Category:

"Clean" Bravado

12/23/2016

The collapse of Clean Line Energy Partners has begun. Although a long, screaming, fantastic flameout would tickle everyone's schadenfreude in a most delightful way, the death of Clean Line is more likely to look like this:

Now you see it, now you don't. You simply wake up one morning and it's gone. Snuck out of town in the middle of the night with its tail between its legs.

So, it looks like the company doesn't have enough "development" funds from its investors to continue running "full steam ahead" in Iowa. The company was faced with filing very expensive exhibit material at the Iowa Utility Board, while its Illinois permit for the same project has been ordered void by a court. It ended up being cheaper to withdraw its applications in Iowa. If the company chooses to refile at a future date, it will have to go through all the IUB requirements for a new application, such as landowner meetings in each county. Although time consuming, and disastrous from a public relations standpoint, withdrawing was the cheaper of the two options in Iowa.

Cheaper. Now all of a sudden Clean Line is concerned about costs? Have they burned through $200M in "development funds" already? Is the treasure chest getting a little low with no replenishment in sight? Maybe that's because Clean Line has been using its "development" funds to pay for parts of its projects that should be financed. Things like final engineering, environmental studies, purchase of rights of way, procurement of parts and labor, are all project costs, not development costs. Development costs are the costs of obtaining a permit to build. Once a permit is received, project costs begin. Except Clean Line still has its cart before its horse and is funding project costs with development money. Because it has no project financing. Because it has no customers.

Wow! How panicked are they in Houston right now? Yesterday's press release on the Iowa withdrawal screams false bravado.

Despite the Rock Island Clean Line’s schedule delays, the need to build electric infrastructure remains. Clean Line Energy continues to move full steam ahead on its other transmission projects. Currently, hundreds of people are at work to complete engineering and design, test materials, and negotiate easements to prepare for groundbreaking on the Plains & Eastern Clean Line, the country’s largest clean energy infrastructure project. The Plains & Eastern Clean Line will connect low-cost, clean energy resources in the Oklahoma Panhandle to Arkansas and states throughout the Southeast.

No, Clean Line will NOT be breaking ground on Plains & Eastern any time soon. Landowners in Arkansas and Oklahoma have refused to grant Clean Line right of way across their property. Clean Line does NOT have eminent domain authority. The most it can do is to run crying to the U.S. Department of Energy and ask that DOE begin condemnation proceedings against landowners who refuse. And guess what? The DOE has already written in stone that it will only begin condemnation proceedings against any landowners AFTER Clean Line reaches certain milestones with its project. First and foremost, Clean Line must have customers for its transmission capacity. Clean Line must have a contracted revenue stream sufficient to support financing to build its project. Clean Line has no customers. Therefore, Clean Line won't be breaking any ground until it has customers.

And on top of that, there is a lawsuit against DOE pending in federal court that claims DOE exceeded its statutory authority and trampled on the due process rights of Arkansas citizens. DOE is unlikely to move forward with this project until the matter is settled.

Clean Line is going nowhere fast. There is no "need" to build thousands of miles of "clean" lines. No transmission planner has determined a "need" for these lines, and the lines have no customers. No customers, no need!

No "clean" line!

4 Comments

Clean Line's "Code of Conduct" Doesn't Protect Landowners

12/14/2016

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Did you see Block Grain Belt Express- MO's facebook post yesterday? It was a question/response from Clean Line regarding the company's "Code of Conduct."

As part of the hearing process at the PSC, Grain Belt Express must answer questions about its testimony submitted by other parties. Ever wonder what’s behind the smoke and mirrors you read in the newspapers? Here’s the response of Clean Line Vice President of Land, Deann Lanz to a question you may have wondered yourself over the years.
-------------------------
Who enforces Clean Line’s “Code of Conduct” for dealing with landowners, and does it protect you?

Question DL.2: With reference to page 4 line 11 of your testimony, please summarize all reported violations to date (if any) of the Code of Conduct by any employee or agent of Clean Line or Grain Belt in any of the states in which the proposed line will be located. Please include the name(s) of the individuals involved, the date of the occurrence, the location of the occurrence, and a brief summary of the conduct which violated the Code of Conduct.

Response: There have been two instances where Grain Belt Express investigated allegations of conduct outside the best practices standard. One involved a land agent visiting*************, a landowner in Chariton County, on June 12, 2014.
The other involved a phone call to *********, a landowner in Buchanan County, on April 2, 2014. In both instances the investigation found no violation of best practices. With Ms.********, the allegation was raised by a family member as opposed to Ms.******* herself. The meeting notes and report from the land agent showed no violation of the code of conduct or best practices. With Mr. ********, there was no record of the conversation taking place and Mr. ******** did not raise the issue with Grain Belt Express. The investigation showed no violation of the code of conduct or best practices.

In the first case family reported that a land agent refused to leave an elderly landowners room in a rest home. She repeatedly asked them to leave because she was ill. They refused. They told her that they would leave after she signed the easement. Family members told PSC staff about the incident and filled out a form that is now part of the public record.
In the second case, and elderly landowner was called and told "it was a done deal" and he needed to come fill out the papers. He believed them and had an appointment the next morning to sign the easement. He was told he was not allowed to bring anyone else with him. Luckily, he came to lock up after one of of our meetings and was shocked to find it was not a done deal! He submitted an affidavit about the issue to the PSC.

Block GBE representatives talked with the subject of one of these complaints last night, when he came out to the public hearing in Faucett. Hear it direct from the horse's mouth:

Who do you believe?

When Clean Line enforces its own "Code" there are no "violations." Because there really isn't any enforcement.

The "Code" seems more useful in the outhouse than in your house.

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Landowners Step Up to Protect Property Rights in Missouri

12/10/2016

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The Missouri Public Service Commission held four public hearings this week on Grain Belt Express' second application to build an enormous electric transmission line across Missouri that is intended to serve eastern states. Four more hearings are scheduled for next week.

Dec. 13, 2016: Cameron, 12:00 p.m.*
Cameron Community Center, 915 Ashland Avenue
Dec. 13, 2016: Faucett, 6:00 p.m.
Mid-Buchanan High School, Multipurpose Room, 3221 SE Route H
Dec. 14, 2016: Polo, 12:00 p.m.*
Community Center at Stagecoach Park, 1010 Main Street
Dec. 14, 2016: Carrollton, 6:00 p.m.
Rupe Community Center, 710 Harvest Hills Drive

Landowners have filled the public venues, like they did during GBE's first run at the PSC. Some have spoken quite eloquently about the detrimental effect the project will have on their land, their business, their heritage, and their life. It doesn't have to be fancy, just heartfelt. I encourage everyone to get up and let the Commissioners present know how this project will affect them.

Kelly Sherman of New London: "The irony of this sickens me...our sons are in the military and are willing to die for our country, but they can't come home to the very land they will inherit, it will be taken from them and devalued forever."

Larry Markley: "If this energy is so good for Missouri then why don't they sell it all here?"

Read many more landowner comments in news articles here and here.

In the second article, the pictures tell a story that the reporter failed to mention. Notice the sea of Amish hats in the foreground? That's right, these public hearings were well attended by the local Amish communities. Several Amish folks spoke against the power line. You might be thinking, "big deal," but it actually is a VERY big deal! The Amish rarely involve themselves in what they consider "resistance" and "worldly things." It is uncharacteristic for the Amish to participate in social protest, or to do anything other than "turn the other cheek" when they are threatened. The fact that they came, and spoke, should take the PSC's breath away.

As expected, Grain Belt Express stepped up their game to deliver even more clueless advocates for their project than before. The first day, they presented a bunch of students from St. Louis University. FREE FOOD AND DRINK, and at a popular St. Louis brewery no less! Do you all need me to buy you a drink in exchange for showing up and speaking your mind? (Or really, my mind, because that's more apt.) Pathetic!

So, what did these students, and their Sierra Club counterparts have to say for themselves? They told the PSC that Grain Belt Express would shut down existing coal-fired power plants in Missouri and clean up the air. Nothing could be further from the truth!! I'm betting they didn't get a copy of Grain Belt's "contract" with Missouri municipalities to go with their free beer. The "contract" also includes up to 50MW of transmission service from Missouri to Indiana, where the line is proposed to connect with PJM Interconnection, the regional grid that serves the mid-Atlantic states. What are Missouri municipalities planning to ship to Indiana? Will they be re-selling their "clean" electricity to eastern cities? Of course not! They are creating an arbitrage opportunity whereby they may sell their own dirty, stinking generation (such as Prairie State) into PJM markets when price differentials are favorable. This will create new markets for dirty Missouri generation and prolong the life of the coal-fired power plants that currently foul Missouri's air. Without a "clean" line to open new markets for them, these plants would be forced to close when competing with regional renewables. With a "clean" line, however, they can continue to belch their dirty exhaust into Missouri's air, and sell their output into expensive eastern markets for many years to come. Silly beer-powered advocates! If you'd spent more time actually researching the project, instead of simply repeating Clean Line's glitering generalities, you might actually take some action to clean up the air you breathe.

The same goes for the GBE advocates who simply accept and repeat the falsehood that GBE will save consumers money on electric rates, instead of spending just a moment to research the facts. Where did this magical "savings" come from? Did you ask? It came from here:

Preliminary calculations, assuming existing production tax credits for wind project participation in the project, could reduce costs by as much as $10M/year or $10 per megawatt hour compared to delivery of other wind projects from SPP to MISO.

That's right... it came from Clean Line's guesstimate of savings that it used to promote its transmission line to Missouri municipalities. No cost study was ever performed! There are no firm generation costs included in pricing, because Clean Line does not own or sell generation, and the wind farms in its guesstimate have not yet been built. What's wrong with that? Clean Line's guesstimate includes hypothetical pricing from wind farms that are eligible for the full production tax credit. Those farms have not been built, and the tax credit begins phase out after December 31 of this year. Even if the wind farms are eventually built, they will receive a reduced credit, and that means that their cost of generation will be increased by an amount at least equal to the foregone credit. Any actual "savings" will be much less than the quoted $10M, and then split between more than 30 cities, and millions of customers. How much could ratepayers save? Pennies, perhaps, but it could also end up costing them even more in the long run. It's so hypothetical, nobody knows!

And those Clean Line advocates from economic development and chamber of commerce offices? They believe they will be showered with tax payments and jobs. Reality will be far different, and not equal to the cost of hosting the line and a few temporary, low-wage jobs. They're in it because they think they smell a big payday.

Which leads us to the another kind of advocate -- companies who think they will be awarded contracts for supplies and labor. They support the project simply to fill their own pockets.

A landowner at one of the hearings observed that many of the Clean Line advocates left the hearing as soon as they had spoken. They have no skin in the game. Those sincerely interested in the project stayed through the entire hearing... those were the landowners.

And as far as the handful of landowners who have popped up to support GBE, isn't it funny that they all touted the same fictional "$10M savings"? It's almost as if their comments and Letters to the Editor were heavily edited by Clean Line. I wonder if that cost extra, aside from any easement payments made to date? Greed can make some folks do despicable things. At any rate, they are soundly outnumbered, hundreds to one.

So, week one of public hearings have come and gone. Score one for the landowners, who won the moment by simply showing up and being genuine! Bravo!

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Missouri Lawmakers and Agricultural Associations Oppose Grain Belt Express -- Public Hearings Start Today!

12/7/2016

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Numerous agricultural associations and business groups across the state have recently expressed strong opposition to Grain Belt Express, a high-voltage electric line proposed to plow through northern Missouri on its way to the east coast.

In a recent editorial, Missouri Farm Bureau president Blake Hurst said, “Grain Belt Express has promised a series of steps it says will protect landowners, bragging that landowners will receive 32 million dollars in total compensation. However, the landowner compensation anticipated from Clean Line is predicated on the use of eminent domain, which means that individual landowners will have absolutely no bargaining power. Also the idea of promising energy savings to a few, but politically-influential, municipalities so Clean Line can then trample on the rights of others, is a precedent that is distasteful if not downright frightening.”

Mike Deering of the Missouri Cattlemen's Association (MCA) said his organization stands firmly behind the protection of private property rights. “The actions to-date of Clean Line Energy are best characterized as a pervasive invasion of private property rights. MCA fully supports the efforts of Block Grain Belt Express-Missouri to protect landowner rights and opposes Grain Belt Express Clean Line's application to the MO PSC,” Deering stated.

Other agricultural groups opposed to the project include Missouri Corn Growers, Missouri Sheep Producers, and Sydenstricker Implement, one of the largest John Deere businesses in the state.

Owner Eddie Sydenstricker, whose business has been serving the Missouri agricultural community for more than 70 years, supports agriculture and landowner rights, and opposes a private-for-profit company obtaining the power of eminent domain.

“I believe Grain Belt Express' massive high-voltage DC transmission line will not only violate property rights, but will reduce property value far beyond any token compensation, spoil our rural landscape, create obstacles in fields for our agricultural producers resulting in reduced productivity and increased costs, and it will also limit future options for farms and cause the potential for adverse health risks for residents and their livestock,” said Sydenstricker.

Also expressing opposition to the project were several Missouri lawmakers, including 40th District Representative Jim Hansen.

"I hope the Public Service Commission can continue to stand with Missouri citizens and their property rights. They voted in support of Missourians the first time around and I hope they will the second time. As a strong supporter of agriculture, which is the key industry in my district, I oppose the efforts of Clean Line Energy, the Grain Belt Express project, and their efforts to obtain eminent domain. I feel it is not right to put the interests of an out-of-state company ahead of Missourians' private property rights. Going forward, I will continue to do all that I can to preserve landowner rights and ensure that the Public Service Commission does not grant Clean Line a certificate of convenience," said Hansen.

Eight Missouri county governments have formally withdrawn support of Grain Belt Express, including Caldwell, Clinton, Chariton, Monroe, Audrain, Pike, Marion and Ralls Counties.

Ralls County Commissioner Wiley Hibbard said, “The citizens of Ralls County oppose this mega power line. It is, in my opinion, just an attempt by a small group of investors to make profits from the clean energy movement. Please know that this is not the only way to get wind-generated power to Missouri or Ralls County. We are receiving wind energy now. I think that anyone who wants to take our land by force to provide wind energy to the East Coast is just providing another example of the East Coast elitists telling us we do not matter!”

The Missouri Public Service Commission has scheduled public hearings in eight counties across the state beginning next week.

Jennifer Gatrel, spokeswoman for Block GBE-Missouri urged citizens concerned about this and other attacks on private property rights to attend. “The PSC listened carefully to our concerns last time they denied this project,” she said, “It is very important that they hear our voices again.”

The public hearing schedule:

Dec. 7, 2016: Monroe City, Knights of Columbus Hall, 12:00 p.m.*
424 South Locust
Dec. 7, 2016: Hannibal, Theater Auditorium, 6:00 p.m.
Hannibal-LaGrange University, 2800 Palmyra Road
Dec. 8, 2016: Marceline, 12:00 p.m.*
Walsworth Community Center, 124 East Ritchie
Dec. 8, 2016: Moberly, 6:00 p.m.
Moberly Municipal Auditorium, 201 West Rollins
Dec. 13, 2016: Cameron, 12:00 p.m.*
Cameron Community Center, 915 Ashland Avenue
Dec. 13, 2016: Faucett, 6:00 p.m.
Mid-Buchanan High School, Multipurpose Room, 3221 SE Route H
Dec. 14, 2016: Polo, 12:00 p.m.*
Community Center at Stagecoach Park, 1010 Main Street
Dec. 14, 2016: Carrollton, 6:00 p.m.
Rupe Community Center, 710 Harvest Hills Drive

*In order to be able to move equipment to the next local public hearing that same day, 12:00 p.m. local public hearings will end no later than 4:00 p.m.

For more very important info please visit: http://blockgbemo.com/

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Tick Tock, RICL

12/1/2016

3 Comments

Wow, time's a running short for the Rock Island Clean Line to get its Exhibit E material filed at the Iowa Utility Board. Even with Clean Line whining about the expense and time involved in collecting the information, the IUB set a deadline of January 13, 2017 for the filing of Exhibit E material for at least 4 counties, each of which shall have an approximately average number of condemnation parcels. That means no cheating by submitting the counties with the smallest number of condemnation parcels first. And then every month thereafter, Clean Line must file Exhibit E material for at least 4 more "average" counties, with all material to be filed by May 1, 2017.

So, where ya been, Clean Line? I thought the idea of all these delays was to give you opportunity to sign more voluntary easements? I'm guessing that's not going to happen, since nobody has seen Clean Line doing much of anything in Iowa. Just another waste of time. However, the clock is ticking toward the deadline for merchant projects that was made law by the Iowa legislature last session. There's no time to waste! And, speaking of the legislature, won't Clean Line have fun during the upcoming session, now that the Iowa Senate is Republican lead?

I wonder what's going to be more expensive, the Exhibit E material, or the money Clean Line is going to spend on lobbyists during the upcoming legislative session? Money-saving tip: Don't waste your money on lobbyists next year! Nobody's interested in listening to you cry about how poor you are at the IUB when you're shelling out millions for lobbyists all over the place.

And remember what the IUB suggests regarding eminent domain for utility projects:

•Avoid ED if possible (time, cost, public rel.)

Right. Those Exhibit E's take a lot of time and money to prepare, but that's nothing compared to the public relations (and political) nightmare you're about to embark upon. The taking of more than 1,000 parcels of land in Iowa by eminent domain to build your project is never going to happen. Successful utility projects typically take less than 10% of property through eminent domain, not 85%. You must have done something wrong in Iowa, Clean Line.... like arrogantly assuming you could force landowners to negotiate after the IUB rubberstamped your request for eminent domain authority. Ooops!

And what good is any of this when you don't have a permit in Illinois? You're awfully optimistic about your chances before the Illinois Supreme Court, not to mention your unrealistic timetable to which the Court is very unlikely to adhere. What does your fantasy timetable have to do with the amount of money you're spending in Iowa which may turn out to be a total waste?

And then you go and do this... you use "Theresa" to speak on your behalf in the Chicago Tribune story about your Supreme Court case. Err.... I mean Nancy, because that's apparently her real name, not the one she signed up as at the Illinois Commerce Commission public hearing in Mendota in September of 2013. Look, same woman in the Tribune story, except in that sign up line she wrote her name as "Theresa Hoover."

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Excuse me.You called Theresa Hoover who is a colleague of mine right before this gentleman spoke. Is there an opportunity for me to speak?

HEARING OFFICER: Say that
again.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: You called
Theresa Hoover.

HEARING OFFICER: Yes.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name was
supposed to be on the card instead of
Theresa's, so when you called her I
didn't step up because I didn't know it
was --

HEARING OFFICER: I have got to
go by what I started with.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: So would it
be okay if Theresa came up and spoke?

HEARING OFFICER: Pardon me?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Are you
saying Theresa would need to come up?

HEARING OFFICER: Correct.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay.

Fast Forward through one speaker...

HEARING OFFICER: Where did
that gentleman go that asked me the
question?
Is Theresa here?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: She is.

HEARING OFFICER: Where is she?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Here.

HEARING OFFICER: Theresa,
stand up, please.
Was it supposed to be his name on
there instead of yours?

THERESA HOOVER: Yes, sir, it
was.

HEARING OFFICER: Okay.

KERYN NEWMAN: Some other lady
signed that name because they were right
in front of us. Some lady that already
spoke signed Theresa's name up. I
watched her do it.
Theresa and him, neither one of them
signed their name

HEARING OFFICER: Is that true?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I did not sign my name. Theresa was supposed to sign my name.

HEARING OFFICER: Theresa, did
you sign your name?

THERESA HOOVER: No, sir,
actually someone who got here before us.
We made a long trip from Atlanta and
there was a gentleman that signed us up.

HEARING OFFICER: No, no.

Nancy, aka "Theresa" is obviously only supporting Clean Line in exchange for the tax money she thinks it will bring to her county. She doesn't look like she was having a great time tromping through the mud pretending to like Clean Line for the Tribune photographer. But what won't these local economic development employees do for a buck?

So, RICL, stop wasting your investors' money on this project and just go away. You'll never beat the clock.

Tick Tock!

3 Comments

Why Grain Belt Express is a Bad Deal for Missouri

11/29/2016

6 Comments

Public hearings on Grain Belt Express' most recent application (its third) to the Missouri Public Service Commission are set to begin next week. Another huge public turnout to oppose the plan is expected.

None of Clean Line's smoke and mirrors about project "benefits" has any basis in fact or logic.

Clean Line's proposed "income" for landowners is a huge fabrication. Any payments to landowners are a lame attempt at compensation for property taken from landowners through the courts. In exchange for payments, landowners would be trading rights-of-way across their property. Eminent domain law requires the taking entity to compensate landowners for the market value of property taken from them. It is not additional "income." Income would allow a landowner to gain something valuable while losing nothing. The truth of the matter is that Grain Belt Express is proposing to make landowners whole for property taken from them. It's a wash, not a gain. It's no different than Walmart showing up at your house and cleaning out your pantry and freezer and then giving you "market value" for the goods it has confiscated. Meanwhile, Walmart has your food and can sell it to others for a profit. There are no benefits to landowners from construction of Grain Belt Express.

Clean Line's claims of increased tax revenue for counties crossed is another disingenuous glittering generality. In essence, it is a proposal that economic development opportunity trumps your right to own and enjoy property. Everyone's house would generate more tax revenue if it was a Walmart. Economic development alone is not reason enough to trample on private property rights. This is even more true when looked at through the public utility lens that Clean Line hides behind. Public utilities have enjoyed eminent domain authority when a project is necessary to serve the public. It's a high burden that a utility must carry to demonstrate that its project is necessary to serve the public. Simply stating that if property is taken and a project built that a public need will develop, is not enough to carry this burden to take property in the first place. Especially when the "utility" is Clean Line, who has no firm customers for its transmission line. It's all based on future speculation, and that's not good enough.

Clean Line's claims of increased tax revenue also fail to calculate any detriments Grain Belt Express will bring to affected counties. Properties crossed by electric transmission lines lose value. This lowers the assessed value of affected properties and decreases property tax revenue to the county. In addition, the burden of hosting the transmission line will cost the county in increased public safety expenses, both during the invasive construction of the project and for years afterwards when the counties must purchase equipment and supplies to prepare for any transmission line disaster that may happen in the future. For example, substation fires require different types of equipment and special chemicals to fight. Counties could spend their entire "windfalls" supporting Clean Line's infrastructure in their locality.

Clean Line's claims that its Grain Belt Express project will save Missourians $10M a year in energy costs is not based on fact. Although Clean Line witnesses make this claim in testimony to the PSC, there is nothing to back it up. No analysis, no numbers. Based on documents made public months ago, the $10M claim was concocted by Clean Line when it attempted to sell its capacity to Missouri municipalities.

Preliminary calculations, assuming existing production tax credits for wind project participation in the project, could reduce costs by as much as $10M/year or $10 per megawatt hour compared to delivery of other wind projects from SPP to MISO.

Preliminary calculations? Clean Line's calculations, which have yet to be revealed to the public. "Assuming existing production tax credits" assumes too much. At the end of this year, the production tax credit will begin phase out and the subsidy for wind energy will be cut 20%. The following year it will be cut 40%. The next year it will be cut 60%, eventually disappearing altogether within 5 years. Couple this with our friend Bob from the Hannibal BPW's recent statements that he has yet to contract for any wind energy to serve the City of Hannibal. That's because the generators Clean Line says will develop to use its project haven't been constructed yet. The only thing Missouri municipal utilities have tentatively contracted for with Clean Line is transmission capacity, not energy. Energy must be purchased separately, and come from the specific geographic area close to Clean Line's proposed converter station in southwest Kansas. It's not about purchasing the cheapest wind energy available in today's market, it's about speculation with unbuilt generators to supply energy via an unbuilt transmission line. Too many variables to accurately calculate any cost savings to Missouri, since Clean Line cannot and does not sell any energy proposed to be transmitted to Missouri via its project. How was this $10M "savings" calculated when there are no energy prices to work with? Sort of looks like Clean Line simply made it up out of hypothetical numbers presented in a light most favorable to Clean Line. But, hey, at least the Missouri municipalities have the option to back out of their "contract" with Clean Line at any time in the future and purchase nothing. If cities sit around waiting for Clean Line to ship them energy from generators that don't exist, at prices that have no basis in reality, then the cities may get stuck paying much higher prices to procure energy down the road if nothing develops and they're left without enough resources to serve customers. Coulda, woulda, shoulda... by law, utilities are required to have adequate resources under contract, not base their future service on hypotheticals.

And simply parading a collection of politicians and business interests who stand to personally profit from the construction of the project isn't support based on fact and logic. It's based on money, pure and simple.

True grassroots opinion based on fact and logic cannot be bought. True grassroots opposition will drown out expensive, manufactured "support" and will carry the day at the upcoming public hearings. Won't you lend your voice?

The public hearing schedule:

Dec. 7, 2016: Monroe City
Knights of Columbus Hall, 424 South Locust
The local public hearing will begin at 12:00 p.m.*

Dec. 7, 2016: Hannibal
Theater Auditorium, Hannibal-LaGrange University, 2800 Palmyra Road
The local public hearing will begin at 6:00 p.m

Dec. 8, 2016: Marceline
Walsworth Community Center, 124 East Ritchie
The local public hearing will begin at 12:00 p.m.*

Dec. 8, 2016: Moberly
Moberly Municipal Auditorium, 201 West Rollins
The local public hearing will begin at 6:00 p.m.

Dec. 13, 2016: Cameron
Cameron Community Center, 915 Ashland Avenue
The local public hearing will begin at 12:00 p.m.*

Dec. 13, 2016: Faucett
Mid-Buchanan High School, Multipurpose Room, 3221 SE Route H
The local public hearing will begin at 6:00 p.m.

Dec. 14, 2016: Polo
Community Center at Stagecoach Park, 1010 Main Street
The local public hearing will begin at 12:00 p.m.*

Dec. 14, 2016: Carrollton
Rupe Community Center, 710 Harvest Hills Drive
The local public hearing will begin at 6:00 p.m.

*In order to be able to move equipment to the next local public hearing that same day, 12:00 p.m. local public hearings will end no later than 4:00 p.m.

For more very important info. please visit Block GBE-MO.

6 Comments

Ut-oh, GE!

11/2/2016

0 Comments

Well, whoop-de-diddly-doooo, Clean Line belched another huge cloud of public relations smoke yesterday designed to cover up the fact that it's going nowhere fast.

Clean Line has entered what it describes as a "partnership" with GE to build three AC/DC converter stations for its beleaguered Plains & Eastern Clean Line project. Partnership? I don't think so, because it sounds more like Clean Line simply hiring a supplier.... a supplier it has no money to pay.

This will be GE’s first HVDC project in the United States since acquiring Alstom’s energy portfolio last year. This addition to our portfolio was critical.

GE... trying to breathe new life into bad ideas. This project, so "critical" to GE's business, has a long, long way to go before building anything. I wonder if GE has read Clean Line's "Participation Agreement" with the U.S. DOE that requires the company to have financing in place before proceeding? In order to get financing, Clean Line would need customers. There are no customers for Plains & Eastern. Where does GE think Clean Line is going to get the money to pay them for 3 converter stations?

I wonder if GE has heard about the lawsuit filed in federal court that alleges the U.S. DOE exceeded their statutory authority in their review and agreement to "participate" in this project? Does GE know that the U.S. DOE does not have the authority to condemn and take easements for a Section 1222 project? And without easements, there's no place for Clean Line to build anything.

Yeah, good luck with that, GE.

But, hey, at least GE beat rival Siemens to a worthless contract with a company that can't get its projects off the ground. After years of patsy Siemens stumping for Clean Line in Arkansas, Clean Line dumped them and inked a contract with their rival. And how awkward are things going to get in Houston, doing business with two rival companies? Clean Line announced years ago that it had signed an "exclusive agreement" with Siemens to develop, design and implement the converter stations for its Rock Island project. Now that Clean Line and GE have become the Plains & Eastern converter station Bobbsey Twins, is Siemens' Rock Island converter station "agreement" about to be reneged? I'd have to think that GE must have given Clean Line a much better price for the Plains & Eastern converter stations than Siemens, and, if so, why is Clean Line content to pay more for Siemens converter stations for Rock Island?

Ahhh... the kerfuffles that can ensue when a company signs "exclusive agreements" to obtain supplies from vendors years in advance of final engineering. Who does that? Probably not the majority of transmission owners, who prefer to source a project competitively when they're actually ready to build and have financing in place to back up any contracts that they sign.

Or is this just the tip of the iceberg? Will we now see Clean Line jettison a whole bunch of "exclusive agreements" when the rubber finally hits the road?

And I do wonder if GE will be required to use local labor to build the converter stations? Since GE's real muscle is the former French company Alstom (gobbled up in 2015), will the actual components be built in France and merely shipped to U.S. sites for assembly by GE contractors?

None of this ridiculous fanfare about GE contracting to supply the converters is even necessary. Other transmission owners don't need to drum up media interest every time they sign a contract with a supplier. Clean Line does it because it allows them to hide behind a cloud of smoke and pretend their projects are making headway, instead of answering the hard questions, such as:

Where are the customers?

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Clean Line Closing in on Darkened Lounge Journalism

10/19/2016

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Well, isn't that nice? Clean Line's Mark Lawlor got all chatty with the Missouri Times, who tried to create the fantasy that the Grain Belt Express transmission project is pretty much approved by the Missouri Public Service Commission.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

"Clean Line closing in on final order with the PSC" appears to be the work of a journalist who doesn't understand the PSC process and prefers to present only one side of the story. Clean Line isn't "closing in" on anything. The parties (including those who oppose the project, because even if the story doesn't mention them, they still exist) are merely jockeying for position to develop a procedural schedule. Big. Stinkin'. Deal. This does not mean that the process has officially even started yet, but once it does, other parties will have opportunity to present evidence to the Commission and argue their position. The positions of the opposition were enough to convince the PSC to deny GBE's first application in Missouri. Nothing much has changed. Except the propaganda... Clean Line is pouring that on real, real thick.

Does Clean Line think that the MO PSC is going to be swayed by propaganda and third party advocacy, instead of evidence and law?

The Grain Belt Express Clean Line wind energy project has made significant steps towards getting the final green light from the Public Service Commission.

Since the case hasn't even started yet, it remains to be seen if Clean Line's newest application will do anything to convince the PSC to approve the project. Who decided "significant steps towards getting the final green light" have happened? The Missouri Times? Clean Line? I'm sorry, but the only entity who can decide that is the MO PSC, and they haven't decided anything yet. And what's this about a "final" green light? This implies that a preliminary "green light" has already happened, and that's just not true. It's been nothing but RED lights for Clean Line in Missouri so far.

And do you know why GBE "stalled" in July? Because it filed an improper application in June that was rejected by the PSC. "Stalled" isn't quite the proper word, denied is more apt.

So, the only "news" here is that the Missouri Times mistakenly believes "the case has officially started with the commission." That's not news. I'm pretty sure everyone already knows that. And... wowzers, on the edge of your seat, folks... the PSC gave the go-ahead to finalize a public hearing schedule. It doesn't mean the schedule is set or anything. It means the parties are still arguing about it. This is not news either.

So, Mark is excited. I hope you're all excited, too.

“It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to build a line around Missouri,” Lawlor said, adding that he is confident the PSC will rule fairly on the merits of the project, not the factor. “They’re going to judge the case on its merits and whether it meets the standards that Missouri has under its statutes. They will ask, ‘Is there a need for the project and is it it in the public interest?’ We have put forth a strong argument that there’s a need.“

I'm also confident the PSC will rule fairly on the merits of the project. And that GBE has done nothing much to create any "need" for its project. Because, at the end of the day, Clean Line's "contract" with Missouri cities isn't binding. The cities can elect not to participate at a later date, like when they find out that the purported wind energy they are going to have to purchase from another party in order to use GBE's capacity is much more expensive than Clean Line originally quoted. Because Clean Line does not sell energy. It can't price energy. It can only sell transmission capacity, which amounts to an empty extension cord not plugged into any energy source. Who buys an extension cord that's not plugged into anything and hopes a cheap generator gets built later on? And guess what? The lights will not go out in any Missouri city if Clean Line is not built. And the cities can't even claim any savings from a Clean Line... because any savings are purely speculative at this point. Without contracted energy, the cost to the Missouri cities is nothing but a big, fat, guess. So, no need, no public interest, not a public utility.

And all that blather about what some "Fortune 100" companies want is also a load of who shot John. If these companies want renewable energy, there's nothing stopping them from buying it. Right now. Today. And if they're really considering opening new facilities in locations where renewable energy is available, the prudent thing to do would be to locate the facilities near renewable energy generators, not in places where they have to pay transmission charges on a "clean" line. We don't "need to do them" so the companies can pay extra for transmission.

And then Lawlor piles on some condescending "concern" for Missouri. Don't be fooled... Mark's primary concern is turning a profit for his company, not providing electricity to Missouri.

While Indiana and Illinois signed onto the project before Missouri, Missouri was always seen as the most integral partner of the project. Lawlor says that belief can cause some to believe Missouri would not get much benefit out of the project, even though Missouri would get roughly 500 MW from wind energy as a result.

“Some folks get distracted this is something going through Missouri, the reality is that this is delivering power to Missouri,” he said. “From day one, it was just going to be a Kansas to Missouri line, but we found the Missouri grid couldn’t take that much power.

“Missouri’s key to this whole thing and we hope and expect we can bring those benefits to the state,” Lawlor said.

Missouri will only "get" roughly 500 MW of Clean Line's capacity if load serving entities actually purchase it. Clean Line isn't giving "benefits" away for free. If there are no purchasers, there are no "benefits." And so far there are no firm purchasers. Clean Line isn't delivering anything to Missouri, or any other state, without firm customers. In fact, Lawlor forgot to mention that Clean Line's speculative "contract" with Missouri cities also proposes to sell capacity to the cities to export their dirty coal-fired power to other states. If 500 MW comes in, and 500 MW goes out, what does Missouri get? Fooled, that's what they'd get.

If Missouri is the key, Clean Line is in a heap of trouble.

So, what is it about The Missouri Times that makes them publish these kinds of stories? The Gateway Journalism Review took a good, hard look at the Times earlier this year, and found a bunch of unpaid bills, unpaid taxes, and an editor who "was convicted by a Cape Girardeau County jury of three counts of felony forgery. In that case, he was accused of forging checks for an account for a highway expansion project."

A reporter attempted to interview Faughn about his companies’ money troubles. The Missouri Times is headquartered at 129 East High St. in Jefferson City. A reporter found Faughn there at the top of a two-story walkup, inside a darkened room resembling a lounge.

Faughn was standing behind a bar in the room with a laptop computer in front of him. Liquor bottles stood on shelves on the wall behind him. Black and white photos of politicians covered the other walls of the room.

Faughn declined a face-to-face interview. He said he would consider written questions sent by email. Questions were emailed March 17. Faughn acknowledged receiving them March 21, but said he could not respond until next week.

Faughn, the former mayor of Poplar Bluff, launched the Missouri Times in 2013 with former Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton. Faughn was Jetton’s former campaign manager. Jetton has since severed ties with the operation.

Oh, I see. This is the kind of publication that publishes glowing stories about Clean Line "closing in" on PSC approval. It all makes sense now.

But what I really want to know, after reading this story, is when GBE is denied by the MO PSC for the second time, will Clean Line will finally go away? After all, the story says a "final order" of the PSC is about to happen. A final order on GBE's first application already happened, but the company has yet to go away. Let's hope this time final means final.

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Your Tax Dollars At Work Making Useless Conclusions

10/5/2016

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Our government loves to spend money on studies and reports to inform its actions. However, some government reports just leave the governed scratching their heads. That's the case with the U.S. Department of Energy's Building Electric Transmission Lines: A Review of Recent Transmission Projects.

The administration's Quadrennial Energy Review "...recommended that the Department of Energy (DOE) conduct a national review of transmission plans and assess barriers and incentives to their implementation." The DOE tasked its Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to prepare a report to support its response to this recommendation. Lawrence Berkeley is an expert on the physical sciences. Maybe the idea was to apply physical "science" to administrative and social problems? But it doesn't work. There's nothing scientific about transmission planning, permitting and siting. In fact, the biggest problem with this issue is that industry and government has been attempting to make it purely scientific for years and have failed miserably because human factors not considered in science keep derailing the best laid plans of business and government. DOE might as well have sent a carpenter to install plumbing.

But LBNL bravely soldiered on. It "selected" nine recent transmission projects for its study. No mention of how these projects were selected. It's almost like they cherry picked a representative sample based on secretive criteria. Who selected these nine transmission projects, and why? I'd sort of expect something at least equivalent to the standards applied to elementary school science fair projects from LBNL. Is this how they set up all their experiments? Any teacher can tell you that the subjects of your case study can drastically affect your conclusions when not selected scientifically.

LBNL selected a mix of both failed and successful merchant and regionally cost-allocated transmission projects. But it failed to delve very far into how the merchant vs. regionally allocated factor alone affected the projects' success. A regionally cost-allocated project enjoys a rebuttable presumption of need during the permitting process, while a merchant project relies on committed customers to demonstrate need. Beyond this broad statement, no attention was paid to how lack of committed customers for merchant projects may have played into failure in the state permitting process.

LBNL used four criteria to evaluate its selected projects.

1. The State Approval process. States have authority for siting and permitting transmission projects.
2. NEPA Compliance. Projects sited on federal land must go through the administrative quagmire of the NEPA process.
3. Public and Stakeholder Involvement. Why isn't "the public" a stakeholder?
4. Economic and Commercial Circumstances. Transmission project economics is always changing. When combined with a long approval process, transmission economics almost always die a slow, painful death.

So, let's talk about some of the samples.

The Champlain Hudson Power Express. This project has sailed through permitting. LBNL thinks this was due to a "proactive" effort on the part of its developers to negotiate with stakeholders during permitting. The real secret here is that this project is routed entirely underground along road and railway rights of way. Because it wasn't routed through or visible from private property, it did not inspire any opposition. Since there was no public opposition, it was not delayed and did not have to waste money on third party advocacy and propaganda efforts to create an aura of artificial support. This is the most important conclusion revealed in LBNL's study, but sadly LBNL failed to recognize it.

The Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH). Talk about stating the obvious:

The PATH project is an example of a project that faced significant public opposition.

All of these projects, save the Champlain Hudson project, probably faced significant public opposition. Public opposition drives the state approval and NEPA processes and causes expensive delays which affect the economic and commercial circumstances.

The Grain Belt Express project. Another example of significant public opposition driving the state approval process.

As part of its analysis of the public interest, the PSC acknowledged the substantial opposition to the project expressed by business owners, farmers, and individual landowners across whose properties the project was proposed to cross. The Missouri PSC noted, “In this case, the evidence shows that any actual benefits to the general public from the Project are outweighed by the burdens on affected landowners.”

And has GBE done anything to ameliorate that public opposition? What if it had decided to re-route its project underground along roads and railways? But, it didn't. Instead it came up with that weak tea of the MJMEUC "contract" (obviously LBNL didn't bother to scientifically READ that contract and simply took GBE's word for its efficacy). Seems like it's getting more and more expensive to be GBE with no clear avenue to success. How much money could this project have saved if it had been properly routed to avoid public opposition in the first place? Maybe enough to route it underground? And what if it actually had customers in order to "...rely on buyers of bulk transmission services to establish a project’s financial viability"? LBNL skates over the fact that Clean Line's problems are of its own making by proposing a purely speculative project with no customers.

The Susquehanna Roseland project. LBNL seems to think that "mitigation," aka bribes, paid to the National Park Service cost the developer money.

The National Park Service, for example, required significant and expensive mitigation measures from the developers for the Susquehanna-Roseland project in order to gain its approval for completion of the portion of the line that crossed the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, which it is mandated to protect.

The "mitigation" actually turned into a cash cow for the developers. The ratepayers ended up footing the bill for the $60M "mitigation," as well as an obligation to pay the developer 12.9% interest on the money over the 40 year life of the project. It didn't cost the developers a dime.

So, what were LBNL's conclusions?

The development of a transmission project is a commercial venture involving investors who are prepared to incur significant, yet ultimately limited, up-front development costs in return for the opportunity to earn future profits from the sale of transmission services and/or a regulated return on invested capital. Adopting a developer’s perspective enables us to look at the factors reviewed in this report as ones that affect either the cost or time required to construct a transmission project. The extent to which these factors represent barriers to the implementation of transmission projects is thus an assessment of whether these costs or time requirements are avoidable or necessary.

LBNL concluded that these costs are necessary, but that some could be avoided.

There are documented examples of project developers who have sought to reduce these costs and associated time requirements through up-front information sharing and joint (and early) development of mitigation approaches (including abandonment of early proposed and development of new routing options). The success of these activities has hinged largely on the extent to which they lead to meaningful engagement and tangible commitments to address public concerns over line routing.

In other words, coming to a community with a problem and allowing constructive engagement into crafting a solution allows the community to buy into and own the solution. None of the sample projects actually accomplished this in practice. They just made smarter routing decisions (underground on public rights of way) in the first place. Schmoozing and buying off local governments and other "stakeholders" (such as native American tribes, environmental groups, chambers of commerce, etc.) in advance of revealing agreed upon routes to the public doesn't work. If the newly affected public (i.e. landowners) did not have a role in crafting the solution, they will oppose it. The trick is not to propose anything that the landowners can get upset about, such as burial on public transportation rights of way.

The state-centric public-interest issue that arises most vividly for multi-state transmission projects involves the so-called “fly-over” states. These states are situated between the states that are the starting and ending points for a long-distance transmission project. The initial decisions by the Missouri PSC to deny the CPCN application for Grain Belt Express exemplify this issue. The public-interest issue raised by states in the middle is that, at bottom, they are being asked to bear significant portions of the cost or adverse impacts of a project, yet they do not believe they are being provided with sufficient opportunities to share in the benefits of the project.

The LBNL acknowledges the cost of what it calls "side payments" to fly-over states to provide the appearance of some state benefit. What they mean is construction of substations in fly-over states, claims of jobs, taxes and economic development, political donations to state elected officials, funding for other state or local projects, donations to local universities or public interest organizations, and non-binding "contracts" with local businesses. It's nothing but smoke and mirrors used to create the appearance of local benefit. When the smoke clears, the fly-over state is left with nothing, but by that time it's too late and the project is built. Instead, how about actual benefits for fly-over states, instead of hot air and empty promises? If a project is not needed in a state, then there can never be a "benefit" from it. You can't create "benefit" from something unneeded, otherwise it's just a straight up bribe. The transmission industry needs to quit wasting its money on this stuff and simply design better projects that have a natural public benefit.

The need to satisfy a middle state’s public-interest requirements is a classic example of what economists describe as the role and importance of “side payments.” In this instance, the gains from trade must be sufficient to cover side payments to affected parties who have standing but who would not otherwise benefit from the transaction. Thus, the situation faced by developers, such as those for the Grain Belt Express project, is tangibly and fundamentally (but not solely) commercial in nature. Notably, as discussed, the developers for Grain Belt Express recently reached an agreement to sell power from the project to an association of municipal utilities in Missouri and, based on this agreement, plan to re-file their request for state regulatory approval. It remains to be seen whether the fact of a Missouri entity signing an agreement that could be seen as demonstrating the public-interest value of the project in Missouri will result in the Missouri PSC approving the project on its third attempt in the state.

By the way, GBE did not reach an agreement to "sell power" from the project to MJMEUC, or anyone else. GBE sells transmission capacity. It does not sell power. The only thing GBE has "sold" is space on a wire. Power sold separately from another vendor. LBNL needs to apply a little physics to its thinking process to avoid allowing industry propaganda to infiltrate its conclusions.

LBNL also concluded that the federal government is a circus without a ringmaster and the NEPA process is FUBAR.

Wrapping all its conclusions together, LBNL comes up with this:

Developing a transmission project involves simultaneously managing two categories of commercial risk. One is the risk associated with securing the capital necessary to build the project. Eto (2016) focused on one example of capital risk: that associated with seeking regional cost allocation. The other category encompasses risks associated with the actual construction of a project. This report is focused on a key subset of these project-construction risks: the cost of satisfying the due process requirements of state and federal agencies involved in permitting and siting lines, which is often increased when there is organized public opposition to the project. These are necessary costs associated with transmission-line construction. Some can made more manageable through proactive actions by developers. Still others can be made more manageable through the actions of federal and state agencies to enhance the efficiency and accountability of their processes. Thus, while the project review process can be slow and add costs to project development, on the whole transmission lines are being built. Moreover, there are promising signs that both groups are taking actions to improve the processes, both in terms of their duration and the quality of the decisions that get made. We found examples of merchant transmission projects successfully gaining needed approvals and being constructed. Their experiences, in particular, suggest that if the economics of potential projects are sound, someone will find a way to build them.

These costs, ultimately borne by electric customers, become completely unnecessary when projects are designed properly in the first place. A project that doesn't intrude on the community won't foment opposition. Underground that thing on public rights of way! Projects that provide no benefit to fly-over states don't belong in those states to begin with! Solve your transmission problems with resources closer to home. It doesn't take a rocket scientist...

As far as the inefficiency of the federal government, can't help you there. Maybe another report on how to reform the federal government to make it work for the people instead of the special interests? Maybe the special interests can fund it next time around.

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Reporters Report News, They Are Not News

9/27/2016

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NPR stooped to an all-time low yesterday when it "reported" on another reporter's one-sided story and didn't question the reporter's statements made on behalf of elected officials and landowners that were never interviewed for his story.

Arkansas Business reporter Kyle Massey stopped reporting the news and inserted himself into the story yesterday in NPR affiliate KUAR's "story" about the Plains & Eastern Clean Line. Massey not only repeated his own story, but also made statements representing the positions of elected officials and mysterious "landowners" he never interviewed for his own story. Must have been a pretty lazy day at KUAR, when reporter Michael Hibblen chose to let a reporter from another publication make statements on behalf of other people, instead of interviewing those people himself. Ethics in journalism is dead at NPR.

Hibblen: "So, I take it the property owners don't want to sell?"
Massey: "Well, some of them don't want to sell. And others sort of resent being forced to sell even though they may get a good price for the use of their land."

How many landowners did Massey interview for his story? None are quoted in this story, so my guess here would be none. Massey is assuming the position of landowners based on his interview with Clean Line Energy Partners. It's not a fact, it's an assumption based on the opinion of a company who wants to take land from the subject landowners. Who says landowners "may get a good price for use of their land?" Did a landowner say that? Only a landowner can determine if the price for use of their land is "good."

Massey: "Well, the delegation would say the difference is that this is the benefit of private company that is Clean Line Energy Partners of Houston and it's a little different from an interstate in that Clean Line has not been declared a utility by the PSC so the Congressional delegation is framing this as an unprecedented partnership between the Department of Energy, which is backing this project, and a private company."

But did the delegation actually say that? I didn't see Massey quote the delegation in his story either, so how factual is it for Massey to speak for them?

Hibblen: "What would be the benefits of this project?"
Massey: "Well there would be a few jobs in maintaining the line, but the main benefits would be to the landowners."

Did any landowner claim a benefit from this project? I didn't see any landowners interviewed in Massey's story. He's so far off the mark here! Clean Line is doing nothing more than attempting to compensate landowners for use of their land. Legally, it is supposed to be intended to make landowners whole for something taken from them. It is not a "benefit." Furthermore, landowners are only being offered Clean Line's idea of "compensation," which many landowners feel does not adequately compensate them for taking their land against their will.

Is Massey saying that the only reason Clean Line is proposing this project is to shower Arkansas landowners with monetary "benefits?" That's ridiculous! Clean Line is attempting to build this project first and foremost for its own profit. It wants to take land from Arkansans for a one-time pittance and then use that land to make money for its corporate investors in perpetuity.

Massey also takes a position on another monetary "benefit" for Arkansans:

"But the big number is the $147M in taxes that would flow to the 12 counties that the line crosses."

That's $147M over the estimated 40 year life of the project. That's $3.6M per year, divided by 12 counties, to equal roughly $306,250 per county, per year. What does that buy? According to this news story, the annual budget of Crawford County, Arkansas, is more than $7.04M. $306,250 is chump change in a budget that size. In 2014, it cost $9,616 per year to educate the average public school student in Arkansas. $306,250 divided by $9,616 is 31.8 students. There are 37,122 tax payers in Crawford County. $306,250 divided by 37,122 taxpayers equals $8.25 per taxpayer. The cost for Crawford Countians to educate those 38 extra students without Clean Line's contribution would be $8.25 cents per taxpayer. Clean Line is hardly reducing county taxes by any appreciable amount. It's not really a "big number" after all. Massey is assuming that Arkansans are a really cheap date if they would accept such a pittance in exchange for the burden of hosting a ginormous transmission line for 40 years. How much would the transmission line reduce taxable property values during that 40 years? How much would it cost the county in public safety spending over 40 years to support the building and maintenance of the transmission line, not to mention the additional cost of any accidents or line failures that Crawford County public safety officials have to deal with? Is having this hazard in their community really worth what the county is being offered by Clean Line?

Massey claims "there would be cheap energy." But he provides no facts to back up this presumption. Does he have any firm quotes from wind energy suppliers? Does he have any firm quotes on the cost of transmission for this energy? No, he doesn't.

Massey claims there would be "lasting jobs" in Arkansas to supply the project. Lasting how long? Once the line is supplied, the jobs to manufacture parts go away. Hurtado claims his project would take three years to build. Therefore the jobs would be temporary, not "lasting."

Hibblen: "Are the landowners and Clean Line talking possible settlements?"
Massey: "Clean Line is negotiating with individual landowners and they have commitments with a great many of them as I understand it."

As he understands it. Where did he get his "understanding?" Was it from real estate records, or was it from Clean Line, who has a distinct self-interest to misrepresent the number of landowners who have "made commitments?" Again, Massey doesn't quote any landowners for his information.

In addition, individual landowner "settlements" does not dispose of the legal issues regarding the U.S. Department of Energy's flawed interpretation of federal law to allow it to condemn property for this transmission line. The lawsuit filed in federal court must be answered and adjudicated.

Massey shares that only "holdouts" are fighting it. How many "holdouts" did Massey interview? I would guess none. How did Massey make his determination that the landowners who have not committed are "holdouts?"

Then he goes into advising landowners who are "holding out" that they are not "selling their land, they are only selling the easement." I'm sorry, but Massey is not an attorney and has no business expounding on the legal ramifications of selling easements. Landowners should consult a qualified attorney before selling anything.

Massey finishes up by stating that having an infrastructure project cross your land "can be emotional." And he informs Hibblen that these landowners "can feel resentment toward being forced to give up any land that they don't want to relinquish."

That sounds rather dismissive. Instead of addressing the very real and factual arguments of opposing landowners, Massey dismisses them as "emotional" and therefore not capable of rational thought.

Shame on you, Kyle Massey, since you didn't quote one landowner in your story! I don't believe Massey interviewed even one landowner for his "story" upon which to base his thoughts and opinions about landowners. That's unethical, from a journalistic perspective.

"So I think a great many people find this attractive and would be happy to have the money for the line coming through their land.

Who are these people? Massey doesn't quote even one in his story. He just "thinks" this is how they should respond, after all, it's not his property being crossed.

This whole "report" fairly screams desperation. Clean Line is desperate to politicize this issue and marginalize landowners who are resisting efforts to "settle" with the company. That Clean Line found a sympathetic ear for their public relations scheme at Arkansas Business isn't surprising. However, shame on you, NPR! I'll never believe another one of your stories.

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"Clean" Bravado

Clean Line's "Code of Conduct" Doesn't Protect Landowners

Landowners Step Up to Protect Property Rights in Missouri

Missouri Lawmakers and Agricultural Associations Oppose Grain Belt Express -- Public Hearings Start Today!

Tick Tock, RICL

Why Grain Belt Express is a Bad Deal for Missouri

Ut-oh, GE!

Clean Line Closing in on Darkened Lounge Journalism

Your Tax Dollars At Work Making Useless Conclusions

Reporters Report News, They Are Not News

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