To approve negotiated rates for a transmission project, the Commission must find that the rates are just and reasonable. To do so, the Commission must determine that the merchant transmission owner has assumed the full market risk for the cost of constructing its proposed transmission project.

Rock Island meets the definition of a merchant transmission owner because it assumes all market risk associated with the Project and has no captive customers. Rock Island has agreed to bear all the risk that the Project will succeed or fail based on whether a market exists for its services.

Rock Island also argues that wind generators, whose energy the Project will likely transmit, present numerous risks that transmission project developers and investors must overcome. For example, Rock Island states that wind energy projects are typically constructed with shorter lead times than other generators and are less willing to commit to large transmission projects well in advance of generator construction. Rock Island argues that pre-subscription of capacity with creditworthy anchor customers can reduce financing obstacles because lenders demand to see a secure source of revenue as a predicate to project financing.

The mitigation proposal includes more than $52 million in funding for Jamestown Island, Hog Island and the Captain John Smith Historic Trail District. The money would fund projects such as seawall rehabilitation and replacement at Historic Jamestowne to help combat the impacts of sea-level rise and erosion, according to the draft mitigation plan obtained by the Virginia Gazette.

The mitigation plan proposal includes $15.5 million in funding for water quality improvement including erosion and sediment control in the James River. Battlefield and landscape conservation projects would get $12 million, including government and private lands associated with the Battle of Yorktown, according to the proposal. More than $4 million would go to protecting emergent marsh at the Hog Island Wildlife Management Area.

Electricity on the PJM grid normally flows from west to east. The major centers for electricity demand are the big metropolises along the Eastern Seaboard, at the eastern edge of the PJM system. There aren’t any power plants located in the Atlantic Ocean, therefore power that isn’t generated locally has to come from the west. As it happens, PJM’s western states have abundant, low-cost wind power — at night-time, wind power is so plentiful compared to demand that the price essentially falls to zero. The main factor limiting East Coast access to that cheap wind is the limited capacity of the transmission grid to carry it.

In the United States, 53% of the nation’s population lives in coastal areas, where energy costs and demands are high and land-based renewable energy resources are often limited. Abundant offshore wind resources have the potential to supply immense quantities of renewable energy to major U.S. coastal cities, such as New York City and Boston.  

Offshore winds tend to blow harder and more uniformly than on land.

Many opponents remain, including the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, which says the plan would lead to a huge shift in risk from AEP to its customers; competing energy companies such as Dynegy Inc., which say the proposal is an illegal subsidy that would disrupt Ohio’s competitive electricity market; and environmental groups such as the Ohio Environmental Council, which say the deal is tilted to favor AEP’s interests over all others.

Still, the No. 1 commitment for AEP is its shareholders.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is expected to decide on the proposed settlement early next year. Having the respected Sierra Club on its side should help ease the decision.

GBX is asking for a back-up plan for its field of dreams approach to recovering costs, by coming back to the Commission to comply with the financing condition proposed in the Final Order.

As the Farm Bureau previously argued before this Commission, the denial of GBX’s Application by the MPSC, along with the recent Circuit Court of Caldwell County Order which held that GBX has no authority to construct the proposed line through Caldwell County, Missouri, there will be no construction in Illinois by GBX due to the denials in Missouri. This Commission should consider additional evidence on this issue which occurred after the close of the evidentiary hearings, as described in Exhibit A, the Affidavit of Paul A. Agathen, a Missouri attorney who represents the Missouri Landowners Alliance (“MLA”). The Final Order erred on this issue. Thus, the Commission should rehear this issue.

The record in this docket is devoid of any evidence that the Project would promote the convenience or necessity of anyone other than GBX and certain West Kansas wind developers who said they would use the Project if it ever gets built.

Boiled down, GBX merely asserts that a beneficial project like the Project is needed. Why is it needed? Because it is so beneficial. GBX’s argument that a need for the project exists based on a set of alleged benefits amounts to question-begging on a grand scale. GBX assumes what the Commission should require it to prove. Rather than focus on whether there is any need for the project, GBX jumps right into a show-and-tell on how beneficial the Project will be. The Commission concludes from this that a project with this many benefits must be needed.

Stated another way, the Commission fails to distinguish a benefit from a need. It merely accepts GBX’s catalog of purported benefits as proof of need. Under the Commission’s look-only-at-the-benefits logic, it could just as easily conclude that residents of Point Barrow, Alaska need Frigidaires.

...the Illinois RPS may be satisfied by buying RECs generated in GBX’s targeted west Kansas resource area, and those west Kansas-generated RECs can be purchased without having to build a $2,750,000,000 transmission line across four states.

...the GBX Project is “[l]ike that old 1970s song about Oz and the Tin Man, [because GBX] will give nothing to PJM that it doesn’t already have.”

While the Commission makes soothing noises that it takes seriously the landowners’ concerns about GBX’s ability to use the power of eminent domain against them, it immediately and blatantly contradicts itself by dismissing their concerns as unwarranted because GBX has not specifically requested eminent domain authority in this docket.  Less than a moment’s thought suffices to show the absurdity of the Commission’s position on this issue. If GBX is granted a CPCN it could ultimately use the power of eminent domain against landowners under Section 8-509.
Instead of coming to grips with the power of eminent domain as an integral component of public utility easement acquisitions, the Commission adopts the Pollyanna Principle and accepts at face value GBX’s well-oiled talking points about its voluntary “code of conduct” when dealing with landowners, its promises of respectful treatment, its commitment to negotiate reasonably, and so forth. For the Commission to completely discount the potential impact of eminent domain on landowners simply because GBX did not ask for it in this docket is arbitrary and capricious, and an utter abdication of the Commission’s duty to Illinois citizens.

The Commission’s attitude toward GBX is one of serene and nearly limitless benevolence: whatever GBX can’t do now, it can certainly do later. The Commission will grant GBX its CPCN here and now even though it can’t satisfy most of the requirements of Section 8-406.1 until some unknown point in the future.

But when the landowners raise the issue of GBX’s potential future use of the power of eminent domain against them, which the Commission knows full well inheres in every easement negotiation between GBX and a landowner, the Commission summarily dismisses their concerns as premature because GBX hasn’t asked for eminent domain power here and now, in this docket. In this the Commission subjects the landowners to an egregious double standard, and indulges itself in arbitrariness and caprice of the grossest sort.

GBX’s least cost argument thus rests entirely on its claim that it has no alternative but to be least cost because its entire corporate existence will be some kind of Darwinian
market struggle where only the fittest survive.

The unmistakable irony here is that GBX destroys its own claim to be least cost by asserting that it can exempt itself from those same inexorable free market forces if the going gets tough: GBX reserves to itself the right to seek cost allocation to ratepayers, and in so doing proves itself just another corporate dissembler trying to evade committing itself irrevocably to the ups and downs of the market. And if there are too many downs, the ratepayers can bail GBX out.

But in this docket GBX tells the Commission that it is a “merchant transmission owner” not because it has assumed the full market risk of the Project, but because it plans to earn revenues through discrete transmission services contracts with shippers. This definition of “merchant” transmission owner” appears nowhere in FERC’s orders. That’s because it is a definition concocted entirely by GBX itself, and it differs fundamentally from FERC’s.

Understanding the term “assumption of all market risk” does not require a degree in economics: an assumption of all market risk means exactly that, all market risk, come Hell or high water.

This Commission has no jurisdiction to determine whether or how much of an interstate transmission operator’s costs may be recovered from anyone. The rates, terms and conditions of service for interstate transmission are exclusively matters of federal jurisdiction.

...GBX has no power to confer on this Commission subject matter jurisdiction over the rates, terms and conditions of service on interstate transmission facilities.

If GBX were really a “merchant” transmission owner as defined by FERC, then there would be no questions concerning cost allocation,
and this entire discussion would be unnecessary. GBX simply wants to have it both ways, eating its free market cake while having its cost allocation too.

The purchase power agreement (PPA) [with Public Utilities Commission of Ohio] was the last missing piece: balance sheet shored up; equity overhang removed — we see no more surprises for investors.

"FirstEnergy’s proposal will put safeguards in place to protect our customers from increased price volatility that’s expected to occur in the years ahead," said Doug Colafella, a company spokesman.

... other utilities will want profit guarantees in Ohio and in neighboring states. This, in turn, will undermine a competitive market in which many companies do not have the resources to secure government help the way that FirstEnergy does.

Independent power companies competing against FirstEnergy for customers in Ohio and throughout the 13-state region where high-voltage transmission lines are controlled by PJM Interconnection are not asking for special deals like FirstEnergy is, said Glen Thomas, president of PJM Power Providers Group.

"Our members are competing to provide the most efficient and economic power to consumers in Ohio as possible. We oppose this deal.  We see it as destroying all the benefits Ohio has gained from competitive markets.

"By going down a road where you subsidize plants that are not able to compete economically with other plants, you crowd out these economic advantages as well as send a terrible signal to the market that the best way ... is not to operate at most efficient levels but to seek a bail out from the PUCO."

Arcadia Power will buy renewable energy to match your usage, ensuring that an equal amount of clean energy is getting on the power grid.

...we buy Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) on behalf of residential and business customers, and sometimes we source our own RECs from projects we directly invest in.

RECs are not offsets and the voluntary green power market does not reduce emissions from electricity generation.

The problem is that green power markets, as currently structured, cannot achieve this goal. They were created on a fundamentally flawed foundation—that buying a virtual attribute can substitute for physically consuming a specific good or service. Further, the incentives of the participants in green power markets—power companies selling RECs, intermediaries marketing them, organizations certifying them, and companies buying them—are aligned, leaving no one with a strong interest in questioning the claims being made.

With these concerns in mind, we are challenging everyone to question their own assumptions about voluntary green power markets.

Nonetheless, claims that voluntary RECs reduce carbon emissions are highly suspect. Their direct effect is not to reduce net emissions, but to shift responsibility for emissions between parties. They only reduce net emissions, if at all, indirectly, by demonstrating demand for clean energy and by providing a modest boost in revenue to the clean electricity industry.

It's weak tea. Buy voluntary RECs if you like, they're cheap as hell, but have no illusions that by doing so you are offsetting your emissions. It's like tossing your supermarket change into a Unicef jar. Whatever, it's better than not doing so, but you're not "curing poverty."

We offer a flat-price premium of $0.015 per kWh for 100% Wind Energy in all states except for Oregon and Washington state.

Arcadia Power pays your local utility directly and provides you with a consolidated statement each month that combines your local utility charges with your clean energy from them.

Arcadia Power simplifies your life by providing every customer with automatic billing – either with a credit card or direct debit from your checking account. We provide you with an easy-to-read e-statement every month and you never have to worry about missing a payment!

Block Grain Belt Express President Dave Buchman said, “We are disappointed by today’s decision but it was not unexpected. It is imperative for members of the opposition to remain united in our common goal of preserving property rights.” Buckman is anxious to review the order so that the group may formulate a plan of action. They have many avenues of defense still available, such as appealing the decision because the ICC violated state law by allowing Clean Line to file under an expedited permitting process for public utilities, although Clean Line is not a public utility. Additionally, Buckman advises that it is crucial to remember that if landowners stick together, the eminent domain process will be significantly more difficult, if not impossible, for Clean Line.

Opponents of Grain Belt Express recently won another significant victory in their efforts to block construction of a proposed mega electric transmission line through Missouri. Last month, the Caldwell County Circuit Court found that a project franchise initially granted by the County, but later rescinded, was void. Under Missouri law, Grain Belt Express must have the franchise of all counties crossed in order to build its project.
 
 Last year the Missouri Landowners Alliance (MLA) filed a petition in the Circuit Court of Caldwell County, asking the Court to find that the franchise supposedly granted by the Caldwell County Commission to Grain Belt was void and/or unenforceable.  The franchise would have allowed Grain Belt to build its line on and over the public roads of the county.
 
On October 7, the Circuit Court issued an Order finding in favor of the MLA.  The time for Grain Belt to appeal that Order has now passed.  Therefore, as a practical matter, Grain Belt now has no legal authority to build its proposed line across Caldwell County.  And Grain Belt would have no such authority to build, even if it could somehow persuade the Missouri Public Service Commission to reverse its decision earlier this year that denied Grain Belt a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity.  Grain Belt must obtain authorization not only from the PSC, but also from the County Commission in each of the Missouri counties where it plans to locate the line.
 
Grain Belt’s only apparent hope for building the line through Caldwell County would be to convince the County Commission to reissue a new franchise for the proposed line.  Given that the County Commission supported the MLA in the Caldwell County Circuit Court case, the MLA is optimistic that the County Commission would reject any such overtures from Grain Belt. A survey taken last year for Grain Belt revealed that the citizens of Caldwell County overwhelmingly oppose the proposed transmission line.
 
Grain Belt could conceivably try to salvage this project by somehow re-routing the line around Caldwell County, into other neighboring counties.  But given Grain Belt’s claim that the optimal route for the line is through Caldwell County, that option would seemingly raise a host of problems for Grain Belt.

The Grain Belt project is spearheaded by a Houston-based, investor-owned company with the goal of transmitting energy from Kansas to the richer eastern markets. After a lengthy court battle, in July the Missouri Public Service Commission issued an order finding that Grain Belt Express has failed to meet, by a preponderance of the evidence, its burden of proof to demonstrate that the project is necessary or convenient for the public service.      
 
Recently, the Illinois Commerce Commission granted Grain Belt permission to build in Illinois, leaving Missouri as the only holdout.  Jennifer Gatrel from grassroots group Block Grain Belt stated, “The decision by the Illinois commissioners is in no way final. There will be an extensive appeals process, which the opposition has an excellent chance of winning. We are all very grateful for the two brave commissioners who, in their dissent, outlined why it was illegal for Clean Line to be allowed the expedited permitting process available for public utilities. Their support will be invaluable in the appeal.”
 
Russ Piscotta, President of Block Grain Belt Missouri, stated, “We have beat them once and we will beat them again as many times as necessary. We have spent this time preparing our strategies and are ready to once again defend ourselves. Overall, as a grassroots group, we are doing excellent. We need to remember that Clean Line's goal is to dishearten us. Our goal is to prevent the precedent of a private company getting access to eminent domain. We are doing great so far and will continue to win. We simply cannot afford to lose. Many thanks to the thousands of devoted landowners who have sacrificed much. We are all in this together, and together we will succeed!”

In Iowa, the fate of RICL is equally uncertain. RICL has directed the Iowa Utility Board to suspend all work on their application. In spite of 18 months of land agent activity, less that 15 percent of the easements have been acquired and opposition remains strong.   

Carolyn Sheridan, president of the grass roots organization Preservation of Rural Iowa (PRIA) commented,  “We have a strong legal team and support continues to grow as they and we monitor all aspects of this proposed project. There is no indication that landowners will change their opposition to the misuse of eminent domain." 

Those closely monitoring the project say they were told months ago it had been put on hold. Land agents haven't been in the state for months.

Iowa Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, a supporter of the line, said at a wind energy conference in September that the plan had "kind of been placed on hold right now." Clean Line Energy Partners spokeswoman Sarah Bray said the next day that the project was "certainly still moving forward," with biological studies, wind resource assessment and commercial discussions.

Bray struck a different tone in response to an inquiry on Thursday.

"Given the unique regulatory structure in Iowa, we are currently assessing ways to move the project forward and continue easement negotiations without incurring significant financial and regulatory risk," she wrote in an email.

A controversial electric transmission line project pushed by Houston-based Plains & Eastern Clean Line with the regulatory process challenged by members of Arkansas’ Congressional delegation would create a $660 million impact to Arkansas’ economy, according to a University of Arkansas report.

When asked about the UA economic impact report, Sen. Boozman said the issue is not the impact, but with the process and the potential cost to Arkansas ratepayers.

“Arkansans are not opposed to building needed infrastructure projects, but questions remain about whether this particular project is needed. No Arkansas utilities have signed up to purchase power from the line,” Boozman noted in a statement sent to Talk Business & Politics. “There are questions about the long-term benefits and costs to the state of Arkansas. Not only should a transmission project be necessary, but the state must be given an opportunity to review and approve it – just as it has always has in the past. When DC bureaucrats force a project on the state, as they have in this instance, the harm and costs may not be properly addressed.”

A statement from Rep. Womack’s office to Talk Business & Politics raised a question about who funded the UA study.

“Our concerns about the project are not based on whether Clean Line can commission a favorable study, but rather if the federal government should be able to supersede a state’s right to decide to license a utility and allow the use of eminent domain on behalf of a private company,” Womack said in the statement.

When asked about the perceived credibility of a study commissioned by Clean Line, Deck provided the following statement: “One of the things that our Center does for a wide variety of organizations is estimate economic impacts. Clean Line came to us to understand how its expenditures in Arkansas will affect the state’s economy. We very carefully looked at how much direct expenditure would be made and how the supply chain and personal expenditures that will result from that direct investment would impact the state. For this kind of study, there is no way to estimate economic impact without considerable input from the companies that are involved.  And, of course, companies are the most interested in understanding their own particular economic impact. So, for economic impact studies, you will almost always find that the economic impact generator is the funder of the work.

“As always, economic impact should be considered a single piece of the puzzle as we live in a complex world. But, it is an important piece.”

Jordan Wimpy, attorney for Arkansas Citizens Against Clean Line Energy, said Tuesday, “At this time, the primary concern of our clients is Department of Energy’s review of and potential participation in a project that meets no identified or documented transmission need. This is particularly concerning when the federal government’s involvement will circumvent normal state level review and may well include the use of federal eminent domain to condemn the property of private landowners in order to benefit a private, for-profit transmission company.”

Alison Millsaps, spokeswoman for Block Plains & Eastern Clean Line, said, “Again and again, Clean Line and their supporters attempt to focus solely on economic development in regard to Plains & Eastern. The people who make up the opposition to this line aren’t against economic development, they’re against the use of eminent domain to further what is essentially private economic development.

“Dangling big numbers doesn’t always make a proposal necessary or legal. We believe both of those issues will ultimately be determined in a court of law, not by a study on construction benefits,” she said.