Opponents used some of those arguments to successfully derail the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline, a 290-mile line from Putnam County, W.Va., to Frederick County, Md., proposed by Allegheny Energy in 2008. The Greensburg company, acquired by FirstEnergy in 2011, suspended the project after it could not convince regulators the line was necessary.

PJM staff reviewed results of analyses showing reliability drivers no longer exist for the project throughout the 15-year planning cycle. The analyses incorporated the continued trends of decreasing customer load growth, increasing participation in demand response programs and the recent commitment of new generating capacity in eastern PJM.

While citizen groups have fought transmission projects — often successfully — by attacking the developer’s need to build them, the environmental regulations could usher in more projects and complicate opposition.

Changing drivers of transmission

Transmission companies see big potential for new projects, particularly from sparsely populated areas that generate wind energy to urban areas. “Just as trains carried cattle and other goods from the rural areas to urban centers, the Plains & Eastern Clean Line will carry renewable energy from the Plains of the Southwest,” states the website of one developer, Clean Line Energy of Houston, Texas.

Clean Line expects federal approval for its 700-mile Plains & Eastern Clean Line, designed to carry 4,000 megawatts of power from wind farms in the panhandle of Oklahoma. The line will terminate near Memphis, Tenn. Clean Line has four other projects in the pipeline.

“We anticipate a very busy 2016,” said company president Michael Skelly. 

...some wind mills and solar farms in areas with constant breeze and abundant sunshine

It appears that notices could be prepared based upon this language that would be sufficient to satisfy the applicable legal requirements and give all interested persons adequate notice of which issues would be considered at which time. Accordingly, the Board finds that setting a procedural schedule with two phases, divided as proposed by Clean Line, would not necessarily impair the constitutional rights of any party because adequate notice could be given.

As noted above, it appears that the issues for each hearing have been defined with sufficient specificity that clear notice could be given to all interested persons. This factor does not weigh against the use of separate phases in the manner proposed by Clean Line.

The Board finds that the considerations of administrative efficiency and convenience do not support establishment of a procedural schedule with two separate phases in the manner proposed by Clean Line. The efficiencies and benefits accrue primarily to Clean Line and its supporters, which the inefficiencies and inconveniences fall to the affected landowners. There is no basis in this record to justify such an inequitable result.

The Board would first determine whether to approve the proposed line, then determine whether to grant the power of eminent domain, and then Clean Line would be permitted to proceed to condemnation. The situations are not parallel; Clean Line proposes to add an additional step to the process.

The Board’s concern is with following and implementing Iowa law.

General Manager Bob Stevenson said Clean Line contacted the BPW about a month ago, offering the utility a draft letter of intent. Clean Line hasn't made a firm proposal, but Stevenson called prospective prices "very attractive." He declined to disclose them, citing confidentiality, but Lawlor estimated Grain Belt Express could deliver electricity in the 3- to 4-kilowatt-hour range.

Starting Line now hears about a number of people interested in running for Rick Olson’s house seat. That includes Beth Conley, Marc Wallace and Connie Boesen. Conley works at Clean Line Energy Partners, and has a history of working with wind energy projects.

Clean Line Energy has had a busy year, making progress on all of our projects. We are writing today to provide you with a brief update about our efforts to modernize the electric grid and bring more clean energy to communities.

Progress?  Does this mean you're actually permitted to build at least one of them?  No?  Of course not, there's been no real progress. 

You're not "modernizing the grid."  You're proposing to build a completely separate "grid" using 100-year old technology to transport energy from centralized generators to remote users.  A really modern grid isn't a grid at all, but many small microgrids that can either interconnect to share resources, or island themselves off during emergencies or grid outages.  You're not building that, Clean Line.

There aren't any "communities" that are asking you to bring them "more clean energy."  In order to bring "more" of something, you'd have to actually be supplying that commodity in the first place.  Clean Line still doesn't have any customers in any "communities."

First, we’ve been advancing the Rock Island Clean Line through interconnection studies, surveys, commercial development, and other work.  Additionally, we are pleased to share that we are moving through the regulatory process at the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB). On November 30th, we filed a motion to set a procedural schedule that will move the Rock Island Clean Line forward in Iowa in a timely manner, and will allow for a decision from the IUB as early as the end of 2016. We look forward to adding wind energy to the list of Iowa’s top exports.

Advancing?  That would indicate some sort of forward progress, however RICL has been stalled for the entire year in Iowa.  Clean Line is NOT "moving through the regulatory process at the IUB."  Filing a motion proposing a procedural schedule that allows bifurcation of the hearing process, when RICL's prior requests for bifurcation have been turned down, twice, is nothing but wishful thinking.  What was it ComEd's witness said about you, Clean Line? 

“Listing the number of transmission projects that have successfully achieved financing….is tantamount to my listing the members of the violin section of the Chicago Symphony  Orchestra as evidence that I will certainly become a member of the violin section of the orchestra if I follow the same regimen that they did. “ ComED/Lapson, p. 12

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Clean Line's "procedural schedule" won't be "moving" anywhere unless the IUB approves it, and that doesn't look very likely.

By the way, how are you going to add wind to the list of Iowa exports, Clean Line, when much of the wind developed for your project is actually located in South Dakota, Minnesota or Nebraska?

Clean Line’s other projects are making great strides, as well.

The Grain Belt Express Clean Line (will deliver wind energy from Kansas into Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and other states), has received regulatory approvals in three of the four project states, with  approval in Illinois last month.

Err... you forgot to mention that Grain Belt Express was DENIED by the Missouri PSC in July.  It doesn't mater how many other states "approve" GBE, unless you're planning to bypass Missouri entirely.  Without approval of the Missouri PSC, Grain Belt Express isn't happening.

You also forgot to mention that numerous requests for rehearing were filed in Illinois, including one from you, Clean Line.  Did the ICC issue you a worthless CPCN full of mistakes, Clean Line?  Awwwww.....

Go ahead, tell your supporters about how unlikely it is that GBE will ever be built at this point, Clean Line.  The truth shall set you free!

And, the Plains & Eastern Clean Line (will deliver Oklahoma wind energy into Arkansas, Tennessee, and other states) received its Final Environmental Impact Statement from the Department of Energy in November, bringing the project one step closer to construction.

Except the final EIS doesn't actually do anything without the DOE's approval to "participate" in your project under Sec. 1222 of the Energy Policy Act, Clean Line.  So, it's not like you really "stepped" anywhere.  And now you've managed to go and tick off Congress, who holds DOE's purse strings.  Probably not a good idea, Clean Line.

As you know, building multi-state, interregional transmission lines is a lengthy process that will bring long-term benefits.  The Rock Island Clean Line will enable $7 billion of new wind energy development that will power about 1.4 million homes with low-cost clean energy each year. We appreciate your continued support as we move through the permitting process.

Best,
Hans, Beth, Amy, Colleen and the Clean Line Energy Team

It sure is a "lengthy process."  In fact, you've been at it for 6 years now, haven't you, Clean Line?  And you're no closer to building any of your proposed lines than you were on the first day.  Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, you should have concentrated on building just ONE of your proposals, to see if you could get it off the ground?  Instead you've been shooting into the dark, hoping you'll eventually get lucky and hit something.  Probably not a good strategy.  Just sayin'.

Ya know what?  Wind and transmission is going to go right on being built without you, Clean Line, because you're really not necessary.  Or special.  Seems like you've made yourself obsolete by biting off more than you could chew and spreading your resources too thin over the past several years.  Arrogance is a sweet, sweet liar, but a liar just the same.

Quit pretending and wasting your investors' money, Clean Line.  Playing transmission company and terrorizing thousands of Midwesterners may have been fun for you over the past several years, but it's time to end this farce.  Stop.  Go away.  Go find another get rich quick scheme.  This one's timed out.

GBX is asking for a back-up plan for its field of dreams approach to recovering costs, by coming back to the Commission to comply with the financing condition proposed in the Final Order.

As the Farm Bureau previously argued before this Commission, the denial of GBX’s Application by the MPSC, along with the recent Circuit Court of Caldwell County Order which held that GBX has no authority to construct the proposed line through Caldwell County, Missouri, there will be no construction in Illinois by GBX due to the denials in Missouri. This Commission should consider additional evidence on this issue which occurred after the close of the evidentiary hearings, as described in Exhibit A, the Affidavit of Paul A. Agathen, a Missouri attorney who represents the Missouri Landowners Alliance (“MLA”). The Final Order erred on this issue. Thus, the Commission should rehear this issue.

The record in this docket is devoid of any evidence that the Project would promote the convenience or necessity of anyone other than GBX and certain West Kansas wind developers who said they would use the Project if it ever gets built.

Boiled down, GBX merely asserts that a beneficial project like the Project is needed. Why is it needed? Because it is so beneficial. GBX’s argument that a need for the project exists based on a set of alleged benefits amounts to question-begging on a grand scale. GBX assumes what the Commission should require it to prove. Rather than focus on whether there is any need for the project, GBX jumps right into a show-and-tell on how beneficial the Project will be. The Commission concludes from this that a project with this many benefits must be needed.

Stated another way, the Commission fails to distinguish a benefit from a need. It merely accepts GBX’s catalog of purported benefits as proof of need. Under the Commission’s look-only-at-the-benefits logic, it could just as easily conclude that residents of Point Barrow, Alaska need Frigidaires.

...the Illinois RPS may be satisfied by buying RECs generated in GBX’s targeted west Kansas resource area, and those west Kansas-generated RECs can be purchased without having to build a $2,750,000,000 transmission line across four states.

...the GBX Project is “[l]ike that old 1970s song about Oz and the Tin Man, [because GBX] will give nothing to PJM that it doesn’t already have.”

While the Commission makes soothing noises that it takes seriously the landowners’ concerns about GBX’s ability to use the power of eminent domain against them, it immediately and blatantly contradicts itself by dismissing their concerns as unwarranted because GBX has not specifically requested eminent domain authority in this docket.  Less than a moment’s thought suffices to show the absurdity of the Commission’s position on this issue. If GBX is granted a CPCN it could ultimately use the power of eminent domain against landowners under Section 8-509.
Instead of coming to grips with the power of eminent domain as an integral component of public utility easement acquisitions, the Commission adopts the Pollyanna Principle and accepts at face value GBX’s well-oiled talking points about its voluntary “code of conduct” when dealing with landowners, its promises of respectful treatment, its commitment to negotiate reasonably, and so forth. For the Commission to completely discount the potential impact of eminent domain on landowners simply because GBX did not ask for it in this docket is arbitrary and capricious, and an utter abdication of the Commission’s duty to Illinois citizens.

The Commission’s attitude toward GBX is one of serene and nearly limitless benevolence: whatever GBX can’t do now, it can certainly do later. The Commission will grant GBX its CPCN here and now even though it can’t satisfy most of the requirements of Section 8-406.1 until some unknown point in the future.

But when the landowners raise the issue of GBX’s potential future use of the power of eminent domain against them, which the Commission knows full well inheres in every easement negotiation between GBX and a landowner, the Commission summarily dismisses their concerns as premature because GBX hasn’t asked for eminent domain power here and now, in this docket. In this the Commission subjects the landowners to an egregious double standard, and indulges itself in arbitrariness and caprice of the grossest sort.

GBX’s least cost argument thus rests entirely on its claim that it has no alternative but to be least cost because its entire corporate existence will be some kind of Darwinian
market struggle where only the fittest survive.

The unmistakable irony here is that GBX destroys its own claim to be least cost by asserting that it can exempt itself from those same inexorable free market forces if the going gets tough: GBX reserves to itself the right to seek cost allocation to ratepayers, and in so doing proves itself just another corporate dissembler trying to evade committing itself irrevocably to the ups and downs of the market. And if there are too many downs, the ratepayers can bail GBX out.

But in this docket GBX tells the Commission that it is a “merchant transmission owner” not because it has assumed the full market risk of the Project, but because it plans to earn revenues through discrete transmission services contracts with shippers. This definition of “merchant” transmission owner” appears nowhere in FERC’s orders. That’s because it is a definition concocted entirely by GBX itself, and it differs fundamentally from FERC’s.

Understanding the term “assumption of all market risk” does not require a degree in economics: an assumption of all market risk means exactly that, all market risk, come Hell or high water.

This Commission has no jurisdiction to determine whether or how much of an interstate transmission operator’s costs may be recovered from anyone. The rates, terms and conditions of service for interstate transmission are exclusively matters of federal jurisdiction.

...GBX has no power to confer on this Commission subject matter jurisdiction over the rates, terms and conditions of service on interstate transmission facilities.

If GBX were really a “merchant” transmission owner as defined by FERC, then there would be no questions concerning cost allocation,
and this entire discussion would be unnecessary. GBX simply wants to have it both ways, eating its free market cake while having its cost allocation too.

Now, Clean Line argues that an unknown number of landowners have expressed a preference to wait until after a Board decision on the franchises to sign easement agreements. This means that if all issues are addressed in a single hearing, Clean Line will have to prepare more Exhibit E applications than it will under the two-hearing process. For this reason, Clean Line argues, administrative efficiency would be advanced by the two-hearing approach. Clean Line does not offer any indication of the number of such landowners, other than “many.”

It appears Clean Line could have provided the number of these landowners without violating the confidentiality of the individual negotiations. In the absence of a substantiated number, it is difficult to accept that this group represents a significant part of the overall number of easements Clean Line needs to acquire.

In all, this argument for increased administrative efficiency is speculative at best, and outweighed by the inefficiencies associated with having two hearings to decide issues that are normally decided in a single hearing.

Further, a number landowners wish to have clarity on the Board’s decision about the Project in general before negotiating a parcel-specific easement.

Block Grain Belt Express President Dave Buchman said, “We are disappointed by today’s decision but it was not unexpected. It is imperative for members of the opposition to remain united in our common goal of preserving property rights.” Buckman is anxious to review the order so that the group may formulate a plan of action. They have many avenues of defense still available, such as appealing the decision because the ICC violated state law by allowing Clean Line to file under an expedited permitting process for public utilities, although Clean Line is not a public utility. Additionally, Buckman advises that it is crucial to remember that if landowners stick together, the eminent domain process will be significantly more difficult, if not impossible, for Clean Line.

Opponents of Grain Belt Express recently won another significant victory in their efforts to block construction of a proposed mega electric transmission line through Missouri. Last month, the Caldwell County Circuit Court found that a project franchise initially granted by the County, but later rescinded, was void. Under Missouri law, Grain Belt Express must have the franchise of all counties crossed in order to build its project.
 
 Last year the Missouri Landowners Alliance (MLA) filed a petition in the Circuit Court of Caldwell County, asking the Court to find that the franchise supposedly granted by the Caldwell County Commission to Grain Belt was void and/or unenforceable.  The franchise would have allowed Grain Belt to build its line on and over the public roads of the county.
 
On October 7, the Circuit Court issued an Order finding in favor of the MLA.  The time for Grain Belt to appeal that Order has now passed.  Therefore, as a practical matter, Grain Belt now has no legal authority to build its proposed line across Caldwell County.  And Grain Belt would have no such authority to build, even if it could somehow persuade the Missouri Public Service Commission to reverse its decision earlier this year that denied Grain Belt a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity.  Grain Belt must obtain authorization not only from the PSC, but also from the County Commission in each of the Missouri counties where it plans to locate the line.
 
Grain Belt’s only apparent hope for building the line through Caldwell County would be to convince the County Commission to reissue a new franchise for the proposed line.  Given that the County Commission supported the MLA in the Caldwell County Circuit Court case, the MLA is optimistic that the County Commission would reject any such overtures from Grain Belt. A survey taken last year for Grain Belt revealed that the citizens of Caldwell County overwhelmingly oppose the proposed transmission line.
 
Grain Belt could conceivably try to salvage this project by somehow re-routing the line around Caldwell County, into other neighboring counties.  But given Grain Belt’s claim that the optimal route for the line is through Caldwell County, that option would seemingly raise a host of problems for Grain Belt.

The Grain Belt project is spearheaded by a Houston-based, investor-owned company with the goal of transmitting energy from Kansas to the richer eastern markets. After a lengthy court battle, in July the Missouri Public Service Commission issued an order finding that Grain Belt Express has failed to meet, by a preponderance of the evidence, its burden of proof to demonstrate that the project is necessary or convenient for the public service.      
 
Recently, the Illinois Commerce Commission granted Grain Belt permission to build in Illinois, leaving Missouri as the only holdout.  Jennifer Gatrel from grassroots group Block Grain Belt stated, “The decision by the Illinois commissioners is in no way final. There will be an extensive appeals process, which the opposition has an excellent chance of winning. We are all very grateful for the two brave commissioners who, in their dissent, outlined why it was illegal for Clean Line to be allowed the expedited permitting process available for public utilities. Their support will be invaluable in the appeal.”
 
Russ Piscotta, President of Block Grain Belt Missouri, stated, “We have beat them once and we will beat them again as many times as necessary. We have spent this time preparing our strategies and are ready to once again defend ourselves. Overall, as a grassroots group, we are doing excellent. We need to remember that Clean Line's goal is to dishearten us. Our goal is to prevent the precedent of a private company getting access to eminent domain. We are doing great so far and will continue to win. We simply cannot afford to lose. Many thanks to the thousands of devoted landowners who have sacrificed much. We are all in this together, and together we will succeed!”

In Iowa, the fate of RICL is equally uncertain. RICL has directed the Iowa Utility Board to suspend all work on their application. In spite of 18 months of land agent activity, less that 15 percent of the easements have been acquired and opposition remains strong.   

Carolyn Sheridan, president of the grass roots organization Preservation of Rural Iowa (PRIA) commented,  “We have a strong legal team and support continues to grow as they and we monitor all aspects of this proposed project. There is no indication that landowners will change their opposition to the misuse of eminent domain." 

Those closely monitoring the project say they were told months ago it had been put on hold. Land agents haven't been in the state for months.

Iowa Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, a supporter of the line, said at a wind energy conference in September that the plan had "kind of been placed on hold right now." Clean Line Energy Partners spokeswoman Sarah Bray said the next day that the project was "certainly still moving forward," with biological studies, wind resource assessment and commercial discussions.

Bray struck a different tone in response to an inquiry on Thursday.

"Given the unique regulatory structure in Iowa, we are currently assessing ways to move the project forward and continue easement negotiations without incurring significant financial and regulatory risk," she wrote in an email.

A controversial electric transmission line project pushed by Houston-based Plains & Eastern Clean Line with the regulatory process challenged by members of Arkansas’ Congressional delegation would create a $660 million impact to Arkansas’ economy, according to a University of Arkansas report.

When asked about the UA economic impact report, Sen. Boozman said the issue is not the impact, but with the process and the potential cost to Arkansas ratepayers.

“Arkansans are not opposed to building needed infrastructure projects, but questions remain about whether this particular project is needed. No Arkansas utilities have signed up to purchase power from the line,” Boozman noted in a statement sent to Talk Business & Politics. “There are questions about the long-term benefits and costs to the state of Arkansas. Not only should a transmission project be necessary, but the state must be given an opportunity to review and approve it – just as it has always has in the past. When DC bureaucrats force a project on the state, as they have in this instance, the harm and costs may not be properly addressed.”

A statement from Rep. Womack’s office to Talk Business & Politics raised a question about who funded the UA study.

“Our concerns about the project are not based on whether Clean Line can commission a favorable study, but rather if the federal government should be able to supersede a state’s right to decide to license a utility and allow the use of eminent domain on behalf of a private company,” Womack said in the statement.

When asked about the perceived credibility of a study commissioned by Clean Line, Deck provided the following statement: “One of the things that our Center does for a wide variety of organizations is estimate economic impacts. Clean Line came to us to understand how its expenditures in Arkansas will affect the state’s economy. We very carefully looked at how much direct expenditure would be made and how the supply chain and personal expenditures that will result from that direct investment would impact the state. For this kind of study, there is no way to estimate economic impact without considerable input from the companies that are involved.  And, of course, companies are the most interested in understanding their own particular economic impact. So, for economic impact studies, you will almost always find that the economic impact generator is the funder of the work.

“As always, economic impact should be considered a single piece of the puzzle as we live in a complex world. But, it is an important piece.”

Jordan Wimpy, attorney for Arkansas Citizens Against Clean Line Energy, said Tuesday, “At this time, the primary concern of our clients is Department of Energy’s review of and potential participation in a project that meets no identified or documented transmission need. This is particularly concerning when the federal government’s involvement will circumvent normal state level review and may well include the use of federal eminent domain to condemn the property of private landowners in order to benefit a private, for-profit transmission company.”

Alison Millsaps, spokeswoman for Block Plains & Eastern Clean Line, said, “Again and again, Clean Line and their supporters attempt to focus solely on economic development in regard to Plains & Eastern. The people who make up the opposition to this line aren’t against economic development, they’re against the use of eminent domain to further what is essentially private economic development.

“Dangling big numbers doesn’t always make a proposal necessary or legal. We believe both of those issues will ultimately be determined in a court of law, not by a study on construction benefits,” she said.

In the interests of full disclosure, we should note that we are not neutral observers of
eminent domain abuse in this area. Morriss’s wife’s parents, wife, brother-inlaw, and sister-in-law are involved in proceedings contesting the valuation of a power transmission easement across property held by a family limited partnership in Kimble County, Texas, in which they are represented by Barron & Adler. As a result, none of us feels particularly charitable toward utilities that make use of eminent domain for acquisition of power line corridors.

We argue that eminent domain laws need to be reformed to address these problems. The simplest reform is to eliminate eminent domain from LIEs entirely, forcing utilities to negotiate easement terms in arm’s length transactions and leveling the playing field between the utilities and landowners. Because the burdened landowners are a dispersed and unorganized interest group, while utilities have considerable political clout, this may be
unobtainable through the political process in many states. Similarly, the even more potent “bootleggers and Baptists” coalition of utilities and environmental pressure groups, which
back expansion of transmission lines for renewable energy, if not natural gas or oil pipelines, mobilize powerful interests behind
maintaining the power.

Much of the growth is likely to involve the use of eminent domain because utilities and
governments often consider eminent domain to be a cheaper and easier alternative to negotiating with potentially resistant, unhappy landowners for the acquisition of property.

 For example, providing courts (and other third parties with roles in eminent domain proceedings) with the opportunity to alter the easement terms proposed by utilities for LIEs would serve as an important step toward solving many of the problems we describe. In addition, states and the federal government can take further steps to improve the LIE acquisition process by gathering and disseminating market data to, and providing greater statutory guidance for, valuation
decisions.