Category: DOE Failure

Biden's Parting Gift to Grain Belt Express

11/27/2024

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:

In making a decision on the application, DOE LPO is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

DOE is using the NEPA process to assist in determining whether to issue a loan guarantee to the Applicant to support the Project.

To understand the effects of the Proposed Action, the EIS must also analyze the No Action Alternative, allowing for a baseline for comparison. Under the No Action Alternative, DOE LPO would not provide federal financial support (a loan guarantee) to the Applicant for construction and energization of the Grain Belt Express Project, with the assumption that the Project would not be constructed. By comparing the Proposed Action with the No Action Alternative, the EIS will transparently demonstrate the effects of the Proposed Action on the environment.

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.

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The Only Thing Reliable About GBE Is The Propaganda It Produces

9/7/2024

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Student reporter Mary McCue Bell is studying Investigative Journalism. Stay in school, girl, you've got a lot more to learn! Now I'm not sure what they're teaching in school these days, but a real investigative reporter doesn't approach a story with a preconceived agenda. Bless her heart, she actually interviewed someone with a different point of view, but then curated the actual information she received to fit with her own opinion. That's not investigative journalism, that's propaganda.

A fight across Missouri over transmission towers for reliable energy, her headline blared.

Reliable energy? She forgot to "investigate" that word. Reliability is a function of regional grid planners. In Missouri, that's managed by MidContinent Independent System Operator, or MISO. If a transmission line is needed to provide reliable energy in Missouri, it is planned and ordered by MISO. Grain Belt Express is NOT a MISO project. Instead, it is a speculative investment venture, an unneeded addition to MISO's grid. GBE's owners are speculating that if they can build the project that voluntary customers will pay separate fees to use it to transmit energy across the state. However, GBE only has one customer in Missouri for less than 5% of its available capacity. GBE is not for "reliable energy."

Miss Mary was also completely bamboozled by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) designation process, which claims to be creating corridors for the transmission of reliable energy. However, DOE also has no authority to plan the transmission system, or order transmission projects. Its role is advisory only. It can produce mind numbing reports, and designate corridors for private transmission developers like Invenergy, but it has no authority or jurisdiction to plan or approve the transmission system. Only the regional grid operators like MISO can determine that a line is needed for reliability, and MISO relies on its own deep knowledge of the system to make plans. It doesn't take orders from a silly, political agency like DOE. The only thing reliable about GBE is the propaganda it produces.

Perhaps Mary should have pondered the significance of the passage of time before declaring that "a nationwide plan to increase the reliability of electricity and reduce consumer costs" is playing out in Missouri. The idea for Grain Belt Express was hatched more than a dozen years ago, long before the government's recent "plan" that started with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021. This battle started long before Mary recently discovered it.

Missouri citizens elected Senator Josh Hawley as their representative, no matter how disappointing that may be to Miss Mary. His job is to use his "bully pulpit" to protect their interests. Is the "bully pulpit" phrase just a sullen swipe at him because he refused to be interviewed by a student journalist with an agenda? She certainly loved the bully pulpits inhabited by clean energy pot stirrer James Owen and political gasbag Tyson Slocum.

James Owen is not insensitive to landowners? Ha ha ha. No landowner actually believes that. I don't either. I watched his arrogant dismissal of their concerns while testifying at the PSC. Maybe you ought to check his previous statements and videos.

Despite what the DOE told Miss Mary, the fact is that Grain Belt Express requested the Midwest-Plains transmission corridor to benefit its bogged down project with the ability to appeal state permitting denials, like the one recently ordered by an appeals court in Illinois. GBE also wants a corridor so it can score a federal taxpayer-backed loan guarantee to build its project that currently doesn't have enough customers to be economic. The Kansas Corporation Commission testified before a legislative committee just last week that GBE told them they requested the 5-mile wide corridor from DOE. Who's lying here? The DOE, or GBE, or the KCC? Why don't you investigate that?

And here's something else to investigate... transmission lines do not create electricity, so they alone cannot "keep up with the nation's increasing power demands." What we need is new baseload generation that can be depended upon to generate when needed, and it needs to be located near the increasing power demands, not imported hundreds of miles on unnecessary transmission lines.

What does Otto Lynch from Pennsylvania know about farming in Missouri, with his contention that farmers can easily farm around towers? Nothing at all! His views about farming are of no consequence and add absolutely nothing to this story.

Ditto on political gasbag Tyson Slocum, farming grant money in Washington DC for his half-assed attacks on the energy industry. His perception of the landowners within proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors comes from the smug satisfaction of someone who isn't impacted in the least. The real jackbooted thugs pretend that "meaningful consultation" with landowners before carrying on to a pre-determined conclusion somehow makes the stealing of private property okay. It doesn't. Would it be okay if I allowed you to cry a little about losing your purse before I forcibly took it?

Slocum's comments demonstrate a profound lack of knowledge about NIETCs. I honestly can't remember him ever once commenting or being involved in this process. He is inconsequential and his comments add nothing to this story. He's a non-entity who never misses a chance to display his ignorance to anyone who will listen.

Key word here -- "investigate." I give this project an F.

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KCC Does DOE's Job

9/7/2024

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The U.S. Department of Energy has made a grave execution error in its rollout of National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors. The DOE *thought* it could keep the whole thing under the radar until its planned corridors were selected, only engaging in public notice and participation when it was too late for impacted communities to derail their plans. That hasn't worked out so swell, and citizen to citizen notification has created a public relations nightmare of epic proportions.

Midwestern states are rightfully terrified at the thought of 5 to 18 mile wide scorched earth corridors being taken from private landowners using federal eminent domain. And because there was absolutely no useful information provided by the DOE, rumor and speculation has created a firestorm of opposition. Elected officials have stepped up to defend their constituents, with numerous local resolutions against NIETCs being passed, and state and federal legislation to thwart the program being introduced. The die has been cast... the public has written its own NIETC narrative, and they HATE the idea of NIETCs.

One such state is Kansas, which recently called staff from the Kansas Corporation Commission before a legislative committee to provide answers. Why is a state utility commission explaining the actions of the federal government? I will say, though, that the KCC representatives generally provided accurate information and only tried to "sell" Grain Belt Express to the legislature, not the NIETCs. You can watch the approximately hour-long presentation and Q&A with the legislators here.

Fast forward the video to hour 5:07:58 to get to the the beginning of the KCC presentation before the committee.

The KCC shares that the Midwest-Plains Corridor was originally requested from DOE by Grain Belt Express, but now GBE has asked the DOE to narrow the 5-mile wide corridor to "only" half a mile. Even at half a mile wide, this corridor could still house another 12.2 transmission lines like GBE! A half mile is 2640 feet. Grain Belt Express, and other large AC transmission projects of 500 or 765 kV use a 200 ft. wide right of way. 2640 feet could house 13.2 transmission lines. Were the legislators supposed to feel better about a possibility of "only" 13 new transmission lines across Kansas?

Here's another point to ponder... the KCC guys explained that GBE has a current application at the KCC for approval of the "collector lines" GBE wants to build to connect proposed wind and solar farms in southwest Kansas to the Grain Belt Express. KCC expects to approve this application on September 30 (like the good little Polsky lap dogs that they are). However, the collector lines are NOT within the proposed NIETC.

The collector lines are the red and blue lines. Proposed NIETC corridors are the green and tan lines. The collectors are not within the proposed corridor. I guess GBE doesn't really "need" those after all? And why should they when the light green NIETC brings power to GBE from Oklahoma? Here's what that looks like.

The Midwest-Plains corridor connects to the Mountain-Plains-Southwest corridor, which covers a huge swath of land in the Oklahoma Panhandle, where Invenergy is building the country's largest wind farm. If Kansas thinks that GBE is going to spur economic development of large wind farms in Kansas, perhaps it should take a deep breath and think again.

The KCC says that GBE has asked for the NIETC in order to help itself to certain government handouts, but it forgot to mention the federal loan guarantee that GBE has applied for. That program guarantees that the U.S. taxpayers will cover the $7B cost of GBE if Invenergy defaults on its loan. GBE has not yet shown that it has enough customers to pay for its transmission project, and without customers it would not have enough revenue to pay the loan back. The KCC instead suggested that GBE could help itself to "capacity contracts" where the DOE buys service on the transmission line that it will never use. Instead, the DOE would pay for the use of the line until it can manage to re-sell it to some other customer (that didn't want to buy it in the first place). Unfortunately, the KCC doesn't seem to realize that there is a finite amount of money to be used for capacity contracts and that the money has already been awarded to other projects. There isn't enough money left to sign capacity contracts with GBE. What GBE wants is that federal loan guarantee.

One of the legislators questioned whether NIETCs are a violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves certain powers to the states. He should also recognize that it's also a violation of the Fifth Amendment, because it takes private property and reserves it for future transmission lines without compensation to the landowner.

For some reason, these guys think that Invenergy is "better" than Clean Line Energy Partners. It's not. It's that Invenergy is using eminent domain and the threat thereof to secure easements. Clean Line never used eminent domain, and Clean Line actually intended to export Kansas wind on its transmission line.

Eminent domain is still eminent domain, whether it is granted by the KCC or the federal government. It was greed that made the KCC give GBE utility status back in 2011. It's utility status that gives transmission companies the right of eminent domain under Kansas law.

The KCC's Justin Grady did a lovely little dance trying to sell the legislative committee on GBE's ability to reverse flow and provide power to Kansas during a grid emergency. He obviously doesn't know that it's not quite that simple. While GBE may have the physical ability to do that, it cannot do that without injection rights granted by the Southwest Power Pool (SPP). SPP is the grid operator at GBE's western terminus, which is the only place GBE could connect to the Kansas grid. SPP operates the power grid and it must approve any injections of power into its grid to ensure the injections don't cause issues that can crash the grid. Injection rights require lengthy study and enormous fees paid to SPP in order to gain approval. Grain Belt Express hasn't engaged in that expensive and time consuming process. GBE and its KCC representative, Justin Grady, are selling the legislators a pig in a poke.

Aside from Justin's love of Grain Belt Express (yes, the landowners know how much you threw them under the bus time and time again, Justin) the information provided to the committee was educational and accurate.

Maybe Kansas should rethink this whole thing? It's not too late!

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DOE Uses Your Money to Bribe Transmission Advocates

7/25/2024

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The U.S. Department of Energy announced yesterday that it is handing out a stunning $371M of your tax dollars to purchase advocates for proposed transmission projects. However, DOE's spending spree will only be disbursed when the transmission project begins construction. That's a long time from now...

I have written about this absurd use of your tax dollars to purchase advocacy for transmission projects here, here and here.

If a transmission project is needed, then regulators will approve it. Should regulators approve an unneeded transmission project simply because someone not impacted by it gets a freebie? This turns transmission permitting and siting into some sort of advocacy battle. Who has more people in their army, and what motivates them? On one side are impacted landowners, who have to live with the transmission project in perpetuity. These are the ONLY people who are impacted by new transmission, which can lower their income by taking land out of use, harm their property values, pose a dangerous hazard on their own land, and a daily eyesore forever. On the other side are a bunch of people who will not have to look at transmission and will not have to suffer any impacts whatsoever. These people are motivated by pure GREED. They are being offered something in exchange for the suffering of other people. The landowners must be compensated for something that was taken for them, but those greedy people don't deserve a damned thing. They are disgusting people who want to profit off the misery of others.

Advocacy battles like this have been taking place for decades. Utilities always buy advocacy to try to shout down transmission opposition. The DC Court of Appeals recognized such transmission advocacy efforts by describing the actions of one such project, PATH:

From 2009 through 2011, PATH spent more than $6 million on various activities to support its applications for Certificates. Through hired public relations contractors, PATH organized "reliable power coalitions" that would recruit individuals—often prominent business and labor leaders—to testify before the state utility commissions in support of PATH's certificate applications. PATH's contractors also polled public opinion of the project, ran promotional advertisements, and sent lobbyists to persuade state officials that the Certificates should be granted.
There is little question that PATH made these disputed expenditures to influence the decisions of public officials. The record is full of statements to that effect. The internal communications of PATH's public relations contractors, for example, declared that "[w]e have but one singular goal—to help get PATH approved," a goal that would be achieved by "generating the political cover that commissioners/legislators need to ‘do the right thing.’ " J.A. 66; see also J.A. 142-44 (contractor agreement with public relations firm). And the advertisements PATH's agents ran were persuasive rather than merely informational, focusing on arguments in support of approval and construction of PATH's proposed transmission line. See, e.g. , J.A. 115, 117-18, 121.
Newman v. Fed. Energy Regulatory Comm'n, 27 F.4th 690, 693-94 (D.C. Cir. 2021)

And now, the federal government, under the auspices of "reducing inflation", is providing the proverbial carrot for greedy people by promising them some free money if they can successfully advocate for a transmission project that doesn't affect them. They only get their carrot if they can outshout the impacted landowners and other opponents and convince the regulators to approve the transmission project based on advocacy alone. I have never been so thoroughly disgusted by my own government, and believe me, I have seen A LOT of bullshit coming out of DC over the past sixteen years. This is the epitome of government graft.

So, let's look at who bellied up to the bar to get some free money in exchange for transmission advocacy.

There were two different kinds of awards made under this program. The first is grants to an entity with regulatory authority to approve a new transmission line. That's right DOE is even bribing the regulators who make these decisions!

The Illinois Commerce Commission got $8.2M to speed up its approval of MISO's Tranche 1 projects.

The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin got $3M for doing the same, plus it will "increase its outreach and engagement with the public, improve its coordination with other siting entities, and develop plain language educational materials on high-voltage transmission lines."

The Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission got $4.5M to "accelerate its siting decision-making process on certain PJM Regional Transmission Expansion Plan Projects traversing the state by expanding its public and community engagement, participating in more site visits and public input hearings, and providing education and training opportunities to its staff." Which "certain" projects are those? Maybe someone wants to ask them?

And Alamosa Co. Colorado got $1.7M to study three different routes for a transmission project and pick one.

And now let's look at a couple of the "economic development" awards for communities "along major new and upgraded transmission lines." What the hell does that mean, and how close does a community have to be, exactly? DOE never would say. As the awards show, these projects are not actually for impacted individuals, but their greedy neighbors who are not impacted at all.

First, there's a couple of merchant transmission projects owned by Michael Skelly's GridUnited that were showered with multiple grants.

Southline Transmission project:
$1.8M to Lordsburg, NM to revitalize their town. I'm going to bet the revitalization isn't going to include a gigantic transmission line in the middle of Main Street. Instead, the transmission line will impact some landowners outside the town.
The City of Willcox, AZ got $10M to create a new conservation area. I'm going to bet that the conservation area won't have a gigantic transmission line running through it. Instead, the transmission line will impact some landowners elsewhere.

North Plains Connector Transmission project:
City of Mott, ND got $14.2M for a community center. I'm betting the transmission project is nowhere near the community center.
The Montana Department of Commerce got $47.4M to distribute to the counties of Rosebud, Fallon and Custer and the Northern Cheyenne tribe for "funding critical community infrastructure, including emergency and medical services, transportation, water, and sewage services, and climate mitigation projects." Here, North Dakota, have a handful of colorful beads while we rape and pillage your state.
The Roosevelt Custer Community Council got $700K for a new Fire Hall in Amidon.

It used to be that the transmission company had to pay these bribes out of their own funds, especially merchant transmission companies that don't have guaranteed cost recovery from ratepayers. Merchant transmission is not found needed or planned by regional grid planners. Merchant transmission is a speculative proposition based purely on profits. The merchant bets its own capital that if it can build a transmission line between point A and point B that it can attract enough voluntary customers to pay for the line and provide a profit. Why in the world are taxpayers paying bribes to buy advocacy for transmission developers who are supposed to be paying for their own projects? It boggles the mind!

But DOE wasn't done supporting the merchants with GridUnited... there's also a couple of grants to Guymon, OK totaling $167.5M to build a new school and a water project. Only one of these projects seems to be tied to transmission at all. The other one seems to be an unrelated gift to the City of Guymon. Spending Other People's Money is such a generous activity!

Barnstable, Massachusetts, is getting a new school in exchange for a landing zone for offshore wind transmission. I'm going to guess the school will be nowhere near the transmission line.

Michigan is getting $35M to "...invest in workforce development initiatives to build a skilled workforce to support transmission construction and clean energy investments in the two counites affected by the Helix-Hiple transmission line, one of the MISO Long Range Transmission Planning Tranche 1 projects. LEO will provide specialized education and training through electric utility apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs, as well as training for EV infrastructure construction and installation. LEO will also invest in a low-income energy fund to support a residential weatherization program, as well as provide utility stipends to residents in disadvantaged communities (DACs) impacted by the siting of a new transmission line." This is garbage. It doesn't actually help landowners impacted by the transmission line.

There's more... LOT$ more... read it and weep (while clutching your wallet and your private property rights.)

So, just like I thought in the beginning, no communities that are actually impacted by new transmission are benefiting from these grants in any way. Communities impacted by new transmission are linear, just like the transmission itself. They do not coincide with traditional cluster communities.

Absolutely NO LANDOWNER EVER said that they would gladly give up their own property for new transmission if a nearby town could only have a new school, a new fire hall, a Main Street makeover, or a park, or any of this other ridiculous nonsense DOE found grant worthy. Landowners will NOT give up their fight in the face of federal government bribes.

DOE simply gave the money to anyone who applied, not to impacted communities.

How does this "reduce inflation" again?

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Whoopsie! GBE Bites Off More NIETC Corridor Than It Can Chew

7/2/2024

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Everyone is incensed by the U.S. Department of Energy's preliminary 5 mile wide National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) that was magically centered on Invenergy's proposed Grain Belt Express transmission line. How and why was that preliminary designation made? And for what purpose?

A NIETC's purpose is to designate a geographic area where one or more transmission projects serving the "national interest" can be sited. A transmission project inside an NIETC can apply for a federal permit and eminent domain if its state application is denied. NIETCs are a way to overturn a state decision you don't like.

But GBE claims to have all the state approvals it needs. So, why the corridor?

Why is it 5-miles wide?

And what ever happened to GBE's Environmental Impact Statement being prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy's Loans Program Office to facilitate a "get out of debt free" card provided by taxpayers if GBE cannot repay its loan?

All these questions (and more!) were answered recently, and the answers did not come from DOE. DOE has put its interactions with greedy transmission developers under lock and key. No, the information came from another (anonymous) source whose accuracy can be trusted.

The Midwest Plains Preliminary NIETC was submitted to DOE by GrainBelt Express (GBE) as a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor because of the federal funding opportunities that a NIETC designation opens up, as well as the potential last resort option of the use of federal backstop siting authority in States where the initial state approval is currently under appeal, such as Illinois. The corridor was originally submitted as five miles in width because GBE thought that it had to be at least wide enough to encompass two lines.

Because of all the stink you made, GBE has submitted comments to DOE requesting that the corridor be substantially narrowed to no wider than is necessary to site just the GBE line.

But would a narrow, specific "corridor" that only enables one transmission line actually be something that DOE can do? It positively smacks of government graft. Wouldn't a wider corridor give the DOE plausible deniability? It seems like the DOE was only too happy to create a 5-mile wide corridor (which is supposed to be based on DOE's factual transmission needs study, btw, not greedy requests). Who knows what DOE will do with this corridor in the fall. Will they stick with their 5-mile wide corridor, or will they prove that they are nothing more than a corporate puppet by granting GBE's second request to narrow the corridor just wide enough for GBE?

If designated this fall, this NIETC will have to undergo a federal Environmental Impact Study, just like the one GBE is already involved in required by its request for a government loan guarantee. But the study already underway only studies the very narrow GBE corridor. It doesn't study a 5-mile wide NIETC. If the NIETC is any wider than GBE itself, then GBE's EIS will have to go back to start. But perhaps that is required in any instance, since the basis for the EIS and governmental action will have changed completely between a government loan guarantee and a NIETC. You could probably litigate on changing purpose in midstream for a long time. Maybe GBE will have to fund two separate EIS reports, one for each purpose? Each EIS takes a minimum of two years.

Meanwhile, back at the DOE, the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing. Don't these gals ever see each other in the hallways and stop to chat? Maybe not because they are all likely "working from home". I hear that nobody answers the phone at DOE HQ anymore. Is any work being done in that empty building we pay for?

DOE says the LPO (Loans Program Office) will publish the draft EIS for public review and comment this winter. DOE is plunging ahead with the EIS for the loan, while not even acknowledging another one has to be done for the NIETC designation. At least they're only wasting GBE's money with this duplication of effort. Carry on, ladies!

And here's another thought brought on by the preliminary NIETC designations. GBE's western terminus will be in Ford County, Kansas. We've been told that for years. The story goes that GBE will ship all that untapped wind energy in Kansas to "where it's needed most" (Mars? Polsky's imagination? Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous?). GBE is now asking for approval of two "collector lines" in southwestern Kansas for wind AND solar projects not yet built. See KCC docket 24-GBEE-790-ST available at this link for more info.

Kansas, huh? Then what is the Plains - Southwest NIETC for, and why does it reach its cold little finger up into Ford County Kansas? Is it trying to export even more Kansas wind, or is it importing wind from other states that will be shipped through Kansas on GBE?

Kansas officials who have been falling all over themselves to give GBE whatever it wants because they think it's going to cause massive economic development in Kansas may end up with a massive Dodo bird egg all over their faces if it turns out that Kansas is just being used as another "fly over" state facilitating Invenergy's profit. Who remembers that Invenergy owns "the country's largest wind farm" in the Oklahoma panhandle? Whose idea was this Plains - Southwest corridor, and who is going to profit from it? Invenergy's giant wind farm was planned and construction began (to preserve tax credits) way back in 2018 as part of AEP's ill-fated WindCatcher project that was supposed to connect Invenergy's wind farm to the Tulsa area via a new transmission line AEP wanted to build. AEP did not receive approvals for that scheme and the project was cancelled. And there was Invenergy with the country's biggest wind farm in process and no transmission line to serve it. Invenergy bought the remnants of Clean Line's Grain Belt Express later that same year. Kismet!

Anyhow... maybe, just maybe, the longer this debacle goes on, the GBE koolaid that some of the project's biggest cheerleaders ingested seems to be wearing off. Wakey, wakey, little officials! There's a wolf among your sheep!

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NIETCs Panned by Public

6/29/2024

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Thousands of citizens across the country gave the U.S. DOE their thoughts and opinions about the potential designation of multiple National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs) across the country this week. And it seems like nobody thought it was a good idea, except a handful of clueless congress critters playing politics. I'm going to bet they didn't ask any of their constituents who would be impacted by NIETCs what they thought about it, and they suck up to the political teat at their own peril at the ballot box.

This is probably my favorite line from all the comments I managed to read before they got sucked down into DOE's black hole. This comment comes from the Inskeep family in Kansas.

There hasn’t been a land grab and human expulsion to this degree since the Native Americans were slaughtered indiscriminately and herded off their land.

Congress, the U.S Department of Energy, and the DC political machine never considered the thousands of people impacted by their desire to turn rural America into energy slaves for their glistening cities, nor put it into the context of how it will be remembered by the history books.

The midwestern state farm bureaus submitted excellent comments, and the Missouri Farm Bureau wrote this opinion piece.

These are the Missouri Farm Bureau's comments.

mofb_comments_doe_nietc_phase_2_-_final_062424.pdf
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And these comments came from the Illinois Farm Bureau and a collection of impacted landowners in that state.

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Further east, I submitted these comments on the designation of multiple NIETC segments in West Virginia for the purpose of shipping coal-fired power to Virginia's "data center alley" via new high-voltage extension cords.

Sacrificing West Virginia’s environment and imposing new costs on its struggling consumers for benefit of Virginia’s economy and the profits of the corporations who operate there is the epitome of environmental and economic injustice. Virginia ranks tenth in the list of average salaries by state, with an average annual salary of $65,590. West Virginia ranks 48th on the list, with an average annual salary of $49,170.13 West Virginia is never going to economically catch up with surrounding states if its citizens are forced to pay a significantly larger share of their income to support the economic development of surrounding states.

Read the whole thing here:

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A citizen asked DOE where they could read all the comments that were submitted. DOE's response was

Thank you for your inquiry. DOE will not be making comments received regarding the preliminary list of potential NIETCs publicly available.

This is not a transparent process. DOE is most likely up to no good, but how can we know for sure when the public is shut out of a process that could take their land and destroy their economic well-being? What happened to "transparency" and "public participation"? It's out the window.

Nevertheless, you inserted yourself into a process where you were not welcome. It's the only thing you can do when your government is holed up with special interests and planning to take what's yours. The legal challenges will come later. Thank you to everyone who participated!

What's next? The DOE plans to issue its decision this fall with "draft" designation reports. You'll be allowed to comment on these reports, but DOE will have already made its decision and you'll be in the position of trying to change their mind. Where has democracy gone?

For each corridor that receives a draft designation, the DOE will have to undertake an Environmental Impact Study, which is a multi-year process where they are required to involve the public. But we already know what DOE thinks of public comment, right? They have made that plain. They are in a real big hurry to railroad this process forward before the election in November. Don't forget to vote!

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DOE's NIETC Information Inadequate for Public Comment

6/15/2024

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The Kansas Heartlander asks if residents are informed enough to comment on the U.S. Department of Energy's National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors proposal?

No, no they are not.

Last week, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley sent a second letter to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm asking for clear and complete information on the NIETC proposal so that his constituents will be informed enough to make comment. Senator Hawley also requested a 45-day extension of the comment deadline.

Senator Hawley said...

Constituents in my state have rightfully complained that the proposal lacks essential information needed to adequately provide comments on the plan. The maps provided are simply not specific enough. Landowners should be notified if the proposed route is going to touch their land. Instead, they are left to guess whether or not their land could be taken by the federal government. And they can only be sure that the corridor is on their land when it is finalized.

That's because the only information the public has is a vague, not to scale map with a line drawn on it. And the DOE has done nothing to notify citizens that they may be in a corridor. DOE has done shockingly little press on its proposal to conscript the land of millions of Americans and turn it into high-voltage electric transmission corridors. If not for the knowledge of a handful of watchdog citizens, DOE would be getting away with it!

It's not like DOE doesn't have the information, it's just that DOE refuses to disclose the information it used to draw its vague maps. DOE solicited "recommendations" for corridors from greedy transmission developers back in December 2023. DOE needs to share the information it received so that citizens can base their comments on the same information DOE will use to evaluate this proposed corridor for designation. Citizens are drawn into a duel without any weapons. It's absolutely shameful!

A future NIETC designation is a land use planning decision that changes the use and marketability of land in perpetuity. Who would buy a home in a NIETC if a future transmission line is planned to destroy it? Who would buy land and build a house in a NIETC that is subject to federal eminent domain? How can farmers plan improvements to their businesses when they have no idea if they will even get their investment back? It's bad enough that Missouri farmers have been threatened with Grain Belt Express for more than a decade, now the DOE is planning more transmission within a 5-mile swath of their remaining properties. On top of that, there is no compensation offered by the DOE for property taken by a NIETC. It's private property taken for public use, without just compensation. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits such a taking. It also prohibits depriving citizens of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, and DOE is shutting down all due process for citizens impacted by its corridor proposal.

Senator Hawley is not afraid to stand up to the DOE and demand due process for citizens. But why are the rest of our elected officials asleep? Bravo, Senator Hawley, and thank you for your work! I hope other Senators are brave enough to join you!

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Catalyzing Conflict

5/18/2024

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Lots of people concerned about the U.S. Department of Energy's preliminary National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETC) attended DOE's webinar on Thursday afternoon. The DOE gals were just so enthusiastic and CHEERY about the whole thing, like little hens proudly showing off their chicks. Don't they realize what these enormous "corridors" represent to their audience? They represent appropriation and forced taking of private property. Nobody was buying the forced cheer. One person asked me if it was some sort of public relations stunt. I received a lot of comments afterwards, none of them good. Is DOE really that detached from the reality of their actions? The whole shebang was nothing but a clueless charade.

One of them said NIETCs were "likely to catalyze" new transmission, but the only thing being catalyzed on Thursday afternoon was confusion and anger. It was only DOE's hubris that made them think they could manipulate all the victims into advocacy, or at least acceptance.

Here's DOE's idea of the "impact" of designation.

Let's concentrate on the graphics they used. Profits (for transmission developers) are solved by making deals. The words weren't necessary. Clueless. Absolutely no thought about how their presentation may be perceived by the public.

These corridors are supposed to facilitate "national energy policy" which, at this time, is supposed to be carbon reduction. But then there was this:

One of these projects is NOT for clean energy... at all. In fact, it will increase carbon emissions by sourcing new energy for Northern Virginia's data centers from coal-fired generators in West Virginia. How did that get on the list? And where has DOE proven anything on this chart? Truth is that building this much transmission is only going to cause consumer costs to go up. Adding new costs does not result in lower prices. It's all made up.

And how about those not-to-scale, featureless maps?

Those lines are supposed to be two miles wide, but they're much, much bigger as shown on the maps. We need accurate maps or written descriptions of the corridors so we can figure out where exactly they are supposed to be. And where did all those new segments come from, exactly? This isn't one transmission project, it's many. How much coal power does DOE think data centers need? Who asked DOE to plan these additional routes that PJM rejected last year?

DOE says it received information from "the public" or maybe it was "interested parties" in Phase 1 of its process that created these corridors, but we're not allowed to see any of it. When your government is conspiring behind closed doors with corporations who stand to profit from these plans, what's the point of public consultation anyhow?

Here's a little reality for DOE.

DOE is not a grid planner. It doesn't have the knowledge, expertise, or authority. None of DOE's corridor plans have to be used for new transmission. It's just a corporate wish list.

DOE is not a transmission regulator. It has no authority to permit anything in these made up corridors. There is no guarantee that state utility commissions, or even FERC, will agree that these corridors are transmission that needs to be built.

DOE is not a transmission router. It has no knowledge, expertise or authority to site transmission projects. There's a lot more than drawing lines on a map that goes into routing transmission lines. It is likely that DOE made a bunch of huge and unrecoverable mistakes within these corridors that prevent transmission from ever being sited within.

The veneer of DOE's charade was pretty thin for me on Thursday. I wonder if they would be so cheery if they knew that there's little chance of their scheme surviving regulatory and judicial review? But pretending to be serious academics who have all the answers sure was fun, wasn't it?

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Hawley Files Legislation to Stop NIETCs

5/16/2024

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At least there's one Senator interested in helping his constituents with NIETCs! Bravo!

Yesterday, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley sent a letter to DOE Secretary Granholm.

Dear Secretary Granholm,

I write with alarm about your total disregard for farmers in my State of Missouri, as you continue to pander to dark money groups and clean energy interests at the expense of my constituents. Last week, your Department announced new plans to designate a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) through my state of Missouri, in order to subsidize the flow of wind energy across farmers’ lands.1 This cannot stand. You should rescind these plans immediately.

As you know, the Department of Energy has historically avoided using the heavy hand of the federal government to second-guess state permitting decisions when it comes to electric transmission lines. Courts have narrowly construed your authorities under the Federal Power Act, until Democrats expanded these authorities in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Now, you are weaponizing these new authorities to benefit clean energy companies and monied interest as you bulldoze Missouri farmland to make way for transmission lines to carry wind power through the state. Indeed, I find it remarkable that your agency’s lengthy analysis makes no reference to farmers or landowners.

This issue is important to farmers in my state, who have already had to deal with Invenergy’s attempts to build electric transmission lines through farmlands. But at least our state legislature and regulators were able to achieve a new compromise, ensuring that farmers would receive 150% fair market value as compensation for these takings. But by designating a new NIETC in Missouri, you have chosen to federalize this issue and take any future consideration away from state regulators.

There is still hope. Your Department’s announcement only constitutes Phase 2 of the agency’s multistage process for designating NIETCs. I strongly urge you to stop any further consideration of this project and listen to the farmers of Missouri.

Sincerely,
Josh Hawley
United States Senator

Hawley also introduced legislation called the Protecting Our Farmers from the Green New Deal Act meant to:

Prohibit FERC from issuing electrical siting permits where State regulators already have jurisdiction to authorize these projects.
Require FERC to find that any proposed electrical transmission projects it approves minimizes adverse effects on landowners and farmers, adequately compensates them for any loss, and provides benefits to consumers in the State.
Prohibit FERC from reviewing any electrical siting applications where a State regulator has previously denied an application.

That would pretty much put an end to NIETCs.

Let's hope other elected officials follow Senator Hawley's lead and care more about their constituents than they do about the "Green New Deal."

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Guidance For NIETC Comments for Midwest-Plains Corridor (GBE)

5/16/2024

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Here's a little extra help planning your comments on the U.S. Department of Energy's preliminary Midwest-Plains corridor that follows the route of the Grain Belt Express across Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois.

Even though GBE's right-of-way is roughly 200 feet wide, DOE's National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor is 5 miles wide. FIVE MILES! It will engulf entire farms!

DOE says this corridor is needed for "clean energy" but it fails to even acknowledge Grain Belt Express. Grain Belt Express claims to have all the approvals it needs to build the project already. Why the corridor? Are there going to be more projects routed in that corridor, slowly swallowing up farm after farm? Or is the corridor somehow needed for GBE to get the taxpayer-guaranteed financing it has been seeking?

Designation of a NIETC in this corridor will require an enviromental impact statement for the entire corridor. GBE already has an EIS in process for its federal loan application, but it's just for the narrow right-of-way needed for GBE. A whole new EIS will be required for a 5-mile corridor. Is this why GBE's EIS seems to have been forgotten?

At any rate, here's my advice on submitting effective comments. It's very similar to the EIS comments you may have submitted several years ago. Make sure you have also sent your extension request and letters to elected officials for Step 1.

National Interest Electric Transmission Midwest-Plains Corridor

Guidance for Citizen Participation

DOE’s announcement of proposed corridors begins Phase 2 of its process.

DOE has not provided information about why it is considering a corridor for Grain Belt Express, since the project is claiming to have all the state approvals it needs. It is unclear whether this corridor is a requirement for Grain Belt’s approval of a government-guaranteed loan and how corridor designation would impact the ongoing Environmental Impact Statement process underway by DOE.

Phase 2 allows “information and recommendations” and comment from any interested party and you are urged to submit your comments.

DOE requests information submissions in Phase 2 by 5:00 pm on June 24, 2024. Interested parties may email comments as attachments to [email protected]. You are encouraged to request DOE acknowledge your submission by return email so that you know it was received by the deadline. DOE requests comments in Microsoft Word or PDF format, except for maps and geospatial submissions. The attachment size limit for submissions is roughly 75 MB and may require interested parties to send more than one email in the event attachments exceed this limit. There is no page limit on comments. DOE requests that comments include the name(s), phone number(s), and email address(es) for the principal point(s) of contact, as well as relevant institution and/or organization affiliation (if any) and postal address. Note that there is no prohibition on the number of information submissions from an interested party, though DOE encourages interested parties making multiple submissions to include an explanation of any relationship among those submissions.

DOE will grant party status to anyone who comments in response to the notice of the preliminary list of potential NIETC designations, in the manner and by the deadline indicated above.

Only those granted party status may request rehearing of the DOE’s decision, or appeal the NIETC in court. Protect your due process rights because you don’t know now whether you may want to request rehearing, or appeal an adverse decision. You are an interested party if: you are a person or entity, State, or Indian Tribe, concerned with DOE’s exercise of its discretion to designate a geographic area as a NIETC. Becoming a party does not obligate you to any further action, it only gives you the option of taking further action if you choose.

State in your comments that you are requesting interested party status in accordance with DOE’s NIETC Guidance at Pages 41-42 to preserve your right to request rehearing or appeal a corridor designation. Include comments that may become the basis for your appeal (where DOE is not following the statute). More information about the statute in the long version of this guidance that you may download at the end of this blog.

We are urging interested people to submit comments in two phases. RIGHT NOW and BEFORE THE JUNE 24 deadline.

RIGHT NOW:
To demand public notice and engagement from DOE and set a new comment deadline at least 45 days after the conclusion of the public engagement period. Ask for direct notification by mail of each impacted landowner within the corridor, as well as public notification, including posted notices in all local newspapers servicing the area of each proposed corridor. Request public information meetings, including an online meeting option for those who cannot attend in person. Ask that DOE share all available information on each corridor it is considering, including a narrative description of its boundaries, as well as identification of all transmission line(s) currently planned or proposed for the corridor.

We cannot comment on corridor requests submitted by utilities if we cannot read the requests! We cannot make effective comment on information DOE is keeping secret! It does little good to hold a public comment period for a project that has not provided notice to impacted landowners or disseminated adequate public information.

DOE states, “Early, meaningful engagement with interested parties should reduce opposition to NIETC designation and to eventual transmission project siting and permitting within NIETCs, meaning more timely deployment of essential transmission investments.” But the DOE has not provided any notice or public information about this process, or attempted to engage impacted communities. DOE needs to walk their talk.
Also consider writing to your U.S. Senators and Representatives and asking them to intervene on your behalf to ask DOE for public notice and engagement for the Phase 2 comment period.

See this link for a form letter and help contacting your representatives.

BEFORE JUNE 24:
At the end of Phase 2, DOE will identify which potential NIETCs it is continuing to consider, including the preliminary geographic boundaries of the potential NIETCs, the preliminary assessment of present or expected transmission capacity constraints or congestion that adversely affects consumers, and the list of discretionary factors in FPA section 216(a)(4) that DOE has preliminarily identified as relevant to the potential NIETCs.

DOE invites comments from the public on those potential NIETCs, including recommendations and alternatives.

Phase 2 provides a high level explanation of why the potential NIETCs in the list are moving forward in the NIETC designation process, and you are encouraged to provide additional information on why DOE should or should not proceed with a certain corridor.

Your comments before June 24 should focus on the underlying need within the geographic area as well as “information and recommendations” from DOE’s 13 Resource Reports and other possible topics below in order to narrow the list of potential NIETC designations. DOE also requests information on potential impacts to environmental, community, and other resources within the proposed corridor.

DOE’s 13 Resource Reports: (1) geographic boundaries; (2) water use and quality; (3) fish, wildlife, and vegetation; (4) cultural resources; (5) socioeconomics; (6) Tribal resources; (7) communities of interest; (8) geological resources; (9) soils; (10) land use, recreation, and aesthetics; (11) air quality and environmental noise; (12) alternatives; and (13) reliability and safety.

DOE requests that interested parties provide in their Phase 2 comments the following resource information: concise descriptions of any known or potential environmental and cumulative effects resulting from a potential NIETC designation, including visual, historic, cultural, economic, social, or health effects thereof.

A list of potential topics includes:

Width of proposed NIETC (5 miles for GBE). All properties within NIETC will have the perpetual cloud of potential eminent domain taking for new transmission. This lowers resale value.
Area of NIETC not the right size or in the right place for alternatives or route changes you suggest, such as routing on existing highway or railroad easements.
Federal authorizations needed to build across government land, including impacts to other state or federal land in the corridor.
Need for the project – Do we need new transmission, or would it be a better idea to build generation near load rather than importing electricity thousands of miles from other states? Suggest other options to supply power such as in-state generation from natural gas, biomass, waste-to-energy, nuclear, small modular nuclear, other large scale power generation in close proximity to the need. The federal government can use corridors to force new transmission on states, but cannot force new electric generation on states. Something is wrong with this scenario.
Diversification of electric supply.
Energy independence and security. Defense and homeland security.
National energy policy (not defined).
Are there any customers for the transmission lines proposed for the corridor?
How the corridor may enable for-profit merchant transmission that is not a public utility.
Are there any transmission projects in the corridors that have been approved by a regional transmission organization? (SPP, MISO, PJM).
Maximize use of existing rights-of-way without expanding them, including utility, railroad, highway easements. Reconductor existing lines instead of building new (new wires with increased capacity) without expanding the easement. Buried lines on existing highway or rail rights-of-way, including high-voltage direct current.
Environmental and historic sites.
Costs to consumers. Who will pay for new transmission in corridors? New transmission regionally allocated to consumers will increase electric costs for all consumers. Everyone pays to construct new regionally-planned transmission in these corridors, even if we don’t benefit.
Water use and quality, wetlands.
Fish, wildlife and vegetation impacts. Consider future vegetation management under the lines that includes the use of herbicides, weed killers or other substances toxic to humans, animals or cultivated plantings that are either sprayed on new easements from the air or by on the ground vehicles. Construction vehicles and equipment can spread undesirable, invasive vegetation along the corridor.
Cultural resources – Historic, tribal, other. Socioeconomics – impacts on property, income, quality of life, use of eminent domain.
“Communities of interest” – environmental justice, racial disparities, income disparities, energy burden.
Energy equity and justice: Grain Belt Express has already taken property and disturbed agricultural and other businesses, now the federal government is coming back for 5 more miles of property. The impacts to farms will be devastating.
Geologic – Sink holes, fault lines, abandoned mines.
Soil – erosion, loss of topsoil, loss of vegetation, drainage, compaction, introduction of rock from blasting, destruction of prime or unique farmland, protected farmland, agricultural productivity.
Land use, recreation and aesthetics – changes to land use, homes and farms, conservation easements, parks, churches, cemeteries, schools, airports, visual impacts, public health and safety.
Environmental noise and air quality – construction noise, operational noise, impacts to air quality and emissions caused by project, both during construction and while in operation.

DOE must consider alternatives and recommendations from interested parties. Feel free to suggest as many alternatives as you want in one or more submissions.

DOE will prioritize which potential NIETCs move to Phase 3 based on the available information on geographic boundaries and permitting and preliminary review of comments.

DOE must review public comments, consider recommendations and alternatives suggested.

Want to read more suggestions and tips? Download a longer version of these guidelines with additional information, quotes you can use, and more web resources to explore.

nietc_comment_instructions_gbe.docx
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Biden's Parting Gift to Grain Belt Express

The Only Thing Reliable About GBE Is The Propaganda It Produces

KCC Does DOE's Job

DOE Uses Your Money to Bribe Transmission Advocates

Whoopsie! GBE Bites Off More NIETC Corridor Than It Can Chew

NIETCs Panned by Public

DOE's NIETC Information Inadequate for Public Comment

Catalyzing Conflict

Hawley Files Legislation to Stop NIETCs

Guidance For NIETC Comments for Midwest-Plains Corridor (GBE)

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