Signals of Subterfuge?

Missouri regulators signal readiness to OK Grain Belt Express transmission project

Does that look anything like this?

"Signal" is today's popular, but sadly overused and misused, journalistic punt.  It drives me nuts to see all this "signaling" going on, and any journalist who thinks they are clever or original by using it is actually just a lazy imitator.  Please remove this idiotic word from your stories. 

Now that I'm over the headline, what "news" does this story give us?  Couple of things, well beyond what a thinking public might surmise about possible conspiracy within the Missouri government.

First, there's this:

Invenergy has told the Missouri PSC that it plans to begin construction in 2020 and complete the project in four years.

That's right, it did.  It also told the PSC at hearing that it would begin eminent domain proceedings against 700 landowners immediately after receiving any permit from the PSC.  The witnesses' reasoning was that it must quickly begin surveying and core drilling to finish engineering of the line and landowners would not willingly give permission for that work.  Company mouthpiece Hans Detweiler told the PSC that the only remedy for uncooperative landowners was to take the right of way using eminent domain so it wouldn't need permission to enter for testing.

Hans, you dope!   Maybe you actually believe that (in which case you're demonstrating how very little you know about actually building transmission), but real transmission companies never do that.  Under most state laws, an entity with eminent domain authority has the right to enter property to perform testing prior to initiating a take.  AEP has been using this bully tactic recently, filing for court orders preventing landowners from interfering with entry and testing.  Except the landowners were not interfering in the first place.  The landowners simply refused to grant permission voluntarily and sign company release forms.  A court cannot force a landowner to sign a permission form.  It can only order the landowner not to interfere (something they were not doing in the first place).  The transmission company may risk getting on the wrong side of a local judge, but they'd probably get worse by pretending a take was necessary to perform simple surveys.

Does Invenergy have money to burn?  Why would it be spending bundles acquiring property and testing it to microsite a route when it doesn't have permits in all four states?  Until all permitting and siting is completed at the regulatory level, Invenergy would only be guessing and hoping the money it spent in Missouri would allow a route that would be contiguous with unapproved routes in other states.  And even within Missouri, Invenergy does not have a converter station site.  The option it had in Ralls County has expired and the landowner did not renew it.  As well, Invenergy does not have an approved interconnection in Missouri where it can tie into the existing transmission system operated by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator.  In fact, Invenergy isn't even in MISO's queue for study of a proposed interconnection.  Therefore, any final routing through Missouri would simply be a very expensive guess at this point... unless Invenergy doesn't plan to connect in Missouri at all and simply pay off MJMEUC and deliver nothing at all.

Is the Missouri Public Service Commission this gullible?  After nine years of Clean Line baloney before the Commission, are we supposed to believe they don't smell anything at all suspicious?  I don't believe it.  Not for a second.  I wonder what the MO PSC, elected officials, and government agencies know that they're not saying?

There's simply no way GBE will begin construction next year.  No way at all.

GBE does not have a permit in Kansas.  GBE does not have a permit in Illinois (and even if it applied today, it would be years and years before any decision would be made).  Essentially, GBE has done nothing to support a connection to PJM, and nothing to support a connection to MISO in Missouri.  GBE is an empty extension cord that doesn't connect to anything.  Who spends money building that?

And then there's this:

A company spokeswoman didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

Right.  A company ready to begin construction on a transmission project it's been trying to permit for years receives "signals" that approval is imminent, and it has no comment.  Invenergy has failed to say much of anything in the media lately, and has refused to share any future plans.  Is it because Invenergy's REAL plan may signal something that Missouri can't permit?  There's more here than meets the eye and the only signals being emitted are a bunch of obscuring smoke.

No matter.  There's still this:

In the meantime, a landowner group says it’s not giving up its fight to block the transmission line.

“We remain committed to defending property rights,” said Jennifer Gatrel, a spokeswoman for Block Grain Belt Express.

Gatrel said there’s strong local government opposition to the project along the planned route and she believes many of the eight county commissions will refuse to sign off on needed assents allowing construction.

So, what do all these "signals" indicate?  Nothing new.  Grain Belt Express is still impossible.  Landowners are not backing down and won't be intimidated by new owner Invenergy.

This isn't over yet.  Carry on.