Well, here it is -- the power companies behind the unneeded Susquehanna Roseland 500kV transmission line proposal in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have put together a "mitigation package" that they will present to the NPS at the end of January.

As reported last month, the NPS is expected to bend over and approve destruction of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in exchange for $30M of new park land.


Read a good article about the situation here:

"Thousands of acres identified as priorities by conservation groups would be preserved at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, PPL and Public Service Electric & Gas Co. said in a press release."

The proposal, however, was met with derision from some environmentalists. The New Jersey Sierra Club accused the utilities of trying "to buy silence from environmental groups and others that should be opposing this line."

"You cannot mitigate for the destruction of a National Park," the organization said in a press release. "This project would ruin the scenic beauty, breathtaking vistas, and critical resources of our national parks" and "allow for the production of more coal-fired energy, creating more coal pollution that will impact people's health while they are using the parks."

The Sierra Club also noted the utilities' ratepayers would ultimately pay for any mitigation, since utilities fold their expenses into rates. Additionally, utilities are entitled under federal rules to a 12 percent profit on transmission line expenditures.

"The utilities cannot make up for his kind of destruction by buying lands in other places," Jeff Tittel, the New Jersey Sierra Club director said. "This is nothing more than blood money."

Because the Susquehanna Roseland Project is within the PJM regional transmission zone and is a 500kV project, this means that every one of the 60 million electric consumers within PJM's 13 state region will pay a portion of the cost of the transmission project.  Even if you're a PJM grid customer in Michigan, Tennessee, Illinois or North Carolina, or any other PJM  state far removed from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, you will still pay for a portion of PSE&G and PPL's payoff of National Park Service officials. 

This $30M of new park land will be paid for by you over the next 50 - 70 years, and PSE&G and PPL will make a 12.9% profit on the purchase every year, courtesy of federal transmission incentives granted to the project's owners by FERC.  Here's how it works:  The power companies will purchase the land and claim it's a "regulatory expense" (a cost necessary to obtain regulatory approval for the project).  The cost of the land will be placed into the companies' transmission rate base account for the project, which you will pay down by reimbursing them for their cost of the project in your monthly electric bill over the expected 50 - 70 year life of the line.  Just like a new car, the $30M value of the land-bribe will depreciate a little bit each year.  You will reimburse the power companies for that yearly amount of depreciation, plus 12.9% interest on the remaining value of the land-bribe.  So, let's say that in the first year, the balance of the land purchase is $30M and the depreciation rate is 5%.   You will pay them $1.5M, and the value of the land will fall to $28.5M, but you will also pay them 12.9% of $30M that year - $3.87M.  The amount electric consumers will pay for the power companies "mitigation package" will total $5.37M in the first year alone.  The second year will again reduce the value of the land by 5%, and add in a 12.9% return for the power companies on the remaining value.  The depreciation rate I'm using is only hypothetical, of course, but the profits for PSE&G and PPL are real.  What you can depend on is that this "mitigation package" won't cost the corporations a thing and will, in fact, make them a huge profit.

The end result here is that YOU will pay for the "mitigation" of damage to YOUR park and the power companies causing the damage and making a profit selling electricity over the line will get off scott free!  The power companies behind the transmission line claim that the line will save electric consumers millions of dollars in "congestion costs," but that savings is being whittled away by deals like this and is not taking into account the billions of dollars electric consumers will pay for the line over its lifetime.

Are you angry enough to do something about this yet?  Good, we're going to make this easy!  Send your comments about this rip-off of consumers and citizens (who are the ultimate owners of our national parks) to the NPS through this online form, and tell them that you do not want to pay the cost of PSE&G and PPL's "mitigation package" bribe or have your national park assets squandered in the name of corporate greed!

Do it now!  Comment period closes at midnight on January 31, 2012.  Please share this one with your friends and link on Facebook and other social media sites!

Was Allegheny Energy-FirstEnergy planning to buy themselves another CPCN for an unneeded transmission project from West Virginia's Governor and Public Service Commission?  Of course they were.

This page from a Morgan Stanley presentation about the "inve$tment opportunitie$" to be had in the hugely profitable high voltage transmission line business indicates that one of PATH's "key challenges" was:

"Obtaining a CPCN in West Virginia or costly concessions with WV to receive the CPCN"

In other words, if they couldn't prove their transmission line was needed and obtain the necessary permit the honest way, they planned to buy it by offering economic inducements and "donations" to West Virginia by engineering another deal with the Governor whereby he would put pressure on state officials to approve an unneeded transmission project in exchange for financial "concessions" by PATH's corporate parents.

That's the lesson Allegheny Energy was taught during the CPCN process for their unneeded TrAILCo transmission line.  When the WV PSC was on the verge of denying Allegheny Energy's application for that project, Governor Joe Manchin stepped in at the urging of his good buddy, Allegheny Energy CEO, Paul Evanson.  What resulted was a backroom deal whereby Allegheny Energy, by virtue of its status as an incumbent utility in the state, was able to offer pay offs, such as having their West Virginia affiliates' absorb their customers' share of TrAILCo costs for approximately seven years, while other West Virginia electric customers of other utilities, such as AEP, paid for the line, along with electric ratepayers in 12 other states and the District of Columbia.

Watch this video of WV Consumer Advocate Byron Harris explaining how a "balance" was struck whereby the unneeded TrAIL project was granted a CPCN in exchange for "economic incentives."  Don't miss Byron's "deer in the headlights" look and stuttering when asked what part the Governor's Office played in this sale of West Virginia.  Perhaps Byron knows that what Governor Manchin did was illegal.  This video never gets old!   

Another pay off in exchange for the CPCN was construction and staffing of a new Allegheny Energy Transmission Headquarters in Fairmont.  If you have any doubt that Joe Manchin sold West Virginians to Pennsylvania corporation Allegheny Energy, this article and accompanying photo will put it to rest.  Although most of the article is now behind a paywall, I happen to have the money quotes (remember when the news used to be free?):

"The transmission headquarters was part of Allegheny Energy’s settlement with the Public Service Commission of West Virginia, one of a number of concessions the utility provided in return for PSC staff dropping its contention that the need for the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line had not been demonstrated."

“I got a call one day from Gov. Joe Manchin. He suggested that maybe we locate the building in West Virginia,” said Allegheny CEO Paul Evanson at Wednesday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for the transmission center.
Evanson said Manchin was very persuasive as he laid out the pros of locating such a facility in the state. After carefully considering the matter, Evanson said he told Manchin that the company would locate the new facility in North Central West Virginia.
A short time later, Evanson got “another call” from Manchin. The governor suggested Fairmont as the best location.
Evanson said there were several locations, including Morgantown, under consideration, but the company hadn’t made a decision. About a week later, Manchin called him again and asked if there had been any decision about Fairmont.
Evanson said he soon realized that Fairmont’s proximity to major power lines crisscrossing North Central West Virginia made it the best choice for the transmission center.
“Three phone calls and here we are,” Evanson said.
When Manchin stepped to the podium, he joked “that it really took four phone calls, not three.”

Four phone calls.  That's all it took to make the sale of TrAILCo's CPCN from the WV PSC.  The purchase of PATH's CPCN probably would have taken less, if not for the efforts of the citizens of West Virginia.

However, instead of this:

"A crowd of dignitaries laughed as they listened to Manchin’s remarks while assembled on the front porch of Allegheny Energy’s $52 million transmission facility."

the citizens of West Virginia had the last laugh this time.

PATH has requested that both the National Park and Forest Services continue to hold their application review process "in abeyance" until approximately 60 days after the 12th of Never, or whenever PJM finally makes a decision, whichever comes first.

"In order to accommodate the PJM study process, while providing a measure of certainty for both the PATH Companies and the NPS, the PATH Companies respectfully request that the NPS continue to hold its application review in abeyance until 60-days after the PJM Board issues a further decision on the status of the PATH Project. Promptly after being advised of such further decision by the PJM Board, the PATH Companies will notify the NPS of that decision and, within such 60-day period, submit a further request to the NPS with regard to the pending applications."

According to the letter, PJM is not expected to make a decision until sometime AFTER May 2012.

"As indicated by the PJM Staff report, additional analysis will be undertaken after completion of the May 2012 forward capacity auction results. The time required by PJM Staff to perform such analysis thereafter is not yet
known."

You're not really surprised, are you?  This is exactly what I expected would happen after Order No. 1000 was issued, delaying the retooling of PJM's planning process, and after PATH painted themselves into a corner in Virginia.

On April 12, 2011, Virginia State Corporation Commission Hearing Examiner Alexander Skirpan issued his report and recommendations on the March 17 hearing regarding PATH's withdrawal of its application in that state.  In his report, Skirpan recommended that certain conditions be placed on the filing of a new application for the project in Virginia.  One of these conditions was that the application must be based on a completed 2012 RTEP, which won't be issued until first quarter 2013.  The Virginia Commission's Order included this stipulation.

Word is that the NPS/NFS are considering PATH's request.  No decision date has been indicated.

The only "certainty" being provided here is that every year this drags on, PATH makes another $13M in pure profit, courtesy of their FERC formula rate and incentives.  There is no motivation for them to ever restart this project -- they've got $130M tucked safely away in an account that earns 12.4% profit every year.  What a sweet deal! 

All PATH's profits come directly from your pocket in the form of higher and higher electric bills.

Your orchestra has begun composing a new tune... so check back later for more on this subject.

Yesterday was the deadline for PATH to try to defend itself and answer the Formal Challenge of $2.5M of their claimed $24.6M 2010 revenue requirement at FERC.
Here's what PATH filed.  (Note:  3.9MB file -- give it time to load.  It's the best I could do to clean up the 10MB file PATH submitted, but that's another story.)

If you've read and understand the Formal Challenge that was filed on December 23, get ready to laugh.  PATH counsel insults the Commission's intelligence by pretending:  1) the Commission didn't read the Challenge; 2) the Commission didn't understand the legal basis of the Challenge; and 3) the Commission didn't see or understand any of the evidence submitted as exhibits to the Challenge.  PATH's attempt at performing a Vulcan mind meld on FERC's Commissioners fails miserably.  This is PATH.

It's almost like PATH is embarrassed by their "Answer" and doesn't want anyone to see it.  Why else would they have turned a 20 page word document and a two page spreadsheet exhibit into a 10MB pdf image file that chokes FERC's e-library and takes forever to download?  PATH printed paper copies of the files and then ran them through a copy machine to result in a humongous, unweildy 10MB file that was uploaded to FERC.  At least they didn't go so far as to "serve" it on the 80+ parties on the docket's service list and choke up everyone's email, but one could question whether "service" was actually effected ("I hereby certify that I have this day served the foregoing document by electronic service a copy of this filing...") by "serving" parties with a link to FERC's e-library that didn't work.

I'm not going to get into an analysis of just how bad PATH's "answer" is, but I will point out the funniest line in the whole document:

"In the wake of highly orchestrated and vocal opposition to the Project, PATH had a responsibility as the Project's developer to educate government officials, civic, community and business leaders, and the public at large, about the reliability benefits of improved transmission infrastructure in general, and the PATH Project in particular."

To fully appreciate the humor here, you've got to consider how PATH uses the term "highly orchestrated."
Orchestrate:  arrange or direct the elements of (a situation) to produce a desired effect, esp. surreptitiously.  Now isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?

And with that, we'll leave it in FERC's capable hands...
 

I know there's another topic started for this list, but it's slipped quite a ways down the page, thanks to TrAILCo's shenanigans, so let's start another one because the weeklies are publishing now.

Here's an article in The Shepherdstown Chronicle.  Reporter Kelly Cambrel does a great job with a difficult subject, but contrary to what's stated in the article, the January 2011 Challenge detailed 2009 expenses, and the December 2011 Challenge detailed PATH's 2010 expenses.  We haven't gotten to their 2011 expenses yet.

Here's an article in The Spirit of Jefferson.

"An official with American Electric Power said the company is entitled to recover reasonable
expenses of the PATH project.
"It is certainly their right to intervene. They have a different view on recoverable expenses," said Geri Matheney, a director of corporate communications for Appalachian Power, a subsidiary of American Electric Power. "It is certainly their right to question the expenses.  FERC will decide whether there is merit in their complaints or not. We are entitled to recover
the reasonable and prudent expenses of the PATH project.'"

Well, that certainly blows a few holes in all Randy's legal efforts at FERC over the past 3 months, insisting that we don't have standing and are not interested parties.  Now we find out that AEP doesn't agree with Randy and PATH's legal team.  Isn't that refreshing news?  Maybe Jeri should take a few notes from Todd "the school girl" Meyers and adopt the "no comment" thing.  But then again, she's probably not likely to get stuck in an elevator or accidentally meet up in the Men's Room with Mr. Personality either.  Jeri just doesn't know when to shut up.  :-)

More to come...

So, what triggered the TrAILCo audit?  That's what a reporter from The Energy Daily is trying to figure out.  Unfortunately only subscribers can access complete content, so if you're really curious, sign up for your "free trial" (no clue if this will actually let you see the article or not), or email me and I might be able to help you out. ;-)

He circles around TrAILCo's recent FERC filing (EL12-14) regarding a $130M capital dividend payout to its sole stockholder -- parent FirstEnergy, formerly Allegheny Energy.  This is necessary to reduce TrAILCo's $179M 2011 Revenue Requirement by $7M to prevent "rate shock" for all of you.  This "rate shock" is caused by the actual equity/debt structure when the project went into service.  Instead of the hypothetical 50/50 split FERC had granted them as an incentive, the actual ended up at 63% equity.  This payout is intended to reduce equity to 59% and lower the amount of return (or interest) ratepayers will have to pay TrAILCo for tying up their capital in "our" transmission line.  The problem was exacerbated by some accounting that was done as a part of the Allegheny Energy/FirstEnergy merger.  How come none of the authorities reviewing the merger saw that one coming and accounted for it in the crappy $2.5M of "synergy savings" we were oh so generously granted in West Virginia?  Yeah, this merger continues to cost you... dearly.

Anyhow, after gushing on and on about this, the reporter concludes that FERC rubber stamped TrAILCo's request, so that isn't necessarily the reason for the audit.  Yeah, we know.  FERC granted their declaratory order on Dec. 29 and the audit was commenced on Jan. 3.  FERC couldn't move that fast if the building was on fire.  Their clocks don't run in the same time warp as the rest of ours.

Looks like the TrAILCo audit is going to continue to drive reporters crazy for a while yet because no one is talking and clues are hard to find.  Yeah, we know  :-)

According to this "information" hand out from Allegheny Energy created, managed and funded (with YOUR monthly electric bill) astroturf front group, The Marylanders for Reliable Power, the "rolling blackouts" were to begin in Maryland in 2011.  This was because "Maryland is running out of electricity!"

Now here we are on the other side in 2012 and none of Allegheny Energy's cries of "wolf" have come true.  There never was any wolf, just an investor-owned utility who set out to make a bunch of money.

And they did it in a duplicitous fashion.

If Allegheny Energy had publicly owned all their fear-mongering, ridiculous claims of predicted future "rolling blackouts" and "frequent and extended loss of power in less than three years," while applying for approval of their for profit endeavor, they would have been in a lot of regulatory hot water.  So, they created "... a coalition of businesses and organizations working to ensure that Maryland's future electricity needs are met through conservation, additional generation of electricity from traditional and renewable energy sources, and improvement of transmission capacity," so that blame for the lies and unnecessary public panic would be pinned on some phantasmic, "grassroots" group completely lacking in verisimilitude.

And they used millions of dollars of ratepayer funding to perpetrate their consumer fraud.

But, it looks like the Sierra Club's experts and the citizen opponents were right way back in 2008... dropping demand, conservation and demand side management obviated any "need" for Allegheny Energy's great transmission rip-off.  There have been no "rolling blackouts," Maryland has not "run out of electricity," and no shortages are predicted for the near future.  In fact, Dominion has recently shut down their Mt. Storm-Doubs 500kV transmission line, one of two major 500kV lines transporting dirty coal-fired electricity to east coast load centers, while they rebuild it to increase its capacity, but no current electricity crisis in Maryland has resulted.

However, electric customers are never going to get their millions back.  That money is gone for good, into the pockets of perfidious public relations companies, charlatan former public service commissioners and other paid "experts" who parroted Allegheny Energy's lies in exchange for personal gain, industry and trade groups such as Chambers of Commerce and the WV Coal Association that joined in perpetrating Allegheny Energy's "grassroots" fraud and helped them spin it, and into the pockets of lobbyists like WV Democratic Party Chairman Larry Puccio, whose support is for sale to the highest bidder.

The claims of "rolling blackouts" were nothing but a lie.

Once again, the FERC Challenge of PATH's over collection of expenses from electric consumers in 13 states and the District of Columbia has been picked up by the Associated Press.

The same basic article is breaking in news outlets all over the country.  Here's a version of it that just popped up on The Washington Post:

Power line foes in W.Va. file new challenge of PATH charges for ads, PR campaigns

For a longer story, see today's article in the Frederick News-Post.

Story in the Hur Herald featuring Ali Haverty.  Yes, she does look like Julia Roberts (and now you're thinking "Erin Brokovich" and how she doggedly fought for a bunch of ordinary folks and brought a huge energy corporation to justice, right?  Is there really any such thing as coincidence?)

This one's a giggle:  See this article and this article in the ultra-exciting "Transmission Hub."

Lots more to come...

Tune in tomorrow morning at 9:30 (January 4) when Keryn will be a guest on WEPM's Panhandle Live discussing the Formal Challenge of PATH's 2010 Revenue Requirement recently filed at FERC.

You can listen via the web by going here and clicking on the "Listen Live" button on the right hand side of the page.