The target of their legislation is the Rock Island Clean Line, a $2 billion, 500-mile overhead direct current transmission line.

Rogers called private property rights “critically important to our way of life.”

“Many farmers in my district live and work on land that has been in their family for generations, and they want to allow their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to continue to farm that land and feed the world,” Rogers said. “Our laws must adequately protect their property rights.”

The bill states that “the Missouri Public Service commission shall lack jurisdiction to approve the construction of any electric facilities to be built in accordance with Arkansas Public Service Commission Order 33, Docket Number 13-041-U, authorizing Route 109 as a ‘reasonable route’ for the construction of new three hundred forty-five kilovolt electric transmission lines.”

The Companies responding to this General Investigation proceeding have provided a lot of excuses to the Commission as to why so many customers received multiple consecutive poorly estimated bills that led to dramatically high “true up” bills.
Originally, the Companies tried to convince the Commission and the public the problems
were mainly caused by the timing and size of the Derecho and Super Storm Sandy.
When the problems continued, the Companies started providing further excuses, but did
not take responsibility for their role in creating many of the problems themselves and compounded the problem further by making unreasonable demands for payments from the impacted customers. In Staffs opinion, they still have not taken that responsibility.
The Derecho and Super Storm Sandy undeniably played a significant role in the problems underlying this case. However, all along the way, the Companies made poor decision after poor decision with little to no thought as to how it might impact their customers.
These poor decisions lead to multiple and continued violations of their tariffs. Staff takes
these violations very seriously and believes it is time the Companies own up to their mistakes and provide the Commission with concrete evidence these types of problems
will not reoccur. Further, the Companies should be required to either correct the ongoing problems with their estimation routine or switch from bi-monthly to monthly meter reading.

Hurricane Sandy struck the service territories with large amounts of heavy, salt-laden, snow that tore down trees and power lines...

It is easy, and some may say unfair, to play Monday morning quarterback with the decisions of the Companies. Staff does not believe it is unfair to do so in this circumstance. A poor decision here or there is just that, a decision that did not work out.
What we have here is something completely different, poor decision on top of poor
decision on top of devastating storms on top of more poor decisions with no management
thought of potential impacts to customers. This is a pattern of behavior. It appears FirstEnergy had a plan for integration and was determined to follow through with that
plan no matter the result. Little consideration was given to the customers, “merger
synergy savings” had to be captured. Indeed the Companies suspected as early as
September of 2012 there may be problems, but did nothing to attempt to resolve them
until April 2013. At that point, the problems had become so widespread the Companies
had no choice but to try and address them. However, shockingly, the Companies
continue to act as though they were simply a victim of circumstance. Generally, Staff believes the Commission should send a strong message to the Companies that this type of behavior will not be tolerated, that the Commission believes the Companies did indeed violate their tariff in multiple ways and that continued violations will be looked upon
very unfavorably.

Bad historical usage data begets bad data and, thus, CAD believes the only way to correct the problem caused by the Companies’ failure to conduct bi-monthly reads of residential meters is to obtain one year’s worth of reliable data from actual monthly meter reads. It is the goal of the CAD that this matter be resolved in the best possible manner for customers of MP and PE, who have undeniably suffered - and, in some instances, continue to suffer - the ill effects of the Companies’ meter reading and billing practices.

Throughout the course of this proceeding, the Companies have attempted to place the
majority of the blame for their billing and meter reading problems on the Derecho that occurred in June 2012 and Superstorm Sandy, which occurred in October 2012. However, while the storms may have exacerbated the Companies’ existing problem, it is inaccurate to contend that the storms caused the billing problems so many customers have faced. In actuality, the evidence shows that the merger of Allegheny Power into FirstEnergy in 2011 and subsequent transition issues in the wake of the merger, including understaffing, transitioning from the Allegheny billing system to the FirstEnergy billing system, and the questionable timing of the meter route “renumbering” project, created this problem.

The expected growth in electricity demand has not materialised. There is now a wide and growing margin of generation capacity over demand. A new gas-fired plant was commissioned last year and another one is due to come on stream towards the end of 2014. The construction of new wind-farms continues apace. While some of the older stations are coming to the end of their useful lives, none are on their last legs. If Ireland was left to its own devices, there would be no urgency about adding more generation capacity for many years to come.

*snip*

Plans by Eirgrid to upgrade the high voltage transmission network, and in particular to build three major lines in the southeast, the west and a new North-South line, reflect both the ongoing need to renew and strengthen the network but also the perceived requirement to accommodate additional wind-power units. If the Government's wind targets are excessively ambitious, some of the grid projects might not be needed. There is also a push from wind-energy companies, including State companies, to build more capacity designed for exporting power to the UK. If these plans go ahead, there would be yet more high voltage lines, on top of Eirgrid's proposals, from the midlands to the east coast, as well as further undersea interconnection to Britain.

Energy infrastructure is both expensive and controversial. *snip* Plans for new transmission lines, extra wind-farms and onshore gas exploration are meeting widespread resistance around the country and promise to dominate the local and European Parliament elections in May.

If energy infrastructure projects make economic sense, the political system must arbitrate the health, safety and environmental concerns that will inevitably, and quite properly, be raised. It is sometimes tempting to regard the objectors as locally oriented nimbies seeking to blackmail politicians who are pursuing necessary national priorities. Indeed this is hinted at in the government line on pylons and wind-farms, which takes it as read that the various projects are necessary to meet the requirements of development. But if the economic justification for the projects is flimsy, the balance of the argument is altered. In Ireland it has not been demonstrated that the continuing push for ever-greater reliance on intermittent wind-generated electricity makes economic sense, nor is it clear that wind is the least-cost path to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Should the Arkansas Public Service Commission approve Griffin’s order, Route 109 presents an unusual challenge, according to Brian Johnson, an employee of American Electric Power who testified on behalf of SWEPCO last fall. Johnson said the choice introduces an additional, unprecedented regulatory process because it crosses a state line.

“The permitting process for Missouri anticipates that any petitioning entity will already be a Missouri Public Utility — which SWEPCO and (American Electric Power) are not. It is unprecedented for a non-public utility to construct a line through Missouri, particularly without directly serving any Missouri customers. The likely regulatory delays and complications that arise from the line route in Missouri are of substantial concern,” Johnson testified.

Sen. David Sater, who is from Cassville and represents Barry, Lawrence, McDonald, Stone and Taney counties, said he is angered by the chosen route. He, Lant and Rep. Scott Fitzpatrick, of Shell Knob, met with commissioners last week.

“We encouraged MPSC members to act on behalf of Missourians and not on behalf of people from Arkansas. I think we made our presence felt there, and hopefully they’ll reject this,” Sater said.

The people of West Virginia had made clear demands: put land and people first.  The companies did neither, but continued on their profit-driven rampage destroying huge swaths of the West Virginia mountains – one of the world’s most beautiful landscapes – with mountaintop removal for cheaper access to coal, exposing residents to toxic air pollution in order to provide the rest of the nation with cheap energy.  The decisions made in the early 1970s are what got us here today, with hundreds of thousands of people spending days unsure when they would be able to drink their water again, with many remaining unsure as pipe flushing and other cleanup procedures have been ineffective.