When it first proposed creating a process to carry out new authority to designate National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors as enabled by changes to Sec. 216 of the Federal Power Act contained in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the DOE envisioned this:

At that time, DOE thought NIETCs were the key to everything transmission.  DOE got so enamored of  keys and locks that it began claiming that in order to feed at the tax money buffet Congress had created, a transmission project needed to be in an NIETC.  Then DOE created "guidance" (aka quasi-rules that have no legal effect) that said:

A clear message was sent to greedy transmission developers by the DOE -- request a NIETC or you're not getting into our buffet.  So, they did.  They requested 10 NEITCs that covered a hundred thousand acres of private property across the country.  When it released its preliminary list, DOE reiterated the necessity of NIETC designation as a ticket to the buffet:

Transmission developers took DOE at their word and admitted their only purpose in seeking NIETC designation was to get in line at the buffet.

Grain Belt Express admitted that it needed that NIETC to be able to unlock the buffet.

But then the DOE cancelled GBE's NIETC, along with 6 others that were never needed but had been pursued in order to get a seat at the buffet.

Why is DOE still continuing GBE's "conditional" loan guarantee now that the NIETC has been cancelled?  I thought the NIETC was the key to unlock the buffet?  Missouri Senator Josh Hawley asked DOE to cancel that guarantee recently.  Hawley mentioned that GBE doesn't have any customers.  Without customers, GBE doesn't have any means to repay a $4.9B DOE loan.  And why is the government giving a low cost loan to a privately owned electric toll road that will charge its voluntary customers a market-based fee to use its line?  A DOE loan won't lower the costs that customers would pay to use the line, it only increases Invenergy's profits that go into uber-rich owner Michael Polsky's pockets.  The electric transmission market that would set the market based rates for voluntary customers isn't going to change because Grain Belt Express paid less interest on its loan.  For a different kind of transmission project that is paid for by captive ratepayers, paying less interest goes back into the regulated rates the transmission company charges.  But for a market-based project like Grain Belt Express, paying less interest means the project is cheaper to construct, although the rates the market will allow GBE to charge won't change.  The amount of profit Grain Belt Express can create for its owner is the delta between what the project costs to build and the market rate for transmission.  DOE might as well put that $4.9B directly into Polsky's pocket. 

​Grain Belt Express has to provide a more economic option for transmission capacity than our existing public electric grid, or it won't attract any customers.  And that's just the problem... Grain Belt Express never has attracted any customers, aside from a gaggle of uninformed Missouri municipalities who signed a non-binding contract to purchase "up to" about 4% of GBE's total capacity.  If GBE was actually an economic option, a good idea, a needed project, it would have customers lining up to use it.  Instead... crickets.  And the DOE thought that was a good candidate for a $4.9B construction loan?

Perhaps that's because the DOE is fraught with corruption and most of its employees are scattered and goofing off.  A recent Inspector General report found that DOE does not enforce the rules against conflict of interest and treats taxpayer money like "monopoly money".

The report reveals that DOE is very lax about preventing conflicts and that it exercises absolutely no oversight over the third party "experts" that provide much of the documentation that becomes the basis for a decision to proceed with a loan.  Since the applicant for the loan (the company) pays for these third party experts that do the DOE's work to investigate the loan application, the DOE thinks it is prohibited from looking for conflicts of interest there.  Let me get this straight... the applicant is paying the salaries of the DOE contractors who process their own loan application?  Why doesn't DOE have impartial employees to carry out such an important task as safeguarding the hard-earned dollars of American taxpayers?  Why is it all farmed out to third party contractors who may have conflicts of interest?  This is outrageous!  Remember when Josh Hawley questioned Loan Program Office director Jigar Shaw in a committee hearing?  Seems like another session is desperately needed!

And if the NIETCs are supposed to "unlock" federal financing tools, it seems like Invenergy has another problem.  Invenergy's Cimarron Link merchant transmission line across Oklahoma filled its plate at the DOE financial incentives buffet.  Cimarron Link was awarded a $306M capacity contract just a few short months ago.  A capacity contract is just what Grain Belt Express is missing... a customer who will pay to use the merchant transmission line.  If a merchant transmission project doesn't attract any voluntary customers, that means it is not needed!  End of story!  But Congress gave the DOE authority to serve up our tax money in the form of a fake contract with Cimarron Link.  Oh, the money is real... Cimarron Link will receive $306M for use of its line over a period of up to 40 years, but DOE won't actually *use* the project.  It's paying for a contract it won't use so that Cimarron Link doesn't have to actually provide any service at all.  It's getting federal welfare paid for by all of us to construct a project that has no customers.  So, if Cimarron Link's NIETC has also been cancelled, does that mean it takes the capacity contract with it?  Someone needs to demand some answers!

The DOE is a corrupt political agency that has no business messing around in the reliable delivery of electricity.  We have plenty of regulators already whose actions actually do make sure the lights come on when we flip the switch.  DOE is a politically motivated chef, using our tax dollars to serve up a buffet of free Monopoly money to favored energy corporations.  And DOE isn't even very good at it... it makes up the rules as it goes, wastes an incredible amount of tax money, and in the end has nothing to show for it.  I dare you to name just one DOE transmission program that has successfully produced some benefit for the American people over the last four years.  Can't do it, can you?

DOE is engaged in the business of giving your money to energy corporations, it's not engaged in doing anything that actually helps you.

To this:

I don't know any groups fighting against the corridors that are left, but I know plenty of folks who fought the ones that were eliminated.  So, what's left?  Lake Erie connector, which is created for a transmission line to connect the U.S. to Canada.  This project has been bumping around for years and will be routed underwater and underground.  Buried transmission that doesn't need new easements generally doesn't create opposition.  There's a Tribal Energy project in the Dakotas and Nebraska that will supposedly help the tribes develop their assets.  And there's the Southwestern corridor that begins in Kiowa County, Colorado and comes to an abrupt end at the border of White Sands in New Mexico.  On its way, it crosses over into the Oklahoma panhandle and is supposedly for benefit of NextEra's Heartland Spirit Connector transmission line, although that project begins in the panhandle and heads east, not west.

Although the DOE kept millions of landowners in suspense for months, the idea of building new transmission is what really took a beating during that time.  Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled these corridors have been scrapped, but it almost seemed like it was too easy, or predictable, sort of like the conclusion of a Hallmark Christmas movie.  Why were those other 7 corridors even suggested in the first place?  Was the DOE so captive to the submissions of greedy transmission developers that they just couldn't say no?  Was it because DOE took it upon itself to tie designation of a NIETC to receiving government handouts in the form of loans and contracts, even though there was no statutory reason to do so?  Has DOE changed its mind about NIETCs "unlocking" the vat of taxpayer money at DOE HQ?

Were they scrapped because DOE finally realized the truth of what I'd been telling them for the past several years at every comment opportunity?  NIETCs and the other transmission facilitation tools are actually going to HARM transmission and draw greater opposition than the transmission project could ever draw on its own.  What's worse than a greedy corporation taking your property by eminent domain?  A greedy corporation being joined by the federal government while trying to take your land by eminent domain, that's what!  Dang, DOE, it took you long enough to buy a clue!

So, what's the real story?  Couple of things leaking out...

DOE was quoted saying that the NIETCs can "disrupt" transmission planning or on going development.  Right... just like I've been telling you, DOE, NIETCs were like a magnet for more transmission opposition.

DOE also said there appeared to be little NIETCs could do to facilitate transmission in the near term.  In other words, don't try to apply corridors to projects that are already underway.  If you need to know why, see previous paragraph.

DOE turned out to be wrong about everything from the very beginning.  In fact, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that revived the NIETCs to put them into practice was wrong, too.  That's because it was concocted by "clean energy" proponents who don't have a clue in the world how landowners feel about eminent domain.  Oh, sure, these same environmental and special interest groups showed up for all the rulemakings that came out of their bespoke legislation for the purpose of building more transmission (for wind and solar).  And when they showed up in rulemakings they always pretended they were representing the interests of landowners and that they had experience working with landowners.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It was all a giant lie.  The real landowners have spoken.  NIETCs were about as popular as catching herpes in the hot tub of a cheap motel.

Now that the majority of the NIETCs are off the table, we can take a moment to relish the victory.  However, keep in mind that the NIETC process is a continual and revolving 3-year long process.  Every three years, DOE must make another transmission study, accept new ideas for NIETCs, and then go through the designation process all over again.  We could be right back here at the end of 2026 if Congress doesn't end NIETCs for good through amendment of Sec. 216 of the Energy Policy Act. 

We'll be working towards that goal while we're all back to work opposing the particular transmission proposals in our own community.  Landowner groups are coming together to fight transmission on a united front more than ever before.

Here in my neck of the woods, we'll be putting our effort into opposing two new transmission proposals from PJM Interconnection to build transmission extension cords from West Virginia's coal-fired power stations to new data centers in Loudoun County, Va.  Virginia can't build any new power generation because it's too "dirty", but they also can't stop building new power load in the form of data centers.  Data center taxes cover a large chunk of Loudoun County's budget.  How do you think Loudoun got to be the wealthiest county in the nation?  Through parasitic sucking of all the energy and wealth out of surrounding states.

There's still much work to do, but having a victory now and again is as invigorating as a polar plunge.  Happy Holidays, everyone!

A delicate balance between State and Federal authority over transmission lines has existed for decades.  It is what has kept the peace between federal transmission planning and state permitting authority.  The Third Circuit Court of Appeals stands poised to destroy it in a case that has so far escaped the notice of the hundreds of millions of people who will be profoundly impacted by its outcome.

Transource Pennsylvania LLC v. Steven M. Defrank, et.al asks the court to determine that a state permitting a new transmission project has no authority to second guess the findings of PJM Interconnection regarding need for a new transmission project.  

Transource was selected to build a market efficiency project nearly 10 years ago that, according to PJM, would reduce transmission congestion and make electricity cheaper in Washington DC and Baltimore.  The project was to be built connecting transmission lines in Pennsylvania with transmission lines in Maryland.  It needed permission from the Maryland PSC and the Pennsylvania PUC.  Maryland approved the project after PJM agreed that the eastern portion of the project could be built on existing easements.  Pennsylvania denied the project altogether on the basis of PJM's congestion forecast and cost/benefit analysis being proven wrong during the permitting process in that state.

Transource didn't like that outcome and filed several appeals.  The appeal to the federal district court struck paydirt and that judge opined that Pennsylvania had no authority to second guess PJM's findings regarding need.  The only role for Pennsylvania was to determine where to put the project and it was prohibited from denying a permit.

Pennsylvania appealed and the case has just been heard by the Third Circuit this month.  The oral argument was a disaster for the State -- its attorney couldn't get a word in edgewise as the panel of judges asked questions that only they seemed to know the correct answers to.  The writing is on the wall.  Next stop... SCOTUS.

States have laws in place that determine how an application for a new transmission project must be adjudicated.  The state is required to make several findings under state law.  While the findings may be different from state to state, most of them include a directive to determine if the project is needed.  This is why the permit issued is called a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (or other variations on this theme).  The state evaluates the case for need presented by the utility.  The utility presents its witnesses who say the project is needed, including witnesses from regional transmission organizations like PJM.  The state evaluates the evidence and makes its findings.  Never before in history has a state been required to accept the need findings of the regional grid operator without question.  In most cases, however, the state finds the regional transmission authority witnesses to be credible and adopts their determination of need in its determination.  However, in rare cases, the state has not found the regional transmission to be credible and has denied the permit.  It happened in New Jersey a few years ago in the Monmouth County Reliability Project case.  The utility in that case accepted the result and the project was not built.  Apparently we didn't need it anyhow.

And that's just the case with the Transource project.  The Pennsylvania PUC was right... the project was not needed.  PJM has recently revealed that the cost benefit ratio for the project has fallen below break even and that, if built, the project would cause uncontrolled congestion on the transmission system.  But when the lawyer for the State tried to bring that up during oral argument, the judges cut him right off.  They didn't want to hear it.

The Court's position would saddle electric ratepayers with huge costs for transmission projects that don't deliver more benefits than their cost to build.  Perhaps the Court would see it differently if they attended a couple of PJM meetings where these projects are evaluated and added to the plan.  PJM meetings are one-sided information sessions.  Although meeting participants can ask questions, PJM dismisses any arguments against its findings.  PJM is a utility member organization.  It always sides with the utilities.  There is no independent evaluator who looks at all the evidence before deciding the project is needed.  Compare to a state's evaluation of need, where all parties can present evidence to be decided by an impartial judge or panel of commissioners.  There is no give and take, or independent thought, at PJM... it is an authoritative dictatorship.

If states are prohibited from determining if a transmission project is needed under state law, what happens with merchant transmission projects or those planned by utilities outside a regional planning process?  Must the state also take the utility's determination of need without question?

The Court is prepared to open a can of worms that will ensure transmission is delayed or denied for other reasons.  Nobody likes being told that they have to accept the word of a dictator without question, states included.  The Court has suggested that a state who doesn't think a transmission line found needed in the regional planning process is actually needed should file a complaint against the grid operator at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  If that is the only avenue open to states, prepare for a deluge of complaints at FERC.  Since FERC moves at a snail's pace (on a good day) this is going to tie up regional transmission planning for years and ensure that nothing gets built until need for it has completely evaporated, as it did in the case of the Transource project.  A state that may have agreed with PJM that a project is needed is now required to file a complaint at FERC to get a determination on whether it is actually needed.  Instead of states, grid operators, and federal regulators cooperating to keep the transmission system reliable, we're going to have nothing but litigation and delays while the lights go out.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!  Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy cancelled the Delta-Plains National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor.  DOE said it was due to overwhelming opposition, but let's be real.  The transmission companies who would benefit from it begged to have it cancelled because it was creating overwhelming opposition to one of their projects, the Cimarron Link merchant transmission project.  And we all know who controls the DOE's NIETC designations, don't we?  Its being run by the private interests that the DOE abdicated to when it set up the program.  Our Department of Energy is being run by private companies with financial interest in building transmission.

While cancellation of the NIETC is good news for Oklahoma, it still doesn't do a thing about Cimarron Link.  Project owner Invenergy put out a statement saying nothing has changed for its project.  It still wants to build a transmission line from the panhandle to Jenks.  Invenergy even went so far as to claim that it was advocating for landowners to have the NIETC cancelled.  But Invenergy is still suing landowners in Oklahoma to gain access for surveys to build the project.  If it is successful there, the eminent domain suits are not far behind.

And don't forget about NextEra's Heartland Spirit project, which was also sited in the cancelled NIETC.  That project is also still moving forward.

In the wake of the cancellation, a whole bunch of Oklahoma politicians claimed credit and said they stood with landowners.  This is not their victory... this is the people's victory!  One politician even went to far as to claim that NIETCs were bad because they take property, but inexplicably Cimarron Link is good (because it takes property?).  

There's a whole lot that Oklahoma politicians and the local media don't understand about NIETCs.  The NIETC was never a transmission project, despite the many news stories saying a federal transmission project across Oklahoma was cancelled.  The media's ignorance has done nothing but confuse people into thinking that all the transmission projects have been cancelled.  That confusion is quickly being replaced by reality.

A NIETC is nothing more than a land use designation.  Once designated, it makes land in the corridor the first place to site new transmission projects.  If a state does not approve the transmission project, then the developer can petition the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to permit it.  If FERC issues a permit, then the developer could use federal eminent domain.  It's as simple as that.  The NIETC is not and never was a transmission project.  Therefore its cancellation simply means that Oklahoma law will be used to decide the issues, such as whether Cimarron Link is a utility furnishing power in Oklahoma.  Without knowing who Cimarron's customers will be, it is impossible to say that it is delivering electricity to Oklahoma.  Cimarron Link is what's known as a merchant transmission project.  It is a speculative, supplemental transmission line that is proposed purely for profit.  It is not needed by Oklahomans to keep the lights on.  Cimarron Link wants to sell its capacity through private contracts with utilities that actually serve Oklahomans, or maybe even to utilities or buyers in other states.  The electricity shipped on the line is not for Oklahoma, but to make a profit for Invenergy, who also owns the beginnings of the country's biggest wind farm under development in the panhandle.  It's Invenergy's private driveway to get its generation to a strong point in the transmission system (Jenks) where it can sell it to companies in other states.  Cimarron Link is a integral part of Invenergy's wind farm.  It's a transmission line only made necessary by that wind farm.  Without the wind farm, Cimarron Link wouldn't exist.  Cimarron Link isn't to provide needed reliability to the transmission system and it's not even for use by Oklahomans.

The NIETC was only cancelled because it was mucking up Invenergy's clandestine approach to securing easements with landowners.  Before the NIETC enraged the Oklahoma people, landowners may have felt isolated, ignored and vulnerable and therefore were easier to manipulate.  However, once the NIETC created a firestorm of opposition, landowners began to fight back.  The DOE and Invenergy hope that the huge opposition group will now disband and everything will go back to normal.  But you can't put toothpaste back in the tube, and you can't put the opposition genie back in the bottle.  The opposition Cimarron Link sees today is the opposition it's going to have to its project going forward.  The same opposition will also coalesce around NextEra's Heartland Spirit (another merchant project seeking to take advantage of Oklahomans).  And the opposition is also taking a hard look at Transource's Sooner-Wekiwa, a transmission project planned and ordered by regional grid operator Southwest Power Pool to provide needed reliability to Oklahoma's grid.  Transmission is never going to be the same in Oklahoma!  Power to the people!

Congratulations to the DOE for creating new and overwhelming opposition to new transmission lines!  What sounded like a good idea to the politicians in Washington DC and the clean energy interests that run the DOE is a complete dud when put into practice.  No, NIETCs won't help new transmission get built.  NIETCs will actually make it impossible to build anything because they reached too far and the American people are having none of it!  This week, DOE plans to roll out the other NIETCs it is still trying to plan and the same thing is going to happen on each and every one of them.  NIETCs are going to create a huge firestorm of opposition to new transmission lines and make it impossible to build them.  The sooner new leadership kills this stupid idea, the better off we'll all be.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who has long expressed concern about the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Program, has sent a letter to Secretary Jennifer Granholm demanding that DOE's "eleventh-hour funding" of Grain Belt Express be reversed.

The letter says that the project is doomed to failure and cannot survive without government intervention.  Senator Hawley tells the DOE that the project has no customers.  A decade after first advertising its project to secure contracts with customers, GBE is still batting zero.  If the project was actually needed, there would be voluntary customers.

He also says that the conditional approval issued by DOE's Loan Program office on November 25 is jumping the gun because none of the financial or environmental studies that would be the basis of a decision have been completed and won't be completed for more than a year, at best.  

How can the DOE know that GBE meets all the criteria for a loan when it hasn't yet completed studying it?  It's an approval based on politics and a "hurry up" knee jerk reaction to the re-election of President Trump.  Is this how $7B of taxpayer money should be spent?  On a project that has no commercial viability?  I hope this boondoggle is one of DOGE's first cuts.

Hawley also pans DOE's National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor process, which proposed creating a corridor across the Midwest that would give the federal government backstop siting authority in the event that GBE could not get state approvals.  It is DOE that tied its loan to the designation of a NIETC, requiring a much longer process for loan approval.  Even though Invenergy is now running away from NIETCs as fast as possible, it can't run away from this one.

Who remembers what happened to the Clean Line Plains and Eastern project, tied up at the DOE when President Trump was elected the first time?  Apparently DOE needs its memory refreshed... that project also could not find customers and its approval to participate in a different DOE program was quickly cancelled.  The writing is on the wall for GBE.  The sooner Invenergy realizes the impossibility of getting this project built within the next 4 years, the less money they'll lose overall.  

Read Senator Hawley's full letter here.  Bravo, Senator, for being a desperately needed agent of change in Washington DC.  We hope you can work with the new President and Secretary of Energy to clean house!

Oh, c'mon now.  Of course Invenergy asked for the Delta Plains corridor, along with NextEra, whose Heartland Spirit transmission line makes up it southern border (and the part that continues into Arkansas).  Anyone who has been paying attention to transmission in Oklahoma would instantly recognize the northern border of Delta-Plains as AEP/PSO's failed WindCatcher proposal, now reincarnated by Invenergy's Cimarron Link.  The southern border of the Delta-Plains is Clean Line Energy Partners' failed Plains and Eastern Clean Line, now reincarnated at NextEra's Heartland Spirit.  I've been writing about this for years.  Instead of making two separate NIETCs, the DOE simply combined these two relatively close transmission projects into one NIETC and all the folks in between the two projects got thrown to the wolves.  After all, they weren't supposed to find out about it.

And in Kansas and Missouri, Invenergy has submitted comments to the DOE asking that it narrow its proposed Midwest-Plains corridor to half a mile, just wide enough for its Grain Belt Express project.  Grain Belt was already approved in those states, but announcement of the NIETC was getting people fired up all over again, and attracting the ire of elected officials.

That's right... Congressional representatives are gearing up to thwart NIETCs. Nobody thinks these corridors are a good idea, not even the developers that thought they wanted them in the first place.  NIETCs are making it more difficult to build new transmission because they are creating a larger pool of opposition and those opponents control the narrative because DOE failed to provide any public information, creating an information vacuum.

Those people at the DOE who are running the NIETC program ought to be fired.  They have thoroughly mismanaged it and made it not only useless, but something to be actively shunned.  That's okay though... I'm pretty sure those folks will soon be in the unemployment line come January.  I hope they've managed to give away enough of your tax money to "clean energy" think tanks and NGOs to secure new employment where they can wait out the next 4 years.

We were promised that DOE would be beginning Phase 3 of its NIETC designation process "Fall 2024."  Fall's over.  Nothing yet.  We were also told that DOE would be releasing its updated list of proposed NIETCs and detailed maps "in November, after the election."  That also didn't happen.

And what about NIETCs when there's nobody left in Washington to run the program?  Most likely not happening, at least not for the next 4 years.  But unless Congress cleans that mess up, it's like a deadly seed just waiting to be watered to spring back to life under a future administration.

The Biden Administration and its clean energy clowns have officially run out of time.  After spending the last 4 years giving away our tax dollars to a parade of marginal projects that aren't viable on their own, Biden's DOE has finally reached the pinnacle of waste by creating the next Solyndra on steroids.

While the original Solyndra only wasted $500M in taxpayer funds, Biden's Grain Belt Express debacle has been given the green light to waste nearly $5 BILLION.  That's right... FIVE BILLION of your hard earned dollars collected from you by your government and gifted to private investment company Invenergy.

Solyndra was a proposed solar panel company that went bankrupt in 2011 after receiving $535 million in federal loans from the Obama administration.  Turns out that after spending all that taxpayer money, Solyndra really didn't have any customers or revenue to pay back the loan.  Turns out that Solyndra fudged information about having contracts and customers and DOE employees processing the loan were ordered to look the other way.  The DOE loaned taxpayer funds to a company that didn't have the means to pay it back.

On Monday, Biden's Department of Energy issued a "conditional approval" of a loan or loan guarantee in the amount of $4.9B for the Grain Belt Express.  Said "conditional approval" is contingent upon proof of contracts (or just fudged up crap about fictitious contracts apparently) along with completion of GBE's Environmental Impact Statement.  

In fact, GBE is still "in process" on a bunch of prerequisites for approval of its loan guarantee, but yet the DOE "approved" it anyhow.  That's not exactly legal.

This is what GBE's FAST-41 permitting dashboard looks like today:

Estimated completion date for the environmental review and permitting is April 2, 2026.  But somehow DOE approved it this week before they had finished the environmental review and permitting.

Grain Belt Express has a special website for its Environmental Impact Statement process, which was begun several years ago with "scoping" meetings and comments where you told DOE what environmental impacts to study.  Afterwards, DOE took a nice, long nap and nothing has been done.  DOE still has to publish a draft EIS, present the draft to the public, and take another round of comments before publishing the final report.  DOE must then wait at least 60 days before issuing its Record of Decision.

See GBE's EIS website fact sheet for these tidbits that the public was told about GBE's EIS and Loan Guarantee application:

DOE and GBE thought they would have another 4 years to stretch this process out.  Whoopsie!  Tick tock, time is nearly up!

Instead of following the law and the process that it laid out for the public, DOE has just gone ahead and approved the loan guarantee without finishing the EIS process.  Pretending that the approval is only "conditional" upon completing the EIS a couple years down the road presumes that DOE will approve that EIS before it's even finished.  At least we're now being transparent about the fact that the environmental review is so much busywork with a predetermined conclusion.

DOE thinks it can skirt the law by making up a "conditional" approval process.  Sorry, but that's not what the law says.  The recent Supreme Court decision that overturned Chevron will prevent DOE from making up regulations that have no basis in law.  Of course, this will require landowners and taxpayers to hire lawyers to appeal this travesty.  DOE is hoping you won't.  DOE and GBE hope you just give up now and let them have their way when you're so close to your own victory.

Contact your federal elected officials and see how they can help.

Window 3 is for the purpose of exporting coal-fired electricity from West Virginia to Virginia's out-of-control data center alley.  It's not for us.  We are simply fly over country.

Turns out Window 3 wasn't enough.  Virginia's data centers have exploded because they are all racing to deploy AI, and AI uses 10 times as much power as a regular data center.  Now PJM is looking for ANOTHER extension cord to power Virginia's data centers.

Here's some of the contenders...

A "new" PATH project (yes, the same project we defeated in 2011).  It begins at AEP's John Amos coal-fired generation station in Putnam Co., West Virginia and crosses through 14 counties in West Virginia (Putnam, Kanawha, Roane, Calhoun, Braxton, Lewis, Upshur, Barbour, Tucker, Preston, Grant, Hardy, Hampshire and Jefferson) before ending at a new substation in Frederick County, MD.  From there, it will be sent on a direct path to data center alley in Loudoun County, VA.   That project looks like this in PJM's plan:

The 765kV "new PATH" would also cross through southern Jefferson County on a new 200 foot wide easement next to the existing transmission corridor, taking another 200 feet of people's property, and in some instances their actual homes.  The towers will be 175' tall metal lattice with 4 guy wires holding up each one.

Another idea PJM is entertaining is building two new 500kV transmission lines from  the west that would cross Jefferson County in two places on a new parallel easement 200 ft. wide next to existing 500kV transmission lines.  This proposal would widen both these corridors by another 200 ft. and would gobble up homes.  One of these lines crosses the very northern portion of Jefferson in a subdivision called Leisure Acres, and the other one parallels the existing transmission corridor through southern Jefferson that has seen so many of these awful proposals over the past several years.  On a map, that proposal looks like this:

Why is Jefferson County always the target for new transmission extension cords for data center alley?  Because there are existing lines here already.  PJM and the utilities are under the impression that if you already live near a transmission line you would be eager to have another taking even more of your property, and possibly the very roof over your head.  PJM refuses to listen to the fact that expanding existing transmission corridors is more damaging to the communities than new lines that can be carefully sited to avoid homes and other development (or better yet buried on existing road and rail corridors).  Another reason that Jefferson is always a target is the two linear national parks that sit on our borders.  The C&O Canal follows the Potomac on the Maryland side.  The Appalachian Trail roughly follows our border with Virginia.  Both of these national parks should be protected from multiple infrastructure crossings, therefore the transmission companies try to simply widen existing crossings instead of creating new ones.  These parks that must be crossed to get to data center alley are one reason the same people are targeted over and over again.

There are other options PJM can select that don't involve Jefferson County this time.  It's up to us to convince them to look elsewhere.

So, what can you do?  This is your last chance to tell PJM what you think before they make their selections!  If you can, please attend PJM's TEAC meeting on Tuesday, November 19, 2024 from 1:00 - 3:00 PM.  You can attend over the telephone, or (recommended) via Webex on your computer.  Webex is recommended because you can view the presentation slides as they are discussed, and enter the question queue to ask a question or make a comment.  The meeting is open to everyone, and everyone is welcome to make a comment or ask a question.  However, you must sign up in advance to attend the meeting. 

You can sign up here.  Signing up requires you to create a PJM account.  Many people have had difficulty getting the account created.  If you experience issues, contact PJM by emailing custsvc@pjm.com or calling (866) 400-8980.  These folks are very helpful and will get you fixed up in a jiffy.

What if you can't attend the meeting?  Please send an email to PJM and let them know what you think.  Download this document for the email addresses and suggested text.  If you don't tell PJM what you think, they're going to think Jefferson County doesn't care about becoming the electric transmission superhighway for Loudoun County's data centers.

This is our LAST CHANCE to try to influence PJM's selection.  You silence will be interpreted as acceptance.

Virginia is trying to shove the barn door closed after the horses escaped by holding a technical conference regarding its proliferation of data centers and who pays to provide their electric service.  Questions to be addressed include:

In other words, should Virginia create another rate class for electric service to "large users" (aka data centers) and assign them the cost of all the new transmission lines they make necessary?

Well, bravo, Virginia!  However, Virginia only has jurisdiction to assign the costs that are assigned to Virginia load serving utilities, like Dominion.  The cost allocation of these big lines is a federal responsibility under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).  FERC approves the assignment of costs made by regional grid operator PJM Interconnection.  PJM's current approved cost allocation methodology assigns the costs of lines 500kV and above to the entire PJM region.  The PJM region includes all or parts of 13 other states:  West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, the District of Columbia, Indiana, Michigan and Tennessee.  When PJM orders a new line 500kV or above, it allocates the costs among all 13 states based on the percent of the entire system that state has used over the past year.  Every state in the region uses the PJM system, and every one of those states gets a portion of the cost.  Each state then assigns the costs to its electric consumers using state rate classes.  Virginia is thinking about taking its portion and charging it directly to the data centers that take service in Virginia.  

But what about all the costs for data center transmission lines that are assigned to other states?  The other states cannot charge them to Virginia's data centers, they can only charge them to the customers who take service in their own state.  We're all still stuck with the cost of transmission extension cords that serve Virginia's data centers.

How can this change?  It can only change at the federal level where PJM's transmission cost allocation formula is approved.  That's FERC's jurisdiction.  When consumers and consumer advocates asked FERC to make PJM change its cost allocation formula to make the state with the data centers needing new transmission responsible for their entire cost, they were rejected 2-1.  Only when the entire cost of the transmission gets allocated to the state where the data centers take service can it be properly allocated to the actual users of these new extension cords through the very process Virginia is currently proposing.  Virginia's proposal only passes Virginia's share of the transmission line costs to Virginia's data centers.  The data centers that need the new transmission are not taking service in those other states and therefore the other states have no choice but to allocate the costs of new transmission service for Virginia's data centers to their own consumers.

Perhaps Virginia should first be asking FERC to change PJM's cost allocation formula so that Virginia is responsible for the entire cost of their transmission needs.  Instead, Virginia is happy to be a parasite and let other state electric consumers pay the cost of serving their data centers.

When consumers and consumer advocates questioned PJM's cost allocations for its Window 3 projects last year, the majority of the Commissioners were of the opinion that since PJM's cost allocations are already set and the cost allocations for Window 3 followed that cost allocation scheme, the only thing the Commission could do was approve them.  However, Commissioner Christie had a different opinion (although he legally had to concur).  He thought that the Commission should take up the issue of who pays for state public policies that cause new transmission, such as building data centers, or closing fossil fuel power plants.

So while Virginia is acting parochially to solve problems for its own ratepayers, it is avoiding asking FERC to weigh in on this issue and solve the transmission extension cord rate burden on other states.  What's it going to take to solve this issue at FERC?  The other states need to speak up to ask FERC to solve it.

Meanwhile, Virginia will be taking comments after it holds its technical conference on December 16.  You don't need to live in Virginia to submit a comment asking them to raise the issue at FERC so that ALL its data center extension cord costs are allocated to Virginia, who can then re-allocate them to the data centers.  Nothing is ever going to change unless the other states speak up.

Click here for more information about Virginia's technical conference, Case No. PUR-2024-00144.

One of the new 500kV lines runs from a coal-fired electricity hub in southwestern Pennsylvania to Northern Virginia and passes through Jefferson County on its way.  

In Jefferson County, this new transmission line will be built by expanding the existing 500/138 transmission corridor to add a second 500kV line.  The corridor, running across the county south of Charles Town, currently looks like this.

The smaller of the two lines will be torn down and replaced by a second large metal lattice tower that will be 30-50 feet taller than the adjacent one.  On the new poles will be the new 500kV circuit and a new 138kV circuit to replace the one torn down.  In order to put these larger lines in, the easement that the smaller towers currently sits on (100 ft.) will have to be expanded to accommodate the larger structures.  FirstEnergy, owner of the new project, has not yet announced how much the easement must expand.

Many homes line this existing easement, which was mapped out many decades ago when it was farmland.  Over time, new homes were built just outside the existing easement.  When the easement expands, many of these homes and outbuildings will be gobbled up and razed to make way for Northern Virginia's data center electric extension cord.

But that's not all, oh no.  In the summer of 2024, PJM recognized that it had not planned enough imports for Northern Virginia's ever-growing data center burden in 2023.  Now PJM needs another 5,400 MW of electricity to be imported to Northern Virginia from surrounding states.  PJM followed its procedures to send out an RFP for new transmission lines to bring even more power to Northern Virginia.  In response, it received more than 90 proposals.  One of the new proposals revives the old, dead, unneeded PATH project that was cancelled in 2012 in response to overwhelming citizen opposition.  The new proposal looks like this on PJM's map. 

As proposed, it would add a new 765kV transmission line (the biggest, most powerful AC line they can build) from the John Amos coal-fired power plant in Putnam County to Northern Virginia.  John Amos, owned by American Electric Power, is the largest and dirtiest coal-fired electric generation plant in West Virginia.  The new line would cross 14 West Virginia Counties on its way to Northern Virginia:   Putnam, Kanawha, Roane, Calhoun, Braxton, Lewis, Upshur, Barbour, Tucker, Preston, Grant, Hardy, Hampshire and Jefferson.  It is proposed to be built on a new 200 ft. wide right-of-way using metal lattice guyed "V" towers that look like this and would be 175 ft. tall.

The guy wires holding up these structures increase their footprint and make them impossible to farm around.  You're not just dealing with an electric transmission tower, you're also dealing with 4 guy wires on a spreading footprint!

This new 765kV transmission line is proposed to run parallel to the existing transmission corridor in Jefferson County that is already proposed by be expanded by the new 500kV line PJM approved last year.  It would add a third enormous transmission tower to that corridor and expand it another 200 ft.

Interesting note:  Jefferson is the only place where a second transmission line is proposed in the same corridor impacted by the 2023 projects.  We are fast becoming the superhighway for electric extension cords for Northern Virginia data centers.  If we don't stand up now and stop this, PJM will think we don't care about impacts and that we will willingly accept more and more transmission lines until our county is destroyed by expanding electric transmission lines for Virginia!

What can you do?  We need people to get involved to help organize and create an organization to oppose these transmission proposals.  The StopPATHWV organization that incorporated and battled the PATH project has long since been disbanded.  While the wealth of knowledge gained fighting PATH still exists, the few who remain need your help to get organized!  Organize a meeting in your neighborhood, connect with other neighborhoods, hold larger meetings, and the people who will lead this fight will emerge.  Grassroots groups are as organic as their name... get people together and the magic happens!  The people who fought PATH the first time are standing by to help and educate, but we can't do it all by ourselves.

Here's something you can do right now... today... and in the upcoming months as PJM considers these new proposals and eventually selects the one it thinks best meets the need.  Let PJM know what you think!  You can send an email, or attend upcoming committee meetings and voice your opinion live at their meetings.  Here's how to get involved:
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If we don't stand up for ourselves, no one else will!  Virginia is completely uninterested in solving its data center and energy issues because right now it's easy for them to take advantage of neighboring states.  Only when Virginia's energy problems affect Virginians will Virginia effect change!