run on fossil fuels.  Before Maryland's recent plant closures under their "clean energy" plan, the state was importing 40% of the energy it used.  Now, it needs even more imports!  We're heading toward more than 50% of Maryland's electricity being imported from neighboring states via new high-voltage transmission lines.  The only two states in the PJM region that generate more electricity than they use and can export to Maryland are West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  The MPRP is importing electricity from southeastern Pennsylvania.  Other new transmission projects are exporting electricity from West Virginia's coal-fired plants to Loudoun County's "Data Center Alley.  It's nothing more than a series of enormous electric extension cords for data centers.  In PJM's planning process, it looked like this:

Frederick County was sleeping the sleep of the uninformed throughout the planning and approval process at PJM.  And now it has manifested.

The project was assigned by PJM to New Jersey utility Public Service Enterprise Group.  Why them?  PJM put its new project requirements out for bid, and PSEG submitted the best project for PJM's needs.  PSEG also offered a certain price for the project.  There's more to this, but let's stop there for now.  Since PJM approved this project and assigned it to PSEG last December, PSEG has been busy devising a route for the project, and now they have finished and want to share it with the public.

PSEG will be holding public "open house" meetings across the project area early next month.  See website for details.  The "meeting" is hardly an actual meeting though.  It's a series of information stations the public is supposed to file through, and you may be handed a card to fill out with your thoughts at the end of the meeting.  Each little station will be populated with PSEG representatives, and you can ask them questions.  But there is no formal presentation or Q&A session where everyone can hear each question and answer.  Go ahead... ask different representatives the exact same question and get wildly different answers.  This is why utilities hold these kinds of meetings.  They will tell you what they think you want to hear, and not be held accountable for any of it.  The main purpose of the "meeting" is to introduce preliminary route maps to the impacted community and receive feedback that could help guide the final route that PSEG files for approval of the Maryland Public Service Commission.

This preliminary route map is floating around social media.

Not a lot of detail, but it's a damn sight better than PJM's initial map as far as determining where they expect this project to go.  At the open house meeting next month, PSEG will have the detailed aerial maps that you want to see.  The maps may present numerous short route segments that can be pieced together to create a route.  They may ask what you think of them.  Most people will reject routes that impact them, and may be tempted to champion routes that do not.  But, throwing your neighbor under the bus to save yourself is never a good strategy.  The community must come together to oppose ANY of these routes.  If data centers need new electricity supplies, they need to build new power generators near the data centers, instead of plowing through communities that won't receive any benefit.  

The MPRP will likely need new rights-of-way 150-200 feet wide for its 500kV transmission line.  The company will ask landowners to sign easements for a one-time "fair market value" payment for just the land in the easement.  This gives PSEG the right to use your land, but you will still own it and pay taxes on it.  The easement payments are compensation for land you can no longer use, they are not a windfall or profit.

The MPRP website is chock full of propaganda and small bits of information that impacted landowners need to really investigate.  For instance, the website says:

They don't tell you that the project is only necessary because of enormous new data center load.  If we didn't build the data centers, or if we built new electric generation near the data centers, this transmission line would not be necessary.   It's not for you, it's for data centers.  This project also has NOTHING to do with clean energy.  It will actually increase carbon emissions in neighboring states that will have to produce more power using fossil fuels in order to import it to new data centers in Maryland and Virginia.

​Here's another:

State law allows utilities to access property for limited survey purposes before easements are signed.  However, PSEG wants landowners to sign a document permitting all sorts of surveying and testing, including things that may harm your property, like core drilling.  Think twice about signing this document and giving PSEG unfettered access to do whatever it wants on your property before they have paid you a dime.  Maryland law already gives them access for surveying that doesn't harm your property.  You don't need to sign any document or give them further permissions.

I also didn't notice the words "eminent domain" on MPRP's website, but that's exactly how they intend to acquire land from unwilling landowners.  Easement offers are nothing more than coercion... sign and take the money... or else.  When there's no opportunity to say no, it's not voluntary land acquisition.

PSEG's website, its open house meetings, and its permission forms and easement agreements are written in the company's best interest, not yours!

The best use of PSEG's open house meeting will be the opportunity it gives you to meet new folks who are similarly affected by this project and to exchange contact information and hold further meetings among yourselves to share information of interest to landowners who want to defend themselves against this transmission project.  PSEG is not from here, it doesn't know your community, and at the end of the day it doesn't care what happens to it.  They can't see it from their house in New Jersey!

It's time to circle the wagons, Frederick County!  Later this year, PSEG may file an application with the Maryland Public Service Commission.  When that happens, you have the right to intervene and become a party to the case that can submit testimony and cross-examine utility witnesses with the goal of convincing the MPSC to deny a permit for this project.  There will also be public hearings held by MPSC where you can speak out against it.

Meanwhile, get engaged and stay current on project news.  Talk to your neighbors and others in the community who may be impacted.  Make a plan. Maybe I'll see you at the open house...

Lots of new transmission projects in the PJM region due to PJM's Window 3 that needs to import electricity into Baltimore and Northern Virginia due to the closing of the Brandon Shores and Wagner coal-fired power plants, and the building of new data centers in Northern Virginia and Frederick County, Maryland.  They have been in the works for over a year, but are just now being rolled out to the public, and they are sprouting like weeds!

Do you think that the utilities could respect the impacted communities and just tell them the truth without varnish and propaganda?  Do they think we're all idiots who can be easily led to love our own destruction?

Introducing.... "Good Energy At Work" on BGE's "Good Energy In Progress" website.  Couldn't the PR team agree on what the "good energy" was doing?  Branding fail!!!

What kind of corporate hubris compels BGE to believe it can avoid all community opposition with such a simple branding effort?

What is "good energy?"  And furthermore, what is "bad energy," and how shall we make a comparison?  Good vs. bad... the sheeple will pick "good" every time, right?  Except it's just too damned simple, unlike the community that will be impacted.  It's supposed to make you love these transmission projects without digging any further than knowing that they are "good" because the utility tells you so.  Sorry, BGE, when the impacts from these projects begin to happen in the impacted communities, the people will feel like they've been lied to.  What's good about transmission construction?  It's a major project that will severely impact all abutters to the existing easements.  Construction noise, workers coming and going to (and within) the easement.  Large equipment being brought in, and trampling everything in its path.  Helicopters and cranes.  Whup, whup, whup, beep, beep, beep, *kablam* (if explosive splicing is employed).  Is such a simple word as "good" going to blot all that out?

Bad energy must be the existing transmission system that the community has grown used to and spends little energy contemplating.  Bad energy is using electricity from a local coal-fired power plant.

So, good energy must be community impacts from new transmission meant to supply electricity from another source.  What source is that?  It's not being produced in Maryland.  It's coming from Pennsylvania's fleet of gas, coal and nuclear power plants.

How is dirty energy produced in Maryland bad, when dirty energy produced in Pennsylvania and imported to Maryland over expensive and invasive new transmission lines is good?  That's right, your new "good energy" is going to cost you more, and it's no cleaner than the electricity you were using before.

Good?  I suppose it's all in the propaganda used to lead the sheep to believe these new transmission projects are somehow "good" for them.  It probably won't work.

It is so simple, it's insulting.  They're treating the impacted communities like toddlers.  But it's not like it's the first time a transmission company tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the impacted community with silly branding slogans.  Not too long ago, a transmission company in the Midwest tried something similar with the branding slogan "Positive Energy."  It failed, in a hilarious way.  This one will, too.

I wonder how much ratepayer money was tossed to a PR company to come up with such a silly proposal?  And what's next in the "good" department?

Academics who have never had a transmission line proposed across their property are at it again, writing their idiotic "reports" that claim to find the reason why transmission projects draw opposition and are not successful.  I've seen many versions of this "save the transmission world" report, and exactly none of them have gotten it right.  I think it's because they are inherently biased to think that transmission is "good" and "desperately needed."  They believe, deep down in their highly educated souls, that impacted landowners are simply speed bumps on the road to transmission "progress" and that they can figure out new ways to make landowners either acquiesce, or advocate for new transmission to cross their properties.  It's nothing but a psy op.

Nobody likes new transmission across their property.  NOBODY!  Anyone who said transmission was a great idea is either not affected, or their advocacy is being purchased with favorable treatment and ego-stroking (and cash helps, too!).

This new report (see "How Grid Projects Get Stuck" at the bottom of the page) makes conclusions about why the Grain Belt Express stalled out for so long and thinks it has now been successful.  Complete lack of accuracy!  GBE is in as much trouble now as it's ever been.  It's got its corporate head shoved too far up the Biden administration's rear end, hoping for government favors to pull itself out of the dumpster.  How much of our tax dollars will the federal government waste on a project that has never been needed?

And, speaking of need, the researchers did not seem to understand what they were told about lack of need for GBE, no matter how much people tried to educate them.  GBE, as a merchant transmission project, has not been found needed by regional transmission organizations for reliability, public policy, or economic reasons. If it had any of those benefits and its cost was less than the benefits it offered, a RTO would have ordered the project.  No RTO ordered GBE because there was no need for it, not because they are biased against outsiders.  If it's not found needed by an RTO, it is not needed.  Everyone (but the researchers) understands that.  GBE was a speculative venture, a value proposition that never could find any customers who thought it provided enough value to sign a contract.  When a project is not needed by a regional transmission planner, and it can't find any customers that think it's an economic value, then it's a completely unnecessary project.  It is like McDonald's eyeing your front yard -- GBE wants to take your front yard so it can build a transmission project for one simple reason -- PROFIT.  Not because it's needed, or because it provides economic value.  Incumbent utilities may be for profit, but they are also public utilities with an obligation to serve.  GBE is not a public utility.  GBE is only trying to create profit, not serve consumers who need electricity.

The researchers honed in on the disrespectful way Clean Line treated landowners, even mentioning the "Marketing to Mayberry" episode.  Skelly gets faulted for his approach to local governments and elected officials before landowners were even notified.  That pretty much set the tone, didn't it?  How different things might have turned out if Skelly approached landowners first and actually paid attention to their desire for the project to be sited along transportation corridors and buried.  It would be operating right now, if it had attracted customers.  Instead, Skelly and then Invenergy, just kept dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into a plan that was badly conceived from the beginning.  GBE didn't listen to landowners.

The things the researchers think GBE did wrong ultimately don't mean anything though because they picked up on the wrong things, things that wouldn't have made a difference in the long run.

What?  Poor, poor, rich little Michael Skelly.  Everyone was against him!  As they should have been!  He was only interested in plundering for profit.  Landowners have no use for him, and sent him packing back to Houston.  And did our slick willie friend learn anything from his failure?  I doubt it, judging from this article about his new company trying to build a transmission line through Montana.  SSDD.  You can almost smell the failure wafting its way from that article,

State regulators have a duty to consider the public impacts of new transmission.  That's not parochialism, that's doing their job.  State regulators don't work for merchant transmission companies, or electric consumers in other states.  They only work for the public in their jurisdiction.

Projects without benefits will never be accepted by impacted landowners.  Even projects with some supposed benefit for "the public" don't matter when it's your home and your money on the line.

Yes, the utility model of keeping the public uninformed until the project and its routes are set in stone is unhelpful.  Transmission developers that operate in secret fail in public.  But what's the alternative?  Would developers approach communities and ask them upfront what kind of project they should build?  That is unlikely because the whole public engagement process is built on an enormous misconception.  Developers (and researchers) believe that if they can only "educate" (propagandize) impacted communities, that they can turn opposition into support.  That is NEVER going to happen.  Nobody wants a transmission line. NOBODY.  Self preservation is always stronger than bullshit.

The road to success is staring transmission developers, big green transmission advocates, and their government flunkies right in the face.  It's a transmission project that does not need any new land.  No new land, no eminent domain, no impacts, no opposition.

First of all, we should build new power generation near the power load.  When new transmission is needed, it must be routed on existing linear easements, such as road, rail, or underwater.  Building a gigantic network of transmission lines for the sole purpose of connecting wind and solar projects to load in distant cities, and trying to use transmission to make up for the intermittent nature of these unreliable sources of electricity is not going to save them.  Remote wind and solar is an infeasible money pit.  The only thing it's been successful at is making the rich richer.

Landowners who don't want new transmission lines on their property are not a "problem" to be solved.

The Kansas Heartlander asks if residents are informed enough to comment on the U.S. Department of Energy's National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors proposal?

No, no they are not.

Last week, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley sent a second letter to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm asking for clear and complete information on the NIETC proposal so that his constituents will be informed enough to make comment.  Senator Hawley also requested a 45-day extension of the comment deadline.

​Senator Hawley said...

That's because the only information the public has is a vague, not to scale map with a line drawn on it.  And the DOE has done nothing to notify citizens that they may be in a corridor.  DOE has done shockingly little press on its proposal to conscript the land of millions of Americans and turn it into high-voltage electric transmission corridors.  If not for the knowledge of a handful of watchdog citizens, DOE would be getting away with it!

It's not like DOE doesn't have the information, it's just that DOE refuses to disclose the information it used to draw its vague maps.  DOE solicited "recommendations" for corridors from greedy transmission developers back in December 2023.  DOE needs to share the information it received so that citizens can base their comments on the same information DOE will use to evaluate this proposed corridor for designation.  Citizens are drawn into a duel without any weapons.  It's absolutely shameful!

A future NIETC designation is a land use planning decision that changes the use and marketability of land in perpetuity.  Who would buy a home in a NIETC if a future transmission line is planned to destroy it?  Who would buy land and build a house in a NIETC that is subject to federal eminent domain?  How can farmers plan improvements to their businesses when they have no idea if they will even get their investment back?  It's bad enough that Missouri farmers have been threatened with Grain Belt Express for more than a decade, now the DOE is planning more transmission within a 5-mile swath of their remaining properties.  On top of that, there is no compensation offered by the DOE for property taken by a NIETC.  It's private property taken for public use, without just compensation.  The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits such a taking.  It also prohibits depriving citizens of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, and DOE is shutting down all due process for citizens impacted by its corridor proposal.

Senator Hawley is not afraid to stand up to the DOE and demand due process for citizens.   But why are the rest of our elected officials asleep?   Bravo, Senator Hawley, and thank you for your work!  I hope other Senators are brave enough to join you!

Did you oppose the Transource Independence Energy Connection transmission project ordered by PJM in 2016 to run through York and Franklin Counties, Pennsylvania?

THANK YOU!!!

After years of battle, PJM has finally re-evaluated IEC and made the determination that it causes uncontrolled congestion and reliability concerns starting in 2030.  You can read PJM's re-evaluation here, beginning at page 19.

If you had not stood up to PJM and delayed this project like you did, it would be built and causing problems right now.  You saved PJM's ass!

It's about time PJM acknowledged that IEC was a folly that never should never have been approved.

However, Transource has managed to spend $107.96M (that's millions, folks!) on this project, and it's going to want its money back.  That's right, we'll all get to pay Transource back for all the money it spent harassing landowners, conducting turtle hunts and netting bats, and of course all its costs to pursue appeal of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission's denial of a permit for this loser project.

PJM has *still* not abandoned this project.  It is still "suspended."  As long as it is suspended, ratepayers are on the hook for anything Transource spends on lawyers to pursue its appeal.  The appeal is currently before the Third Circuit.  You can read the PA PUC's brief here.

If PJM abandons IEC, then we stop paying for Transource's lawyers, but PJM has not done that.  Here's why... Transource's appeal to PA state court was unsuccessful, so it bumped it up to federal district court.  That judge found that the PA PUC's denial was unlawful because the PUC should be forced to accept PJM's determination of need for the project and was prohibited from making its own evaluation of need.  Essentially, that court decision hamstrings all state utility commissions from making their own determination of need for new transmission and makes them subservient to the RTO's findings of need for a transmission project.  It turns the PUC into a kangaroo court, where they must rubber stamp an RTO's need for a project.  This is incorrect on so many levels, but the only way to set things right again was for the PUC to appeal the district court's decision to the federal circuit court.  And that is where it currently sits.

Never mind that PJM has now found that the project isn't really needed after all, PJM wants to have the power created by that federal district court decision to usurp state authority to make the need determination required by state law going forward.

And the costs continue to rack up...

If PJM actually officially abandons IEC (instead of leaving it in a suspended state) the handouts would cease and Transource would have to proceed to FERC to have them determine how much of Transource's costs will have to be repaid by ratepayers.  When PJM ordered IEC, Transource went to FERC and asked them for a rate of return of 10.4% and special incentives for the project.  One of those incentives is what is known as the Abandonment incentive.  That incentive, granted by FERC, allows Transource to make a filing to collect all its sunk costs that are determined to be prudent in a future filing, plus the 10.4% rate of return.  Transource says it spent $107 MILLION dollars, and once PJM abandons the project, it is likely that FERC will order ratepayer reimbursement.

It's all over but the payback.

Shame on Transource for spending so much money on a project that never stood a chance of being approved!

And shame on PJM for approving this project in the first place and avoiding its ultimate abandonment!