Last year, regional grid planner PJM Interconnection approved a new 500kV transmission line from a cluster of coal-fired power plants in northern West Virginia to Virginia's data center alley.  That line is assigned to Florida-based NextEra Transmission (Greene County PA, Mon, Preston, Mineral and Hampshire Counties WV, Garrett and Allegheny Counties, MD portions) and Ohio-based FirstEnergy (Frederick, Clarke, and Loudoun Counties, VA, Frederick County, MD, and Jefferson County, WV portions).  On a map, that combined project looks like this:

Locally here in Jefferson County, the project is proposed to tear down the existing 138kV transmission line and replace it with a combined 500kV line with 138kV underbuild (double circuit) on an expanded right-of-way.  The current line configuration across southern Jefferson looks like this:

The big metal towers will stay the same.  The smaller wooden towers will be torn down and replaced with a big metal tower that has the two new circuits on it.  It will be 30-50 ft. taller than the existing one it parallels.  The end result will be two big metal towers on an expanded right-of-way.

Now PJM needs another transmission extension cord for Virginia's data centers.  The first one just wasn't enough power because Virginia just can't stop building the data centers.  PJM's latest proposal is a 765kV transmission line (the largest AC transmission line in the country) from the John Amos coal-fired power station in Putnam County, WV to Virginia's data center alley.  On PJM's map, the project looks like this:

This new 765kV is proposed by a joint partnership between FirstEnergy, American Electric Power and Dominion Energy.  It is proposed to cross 14 counties in West Virginia (Putnam, Kanawha, Roane, Calhoun, Braxton, Lewis, Upshur, Barbour, Tucker, Preston, Grant, Hardy, Hampshire and Jefferson) 3 counties in Virginia (Clarke, Frederick and Loudoun) and end in Frederick County, Maryland at a new substation north of Point of Rocks.  It is proposed to be built on a new 200 ft. wide right-of-way on towers that look like this:

In Jefferson County, it has been proposed that the new transmission line run parallel to the existing 500/138kV right-of-way that is already slated to be expanded with the addition of a second 500kV line that was approved last year.  If approved, this would expand that existing right-of-way another 200 ft. and add a third transmission tower bigger than the other two.

PJM is still discussing this proposal in its Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee.  The next meeting (and final opportunity for the public to comment) is scheduled for January 7, beginning at 11:15 a.m.  Anyone who is concerned about this proposal is invited to participate, either over the phone, via Webex, or in person at PJM's office in Valley Forge, PA.  Participation requires that you register in advance.  You can sign up for the meeting here.

After the meeting, PJM's committee will recommend that the PJM Board of Managers approve the project and add it to the regional plan.  At that time, we can write to the Board of Managers to ask that they not approve it (but that's a task for another day).  If the project is approved by the Board of Managers, then it is assigned to the responsible utilities who will finalize a route and submit applications to the three state public utility commissions for approval to build it.  If the state commissions approve it, then the utility will have eminent domain authority to take property for its new right-of-way.  This whole process is going to take years, so let's stay focused on the PJM process for the moment.

So, many are asking themselves... am I impacted?  PJM's maps are purposefully vague because PJM is not a transmission line router.  It simply approves a transmission line between two substations... where the route actually goes is a function of the utility assigned to build it, and that route must be approved by the state commissions.  So, we don't know for certain at this time where the new 765kV project will be routed.

What we do know, however, is that this new 765kV project appears in all proposals to be identical to the failed Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH) project that was proposed back in 2008.  That project was subsequently cancelled in 2012, before any state approved a final route.  However, the PATH legacy lives on in the memories of the folks who battled it last time.

I still have the detailed Jefferson County maps from the PATH project.  On these maps, you can zoom in to see an aerial photo of your area and where the existing transmission lines run, along with the proposed location of the PATH project.  Sorry it doesn't have any of the newer fancy GPS features like typing your address into a finder, but we're dealing with something circa 2009 here.  The map tiles should give you a general idea of how the new 765k line may impact your property.  

Couple of notes before you look at the maps.  There is one overview tile (above) and 11 other map tiles that trace the route across Jefferson County, tile by tile.  You'll have to find the tile with your property on it, then you can zoom in to take a closer look.

The PATH route is the yellow dotted line.  In some places, it deviated from the existing transmission corridor due to space constraints.  In some cases, the deviation took it miles away from the existing lines, so keep in mind that this line could be routed anywhere and will not necessarily stay parallel to the existing transmission lines.  In some places, there's a black dotted line that says "rebuild of existing 500kV line".  This was a way PATH planned to snake through narrow areas, however that rebuild can no longer happen due to the new 500kV/138kV line that was approved last year.  FirstEnergy is already using the space that the 138kV line currently sits on for its new 500kV line.  It cannot also use that same space for the 765kV line.  While it is possible to double-circuit a 138kV line with a 500 or 765kV line, it is not possible to double circuit 500 or 765kV lines with each other.  The new 765kV transmission line will have to be routed on a new 200 ft. wide right-of-way.  If you live in one of those dotted black line areas, it is likely that the new 765kV transmission line will take your home.  There's simply no where else to put it unless they deviate miles away from the existing transmission corridor.  It is virtually impossible to avoid everything and everyone.  It is a certainty that homes in Jefferson will be lost.  Yours may be one of them... sacrificed to the data center Gods in Virginia.

Also keep in mind that these aerial maps are 15 years old and cover a portion of Jefferson County that has seen enormous growth over the past several years.  Much of what was once farmland is now solar farms and new housing developments (and the building continues!). If you live in a newer development, your home might be represented in an old photo that shows the farms that were there before.  The true extent of the horror of how this line will impact Jefferson County isn't shown.

Now, the maps.  You may need to open several to find the one where your property is shown.  The tiles begin at the western edge of Jefferson and proceed east.

If your property is anywhere near the route for the failed PATH project, you should be concerned.  PATH is going to have a much harder time routing through Jefferson this time around and some properties will be sacrificed.

It's time to step up and get involved!  It's never too early to oppose new transmission needed only to serve Virginia's data centers.

When it first proposed creating a process to carry out new authority to designate National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors as enabled by changes to Sec. 216 of the Federal Power Act contained in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the DOE envisioned this:

At that time, DOE thought NIETCs were the key to everything transmission.  DOE got so enamored of  keys and locks that it began claiming that in order to feed at the tax money buffet Congress had created, a transmission project needed to be in an NIETC.  Then DOE created "guidance" (aka quasi-rules that have no legal effect) that said:

A clear message was sent to greedy transmission developers by the DOE -- request a NIETC or you're not getting into our buffet.  So, they did.  They requested 10 NEITCs that covered a hundred thousand acres of private property across the country.  When it released its preliminary list, DOE reiterated the necessity of NIETC designation as a ticket to the buffet:

Transmission developers took DOE at their word and admitted their only purpose in seeking NIETC designation was to get in line at the buffet.

Grain Belt Express admitted that it needed that NIETC to be able to unlock the buffet.

But then the DOE cancelled GBE's NIETC, along with 6 others that were never needed but had been pursued in order to get a seat at the buffet.

Why is DOE still continuing GBE's "conditional" loan guarantee now that the NIETC has been cancelled?  I thought the NIETC was the key to unlock the buffet?  Missouri Senator Josh Hawley asked DOE to cancel that guarantee recently.  Hawley mentioned that GBE doesn't have any customers.  Without customers, GBE doesn't have any means to repay a $4.9B DOE loan.  And why is the government giving a low cost loan to a privately owned electric toll road that will charge its voluntary customers a market-based fee to use its line?  A DOE loan won't lower the costs that customers would pay to use the line, it only increases Invenergy's profits that go into uber-rich owner Michael Polsky's pockets.  The electric transmission market that would set the market based rates for voluntary customers isn't going to change because Grain Belt Express paid less interest on its loan.  For a different kind of transmission project that is paid for by captive ratepayers, paying less interest goes back into the regulated rates the transmission company charges.  But for a market-based project like Grain Belt Express, paying less interest means the project is cheaper to construct, although the rates the market will allow GBE to charge won't change.  The amount of profit Grain Belt Express can create for its owner is the delta between what the project costs to build and the market rate for transmission.  DOE might as well put that $4.9B directly into Polsky's pocket. 

​Grain Belt Express has to provide a more economic option for transmission capacity than our existing public electric grid, or it won't attract any customers.  And that's just the problem... Grain Belt Express never has attracted any customers, aside from a gaggle of uninformed Missouri municipalities who signed a non-binding contract to purchase "up to" about 4% of GBE's total capacity.  If GBE was actually an economic option, a good idea, a needed project, it would have customers lining up to use it.  Instead... crickets.  And the DOE thought that was a good candidate for a $4.9B construction loan?

Perhaps that's because the DOE is fraught with corruption and most of its employees are scattered and goofing off.  A recent Inspector General report found that DOE does not enforce the rules against conflict of interest and treats taxpayer money like "monopoly money".

The report reveals that DOE is very lax about preventing conflicts and that it exercises absolutely no oversight over the third party "experts" that provide much of the documentation that becomes the basis for a decision to proceed with a loan.  Since the applicant for the loan (the company) pays for these third party experts that do the DOE's work to investigate the loan application, the DOE thinks it is prohibited from looking for conflicts of interest there.  Let me get this straight... the applicant is paying the salaries of the DOE contractors who process their own loan application?  Why doesn't DOE have impartial employees to carry out such an important task as safeguarding the hard-earned dollars of American taxpayers?  Why is it all farmed out to third party contractors who may have conflicts of interest?  This is outrageous!  Remember when Josh Hawley questioned Loan Program Office director Jigar Shaw in a committee hearing?  Seems like another session is desperately needed!

And if the NIETCs are supposed to "unlock" federal financing tools, it seems like Invenergy has another problem.  Invenergy's Cimarron Link merchant transmission line across Oklahoma filled its plate at the DOE financial incentives buffet.  Cimarron Link was awarded a $306M capacity contract just a few short months ago.  A capacity contract is just what Grain Belt Express is missing... a customer who will pay to use the merchant transmission line.  If a merchant transmission project doesn't attract any voluntary customers, that means it is not needed!  End of story!  But Congress gave the DOE authority to serve up our tax money in the form of a fake contract with Cimarron Link.  Oh, the money is real... Cimarron Link will receive $306M for use of its line over a period of up to 40 years, but DOE won't actually *use* the project.  It's paying for a contract it won't use so that Cimarron Link doesn't have to actually provide any service at all.  It's getting federal welfare paid for by all of us to construct a project that has no customers.  So, if Cimarron Link's NIETC has also been cancelled, does that mean it takes the capacity contract with it?  Someone needs to demand some answers!

The DOE is a corrupt political agency that has no business messing around in the reliable delivery of electricity.  We have plenty of regulators already whose actions actually do make sure the lights come on when we flip the switch.  DOE is a politically motivated chef, using our tax dollars to serve up a buffet of free Monopoly money to favored energy corporations.  And DOE isn't even very good at it... it makes up the rules as it goes, wastes an incredible amount of tax money, and in the end has nothing to show for it.  I dare you to name just one DOE transmission program that has successfully produced some benefit for the American people over the last four years.  Can't do it, can you?

DOE is engaged in the business of giving your money to energy corporations, it's not engaged in doing anything that actually helps you.

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy cancelled 7 out of 10 proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors.  Millions of landowners who would have been affected by the corridors are celebrating today.

The DOE's proposed NIETC map went from this:

To this:

I don't know any groups fighting against the corridors that are left, but I know plenty of folks who fought the ones that were eliminated.  So, what's left?  Lake Erie connector, which is created for a transmission line to connect the U.S. to Canada.  This project has been bumping around for years and will be routed underwater and underground.  Buried transmission that doesn't need new easements generally doesn't create opposition.  There's a Tribal Energy project in the Dakotas and Nebraska that will supposedly help the tribes develop their assets.  And there's the Southwestern corridor that begins in Kiowa County, Colorado and comes to an abrupt end at the border of White Sands in New Mexico.  On its way, it crosses over into the Oklahoma panhandle and is supposedly for benefit of NextEra's Heartland Spirit Connector transmission line, although that project begins in the panhandle and heads east, not west.

Although the DOE kept millions of landowners in suspense for months, the idea of building new transmission is what really took a beating during that time.  Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled these corridors have been scrapped, but it almost seemed like it was too easy, or predictable, sort of like the conclusion of a Hallmark Christmas movie.  Why were those other 7 corridors even suggested in the first place?  Was the DOE so captive to the submissions of greedy transmission developers that they just couldn't say no?  Was it because DOE took it upon itself to tie designation of a NIETC to receiving government handouts in the form of loans and contracts, even though there was no statutory reason to do so?  Has DOE changed its mind about NIETCs "unlocking" the vat of taxpayer money at DOE HQ?

Were they scrapped because DOE finally realized the truth of what I'd been telling them for the past several years at every comment opportunity?  NIETCs and the other transmission facilitation tools are actually going to HARM transmission and draw greater opposition than the transmission project could ever draw on its own.  What's worse than a greedy corporation taking your property by eminent domain?  A greedy corporation being joined by the federal government while trying to take your land by eminent domain, that's what!  Dang, DOE, it took you long enough to buy a clue!

So, what's the real story?  Couple of things leaking out...

DOE was quoted saying that the NIETCs can "disrupt" transmission planning or on going development.  Right... just like I've been telling you, DOE, NIETCs were like a magnet for more transmission opposition.

DOE also said there appeared to be little NIETCs could do to facilitate transmission in the near term.  In other words, don't try to apply corridors to projects that are already underway.  If you need to know why, see previous paragraph.

DOE turned out to be wrong about everything from the very beginning.  In fact, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that revived the NIETCs to put them into practice was wrong, too.  That's because it was concocted by "clean energy" proponents who don't have a clue in the world how landowners feel about eminent domain.  Oh, sure, these same environmental and special interest groups showed up for all the rulemakings that came out of their bespoke legislation for the purpose of building more transmission (for wind and solar).  And when they showed up in rulemakings they always pretended they were representing the interests of landowners and that they had experience working with landowners.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It was all a giant lie.  The real landowners have spoken.  NIETCs were about as popular as catching herpes in the hot tub of a cheap motel.

Now that the majority of the NIETCs are off the table, we can take a moment to relish the victory.  However, keep in mind that the NIETC process is a continual and revolving 3-year long process.  Every three years, DOE must make another transmission study, accept new ideas for NIETCs, and then go through the designation process all over again.  We could be right back here at the end of 2026 if Congress doesn't end NIETCs for good through amendment of Sec. 216 of the Energy Policy Act. 

We'll be working towards that goal while we're all back to work opposing the particular transmission proposals in our own community.  Landowner groups are coming together to fight transmission on a united front more than ever before.

Here in my neck of the woods, we'll be putting our effort into opposing two new transmission proposals from PJM Interconnection to build transmission extension cords from West Virginia's coal-fired power stations to new data centers in Loudoun County, Va.  Virginia can't build any new power generation because it's too "dirty", but they also can't stop building new power load in the form of data centers.  Data center taxes cover a large chunk of Loudoun County's budget.  How do you think Loudoun got to be the wealthiest county in the nation?  Through parasitic sucking of all the energy and wealth out of surrounding states.

There's still much work to do, but having a victory now and again is as invigorating as a polar plunge.  Happy Holidays, everyone!

A delicate balance between State and Federal authority over transmission lines has existed for decades.  It is what has kept the peace between federal transmission planning and state permitting authority.  The Third Circuit Court of Appeals stands poised to destroy it in a case that has so far escaped the notice of the hundreds of millions of people who will be profoundly impacted by its outcome.

Transource Pennsylvania LLC v. Steven M. Defrank, et.al asks the court to determine that a state permitting a new transmission project has no authority to second guess the findings of PJM Interconnection regarding need for a new transmission project.  

Transource was selected to build a market efficiency project nearly 10 years ago that, according to PJM, would reduce transmission congestion and make electricity cheaper in Washington DC and Baltimore.  The project was to be built connecting transmission lines in Pennsylvania with transmission lines in Maryland.  It needed permission from the Maryland PSC and the Pennsylvania PUC.  Maryland approved the project after PJM agreed that the eastern portion of the project could be built on existing easements.  Pennsylvania denied the project altogether on the basis of PJM's congestion forecast and cost/benefit analysis being proven wrong during the permitting process in that state.

Transource didn't like that outcome and filed several appeals.  The appeal to the federal district court struck paydirt and that judge opined that Pennsylvania had no authority to second guess PJM's findings regarding need.  The only role for Pennsylvania was to determine where to put the project and it was prohibited from denying a permit.

Pennsylvania appealed and the case has just been heard by the Third Circuit this month.  The oral argument was a disaster for the State -- its attorney couldn't get a word in edgewise as the panel of judges asked questions that only they seemed to know the correct answers to.  The writing is on the wall.  Next stop... SCOTUS.

States have laws in place that determine how an application for a new transmission project must be adjudicated.  The state is required to make several findings under state law.  While the findings may be different from state to state, most of them include a directive to determine if the project is needed.  This is why the permit issued is called a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (or other variations on this theme).  The state evaluates the case for need presented by the utility.  The utility presents its witnesses who say the project is needed, including witnesses from regional transmission organizations like PJM.  The state evaluates the evidence and makes its findings.  Never before in history has a state been required to accept the need findings of the regional grid operator without question.  In most cases, however, the state finds the regional transmission authority witnesses to be credible and adopts their determination of need in its determination.  However, in rare cases, the state has not found the regional transmission to be credible and has denied the permit.  It happened in New Jersey a few years ago in the Monmouth County Reliability Project case.  The utility in that case accepted the result and the project was not built.  Apparently we didn't need it anyhow.

And that's just the case with the Transource project.  The Pennsylvania PUC was right... the project was not needed.  PJM has recently revealed that the cost benefit ratio for the project has fallen below break even and that, if built, the project would cause uncontrolled congestion on the transmission system.  But when the lawyer for the State tried to bring that up during oral argument, the judges cut him right off.  They didn't want to hear it.

The Court's position would saddle electric ratepayers with huge costs for transmission projects that don't deliver more benefits than their cost to build.  Perhaps the Court would see it differently if they attended a couple of PJM meetings where these projects are evaluated and added to the plan.  PJM meetings are one-sided information sessions.  Although meeting participants can ask questions, PJM dismisses any arguments against its findings.  PJM is a utility member organization.  It always sides with the utilities.  There is no independent evaluator who looks at all the evidence before deciding the project is needed.  Compare to a state's evaluation of need, where all parties can present evidence to be decided by an impartial judge or panel of commissioners.  There is no give and take, or independent thought, at PJM... it is an authoritative dictatorship.

If states are prohibited from determining if a transmission project is needed under state law, what happens with merchant transmission projects or those planned by utilities outside a regional planning process?  Must the state also take the utility's determination of need without question?

The Court is prepared to open a can of worms that will ensure transmission is delayed or denied for other reasons.  Nobody likes being told that they have to accept the word of a dictator without question, states included.  The Court has suggested that a state who doesn't think a transmission line found needed in the regional planning process is actually needed should file a complaint against the grid operator at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  If that is the only avenue open to states, prepare for a deluge of complaints at FERC.  Since FERC moves at a snail's pace (on a good day) this is going to tie up regional transmission planning for years and ensure that nothing gets built until need for it has completely evaporated, as it did in the case of the Transource project.  A state that may have agreed with PJM that a project is needed is now required to file a complaint at FERC to get a determination on whether it is actually needed.  Instead of states, grid operators, and federal regulators cooperating to keep the transmission system reliable, we're going to have nothing but litigation and delays while the lights go out.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!  Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy cancelled the Delta-Plains National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor.  DOE said it was due to overwhelming opposition, but let's be real.  The transmission companies who would benefit from it begged to have it cancelled because it was creating overwhelming opposition to one of their projects, the Cimarron Link merchant transmission project.  And we all know who controls the DOE's NIETC designations, don't we?  Its being run by the private interests that the DOE abdicated to when it set up the program.  Our Department of Energy is being run by private companies with financial interest in building transmission.

While cancellation of the NIETC is good news for Oklahoma, it still doesn't do a thing about Cimarron Link.  Project owner Invenergy put out a statement saying nothing has changed for its project.  It still wants to build a transmission line from the panhandle to Jenks.  Invenergy even went so far as to claim that it was advocating for landowners to have the NIETC cancelled.  But Invenergy is still suing landowners in Oklahoma to gain access for surveys to build the project.  If it is successful there, the eminent domain suits are not far behind.

And don't forget about NextEra's Heartland Spirit project, which was also sited in the cancelled NIETC.  That project is also still moving forward.

In the wake of the cancellation, a whole bunch of Oklahoma politicians claimed credit and said they stood with landowners.  This is not their victory... this is the people's victory!  One politician even went to far as to claim that NIETCs were bad because they take property, but inexplicably Cimarron Link is good (because it takes property?).  

There's a whole lot that Oklahoma politicians and the local media don't understand about NIETCs.  The NIETC was never a transmission project, despite the many news stories saying a federal transmission project across Oklahoma was cancelled.  The media's ignorance has done nothing but confuse people into thinking that all the transmission projects have been cancelled.  That confusion is quickly being replaced by reality.

A NIETC is nothing more than a land use designation.  Once designated, it makes land in the corridor the first place to site new transmission projects.  If a state does not approve the transmission project, then the developer can petition the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to permit it.  If FERC issues a permit, then the developer could use federal eminent domain.  It's as simple as that.  The NIETC is not and never was a transmission project.  Therefore its cancellation simply means that Oklahoma law will be used to decide the issues, such as whether Cimarron Link is a utility furnishing power in Oklahoma.  Without knowing who Cimarron's customers will be, it is impossible to say that it is delivering electricity to Oklahoma.  Cimarron Link is what's known as a merchant transmission project.  It is a speculative, supplemental transmission line that is proposed purely for profit.  It is not needed by Oklahomans to keep the lights on.  Cimarron Link wants to sell its capacity through private contracts with utilities that actually serve Oklahomans, or maybe even to utilities or buyers in other states.  The electricity shipped on the line is not for Oklahoma, but to make a profit for Invenergy, who also owns the beginnings of the country's biggest wind farm under development in the panhandle.  It's Invenergy's private driveway to get its generation to a strong point in the transmission system (Jenks) where it can sell it to companies in other states.  Cimarron Link is a integral part of Invenergy's wind farm.  It's a transmission line only made necessary by that wind farm.  Without the wind farm, Cimarron Link wouldn't exist.  Cimarron Link isn't to provide needed reliability to the transmission system and it's not even for use by Oklahomans.

The NIETC was only cancelled because it was mucking up Invenergy's clandestine approach to securing easements with landowners.  Before the NIETC enraged the Oklahoma people, landowners may have felt isolated, ignored and vulnerable and therefore were easier to manipulate.  However, once the NIETC created a firestorm of opposition, landowners began to fight back.  The DOE and Invenergy hope that the huge opposition group will now disband and everything will go back to normal.  But you can't put toothpaste back in the tube, and you can't put the opposition genie back in the bottle.  The opposition Cimarron Link sees today is the opposition it's going to have to its project going forward.  The same opposition will also coalesce around NextEra's Heartland Spirit (another merchant project seeking to take advantage of Oklahomans).  And the opposition is also taking a hard look at Transource's Sooner-Wekiwa, a transmission project planned and ordered by regional grid operator Southwest Power Pool to provide needed reliability to Oklahoma's grid.  Transmission is never going to be the same in Oklahoma!  Power to the people!

Congratulations to the DOE for creating new and overwhelming opposition to new transmission lines!  What sounded like a good idea to the politicians in Washington DC and the clean energy interests that run the DOE is a complete dud when put into practice.  No, NIETCs won't help new transmission get built.  NIETCs will actually make it impossible to build anything because they reached too far and the American people are having none of it!  This week, DOE plans to roll out the other NIETCs it is still trying to plan and the same thing is going to happen on each and every one of them.  NIETCs are going to create a huge firestorm of opposition to new transmission lines and make it impossible to build them.  The sooner new leadership kills this stupid idea, the better off we'll all be.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who has long expressed concern about the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Program, has sent a letter to Secretary Jennifer Granholm demanding that DOE's "eleventh-hour funding" of Grain Belt Express be reversed.

The letter says that the project is doomed to failure and cannot survive without government intervention.  Senator Hawley tells the DOE that the project has no customers.  A decade after first advertising its project to secure contracts with customers, GBE is still batting zero.  If the project was actually needed, there would be voluntary customers.

He also says that the conditional approval issued by DOE's Loan Program office on November 25 is jumping the gun because none of the financial or environmental studies that would be the basis of a decision have been completed and won't be completed for more than a year, at best.  

How can the DOE know that GBE meets all the criteria for a loan when it hasn't yet completed studying it?  It's an approval based on politics and a "hurry up" knee jerk reaction to the re-election of President Trump.  Is this how $7B of taxpayer money should be spent?  On a project that has no commercial viability?  I hope this boondoggle is one of DOGE's first cuts.

Hawley also pans DOE's National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor process, which proposed creating a corridor across the Midwest that would give the federal government backstop siting authority in the event that GBE could not get state approvals.  It is DOE that tied its loan to the designation of a NIETC, requiring a much longer process for loan approval.  Even though Invenergy is now running away from NIETCs as fast as possible, it can't run away from this one.

Who remembers what happened to the Clean Line Plains and Eastern project, tied up at the DOE when President Trump was elected the first time?  Apparently DOE needs its memory refreshed... that project also could not find customers and its approval to participate in a different DOE program was quickly cancelled.  The writing is on the wall for GBE.  The sooner Invenergy realizes the impossibility of getting this project built within the next 4 years, the less money they'll lose overall.  

Read Senator Hawley's full letter here.  Bravo, Senator, for being a desperately needed agent of change in Washington DC.  We hope you can work with the new President and Secretary of Energy to clean house!

When industry lobbyists originally dreamed up National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs) back in 2005, they thought it would be easy to make sweeping land use designations and whip states into place to approve new transmission projects under threat of federal eminent domain.  It didn't quite work out that way though, when two separate courts nullified that plan.  NIETCs sat unused for a decade, a paper statue to stupid ideas that don't work in practice.

It hasn't worked out so swell for the industry lobbyists and their environmental NGO pets this time around either.  Although no corridors have officially been designated yet, transmission developers are running away from NIETCs as fast as they can.

In 2021, policy wonks thrilled with their new control of Big Government were looking for a way to shut down fossil fuels once and for all.  One of the wonky ideas to prop up 100% use of wind and solar was to build a whole bunch of new transmission lines to connect projects in remote locations to big cities and to also connect the projects to each other.  They thought they could ride out the performance problems of intermittent renewables if they could send more power around on new wires.  That's pure fantasy, but that didn't stop them from coming up with some really horrible ideas meant to get a whole bunch of new transmission built in record time.  One such terrible idea was to dust off the NIETCs and add a provision that allows the federal government to override a transmission denial by a state utility commission.

Once the policy wonks had their federal pre-emption set up through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the U.S. Department of Energy set to work devising a "guidance" for the process of designating NIETCs.  DOE really should have done a rulemaking, but that would have required them to actually follow rules, not make them up as they went along.

One of DOE's great ideas was to let profit-seeking utilities decide where they needed new transmission lines and request narrow NIETCs for them.  Harsh criticism through public comment caused DOE to simply hide its gift to the industry by pretending that any "interested party" could suggest where a corridor was needed and then DOE could designate the desired corridor.  The only difference was that the suggestions for corridors were no longer limited to transmission developers, however who would want or request a corridor except a developer that was going to make money from building a transmission project?  Greed of corporations has no correlation at all with where transmission is needed and where corridors should be designated.  If DOE had actually followed the statute, it would have come up with preliminary corridor designations on its own based on the results of its transmission needs study, and then those corridors were supposed to encourage transmission developers to propose projects where DOE said they were needed. Instead, DOE has allowed developers to decide where transmission is needed, and surprise, surprise, it totally aligns with where they want to build profitable transmission.  Need has been shut out.

So, DOE began its four "phase" process by opening itself up for suggestions for new corridors.  Many transmission developers who had been struggling to build unneeded projects for years, along with transmission developers who were looking at building new projects at such an opportune moment, submitted their project ideas to the DOE to be regurgitated as proposed NIETCs.

And so began DOE's Phase 2, where DOE released the preliminary corridor ideas it had received from greedy developers, but stopped short of doing any notification of the hundreds of millions of people located in the 10 proposed NIETCs.  DOE also limited its involvement with the press, preferring to only provide information to trade press with the hope that those impacted people wouldn't find out about it until it was too late to comment and become an interested party with rights to challenge any subsequent designation.  

It kinda worked.  Only a few people submitted comments.  Despite grassroots information sharing, many people simply couldn't believe such an audacious plan to conscript 100 million acres of land, or just could not be reached in time for DOE's artificially shortened 45-day comment period (which many persons had asked to be extended).

However, DOE and it's little wonky friends made two extremely critical errors in the rollout of NIETCs.

First, DOE created an information vacuum.  Although I tried to get accurate information to people (because the truth is horrible enough by itself) nature abhors a vacuum.  People began creating their own narrative around NIETCs to fill in the blank spaces that the DOE chose to create by not engaging in public notification.  He who creates the narrative controls it.  Many people did not understand that a NIETC is a land use designation, and not a transmission line project.  Many people cannot understand the varying widths of NIETCs and how they correlate with corridors requested from the DOE by transmission developers.  Misinformation filled the void, with many believing that the federal government is engaged in a land grab to create toxic energy zones miles wide across rural America.  Congratulations, DOE, you did this!  Purposeful lack of information has released the tin foil hat narrative genie from his bottle, and he's never going back in.  People have created such a fearful narrative based on distrust of the federal government that there's no way to change it now.

The NIETC horror is slowly spreading through the Midwest and West, with Oklahoma currently on fire and holding public meetings.  A couple months ago, it was Kansas, and before that it was Missouri.  These ultra wide corridors without any reason for their width and without any detailed maps has created a huge wave of fearful, suspicious and pissed off people.  This leads to...

Second, DOE's NIETCs are actually harming transmission project proposals, not helping them.  Those NIETCs that the developers thought they wanted last year are now an albatross they can't get rid of.  Because the corridors are so much wider than the actual transmission project and because of the government involvement, they are creating much more opposition than a quiet transmission project could have ever created on its own.  Isn't that right Invenergy?  NextEra?  Both of you were trying to build your own little undercover transmission projects across Oklahoma and had been doing so for several years.  Both had been having some measure of success acquiring easements and neither project had yet attracted much citizen opposition.  Well, the NIETCs blew the doors off that.  Now the transmission projects are facing a huge wave of staunch opposition that's going to make it nearly impossible to complete the project because Oklahoma law doesn't really give eminent domain authority to merchant transmission.

Because of the blowback, transmission developers are actually running away from the NIETCs as fast as possible and trying to claim they have nothing to do with them.

Oh, c'mon now.  Of course Invenergy asked for the Delta Plains corridor, along with NextEra, whose Heartland Spirit transmission line makes up it southern border (and the part that continues into Arkansas).  Anyone who has been paying attention to transmission in Oklahoma would instantly recognize the northern border of Delta-Plains as AEP/PSO's failed WindCatcher proposal, now reincarnated by Invenergy's Cimarron Link.  The southern border of the Delta-Plains is Clean Line Energy Partners' failed Plains and Eastern Clean Line, now reincarnated at NextEra's Heartland Spirit.  I've been writing about this for years.  Instead of making two separate NIETCs, the DOE simply combined these two relatively close transmission projects into one NIETC and all the folks in between the two projects got thrown to the wolves.  After all, they weren't supposed to find out about it.

And in Kansas and Missouri, Invenergy has submitted comments to the DOE asking that it narrow its proposed Midwest-Plains corridor to half a mile, just wide enough for its Grain Belt Express project.  Grain Belt was already approved in those states, but announcement of the NIETC was getting people fired up all over again, and attracting the ire of elected officials.

That's right... Congressional representatives are gearing up to thwart NIETCs. Nobody thinks these corridors are a good idea, not even the developers that thought they wanted them in the first place.  NIETCs are making it more difficult to build new transmission because they are creating a larger pool of opposition and those opponents control the narrative because DOE failed to provide any public information, creating an information vacuum.

Those people at the DOE who are running the NIETC program ought to be fired.  They have thoroughly mismanaged it and made it not only useless, but something to be actively shunned.  That's okay though... I'm pretty sure those folks will soon be in the unemployment line come January.  I hope they've managed to give away enough of your tax money to "clean energy" think tanks and NGOs to secure new employment where they can wait out the next 4 years.

We were promised that DOE would be beginning Phase 3 of its NIETC designation process "Fall 2024."  Fall's over.  Nothing yet.  We were also told that DOE would be releasing its updated list of proposed NIETCs and detailed maps "in November, after the election."  That also didn't happen.

And what about NIETCs when there's nobody left in Washington to run the program?  Most likely not happening, at least not for the next 4 years.  But unless Congress cleans that mess up, it's like a deadly seed just waiting to be watered to spring back to life under a future administration.