See letter from the National Park Service to PATH's attorney denying PATH's request for another "extension" of the EIS process and therefore denying PATH's permit, without prejudice.  So ends our involvement with the NPS, for now.  I'm sure Morgan will miss us!  :-)

PATH's latest failure is dated February 27.  NPS failed to make this information public until just recently, and credit goes to John for digging this up during a webpage drive-by.  This information was NOT on the NPS's project website as recently as March 15, when StopPATH sent this letter to the NPS.  Now we find that the decision had already been made before we wrote the letter.  Despite the fact that the EIS process is supposed to be "open" and must consider park-owning citizen input, there sure was a bunch of secretive stuff going on that the public wasn't allowed to monitor.  The NPS, their contractor for the project (and we found out that there had been a mysterious switch of contractors after the initial scoping process), and the PATH Companies carried on the EIS process in secret, for the most part, and the only way for the citizen stakeholders to get information was through a tortured process of making themselves continual pests and/or going through the FOIA process.   Notice to the public of the application's process was sparse, with information appearing months later without notice, and requiring another round of the "Kremlinology" game we've been playing with entities supposedly working in our interest. The NPS needs to spruce up their sunshine.  It sucks.

So...  okay... Woo Hoo!  Go back to start, do not pass "Go," PATH!  Not that they really care anymore, PATH is a dead project.  The only place PATH still walks upright is at FERC, where they continue to rack up "costs necessary to maintain the project in its current state" that come out of ratepayers' pockets.  C'mon, let's get to the abandonment already!

Not only is it Friday, it's also Friday the 13th!  Oooh!  Scary!  Don't worry though, everything will probably be okay as long as you don't run with scissors, try to drive with a cup of McDonald's coffee wedged in your crotch, or rip off electric ratepayers.

And it's recommended that you find something (or someone?) to laugh at, just to ease through this ominous day.  Here's my morning giggle:

Crappy, automatic news aggregator websites grab headlines and news blurbs from other sources and republish them.  There are way too many of them designed explicitly to divert web traffic for ulterior motives, not to act as actual news sources.  Many of the crappy ones are foreign sites of dubious worth that automatically translate news blurbs into a foreign language.  The crappiest of the crappy get their news from these sites and then re-translate the news back into English.  This automatic re-translation usually produces hilarious results.

Here's an example:

W. Va. Foes Claim Utilities PATH Charges Improper

The article says Ali and I contend that:  "Allegheny Energy and American Electric Power have improperly charged business millions of dollars to pull a idea."

Hmm... pull an idea for an unneeded transmission project out of their... indeed.

It's amusing how relying on the literal meaning of certain words can strip away empty rhetoric, as the "news" article informs us:

"Pennsylvania-based Allegheny and Ohio-based AEP are seeking regulatory capitulation for a Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline between West Virginia and Maryland."

Hmm... capitulation:  surrender, give in/up, yield, concede defeat, give up the struggle, submit, knuckle under; lay down one's arms, raise/show the white flag, throw in the towel.

Wasn't that PATH's game plan all along?

Have a freaky weekend, friends!

The Maryland Public Service Commission ordered the construction of a new 661 MW natural-gas fired generation plant in Waldorf yesterday.  The PSC also requires Pepco, BG&E and Delmarva Power to buy power from the plant.  Construction of the plant is expected to save Maryland electric consumers 49 cents per month in current congestion and capacity payments.  Construction of the PATH project was expected to cost Maryland electric consumers somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 cents per month.

This is a huge victory over the PJM cartel, who has attempted to limit the building of new generation on the east coast in order to preserve the transmission and capacity revenues of their favored incumbent generators of dirty, coal-fired electricity in the Ohio Valley, the "PJM Power Providers Group."

A similar power struggle over new generation is occurring in New Jersey.  The two states are currently faced with some of the highest electricity costs in PJM.  PJM, on behalf of the "power providers," has been fighting the states at FERC, insisting that their markets are working to stimulate new generation.  PJM's farce is no longer working.

So, with both New Jersey and Maryland building new, cheaper, generation, there's absolutely no "need" for PATH or other Project Mountaineer transmission lines (not that there ever was).  Just one more nail in the moldering corpse of  PATH's coffin.

I've just been sent one too many announcements for expensive conferences where regulators and industry try to figure out what electric consumers want.  The answer is incredibly elementary, however they continue to spend millions of dollars every year trying, quite unsuccessfully I might add, to figure it out.  Electric consumers simply want a meaningful seat at the table.

It is an inane misconception to attempt to determine what a person wants when that person is unheard in the discussion.  It's not that actual consumers are unwelcome at the events, it's that registration and travel to attend these conferences runs in the thousands and is prohibitively expensive to actual consumers.  Instead, consumer interests at these conferences are inaptly represented by regulators, who never actually communicate with the consumers they are tasked with representing.  Regulators see their job as "representing the interests of the consumers as a whole," and not as representing the interests of the individual consumers.  However, unless the regulators have an open dialogue whereby they listen to individual consumers, they fail to develop knowledge upon which to base their opinion of what consumers want as a collective whole.  They don't get that dialogue at these conferences either, because no actual consumers, or even representatives of groups of actual consumers, are ever present.

The days of blissfully unaware electric consumers feeding at the corporate energy trough are over.  As the electric generation, transmission and distribution business model has evolved into a profit-driven, investor-owned structure, unrest among consumers has grown.  On occasion, the utilities will miscalculate and commit an action that ends up being the straw that broke the camel's back, because they also do not know what consumers want (and they don't much care either).  For the utility it's all about what their investors want -- money -- and their task is to find a way to manipulate the consumers into unwittingly accepting their profit-seeking actions. 

The occasional "back breaking" initiative eventuality has been occurring with increasing frequency lately.  Just a couple of examples:

• The Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH) Project that incensed landowners and ratepayers in three states and compelled them into educating themselves on utility processes and energy policy, which then propelled them onto a local/state/regional/national quest to have a seat at the table and some modicum of control over their fate.
• The consumer "prairie fire" AEP's Ohio subsidiary lit with its unbalanced, gluttonous rate increases, a product of a corrupted state commission and corporate greed and arrogance.

When the straw breaks the camel's back like this, consumer anger spreads.  Along the way, it strikes a chord with a handful of the affected consumers (and who they are and why this happens is a whole different topic of discussion) who will become the driving force that sustains the momentum and empowers the consumers into long-term action.  While the majority of the angry consumers will appear to lose interest, what actually happens is that they are content to turn much of the day-to-day work and policy analysis over to the dedicated handful and wait to respond to additional calls to action.  This incredibly effective and persistent grassroots model is based on common cause among ordinary people.

Utilities have long sought to capture this dynamic by forming fake "grassroots" coalitions to champion their money-making initiatives, but that approach will never succeed or sustain itself.   Real people know the difference between koolaid and wine, and the essential handful of "real people" leaders is missing from this paradigm.

The "real people" are also missing from regulatory "consumer advocate" models.  Government-based consumer advocacy is disconnected from the consumers and is perpetually underfunded so that they are unable, or unwilling, to provide the same kind of comprehensive advocacy that grassroots consumer groups deliver.  Also missing from government-based models is common cause and that all important "prairie fire" spark that grassroots leadership supplies.

The only way regulators and industry will ever figure out what electric consumers really want is to change their approach to the dilemma by adding another easily available seat at the table.

I think it's probably The Charleston.

The first batch of campaign finance reports that would cover the 2012 legislative session are in!  :-)  Now we can find out what really happened to SB162, the Least Cost Planning Bill.

The Bill was introduced on January 12, 2012, and was enthusiastically supported by electric ratepayers all over the state, with a very large, very vocal contingent from West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, specifically Jefferson County.

The legislation was also vehemently opposed by American Electric Power and FirstEnergy, who claimed that planning to provide ratepayers with electric power at the least system cost was just too expensive for them.  The power company lobbyists continually hammered on the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to water down the bill and remove any reference to the words "least cost."  They also prevented it from being voted on by the Committee, although most Committee members voiced support for the bill.

On January 25, Senator Herb Snyder (D-Jefferson) received a $1,000 contribution to his re-election campaign from the comically-named American Electric Power Committee for Responsible Government.  Senator Snyder represents the citizen of Jefferson County.  AEP has no business interests or operations in Jefferson County.  I guess they must just think Herb's a swell guy.

On January 26, Senator Snyder received a $500 contribution to his re-election campaign from FirstEnergy's PAC.  At least FirstEnergy has business interests in Jefferson County, but they only seem to think Herb is half as swell as AEP does.

On February 8, during a personal visit to Sen. Snyder's office, he told a contingent of his Jefferson County constituents (who drove 10 hours and spent two nights in a hotel just to get some face time with our boy Herb) that he supported the Least Cost Planning bill and would do his best to see that it was successful.  Herb complained about power company lobbyists spending too much time at the Public Service Commission trying to exert influence.  Herb looked disturbed to be reminded by a constituent that power company lobbyists also spend way too much time prowling the halls of the Capitol trying to exert influence as well.

Don't forget to vote in November! :-)

P.S.  Yes, in case you were wondering, I did have a great, big, glass of this over the weekend.

Last week, AEP subsidiaries Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power filed their yearly ENEC case with the WV PSC.  Guess what?  They don't need a rate increase this year!

This is due to the Consumer Debt Bond Bill passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Tomblin that will simply mortgage this year's rate increase, caused by unrecovered coal costs, by having consumers pay for it over the next ten years, plus costs and interest.

Although AEP did not include the filing for "securitization" in their ENEC case (it will be a separate filing), they sure had plenty to say about it.

"As was the case several years ago, the Companies and their ratepayers are faced with a very large ENEC rate increase, given the existing ENEC under-recovery balance.    The Companies judge that it would be burdensome for their customers to shoulder the entirety of that increase over the course of a single year under the traditional ENEC mechanism. They are therefore proposing two alternative approaches. The first, and the most advantageous for all concerned in the Companies’ estimation, is the use of a securitization mechanism whereby the ENEC under-recoveries involved in this case would be financed through the issuance of comparatively low-interest bonds.
Legislation authorizing the Commission to consider securitization was enacted by the West Virginia Legislature during its 2012 regular session and signed by the Governor on March 15, 2012. The Companies will be filing an application with the Commission pursuant to the new law and the Commission will decide whether to issue a financing order permitting the issuance of bonds for the recovery of the deferred ENEC balance. Under this approach, if the bonds are authorized and issued, the Companies do not think that there will need to be any ENEC rate increase in this case."

So, how much is AEP looking to collect and leave consumers paying the mortgage on for the next ten years?  $391.8M.

This includes previous under recovered coal costs of $329.4M, $25.8M of carrying charges on the under recovered balance, $22,695,371 of old debt for deferred Century Aluminum electricity costs, $4.2M of deferred "industrial customer credit," "bonus coal payments" and other deferrals -- in other words, they're cleaning house and throwing all old debt and deferrals into the bond that consumers end up financing.  There is also a $23.4M under recovery for 2011 proposed to be tossed into the bond.

That $329.4M of old coal debt was supposed to be paid off over the past 3 years through previous rate increases.  What excuse does AEP have for the outstanding balance still remaining?

"The Companies have identified the following as key contributors to why the ENEC under-recovery balance did not decline as projected following last year’s ENEC rate increase:

• Continued increase in coal prices;
•  Lower off-system sales margins; and
  
• Lower retail sales due to the economic downturn"

None of that's going to change either.  So, what is AEP planning to do next year when they again have a huge under recovered fuel balance and more deferrals racked up?  The legislature limited bond issuance to this year only, in response to vocal citizen opposition.  Perhaps it's time to enact least cost planning (which the legislature rejected this year) and help AEP kick their expensive coal habit, so this doesn't happen again.

Here's what AEP's "expert" has to say about coal prices:

"The trend from recent years of steadily rising coal prices matched with lower coal market volatility continued through the first half of 2011.    In spite of the recent economic downturn, the market did not experience significantly lower coal prices for the majority of 2011 because demand for coal in other countries continued to support the price of coal from the Central Appalachian Basin, the main type of coal consumed by APCo.  However, starting in the fourth quarter of 2011, Central Appalachian coal prices have dropped significantly in response to weak domestic demand.
In    2011    APCo    saw    a    slight    increase    in    generation    need    over    2010.    This increase in generation resulted in APCo consuming more coal in 2011 than in 2010, but continued low power demand as a result of the economic downturn still prevented coal prices from rising significantly.
Coal prices are believed to be continuing on a general upward trend as easily- mineable eastern bituminous coal sources are becoming rarer, but there is also some uncertainty regarding future EPA rules and how the implementation of those rules may affect future coal consumption. This uncertainty is reflected in the District of Columbia’s Circuit Court of Appeals decision to stay implementation of the EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (“CSAPR’) on December 30, 2011, less than two days before the rule was to take effect. The stay of the CSAPR has not yet had a significant impact on the market price for coal, but future developments regarding CSAPR and the recently-finalized Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (“MATS") do have the potential to cause a downward effect on prices due to lack of demand if utilities have to shutter non-compliant coal-fired power plants.    These rules could also lead to increases in price for lower sulfur coals, as utilities look to contract for cleaner coals. It is uncertain what the overall impact of these influences may be on the coal market as a whole."

If there's any humor to be found in this sad situation, it's this article in today's Charleston Daily Mail.  Byron Harris, WV's "Consumer Advocate" that played the perfect patsy for AEP by supporting the Consumer Debt Bond Bill at the legislature, gets a swift kick in the teeth from AEP's spokeswoman for his trouble.

"Harris also wonders if it's possible to cut rates this year using bonds.

Matheney cautioned against misleading people with that kind of talk."

Misleading people?  Ha ha ha!  Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black after the way AEP's lobbyists snowed the legislature and the PSC with their Consumer Debt Bond Bill, claiming that it would result in NO RATE INCREASES?  Seriously, you slay me... thanks for the laugh!

If you've been following along on the Primary Power SVC issue at PJM that we've featured here and here, your wallet should be thrilled that PJM has awarded the projects to incumbent transmission owners FirstEnergy and Dominion.

As you will recall, Primary Power claims to have spent $5M developing this project over the past few years in cooperation with PJM engineers, and they were awarded a 200 basis point incentive by FERC for the project in 2010.

Meanwhile, a couple of PJM's favored incumbent utilities have swooped in at the last minute and taken the project away from Primary Power.  As I recall, the last letter Primary Power sent to PJM's Board of Managers was cc'd to their attorney.

The cartel has placed themselves in a precarious legal position, but that's nothing new.  As we've seen many times before, they will stoop to amazing depths of depravity in order to make sure their favored "stakeholders" continue to receive all the tastiest morsels.  Apparently "right of first refusal" (where incumbents get first crack at needed upgrades) isn't dead at PJM, despite FERC doing away with it in Order No. 1000.

Now, here's the stupidest part of the whole thing (and where your wallet comes in).  If Primary Power ends up filing a lawsuit against PJM and is successful, guess who will pay the award?  YOU will!  That's right, because PJM is a "not-for-profit" and generates no profits, you ratepayers are PJM's piggy bank.  So, let's assume the court sees fit to punish PJM for their arbitrary and capricious award of the SVC projects... PJM doesn't care because they will just pass any punishment on to you in the form of a higher electric bill.

The cartel has got to go.

It's Friday, and time to close all the open windows that have plagued me all week but never quite elevated themselves to individual blog post status.  So, if you're bored and looking for something interesting to read, here's some suggestions, in no particular order:

FirstEnergy's Little blue Run Poison Pond continues to cause problems for the unfortunate folks who live near it.  Rep. McKinley is pretending to demand action (umm... what?).

Green homes in Frederick, Maryland, are selling like hotcakes, proving that local renewables are big business that will help get the economy back on track.  Note that "less regulation" and "building (unneeded) infrastructure" has yet to provide any boost to the economy, despite the overblown claims of business and government.

Read Sen. Joe Manchin's self-congratulatory speech bashing the EPA and showcasing his delusions of grandeur about his own actions, that he delivered to a captive audience at the John Amos coal-fired plant.

"In 2009, we passed a comprehensive energy plan called the Alternative and Renewable Portfolio Standards. As of January, all of our state's major utilities will meet the 2025 standards – this year. Thirteen years ahead of schedule."

Umm, Joe, that's because your RPS plan doesn't actually DO anything!

Last fall, Patience and I attended a Sierra Club conference where we gave a presentation about using humor in grassroots activism, featuring, of course, our three-year campaign against the PATH Project and some of the specific strategies we used.  It's energizing (not to mention it puts a smile on your face!) to have a giggle at the expense of the ones making your life miserable during a long, drawn-out, grassroots campaign.  We were thrilled to see Sierra Club roll out "Mr. Coal Guy" last week.  Go check him out!  Very funny!  My favorite is the beach party video... "Come party with me and my coal executive friends!"

The love affair is certainly over between AEP & FirstEnergy.  AEP announced this week that it is forming another joint venture with Great Plains Energy to build a bunch of new transmission lines, including some in the PJM region.  Keep an eye on this because one of their future projects may show up in your backyard... money grubbing b@stards!

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

Let's check in and see what's cookin' on the docket for PJM's new RTEP planning process at FERC.

A plethora of parties have filed motions to intervene, including (of course!) power companies and their transmission affiliates, environmental organizations, land-based wind's front group, renewable companies,  Atlantic Wind Connection (not to be confused with their land-based wind opponents) and a handful of states.  Some parties have filed brief comments.  Among these, there's a couple worth reading.

New Jersey BPU seems to think that PJM has gone off the deep end by including "public policy objectives" as a driver for transmission projects.

"While NJBPU is sympathetic to PJM’s perceived need to include non-codified policy-based factors into its RTEP process, this requirement greatly broadens the pool of assumptions that drive transmission development. This expansive reading of Order 1000 exposes stakeholders to the real risk that costly and undesirable policy-based projects linger in the planning analysis. The longer “specter” projects are modeled, the more likely they become a fixture in the RTEP process. This scenario could drive the development of policy-driven transmission assets based solely upon their recurring presence in PJM’s RTEP models, and further emphasizes the need to prominently include state veto authority in any future filings regarding Order 1000."

And about that "state veto," NJ suggests:

"NJBPU also strongly supports a cost allocation methodology whereby the states that will incur the financial burden of developing a policy-driven transmission asset retain veto power over the project. No party should bear the costs of developing a policy-driven asset that does not comport with that state’s guiding principles, regardless of any collateral reliability or economic benefit identified by PJM.

Moreover, policy is dynamic and changes quickly in response to political, social, and economic factors. By contrast, the decision to develop and build multi-billion-dollar transmission assets cannot change in lockstep with policy; the costs and impacts are simply too significant. Therefore, any cost allocation methodology flowing from a policy-driven framework must contain a safety-valve veto whereby the states may refuse ratepayer financed projects that fail to produce a benefit commensurate with the policy’s long-term value."

They also get their digs in about NJ's frowned-upon LCAPP:

"NJBPU believes that PJM’s resource planning must include an assessment of transmission and non-transmission solutions to identified reliability violations as acknowledged by the Commission in Order 1000. From this perspective, PJM’s resource planning process should include state sanctioned generation solutions. This approach allows PJM to fulfill its federal mandate of ensuring that the bulk transmission system remains reliable, while preserving the states’ constitutionally protected right to site generation resources within their territory."

NJ also had this to say:

"PJM deserves praise for seizing an opportunity to expand its interaction with the entities representing the individuals who ultimately shoulder much of this fiduciary burden – the state ratepayers. However, while these efforts are commendable, to date they are incomplete. Without the ability to measure these changes against a clearly articulated and comprehensive cost allocation methodology, state stakeholders are unable to adequately assess the impact of PJM’s proposal."

This comment was filed prior to last Friday's postage-stamp rate justification.  Ut-oh!  So, how is FERC thinking that "public policy" projects 500kV or above are going to be allocated?  Shall we charge everybody in the region for one state's law?  FERC seems to think that's okay, as long as that state gets some of those ethereal "integration" benefits that PJM provides.  This just keeps getting more convoluted and unreasonable as we go along.

North Carolina also got offended by the "public policy objectives" thing:

"The North Carolina Agencies have an over-arching conviction that the FERC’s regulation of transmission planning, especially as articulated in Order 1000, over-steps the FERC’s jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act. PJM’s proposed amendments, especially its introduction of the concepts of “public policy requirements” and “public policy objectives,” echo and even go beyond Order 1000 requirements, and therefore raise serious concerns.

Setting aside the thorny jurisdictional issues which the North Carolina Agencies have already articulated in their request for rehearing of Order 1000, the North Carolina Agencies oppose the proposed introduction into PJM’s Operating Agreement of the new concept, “public policy objectives.” While the inclusion of “public policy requirements” in transmission planning raises significant concerns, the inclusion of “public policy objectives” is inappropriate, particularly given the potential for its inclusion to cause transmission planning and cost allocation to become even more controversial than they currently are.

The North Carolina Agencies are concerned that the inclusion of such objectives will result in the enlargement or expansion of the size and scope of otherwise appropriately defined transmission projects. Such enlargement or expansion could be based on a “public policy objective” that is not supported by some or all of the states in PJM’s footprint, and such expansion could cause a transmission project to become subject to PJM’s postage stamp cost allocation methodology, thus burdening customers throughout PJM’s footprint."

They also brought up the postage-stamp cost allocation method that FERC just blessed last Friday:

"To date, PJM’s postage stamp cost allocation method has proven controversial, even for transmission that is being built for reliability or economics.6 The North Carolina Agencies oppose allowing the vague and uncertain concept of “public policy objectives” to create the potential for inclusion of enlarged projects into PJM’s Regional Transmission Expansion Plan (RTEP). Such objectives might not be in the best interests of North Carolina’s citizens, and a fair cost allocation method has not been established for the incremental costs of such projects. Therefore, the North Carolina Agencies oppose the inclusion of “public policy objectives” in PJM’s transmission planning process."

Stay tuned... this is shaping up to be another epic FERC fracas.

Back in February, FirstEnergy announced closure of three antique, coal-fired, electric generation facilities in West Virginia in September of this year, Albright, Rivesville and Willow Island.  On March 9, FirstEnergy's Mon Power and Potomac Edison subsidiaries submitted what they called an "informational filing" to the WV Public Service Commission, notifying them of the closures and reasons therefore.

Like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky, the WV PSC issued an Order yesterday reopening the companies' ENEC filing and requiring more information on the retirements.  Meanwhile, FirstEnergy is forbidden to take any further action toward the retirements.

The PSC's Order made a lot of people and entities insanely curious about what's driving the PSC's Order, and apparently, the curious include FirstEnergy itself.

Is the WV PSC being driven by the politics and influence of coal?  It happened in Kentucky when AEP changed course and decided to install scrubbers on Big Sandy instead of retirement/repowering.

Is the WV PSC concerned about reliability issues?  A "Reliability Status Report" on the plant retirements has been completed by PJM, however PJM won't publicly release the information at this time.

Is the WV PSC concerned about the economic/jobs issues?  Preston County is begging the Commission to keep Albright open.

Or, is the WV PSC concerned about rate increases for the companies' West Virginia customers?  Perhaps the Commission got wind of a curious little news blurb that appeared briefly back in February, and then disappeared from major news outlets.  Fortunately, there's at least one copy still hanging around.  The article claims that FirstEnergy is gaming the markets with plant closures in order to score a huge financial windfall.

"First Energy’s nuclear plants and baseload coal plants with environmental controls are the primary beneficiaries of the EPA rules," Hugh Wynne, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein, told AP.

Who wouldn't be suspicious when FirstEnergy's "informational filing" reads like they are making a sensible decision... for a change.

Ya know, if West Virginia statute required electric utilities to do least cost planning (S.B. 162, which failed), the PSC would probably already have all the information it is now ordering FirstEnergy to produce, and there would be no need for curiosity.

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice...

More to come.