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.

The Biden Administration and its clean energy clowns have officially run out of time.  After spending the last 4 years giving away our tax dollars to a parade of marginal projects that aren't viable on their own, Biden's DOE has finally reached the pinnacle of waste by creating the next Solyndra on steroids.

While the original Solyndra only wasted $500M in taxpayer funds, Biden's Grain Belt Express debacle has been given the green light to waste nearly $5 BILLION.  That's right... FIVE BILLION of your hard earned dollars collected from you by your government and gifted to private investment company Invenergy.

Solyndra was a proposed solar panel company that went bankrupt in 2011 after receiving $535 million in federal loans from the Obama administration.  Turns out that after spending all that taxpayer money, Solyndra really didn't have any customers or revenue to pay back the loan.  Turns out that Solyndra fudged information about having contracts and customers and DOE employees processing the loan were ordered to look the other way.  The DOE loaned taxpayer funds to a company that didn't have the means to pay it back.

On Monday, Biden's Department of Energy issued a "conditional approval" of a loan or loan guarantee in the amount of $4.9B for the Grain Belt Express.  Said "conditional approval" is contingent upon proof of contracts (or just fudged up crap about fictitious contracts apparently) along with completion of GBE's Environmental Impact Statement.  

In fact, GBE is still "in process" on a bunch of prerequisites for approval of its loan guarantee, but yet the DOE "approved" it anyhow.  That's not exactly legal.

This is what GBE's FAST-41 permitting dashboard looks like today:

Estimated completion date for the environmental review and permitting is April 2, 2026.  But somehow DOE approved it this week before they had finished the environmental review and permitting.

Grain Belt Express has a special website for its Environmental Impact Statement process, which was begun several years ago with "scoping" meetings and comments where you told DOE what environmental impacts to study.  Afterwards, DOE took a nice, long nap and nothing has been done.  DOE still has to publish a draft EIS, present the draft to the public, and take another round of comments before publishing the final report.  DOE must then wait at least 60 days before issuing its Record of Decision.

See GBE's EIS website fact sheet for these tidbits that the public was told about GBE's EIS and Loan Guarantee application:

DOE and GBE thought they would have another 4 years to stretch this process out.  Whoopsie!  Tick tock, time is nearly up!

Instead of following the law and the process that it laid out for the public, DOE has just gone ahead and approved the loan guarantee without finishing the EIS process.  Pretending that the approval is only "conditional" upon completing the EIS a couple years down the road presumes that DOE will approve that EIS before it's even finished.  At least we're now being transparent about the fact that the environmental review is so much busywork with a predetermined conclusion.

DOE thinks it can skirt the law by making up a "conditional" approval process.  Sorry, but that's not what the law says.  The recent Supreme Court decision that overturned Chevron will prevent DOE from making up regulations that have no basis in law.  Of course, this will require landowners and taxpayers to hire lawyers to appeal this travesty.  DOE is hoping you won't.  DOE and GBE hope you just give up now and let them have their way when you're so close to your own victory.

Contact your federal elected officials and see how they can help.

PJM's Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee (TEAC) meets next week during a special meeting devoted to new proposals to solve PJM's 2024 Window 1.  This may be your last opportunity to see the proposals and ask PJM questions about them.  It may also be your last opportunity to make comment to PJM before they make their selection.

Do you want more transmission in Jefferson County?  Window 1 is IN ADDITION TO the already ordered Window 3 project that proposes to widen the existing easement through southern Jefferson and build larger metal towers there that contain both the existing line and a new 500kV transmission line.

Window 3 is for the purpose of exporting coal-fired electricity from West Virginia to Virginia's out-of-control data center alley.  It's not for us.  We are simply fly over country.

Turns out Window 3 wasn't enough.  Virginia's data centers have exploded because they are all racing to deploy AI, and AI uses 10 times as much power as a regular data center.  Now PJM is looking for ANOTHER extension cord to power Virginia's data centers.

Here's some of the contenders...

A "new" PATH project (yes, the same project we defeated in 2011).  It begins at AEP's John Amos coal-fired generation station in Putnam Co., West Virginia and crosses through 14 counties in West Virginia (Putnam, Kanawha, Roane, Calhoun, Braxton, Lewis, Upshur, Barbour, Tucker, Preston, Grant, Hardy, Hampshire and Jefferson) before ending at a new substation in Frederick County, MD.  From there, it will be sent on a direct path to data center alley in Loudoun County, VA.   That project looks like this in PJM's plan:

The 765kV "new PATH" would also cross through southern Jefferson County on a new 200 foot wide easement next to the existing transmission corridor, taking another 200 feet of people's property, and in some instances their actual homes.  The towers will be 175' tall metal lattice with 4 guy wires holding up each one.

Another idea PJM is entertaining is building two new 500kV transmission lines from  the west that would cross Jefferson County in two places on a new parallel easement 200 ft. wide next to existing 500kV transmission lines.  This proposal would widen both these corridors by another 200 ft. and would gobble up homes.  One of these lines crosses the very northern portion of Jefferson in a subdivision called Leisure Acres, and the other one parallels the existing transmission corridor through southern Jefferson that has seen so many of these awful proposals over the past several years.  On a map, that proposal looks like this:

Why is Jefferson County always the target for new transmission extension cords for data center alley?  Because there are existing lines here already.  PJM and the utilities are under the impression that if you already live near a transmission line you would be eager to have another taking even more of your property, and possibly the very roof over your head.  PJM refuses to listen to the fact that expanding existing transmission corridors is more damaging to the communities than new lines that can be carefully sited to avoid homes and other development (or better yet buried on existing road and rail corridors).  Another reason that Jefferson is always a target is the two linear national parks that sit on our borders.  The C&O Canal follows the Potomac on the Maryland side.  The Appalachian Trail roughly follows our border with Virginia.  Both of these national parks should be protected from multiple infrastructure crossings, therefore the transmission companies try to simply widen existing crossings instead of creating new ones.  These parks that must be crossed to get to data center alley are one reason the same people are targeted over and over again.

There are other options PJM can select that don't involve Jefferson County this time.  It's up to us to convince them to look elsewhere.

So, what can you do?  This is your last chance to tell PJM what you think before they make their selections!  If you can, please attend PJM's TEAC meeting on Tuesday, November 19, 2024 from 1:00 - 3:00 PM.  You can attend over the telephone, or (recommended) via Webex on your computer.  Webex is recommended because you can view the presentation slides as they are discussed, and enter the question queue to ask a question or make a comment.  The meeting is open to everyone, and everyone is welcome to make a comment or ask a question.  However, you must sign up in advance to attend the meeting. 

You can sign up here.  Signing up requires you to create a PJM account.  Many people have had difficulty getting the account created.  If you experience issues, contact PJM by emailing [email protected] or calling (866) 400-8980.  These folks are very helpful and will get you fixed up in a jiffy.

What if you can't attend the meeting?  Please send an email to PJM and let them know what you think.  Download this document for the email addresses and suggested text.  If you don't tell PJM what you think, they're going to think Jefferson County doesn't care about becoming the electric transmission superhighway for Loudoun County's data centers.

This is our LAST CHANCE to try to influence PJM's selection.  You silence will be interpreted as acceptance.

Virginia is trying to shove the barn door closed after the horses escaped by holding a technical conference regarding its proliferation of data centers and who pays to provide their electric service.  Questions to be addressed include:

In other words, should Virginia create another rate class for electric service to "large users" (aka data centers) and assign them the cost of all the new transmission lines they make necessary?

Well, bravo, Virginia!  However, Virginia only has jurisdiction to assign the costs that are assigned to Virginia load serving utilities, like Dominion.  The cost allocation of these big lines is a federal responsibility under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).  FERC approves the assignment of costs made by regional grid operator PJM Interconnection.  PJM's current approved cost allocation methodology assigns the costs of lines 500kV and above to the entire PJM region.  The PJM region includes all or parts of 13 other states:  West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, the District of Columbia, Indiana, Michigan and Tennessee.  When PJM orders a new line 500kV or above, it allocates the costs among all 13 states based on the percent of the entire system that state has used over the past year.  Every state in the region uses the PJM system, and every one of those states gets a portion of the cost.  Each state then assigns the costs to its electric consumers using state rate classes.  Virginia is thinking about taking its portion and charging it directly to the data centers that take service in Virginia.  

But what about all the costs for data center transmission lines that are assigned to other states?  The other states cannot charge them to Virginia's data centers, they can only charge them to the customers who take service in their own state.  We're all still stuck with the cost of transmission extension cords that serve Virginia's data centers.

How can this change?  It can only change at the federal level where PJM's transmission cost allocation formula is approved.  That's FERC's jurisdiction.  When consumers and consumer advocates asked FERC to make PJM change its cost allocation formula to make the state with the data centers needing new transmission responsible for their entire cost, they were rejected 2-1.  Only when the entire cost of the transmission gets allocated to the state where the data centers take service can it be properly allocated to the actual users of these new extension cords through the very process Virginia is currently proposing.  Virginia's proposal only passes Virginia's share of the transmission line costs to Virginia's data centers.  The data centers that need the new transmission are not taking service in those other states and therefore the other states have no choice but to allocate the costs of new transmission service for Virginia's data centers to their own consumers.

Perhaps Virginia should first be asking FERC to change PJM's cost allocation formula so that Virginia is responsible for the entire cost of their transmission needs.  Instead, Virginia is happy to be a parasite and let other state electric consumers pay the cost of serving their data centers.

When consumers and consumer advocates questioned PJM's cost allocations for its Window 3 projects last year, the majority of the Commissioners were of the opinion that since PJM's cost allocations are already set and the cost allocations for Window 3 followed that cost allocation scheme, the only thing the Commission could do was approve them.  However, Commissioner Christie had a different opinion (although he legally had to concur).  He thought that the Commission should take up the issue of who pays for state public policies that cause new transmission, such as building data centers, or closing fossil fuel power plants.

So while Virginia is acting parochially to solve problems for its own ratepayers, it is avoiding asking FERC to weigh in on this issue and solve the transmission extension cord rate burden on other states.  What's it going to take to solve this issue at FERC?  The other states need to speak up to ask FERC to solve it.

Meanwhile, Virginia will be taking comments after it holds its technical conference on December 16.  You don't need to live in Virginia to submit a comment asking them to raise the issue at FERC so that ALL its data center extension cord costs are allocated to Virginia, who can then re-allocate them to the data centers.  Nothing is ever going to change unless the other states speak up.

Click here for more information about Virginia's technical conference, Case No. PUR-2024-00144.

Virginia is in love with the tax revenue data centers provide.  Northern Virginia is home of hundreds of data centers and is approving more every day.  Virginia long ago ran out of electricity to power their data centers.  Virginia's Clean Economy Act requires all electricity produced in Virginia to be "clean."  Virginia has shut down much of its baseload fossil fuel generation.  Where does Virginia think the electricity for its data centers is going to come from?

Surrounding states, like West Virginia and Pennsylvania, who still produce excess electricity from fossil fuels.  Virginia thinks it is still "clean" and meeting its goals if it uses electricity generated from fossil fuels in surrounding states.

When a new data center is approved, it requests service from its local electric utility.  That utility must provide the electric service requested as part of its responsibility as a public utility.  When the local utility does not have enough generation to provide the service, it must acquire it.  The local utility could build new generation near the need, if not for Virginia's Clean Economy Act.  Since the local utility does not have what it needs, it sends its request up the chain to regional grid operator and planner, PJM Interconnection.  PJM Interconnection is then holding the hot potato of supplying power to new data centers.  PJM can only order new electric transmission to import power to Virginia, it cannot order new generators to be built in Virginia.  Only Virginia can order new generators, and they are hamstrung by their Clean Economy Act.

PJM has been solving the data center electric need issue with the only tool in its toolbox... new electric transmission.

In 2023, PJM approved multiple new 500kV transmission lines to import electricity from surrounding states to Northern Virginia.

One of the new 500kV lines runs from a coal-fired electricity hub in southwestern Pennsylvania to Northern Virginia and passes through Jefferson County on its way.  

In Jefferson County, this new transmission line will be built by expanding the existing 500/138 transmission corridor to add a second 500kV line.  The corridor, running across the county south of Charles Town, currently looks like this.

The smaller of the two lines will be torn down and replaced by a second large metal lattice tower that will be 30-50 feet taller than the adjacent one.  On the new poles will be the new 500kV circuit and a new 138kV circuit to replace the one torn down.  In order to put these larger lines in, the easement that the smaller towers currently sits on (100 ft.) will have to be expanded to accommodate the larger structures.  FirstEnergy, owner of the new project, has not yet announced how much the easement must expand.

Many homes line this existing easement, which was mapped out many decades ago when it was farmland.  Over time, new homes were built just outside the existing easement.  When the easement expands, many of these homes and outbuildings will be gobbled up and razed to make way for Northern Virginia's data center electric extension cord.

But that's not all, oh no.  In the summer of 2024, PJM recognized that it had not planned enough imports for Northern Virginia's ever-growing data center burden in 2023.  Now PJM needs another 5,400 MW of electricity to be imported to Northern Virginia from surrounding states.  PJM followed its procedures to send out an RFP for new transmission lines to bring even more power to Northern Virginia.  In response, it received more than 90 proposals.  One of the new proposals revives the old, dead, unneeded PATH project that was cancelled in 2012 in response to overwhelming citizen opposition.  The new proposal looks like this on PJM's map. 

As proposed, it would add a new 765kV transmission line (the biggest, most powerful AC line they can build) from the John Amos coal-fired power plant in Putnam County to Northern Virginia.  John Amos, owned by American Electric Power, is the largest and dirtiest coal-fired electric generation plant in West Virginia.  The new line would cross 14 West Virginia Counties on its way to Northern Virginia:   Putnam, Kanawha, Roane, Calhoun, Braxton, Lewis, Upshur, Barbour, Tucker, Preston, Grant, Hardy, Hampshire and Jefferson.  It is proposed to be built on a new 200 ft. wide right-of-way using metal lattice guyed "V" towers that look like this and would be 175 ft. tall.

The guy wires holding up these structures increase their footprint and make them impossible to farm around.  You're not just dealing with an electric transmission tower, you're also dealing with 4 guy wires on a spreading footprint!

This new 765kV transmission line is proposed to run parallel to the existing transmission corridor in Jefferson County that is already proposed by be expanded by the new 500kV line PJM approved last year.  It would add a third enormous transmission tower to that corridor and expand it another 200 ft.

Interesting note:  Jefferson is the only place where a second transmission line is proposed in the same corridor impacted by the 2023 projects.  We are fast becoming the superhighway for electric extension cords for Northern Virginia data centers.  If we don't stand up now and stop this, PJM will think we don't care about impacts and that we will willingly accept more and more transmission lines until our county is destroyed by expanding electric transmission lines for Virginia!

What can you do?  We need people to get involved to help organize and create an organization to oppose these transmission proposals.  The StopPATHWV organization that incorporated and battled the PATH project has long since been disbanded.  While the wealth of knowledge gained fighting PATH still exists, the few who remain need your help to get organized!  Organize a meeting in your neighborhood, connect with other neighborhoods, hold larger meetings, and the people who will lead this fight will emerge.  Grassroots groups are as organic as their name... get people together and the magic happens!  The people who fought PATH the first time are standing by to help and educate, but we can't do it all by ourselves.

Here's something you can do right now... today... and in the upcoming months as PJM considers these new proposals and eventually selects the one it thinks best meets the need.  Let PJM know what you think!  You can send an email, or attend upcoming committee meetings and voice your opinion live at their meetings.  Here's how to get involved:
​

If we don't stand up for ourselves, no one else will!  Virginia is completely uninterested in solving its data center and energy issues because right now it's easy for them to take advantage of neighboring states.  Only when Virginia's energy problems affect Virginians will Virginia effect change!

No, it's not the "lobbying, campaign money, and bribes" purported to be in your electric bill in this stunningly incorrect article, it's the supposed "advocates" (as the article calls them) who are meddling in your electric rates for political reasons.  This whole article is a political stunt targeting fossil fuels and the electric industry after those same "advocates" didn't get their way trying to change FERC's accounting rules three years ago.  These crafty shysters are just using you as a battering ram to try to get their way through new overly prescriptive laws written by people who don't understand utility accounting in the least.  And it pisses me off.

First, let's take a look at those self-proclaimed "advocates" who shopped this article to the USA Today reporter.  The "advocates" do not have a mission or responsibility to advocate for electric consumers.  Their mission is simple.  

It's all about climate change and employing sensationalism and made up bullshit to make people angry at certain targeted corporations.  It's not about saving you money on your electric bill, or stopping corruption.  These advocates don't actually DO anything to help ratepayers, except spew ignorance.  They have very little knowledge of electric rates and have never ever brought or prosecuted an electric rate case.   They are not consumer advocates, or even watchdogs.  They don't "watch" anything on behalf of consumers, they exploit tidbits they dig up by turning them into something they are not.

The charges in the electric bill you pay are determined by two different places:  your state utility board and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  Your state determines the rate you pay for generation and distribution, and FERC determines how much you pay for transmission.  Both systems already prohibit the recovery of money paid for lobbying, campaign money, and bribes.  What these climate change fanatics are doing is exploiting certain utility accounting failures to pretend they happen routinely.  No, they do not.  All the examples are one off instances of regulatory failure that were not uncovered by these self-proclaimed "advocates," but by REAL consumer advocates and even by actual consumers themselves.

Utility accounting is complicated, but I managed to master it over a number of years when I actively investigated a utility's recovery of advocacy and advertising costs to influence public officials to approve a transmission project.  I investigated, I challenged, I went through hearings, and I ended up before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.  Over that time period, I learned all there is to know about FERC's ratemaking process. 

Utilities record their expenses according to a chart of accounts.  A chart of accounts separates and organizes a utility's expenditures by type or purpose.  Each category of cost is defined in the chart of accounts.  A chart of accounts describes the different categories of expenses.  Here's FERC's Chart of Accounts.  States use a very similar system based on FERC's chart for consistency.  Rates are set based on these cost categories from the Chart of Accounts.

At the state level, distribution utilities (the ones who send you your monthly bill) use what are known as stated rates.  A stated rate is a dollar figure set by the state commission after examining a utility's typical expenses for a test year.  Once the rate is set, the dollar figure doesn't change until a new rate case is filed many years down the road.  The utility gets the same set amount of money every year and how it spends it is the utility's business.  Certain categories of costs such as lobbying, campaign contributions, and bribes are excluded from the rate.  The Chart of Accounts instructs that these expenses be placed into accounts that are not recoverable in rates.  However nobody is checking because it's a moot point... the amount collected cannot change.

Transmission rates that are set at FERC end up billed to your distribution utilities to be passed on to you in your bill.  The distribution utility and the state commission cannot change these rates but must pass them through to your bill without adjustment.  

At FERC, transmission utilities use what are known as Formula Rates.  A formula rate is a set of tables  that the utility fills out each year with account totals according to its Chart of Accounts.  The formula is the rate, not a set dollar amount.  All accounts, such as the one for lobbying and political contributions (bribes aren't legal and don't have an account), is either included or excluded from the formula rate.  The formula rate excludes these types of accounts from recovery.  Once FERC sets a formula rate, the utility is responsible for filling out the formula every year and calculating a monetary amount that it can recover as a rate.  The utility must do this in accordance with the Chart of Accounts and the formula.  The utility can then recover that amount without further supervision because the formula and Chart of Accounts limits recovery.  FERC does not review or approve the yearly filings.  They go into affect automatically. 

However, there is transparency where anyone who pays these rates (and their legal advocates from the various states) can examine the charges that flow through the formula into rates.  If an error is detected, the ratepayer can challenge the rate and FERC may order corrections.

The real problem here (and in any rate process) is the process of assigning account numbers to expenses.  Since some accounts are recoverable and some are not, assigning an expense to an incorrect account can make it recoverable in error.  Utilities have A LOT of these errors.
The way to keep these inappropriate expenses out of consumer electric bills is to actually examine and challenge rates, however the "advocates" can't be bothered to do that.  It's a lot of work.

Back in 2021, these "advocates" and some other clean energy and progressive political groups asked FERC to change the way its formula rates handle industry trade association dues.  They claimed FERC should make these unrecoverable and require the utility to get special permission to recover them during an approval process that doesn't exist for formula rates.  FERC opened a rulemaking proceeding (Docket No. RM22-5) to consider making changes.  These "advocates" and friends wanted FERC to require disclosure of all trade group expenditures and other political contributions so that it could easily use this information in anti-utility public relations campaigns.  They didn't want to have to waste time using the investigative process to find out information they could use against utilities, they wanted it handed to them on a silver platter.  They filed all sorts of cute suggestions that demonstrated their complete ignorance of FERC's ratemaking process.  FERC is supposed to destroy a system that works in order to play politics with special interest groups?  I filed initial and reply comments with a couple of other ratepayers who had successfully challenged transmission rates.  You​ can read them here

and here

Our comments schooled these political dummies and advocated for minimal process changes and more training for utility accountants.  And then FERC just abandoned the whole thing without taking any action.  What started as political meddling in order to scrape up information that could be used to attack utilities in advertising and social media campaigns was foiled by people who had actually successfully used FERC's process to challenge rates and score refunds for consumers.  Honestly, if we can figure it out and use it, then any "advocate" could do the same.  It doesn't need to be further dumbed down for you.

But the political schemers weren't done yet.  They took their manufactured complaints to state legislatures and told elected officials that they needed to change the ratemaking process to prevent the inclusion of lobbying, bribes, and campaign contributions in rates.  Because legislators know even less about utility ratemaking than the advocates, they were easily led by the nose.  You'd think the legislators would ask the state utility commissions and real ratepayer advocates if these changes were a good idea, but apparently not in at least three states where political special interests rule the legislature.

And they even got one Congress critter to file their legislation on the federal level.  It's an eye-watering display of micro-management of utility ratemaking that really doesn't change anything because none of it is workable.  The legislation attempts to change FERC's Chart of Accounts, which is a regulation written and approved by the Commission.  Legislators pass laws that do something or other... and regulators write regulations that define the process by which the agency will carry out the law passed by Congress.  Congress rarely gets into the weeds with this kind of detail because it is not an expert on ratemaking.  It wisely leaves the details to the experts.  However, that's not what happened here.  The "advocates" and their liberal political friends wrote the regulations they way they wanted them to be (usurping FERC's authority to write its own regulations) and then sent them to their Congressional pet for passage.  This is a stunningly bad idea.  Fortunately, it appears that the federal legislation has been DOA for more than a year.

Wake up, folks!  These political schemers have no business destroying the system that sets the electric rates you pay.  They don't know how the system works!
Don't believe everything you read in the main stream media these days.  It is often the brain farts of idiots.

Student reporter Mary McCue Bell is studying Investigative Journalism.  Stay in school, girl, you've got a lot more to learn!  Now I'm not sure what they're teaching in school these days, but a real investigative reporter doesn't approach a story with a preconceived agenda.  Bless her heart, she actually interviewed someone with a different point of view, but then curated the actual information she received to fit with her own opinion.  That's not investigative journalism, that's propaganda.

A fight across Missouri over transmission towers for reliable energy, her headline blared.

Reliable energy?  She forgot to "investigate" that word.  Reliability is a function of regional grid planners.  In Missouri, that's managed by MidContinent Independent System Operator, or MISO.  If a transmission line is needed to provide reliable energy in Missouri, it is planned and ordered by MISO.  Grain Belt Express is NOT a MISO project.  Instead, it is a speculative investment venture, an unneeded addition to MISO's grid.  GBE's owners are speculating that if they can build the project that voluntary customers will pay separate fees to use it to transmit energy across the state.  However, GBE only has one customer in Missouri for less than 5% of its available capacity.  GBE is not for "reliable energy."

Miss Mary was also completely bamboozled by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) designation process, which claims to be creating corridors for the transmission of reliable energy.  However, DOE also has no authority to plan the transmission system, or order transmission projects.  Its role is advisory only.  It can produce mind numbing reports, and designate corridors for private transmission developers like Invenergy, but it has no authority or jurisdiction to plan or approve the transmission system.  Only the regional grid operators like MISO can determine that a line is needed for reliability, and MISO relies on its own deep knowledge of the system to make plans.  It doesn't take orders from a silly, political agency like DOE.  The only thing reliable about GBE is the propaganda it produces.

Perhaps Mary should have pondered the significance of the passage of time before declaring that "a nationwide plan to increase the reliability of electricity and reduce consumer costs" is playing out in Missouri.  The idea for Grain Belt Express was hatched more than a dozen years ago, long before the government's recent "plan" that started with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021.  This battle started long before Mary recently discovered it.

Missouri citizens elected Senator Josh Hawley as their representative, no matter how disappointing that may be to Miss Mary.  His job is to use his "bully pulpit" to protect their interests.  Is the "bully pulpit" phrase just a sullen swipe at him because he refused to be interviewed by a student journalist with an agenda?  She certainly loved the bully pulpits inhabited by clean energy pot stirrer James Owen and political gasbag Tyson Slocum.

James Owen is not insensitive to landowners?  Ha ha ha.  No landowner actually believes that.  I don't either.  I watched his arrogant dismissal of their concerns while testifying at the PSC.  Maybe you ought to check his previous statements and videos.

Despite what the DOE told Miss Mary, the fact is that Grain Belt Express requested the Midwest-Plains transmission corridor to benefit its bogged down project with the ability to appeal state permitting denials, like the one recently ordered by an appeals court in Illinois.  GBE also wants a corridor so it can score a federal taxpayer-backed loan guarantee to build its project that currently doesn't have enough customers to be economic.  The Kansas Corporation Commission testified before a legislative committee just last week that GBE told them they requested the 5-mile wide corridor from DOE.  Who's lying here?  The DOE, or GBE, or the KCC?  Why don't you investigate that?

And here's something else to investigate... transmission lines do not create electricity, so they alone cannot "keep up with the nation's increasing power demands."  What we need is new baseload generation that can be depended upon to generate when needed, and it needs to be located near the increasing power demands, not imported hundreds of miles on unnecessary transmission lines.

What does Otto Lynch from Pennsylvania know about farming in Missouri, with his contention that farmers can easily farm around towers?  Nothing at all!  His views about farming are of no consequence and add absolutely nothing to this story.

Ditto on political gasbag Tyson Slocum, farming grant money in Washington DC for his half-assed attacks on the energy industry.  His perception of the landowners within proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors comes from the smug satisfaction of someone who isn't impacted in the least.  The real jackbooted thugs pretend that "meaningful consultation" with landowners before carrying on to a pre-determined conclusion somehow makes the stealing of private property okay.  It doesn't.  Would it be okay if I allowed you to cry a little about losing your purse before I forcibly took it?

Slocum's comments demonstrate a profound lack of knowledge about NIETCs.  I honestly can't remember him ever once commenting or being involved in this process.  He is inconsequential and his comments add nothing to this story.  He's a non-entity who never misses a chance to display his ignorance to anyone who will listen.

Key word here -- "investigate."  I give this project an F.

The U.S. Department of Energy has made a grave execution error in its rollout of National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors.  The DOE *thought* it could keep the whole thing under the radar until its planned corridors were selected, only engaging in public notice and participation when it was too late for impacted communities to derail their plans.  That hasn't worked out so swell, and citizen to citizen notification has created a public relations nightmare of epic proportions.

Midwestern states are rightfully terrified at the thought of 5 to 18 mile wide scorched earth corridors being taken from private landowners using federal eminent domain.  And because there was absolutely no useful information provided by the DOE, rumor and speculation has created a firestorm of opposition.  Elected officials have stepped up to defend their constituents, with numerous local resolutions against NIETCs being passed, and state and federal legislation to thwart the program being introduced.  The die has been cast... the public has written its own NIETC narrative, and they HATE the idea of NIETCs.

One such state is Kansas, which recently called staff from the Kansas Corporation Commission before a legislative committee to provide answers.  Why is a state utility commission explaining the actions of the federal government?  I will say, though, that the KCC representatives generally provided accurate information and only tried to "sell" Grain Belt Express to the legislature, not the NIETCs.  You can watch the approximately hour-long presentation and Q&A with the legislators here.

Fast forward the video to hour 5:07:58 to get to the the beginning of the KCC presentation before the committee.

The KCC shares that the Midwest-Plains Corridor was originally requested from DOE by Grain Belt Express, but now GBE has asked the DOE to narrow the 5-mile wide corridor to "only" half a mile.  Even at half a mile wide, this corridor could still house another 12.2 transmission lines like GBE!  A half mile is 2640 feet.  Grain Belt Express, and other large AC transmission projects of 500 or 765 kV use a 200 ft. wide right of way.  2640 feet could house 13.2 transmission lines.  Were the legislators supposed to feel better about a possibility of "only" 13 new transmission lines across Kansas?

Here's another point to ponder... the KCC guys explained that GBE has a current application at the KCC for approval of the "collector lines" GBE wants to build to connect proposed wind and solar farms in southwest Kansas to the Grain Belt Express.  KCC expects to approve this application on September 30 (like the good little Polsky lap dogs that they are).  However, the collector lines are NOT within the proposed NIETC.

The collector lines are the red and blue lines.  Proposed NIETC corridors are the green and tan lines.  The collectors are not within the proposed corridor.  I guess GBE doesn't really "need" those after all?  And why should they when the light green NIETC brings power to GBE from Oklahoma?  Here's what that looks like.

The Midwest-Plains corridor connects to the Mountain-Plains-Southwest corridor, which covers a huge swath of land in the Oklahoma Panhandle, where Invenergy is building the country's largest wind farm.  If Kansas thinks that GBE is going to spur economic development of large wind farms in Kansas, perhaps it should take a deep breath and think again.

The KCC says that GBE has asked for the NIETC in order to help itself to certain government handouts, but it forgot to mention the federal loan guarantee that GBE has applied for.  That program guarantees that the U.S. taxpayers will cover the $7B cost of GBE if Invenergy defaults on its loan.  GBE has not yet shown that it has enough customers to pay for its transmission project, and without customers it would not have enough revenue to pay the loan back.  The KCC instead suggested that GBE could help itself to "capacity contracts" where the DOE buys service on the transmission line that it will never use.  Instead, the DOE would pay for the use of the line until it can manage to re-sell it to some other customer (that didn't want to buy it in the first place).  Unfortunately, the KCC doesn't seem to realize that there is a finite amount of money to be used for capacity contracts and that the money has already been awarded to other projects.  There isn't enough money left to sign capacity contracts with GBE.  What GBE wants is that federal loan guarantee.

One of the legislators questioned whether NIETCs are a violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves certain powers to the states.  He should also recognize that it's also a violation of the Fifth Amendment, because it takes private property and reserves it for future transmission lines without compensation to the landowner.

For some reason, these guys think that Invenergy is "better" than Clean Line Energy Partners.  It's not.  It's that Invenergy is using eminent domain and the threat thereof to secure easements.  Clean Line never used eminent domain, and Clean Line actually intended to export Kansas wind on its transmission line.

Eminent domain is still eminent domain, whether it is granted by the KCC or the federal government.  It was greed that made the KCC give GBE utility status back in 2011.  It's utility status that gives transmission companies the right of eminent domain under Kansas law.

The KCC's Justin Grady did a lovely little dance trying to sell the legislative committee on GBE's ability to reverse flow and provide power to Kansas during a grid emergency.  He obviously doesn't know that it's not quite that simple.  While GBE may have the physical ability to do that, it cannot do that without injection rights granted by the Southwest Power Pool (SPP).  SPP is the grid operator at GBE's western terminus, which is the only place GBE could connect to the Kansas grid.  SPP operates the power grid and it must approve any injections of power into its grid to ensure the injections don't cause issues that can crash the grid.  Injection rights require lengthy study and enormous fees paid to SPP in order to gain approval.  Grain Belt Express hasn't engaged in that expensive and time consuming process.  GBE and its KCC representative, Justin Grady, are selling the legislators a pig in a poke.

Aside from Justin's love of Grain Belt Express (yes, the landowners know how much you threw them under the bus time and time again, Justin) the information provided to the committee was educational and accurate.

​Maybe Kansas should rethink this whole thing?  It's not too late!

What's scarier to greedy corporate interests than a grassroots movement against their industry?  Your success!  Corporate interests, whether it's the electric transmission industry, housing, data centers, or any other invasive and destructive industry are terrified of being thwarted by grassroots movements in the communities where they want to make money.

Last week, a grassroots group opposed to a new transmission line through central Maryland took their fight to the industry at a conference celebrating the data center industry in Frederick, Maryland.  

Let's examine this article using one of my favorite tools -- the seven common propaganda devices.  This tool is one of the oldest in the propaganda handbook.

The device employed most frequently by the conference organizers was "Name Calling."  

First example -- in the quoted paragraph above the demonstration was referred to as "the ruckus."  Protestors were also referred to as "noisy", a "flashmob", and "outraged".  A noisy, outraged, flashmob ruckus, a description that is intended to turn the reader against the protestors.  It's an ad hominem argument... don't pay any attention to what those people are saying because they are members of an unacceptable group.

​Protestors were also called uneducated.

...another name calling technique to marginalize you and steal your power.  I'm going to guess that Rick Weldon knows a lot less about MPRP than any one of the protestors, but he uses his position to create a presumption of superior knowledge.  The "education deficit" model has been a long time favorite of transmission project proponents.  They like to think that opposition to transmission only happens because the community doesn't have enough information to make a sensible decision.  However the opposite is actually true, the more you know about a proposed transmission project, the worse it sounds.  No amount of information or "education" can change the mind of a landowner threatened by new transmission ripping through his largest investment.

Uneducated outrage is how opponents were framed in order to make conference attendees see them as an unacceptable group who should not be acknowledged.

Meanwhile, conference organizers employed "Glittering Generalities" to boost their own position.  Jobs, school funding, dramatic growth in local businesses, Maryland's economy, land conservation, hiking and biking trails, and the most vague of all... a bright future!

Conference organizers also tried to sever Maryland's data centers from the MPRP.  Either they are uneducated themselves, or they are spinning a carefully crafted alternate reality.  Although Quantum Loophole's power supply is being provided by upgrading a dedicated transmission line to the old Eastalco plant, that doesn't mean QL won't benefit from MPRP.  Quantum Loophole's dedicated transmission line feeds power from the Doubs substation to Quantum Loophole.  Doubs is also the endpoint for the MPRP.  All power flowing through MPRP is delivered to Doubs, where it is transferred to the numerous lines feeding out of Doubs, including the one to Quantum Loophole.  Power from MPRP will absolutely be used at Quantum Loophole.  Could Quantum Loophole get as much power as it needed if MPRP was cancelled?  PJM Interconnection planned MPRP as one of several new 500kV transmission lines to serve data center load in Virginia and Maryland.  And since Quantum Loophole seems to support MPRP, it stands to reason they think they will benefit from it.

The public relations war is heating up.  But what will they say when those same protestors put down their protest signs and go inside the PSC to defend their properties through the legal process?  Will Quantum Loophole step up to defend MPRP?  Or will it use proxies to do so, such as labor unions and local business groups?  A different kind of war will break out at the PSC once the application is filed, and that's where the ultimate decision will be made.

Loudoun County, Virginia, has the largest concentration of data centers in the world.  The world!  It also has the nickname "Data Center Alley."  Loudoun County has become gross with data centers, and continues building more.  The data centers are Loudoun County's cash cow, providing a third of its annual budget.  Loudoun County is also the wealthiest county in the nation.  The entire nation!  Loudoun County is home to the rich and, due to its proximity to Washington, D.C., the powerful as well.  The rich and powerful thought nothing of Loudoun destroying its eastern regions, tossing them on the altar of the data center cash cow.  After all, more data center tax revenue means less taxes for the rich and powerful in the western regions of Loudoun.  Out of sight, out of mind!  Living near nasty infrastructure was fine for the plebeians, as long as the benefits from hosting it flowed to the rich and powerful.

But then something happened... the data centers needed more resources than Loudoun County had.  Now, normal people in that situation would begin building the resources needed to feed their cash cow, but that's not how things are done in Loudoun.  Loudoun continued to build its data centers and expected the needed resources would come from neighboring states just like magic.  Except importing those resources come with consequences, like new transmission extension cords.  Perish the thought!  Transmission lines are fine for those other states that still *gasp* burn coal to create electricity to power Loudoun's data centers, but they absolutely cannot happen in Loudoun!  Loudoun is ruled by the rich and powerful, don't cha know, and they absolutely cannot be burdened with anything so ugly and gauche as an electric transmission line bringing power to their data centers.

So the rich and powerful grabbed their government servants by the scruff of their necks and demanded that the government make the bad stuff go away... or else!

The Loudoun County government and local elected officials began holding secret meetings with NextEra, other transmission companies, PJM, and Western Loudoun's Sacred Cows to find a way to push the transmission nasties out of Loudoun.  After all, aren't those other states lesser trash cans in service of the rich and powerful in Loudoun?  When other citizens who would be impacted by a transmission line re-route asked to be included in the meetings, they were purposely excluded.  And wouldn't you know it... that's exactly where the MARL transmission line ended up... on the property of the landowners who tried to be included in the secret government meetings.  Loudoun County met with and did the bidding of a handful of rich and powerful citizens to TAKE property from other citizens not as fortunate.  Pepe' Le Pew tells me that kind of discrimination stinks to high heaven!

And so the MARL transmission line got pushed out of Loudoun County and over into Frederick and Montgomery Counties Maryland.  Benefits for Loudoun, impacts for neighboring states.  

The re-route will cost everyone in PJM an additional $167M to spare the sacred cows in Loudoun.  Loudoun thought nothing of this, even though other towns who ask for transmission siting concessions are usually required to pay the difference.

I'm starting to understand why Loudoun is the wealthiest county in the U.S. -- it doesn't pay its own way.  Loudoun County takes from neighboring states like a parasitic worm.

And now here they go again, with another transmission line that Loudoun County has demanded be buried for a short section that abuts another group of Sacred Cow homes.  That's all fine and good, but the burial is going to cost an additional $423M, a project cost increase of 61%!  Between these two transmission projects, saving Loudoun will cost electric consumers in other states more than half a billion dollars!

And who pays for that?  Every last electric customer in the PJM region.  Both of these projects that disturb Loudoun's delicate sensibilities are regional reliability projects that are charged 50% to all PJM consumers based on their load share ratio, and the other 50% is charged to the "users" of the project, which spreads to neighboring states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.  Virginia is only paying a portion of the cost of the new transmission extension cords to serve their data centers.  Any increase in costs will come out of the pockets of everyone in the PJM region.

So, how does Loudoun County think the burial of transmission lines near Landsdowne should be paid for?  

Well, that's a low-information expert for ya... Buddy Rizer doesn't know diddly about utility rates.  While Virginia *could* create a new rate class, it absolutely will not do so within this docket.  Asking for something like that is outside the bounds of this proceeding.  Therefore, Loudoun is not providing any way to pay for the excess cost.  And, even if Virginia created a new data center customer class to charge its share of the transmission extension cords to the data centers it hosts, that doesn't do a damned thing for the ratepayers in other states, who don't have any data centers (or data center classes) to charge their share of the excess cost of burying lines in Loudoun County in order to spare Loudoun any impacts.  It's another selfish suggestion on the part of Loudoun County.  And where was Loudoun County when we were arguing at FERC about whether Virginia's data centers should pick up the entire $5B cost of the Window 3 projects meant to serve them?  Nowhere.  It doesn't want to pay for the projects it has caused.  It just wants all the benefits without any of the impacts.

It's all over Buddy Rizer's testimony.  And for the rest of us who don't benefit from Loudoun's data centers, or keeping Loudoun free from invasive transmission projects, it's positively revolting!

Don't get me wrong... I don't believe anybody should be impacted by transmission lines.  And that's the difference between me and Loudoun County... Loudoun County seems to think that only its special residents should be free from the impacts of its data center extension cords.  Loudoun County is perfectly okay with impacts to landowners in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.  Loudoun County isn't advocating for its extension cords to be buried in those other states.  Those people simply don't matter to Loudoun County, except when they pay the extra cost of keeping Loudoun transmission line free.

It's about time that Loudoun started shouldering its own data center burden.  The data center transmission problem is completely of Loudoun County's making.  It could end it in a hot minute by putting a moratorium on data centers.  It could also solve it by building some new electric generators in Loudoun near the data centers.  Why don't you do these things instead of taking from neighboring states to fill your own coffers, Loudoun County?  Solve your own problem!  Your neighbors are quite sick of your hubris.  Here's a little advice from one of your favorite people!