Branstad, who appoints the members of the utilities board, warned against "political interference" into the administrative review process by which a pipeline carrying Bakken crude oil and a transmission line transporting wind-generated electricity could be approved.

"It would be mistake to get politics into this," Branstad said. "We should abide by the processes that have been put in place."

the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, esp. the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power:

Engaging the public:  Candor requires an admission:  The lay citizenry's views do not count as "substantial evidence," required by courts to sustain agency orders.  Does that fact make public hearings (i.e., the non-technical hearings) shams?  If not, then what is the value of public participation?  What are ways to create that value, at reasonable cost?   Traditionally, agencies announced public hearings in the newspaper's "legal notices."  How useful is that approach today?  What are an agency's responsibilities to educate the public and seek its views?

ILA’s witnesses and its many other members have expressed repeatedly their uniform opposition to the Project, routing and treatment of landowners and their concerns. The Order’s granting of a CPCN to Rock Island will permit Rock Island to force its way onto landowner property to “make land surveys and land use studies” (220 ILCS 5/8-510), a significant and unwarranted intrusion upon affected landowners for a project that is so speculative and tenuous.

Throughout this proceeding RI has claimed that Illinois customers will not pay the
Project’s costs. Because this fact is critical not just to protect customers, but also underlies RI’s economic case, the Order includes a condition stating that RI must seek Commission approval “prior to recovering any Project costs from Illinois retail ratepayers through PJM or MISO regional cost  allocation[.]”  While ComEd agrees fully with the Commission’s intent, this condition cannot be relied upon to protect customers, for several reasons.

FERC has exclusive authority over  transmission rates under federal law. It is far
from clear that FERC or a federal court would find that Illinois can require an applicant to waive the ability to petition FERC to approve any specific type of transmission rate, or could enforce such a waiver against a FERC finding that it was “just and reasonable” to pass costs on to customers. 

Even if the Commission could void the CPCN if RI (or a successor) made such a request to FERC, it is not clear what effect that “remedy” would have on customers’ rates. By then, the costs would be incurred and the line would be transmitting power in interstate commerce.

The Order’s condition does not apply to other parties (e.g., generators, shippers) who
could ask FERC to modify the rate to shift costs to customers, even if RI never did.

Similarly, the Order does not limit the  authority of FERC itself, which could sua
sponte revise RI’s rates, either in a RI-specific or a more broadly based investigation
proceeding. FERC has the power to “determine the just and reasonable rate … to be
thereafter observed” (16 U.S.C § 824e (2012)) in response to such a complaint or
upon its own motion, not just a filing by RI.

At a minimum, given the critical importance of shielding Illinois customers from Project
costs, the viability of this condition as a means of protecting customers – and potential
alternatives including financial security – warrants deeper examination on rehearing.

As multiple intervenors have pointed out in this docket that Rock Island’s failure to produce a needs analysis from PJM and/or MISO hurts all of the stakeholders, it seems like this problem could have easily been avoided. The absence of this global analysis produces increased unpredictability and either slows or jeopardizes other legitimate transmission projects. This risk to the consumers could have easily been prevented.

Now, other potentially viable and successful transmission projects will have to wait on the sidelines to see if Rock Island can get its act together by, among other things, finding money, qualified employees, suppliers, and numerous regulatory approvals. None of this benefits Illinois consumers, the market, or the reliability of the electric system. Instead, it puts everything at greater risk.

In the late 1990s, I made 12 videos for a distance learning version of my course Ecological Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. I made these with the assistance of my wife, Ursula, my colleague Paul Eide in University Media Resources, and research assistant Tis Stringer.  To make these videos, we used 16 mm movie film, 35 mm slide/still film, and audio tape that Ursula and I had taken over years of anthropological field research in the USA, Kenya, Germany, and other places.  Our practice has been to complement written note taking with film and audio recording during this field research.  We draw upon our film and tape library to present lectures in class and also to make films and videos for use in class and in distance learning.  In recent years, we have digitized film and analog tape to make programs that can be presented via computer. 

It is thus that we made the Ecological Anthropology program Grassroots Energy.  I introduce and then conclude the movie with still photos and voice over narration. The movie itself is 27 minutes long, originally a 16 mm film.  We filmed during our field research.  We began research and recording in August 1974, shortly after farmers and townsfolk in West Central Minnesota learned that Cooperative and United Power had applied to state authorities for permits to build a +/-400kVDC line from a mine mouth plant in North Dakota across their land to a AC converter facility in a Minneapolis suburb.  We continued research and recording through the construction and energizing of the line and early response in 1980.  The film focuses on the period 1976-1978, when resistance to the line was most intense and widespread. 

Filming in the field and making slide shows and movies in the era before digital imaging presented problems not experienced by the users of digital cameras.  Instead of being able to take countless pictures and see the results immediately, one had to ration film and wait until processing to determine if one “got it or not.”  One had to keep film – and batteries - cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  And it was obvious to all that one was taking pictures or recording audio.  In any event, we observed the cardinal and ethical rule of anthropology: to get informed consent of those photographed.  

Before we released the film about the CU transmission line issue and resistance to it, we showed it to those involved in the resistance. 

A citizen’s organization in Wisconsin concerned with electricity production, distribution and use asked me if it could show the Grassroots Energy movie for a fundraiser.  After some deliberation, I agreed.  I then also agreed that a blog concerned with electricity transmission issues could provide access to this movie.  Further, I have included clips from the movie as well as other information about the CU case in a presentation to a workshop on transmission held in part by Edison Electric Institute.

I am now working to make available more of my published and unpublished material, print and audiovisual, on transmission and other energy issues.

Luther P. Gerlach, PhD
Professor emeritus of Anthropology, University of Minnesota

Biosketch

My studies of public response to electricity transmission lines is part of my broader study of the interplay of social movements and established orders in the management of technological and ecological risk and resource use locally, regionally and globally.  Thus, I examine how the interplay between advocates and opponents of transmission grid expansion produces debate about the energy future and shapes this future.

I have studied social movements, ecological adaptation, and related cultural change in the USA, Germany, and along the Kenya coast.  Following undergraduate and graduate study at the University of Minnesota, I served as a US Army officer in the Far East and a US government researcher in Germany. I then attended the University of London, particularly its School of Oriental and African Studies and also its London School of Economics, receiving certificates in African Law(Islamic Law Option) and Swahili, and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology (1960), following field research in Kenya.  In addition to my professorship in Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, I have been visiting professor at the Environmental Quality Lab of the California Institute of Technology, the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Science Center, Berlin, Germany.

The Commission also observes that the approval of a line route as part of this Certificate Order should facilitate negotiations with landowners, and that the issuance of the Certificate will enable Rock Island to gain access to the property to conduct surveys and related activities, which are steps characterized by Rock Island as important ones in which to engage in the near future.

“The ICC approval is a great step forward for the Rock Island Clean Line project and brings Illinois one step closer to creating a cleaner energy future,” said Michael Skelly, President of Clean Line Energy. “We are grateful to the Commission for their careful consideration of our application and proposed route. By approving game-changing projects like the Rock Island Clean Line, Illinois will benefit from access to low-cost clean energy and job creation in the construction and manufacturing sectors.”

Companies like Clean Line that propose electric transmission projects are forced to meet a high threshold to prove that their energy project serves the public need and benefits consumers.

This project should demonstrate that independent, investor-driven transmission infrastructure can become a viable business solution in a traditionally utility-driven arena.

The wind energy delivered by the Rock Island Clean Line will allow other generators to run less and burn less fuel by eliminating the need for the equivalent amount of energy to come from fossil fuels, thereby reducing pollution. More than 1.4 million homes will be powered by the renewable energy generated as a result of this project.

Developing a project of this scale is a long-term undertaking...

Clean Line said the company will need to cross approximately 1,500 separate land parcels in Iowa to reach Illinois. So far, about 200 owners have signed agreements. That’s about 15 percent of the total needed.

Eric Andersen, another Clean Line opponent from Grundy County, said the small number of willing sellers so far will be one of the arguments opponents use against the plan.

“This is a private investment firm that’s building a private transmission line and they want to use eminent domain on 85 percent through some of the best farm land in the world. That’s a huge deal,” Andersen said.

“As staff has set out in the position statements it filed last Friday, it is staff’s view that the evidence in this case will not show that the transmission line and converter stations are needed, economically feasible, or will promote the public interest in Missouri,” Williams tells the Commission.

Clean Line turned to the Department of Energy and Section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The little-known provision would enable DOE to work through a federal power marketing administration and, in certain instances, condemn property required for easements.

Clean Line filed a similar application with DOE for the Grain Belt Express project in 2010.

In a testy exchange during Monday’s hearing in Missouri, Agathen, the landowners’ attorney, repeatedly asked whether Clean Line would pursue federal approval of the Grain Belt Express project if denied by the Missouri PSC.

Skelly said Clean Line’s application for Section 1222 authority for Grain Belt Express is still pending at DOE but inactive. And the company would exhaust efforts to persuade state regulators to approve the project before turning back to the federal government.

“We would look at the no and figure out a way to turn it into a yes,” he said.

"Game & Fish Commission Director Mike Knoedl said that bird deaths in the area would be 'astronomical' because of the high lines and towers, some as tall as 200 feet."

megalomaniac |ˌmegəlōˈmānēˌak|
noun
a person who is obsessed with their own power.
• a person who suffers delusions of their own power or importance.

In the future, Skelly says he hopes that utilities, whose territories are crossed by the HVDC lines, could invest in Clean Line.