U.S. DOE Box Checks EIS Scoping

Remember at the beginning of this year when the U.S. Department of Energy held public meetings to gather scoping comments for the Environmental Impact Statement it must prepare before it decides whether or not to grant deep-pocketed energy conglomerate Invenergy a loan of more than a BILLION dollars to finance its no-revenue Grain Belt Express transmission line?  Did you know that DOE has prepared its Scoping Report that will guide the EIS?  You didn't?  That's because there was no public notice.  DOE didn't send out a mailer, or even an email to the persons on its electronic mailing list.  It simply updated its website and didn't give any notice whatsoever.  If I had not stopped by there to look for something, we'd still be in the dark!

But since the cat is out of the bag, let's talk about DOE's Scoping Report.  The scoping report sets the parameters for the EIS.  It determines what will be studied in the EIS.  Here's what DOE says it will study:

• Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions
• Geology, Soils, and Paleontology
• Water Resources
• Noise

• Vegetation
• Wildlife
• Cultural Resources

• Transportation and Access
• Land Use
• Recreation

• Environmental Justice
• Public Health & Safety
• Visual Resources
• Social, Economic, and Community Resources

But according to DOE, these are the most common topics that the public asked to have studied:

• Limitations on land uses that could potentially result from the Project’s construction and operation
• Consideration of alternatives to the Project as currently proposed
• History of the Project, including previous routing studies and past interaction with landowners
• Concerns about the Project’s proposed route and infrastructure placement
• Potential impacts on wildlife; social, economic, and community resources; geology and soils; health and safety; and vegetation

The DOE didn't listen to a damned thing you said.  It simply checked the "public participation" box and went on its merry way.  

The most popular comment was for DOE to study alternatives to Grain Belt Express.  Siting new transmission on existing rail and road rights-of-way was the most common form of this scoping suggestion.  However, DOE has absolutely NO INTENT to study any alternatives.  The only "alternatives" DOE chooses to consider are to build, or not to build.

It's wholly debatable whether DOE's excuse for not studying any alternatives will pass legal scrutiny.  I think it went something like this... DOE is only considering whether to loan money so it's either yes or no and does not involve selecting an alternative.  Pretty lame, right?  That same excuse could be used by any federal agency contemplating using federal resources for a project that could impact the environment.  We're either going to participate or not, we're either going to construct it or not, etc.  See how it goes?  DOE's refusal to study viable alternatives (or any alternatives at all) is NOT legal.

The EIS is for the purpose of notifying the public of the environmental impacts caused by a government action.  It doesn't mean there can be no impacts, it just means that the public needs to be "aware" of them.  The EIS should rightly study different alternatives that would have differing degrees of environmental impact so that it selects the one with the least impact.  There simply is no legal wiggle room to refuse to study any alternatives.

In addition to the Scoping Report, DOE also published a list of comments it received.  See Appendix J.  In addition to making sure your own comments were received and correctly transcribed into the appendix, you may want to browse and read some of the other comments.  One that stood out to me is the comments of Stephen Jeffery, Counsel for Callaway Concerned Citizens Against Solar beginning on page 68 of Appendix J  (the comments are arranged alphabetically by last name, look under "J").  He did an excellent summation of all the mistakes DOE has made so far, and why the mistakes are not legal. I wonder how much better it could get if he found out how merchant transmission works?  At any rate, he's the one I would hire to sue DOE when their box checking exercise concludes with a fait accompli loan approval.

When will that be?  It looks like the rush, rush hurry up EIS schedule has been a bit delayed.  Originally, DOE said it would publish the draft EIS this fall, open a comment period, and have a decision on the loan by summer 2024.  Now the draft EIS won't be published until winter 2024, and comments are expected to continue into summer.  Looks like the GBE EIS is already around 6 months behind schedule.  Expect further delays.

Here's the big question... will DOE bother to notify anyone when the draft EIS is published, or will it just make another quick upload to its website and stay mum?  DOE has tured NEPA into a travesty.  Shame on them!