Patrick Clark, Clinton County Presiding Commissioner, said he wanted to hear more details from the answers given. He said he feels that Clinton County is a crossover county and will not receive benefits.

“They really couldn’t answer any questions. You know, they talked about livestock, they talked about electronics on tractors and stuff like that, but when the question was asked about other effects on people, they couldn’t answer,” Clark said. “One thing that really concerns me is this is the first DC line this company’s ever dealt with.”

Clark asked at the meeting why the line is proposed to go through Northwest Missouri instead of southern Kansas and southern Missouri. It was answered that the route was decided by a variety of reasons, which included areas with cultural sensitivities, terrain and other reasons.

“Invenergy is committed to working with the communities and the landowners who will host this project,” Mann said. “Our land team is going to be sitting down with landowners all along the route.”

The project is designed to provide a new electricity source for the region with the construction of 15 miles of transmission lines and improvements to four substations in Amherst, Appomattox, Campbell and Nelson counties.
The completed transmission line would strengthen the local power grid, increase reliability to the area and reduce the likelihood of power outages, according to APCo spokesperson George Porter. He said Albemarle, Appomattox, Amherst, Campbell and Nelson counties all would see increased service reliability.

There are also supplemental needs in the area that were evaluated together with the baseline violations. The supplemental needs in the area are driven by equipment condition for the Amherst – Clifford 69 kV and Clifford – Scottsville 46 kV circuits. The lines were built in 1960 and 1926 respectively, on wood pole structures and have many open conditions due to rot, woodpecker/insect damage, split poles, broken insulators, and damaged shield wire. The recommended solution addresses both the baseline and supplemental needs in the area and is the most cost effective. The estimated cost for this project is $85 million, and the required in-service date is December, 2022. Based on their FERC 715 TO Criteria, the local transmission owner, AEP, will be designated to complete this work.

Along the multiple possible routes, more than 300 landowners had the potential to be effected — largely by the 70- to 90-foot galvanized steel poles that would be constructed to carry the transmission lines.

Martin’s neighbors, Bill and Cole Carney, harbor similar fears. One of the proposed routes would cut through their property. Owners of the 1851 plantation home that gave Tin Top Place its name, they have been on the property for about a year. Budding farmers with plans to expand and potentially start an organic farm, Bill Carney said it will render swathes of their land useless, force acres of woods to be cut down and prevent them from moving forward with plans for the farm.
“How are we supposed to sell products if we have an industrial power line coming through our supposed organic fields?” said Cole Carney. “We never would have bought had we known this was coming.”

The commission shall make its decision with respect to the necessity for and the   reasonableness of the location of the proposed electric transmission line or urban electric transmission line, taking into consideration: (1) The benefit to both consumers in Kansas and consumers outside the state and; (2) the economic development benefits in Kansas; and (3) the local aesthetics, location, environment and population density. The  commission shall issue or withhold the permit applied for and may condition such permit as the commission may deem just and reasonable and as may, in its judgment, best protect the rights of all  interested parties and those of the general public.

Property owners were paid several hundred dollars to a couple of thousand dollars by the utility company for easements.

Rep. Gail Finney, D-Wichita, urged House colleagues to expand authority of the Kansas Corporation Commission to regulate placement of transmission lines in cities. It would require the KCC to take into account population density, location and aesthetics in siting decisions.

It wouldn’t alter reality faced by residents of about 75 homes in close proximity to the utility towers in Wichita, but it would create a form of due process for property owners by requiring a siting permit.

“It’s not going to do anything to help these people right now,” Finney said. “What I’m doing is trying to help people in the future. It could happen to any one of you.”

Whether there are benefits to the project is a moot point to me, considering the freedom my constituents and residents of the entire state would have to give up. I’m concerned about private property rights and protecting Missouri residents from being displaced from their land to line the pockets of a corporation.

If an out-of-state developer can work its way across north Missouri for this project, what’s to stop the next developer from building another line across yours?

For the past six years or so, developers have been trying to build a giant power line across northern Missouri. The proposed Grain Belt Express line would carry 4,000 megawatts of wind-generated DC electricity from southwest Kansas to a converter station near the Illinois-Indiana border. From there, the electricity would be sold to retail customers on the East Coast. The massive power line – the largest ever built in Missouri – would cross eight counties and span the entire width of the state. As originally planned, the 800-mile power line was not actually supposed to provide electricity to a single end-use consumer in Missouri. It was just passing through.

Senate Bill 597, which I sponsored, will stop the taking of private property for the purpose of private profit. Simply put, this legislation denies the power of eminent domain to utilities that do not serve end-use customers in Missouri. In my opinion, a big corporation wanting to make money by selling Kansas wind power to East Coast consumers should not justify taking private property from Missouri landowners.

There has been a spate of gas and oil company ads heralding their fight against global warming. They produce ever-greater greenhouse gas emissions and want credit for doing it more cleanly.

They claim natural gas is a bridge fuel while building new pipelines soon to lie uselessly in the ground. They could use their assets, tax subsidies and ratepayers’ money to electrify every home, business and vehicle very quickly.

Many believe the wind does not blow all the time. In fact, there are many, many places throughout the world where it does blow and blow strongly all the time. The Oklahoma panhandle produces thousands of megawatts. Vast quantities of constant strong wind off the New England coast are being developed now. Giant turbines driven by 120 feet blades produce constant electric power from wind which costs nothing. Direct current transmission lines deliver power efficiently over long distances. We have the technical know how and the construction capacity to power the United States by electricity now.

Skeptical, add solar and new pocket nuclear stations to the mix. Why squander billions of tax and customer dollars on new gas infrastructures while electrification is happening? Will these fossil fuel giants delay so long as to cause great climate damage while building useless stranded assets?

Please read Wall Street Journal reporter’s, Russell Gold’s, book, Superpower, One Man’s Quest to Transform American Energy.

On January 24, 2020, the Commission issued Opinion No. 554-A, its Order On Rehearing, Directing Briefs, And Accepting In Part And Rejecting In Part Compliance Filings in this proceeding. The Commission arbitrarily and capriciously ruled that Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (“PATH”) should re-recover its costs for its civic and political expenditures and General Advertising, completely reversing and contradicting its own
findings in Opinion No. 554 issued on January 19, 2017, and in violation of PATH’s approved
Formula Rate.  Opinion No. 554-A erroneously interprets the Commission’s existing accounting regulations, specifically exempting PATH’s expenses from Account 426.4 based on unstated and unwritten requirements, and introduces regulatory uncertainty. It also unduly intrudes into state jurisdiction by encouraging transmission owners to compromise the integrity of the state regulatory process at ratepayer expense. Opinion 554-A is based on substantial legal error, not supported by substantial record evidence, and is not the product of reasoned decision making for benefit of the ratepayers that the Commission serves. The Opinion is an extremely belated action that harms consumers and can only be deemed arbitrary and capricious and not the product of reasoned decision-making.

The Commission issued a well-reasoned and well-supported accounting determination in this proceeding in 2017. It followed that Opinion with further written guidance on calculating refunds (even going so far as to create spreadsheets for PATH to fill out), and an additional Order on compliance filings that required PATH to make additional refunds of advertising costs, or explain them in accordance with its Formula Rate. We note that the three Commissioners sitting today concurred in that Order. The refunds have been accomplished and the matter was headed for closure. If the Commission had concerns about its Opinion No. 554, it was not
evident during that time period. The Commission spent plenty of time making sure the refunds ordered were carried out, but could not find the time to consider PATH’s Request for Rehearing until after the refunds were accomplished.

What changed? The expenditures did not change. The Commission’s accounting regulations did not change. The Commission’s precedent did not change. The Commission’s
opinion is the only thing that changed. The Commission did not choose to clarify its previous opinion. It did not choose to modify its previous opinion. It did not choose to change its regulations to effect new policy in a separate proceeding. It chose to completely flip-flop on its prior opinion in a poorly supported new opinion, reverse its findings, and deem the expenditures recoverable using arguments and precedent that it initially rejected in Opinion No. 554. This is the epitome of an arbitrary and capricious action. The Commission appears to be fighting itself
here, not making well-reasoned decisions in the interest of the consumers it serves.

Therefore, in accordance with Rule 713 of the Commission’s Rules of Practice and Procedure, 18 C.F.R. § 385.713 (2016), Keryn Newman and Alison Haverty, parties pro se, submit this Request for Rehearing. The Commission should reverse Opinion No. 554-A and restore its findings in Opinion No. 554, approve compliance filings for amounts already refunded to ratepayers, and reestablish the regulatory certainty it once provided to the entities it regulates through long-standing precedent and guidance provided by its accounting regulations.

We began by wondering what had changed in the intervening years between Opinion No. 554 and Opinion No. 554-A. The only answer we can find is a clear instance of confirmation
bias where limited examination of the record, regulations, and precedent was performed to
support granting PATH’s Request for Rehearing. It’s almost like the Commission made the decision to grant PATH’s request in isolation, and then went on a futile search to find (or simply invent) support for its decision later. Opinion No. 554-A is an arbitrary and capricious decision by the Commission, completely unhinged from evidence, regulations, or precedent. This is a hallmark of a captured regulatory agency making arbitrary decisions in favor of those it regulates, and not based upon an impartial evaluation of the law for the benefit of the consumers it exists to serve. This is not regulation in the public interest.

We hereby request that the Commission set this matter for rehearing and restore its findings made in Opinion No. 554.

Imagine if Warren Buffett wanted to build a private toll road across northern Missouri. The billionaire would charge cars $100 apiece to race from his home city of Omaha, Nebraska, to Nashville, Tennessee, pocketing a huge chunk of profit on each trip. He might call it the “Music City Express.” Unfortunately, the toll road would have no exits in Missouri. Cars could only get on in Nebraska and exit in Tennessee. No local residents could use it at all.

Even though the Music City Express would make a fortune for Buffett, he would probably have trouble convincing every single landowner in his path to sell. The road would do them no good — it would just be a nuisance and take away their land. Surely a few holdouts would foil his plans. If only his project qualified as a “public use,” he could invoke the governmental power of eminent domain to force unwilling landowners to sell. But the project isn’t designed to benefit the public — it’s meant to enrich its owner.

The promotional literature for the company touts the project as a “free market solution to meet the growing demand for sustainable energy.” Well, there is nothing in a “free market” that gives entities the right to condemn property owned by the residents of Missouri and taking it for a private business.
When normal utilities are granted the ability to use eminent domain, their electricity rates are regulated by the state of Missouri. In exchange for the convenience of siting their facilities and the money saved because sellers have no bargaining power, the PSC protects consumers and makes sure that the benefits of eminent domain are passed along to electricity consumers.

Tom Kiernan, writing in favor of the project in the Feb. 12 Post-Dispatch, has made it clear that the project, part of a multi-state effort known as the Grain Belt Express, would be “difficult” to complete without eminent domain. But his op-ed piece seemed designed to avoid actually mentioning the words “eminent domain.” Why did he fail to mention the central issue driving this controversy?

As the Missouri Legislature enters its third year of debate over the project, Clean Line’s backers have started talking about fiber optics as well. Not only will electricity consumers receive a bonanza, but everybody in north Missouri will be able to watch Netflix.

Perhaps not as good as a toaster for opening a new account, but haven’t we all been asking for better rural broadband? Well, yes we have, but extending the fiber to homes, which is the most expensive part of providing rural broadband, is a much more difficult and expensive proposition than what Clean Line is offering.

A meet-and-greet for potential contractors for the Independence Energy Connection drew about as many protesters as it did interested contractors Thursday night at the Clarion Inn and Suites in Chambersburg.