Michael Skelly Aspires to be Meaner

How much meaner could one be than to continue to attack people in 3 states with pie-in-the-sky promises to impede their businesses and take their land by eminent domain, when the likelihood of ever actually doing so is hovering near zero?

"We knew that if we were going to focus, we would need a leaner, meaner team."

Really, Michael Skelly, I can't help laughing at your feeble attempt to pretend you're some incredible go-getter who can suddenly make Grain Belt Express happen with a "leaner, meaner" approach.

Is "leaner" meant to cover the fact that there are no Clean Line employees anymore?  I notice you suspiciously skirted around that issue in your ego-polishing interview with Houston Business Journal. 

Though he declined to comment on the sale price of the assets Clean Line has sold or the company’s current, reduced headcount, Skelly did say he isn’t looking to move into a smaller office with the slimmed-down team.

Oh, c'mon!  We know that ConnectGen has taken over Clean Line's former ugly orange office space on McKinney Street.  When a person calls Clean Line's former phone number, it is answered "ConnectGen."

It looks like most of the management of the former Clean Line Energy Partners has reconstituted itself at ConnectGen, including the former Grain Belt Express project manager.

Leaner?  So lean that there's no longer a need for a project manager?  Who does still work there, and are they actually drawing a paycheck?

Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners LLC has trimmed its portfolio down to one $2.3 billion project in the midwest called Grain Belt Express.

That left Clean Line with Grain Belt Express, a transmission project moving wind power from Kansas to as far east as Illinois. That’s what Skelly wants to hone in on, he said.

Grain Belt is still in the permitting phase, and it had been hung up in a Missouri Supreme Court case around who determines whether the project is in the public interest. The court ruled that the central Public Service Commission gets to decide, a favorable outcome for Clean Line, according to a July 26 press release.

The PSC has broad discretion in how it handles the decision going forward, so the timeline for the project could still change depending on what it does, Skelly said. But right now Grain Belt is looking at five or six years before it’s operational, he said. Clean Line should hear the PSC’s decision within the next several weeks, Skelly said.

Since its single remaining asset is still in development, Clean Line is not producing revenue right now.

Seems like Skelly forgot some parts.  Clean Line will STILL need the assent of Missouri counties before it can begin construction on its line.  While the court said the PSC can issue a permit before county assent, it must issue a conditional permit that is only good after county assent.  It was completely an issue of timing, not authority.  Skelly also forgot to mention that GBE's Illinois permit has been revoked by the Corporation Commission upon order of the Illinois Appellate  Court.  The court found GBE was not a utility, and even if it somehow manages to buy utility property and re-apply under the long process, there are unresolved issues at the Illinois Supreme Court in the RICL opinion regarding whether Clean Line's merchant business model prohibits it from being a public utility under Illinois law.  Chances of building GBE are slim to none.  But building GBE may not be what Skelly has in mind.

Clean Line’s founder and president, Michael Skelly, hasn’t yet decided what to do with Clean Line once it either sells or completes Grain Belt, he said. If it sells the project, it will have cash and a very small number of employees — a good position for the company, Skelly said. It’s still to be determined whether the company would make an exit from the market at that point or start working on a new project, he said.

Sell Grain Belt Express?

Why, who in their right mind would buy Grain Belt Express?

And is there some Failed Utility Ideas Gazette where one can take out a classified advertisement to sell used transmission project ideas?

It almost sounds like Michael Skelly is simply preening and polishing for the express purpose of trying to unload this turd on some unsuspecting mark with more money than brains.

So, here's a scenario that Michael Skelly didn't envision in the article.  What if he fails to sell the doomed GBE project?  Does he have the cash and expertise to complete it himself?  How does one man with little to no cash build a transmission line more than 700 miles long?  How far are we supposed to stretch belief here?

What if Michael Skelly fails to sell or complete GBE?  With no cash and no employees, a bad position for Michael Skelly, will he finally become humbled enough to admit that Clean Line is defunct?  Can he man up enough to release these landowners from his empty threats?  Michael Skelly needs to quit wasting everyone's time and money!