This video will touch your heart.
For more information and to support these folks, please visit Stop Transource in Pennsylvania and Maryland's website.
Eminent Domain is Costly and Painful for Landowners, So CFRA Wants You to Give In and Avoid It11/12/2017 I was going to headline this "they're at it again" but why go general when CFRA gives you something so ridiculous to work with? I was recently made aware of a Des Moines FM podcast on transmission line eminent domain in Iowa starring the usual cast of characters from the Center for Rural Affairs (CFRA). And they're saying basically the same old things. Over the past several years, CFRA has popped up from time to time with a "report" or other half-baked ideas designed to convince landowners to knuckle under and simply accept new electric transmission across their land. Remember the Special Purpose Development Corporation idea? That was special, no doubt about it. Every time CFRA pops up with another idea, landowners shout it down, and CFRA goes back to the drawing board to create another great idea or "report." Now CFRA is threatening to release another "report" on a "survey" of landowners with opinions of electric transmission projects. I'm just guessing here, but I suspect that none of the landowners who successfully derailed the Rock Island Clean Line were contacted to participate in this "survey." So, what's in the 26 minute interview? CFRA wants landowners to know how PAINFUL and EXPENSIVE eminent domain for transmission can be. Is CFRA scaring you yet? According to CFRA, landowners should avoid eminent domain. Well, hey, that sounds like a plan! Except that's where landowners and CFRA part ways. Landowners avoid eminent domain by refusing to negotiate voluntary rights of way and by participating in the regulatory process through objections to the transmission project. They also contact their legislators and work to pass important new laws that protect the landowners from unneeded transmission projects. CFRA's way to avoid eminent domain? Give in. Negotiate with developers. Allow developers to "have use of a certain area of your land" (remember, it's not a sale, it's just use of your land, according to CFRA -- except it IS a sale, it's an encumbrance on your title that allows use and control of your land by someone else in perpetuity). According to CFRA, landowners are supposed to make sure they're being compensated fairly, and "work with developers" to negotiate an easement on a part of their land where they "don't mind if there's an easement on it." CFRA's ultimate goal is for you to have a voluntary transmission easement across your land that you are "happy with." And you're supposed to do all this without the assistance of a lawyer. CFRA says it's not normal for landowners to seek legal counsel before signing legal agreements for the sale of an easement. Even when questioned by the host, CFRA advised that "usually" only a landowner and the transmission developer are involved. But sometimes landowners can get "uncomfortable" when a developer is pissing on their leg and telling them it's raining. If that happens to you, you could get a lawyer, or you can always ask CFRA for help. Hmmm.... wait a tick... CFRA is the one who said you didn't need a lawyer in the first place. How much help do you think they'll be? And that's the problem. CFRA is no help. In fact, they're a grant-funded transmission cheerleader. While CFRA originally came into existence on the government dole to stand up for small family farmers, it was defunded a long, long time ago. But CFRA has continued to exist on grants from private "funds" and "foundations." While government grants, like all grants, have some strings and deliverables, private entity grants have massive, thick ropes instead of strings. They're not always for the good of the people. And organizations like CFRA must perform all sorts of things in order to unlock the funding that keeps them going. Such as this:  That's right, CFRA was granted $160,000 "to build, activate, and mobilize a rural voice supportive of clean energy transmission..."
And telling landowners to roll over and allow new transmission across their land is how they "deliver" to their funders. Except it's not working. Despite CFRA's best efforts to convince Iowans to accept the Rock Island Clean Line, the only "voice" that developed was the resounding roar of opposition that killed that project for good. RICL has failed. CFRA has failed. The "rural voice" does not support new transmission across their land, for any reason. It's not true that "more public engagement" and "encouraging landowners to talk to developers" is going to change any landowner's mind. It's only making CFRA more and more irrelevant to rural America. No landowner is ever "happy" with a transmission easement across his land. Ever. There's only degrees of unhappiness. And landowners are stepping up in increasing numbers and refusing to be unhappy at all. They're dedicated to stopping transmission projects altogether, and they're winning. Hey, maybe we can take up a collection to fund a new grant that CFRA can apply for? I'll call it the Transmission Opposition Grant, and it will require the recipient to build, activate, and mobilize a rural voice supportive of landowner rights. I've put a nickel on the table. Who's in? Because, apparently, due process for Missourians is much too costly for this Texas company, and time is money. This week, Grain Belt Express announced: Grain Belt’s case seeks to have the PSC divested of its role in exclusive role of deciding on whether utility projects are in the state’s best interest. “The urgency in answering this question is driven by a statewide financial impact on hundreds of thousands of Missouri electrical consumers who will pay higher power prices if the Grain Belt Express wind transmission line is not built,” the company said in its announcement. Well, color me confused. I figured if I unearthed the source documents filed with the Missouri Supreme Court that GBE's petition for transfer to the Supreme Court might make sense. Obviously this reporter is confused, right? Nope. GBE's petition to skip the appellate court process and have its matter heard by the Missouri Supreme Court, like right now because it's such an economic emergency, makes absolutely no sense. GBE says it must have the Neighbors United decision reversed so that the PSC can issue it a conditional permit. A conditional permit? So GBE would still have to get county assent for its project under Sec. 229.100 of Missouri law, right? A conditional permit doesn't alleviate GBE's problems and allow the project to be built. All GBE's economic arguments (contrived as they are) should fall on deaf ears. Grain Belt Express is creating its own problem and shouldn't be wasting a court's time on this (not to mention all its precious economic resources that make its project so expensive to construct). What's the problem? Affected Missouri counties have not granted assent for GBE to cross county roads as clearly set forth in Sec. 229.100. If Missouri counties grant assent, the PSC can freely issue that approval it wanted to issue. The courts wouldn't have to waste their time on this issue. If GBE tried to work this issue out with the counties, none of this appeal nonsense would be necessary. None of it! But GBE has refused to have anything to do with Missouri counties, even after telling the PSC that it would only use an advisory opinion on whether the project met PSC criteria to convince the counties to grant assent. GBE got its advisory opinion but hasn't even tried to get county assent. Missouri Landowner's Alliance attorney Paul Agathen filed a suggestion to the Missouri Supreme Court, pointing out the obvious and pouring some cool common sense on GBE's confused and affected firestorm about why the Supreme Court should waste its valuable time. No party to this proceeding is contesting the fact that before Grain Belt may build the line, at some point it must obtain the necessary County Commission consents under § 229.100. In fact, Grain Belt has conceded that point throughout these proceedings. Go to the counties and get your consents, Clean Line, and all these "legal clouds" will completely disappear. Whether the consents come before or after the CCN issues, they still have to come. GBE is barking up the wrong tree, wasting its own precious economic resources (and everyone else's) on an appeal it doesn't need to make. I'm pretty sure even state supreme court judges don't like having their time wasted any more than anyone else does. Okay, now that we've gotten the only part that should matter to a court over with, can we take a minute here to examine Clean Line's completely bogus, over the top, fake and contrived "economic" argument that it uses to prop up its need to have the Supreme Court intervene now, right now? I'm completely flummoxed over the colossal stupidity of it. C'mon, no energy attorney wrote this! The author doesn't understand the first thing about energy, transmission, or the Grain Belt Express project. I guess Clean Line put too much value on influence and appeals practice and zero value on accuracy. None of GBE's attorneys list "energy" as a practice area. And apparently Clean Line staff attorneys were too awed by greatness to correct any of the gross errors in a filing they signed their names to. I hope they soon develop some self-worth. Maybe this will help? So, what stupid things did GBE say in its filing? Grain Belt Express has entered a transmission service agreement (“Services Agreement” or “TSA”) with the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission (“Joint Municipalities” or “MJMEUC”) to purchase up to 250 MW of capacity from the Project, which would save hundreds of thousands of electrical consumers millions of dollars annually. Funny, in its own overblown request for transfer MJMEUC called its "contract" "the option to purchase up to 200 MW of firm transmission capacity at a discounted rate." Oh, right, option. It's only an option. MJMEUC can back out of it and purchase nothing at any time. And while GBE says this option is 250 MW, MJMEUC claims it is 200 MW. That 50 MW in dispute? It's 50 MW of export capacity from Missouri, because the munis will continue to run their polluting power plants in Missouri (so Missouri gets all that delicious environmental pollution) and attempt to sell the power to "states further east" that don't want to pollute their own air producing power for their own use. The Project has received regulatory approval from the relevant utility commissions in Kansas, Illinois and Indiana. Each state independently determined the Project is in the public interest and issued certificates for construction of the Project across those states. Missouri is the final state in which regulatory approval is needed for the Project to proceed. Except that "certificate for construction" from Illinois is currently on appeal. The appeals court could rule any day and vacate that certificate. And they most likely will, since the appeal deals with the issue of whether or not GBE was a public utility when it applied for the certificate, and the Illinois Supreme Court has already ruled that another Clean Line project is not a utility even AFTER it received its certificate. Clean Lines are dead in Illinois. ALL of them! So, no matter what the Missouri Supreme Court does here, it's almost a certainty that GBE will not be able to use eminent domain in Illinois. End of project. The Commissioners identified numerous benefits the Project would have had in the public interest: “lowered energy production costs in Missouri by $40 million or more”; “a substantial and favorable effect on the reliability of electric service in Missouri”; “positive environmental impacts”; “supported 1,527 total jobs over three years, created $246 million in personal income [including easement payments], $476 million in GDP, and $9.6 million in state general revenue for the state of Missouri, and $249 million in Missouri-specific manufacturing and personal service contract spending”; and resulted in “a total of approximately $7.2 million” in yearly property tax benefits to affected counties. Did you ever stop to look at what you did here in your ineffectual rage, Chairman Hall? You set Clean Line up to get this project cost allocated to all Missouri ratepayers, didn't you? I didn't see any conditions on that "concurrence" that required GBE to remain a participant funded merchant. In fact, there were no conditions at all. Not even those purported "Landowner Protections" negotiated on behalf of landowners by former Governor Nixon on his way out the door of the Governor's mansion. Which, in retrospect, are a conflict of interest joke. How could the PSC accept any conditions negotiated between GBE and its attorney on behalf of GBE's opponents? It's ludicrous. In contrast, § 229.100 is a non-PSC law that relates to county roads. It requires those who wish to erect poles and power wires, or lay pipes across public roads of any county to obtain the assent of county commissioners under rules established by the county engineer. Well, no, that's not actually what it says, Clean Line. That's what you want it to say. That's what Ameren wanted it to say. But what it actually says is..."No person or persons, association, companies or corporations shall erect poles for the suspension of electric light, or power wires, or lay and maintain pipes, conductors, mains and conduits for any purpose whatever, through, on, under or across the public roads or highways of any county of this state, without first having obtained the assent of the county commission of such county therefor" and then it has a semi-colon before continuing by using the word AND to indicate an additional requirement "and no poles shall be erected or such pipes, conductors, mains and conduits be laid or maintained, except under such reasonable rules and regulations as may be prescribed and promulgated by the county highway engineer, with the approval of the county commission." The county commission can refuse assent for the crossing for any reason. The county commission does not have to assent to any county engineer plan, or even order one made. There's a legal distinction between the words "may" and "shall". Eventually, Clean Line's ridiculous appeals are going to come around to misinterpreting Sec. 229.100 for its own benefit. Might as well head that one off at the pass. The Court should accept transfer to secure for all Missourians the full extent of the benefits identified by the PSC, including substantial and proper leasehold payments to landowners, and to allow Missourians to begin enjoying these benefits immediately. Leasehold payments to landowners are not a BENEFIT. They would be "just compensation" for private property condemned. COMPENSATION for something taken from the landowner. Compensation means: something that counterbalances or makes up for an undesirable or unwelcome state of affairs. Since the landowner is saddled with the undesirable and unwelcome transmission line for perpetuity, a handful of beads tossed at them today is compensation, not benefit. A benefit is a windfall. Nothing must be sacrificed in exchange for a benefit. A benefit allows the landowner to remain whole while receiving something additional. Get it through your thick head, Clean Line. Landowners hate you. They abhor you. They would NEVER allow you to speak for them to a court or at the PSC. Quit trying to pretend you are fighting for landowner interests, okay? Nobody believes it anyway. The Services Agreement between Grain Belt Express and the Joint Municipalities allows the Joint Municipalities to purchase up to 250 MW of from the Project. Dr. Freud, paging Dr. Freud. Slippage at GBE's office. Stat. MJMEUC is purchasing 250 MW of WHAT, exactly. It doesn't say, does it? Perhaps there was some internal debate (or stealth editing) about exactly what GBE was selling. Is it energy? Or is it merely transmission capacity? The fact is, MJMEUC can purchase renewable energy from anyone, for any price, even if GBE is never built. What GBE did here is offer MJMEUC transmission service at a loss-leader price. That's right, GBE's pricing is below GBE's cost to provide the service. GBE will have to make that loss up on other customers. Except it has no other customers. Which calls into question whether or not this project will ever be built, even with approvals. If the project doesn't sign up some customers paying above cost rates for its service, it cannot financially sustain itself. It can never be built. The savings expected under the Services Agreement are indicative of what other energy purchasers throughout the state would realize and will ultimately be passed on Missouri energy consumers. Well, no, GBE. You can't afford to provide service at below cost rates to all your customers, as noted above. And this. This has to be the biggest lie yet! The availability of these PTCs substantially lowers overall development costs of wind-generation projects, which allows Grain Belt Express to pass on the cost savings to its customers. Grain Belt Express, like many other industry members, is relying on the availability of PTCs to complete the Project as cost-effectively as possible to deliver maximum cost-savings to energy consumers. Without the benefit of the PTCs, the completion of Project is in jeopardy and the savings to Missourians at risk. 1. Clean Line is not eligible to take advantage of the production tax credit. It is a credit for generators. It is not available to transmission lines. Clean Line does not sell energy. Clean Line sells transmission capacity. Transmission capacity rates have nothing to do with the PTC. The PTC can only lower the rates for energy generated. It cannot lower transmission rates. There is nothing for Clean Line to "pass on" to its customers.
2. Since Clean Line cannot receive the tax credit, it cannot affect Clean Line's cost to build its project "cost-effectively." Since it cannot lower the cost to build the project, there is no savings to pass on to energy consumers in transmission rates. See what I mean? Colossal stupidity. The author(s) of this document don't understand anything about the production tax credit, nor are they aware of what GBE is selling and how it might impact consumers. It's all unicorn sprinkles. Attorney fantasy. And it's all so pointless. Clean Line, you're living somewhere underneath desperate, by about 50 yards. You can't win this. Game over. You're going to have to dig really deep to get past the out-of-control ego and the made up facts in this fake news story, but once you do, here's what emerges: The company, which has almost 40 employees, has no current source of revenue. No source of revenue. For eight years. How many other companies do you know of that haven't made a dime of revenue in 8 years and still pretend to be successful? And then there's the claim that there are "almost" 40 employees. How many is "almost" 40? Is it 35? Is it 30? Is it 15? Is it 10? In the photo of the "team room" I count 8 desks and 2 people. Was it lunch time? After hours? A holiday? Why would a reporter visit the office when there's hardly anyone in it? Or does Clean Line no longer have a team? Clean Line's physical "team" room looks pretty much like their late "our team" webpage... unpopulated. But yet Skelly claims they're all heroes. “You would think in eight years, you would have sort of a lull, but it’s a sort of a mad dash every day to move these projects forward,” Skelly said. “It’s more like an Ironman [Triathlon], not a marathon. It’s more like a decathlon, but it goes on for eight years.” Iron parts aside, there's a fine line between fiery determination and hopeless lunacy. It's probably going to go on a lot longer than eight years, because: ... neither TVA nor any other utility has signed a contract to buy the power the project would transmit.  Poor, poor, pitiful Michael Skelly. Everyone's against him. Skelly said that while landowners’ opposition to transmission projects is “understandable,” the pushback from within the industry is more frustrating. Skelly tells a "story" about an anonymous person saying Clean Line can't build its projects fast enough, touts an old MOU with the TVA that required TVA to merely consider the project (which they did and declined to sign up), and shares that "very large consumers of power ... care about carbon..." but yet Clean Line has no customers. The article also claims Clean Line has worked hard in Missouri to gain community support for Grain Belt. And it's really, really, REALLY difficult to permit a project that does not have "community support" that's not bought and paid for. Here's what the ACTUAL community members along Clean Line's proposed route have to say about how Clean Line tried to build "community support": And when community support fails and states deny permits? Threaten to go whining to the Feds. Skelly has said seeking DOE authority for the Grain Belt and Rock Island lines is an option but not his first choice because it is slow and costly. Clean Line sorta jumped the gun on that one, don't you think? It had applied to the U.S. DOE as a Section 1222 project before it was even rejected by the Arkansas Public Service Commission. And then the APSC's denial stated specifically that it was denied because Clean Line didn't intend to serve any customers in the state. All Clean Line had to do was propose a converter station in the state and reapply. But it ignored that and persisted with the DOE to secure the wonderful, awesome, powerful participation of the Feds in its project. And what did that change, anyhow? Well, it cost millions. And it took years. Skelly is right about that. But it also bought them nothing. A year and a half after DOE agreed to participate, Plains & Eastern is still going nowhere. Because it has no customers. DOE participation hasn't turned out to be so magical after all. Clean Line's investor line up keeps shifting. Clean Line likes to pretend its investors are quite hush-hush, but they manage to drop enough bits of random information in different venues that one merely needs to collect them all and do a bit of math to bring the picture into focus. Clean Line spokeswoman Sarah Bray said Bluescape is now the company’s “principal investor,” although National Grid, ZBI and the Zilkha family have retained equity stakes. The last time I did an info compilation in 2015, the investor totals looked like this. GridAmerica Holdings (National Grid) has invested $55.7M and currently owns 40% of the company. ZAM Ventures (Ziff brothers) has invested $73.8M and currently is the majority owner, with a 53% stake. Michael Zilkha has a piddling $2.8M invested, which gives him a 2% ownership interest. The remaining 5% (or $6.7M) is owned by "Clean Line Investment" which is some vague investment vehicle owned by "service providers and employees of Clean Line." Total investment: Around $140M Now Sarah Bray informs us that Bluescape is the majority investor, which indicates that Bluescape has dumped more than $73.8M into the Clean Line sink hole. Clean Line must be more than $200M in the hole to their investors over all, and still not a glimmer of hope in sight. Here's what's REALLY going on with Skelly's projects (pay no mind to that "summary" in the article, it's missing quite a few key facts): Rock Island Clean Line: The Illinois Supreme Court opinion said that Rock Island Clean Line is not a public utility, and therefore may not use eminent domain to acquire land for its project. The Court reasoned that since RICL had claimed it has not asked for eminent domain authority, that it didn’t need it and should proceed to build its project without eminent domain authority. I urge you to read and report on the actual Opinion, instead of taking the loser’s view of the case as a fact. See http://www.blockricl.com Really, what's there to be optimistic about here? Are the investors really looking forward to dumping more money into lobbying and paid advocates, lawyers, and hopeless legal actions? How many more years are the investors going to watch their money pissed away on fire stations and paid political hacks when what Clean Line so desperately needs is customers?
A fire station "compound" and pictures of Bob Marley in your deserted office doesn't make one successful in the energy world. Perhaps one would need to pop one's head out of one's own derriere now and again to do a bit of a reality check. Maybe some of us are laughing with you... and maybe some of us are laughing at you. I believe this looks like a portrait of a dying company whose leader is floating merrily down de Nile in an overpriced party boat. Party till the cash dries up (or the overly bright orange carpeting and quasi-mod decor makes you so dizzy you throw up). And don't forget to take a spin around the fire pole on your way out. That seems to be the conclusion of the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) in its most recent Order regarding the Rusk to Panola transmission connection that will move cheap electricity out of Texas as part of the Southern Cross Transmission project. Southern Cross is another merchant transmission project supposedly "for wind" that wants to export cheap Texas power into Southeastern states via a new 400-mile HVDC transmission connection. A "merchant" project is one for which investors shoulder the risk because it doesn't have a guaranteed ratepayer-financed revenue stream. Merchant projects are not found needed for reliability, economic, or public policy purposes, therefore ratepayers shall not be forced to finance them. Merchant projects generally negotiate rates with willing customers to finance their projects. Southern Cross had to jump an additional hurdle that other Midwestern merchant projects did not. Southern Cross proposes to export wind generated transmission from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) into another electric region. ERCOT is its own little one-state electric region island in order to escape the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that applies to other multi-state electric regions. In order to connect ERCOT resources to another region, Southern Cross went through a process at FERC that allowed the connection without compromising ERCOT's independence. Part of that deal required a connection from within ERCOT to another portion of Texas that was not within ERCOT. This is the proposed Rusk to Panola project, a double-circuit 345kV line. Southern Cross's transmission project would then connect to this project and move the electricity further across Louisiana and Mississippi, and connect with the grid in Alabama. Rusk to Panola (known as RPTP by Southern Cross) is only necessary to provide electricity to Southern Cross. RPTP needs the permission of the PUCT to build the project. While PUCT acknowledges that it must approve the project, it may do so with conditions. And the conditions PUCT placed on its approval have been met with resistance by Southern Cross. Holy shell companies, Batman! RPTP is supposedly owned by the City of Garland, Texas, but will be paid for by some entity known as Rusk Interconnection, LLC. Just like peeling an onion... layer after layer after layer... but back to the main event... PUCT has directed that any costs caused by the RPTP be assigned to Southern Cross Transmission, and not ERCOT ratepayers. ERCOT ratepayers are already shouldering the burden of ERCOT's CREZ projects, a series of new transmission lines intended to move wind-generated electricity from western Texas to load centers in the eastern part of the state. CREZ hasn't come cheap for ratepayers, and it looks like Texas may have overdone it, supplying so much "cheap" wind power that there is a surplus. Southern Cross proposes to alleviate that surplus by exporting it to other states. But yet, Southern Cross doesn't want to pay the full cost of its project's effect on the ERCOT system, instead purporting that ERCOT ratepayers would receive some "benefit" from Southern Cross and must therefore pay for that "benefit." Except these aren't "benefits" that ERCOT ratepayers need. At best, they are "benefits" that ERCOT ratepayers don't need or want, "benefits" that are foisted upon them because of Southern Cross's project. Who wants to pay for "benefits" they don't need? PUCT says: The current market design in ERCOT primarily places the responsibility for system costs on ERCOT customers. This docket has revealed that the Southern Cross DC tie will result in additional costs to ERCOT, which include extraordinary costs that arise specifically from the Southern Cross DC tie, the Garland line, and the Garland or Oncor substations. Because the customers of exported power are not ERCOT customers, under the current market design and rules, they will not bear any responsibility for the extraordinary costs specific to the Southern Cross DC tie, Garland line, and Garland or Oncor substations that they impose on the ERCOT system. Southern Cross believes that those customers—and therefore Southern Cross—should get a free ride as to these extraordinary costs. The Commission disagrees and determines that the public interest demands that ERCOT ratepayers should not bear any of the costs associated with the Garland line, the Oncor substation, the Garland substation, or the Southern Cross DC tie that are properly borne by others. PUCT did a great job fishing out the "but for" costs of the project, that is those costs that would not occur "but for" the construction of RPTP. Other states could take a lesson from this Order.
Southern Cross has asked for another rehearing on this matter by PUCT. Just paying their own way doesn't seem to be an option for Southern Cross. Is that because the project is not profitable unless it is subsidized by ERCOT ratepayers? Meanwhile, Southern Cross doesn't seem to be very popular in Mississippi, where numerous landowners have intervened in the permitting process at the Mississippi Public Service Commission. Bravo, landowners! To see the Mississippi docket, go here and search for Case Year 2017, Case Type UA, and Case No. 079. Southern Cross seems to have at least as many problems as the Clean Line projects proposed to its north. It's a fact: Landowners in fly-over states object vociferously to the use of eminent domain on their property to benefit electric ratepayers in other states and financially support private enterprise that wants to make a killing speculating in the electric power markets. Multi-state transmission projects "for wind" are money pits on regulatory minefields that will never succeed.  I keep hoping that Clean Line Energy Partners will invest in some media training for "director of development" Mark Lawlor. When this guy gets stressed out by reporters he says the dumbest things! When interviewed recently about the Illinois Supreme Court's opinion that Clean Line's RICL project is not a public utility, and how that might impact the Grain Belt Express project, Lawlor said: “Anytime you have legal clouds pending, you’re not going to spend a lot of time with that uncertainty,” said Lawlor. “We’ll see how the decisions play out before we put a lot of people to work building the project.” Legal clouds? A decision by the Illinois Supreme Court is just a "legal cloud" that could blow away any day now? Not hardly. But more interesting is Lawlor's admission that he's "not going to spend a lot of time with that uncertainty." Wack-a-mole, Waldo? No matter how many moles you whack, more are going to pop up somewhere else, you know... sort of like I've been telling you for years. So why bother spending all that money on an appeal in Missouri (not to mention your very expensive political spokespuppet, Jay Nixon), when Illinois has determined your projects cannot be public utilities until sometime down the road after they're built? Because this finally gets pretty close to the truth... it's not about simply purchasing some land. It's about Clean Line not being able to use eminent domain to condemn land for its projects in Illinois. Without eminent domain, Clean Line would have to negotiate with each and every landowner to purchase right of way. No sweat, Clean Line has been telling the public that it wasn't applying for eminent domain for years and that it planned to negotiate fairly with each and every landowner to secure right of way. So, what happens now when Clean Line has to actually do it? It's legal clouds, uncertainty, and doom and gloom for the project. That's because Clean Line wasn't being honest about eminent domain all along... what Clean Line meant was that it wanted to negotiate fairly with each and every landowners to secure right of way, but only when it was holding the sledgehammer of eminent domain behind its back. That's not fair negotiation. That's coercion. Now all of a sudden, when the sledgehammer isn't a tool, Clean Line can't negotiate at all. Clean Line only wanted to pretend to negotiate, but what it really wanted to do was threaten landowners with eminent domain condemnation if they didn't agree with Clean Line's terms and price. The Court called this one spot on! So, let's look at the last stupid thing Lawlor said...“We’ll see how the decisions play out before we put a lot of people to work building the project.” What? You were ready to "put a lot of people to work building the project" before the Illinois Supreme Court ruled? How were people going to build the Grain Belt Express without state approvals from all affected states? How were people going to build the Grain Belt Express without rights of way across the route? Without contracts? Without financing? Without money? Without customers? Sounds like you were ready to put people to work in the same way you were willing to negotiate fairly with landowners. As in... not at all. What a thoughtless and stupid thing to say! Lawlor also whines about Illinois by saying the same stupid things he said about Missouri: The ruling, Clean Line director of development Mark Lawlor said last week, would discourage renewable energy development in Illinois. Hey, guess what? Other developers aren't buying your cries of "wolf, wolf, wooooolffffff!" If no "clean lines" are ever built in Illinois, it will not affect the development of renewable energy in Illinois, because none of the Clean Line projects were ever proposed to move renewable energy produced in Illinois. No, they were just one way highways through the state for energy produced in other states, with no on or off ramps for local use. And people care even less about your investors and their signals. These filthy rich, silver spoon brats invested in your company with their eyes wide open, and besides, they'll hardly miss the millions they're going to be out when Clean Line folds. They'll probably just write it off their taxes and push the tax burden off onto working class taxpayers anyhow.
It's probably only a matter of time before the investors buy Mark his own wind farm, like they did for RICL's former development director, Hans Detweiler. Buh-bye! Rock Island Clean Line is dead. Grain Belt Express is dead. The St. Joseph News-Press published an editorial today stating: Officials with Clean Line Energy Partners are complaining about Missouri and its set of laws, as if the company didn’t know what it was getting into when it proposed stringing a high-voltage power line across the state. The editorial went on to say: ...the problem is Clean Line has not yet done enough to allay concerns of key decision-makers — in this case, county commissioners who by law have a big say in this matter. And concluded with this: Our preference is for Clean Line to continue to negotiate with the counties where it has met opposition. Short of that, both opponents and Clean Line should expect to be governed by the web of laws and regulations — both state and federal — that govern these matters. Clean Line's insistence that Missouri law must be changed to accommodate its desire to be above the law and build its project without county assent doesn't seem very popular with Missourians. And it's not just project opponents anymore. It's now the editorial board of a large newspaper, too. The sheer arrogance of these out-of-state interlopers will be their undoing. The News-Press must realize that the only thing standing between Clean Line and its success is... well... Clean Line! During recent oral argument before the Missouri PSC, Clean Line begged the PSC to issue an advisory opinion on the merits of the project, even if the PSC denied the project. Clean Line's attorney told the PSC that it needed that advisory opinion to take to the counties in order to convince them to assent to the project. CHAIRMAN HALL: Yes, I have a few. I want to start with your alternative argument that But Clean Line has used the PSC's "concurrence" on the project's merits for everything BUT going to the county commissions. The county commissions haven't heard a peep out of Clean Line in months. Now Clean Line and its environmental friends from the big cities want to use it to change Missouri law for their own benefit. And the people of Missouri perhaps think that's a step too far for a bunch of interlopers who want to use Missouri land and resources for their own gain. Clean Line is financed by deep pocketed investors from New York, Texas and the United Kingdom. None of these investors live or work anywhere near Missouri and won't have to suffer the consequences of their own actions. These investors have knowingly funneled around $200M into a very risky investment in Clean Line Energy Partners. When Clean Line goes belly up, these investors lose their entire investment in the company. I'll assume these sophisticated investors went into this transaction with their eyes wide open, so they must not have invested more than they could stand to lose. They'll probably hardly feel it. On the other hand, the damage to Missouri would now not only be a scar on its landscape and an obstacle to its productivity, but a long-lasting surrender of its authority through legislative change. I don't think Missouri is going to lay down willingly, and instead of winning the state's cooperation, Clean Line has obliviously lit a fire in Missouri's belly. Perhaps Clean Line's executives don't really care if they ever build a project or not. Perhaps their only interest at this point is to continue their own personal gravy trains as long as possible, even though they realize this train is headed for a gorge where the bridge is out. As long as the investors keep handing them cash to engage in hopeless battles, like trying to get Missouri to legislate away its own authority, the executives continue to live high on the hog. That could be the only explanation for why Clean Line even wants to engage in Missouri when the fate of this project is currently in the hands of the Illinois Court system. Did you listen to the oral arguments at the Fifth District Court of Appeals on the Illinois Commerce Commission's grant of a permit to Grain Belt Express under the wrong statute of Illinois law? If you haven't, you should. Based on questions from the justices, it isn't looking too swell for Clean Line, although the Court has yet to issue its opinion in this case. The opinion can come at any time. As well, did you watch to the oral arguments before the Illinois Supreme Court on whether the Rock Island Clean Line can ever be considered a public utility? That didn't go so well for Clean Line either. An opinion could be issued at any time. And, if RICL isn't a utility under Illinois law, then neither is GBE. The Court's opinion can yank the rug right out from under both Clean Line's Illinois projects at any time. And speaking of the Rock Island Clean Line, did you know that the Iowa Legislature legislated it's ability to use eminent domain out of existence during its last session? May 12, 2017 And then let's take a peek at Clean Line's Plains & Eastern Clean Line that wasted more than $15M getting the U.S. DOE to "participate" in its project in order to usurp the laws of Arkansas. Despite DOE's decision to "participate" in this project 18 months ago, it's no closer to actually being built. In addition to being the subject of a lawsuit in federal court, Plains & Eastern has no customers to finance the project. No revenue, no project. Plains & Eastern is stalled out, making no progress whatsoever.
Honestly, I don't think Clean Line Energy Partners is ever going to accomplish anything, except to spend its investors' money tilting at windmills and engaging in hopeless and increasingly expensive battles at the state and federal level. How much longer must the party in Houston go on? Clean Line and its big city environmentalist friends want to change Missouri law for their own benefit. Changing Missouri law doesn't benefit Missouri. The problem? A Missouri law that has been functioning for 100 years. Sec. 229-100 says TITLE XIV ROADS AND WATERWAYS Chapter 229 Provisions Relating to All Roads Missouri counties must assent to the crossing of their roads by linear infrastructure projects. Missouri counties are responsible for their roadways, so naturally they have control. Without that control, linear infrastructure projects could block, make useless, and destroy roadways that the county is financially responsible to maintain. A transmission company could cause all sorts of problems with county roads and skip off into the night, leaving repair costs to burden county taxpayers.
When the Mark Twain Transmission project was approved subject to future county assent, a Missouri court corrected by determining that county assent must come before PSC approval. Mark Twain found itself in a predicament. The counties would not give assent because the Mark Twain project proposed new rights of way over county roads. So, what did Mark Twain do? Did they have a big, sniveling tantrum and demand that Missouri change its law to allow crossing without county assent? No. Mark Twain went back to the drawing board to create a better project for which the counties could give assent. The revised Mark Twain project used existing rights of way and road crossings for its project, adding new capacity and rebuilding an old circuit. Eminent domain for new rights of way was minimized. While not everyone was happy, the revised project was improvement enough to receive the assent of impacted counties. That's right... Missouri law worked as intended to allow impacted counties to have control over the crossing of their roadways, while still allowing transmission projects to be built. The Mark Twain Transmission project is a MISO-ordered project. MISO thinks this project is important and needed. Perhaps it was important enough that compromise was the best path forward to achieving success. While MISO didn't get what it originally wanted, it did eventually get county assent to build a project that achieved its goal while also compromising to create a project that the counties could approve. This is the way the law is intended to work. Mark Twain changed its project to work within Missouri's law, instead of attempting to repeal the law in order to build its original plan. Missouri law works to protect Missouri. There's no reason to toss the baby out with the bathwater and bow to out-of-state interests who don't want to follow Missouri law. Clean Line's contention that no linear infrastructure projects can be built in Missouri with the 100-year old law in place is completely and totally wrong. Mark Twain is proof that infrastructure CAN be built in Missouri. It's testament that acceptable projects can be built. The problem here is that Clean Line does not want to revise its project to become something acceptable to Missouri counties. Clean Line has cut off all communication with Missouri counties. Clean Line is not even trying to compromise for a win-win -- where counties are happy and projects get built. Instead, Clean Line wants to have its own way, building its project and leaving counties with the tax burden of caring for the roads Clean Line destroys. This is not in the best interest of Missourians. It is only in the best interests of Clean Line, an out-of-state company with foreign investors. Just say no to Clean Line. Say no to its outside interference in Missouri's legislative process. Once Missouri cedes control of its fate to the hands of outside influence, it can never be regained. Clean Line needs to go back to the drawing board and build a better project, one that doesn't require Missouri to cede control to greedy foreign investors or urban environmental groups. One that works for Missourians. Put Missouri first! Any good grandparent knows what happens when you fill a toddler with sugary snacks and drinks... they turn into short-attention span race cars... zooming through your house at breakneck speed, harassing the cat, jumping on the bed, and dumping out every puzzle and game in the house in 30 seconds flat. That's sort of what happened with Clean Line's Mark Lawlor after the Missouri PSC denied Grain Belt's application. It took a while for Clean Line to stiffen its upper lip and say anything. The first words were Michael Skelly casting aspersions on Missouri, its institutions, its government, its people. And then he said: “We will review the order in detail to determine next steps for the project,” adds Skelly. “We are currently assessing all existing authorities available to move the Grain Belt Express project forward, including but not limited to legal appeals.” Clean Line executives said Wednesday that they were weighing their options for the Grain Belt Express power line, though they acknowledged that the “legal and regulatory conundrum” could add many months or years to the project if they decide to keep trying. Right, vague talk about appeals. Blah, blah, blah. Sort of sounds like a whipped puppy, doesn't he? *snort* *sniffle* *wahhhhhh* Have a lick or two of Clean Line's delicious lollipop and dry your tears... And remember, GBE's attorney promised the PSC that a dismissal would mean the project is dead and that a separate but ineffective favorable opinion would only be used to convince the counties to grant assent. Unfortunately, some of the PSC Commissioners took him at his word. Sometime later Wednesday afternoon Mark Lawlor got ahold of that lollipop and went on a sugar-fueled romp among the media, supposing all sorts of things he could do to move a dead and denied GBE project forward. Each comment got more outrageous until Mark's pinnacle with a Fox News station out of Illinois, where he said, "So, the Grain Belt Project will deliver enough power for over a million homes, and will do so at costs that are extremely competitive with wind energy that is clean and renewable.” No, really, that's exactly what he said, listen to the recording on the video here. What is it that Clean Line will be delivering that will be extremely competitive with clean wind power? It can't be clean wind power, so it must be dirty coal power? Gas? Nuclear? All of the above? I think the sugar was running amok by that time and Mark's brain and mouth were running in different time zones. What other stupid things did he say? “We absolutely want to do the project,” said Mark Lawlor, development director for Grain Belt Express. But he added: “Unfortunately, the message that we’re getting from Missouri is that investments of these kind might be better spent in other places.” Wow, that was pretty impressive, for a company that seems to be out of money. Lawlor's false bravado seems to have rubbed off on Clean Line president Michael Skelly the next day. Skelly says: “It’s impossible if you’re building a multi-state transmission line to get agreements from all 30 counties that you might cross,” said Michael Skelly, the president of Houston-based Clean Line, which is planning about $9 billion of power lines across the Great Plains, Midwest and the Southwest. And then he passes the lollipop to Clean Line's PR lady: Clean Line’s other options, said spokesperson Sarah Bray, include asking the PSC for a rehearing, working with the state’s legislature to revise pertinent laws or seeking U.S. Energy Department approval under Section 1222 of the 2005 Energy Policy Act. The latter would authorize the department to take part in “designing, developing, constructing, operating, maintaining or owning” new transmission. That sugary lollipop the PSC handed them has done nothing but fuel delusions of grandeur that the company can't accomplish. And it's going to waste a bunch more time and money. Instead of being "toast," like it promised, the company wants to add years to its project schedule pursuing the impossible dream. And what are Clean Line's options?
None of these sound like workable options. They would add years and hundreds of millions of dollars to the project. Clean Line doesn't have years. The big wind farm building boom is waning with the federal production tax credits that will sunset in just 3 years. When the PTC goes, so goes any economic advantage for big wind. Because the PSC denied Grain Belt's application the other day, all those contracts between GBE, MJMEUC and Infinity Wind are void. The contracts were contingent upon PSC approval. All that would have to be rehashed at a later date. Pricing would change without the PTC. Any opportunity and savings attached to those contracts during the recent PSC application will have to be completely re-done. And that's the thing, unless appeal is granted (highly unlikely) Clean Line will have to prosecute a fourth application before the MO PSC with no guarantee of a favorable result. The MO PSC swings wildly from side to side.
And then let's talk about Illinois, where the Supreme Court has taken up the issue of whether or not Clean Line is a public utility that should be granted eminent domain authority. Even if Clean Line spends all this money trying to bust through Missouri's brick wall, eventually the Illinois Supreme Court is going to issue a ruling that can nullify it. All of it. It doesn't matter what Missouri thinks if the Illinois permit is vacated. Why waste a bunch of time and money in Missouri when it can all be for naught once Illinois rules? I thought Clean Line put spending money in Iowa on hold pending the Illinois outcome. But yet they want to do that exact thing in Missouri? Honestly, these guys are dumber than a box of rocks. It sounds to me like they're just spewing out a bunch of empty threats and big talk that they can't accomplish. Perhaps they'll come down off their sugar high soon? Because Clean Line is dead. Go away, Clean Line. You will never succeed. |
About the Author Keryn Newman blogs here at StopPATH WV about energy issues, transmission policy, misguided regulation, our greedy energy companies and their corporate spin.
In 2008, AEP & Allegheny Energy's PATH joint venture used their transmission line routing etch-a-sketch to draw a 765kV line across the street from her house. Oooops! And the rest is history. About
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