A webinar was held on Friday that attempted to solve "the big question is whether there is enough political will to overcome the forces of NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard) to secure new rights-of-way through states and localities that aren’t direct beneficiaries." Or at least discuss this issue. Although the host did a remarkable job of trying to keep the event on topic, and to include questions from the audience as well as those from invited media, the panelists wrecked the event by side-stepping questions and talking about things that completely avoided the topic of the webinar. There were absolutely no new thoughts, ideas, or plans to solve the NIMBY issue.
The panelists were Maria Robinson from DOE's new "Grid Deployment Office", a guy from EEI, a guy from a transmission company, and our old pal Michael Skelly.
Maria Robinson might have been the biggest disappointment. She shared that industry and government need to work together to get transmission built. Where are the so-called NIMBYs in this equation? She doesn't want to acknowledge that affected people even exist. How is it that landowners are supposed to gladly surrender their property for new transmission when they don't get any respect?
I asked her the following question: In a recent interview you said, “We’re really looking at engaging the folks that will be most impacted potentially”, while also mentioning “a pot of money that could be used for economic development in communities impacted by interstate transmission lines.” Since landowners who will have to look at and work around new transmission lines every day are “most impacted” how would economic development in the broader community compensate the most affected landowners? Wouldn’t the money be better spent lessening impact on most affected landowners?
Maria's answer side-stepped the question, which was how does she square her concern for "most affected" with doling out financial bribes for "impacted communities"? Instead of comparing/contrasting directly impacted landowners with local community organizations or governments that are not directly affected (but are financially rewarded for the misery or others), she simply pointed the finger at Congress and said the legislation they passed did not allow her to award money to landowners. She refused to recognize that paying bribes to entities that are not affected does absolutely NOTHING to solve the NIMBY problem.
Robinson might actually believe that transmission is built to satisfy "needs" of consumers. Consumers already have electricity -- the great renewable push is being undertaken to satisfy the "needs" of political ideology. Just a bunch of government functionaries, spending money Congress is taking out of YOUR pocket and accomplishing absolutely nothing at all.
She thinks her job is to "bring stakeholders together" and "help them understand why transmission is important." But she only mentioned engaging states and tribes in particular, not landowners. She even had the gall to claim that "we" have found that engaging stakeholders earlier and more often "helps" alleviate the local concerns around transmission that leads to significant delays. Who is "we", Maria? There is absolutely NO EVIDENCE that these affected NIMBYs can be re-educated to accept impacts and make personal sacrifices for politically-motivated electric transmission projects. In fact, the evidence (piles of actual studies on transmission opposition) shows the exact opposite. Landowners don't respond to propaganda and glad-handing. And landowners are the ones who carry out the long and loud opposition that delays (or cancels) transmission projects.
The first thing Maria needs to do, if she actually wants to succeed instead of just wasting taxpayer funds treading water in a political quagmire of transmission delays, is recognize those NIMBYs and find out what it is they really want. Until that happens, she's just another big government disappointment.
One of the reporters asked when transmission became a political issue and was laughed at and told it's always been political. The real answer is that transmission became a political issue when the transmission itself was proposed for political reasons. We've built a lot of transmission in this country in the past in order to provide plentiful electricity to all who wanted it. It's when additional transmission started to be proposed to favor the generation resource fad of the decade (whether it was coal and gas, or today's wind and solar) that opposition began to develop. And opposition is winning. I have a huge list of electric transmission projects that have been proposed in the past but ultimately abandoned, or significantly modified, because of delays caused by entrenched opposition. The opposition now has the upper hand and Maria has absolutely NO WORKABLE PLAN to deal with it.
She seemed to recognize that reconductoring existing transmission to increase its capacity can be done "faster" and without the opposition headaches, but she didn't seem to understand why. It's because reconductoring doesn't take new rights of way across previously unaffected property. It's the new rights of way that are the problem.
Someone named Elizabeth Weiss submitted a question that began by recognizing that Wisconsin has had success in building out its transmission network by utilizing existing highway rights of way instead of taking new land and asked if siting transmission on highway rights of way might be a national model that could be employed to get things accomplished. Bravo, Elizabeth, whoever you are! You hit the nail on the head! Unfortunately the panelist who sidestepped this question blathered on about a "national will to build transmission" and that we need the government to make new transmission corridors. What? Hello? It's the new rights of way that are the problem! Not "national will". There's no way to impose any "national will" on landowners who know that they don't NEED to sacrifice new rights of way when existing rights of way are right there for the taking.
Landowners and their forthright opposition groups have been asking for the "national will" to have a conversation about using existing rights of way in order to avoid new impacts, however they have been consistently ignored. We're not going away. We're only going to get louder and larger until we become part of the solution, instead of just a problem to be side-stepped or silenced with greater government power.
Maria ended the webinar with a big smile and assured everyone, "It's a great time to get involved" in transmission. Unless you're a landowner, Maria, then it's a terrible time to have politically motivated transmission sited across your land, next to your home and in the middle of your farm food factory. How completely tone deaf, Maria Robinson!
And, of course, the event wouldn't have been complete without Michael Skelly trying to answer every question posed (even when it was directed at someone else). His "uhhh" punctuated sentences, incorrect facts (it's really Southern Cross, not "Southern Spirit") and useless interjections are worse than ever.
The panelists were Maria Robinson from DOE's new "Grid Deployment Office", a guy from EEI, a guy from a transmission company, and our old pal Michael Skelly.
Maria Robinson might have been the biggest disappointment. She shared that industry and government need to work together to get transmission built. Where are the so-called NIMBYs in this equation? She doesn't want to acknowledge that affected people even exist. How is it that landowners are supposed to gladly surrender their property for new transmission when they don't get any respect?
I asked her the following question: In a recent interview you said, “We’re really looking at engaging the folks that will be most impacted potentially”, while also mentioning “a pot of money that could be used for economic development in communities impacted by interstate transmission lines.” Since landowners who will have to look at and work around new transmission lines every day are “most impacted” how would economic development in the broader community compensate the most affected landowners? Wouldn’t the money be better spent lessening impact on most affected landowners?
Maria's answer side-stepped the question, which was how does she square her concern for "most affected" with doling out financial bribes for "impacted communities"? Instead of comparing/contrasting directly impacted landowners with local community organizations or governments that are not directly affected (but are financially rewarded for the misery or others), she simply pointed the finger at Congress and said the legislation they passed did not allow her to award money to landowners. She refused to recognize that paying bribes to entities that are not affected does absolutely NOTHING to solve the NIMBY problem.
Robinson might actually believe that transmission is built to satisfy "needs" of consumers. Consumers already have electricity -- the great renewable push is being undertaken to satisfy the "needs" of political ideology. Just a bunch of government functionaries, spending money Congress is taking out of YOUR pocket and accomplishing absolutely nothing at all.
She thinks her job is to "bring stakeholders together" and "help them understand why transmission is important." But she only mentioned engaging states and tribes in particular, not landowners. She even had the gall to claim that "we" have found that engaging stakeholders earlier and more often "helps" alleviate the local concerns around transmission that leads to significant delays. Who is "we", Maria? There is absolutely NO EVIDENCE that these affected NIMBYs can be re-educated to accept impacts and make personal sacrifices for politically-motivated electric transmission projects. In fact, the evidence (piles of actual studies on transmission opposition) shows the exact opposite. Landowners don't respond to propaganda and glad-handing. And landowners are the ones who carry out the long and loud opposition that delays (or cancels) transmission projects.
The first thing Maria needs to do, if she actually wants to succeed instead of just wasting taxpayer funds treading water in a political quagmire of transmission delays, is recognize those NIMBYs and find out what it is they really want. Until that happens, she's just another big government disappointment.
One of the reporters asked when transmission became a political issue and was laughed at and told it's always been political. The real answer is that transmission became a political issue when the transmission itself was proposed for political reasons. We've built a lot of transmission in this country in the past in order to provide plentiful electricity to all who wanted it. It's when additional transmission started to be proposed to favor the generation resource fad of the decade (whether it was coal and gas, or today's wind and solar) that opposition began to develop. And opposition is winning. I have a huge list of electric transmission projects that have been proposed in the past but ultimately abandoned, or significantly modified, because of delays caused by entrenched opposition. The opposition now has the upper hand and Maria has absolutely NO WORKABLE PLAN to deal with it.
She seemed to recognize that reconductoring existing transmission to increase its capacity can be done "faster" and without the opposition headaches, but she didn't seem to understand why. It's because reconductoring doesn't take new rights of way across previously unaffected property. It's the new rights of way that are the problem.
Someone named Elizabeth Weiss submitted a question that began by recognizing that Wisconsin has had success in building out its transmission network by utilizing existing highway rights of way instead of taking new land and asked if siting transmission on highway rights of way might be a national model that could be employed to get things accomplished. Bravo, Elizabeth, whoever you are! You hit the nail on the head! Unfortunately the panelist who sidestepped this question blathered on about a "national will to build transmission" and that we need the government to make new transmission corridors. What? Hello? It's the new rights of way that are the problem! Not "national will". There's no way to impose any "national will" on landowners who know that they don't NEED to sacrifice new rights of way when existing rights of way are right there for the taking.
Landowners and their forthright opposition groups have been asking for the "national will" to have a conversation about using existing rights of way in order to avoid new impacts, however they have been consistently ignored. We're not going away. We're only going to get louder and larger until we become part of the solution, instead of just a problem to be side-stepped or silenced with greater government power.
Maria ended the webinar with a big smile and assured everyone, "It's a great time to get involved" in transmission. Unless you're a landowner, Maria, then it's a terrible time to have politically motivated transmission sited across your land, next to your home and in the middle of your farm food factory. How completely tone deaf, Maria Robinson!
And, of course, the event wouldn't have been complete without Michael Skelly trying to answer every question posed (even when it was directed at someone else). His "uhhh" punctuated sentences, incorrect facts (it's really Southern Cross, not "Southern Spirit") and useless interjections are worse than ever.
I know we've all gotten older since the Clean Line days, however, some of us have aged faster than others. Maybe it's time to retire and go play on the fire pole?
I was greatly entertained by this webinar, however I'm not sure how useful it was for solving the transmission problem. As one audience member opined, "If I was one of the reporters, I would have come away wondering what there was to write about." Indeed! Just the same old panelists with the same old, tired ideas.
I was greatly entertained by this webinar, however I'm not sure how useful it was for solving the transmission problem. As one audience member opined, "If I was one of the reporters, I would have come away wondering what there was to write about." Indeed! Just the same old panelists with the same old, tired ideas.
RSS Feed