Dear Michael Skelly:

The people you've been harassing with your failed transmission projects for well over a decade now still have their eye on you.  You pretty much can't get away with anything anymore.  It's not like last time where "the farmers" didn't know you existed and the threat you posed to their lives.  You know what they say... once bitten, twice shy...

This is a recently published land sale for Loudon County, Tennessee.

Did Michael Skelly buy some lovely retirement property  southwest of Knoxville in east central Tennessee?

Nope.  It appears that he bought a backdrop for updated vanity photos that resemble this old pose.

That's right... it appears that Skelly has bought his very own vacant lot right next to an existing high voltage electric substation.

Who wouldn't want this backdrop for new "Our Team" pictures?

But wouldn't that also make a dandy spot for a new DC/AC converter station? 

It's not in Memphis this time... but about 400 miles further east.  However, it could follow the same path as the last one between Tennessee and Oklahoma.

What is Michael Skelly up to?  And why did he purchase this property in his own name, and not the name of his "early-stage transmission development company"?  Did he think nobody would find out?

Well, at least not before he "fixed" the reason that Plains and Eastern Clean Line ultimately failed.  It had no customers.  Nobody wanted to purchase any service on the "clean line."  However, the new "bipartisan energy bill" includes a provision that would require the Secretary of Energy to purchase transmission capacity for up to 40 years from new transmission projects that have no customers.  Read it for yourself.

Kind of reminds me of growing up in a small town, like Mayberry.  You can't get away with anything because someone is always watching.

Keep your eye on this.

Just like unsupervised children, our elected representatives get up to all sorts of hijinks when left unsupervised in Washington, D.C.  What have they been doing lately that you should care about?

A "bi-partisan" energy bill was reported out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee yesterday.  This proposed legislation, hundreds of pages long, does two things that may affect you personally.

Ranking Senator John Barrasso took issue with these two provisions.  His statement is available here.  Bravo, Senator!

Title I, Section 1005, allows the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to site and permit an electric transmission project in the event that a State Utility Commission rejects or denies an application.  It usurps state authority to make the decision.  Just like the dreaded eminent domain authority, it demands that a state "voluntarily" approve the project, or else FERC will do it for them.

On this provision, Barrasso stated:

Sen. Roger Marshall from Kansas proposed striking this offensive provision, but his amendment failed on a party line vote.

Also, Title I, Section 1007, requires that the Secretary of Energy to enter into capacity contracts for service on transmission lines.  It's not that the Secretary is going to use this capacity for delivery of energy, it's that the Secretary is going to pay for the capacity and then try to resell it to others.  The Secretary is going to use your money to financially support transmission projects that are so unnecessary that they cannot find any customers to use them. 

Say what?  If an entity wanted to enter into a contract, it would do so.  It doesn't need "encouragement" from the Secretary of Energy to take a white elephant off its hands.  The legislation presumes everyone will step up to want a contract after the Secretary gets one.  Sorry, transmission capacity is not Tom Sawyer's fence.  What happens when no one is "encouraged?"  Well, looks like the Secretary is stuck holding the hot potato... for 40 years... paying for transmission capacity nobody uses.  Yes, it's as dumb as it sounds.

Senator Barrasso's take:

Au contraire, Senator.  There's 200 million reasons for this stupid, expensive and pointless provision.  One reason for every investor dollar Michael Skelly* wasted on his Clean Line projects that failed because he couldn't find any customers to buy capacity.  Skelly solves that problem by requiring the Secretary to buy his unneeded transmission capacity so that his unnecessary transmission projects can financially support themselves on the taxpayer dole.  It's pure subsidy for absolutely no reason at all.  A merchant transmission project, like Skelly wanted to build, is a market based project.  If there is market for a project, it will find customers, and the amount of its profits are set by the market.  Creating artificial market demand through captive, taxpayer-funded contracts does not create an actual market.  It only creates the proverbial "bridge to nowhere" while filling Skelly's pockets.

Sen. James Lankford from Oklahoma proposed striking this ridiculous provision from the legislation, but his amendment also failed on a party line vote.

If you like these provisions and their effect that could ram a transmission line down your throat and across your property, you need do nothing.  If, however, you object, get vocal.  Contact your Senators.  Contact Senators Barasso, Lankford and Marshall.  Contact NARUC.  Contact your state public utility commission.  Let them know these provisions are completely unacceptable, and why.  These people/organizations would probably agree with you.  Please let them know you are standing by to take further action and ask them how you can help.  This legislation must be defeated!

Constructing overhead electric transmission on new rights-of-way across private property using lattice towers is officially an antique.

I know this because, in my travels last week, I found it in an antique mall.

Who is Paul Lumnitzer, and how did his antique, cutsie-poo toy transmission tower award end up on a dark, dusty, lower shelf at an obscure antique mall?

I can answer the first question... the second shall remain a mystery... or perhaps a sad lesson is the disbursement of our treasured belongings after we leave.

Paul Lumnitzer was an executive at Pennsylvania Electric Company (now Penelec) during the earlier decades memorialized on his excessively large, heavy and clumsy desk decoration.  He was also Chairman of the Steering Committee for "Project UHV," an Electric Power Research Institute initiative in the 1970's that performed research and wrote reports about ultra-high voltage AC electric transmission.  I'm going to guess the UHV transmission used lattice towers just like the ones appearing on his award.

Pioneer, it says.  Thanks a lot, Paul.  What he pioneered  50 years ago is still being built today. 

Where are this generation's EHV pioneers?  They're at Direct Connect Development Co., where they're pioneering a new kind of electric transmission... DC transmission buried on existing rail rights-of-way.  I wonder if someone is going to give CEO Trey Ward a commemorative desk decoration depicting a train running through an undisturbed farm field?  They should, but I would recommend they pay attention to size, weight, and descriptive plaques that may not mean anything to anyone 50 years from now.

We need to put overhead transmission on lattice towers in the history books, or on a shelf at an antique mall, where it belongs and celebrate today's transmission pioneers by abandoning Paul's magnum opus in favor of today's possibilities.

If you're a transmission company who's still celebrating Paul's work by designing the kind of transmission he pioneered and would like to claim this item to use in your new advertising campaigns, let me know.  I'll tell you exactly where to find it, and the price of owning such a random and overly-personalized "antique."  It's probably going to be there for a long, long, long time.  It no longer has any relevance whatsoever.

Transmission owners American Transmission Company, ITC Midwest, and Dairyland Power fell on their sword this week and begged the Wisconsin Public Service Commission to void their permit to build the Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission project across Wisconsin and Iowa.  I'm not sure that's ever happened before, but the bigger question is why, and how are the companies trying to subvert due process by requesting the PSC re-open the case and make a new decision?

The story goes that during discovery in a circuit court appeals case where opposing organizations accused PSC Commissioner Mike Huebsch of bias toward the project, evidence was uncovered showing that Huebsch communicated with utility employees using an encrypted text message app.

*inserting tongue in cheek*

Of course, the utilities involved insist upon complete transparency and are urging the PSC to "do the right thing" and re-open the case in order to take another vote.

*removing tongue in cheek*

If the permit is revoked, the circuit court case looking into instances of commissioner bias collapses.  Is this a way for the utilities and the commissioner to save face and possible charges resulting from a full investigation while sweeping the whole matter under the rug, never to be spoken of again?

Perhaps its time for the legislature or the Attorney General to open an independent investigation of improper communications between the PSC and the utilities it regulates?  It can't be neatly swept under the rug and forgotten because, without consequences, it will only happen again.

Utilities and their regulators across the country have had cozy relationships forever.  Utilities have entire departments devoted to schmoozing and lobbying regulators to receive approval for new plans paid for by consumers.  Utilities compile and internally share dossiers about regulators' hobbies, interests, family members and other personal information that utility employees can use to schmooze up to (or maybe hide in exchange for favors?) regulators.  Utilities have historically pushed the envelope of what's proper when it comes to influencing decisions of public officials.  How much influence can they get away with before the regulator puts up a wall to protect himself?  How far can they go before the improper influence is discovered and revealed?

FirstEnergy, ComEd, and other utilities became embroiled in scandal and criminal investigations recently when their improper influence on regulators and legislators was revealed.  Now perhaps we can add ATC and ITC to the ever growing list of utilities who aren't fooling anyone anymore.  They all do it.  However, only a few are ever caught.

Does this mean that regulators cannot develop outside friendships with employees of the utilities they regulate?  Yes!  Yes, it does.  A regulator is sitting in a seat of public trust.  He must avoid all personal relationships with the utilities he regulates because they create a perception of bias.  The revolving door of regulatory capture circulates career utility employees between utilities, law firms that work for utilities, and regulatory bodies.  This has never been a good idea!  Anyone who takes on the responsibility of sitting in the regulator seat must put his relationships with utilities and utility law firms on hold for the duration of his term.

Huebsch claims that his encrypted text messages with ATC’s senior Manager-State Government Relations, and others involved in the Cardinal-Hickory creek proceeding, were innocent friendly talk about sports, health and family.  He claimed that PSC matters are "just not that interesting."  Au contraire!  PSC matters are incredibly interesting to utility employees trying to influence state governmental matters.  If the messages were so innocent, why were they encrypted and/or deleted?  What actually went on here?  Will the people burdened with a new transmission line of questionable necessity ever find out?  The State of Wisconsin owes them an explanation!

The Wisconsin PSC is supposed to take up the matter today to decide whether to void the CHC permit and re-open the case.  If it does so, at the very least it owes full reimbursement to all the parties who participated in the first proceeding that was tainted by Huebsch's appearance of bias.  The parties would be forced to shell out a bunch more money participating in a second proceeding through no fault of their own.

But there's more than that... how can the public ever trust the Wisconsin PSC again if it sweeps possible bias by one of its Commissioners under the rug?  That whole place needs to be dismantled, aired out, and rebuilt.  It's a matter of public trust.