Schadenfreude:  pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune.

The schadenfreude was so thick you could cut it with a knife at AEP's Q1 2012 Earnings Call on Friday morning. 

Akins (LDB) set the tone by saying, in effect, that FirstEnergy is "un-American."

"And if it's at the company's expense, it's tantamount to taking capacity value that the company is committed for a 3-year period to PJM to run and giving it to competitors to subsidize the acquisition of our customers, which sort of seems a little bit un-American to me. It's really not competition, it's more a confiscation."

And it was all downhill from there...  Most of the questions centered around the Ohio Charlie Foxtrot so enjoy the schadenfreude in the Q & A section.  Although all the stuttering isn't evident in the transcript, the meaningless buzzwords that these prevaricators use as a crutch are prevalent ("optionality" "repositioning" "volatility" "a transition that makes sense" - hey, that was Mikey's line about the EPA rules - remember, anything that's not beneficial to AEP's bottom line doesn't "make sense.")

Overall, AEP is looking pretty sad!  Revenue is down because of customers dumping AEP and a mild winter (even Mother Nature hates AEP!)  Prices and demand are down for AEP's dirty coal power and gas use is up 26%.  Ut-oh, AEP, pretty crappy planning there, don't ya think?  Read a summary here.

AEP says that pulling the wool over the eyes of the PSC and legislature in WV regarding "securitization" is much easier than it is in Ohio.  Somehow $325M of fuel debt inflated to $400M of "fuel debt" during the earnings call.  The difference is all the unrelated debt APCO tossed into their WV "securitization" amount of $400M.  West Virginia = proud to be AEP's patsy cash cow!

"We have a similar situation in APCO West Virginia where we have nearly $400 million of deferred fuel that we are filing to securitize there. And think we're on a faster track to be able to securitize that close to $400 million than we are in Ohio."

And don't miss the part where LDB starts talking about "designer coals."  That's just what AEP needs -- fashionable, expensive coals that make people desperate to power their homes with only the best!

For accounting purposes, the PATH Project is split into two different companies in PATH's FERC Formula Rate cost recovery process.  Every year around mid-April, these two PATH Companies (PATH-Allegheny, which includes the project from Welton Springs north, and PATH-WV, which comprises the project from Welton Springs south) are required to file a package of financial forms that detail their spending over the previous year, FERC Form No. 1.  The Form No. 1 data is the basis for each PATH company's annual true up filing on June 1, which compares PATH's collected projected costs with their actual costs for the previous year.  The true up, which PATH calls their Annual Update filing, is the document that is subject to discovery and challenge by interested parties, and the subject of those fun, summer meetings (now conference calls) where interested parties have peppered PATH with questions about their spending.

Both PATH companies have now filed their Form No. 1 for 2011, which gives us a preview of things to come and allows us to make comparisons and pick up a few other tidbits of useful information.  Ready?  Here we go!

On the capital side, PATH-WV has $58.8M invested in  CWIP and land held for future use, and PATH-Allegheny has $43.5M in CWIP and $19.8M in plant in service (which is where they hide their land).  This amount represents the companies' investment in PATH that earns a 12.4% return every year, and what they'll try to recover once the project is abandoned.  These totals are much less than the originally projected amounts for 2011, made before the project was suspended, of $95.3M and $101M.

Operations & Maintenance (O&M) are the yearly costs that are expensed, or recovered dollar for dollar as they are spent.  PATH-WV's total is $3.2M and PATH-Allegheny's total is $3.9M.  Within O&M is the subtotal of Administrative & General (A&G) expenses.  This is where a lot of PATH's wasteful spending gets shoveled off to.  PATH-WV's A&G total is $1.9M and PATH-Allegheny's is $1.2M.  Within A&G are some of the "problem" accounts PATH uses as "catch alls" for expenses that don't quite fit and have been repeatedly challenged, such as Outside Services (923).  Now remember, the PATH Project was only active for 2 out of 12 months of 2011.  You'd think, therefore, that their expenses should be 1/6 of previous activity, right?  PATH-Allegheny's 923 total is $465,897, down from just over $1M in 2010.  PATH-WV's 923 total is $927,503, down just slightly from $1.3M in 2010.  What "outside services" do you suppose PATH spent all that money on while their project was suspended for the majority of the year?

Advertising expenses in 2011 were budgeted at $400K, but totaled only $79,626 for PATH-WV and $22,934 for PATH-Allegheny.  I hope all of that wasn't spent on this stupid internet advertising campaign that relied on a bunch of unwieldy video files that took forever to load and provided a link to the PATH opposition's Coalition for Reliable Power website as an option for disgusted targets who didn't want to wait 15 minutes for a video to load.  Oh, how we laughed at that!  Remember "Charles Ryan Assco. has a Secret!"?

Also in A&G are Miscellaneous General Expenses (Acct. 930.2).  This is where PATH hid all their "memberships," like their $20,000 "sponsorship" of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce.  PATH-WV's 2011 total is $12,269 and consists of $9,330 in "industry association dues" and other miscellaneous of $2,939.  PATH-Allegheny, who had a real problem with recording "sponsorships," "lobbying," "donations" and "corporate stewardship" as "industry association dues" in Acct. 930.2, seems to have cleaned up their act for 2011.  Their 2010 total was just over $60K, however their 2011 total is just $4,460, of which only $3,816 were "memberships."  I'm guessing all the spit dried up in their mouth after the last challenge was filed.

Other interesting observations:

There are certain accounts entitled "Donations" and "Expenditures for certain civic, political and related activities" that act as deductions to income that PATH has also sorely abused.  While the amounts in these accounts are not recovered directly from ratepayers, that's a slippery slope.  Let's look at it this way:  All PATH's income comes from ratepayers.  If a ratepayer gives PATH a dollar, PATH could put it in its pocket. Or, PATH could choose to give that dollar to a lobbyist.  It's really still your dollar, but PATH chooses to spend it on influencing instead of putting it in their own pocket.  One of FERC's reasons for allowing companies like PATH to place CWIP in rate base is that it will generate income during project construction that can then be put back into the project, lowering borrowing and interest that would otherwise have to be repaid by ratepayers.  However, instead of using your dollar to purchase project assets, PATH frittered away huge sums of project income on purchasing influence instead. PATH used "donations" to buy favor with organizations and communities, and "political activities" to hire lobbyists to influence state approvals.  In 2011, PATH's "donations" were $10,424 for PATH-WV and a mind-boggling $60,153 for PATH-Allegheny, a jump of nearly $30K for a project that was supposedly "in abeyance."  Of course, you gotta wonder where the expense of all those "memberships" went -- out of your pocket and into theirs? ;-)  PATH-WV's "political activities" totaled $22,108 in 2011 and PATH-Allegheny's totaled $67,131. 

Wrapping up here, PATH-WV over-recovered from ratepayers in 2011 again, this time in the amount of $1,238,773.  This amount will be repaid to you in 2013, with 1/4 of 1% interest.  However, PATH-Allegheny under-recovered in the amount of $3,992,752.  This amount will be charged to you in 2013, plus the same percentage of interest.

Wow!  How did they screw up their projections so badly, right?  I'll tell you how.  Those amounts include forfeited property option payments that the PATH companies moved from CWIP to expense in 2011 in the amount of $26,200 for PATH-WV and a whopping $2,464,112 for PATH-Allegheny.  This nearly $2.5M is your money that was completely wasted by PATH during their premature push to get landowners to sign over their property before they even had necessary state permits.  Because PATH thought their project was such a "done deal" they felt free to imprudently waste your money hounding landowners before their state cases had even made any progress at all.  And it's not over yet!  According to another report the companies have both filed, PATH-WV expects to expense another $250,000 of property options in 2012 and PATH-Allegheny is expecting $109,000.

Property option forfeiture.  Dead project.  Give up, PATH!

You know what they say, AEP, idle hands are the devil's workshop!  While we sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for PATH's abandonment, there's so many other fun things to pass the time! 

For example, we can wonder if Akins (aka LittleDrummerBoy) explained to the brown-nosers in Danville that half of that $25,000 scholarship he presented to Averett University would be recovered from those same concerned ratepayers who made electric rates "a major talking point" in Virginia's state-wide political races.

That's right, Virginia has recently seen fit to allow Appalachian Power to recover up to one-half of their charitable contributions from captive electric ratepayers, therefore, $12,500 of that "generous" scholarship is going to come out of the pockets of consumers.

LDB also told the folks in Danville a bunch of other fairy tales that I'm not going to bother with, and took a few boring swipes at the EPA.  LDB, you're boring and way too easily debunked.

Completely unrelated, except in its capacity to embarrass AEP, check out these two pages excerpted from one of AEP's subsidiary FERC filings, which I unfortunately found myself poring through as a favor to someone else recently.  AEP executives' "Personal use of company aircraft," "Personal use of executive dining room," and "Financial counseling and tax preparation" that ended up being funded by consumers probably weren't topics on LDB's Danville agenda either.  Oh yes, AEP, poor, poor, pitiful you!

Last week, AEP subsidiaries Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power filed their yearly ENEC case with the WV PSC.  Guess what?  They don't need a rate increase this year!

This is due to the Consumer Debt Bond Bill passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Tomblin that will simply mortgage this year's rate increase, caused by unrecovered coal costs, by having consumers pay for it over the next ten years, plus costs and interest.

Although AEP did not include the filing for "securitization" in their ENEC case (it will be a separate filing), they sure had plenty to say about it.

"As was the case several years ago, the Companies and their ratepayers are faced with a very large ENEC rate increase, given the existing ENEC under-recovery balance.    The Companies judge that it would be burdensome for their customers to shoulder the entirety of that increase over the course of a single year under the traditional ENEC mechanism. They are therefore proposing two alternative approaches. The first, and the most advantageous for all concerned in the Companies’ estimation, is the use of a securitization mechanism whereby the ENEC under-recoveries involved in this case would be financed through the issuance of comparatively low-interest bonds.
Legislation authorizing the Commission to consider securitization was enacted by the West Virginia Legislature during its 2012 regular session and signed by the Governor on March 15, 2012. The Companies will be filing an application with the Commission pursuant to the new law and the Commission will decide whether to issue a financing order permitting the issuance of bonds for the recovery of the deferred ENEC balance. Under this approach, if the bonds are authorized and issued, the Companies do not think that there will need to be any ENEC rate increase in this case."

So, how much is AEP looking to collect and leave consumers paying the mortgage on for the next ten years?  $391.8M.

This includes previous under recovered coal costs of $329.4M, $25.8M of carrying charges on the under recovered balance, $22,695,371 of old debt for deferred Century Aluminum electricity costs, $4.2M of deferred "industrial customer credit," "bonus coal payments" and other deferrals -- in other words, they're cleaning house and throwing all old debt and deferrals into the bond that consumers end up financing.  There is also a $23.4M under recovery for 2011 proposed to be tossed into the bond.

That $329.4M of old coal debt was supposed to be paid off over the past 3 years through previous rate increases.  What excuse does AEP have for the outstanding balance still remaining?

"The Companies have identified the following as key contributors to why the ENEC under-recovery balance did not decline as projected following last year’s ENEC rate increase:

• Continued increase in coal prices;
•  Lower off-system sales margins; and
  
• Lower retail sales due to the economic downturn"

None of that's going to change either.  So, what is AEP planning to do next year when they again have a huge under recovered fuel balance and more deferrals racked up?  The legislature limited bond issuance to this year only, in response to vocal citizen opposition.  Perhaps it's time to enact least cost planning (which the legislature rejected this year) and help AEP kick their expensive coal habit, so this doesn't happen again.

Here's what AEP's "expert" has to say about coal prices:

"The trend from recent years of steadily rising coal prices matched with lower coal market volatility continued through the first half of 2011.    In spite of the recent economic downturn, the market did not experience significantly lower coal prices for the majority of 2011 because demand for coal in other countries continued to support the price of coal from the Central Appalachian Basin, the main type of coal consumed by APCo.  However, starting in the fourth quarter of 2011, Central Appalachian coal prices have dropped significantly in response to weak domestic demand.
In    2011    APCo    saw    a    slight    increase    in    generation    need    over    2010.    This increase in generation resulted in APCo consuming more coal in 2011 than in 2010, but continued low power demand as a result of the economic downturn still prevented coal prices from rising significantly.
Coal prices are believed to be continuing on a general upward trend as easily- mineable eastern bituminous coal sources are becoming rarer, but there is also some uncertainty regarding future EPA rules and how the implementation of those rules may affect future coal consumption. This uncertainty is reflected in the District of Columbia’s Circuit Court of Appeals decision to stay implementation of the EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (“CSAPR’) on December 30, 2011, less than two days before the rule was to take effect. The stay of the CSAPR has not yet had a significant impact on the market price for coal, but future developments regarding CSAPR and the recently-finalized Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (“MATS") do have the potential to cause a downward effect on prices due to lack of demand if utilities have to shutter non-compliant coal-fired power plants.    These rules could also lead to increases in price for lower sulfur coals, as utilities look to contract for cleaner coals. It is uncertain what the overall impact of these influences may be on the coal market as a whole."

If there's any humor to be found in this sad situation, it's this article in today's Charleston Daily Mail.  Byron Harris, WV's "Consumer Advocate" that played the perfect patsy for AEP by supporting the Consumer Debt Bond Bill at the legislature, gets a swift kick in the teeth from AEP's spokeswoman for his trouble.

"Harris also wonders if it's possible to cut rates this year using bonds.

Matheney cautioned against misleading people with that kind of talk."

Misleading people?  Ha ha ha!  Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black after the way AEP's lobbyists snowed the legislature and the PSC with their Consumer Debt Bond Bill, claiming that it would result in NO RATE INCREASES?  Seriously, you slay me... thanks for the laugh!

If you've been following along on the Primary Power SVC issue at PJM that we've featured here and here, your wallet should be thrilled that PJM has awarded the projects to incumbent transmission owners FirstEnergy and Dominion.

As you will recall, Primary Power claims to have spent $5M developing this project over the past few years in cooperation with PJM engineers, and they were awarded a 200 basis point incentive by FERC for the project in 2010.

Meanwhile, a couple of PJM's favored incumbent utilities have swooped in at the last minute and taken the project away from Primary Power.  As I recall, the last letter Primary Power sent to PJM's Board of Managers was cc'd to their attorney.

The cartel has placed themselves in a precarious legal position, but that's nothing new.  As we've seen many times before, they will stoop to amazing depths of depravity in order to make sure their favored "stakeholders" continue to receive all the tastiest morsels.  Apparently "right of first refusal" (where incumbents get first crack at needed upgrades) isn't dead at PJM, despite FERC doing away with it in Order No. 1000.

Now, here's the stupidest part of the whole thing (and where your wallet comes in).  If Primary Power ends up filing a lawsuit against PJM and is successful, guess who will pay the award?  YOU will!  That's right, because PJM is a "not-for-profit" and generates no profits, you ratepayers are PJM's piggy bank.  So, let's assume the court sees fit to punish PJM for their arbitrary and capricious award of the SVC projects... PJM doesn't care because they will just pass any punishment on to you in the form of a higher electric bill.

The cartel has got to go.

Back in February, FirstEnergy announced closure of three antique, coal-fired, electric generation facilities in West Virginia in September of this year, Albright, Rivesville and Willow Island.  On March 9, FirstEnergy's Mon Power and Potomac Edison subsidiaries submitted what they called an "informational filing" to the WV Public Service Commission, notifying them of the closures and reasons therefore.

Like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky, the WV PSC issued an Order yesterday reopening the companies' ENEC filing and requiring more information on the retirements.  Meanwhile, FirstEnergy is forbidden to take any further action toward the retirements.

The PSC's Order made a lot of people and entities insanely curious about what's driving the PSC's Order, and apparently, the curious include FirstEnergy itself.

Is the WV PSC being driven by the politics and influence of coal?  It happened in Kentucky when AEP changed course and decided to install scrubbers on Big Sandy instead of retirement/repowering.

Is the WV PSC concerned about reliability issues?  A "Reliability Status Report" on the plant retirements has been completed by PJM, however PJM won't publicly release the information at this time.

Is the WV PSC concerned about the economic/jobs issues?  Preston County is begging the Commission to keep Albright open.

Or, is the WV PSC concerned about rate increases for the companies' West Virginia customers?  Perhaps the Commission got wind of a curious little news blurb that appeared briefly back in February, and then disappeared from major news outlets.  Fortunately, there's at least one copy still hanging around.  The article claims that FirstEnergy is gaming the markets with plant closures in order to score a huge financial windfall.

"First Energy’s nuclear plants and baseload coal plants with environmental controls are the primary beneficiaries of the EPA rules," Hugh Wynne, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein, told AP.

Who wouldn't be suspicious when FirstEnergy's "informational filing" reads like they are making a sensible decision... for a change.

Ya know, if West Virginia statute required electric utilities to do least cost planning (S.B. 162, which failed), the PSC would probably already have all the information it is now ordering FirstEnergy to produce, and there would be no need for curiosity.

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice...

More to come.

FERC issued an Order on Remand last Friday.

Back in 2007, while gearing up for the billions of dollars that PJM's coal-fired Project Mountaineer transmission projects would cost, FERC issued Order No. 494, which socialized the cost of these exorbitantly expensive, unneeded projects over a larger customer base. Once authorized by FERC in the Order, PJM changed its cost allocation methods to adopt the “postage-stamp” method of allocating the cost of new transmission in its RTEP that operates at or above 500 kV.  Prior to Order No. 494, all new transmission was paid for through a “license plate” methodology whereby those who directly benefited from the project would shoulder the cost.

Under a license-plate (or zonal) rate design, a customer pays the embedded cost of transmission facilities that are located in the same zone as the customer. A customer does not pay for other transmission facilities outside of the zone, even if the customer engages in transactions that rely on those zones.

Under a region-wide, postage-stamp methodology, all transmission service customers in a region pay a uniform rate per unit-of-service, based on the aggregated costs of all covered transmission facilities in the region.

Due to these new postage stamp rates, a high percentage of regional load, and the  wide geographic reach of the PJM region, customers in Illinois suddenly found themselves being charged the second highest percentage of eastern PJM’s Project Mountaineer costs.

“However, the cost shifts that would be incurred by switching from the DFAX methodology to the postage-stamp methodology are significant, resulting in western zones paying between 1,260 percent and 22,500 percent more for these facilities.”

The Illinois Commerce Commission objected to this inordinate cost, compared to “benefits” received, and the issue ended up before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.  In October of 2009, the Court remanded the rate methodology back to FERC, finding that the Commission had not provided sufficient record evidence to justify its findings that the existing allocation practice for new facilities at and above 500 kV was unjust and unreasonable, and the Commission had not adequately supported its conclusion that the postage-stamp methodology was just and reasonable. The court found that the Commission’s reliance on the difficulty of measuring benefits for above 500 kV facilities, and the resulting likelihood of litigation, failed to justify the Commission’s decision. The court stated that the Commission had failed to show “the absence of any indication that the difficulty exceeds that of measuring benefits to particular utilities of a smaller-capacity transmission line.” The court further found that the Commission failed to justify requiring PJM to adopt a region-wide, postage-stamp cost allocation methodology for new transmission facilities that operate at or above 500 kV.

However, the court also recognized that, in comparing costs and benefits, the Commission “does not have to calculate benefits to the last penny, or for that matter to the last million or ten million or perhaps hundred million dollars.”  FERC seems to have taken this to heart in their Order on Remand, issued on Friday.  To summarize, the Order determined that allocating costs of transmission enhancements that operate at or above 500 kV to utility zones using a postage-stamp cost allocation methodology is a just, reasonable and not unduly discriminatory method of allocating the costs of these new facilities.

In order to get there, FERC provided what it feels is the justification the court found missing in Order No. 494.

“In summary, ComEd, along with the other western utilities, will receive significant benefits from the new 500 kV and above projects that prevent the degradation of the PJM transmission system and maintain the capability to continue to produce up to $2.2 billion in estimated system-wide savings each year, as indicated by the ISO/RTO metrics report, along with additional estimated annual savings associated with decreased service interruptions and power quality disturbances, reduced line losses, and reduced congestion. These estimated annual, system-wide savings totaling approximately $2.2 billion compare favorably to the annual, system wide costs of approximately $1.3 billion for the facilities at issue here. In total, PJM’s transmission system provides ComEd’s customers with access to savings of approximately $320 million to $468 million each year.  While we recognize that there is imprecision in valuing the benefits of new 500 kV and above facilities, these estimated savings identified herein provide sufficient justification for allocating approximately $198 million per year in costs to ComEd under the postage stamp methodology for new transmission facilities necessary to maintain the integrity and reliability of the existing system so that customers will continue to have access to savings and to provide for future needs.”

I suppose it shouldn't come as any real surprise, since the "fix" has been in on the sale of three national parks since last fall, so let's call it outrageous, disgusting and contemptible.  The Obama Administration, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and the upper echelon of the National Park Service sold something that belongs to YOU to two huge energy corporations today.  And guess what?  YOU will pay for the energy corporations' bribe!

After recommending the "no action" alternative for the Susquehanna-Roseland Transmission Line last fall, the NPS reversed themselves today and selected the power companies' preferred Alternative 2, the most damaging route across the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, the middle Delaware National Scenic River, and the Appalachian Trail.

“In identifying the preferred alternative, we closely examined the existing easements owned by the utilities, the impacts of the proposed transmission line, alternatives to the proposal, and mitigation measures to avoid and minimize adverse impacts to park resources,” said Dennis Reidenback, the Park Service's Northeast regional director.

Oh, and those "mitigation measures?"  That is the $40M land-bribe that the power companies are offering to the NPS in exchange for license to ruin three parks that belong to the citizens of the United States.  And, under federal electric ratemaking schemes, the power companies won't be paying that $40M.  They are permitted to recover the full amount from ratepayers in 13 states and the District of Columbia over the next 50 years.  Under the same ratemaking scheme, the power companies will also make a profit on this $40M through the 12.9% interest they will earn on the unpaid balance of the $40M bribe each and every one of the next 50 years.  The Obama Administration and the National Park Service has sold YOUR parks to corporations and is making you pay for the bribe they received in return for agreeing to the sale of YOUR assets!  

Although the power companies and the Obama Administration are pretending that the Susquehanna-Roseland line will "save you money" by alleviating made-up "congestion," it's all a bunch of phony invention.  Susquehanna-Roseland is going to do nothing but make my electric rates go up.  Hmm... wouldn't this make a delicious formal complaint?  

Check out the comments of New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel, who isn't afraid to call a spade a spade.

"Today the Obama administration sold out our National Parks.  Lands that are supposed to be protected for future generations, they turned over to power companies. This is a shameful day in the long history of our parks and may set precedent for more gas and power lines through our parks.  This decision is an insult to the more than 5 million people that visit the Water Gap every year," said Jeff Tittel, Director, NJ Sierra Club.

"We will continue fighting this project, even in the Courts if necessary.  We will stand up for the integrity of our National Parks, even if the Department of Interior will not."

"This is all about the power of money, whether it is coal companies and utilities pushing a power line that will cut through a national park, or people standing in line to get mitigation money so that they can profit on the destruction of a National Park's resources."

Perhaps worst of all, the environmental destruction could cause a severe infestation of bolt weevils in the Parks!!

The Colorado Public Service Commission is a bit disturbed by electric utility Xcel's cost of corporate jets for which they are seeking reimbursement from ratepayers.  And if you think they're disturbed, you can imagine how the consumers feel about it.

Xcel added $1.1M of their $5.7M cost of the aircraft to their recent request for a rate increase.  Xcel says the expense is prudent to jet their execs around like mass transit for hoity-toity commuters.  This isn't a rare occurrence.  All the big investor owned utilities feel entitled to live like kings at your expense.  You might even come across the words "corporate jet" in the PATH Formal Challenge (page 60).

These clueless plutocrats need a few lessons in humility and a day or so spent inhabiting the real world in which the rest of us live.  News flash:  The economy is in the dumpster and we can't afford your sense of entitlement any longer!  Your train has run off the rails.  All passengers must disembark!

Word is that NPS personnel working on the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission project's EIS have been called to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area this week for meetings.  They may not come out of it with their integrity intact!  Help them out by signing this petition.  Do it right now!

Have you signed it yet?  If you just said "no" then you're not allowed to finish reading this blog post.  Go away.

NPS personnel have been under increasing pressure to permit profit-seeking utilities PSE&G and PPL to destroy the most scenic vistas of the park with one of PATH's sister Project Mountaineer unneeded transmission lines.  In exchange for rolling over and selling your public resources to the highest corporate bidder, the Park Service will receive some inferior land on the fringes of the current park as "mitigation."  Those on the inside report that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has already cut a deal with power company lobbyists to approve the destruction, before the EIS is even finished!  The NPS personnel working on the project have been put into the compromising position of just going through the motions when approval is already in the bag, bought and paid for.  And guess who's paying?  YOU ARE!  Cost of the mitigation bribe will be rolled into the project's rate base that you'll be paying off for the next 50 years in your electric bill, along with 12.9% interest for the power companies every year.

Show your support for the honest NPS personnel who are facing a serious moral dilemma that risks their jobs by signing this petition today!