Puzzle Time: What's Missing From This GBE Report?

Yesterday, Invenergy filed its "annual status report" with the MO PSC.  If you've been following along, there's really nothing new here.  There's more fun to be had figuring out what's missing from this puzzle than there is in reading what is included.  Does this "report" actually give the PSC an accurate and up-to-date picture of the status of Grain Belt Express?  Or is it missing crucial  pieces?  How would any reader know what the status of GBE is from reading this report?

Here's a list of the amazing things Invenergy accomplished since last year:

• a rebranding of the Project and a new Project website;
  
• outreach to numerous state and local officials and other stakeholders to introduce Invenergy as the new Project owner and to provide a status update;
  
• issuing easement payments to landowners with active easements along the Project route;
  
• establishing field offices to support development efforts;
  
• building out the Invenergy Project team, including adding in-house development and project management personnel dedicated to the Project; and
  
• implementing a contractor selection process for Project development services to commence in 2020, including engineering, environmental permitting, and land services.
  

Let me sum that up for you:

"Rebranding"... as if any of the landowners or local governments give 2 cow patties who owns this unneeded project.  This marketing play is completely worthless when applied to a transmission project in rural America.  Keep that crap in Chicago, where it matters.

Invenergy did not provide any real information or answer any questions during its "rebranding" tour.  The only thing its "outreach" did was tick people off all over again.

Issuing payments to the few landowners who were gullible enough to sign easement agreements with Clean Line Energy Partners is REQUIRED by the agreements.  Quit trying to pretend like its some sort of voluntary, magnanimous act.

Establishing field offices.  Now opposition groups have a physical target for future protests.  Thanks a bunch, Invenergy!  Maybe someone will stop by with a basket of banana muffins?  Wow!  Deja Vu!

And hiring people.  Like anyone cares.

What's missing from the State Regulatory Approvals and Appeals section?

Let's see... Kansas, check.  Missouri, check.  Indiana, check.  Hey, wait a minute, how do you get to Indiana from Missouri?  You don't.  Illinois is in between.  What's Invenergy doing in Illinois?   Doesn't say.  We'll interpret that as NOTHING, Invenergy is doing NOTHING in Illinois.  Ya know, you just can't get power from Kansas to Indiana without Illinois, Invenergy.  What's your intention?  It is relevant to your "status."  Do tell...

And FERC... what's going on at FERC?  Again, nothing.  Although Invenergy was quite diligent about seeking approval for its purchase of GBE from states along the route that had issued permits, it doesn't even seem to think it should send FERC a notice that the project has changed ownership.  Is the change in ownership relevant to FERC's negotiated rate authority?  Only FERC could make that determination.  Must fall under the category of begging forgiveness instead of asking permission.  Pretty risky proposition for a project that relies on negotiated rate authority to acquire customers.  It's almost like Invenergy doesn't care about negotiated rates anymore...

Blah, blah, blah... Invenergy has hired some contractors to actually do the work on its project.  Sounds like Contract Land Staff and Burns & McDonnell, but for some reason the reader is supposed to guess the contractors from the clues given in the report.  Gotta keep those brains sharp during corona ennui!  I'm still puzzling over the clue for the converter station contractor... Siemens or ABB?  Who wants to guess?

And about that land agent contractor... Invenergy says its contractor will  "...hire and train qualified land agents who will interface with property owners and negotiate easement agreements."  Qualified land agents?  There's a huge difference between a professional land agent and a licensed real estate agent.  It's two completely different careers, with two completely different skill sets.  Invenergy's contractor is hiring anyone with a valid Missouri real estate license and "training" them to be land agents.  It would do better to send its professional land agents to get licensed to sell real estate in Missouri.  That could result in less mistakes being made... but who cares about the well-being of Missouri landowners?

Obviously not Invenergy, whose section about COVID-19 is laughably self-serving.  It was only AFTER intervention by the Governor, local government officials, legislators, attorneys, and landowners that Invenergy agreed to pull its virus-denying "land agent" out of the field and stop her endangerment of others by knocking on their doors unannounced.  Good riddance! 

And speaking of that land agent...

Land agents were also deployed in Missouri to discuss survey access with landowners for certain parcels identified as priorities by Project environmental and engineering teams, with surveys expected to be conducted later in the year.

So if she showed up at your place, your parcel has been identified as a priority for environmental and engineering surveys.  It would be a real shame if you refused to sign their paperwork and the surveys couldn't be completed this year.

And I have a bit of a bone to pick with Invenergy's language.  This statement.  It nearly made me vomit.

To demonstrate its commitment to invest in Grain Belt and in communities and landowners along the route, in Q3 2019 Invenergy made easement payments on all easement agreements that had been signed by the Project’s previous owner, Clean Line, and were still active when Invenergy signed the MIPA.

Invest in landowners?  INVEST?  What the heck are you thinking, Invenergy?  Do you think you OWN landowners once they sign your easement agreements?  And what's wrong with your thinking process that equates just compensation for property taken against a landowner's will with some sort of beneficent gift, Invenergy?  You're completely whacked!  And offensive.  You're obscenely offensive to landowners.  Go invest in someone else who appreciates you.  Missouri does not.

But what about the customers?  Grain Belt Express is nothing but an idea without customers.  You'd think that having enough customers to support a revenue stream for the transmission line would be relevant on a status report, right?  If GBE doesn't have enough customers to pay for the transmission line, it cannot build the transmission line.  GBE's current customer list doesn't even pay their fair share of their own burden, never mind result in profit, and could never support the building of the project.  If GBE had any other customer interest, you'd think they'd at least mention the subject.  Instead, zip, zero, zilch.  Invenergy doesn't even mention customers.

Is Missouri really going to allow Invenergy to continue its efforts to take land from good, taxpaying citizens for a project that doesn't have enough permits to be built in its entirety and doesn't have any customers to financially support it?  Grain Belt Express is an unfinished puzzle with a whole bunch of pieces missing.  It's nothing but a half-baked idea that cannot stand up without the missing pieces.  But it sure sounds like Invenergy plans to start harassing landowners for easements as soon as they can get back out in the field.  GBE may be a pipedream, but its harassment of Missourians is about to get real.

What kind of a company spends a whole bunch of money building parts of a project without having enough pieces to complete it?  This is like building an interstate highway from Kansas to Indiana without a connection in Illinois. 

Invenergy can waste its money any way it wants, but threatening Missourians with eminent domain at this point just seems abusive to me.

I could have written the GBE status report using just 5 letters.  FUBAR.  Done.