Polling indicates the public’s feelings about a number of various topics on any given day. But it can also be misleading if viewed out of context — especially when it comes to land use issues.

How is it, for example, that most Americans support wind energy in general, but emotive opponents can block transmission lines delivery wind energy or wind farms in some local communities?

So, the jury’s in, right? Everyone loves renewable energy projects. But wait.

But the emotional opposition appears to fly in the face of surveys and polls showing national support for clean energy generation and transmission. What’s going on? Do these polls and surveys lack credibility? No. In fact, they are spot-on in terms of reflecting how Americans feel about renewable generation and distribution projects and how they may positively impact our communities given the perceived global threats of climate change, greenhouse gases and negative impact to wildlife over time. Today, based on a solid campaign by climate change advocates, the renewable energy industry, the current Obama administration and constant media pounding, the threat to our economy and the environment posed by carbon-emitting generation sources is very real and frankly easy to grasp. The arguments have been made and, let’s face it, many Americans are buying in.

But it’s easy to support a wind energy project without a real wind turbine or transmission line literally staring you in the face. That’s where rational thinking ends and passionate “defense of the community” (or defense of the children for that matter) campaigns begin.

...shop for a home in a community of interest and share the rumor of a new 765 kV transmission line going across the property down the road, in front of the view of the mountain range. What’s the survey say then? Chances are you may not find majority support, even from residents who responded in the poll you fielded yesterday.

Perhaps at best, polling identifies the size of the silent majority you have on your side when they are under no local threat of changing their daily lives. Winning hearts and minds in a poll won’t necessarily win you a permit at town hall.

Renewable energy is great in our public opinion, just not when it gets in the way of our personal point of view.

“We’re well on our way because the project has obtained an overwhelming majority of the easements, now has Public Service Commission approval, and now has a legislative framework,” said Petty.

“Invenergy has always been more than generous to the farmers with their compensation for access to their property. Its supported the generous compensation spelled out in a legislative compromise that was reached in 2021,” said Petty of Kirkwood Electric.

“While a few farmers still remain skeptical about Invenergy’s intention to make this a win-win situation for all, over 70% of the landowners and a majority of folks do understand it and are on board,” Petty added.

... Grain Belt Express, which has scored some recent successes.

...Chicago-based Invenergy, which has now navigated objections to the line from rural legislators and groups like the Missouri Farm Bureau.

State legislators with ties to the fossil fuel industry have opposed the wind energy project. Farm groups also have fought the project for years over opposition to the use of eminent domain for siting of transmission towers.

Some rural landowners and farmers supported legislation meant to derail the project, including one proposal that would have given county commissions veto power over transmission projects. Farmers wanted more money for land acquisition, and resulting legislation could have killed the project.

According to Petty, Missouri cities like Hannibal, Springfield and Kirkwood have supported the energy project for years. He said everyone is “jumping on the bandwagon now” and the cleaner, cheaper energy for Missouri will save money for homeowners and businesses.

“While a few farmers still remain skeptical about Invenergy’s intention to make this a win-win situation for all, over 70% of the landowners and a majority of folks do understand it and are on board,” Petty added.

According to Petty, it’s just a matter a time before everyone will be on the same page with the Grain Belt project.

A.  Enter a preliminary injunction staying ICC Docket # 22-0499 during the pendency of this action;
B.  Pursuant to Article I, Section 2 of the 1970 Illinois Constitution, declare that 220 ILCS 5/8-406(b-5) is unconstitutional;
C.  Pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the 1970 Illinois Constitution, declare that 220 ILCS 5/8-406(b-5) is unconstitutional;
D.  Pursuant to Article IV, Section 13 of the 1970 Illinois Constitution, declare that 220 ILCS 5/8-406(b-5) is unconstitutional;
E.  Remand the July 26, 2022, application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity, ICC Docket # 22-0499, to the ICC for further proceedings without regard to § 8-406(b-5); and
F.  Other such preliminary and final legal and equitable relief as the law and facts require.

delegates regulatory control to the ICC to protect consumers by ensuring that construction of plants, equipment, property or facilities provides for services and facilities that are “for public use” and, in all respects, adequate, efficient, reliable and environmentally safe and which constitute the least-cost means of meeting the utility’s service obligations.

Without a hearing under §§ 8-406(b)(1) and 8-406.1(f)(1), Plaintiff and similarly situated landowners are deprived due process by being stripped of the opportunity to submit  evidence that GBE has not established that the Project is necessary to provide adequate, reliable, and efficient service to its customers and is the least-cost means of satisfying the service needs of its customers or that the Project will promote the development of an effectively competitive electricity market that operates efficiently, is equitable to all customers, and is the least cost means of satisfying those objectives.

Section 8-406(b-5) allows GBE to qualify for a CPCN for the Project without review of the ICC or the courts as to whether GBE meets the requirements for a CPCN as a public utility.

The determination of whether a given use is a public use is a judicial function.

Through enactment of § 8- 406(b-5), the Illinois General Assembly has exercised judicial power to determine that the Project constitutes a public use.

The bill could provide a significant boost to transmission infrastructure, which is needed to ensure widespread renewable adoption. Where permitting a transmission line can now take a decade, the bill would limit federal environmental reviews to two years, put a statute of limitation of 150 days on legal challenges and give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission more authority to permit transmission lines.

The U.S. has a checkered history of transmission development. It has had some success building new lines, particularly in the Midwest, where 16 of 17 projects planned over the last decade were permitted.

But the country has also encountered a series of high-profile failures. An attempt to build a transmission line carrying hydropower from Canada into New England was first rejected by New Hampshire and then nixed by voters in Maine, only for the state’s high court to open the door for the project again. It remains in limbo.

A $4.5 billion line bringing wind from the Oklahoma Panhandle to Tulsa was scrapped in 2018, eventually replaced by a slightly scaled-back version of the project.

Perhaps most infamous was an eight-year effort to build a 700-mile line connecting Oklahoma wind power to the East Coast via Tennessee. The project died in 2017 but not before its trials and tribulations were captured in the popular book “Superpower” by Texas Monthly reporter Russell Gold.

Even when projects do succeed, it can take years. The Anschutz Corp. began planning a 732-mile line aimed at bringing Wyoming wind to Southern California in 2008. It received its last permit in 2020 after obtaining approvals from the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation, along with state and county regulators in four states. The project is still waiting on a notice to proceed from BLM, which is expected to arrive next year.

Greg Wetstone, president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy, said permitting reform is needed to fully realize the emission-cutting benefits of the climate spending law Congress passed earlier this year.

“Senator Manchin’s bill includes provisions that will help streamline the transmission approval process, improving our ability to meet our nation’s decarbonization goals by better connecting our key renewable resources to our largest population centers,” he said in a statement.

Compensation for property taken under this subsection shall be determined and awarded by the district court of the United States in accordance with section 3114(c) of title 40, United States Code.’’.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Friday backed the much-debated permitting overhaul provisions unveiled in Congress this week, saying they would enhance the department’s efforts to speed up electric transmission lines that connect clean energy to the grid.

“We are very excited at DOE about the potential for streamlined permitting on clean energy projects,” Granholm told reporters on the sidelines of the Global Clean Energy Action Forum in Pittsburgh.

“And I think that holds the greatest promise of the goals we’d like to achieve, which of course is getting to 100% clean electricity by 2035,” Granholm said.

“Community input is important in all of this,” she said. “We have to be very intentional about that, and we’ve got a team that is focused on that as well.”

“Obviously, the transmission process has been ridiculously slow, and so many NIMBY issues related to it,” Granholm said, using an acronym for the “Not In My Backyard” movement.

We don’t think that removing the states is actually going to reduce the time frames,” said Greg White, executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which represents state officials.

He called the permitting proposal “draconian,” arguing it does nothing to solve delays stemming from federal environmental reviews. NARUC has pressed the department to scrap the proposal and bring states to the table.

“The sense is, if they can remove the state authority on siting these, that these projects will proceed quicker—and we disagree with that,” White said.

Enhance federal government permitting authority for interstate electric transmission facilities that have been determined by the Secretary of Energy to be in the national interest.

Replace DOE’s national interest electric transmission corridor process with a national interest determination by the Secretary of Energy that allows FERC to issue a construction permit.

Require FERC to ensure costs for transmission projects are allocated to customers that benefit.

Allow FERC to approve payments from utilities to jurisdictions impacted by a transmission project.

But what must be the most difficult pill to swallow is the legislators’ statements that House Bill 2005, which reforms eminent domain law for future transmission projects, represents one of the success stories of the 2020 session.

Lawmakers should be willing to call it what it is. Perhaps not a sellout, but a difficult compromise that comes at the expense of those landowners who are most affected and led this fight.

You could point to several benefits of Grain Belt, the 780-mile transmission project bringing wind power from Kansas to populations further east.

The customers on the receiving end get plenty of benefits. But who, exactly? Unlike something more tangible like gasoline, it’s hard to see where electricity is directed on the grid, but the fact that Grain Belt will end near Indiana suggests that many of its beneficiaries are there and not here.

Invenergy, the for-profit company building Grain Belt, could benefit nicely when it starts to sell the power.

In a press conference after Thursday’s meeting, Glick said that active state involvement could help forestall state conflicts like those that have arisen in Missouri, where state lawmakers are seeking to pass a law that would threaten the viability of the Grain Belt Express, a massive proposed transmission project that would deliver power from Kansas across Missouri to the Illinois-Indiana border. 

The NOPR is ​“aimed at bringing the states together and hopefully developing their own approach to cost allocation,” Glick said. For example, ​“it might determine that State A and State C should pay for that line, not State B.”

The United States desperately needs new power lines.

Our transmission standstill has a number of consequences. First of all, it raises consumer prices. As this post at CanaryMedia makes clear, bad transmission hasn’t raised utility bills despite generation being cheaper than ever.

A 2018 report by the nonprofit Americans for a Clean Energy Grid identified 22 shovel-ready projects that had been in existence for a decade or more. To get such projects off the ground, the report’s authors suggested streamlining project siting and permitting, passing a tax credit for transmission projects, and direct investment by the federal government. 

Despite recent noise from the Biden administration about speeding up the sitting process, the same problems are still knocking off and slowing down transition projects. 

The most recent and notable example is that of the Grain Belt Express. The transmission line, which would span nearly 800 miles across four midwest states, from Kansas to Indiana, connecting into the PJM Interconnection LLC grid, is at risk of being thwarted by House Bill 2005. The bill, brainchild of big ag groups across the region, would give any county in the line’s path the right to block construction. 

The project represents a special economic opportunity for the region’s rural communities which have struggled in recent times. The cheap wind power would provide significant savings to the small municipalities. What’s more, emissions would be brought down as well. 

Cumbersome regulations and NIMBYISM are mostly to blame for the nation’s stagnant transmission system.

The same article includes quotes from advocates of bill 2005: ‘“Grain Belt is currently working towards condemning our land,” Henke said in written testimony. “They have told us they will not negotiate with us and the price they tell us is what we get. This line will take out our shade trees in our pastures and cut through several fences. They are not willing to move the line at all to avoid some of these things that will greatly impact our farm.”’

I don’t want to completely disregard people like Henke’s misgivings, but no decision comes without a cost. At some point, we’re going to have to accept some of the costs associated with big transmission projects to reap the important benefits: Cheaper, cleaner electricity.

They came to Missouri’s capital from small cities and towns such as Marshall and Lebanon, Odessa and Shelbina.

They’re not activists or lobbyists but city administrators and public works directors from deep red Missouri counties. They drove hours this week to push back against big agriculture and urge the majority Republican Legislature not to spike the largest energy infrastructure project in the state — the $2.5 billion Grain Belt Express transmission line.

The capacity will provide access to wind power that will cumulatively save the cities $12.8 million annually over 25 years.

If the promise of helping small cities save money doesn’t appeal to Missouri legislators, the threat of litigation might.

Peggy Whipple, an attorney representing Invenergy, said the retroactive nature of H.B. 2005 would put the state at risk of paying the company millions of dollars in legal damages for expenses it has already incurred.
The bill violates state and federal law on at least four grounds, Whipple said. Invenergy has already invested $52 million in the project and voluntarily obtained easements for the line across 1,200 of 1,700 parcels in Missouri and Kansas, she said. In addition, the company has executed $76 million in contracts with landowners and paid out $10 million upfront.

H.B. 2005 would require 50 percent of transmission capacity from a project to be dedicated to Missouri and it would give any county in the line’s path the power to block the project for any reason.
The provision violates the U.S. Constitution’s dormant commerce clause that prohibits states from interfering with interstate commerce, Whipple said.