It looks like the Missouri PSC has finally tried to connect the dots between the project Clean Line said it was building and the one Invenergy has lately been promoting in the media and found that something is amiss.  The project that they permitted maybe is not the one Invenergy says it is now building, and the PSC wants to find out more.

On December 23, the PSC issued an order cancelling its prior briefing schedule using the existing evidentiary record, and has decided that it needs to hold a new evidentiary hearing on this matter.

New evidence!

That's exactly what is needed here!

This case is based on a complaint filed by the Missouri Landowners Alliance that purported that the project the PSC permitted has been modified by new project owner Invenergy.  Invenergy tried to bat the complaint away, claiming that it hasn't made any decisions on the project yet, and is only undertaking a public thought process (in the media!) in the interest of transparency. 

Yeah, right.  Because every corporate money-making scheme is always debated openly in the media.  Isn't it?

It seems that Invenergy's grandiose public relations campaign has accidentally inserted Invenergy's foot in its mouth.  Was that what you were going for, Beth Conley?  If so, it looks like you've done a bang up job!  I hope you celebrated by touring a couple of transmission substations with your family over the holidays.  Who doesn't love looking at that stuff?

The people and communities along GBE's route, that's who!

And, if she didn't do enough already, Beth recently claimed that Invenergy will apply for a new permit in Illinois in 2021.  Was that supposed to cover up for all the mistakes?  Are we supposed to now believe that maybe Invenergy is planning to build the project Clean Line has permitted?  Sorry, Beth.  There are still too many unanswered questions.  And it looks like the MO PSC intends to get to the bottom of them.

Whoopsie!

Merry Christmas, Missouri! 

Merry Christmas, Pennsylvania!  Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Administrative Law Judge Elizabeth Barnes issued her decision recommending denial of Transource's IEC project on December 22, just in time for Christmas.  This is an amazing gift to the citizens of Pennsylvania, who have been battling this unneeded project since 2017.

While the judge recommended that the Commissioners deny Transource's application, the Commission is free to reject her recommendations and approve it anyhow.  While this is unlikely, it could happen.  The regulatory system in Pennsylvania appoints administrative law judges to hear the case, evaluate evidence, and make determinations based on law.  In some states, such as Maryland, the actual Commissioners hear cases and issue decisions directly.  But in Pennsylvania, the PUC relies on the expertise of administrative law judges to handle the hearings and simply make recommendations to the Commissioners.  Cross your fingers and knock on wood that the Commissioners rely on the judge's expertise to deny the application and aren't sidetracked by any of Transource's nonsense and lobbying to reject the judge's hard work.  Because Transource will do that, you know.  It will now focus its attention on the Commissioners and try to convince them to reject the judge's recommendation.  It's what utilities do when faced with rejection... file more briefs and hire more lobbyists to pressure elected officials to put the squeeze on the Commissioners to reject the judge's recommendation.  Of course, you can participate in this phase of the case as well by filing new comments asking the Commissioners to accept the judge's recommendations, and contacting your elected representatives expressing your support for the judge's recommendations and asking that they also support the judge.

And while you're busy writing comments, you might also send a note to the PA Office of the Consumer Advocate (OCA) thanking them for all their hard work on this case.  After reading the judge's decision, I believe that OCA's participation was crucial to proving that the Transource IEC is not needed.  Lack of "need" for the project was the threshold issue for the judge's denial, although there was reason to deny on other factors under consideration.  The judge stated, "the IEC Project is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was designed in 2016."

The judge found that the "congestion" that was PJM's basis for the project has evaporated.  She recognized that congestion is fleeting and that new transmission to alleviate it is not always a good thing.  She also recognized that PJM's forecasts are not necessarily accurate.

Hear that, PJM?  All your complicated reasoning for the project didn't fool the judge.  She also recognized that "Transource seems to be creating new reasons for the project."  All those arguments about the project being for "reliability" didn't fool the judge either.  Regarding the argument that Transource would relieve transmission congestion that was creating "discriminatory prices," the judge didn't buy that either.

None of these supposedly benefiting ratepayers from the city thought they needed the project.  It was only PJM and Transource that thought it was a good idea.  The judge also recognized that congestion is primarily a market signal to build new generation below the transmission constraint.  If PJM proposes transmission to solve every transmission constraint, its markets never get the chance to work.  Instead, she recognized that there are other solutions to any congestion problem.

The judge also mentioned that when the math is done correctly, the costs of the project outweigh any benefit.

She also didn't buy all the stuff about other "benefits" for Pennsylvania, such as jobs, increased generation, increased taxes, and economic benefits.

The judge recommended not accepting the settlement for the eastern half of the project because it was not in the public interest.  While Transource alleviated much of the impact on the eastern leg of its project, the settlement did nothing to change the project's western half.  Alleviating impacts on only a portion of the project did not make the entire project in the public interest.  In other words... the impacts on the western part of the project matter, too.  The judge noted that Transource and PJM never proposed making changes to the western half of the project to alleviate impacts, although perhaps they could have.

Could Transource and PJM fall on their sword once again and work with West Penn Power to utilize their existing right of way?  Yes, but that outcome is highly unlikely.  There would be absolutely no reason for Transource to do so if it loses the income from another leg of this project.  They need to be done with this.  Now.

The judge also found the impacts to western PA to be unacceptable when PJM could have selected another option to alleviate the congestion that would have utilized existing rights of way.

All in all, the judge did a remarkable job in this case and her recommendation should stand.  Her decision was long (124 pages!) and thorough, but is good reading for everyone involved in this case.  Let's hope a new year brings an end to the Transource IEC and PJM will finally abandon this project before it costs us any more money.  Oh, we'll all still pay for the costs to date (including the surveys, land agents, and other development costs Transource merrily incurred while this case was winding its way through the regulatory commissions in two states), plus 11% return on equity until paid in full.  But that's another case yet to come, and this time at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Well done, Pennsylvania!  Congratulations to all the opponents who fought so long and so hard!

The Joebama administration hasn't even started yet and already the political schemers are planning to usurp state authority to site and permit electric transmission.  Should you worry?  Yes!  As much as you may disagree with your state utility commission, it's the only thing standing between your right to own property and having a new high-voltage transmission line in your backyard that is serving the "needs" of others in far-off cities.

The giddy scheming has reached a fevered pitch, and now the "Center on Global Energy Policy" is advising that greedy transmission developers simply run right over state authority and private property rights by using questionable federal transmission siting and permitting authority to build as much new transmission as they can, as fast as they can.

What's the "Center on Global Energy Policy"?  Don't be fooled by its association with Columbia University and the NYU School of Law.  If you look at this organization's website, you can see it's funded by energy companies, mainly oil and gas.  Why would the oil and gas industry be interested in building a bunch of new electric transmission?  Is it so that we can put more electric cars on the road?  Seems kinda counterintuitive, doesn't it?  Oh, keep going on the "partners" list.  Under "sustaining annual circle" you'll find ACORE -- American Council on Renewable Energy.  These schemers have been pushing for tripling the amount of long-distance electric transmission for months now.  Who funds ACORE?  There you'll find all the usual suspects:  companies who stand to profit from building new renewables that want you to pay to ship their product around the country, such as Pattern, Invenergy, Avangrid, Next Era, Berkshire Hathaway.  Joining them in this well-financed effort is a bunch of investment firms, law firms, and wind turbine manufacturers.  All in, these companies stand to make a mountain of cash building a bunch of utility scale renewables far from load centers.  Now we know why they're doing this!  It's not for "green" energy... it's for GREEN DOLLARS!

This is an entirely created "crisis."  The only "crisis" at hand is that alternatives to geographically remote renewables, such as offshore wind, will soon be here.  The companies behind this initiative want to continue to make money building remote renewables.  They don't want better, cheaper solutions that make sense for consumers.  The economics of making resource decisions are not on their side.  If someone wants to build a new power generator, there's a lot of figuring that goes into whether or not it is beneficial for customers.  Not all new generators are beneficial, and there are choices to be made between generator options.  The cost of the generator + operating costs + delivery costs.  That's what the consumer would pay.  All these different costs need to be put into the equation.  When you compare onshore wind with offshore wind, for instance, offshore wind may be more expensive to build, but it doesn't require as much long distance transmission, therefore it may actually end up being cheaper when all costs are considered.  That's probably what scares these companies the most... remote renewables are too expensive for consumers when compared to more local, distributed options.  They demand that the federal government force remote renewables on everyone.  This sentence explains it better than I ever could.  An 82-page report... one sentence!

Second, increasing access to renewables benefits customers otherwise unable to fulfill a preference for a low-emission fuel source and sometimes lowers electricity prices.

Sometimes?  But not when you add in the cost of trillions of dollars of new transmission, right?

And take a look, a really good look, at some of the rhetoric in this "report."  Although it's complicated reading for folks who haven't been riding the transmission train for years, the bald arrogance of these schemers is plain to see.  It's practically oozing out all over the floor!  Contempt for landowners and affected communities is combined with haughty condescension to state utility commissions.  They don't even try to hide it.  It's all about using the federal government and federal eminent domain to thwart opposition.  The people who would be forced to live with all this new transmission don't matter one whit to these greedy schemers.  It's all about their profits, not your little life, private property, or well-being.  They want to cut states out of the transmission siting picture because they may have been responsive to the plight of people.  People don't matter here... only company profits.  This is top down corporate take over of the federal government in order to use federal authority to steal from people and give to corporations.  There is no consumer "need" for any of this.  The corporations are the only ones saying it's needed.  The people are not saying they need it.  Actually, they're quite agnostic if their bill doesn't go up or the government doesn't show up to take their private property.  Pretending to want "green energy" is nothing more than virtue signaling at its finest.  In the interest of "environmental justice" they just want to shift the hurt somewhere else so they can feel good about their own neighborhood.  Nobody should have to live with unwanted energy infrastructure in their backyard.

So, what is it they're planning to do now?  Way back in 2005, Congress passed a sweeping new energy policy act.  This Act was supposedly in response to the Northeast blackout of 2003.  It wasn't about renewable energy.  Within that act were two new sections, Section 1221 and Section 1222.  Section 1221 tasked the U.S. Dept. of Energy with performing triennial transmission "congestion studies" to designate "National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors" (NIETCs) in areas that were "congested" and causing higher energy prices due to lack of adequate transmission.  Once a NIETC was designated, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could step in to permit new transmission in a NIETC if a state could not permit it, failed to act on the project, or imposed unnecessary conditions on a permit that tanked the project.

DOE quickly designated two NIETCs, one along the mid-Atlantic between the Ohio Valley and the coastal cities, and one in the Southwest between Arizona and California.  The NIETCs were vast, and DOE failed to properly consult with affected states as required by the Act.  Once the NIETCs were in place, FERC engaged in rulemaking to set regulations for its role in siting and permitting transmission in a NIETC.  FERC decided that it could site and permit transmission in any instance... that it could effectively preempt state authority in its entirety, even if a state rightly denied a permit for new transmission.

All this preemption got some folks hopping mad.  Ironically, some of the environmental groups challenged these decisions in court because they presumed all this new transmission would increase the use of fossil fuels.  However, it wasn't only them.  A number of states also got into the action.  If you tell a state that you're going to preempt their authority to set their own energy policy, you're going to get pushback.  And so the courts eventually handed down two decisions that reined in the transmission schemers.

In the 9th Circuit, California Wilderness Coalition v. U.S. DOE vacated the NIETCs designated by the DOE for a failure to consult with affected states.  Bam!  NIETCs gone!  Ever since, DOE has only played at conducting its "congestion studies", with numerous delays in actually getting it done combined with silly attempts at data collection and reporting.  It's most recent "study" completed this year did not recommend designating any corridors or find any congestion worth worrying about.  It should be three years before their next attempt.  However, the schemers are pushing DOE to amend its report and designate new corridors.  The idea is to only designate "narrow" corridors that correspond to project ideas.  Essentially, if a company wants to build transmission, just let DOE know and they will designate a corridor for you based on future congestion that does not actually exist.  And then they expect the designation will be re-litigated.

As a result of FERC's rulemaking that interpreted the Act to allow them to preempt a state denial of new transmission, the 4th Circuit in Piedmont Environmental Council v. FERC found that the Act does not contemplate FERC preempting a state's outright denial.  This decision effectively stopped FERC's preemption, and combined with the 9th Circuit decision, knocked all the teeth out of Section 1221.  It was no longer useful for overriding state authority to site and permit transmission and stepping in with federal permitting and eminent domain.  However, the schemers are now pushing FERC to do a new rulemaking to promulgate regulations for siting and permitting new transmission in new corridors and using federal eminent domain in the event that a state denies a new transmission project.  The logic here is even worse... the schemers say that the 4th Circuit decision only applies to the 4th Circuit, and therefore FERC should carry on with using its authority in other states not part of the 4th Circuit.  The 4th Circuit covers the states of Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.  If you live there, you are safe from FERC's preemption... for now.  But the schemers suggest that FERC and transmission builders steam right ahead and re-litigate this issue in the other Circuits and hope for a different decision.  Seems unlikely, but I suppose it could happen with the right activist judges.  Then I suppose they'd try to re-litigate in the 4th Circuit, or bump it to the Supreme Court, to make their preemption complete coast-to-coast.

Also in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was Section 1222, Third Party Finance.  This Section allows the U.S. DOE to "partner" with third parties to build new electric transmission in certain federal power marketing territories (WAPA and SWPA).  The transmission would be "owned" by the federal government so that it could use federal eminent domain and avoid state permitting, but it would be paid for and constructed by a third party.  Interestingly enough, this third party was also supposed to keep all the profits generated by the transmission line "owned" by the federal government.  The U.S. DOE tried to use this part of the Act to "partner" with Clean Line on its Plains and Eastern project.  However, even with Section 1222 "partnership" the project failed because it did not attract any commercial interest.  There's been a whole bunch of whining about exactly why Clean Line failed, and some hero-worshipping reporter wrote a book about it that tried to cover up the real reason.  Nobody wanted to buy remotely generated renewables shipped via new long-distance transmission lines because they would rather develop and own their own renewables in their own regions/communities.  Developing local renewables keeps energy dollars working within the community.  It also provides energy independence and the security of smaller systems not subject to failure along a remote route thousands of miles long.  As well, remote renewables cause local economic destruction with the closing of local power generators.  Like 'em or not, power plants provide good paying jobs and tax payments.  Remote renewables cause reliability issues.  The reasons are many, not just "political" as the biased book author claimed.

The schemers want DOE to issue a new RFP for transmission projects to "participate" in under Sec. 1222.  They say DOE should litigate whether Sec. 1222 gives it eminent domain authority, since the court left this question on the table when Arkansas landowners sued over the use of Sec. 1222.  The schemers say that DOE can use "contributed funds" to make the project less likely to be opposed by making payments in lieu of taxes (remember, the federal government, as "owner" would not pay any state or local taxes for the transmission project).  They also suggest paying bribes to local communities if they don't object.  If the peons don't have any bread, let them eat cake, right?  With all this gushing about how Sec. 1222 ameliorates opposition, the schemers fail to say how this wonderful idea ended up being challenged in court.  I thought Sec. 1222 made landowners love transmission?

The schemers say they need to plow ahead using the existing, but toothless, Sections 1221 and 1222.  However, where are they going to find transmission companies and investors willing to put their capital on the line to pursue such a risky endeavor?  There are other options!  Smaller, more widely distributed renewables are a cheaper, more reliable option.  As well, offshore wind is becoming reality, and it's located within 10 miles of the coastal load centers.  It makes no financial sense to build renewables in the middle of the country and then ship the electricity thousands of miles to load centers.  It's also a gigantic safety risk, making huge swaths of the country dependent upon concentrated, new transmission stretching for thousands of miles.

It's also going to foment new opposition of record proportions.  If they're going to triple the amount of transmission, they're going to intersect with hundreds of thousands of new landowners and communities who object to sacrificing their land and safety in order to make a new pathway for city dwellers to use renewables they don't want sited in their own neighborhoods.  Yes, it's just more rural v. urban, Republican v. Democrat, middle class v. elite, division for this country.  It's almost like the elite Democratic cities simply EXPECT that rural America should be trashed to provide for urban "needs."  There are better solutions!

However, these schemers have about a thousand preposterous excuses for why other solutions can't work and why state preemption is necessary.  I'm not buying any of them.  You shouldn't either.  Get ready, folks, the battle royale is on the horizon.  If the schemers think transmission opposition is hard now, they haven't seen anything yet.  They believe their schemes to preempt state authority will take away all the tools in the transmission opposition toolbox and render landowners and rural communities nothing more than helpless advocates for their money-making schemes.  If there's one thing I've learned over the past decade it's adaptability.  When a door closes, transmission opposition opens a window.  When one tool breaks, we find another.  There's simply too much at stake for people whose homes and livelihoods are at risk.  We demand better solutions!

Invenergy's lobbyist spun a tale at the recent "Missouri Energy Initiative" "Policy Series."  What's Missouri Energy Initiative?  I dunno, but it looks like some utility, government, and environmental entities getting together with Grain Belt's law firm to pretend they are "grassroots."  This "coalition" is about government, organizations, and corporations, not about people and what's really good for them.  What other reason could there be to combine coal plant retirement "securitization" with GBE?  One session plans to pay off utility debt for coal plants that close early by selling bonds that electric ratepayers repay for decades; and the other session pushes "renewable" energy that will shut down coal plants early.  Combined, it's going to cost you a bundle!

Invenergy's lobbyist's tale was all about the company's recently announced PLANS (not thoughts!) "to deliver up to 2,500 MW of wind power to Missouri."  The tale admitted, "[w]hile this change will require approval by the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC), it's a response to the growing market for renewable-generated power in the region, with cities and utilities setting long-term goals for increasing reliance on clean energy."

What growing market is that?  You mean the same old MJMEUC option for "up to 250 MW" of transmission capacity on GBE?  What does that have to do with "clean energy?"  It's just transmission capacity.  GBE does not sell energy.  It only sells transmission.  It sells the highway, not the car.

A recent article in RTO Insider from a reporter who attended the tale stated,

Push?  Push who?  Push regulators to ignore the fact that Invenergy is now planning to build a project that is not the one permitted?  Push landowners to sell easements for a project that is likely to lose its eminent domain authority?  Push utilities to commit to the project?  Oh...  now we're getting somewhere! 

WHERE'S THE CUSTOMERS, INVENERGY?

None of the other pushes make sense in the context of this event.  GBE still has no customers for its 4,000 MW transmission line, aside from "up to 250 MW" optioned to MJMEUC.  And since Invenergy's lobbyist is reported to have claimed...

... you gotta wonder where the money is coming from for all this project construction.  Invenergy doesn't have enough customers to finance a 1-mile distribution line, nevermind a 700-mile DC transmission line.  Where's the customers?  Maybe this is more like Invenergy's renewed push to GET SOME CUSTOMERS!?!

Let me help you with your question, Nicole.  GBE makes no sense for incumbent utilities.  It never has.  Locally sourced projects owned by the incumbent utilities make profits for the utility.  GBE takes profits away from incumbent utilities.  I mean, 10 years now GBE has been looking for customers and coming up empty.  You'd think maybe there would be a clue or two lying around for Sherlock Polsky to discover?  Is he really that naive?  Imagine that... a super rich and successful energy company owner who got fleeced to buy a useless project by ol' Skelly's blarney!

So, what IS Invenergy planning to do with GBE?

Wait a tick... this project is NOT cost allocated to residential customers in Kansas or Missouri.  The official GBE "plan" was to sell service to voluntary customers at negotiated rates, it wasn't to stick electric ratepayers in Kansas and Missouri with the cost of a transmission project that does nothing more than export electricity out of the region. (And guess what happens when massive amounts of electricity get exported out of a region?  The electricity that remains gets more expensive!  Simple supply/demand economics.)  GBE will not save any money for electric customers in Kansas and Missouri because they won't be customers of the project.  And let's not ignore the fact that GBE is still proposed as a DC line.  A DC transmission line can only connect with the existing AC transmission system at hugely expensive converter stations that GBE will have to install.  GBE is only planning one so far, in eastern Missouri.  Tell me why a Kansas utility would buy service on GBE so that it could ship energy produced in Kansas over to eastern Missouri, and then back to Kansas to be used by Kansans?  GBE is not for Kansans! There's a lot of things here that JUST DON'T MAKE SENSE!  What is Invenergy really planning to build?

And, hey, Missouri, don't forget this guy!

He's not your friend.  He's also not Invenergy's customer.  He just wants you to be, apparently.  Isn't that fascinating?  You know what's really fascinating?  Elections. 

I'm also pretty fascinated by Invenergy's lobbyist's concern for landowners and local county officials. 

Well, that ought to do it, right?  Not.

But this... THIS... probably deserves the 2020 LACK OF SELF-AWARENESS AWARD.

She said that.  Yes, she did.  Of course, she was talking about CUSTOMERS, not LANDOWNERS.  GBE fully intends to force its project on landowners.  If it could find a way to force it on customers as well, it would.

This seems more like GBE's last push to find some customers.  Where's the customers, Invenergy?

I've missed quite a lot while I was busy writing other things, but now that I've got that handled, I dropped in to the Missouri PSC docket to see what's happened with the complaints that the Missouri Landowners Alliance filed.  If I was looking for more bizarre insults from Invenergy, I wasn't disappointed in the least.

I can only guess that Invenergy's attorneys don't read much in the way of classic literature, and perhaps have not read Orwell's 1984 at all.  What other excuse could there be for getting the plot so wrong, and placing Invenergy in the role of oppressed person who is not allowed to have thoughts that deviate from the status quo.  Seriously?  Invenergy IS the status quo in the Grain Belt Express situation.  It's landowners who are not allowed freedom of thought in this scenario.  It's landowners who are being pursued to sign over their property for benefit of a transmission line project that Invenergy admits it hasn't quite figured out yet.

Bottom line:  If you wouldn't sign over your property without the threat of eminent domain, then you might want to think twice before you sign over your property.

The general plot of this complaint is that Invenergy has been all over the map about what it is building for the past several months.  The specific project that the Missouri PSC permitted appears not to be the one Invenergy is building.  Invenergy says that it really doesn't know what it's building anymore, and that it has not made up its mind.  It wants the luxury of time to figure it out, and hash over its ideas publicly in the name of "transparency."  Meanwhile, it thinks it has the right to continue on with the permit it was issued and when Invenergy finally decides what its project will be, only then will it let the MO PSC and the landowners know.  There's something wrong with this... is Invenergy perhaps negotiating easements with landowners under false pretenses?

The permit Invenergy was issued is for a public use project, where the company will sell capacity on Grain Belt Express to other unaffiliated entities at negotiated rates.  The transmission line that was permitted, being publicly available for anyone to negotiate for its use, was granted eminent domain authority.  But Invenergy's supposed public thought process, carried out through press releases and letters to landowners, sort of hints that Invenergy is contemplating changing Grain Belt Express into a transmission line for its own private use.  There was the time Beth Conley called it a "gen-tie."  There was the time Michael Polsky claimed Invenergy would be building the wind resources in Kansas that would generate the power carried on the line. If Invenergy is going to build and own the wind resources that generate the power transmitted on GBE, then it would be a transmission line that only Invenergy could use.  It would no longer be a public use if no one else could transmit power over the line.  Would such a revised project still be able to use eminent domain to acquire land for its own use? 

But yet Invenergy, in all its dithering uncertainty, is still trying to acquire easements from landowners.  If landowners willingly enter into easement agreements, and Invenergy later changes its project to a private use, would they have any recourse? If Invenergy doesn't know what it's building, maybe it should stop trying to acquire easements until it makes up its mind?

Who does that?  Who spends a whole bunch of money acquiring land for a project that has no substance?  If Invenergy has no real plan, why is it spending so much money trying to acquire land for a certain project route?  Invenergy claims the route is set, but it has no idea where the project will begin or end now, or who would purchase the capacity (or maybe just the power generated in Kansas and delivered via Invenergy's private transmission highway).  Do you really think (if you're still allowed to think) that Invenergy is spending money hand over fist on a project that it has not defined?  Personally, I'm not buying it.  I think Invenergy knows darn well what it is intending to build and where it intends to build it.  But Invenergy doesn't want me to think that, and it doesn't want you to think it either.  It wants landowners (and the PSC) to think it's maybe still building the public use project that was permitted, and that it still has eminent domain authority.  Who's the Thought Police now, Invenergy? 

Invenergy seems mighty tweaked that the Missouri Landowners Alliance would even think that maybe Invenergy is trying to pull a fast one.  Maybe Invenergy is using its current permit to coerce landowners to sign easements that they wouldn't sign without the sledgehammer of eminent domain?  Don't even think it!

Something sure smells funny about Invenergy lately.  What remains to be seen is whether the Missouri PSC will step up and do its job to protect the people of Missouri, or will the legislature have to step in?