“I think that really, really rankles people here in Port Isabel, to see somebody from another city writing a letter saying, ‘hey, you know what? You ought to hurry up and put this polluting, dangerous facility in somebody else's town,’” Port Isabel City Manager Jared Hockema told TPR.

“We’re on the verge of energy abundance and independence if we can just get the energy from where it’s made to where it’s needed,” said Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper who co-sponsored a bill that would establish a minimum-transfer requirement for regions to be able to transfer at least 30% of their peak electrical loads with other regions. “Show me a new power project in this country and I’ll show you red tape and haphazard grid planning holding us back.” Democrats pushed to have the bill included in the debt ceiling deal but Republican opposition prevented it.

Often, transmission projects fall by the wayside because of the capital required upfront and the logistics of tying together buyers and sellers in regional marketplaces with different rules and processes. “If you’re going to inject power you have to put money down ahead of time for system upgrades. Independent developers are asked to say yes or no on those down payments before having firm interconnection permissions and timeline certainty from grid operators,” said Rob Taylor, director of transmission at Chicago-based Invenergy. “Our request is to standardize the processes, timelines and definitions so you can have a level playing field."
Invenergy’s Grain Belt Express transmission project, the highest-capacity line in development in the US, will connect four states across 800 miles, taking mostly wind from Kansas (in the Southwest Power Pool) and delivering it into MISO and PJM, the ISO/RTO covering much of the northeast. With a capacity of 5 GW, the proposed project will use HVDC technology. Since Invenergy acquired the project in 2020, it has progressed through key state approvals, with one remaining approval expected at the end of August. Assuming full construction starts at the end of 2024, the project will have been in the works for over a dozen years.

Communities have various reasons for blocking these projects. Landowners might worry about the government seizing their land. Power lines, wind turbines and solar panels can be eyesores in places that rely on beautiful vistas for tourism. Such projects can damage the environment by displacing wildlife or cutting down trees.

With its open plains and thousands of miles of wheat fields, Kansas is one of the windiest states in the U.S. That makes it a great place for turbines that capture the wind and convert it into electricity. But too few people live there to use all that power.
So in 2010, developers started planning a large power-line project connecting Kansas with Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. They wanted to move the clean energy generated in Kansas, from both wind turbines and solar panels, to states with much bigger populations. That would let more communities replace planet-warming fossil fuels that have contributed to the kinds of wildfires and unhealthy air that have blanketed large swaths of North America this week.

Thirteen years later, however, full construction has not yet started on the project, known as the Grain Belt Express. Why? Because in addition to federal permission, the project needs approval from every local and state jurisdiction it passes through. And at different times since 2010, at least one agency has resisted it.

One way to get at that problem is to do what experts call permitting reform. The issue has recently gained national traction, and President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, discussed it during debt-limit negotiations last month. Local and state governments are considering changes, too.
The goal is to streamline the approval process for energy projects so they can avoid the fate of the Grain Belt Express. As long as such projects languish, Americans will keep using existing coal, oil and gas infrastructure for their energy needs.

The case for a permitting overhaul is that the current system has gone too far. Existing policies have helped protect the environment, landowners and tourism. But they have also become a burden that slows projects far longer than is necessary to ensure safeguards. Reform, then, would be about finding a better balance.
And though changes could allow more fossil fuel projects, they would probably enable far more clean energy projects, experts say. With public attention to climate change, technological breakthroughs and hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending, clean energy is expected to become cheaper and more competitive than fossil fuels. So developers will be much more likely to build a clean energy project than a fossil fuel one — if they can get the permits.

Riggs said he hopes MoDOT’s study looks at ways to make the future interstate “agriculturally friendly” to farmers can co-exist with freight traffic. In addition, he wants the upgrades to include electric vehicle charging stations.

Lake said this summer, the riskiest hours on the hottest days could be closer to the 9 p.m. timeframe when solar power goes away with the sunset.
"It's still hot at 9 p.m. The sun sets faster than the atmosphere cools, and our solar generation is all gone. So at that point in the day, we will be relying on wind generation,” he said.  "If the wind does not pick up, we will have to rely on our on-demand, dispatchable generators. And the data is showing us that on our hottest days under a certain set of circumstances, we may not have enough on-demand, dispatchable generation to cover the gap between when the sun sets -- and we lose the solar -- and when our wind generation picks up.” 
So if there's not enough wind on those hottest days, outages are possible after sunset.

SPP has issued a resource advisory for its 14-state balancing authority area in the Eastern Interconnection next week, effective Monday at 10 a.m. CT through 8 p.m. Tuesday, because of an expected shortfall from wind resources and generating units offline on maintenance outages.

The difference is a forecast that projects wind energy to be significantly lower during the advisory period.

"Relatively low wind volatility but low production levels can stress some of our operations conditions as we do have a lot more wind in our system than we have had in the past," Kuzman said. MISO's summer wind forecasts tend to be off by 800-1,200 MW, and there is usually a falloff of wind output in August, he said.

Power supplies in the US PJM Interconnection could get dangerously tight this summer if there is high demand and high outages -- a situation that would require the grid operator to rely on demand response to maintain reliability, Mike Bryson, senior vice president of operations at PJM, said May 4.

When PJM looked at the combination of unexpectedly high demand and high outages, it saw "for the first time that we would be below operating reserves for the summer," Bryson told a meeting of the Illinois Commerce Commission.

“What other states do has a great effect on the grid. For example, any of the [PJM] states that say they’re going to go completely green or clean or whatever you want to call it — they say they’re not going to use any more fossil fuel. Well, that means they’re going to rely on someone else to provide power for them in those times when these clean and green energy projects don’t work. They’re intermittent; they depend on the time of day. The example I use is: Where does the power come from for a solar array at three o’clock in the morning?”

“There are two solutions: There will be certain times when you operate your appliances or charge your car or whatever, or there will be rolling blackouts. Neither of those sound like very good options to me.”

...in the Buchanan County Courthouse, where Grain Belt has agreed to pay more than $300,000 over 20 years to bring the power line through this area.
The deal, based on a similar agreement in Randolph County, would provide Buchanan County with one lump-sum payment of $75,000 plus $15,000 annually for 20 years.

John Arnold, a billionaire from Houston, is making a big bet on modernizing the outdated transmission infrastructure in the United States to transport electricity to areas where it is needed, including the distribution of wind and solar energy to towns and cities nationwide for the clean-energy transition. 
Arnold told Bloomberg he has invested "several hundred million dollars" into Houston-based Grid United, a company he co-founded with transmission line developer Michael Skelly, to purchase land, easements, and the necessary permits for constructing electric highways that can stretch hundreds of miles.

Arnold and Skelly are planning long-haul transmission lines across multiple states on private land that might be very difficult to achieve because failing to win over every landowner could quickly scuttle the entire project.

"We are trying to break this chicken and egg cycle by acquiring the land position first."

The Landowner Alliance and YTI both assert that Section 8-406(b-5) constitutes special legislation in violation of Article IV, Section 13 of the Illinois Constitution of 1970 and violates the Equal Protection and Separation of Powers Clauses of Article II, Section 1 of the Illinois Constitution. The Landowner Alliance notes that Intervenor Bradley Daugherty filed the Lawsuit in the Circuit Court for the Fifth Judicial Circuit in Clark County, Illinois which asserts that Section 8-406(b-5) is unconstitutional for the same reasons outlined by Landowner Alliance and YTI. The Landowner Alliance agrees with GBX’s position that the Commission does not have jurisdiction to declare the special legislation enacted for GBX unconstitutional and that this challenge is properly before the Circuit Court in Clark County. Cinkus v. Vill. of Stickney, 228 Ill.2d 214 (2000); Bd. of Educ. of Peoria, 2013 IL 114853, ¶38. The Landowner Alliance raised the constitutional challenges under the Special Legislation Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Separation of Powers Clause of Article II, Section 1 of the Illinois Constitution before this Commission to avoid any challenges based upon exhaustion of remedies or waiver raised by any party who asserts that Section 8-406(b-5) is constitutional.

The Landowner Alliance argues that determining whether a law runs afoul of the Special Legislation Clause requires a determination of whether the statutory classification discriminates in favor of a particular group, and second, if it does, whether the classification is arbitrary. Doe v. Lyft, Inc., 2020 IL App (1st) 191328, ¶34, appeal allowed, 163 N.E.3d 713 (Table). The Landowner Alliance asserts that “arbitrary” can mean motivated by caprice, politics, or bias. Foreman v. Civil Service Comm’n of the City of Chicago, 7 Ill. App. 2d 122 at 126 (1st Dist. 1955). Also, “arbitrary” can also mean whether it is rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Moline School District v. Quinn, 2016 IL 119704, ¶26.
The Landowner Alliance states that prior to the enactment of Section 8-406(b-5) a non-public utility like GBX with no ownership or control of assets to be used for the production, transmission or furnishing of electricity could not utilize the rocket docket process available only for public utilities under Section 8-406.1. The Landowner Alliance argues that after GBX failed to obtain its CPCN as a non-public utility in 2015 and the Third District Appellate Court held that Rock Island Clean Line’s project did not satisfy the public use requirement, Invenergy Transmissions, L.L.C. lobbied the General Assembly, which enacted the new Section 8-406(b-5), which allows the Commission to issue a CPCN to a “qualifying direct current applicant,” defined as “any entity” that “seeks to provide direct current bulk transmission service for the purpose of transporting electric energy in interstate commerce.” 220 ILCS 5/8-406(b-5).
The Landowner Alliance points out that if the qualifying direct current applicant has a “qualifying direct current project,” the certificate can be issued “without the taking of additional evidence on these criteria.” Id. The Landowner Alliance states that it is obvious that the amended section tracks the application of GBX almost exactly. The Landowner Alliance argues that while GBX did not have to put forth any evidence relative to Section 8-406(b), every other entity or utility has that obligation. It goes on to argue that Section 8-406(b-5) essentially states that GBX does not need to meet the requirements of Sections 3-105, 8-406(b), or 8-406.1(f)(1) and does not need to meet the public use requirement to offer services in a non-discriminatory manner.
The Landowner Alliance argues that if GBX is allowed to side-step the public use requirement, the asset ownership requirement, and Sections 8-406(b) and 406.1(f)(1) and proceed with its “qualified direct current project,” on or before the arbitrary date of December 31, 2023, the door closes, and no other entity will qualify under Section 8-406(b-5).
The Landowner Alliance further argues that Section 8-406(b-5) arbitrarily discriminates against landowners, including the Landowner Alliance, that own land within Pike, Scott, Greene Macoupin, Montgomery, Christian, Shelby, Cumberland, and Clark Counties, Illinois (the “Enumerated Counties”), to the benefit of landowners that own real estate outside of the Enumerated Counties. Section 8-406(b-5) arbitrarily and unfairly subjects the landowners within the Enumerated Counties to the possibility of the Project traversing through their property without the same level of review by the Commission that is afforded landowners in non-Enumerated Counties.
The Landowner Alliance argues that there is no rational basis for this legislative purpose, and Section 8-406(b-5) is arbitrary and unreasonable. The classification created by the statute is not based upon reasonable differences in kind or situation, and whether the basis of the classification is insufficiently related to the statutory purpose. Doe v. Lyft, Inc., 2020 IL App (1st) 191328, ¶36, citing Best v. Taylor Machine Works, 179 Ill. 2d 367, 394 (1997).
The Landowner Alliance concludes that GBX is the only entity that will be using 8-406(b-5) for its project. Section 8-406(b-5) was passed for the benefit of only one entity, GBX, to enable it to bypass the requirements of Sections 3-105, 8-406(a) and (b) and 8-406.1.
The Landowner Alliance asserts that this special legislation violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Illinois Constitution. The Landowner Alliance argues that under the new legislation, Section 8-406(b-5), landowners in the nine counties are deprived of their right to a full evidentiary hearing and were forced to participate in the rocket docket process, which is available only to public utilities, before a CPCN is granted to a non-public utility merchant transmission line developer. The Landowner Alliance claims that no other project falls within the qualified direct current project designation and that both the qualified direct current applicant and the qualified direct current project are elements of the same denial of Equal Protection.
According to the Landowner Alliance, the legislature looked at the requirements that GBX and Rock Island Clean Line failed to meet under the Act and Illinois common law, and then passed special legislation custom tailored to make sure that GBX could obtain a CPCN. As a result, the Landowners are being treated differently from all similarly situated individuals in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
The Landowner Alliance further asserts that Section 8-406(b-5) violates the Separation of Powers Clause of the Illinois Constitution. It is the Landowner Alliance’s position that the General Assembly’s purpose in enacting subsection (b-5) was to expressly order the Commission to approve GBX’s Project and grant it a CPCN. The Landowner Alliance states that the portion of Section 8-406(b-5) declaring the Project a public use violates Article II, Section 1 of the Illinois Constitution because, by arrogating to itself the power to declare something a public use, the General Assembly is exercising the judicial power to determine whether a particular use is public or private. The Landowner Alliance argues that it is well settled Illinois law that the determination of whether, for purposes of exercising the power of eminent domain, a proposed use is a public use is a decision for the courts, not the legislature.
The Landowner Alliance further argues that if this portion of Section 8-406(b-5) is allowed to stand, the General Assembly will have acquired sole power to define what the term "public use" means in Article II, Section 1 of the Illinois Constitution. According to the Landowner Alliance, the General Assembly's eminent domain power would then be left unchecked because there would be no branch of government that could review its public use decisions. The General Assembly would have eminent domain power by fiat: it could merely declare something a public use in order to affect the involuntary transfer of private property from one party to another, which has never been the law in the State of Illinois. The Landowner Alliance concludes that in the public use declaration in Section 8-406(b-5) the General Assembly unconstitutionally usurps the judicial power. The Landowner Alliance contends that GBX’s Application should be denied due to these constitutional concerns, along with the other arguments that it has raised in this proceeding.