Grain Belt Express made several revelations last week at a Kansas legislative committee meeting.  It was quite apparent that GBE realized that the NIETCs severely damaged its reputation and project prospects in Kansas (and any other state where Invenergy is trying to build transmission).  Your complete opposition and swift action on the proposed NIETCs gave GBE a real black eye.  GBE is now rightfully terrified that the welcome mat is going to be yanked out from under them in Kansas.  With such a massive uprising of the people, GBE's golden reputation in Kansas may be waning.  YOU can do it again.  You know how, and you've got the numbers!  The world is your oyster, transmission opponents!

So, GBE showed up at a recent meeting of the Joint Committee on Energy and Water at the Kansas legislature and made an obsequious presentation about the failed NIETCs and how great its project will be for Kansas.  You still love them, don't you, Kansas?  Kansas?  Hello?  Somebody needs a hug!

Remember how Invenergy has been claiming (in multiple states) that its transmission projects had NOTHING to do with the NIETCs and that Invenergy did not request them?  I have been pushing back against that for months because it is a big, fat lie.  Of course Invenergy submitted requests for NIETCs for all the transmission projects it is developing.  DOE asked for suggestions of where to make corridors.  They didn't have a crystal ball.  Invenergy DID request these corridors that so upset and horrified thousands of landowners across the Midwest.  Invenergy admits it at minute 12:00 of its presentation.  Listen carefully.

Right, like I've been saying... Invenergy requested these NIETCs.  Later on, Patrick whines that DOE didn't provide adequate notification and landowners got quite ticked off when they found out.  Invenergy was a huge fan of hiding its NIETC requests from landowners, until they got caught.  Then Invenergy first requested that its corridor be narrowed to half a mile, and in November it says it asked DOE to remove the corridor in its entirety.  Let's see... that's about the time you all got cranked up about the corridors.  Invenergy knew it was beat and threw in the towel.  You did this!  Congratulations!  You have the power!

And one more thing before I get onto the real revelation DOE and GBE is trying to hide from you now...

While Patrick Witty gave the presentation and began answering questions, he made the fatal mistake of calling Brad Pnazek up to the podium to answer a question.  The bombastic Brad took over and it was quite a while before Patrick was able to wrest the microphone away from him at the request of a legislator.  It might not have mattered if our friend Brad wasn't a prevaricator of the highest order.  Remember when Brad "misspoke" at a DOE EIS webinar to say that GBE wasn't necessarily a merchant transmission project and had not yet decided how its project would be structured?  Once again, Brad did not disappoint.  I'm going to be frank with you... Brad has a penchant for making crap up if he thinks it will help his position.  Even when the lie actually matters little, Brad can't help himself.  

Brad told the committee that while GBE pays 110% of fair market value, other utilities only pay 90% of fair market value for their easements.  C'mon, Brad, this lie doesn't even make sense!  All utilities are required by law to pay 100% of fair market value for the easements they want.  He followed that lie by saying that while GBE is only going to use eminent domain on around 4% of the easements needed, other utilities use eminent domain for 20% of the easements needed.  This is ANOTHER made up fact.  Utilities usually take less than 5% of the land they need using eminent domain.  A transmission line that attempted to take 20% would be a public relations disaster of epic proportions (sort of like requesting NIETCs, right, Brad?).

Gotta wonder about Brad.  Is he someone's relative or a political favor?  I understand that the Peter Principle elevates employees to their level of incompetence, but it's not just incompetence here.  Brad just can't help making crap up if he thinks it would sound good (in his own head).  Take note!  He's a ticking time bomb.  Deploy as necessary.

Now let's get to the most important and urgent revelation...

That's right, Patrick just casually dropped that in his presentation and the press (and everyone but me apparently) missed it.

As you may recall, Grain Belt Express has applied for a $4.9B loan guarantee (of taxpayer money) from the U.S. Department of Energy.  As part of its intent to grant that loan, the DOE is required by federal law to perform an Environmental Impact Statement on the project so that its environmental effects can be made public and taken into consideration when deciding to grant the loan.  Of course, you may also recall that the DOE granted a "conditional" approval of GBE's loan in its panicked, mad dash for the exit after President Trump was re-elected.  DOE has been madly pumping out the taxpayer dollars to its favored companies and projects ever since November.  GBE's "conditional" approval is contingent upon the completion of the EIS.  So does this mean that the EIS is merely a pre-determined exercise at this point, where the report is written to bolster the already granted approval?  Why even bother?

An EIS has several steps that the federal government usually drags out for years.  The first step is Scoping, where DOE shows the project to the public and asks them what it should study.  The DOE engages in the widest notification it can to make sure impacted communities can be engaged to make comment.  The DOE held public "workshop" meetings and accepted a boatload of public comment back in 2023.  Then DOE published a Scoping Report to share what they learned.  

And since then... crickets.  DOE did nothing with GBE's EIS for two years.  Guess they thought they had all the time in the world...  and then the real world intruded.  Now it's apparently a rush-rush, hurry up emergency.  DOE has set the MINIMUM time frame it can get away with to accept comments on its Draft EIS.  You have only 45-days to comment from the date the notice was published in the Federal Register.  You read the Federal Register every day, don't you?  You don't?  Of course you don't!  So, how is that public notice?  Sure, it's available to the public, if you know where to look and your crystal ball lets you know it's there.  Where's all the notice to the public?  Last time, DOE did media and sent notices to landowners.  DOE has a list of people who commented on the scoping in their possession.  Where's the notice?  There isn't any.  Isn't that where GBE and DOE got in trouble on the NIETCs?  Lack of public notice is a serious issue.  How can you tell when your government is trying to pull one over on you?  Lack of public notification of its actions.  DOE has become a very shady agency during the past four years.  Isn't it time to clean house?  At any rate, your deadline to comment is March 3, 2025.  

The EIS is over 400 pages, and has numerous appendices.  You're supposed to read, digest, and comment on all this in less than 45 days, because the clock has already started ticking.  Ask your Senators and Representatives to demand that DOE not start its 45-day clock until it has notified all impacted communities, landowners and the people who commented on scoping.  It's going to take more than 45-days to notify everyone and by that time the comment period is over.  This deadline and lack of public notification is ABSURD!  An extension must be demanded.

And just like the NIETCs, lack of DOE notification doesn't prevent grassroots notification.  Spread the word!  Let everyone know about the Draft EIS and the upcoming public meetings where people can get more information and make oral comments.  The meeting schedule is here.

There are ONLY 2 meetings being held across the state of Kansas.  How far are you expected to drive in the dead of winter to attend one?  100 miles?  200 miles?  300 miles or more?  There's also just 2 meetings for Missouri!  Let your elected officials know that this is an inadequate number of meetings!

And here's something else DOE "forgot" to tell you... you can request your own personal copy of the EIS, whether electronic or on paper.  Each paper copy DOE has to send out costs GBE several hundred dollars.  Request your paper copy by emailing:  
[email protected]
Please also read the Federal Register Notice to scan for other information that DOE didn't include on its EIS page.

Also take note that the EIS is a public recitation of the environmental impacts of GBE, it not a pass-fail test that promises no impacts.  The federal government is required to make the environmental impacts of its action public and allow the public to comment on them.  If you notice things that DOE missed in their report, let them know.  If you think their conclusions are wrong, let them know.  If you think DOE didn't adequately study alternatives, let them know.  And, most of all, let the DOE know that you demand they select the "no action" alternative that means they don't grant the loan.

This is going to be a lot of work, but don't give up.  Remember how your participation in group action cancelled the NIETCs.  You activated your elected officials and their involvement was crucial to your success.  Like the shampoo bottle says... lather, rinse, repeat.

Invenergy has been trying to build its merchant transmission Cimarron Link project since at least summer of 2023.  That's when its courting of landowners was brought to my attention.  It is likely that it has been in the works much longer.

A merchant transmission project is to transmission what a private toll road is to transportation.  There is an existing network of electric transmission lines that serve all public utilities that provide service to all who request it.  Because this is a public network (compare to a public highway) everyone who takes electric service pays a portion of constructing the network and keeping it operating.  Our tax money pays to keep our highways maintained for everyone's use.  But a merchant transmission project is a supplemental, speculative transmission line.  It is not necessary for public utility service and it is not subsidized through our electric bills.  It's a private electric toll road to ship electricity that is paid for by the electricity wholesalers who choose to use the private roadway to receive electricity they purchase from generators.  A merchant transmission line relies on voluntary customers to pay for its construction and operation.  If a merchant transmission project doesn't have any paying customers, it's not economic and cannot be built.  It is a speculative investment by private companies who want to bet that if they construct it, it will attract paying customers.  Much like a private toll road highway, it is not for the use of the general public, but only those who can pay the toll to use it.

Cimarron Link is a merchant transmission project.  It is not needed for reliability or economic purposes, and it is not part of any transmission plan by regional grid operator Southwest Power Pool.  It's "need" would only come from paying customers who want to use it.  But Cimarron Link doesn't have any customers!  Therefore it applied to receive a capacity contract from the U.S. Department of Energy, and it was awarded such a contract in 2024.

The capacity contract is essentially the U.S. government using taxpayer dollars to pay the "toll" on Cimarron Link.  But the government isn't a public utility and does not supply electricity to anyone.  The idea is that the government will underwrite the cost of constructing the project with the hope of re-selling the ability to use the toll road to an actual utility somewhere down the line.  Of course, anyone could sign up to pay the toll now, but they haven't.  If they don't want to use Cimarron Link now, what's the chances that they will want to pay the toll later, after the project is constructed?  There is no precedent for this new capacity contract program and it is unproven that it will actually work.  If it doesn't, the government will continue to pay the toll for Cimarron Link for up to 40 years in the future, even though it is not actually using it, and Cimarron Link may never deliver any electrons to anyone.  The government is acting as a speculative investor, betting that it can sell something that Cimarron Link cannot.  Good luck with that!

So, Cimarron Link lined up at the hog trough to help itself to a $306M capacity contract.  While it was filling its belly, it also thought that maybe a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor would taste good, so it applied for one of those as well.  A NIETC would have been a federal land use designation that created a zone for construction of Cimarron Link and would make it eligible for federal permitting and eminent domain if not granted by the State of Oklahoma.  But that didn't work out.  The U.S. Department of Energy cancelled the proposed Delta-Plains NIETC that Cimarron Link wanted to use to route its project across Oklahoma.  Now Cimarron Link can only use Oklahoma laws to try to take property using eminent domain.  If Oklahoma does not grant Cimarron Link eminent domain authority, the project is essentially dead.  Sure, Cimarron Link can continue to try to obtain voluntary easements across private property, but if the landowner refuses, that's the end of it.

Which brings us to Cimarron Link's recent suits against landowners to obtain an injunction allowing Cimarron Link to enter private property to perform "surveys" against the landowner's wishes.  When it filed its lawsuits, Cimarron Link claimed it was "authorized to exercise the power of eminent domain for the appropriation and use of lands and rights-of-way necessary for a public purpose by law specifically, Tit. 27 Okla. Stat. Sec. 7 and Tit. 66 Okla. Stat. Sec. 51-60."    Cimarron Link claimed it was a corporation that was engaged in the transmission of electricity in Oklahoma.  But is it really?  Not right now it isn't.  It's not furnishing anything to anyone.  But it wants to do so.  So, it's not really clear that Cimarron Link's speculative merchant transmission project is authorized to use eminent domain.

Now, maybe Cimarron Link thought it would be easy to convince a local judge that it currently has that ability so that it could force its way onto private property to do surveys for its transmission project.  But the people fought back and said it did not have that authority under state law. 

Maybe Cimarron Link thought it could continue operating under the radar long enough to get such a determination by a local court, but that idea ended when it got too greedy and helped itself to a NIETC designation.  The people of Oklahoma found out about that, and they were incensed.  Huge opposition to the NIETC soon developed and all of a sudden people stopped cooperating with Cimarron Link.  The sleepy days of keeping quiet and bullying landowners to sign voluntary easements are over.  Now Cimarron Link has a huge problem on its hands.  It is not clear that Cimarron Link has eminent domain authority, and the people are refusing to sign voluntary easements.  Cimarron Link's little piggy has eaten itself into a full-blown HOG, and we all know what happens to hogs... they end up on the dinner table!

Perhaps sensing that its effort to convince a court that it has eminent domain authority wouldn't be successful, Cimarron Link recently withdrew its suits for entry against landowners.  But it did so without prejudice, which means Cimarron Link reserves the right to bring this issue before the courts in the future.  Cimarron Link said it was withdrawing its suits to "allow more time for engagement with landowners."  Well, good luck with that, Cimarron Link, landowners have formed a wall of resistance and are having none of that, thanks to the opposition that developed during the NIETC debacle.  Word has it that Cimarron Link is trying to move on to adjacent landowners and begin its game on a new, unsuspecting public, but is that really going to be successful in the new public relations disaster environment that NIETCs created?  What other tricks might Cimarron Link have up its sleeve?

Cimarron Link is a project owned by Invenergy, a private energy firm based in Chicago.  Invenergy has invested in several merchant transmission projects around the country.  One of its projects, the Grain Belt Express, was rejected by Illinois courts because it wasn't a public utility with the ability to use eminent domain.  Illinois law required that a public utility actually be currently engaged in the business of furnishing power in order to file an application to build a transmission line that could use eminent domain to acquire land.  Like Cimarron Link, Grain Belt Express was a speculative project by a new entity that was not a public utility.  But Invenergy found a way around that by creating bespoke, special purpose legislation that granted it eminent domain authority in a handful of counties it wanted to cross and allowed it to apply for a permit.  This special purpose legislation was tucked neatly into the Illinois Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), an energy bill that comprised thousands of pages and was dumped on the legislature just hours before the vote, making sure that legislators didn't have time to even read it before voting.  As a result, the legislation passed, and Grain Belt Express was suddenly a public utility that could use eminent domain to acquire land for its merchant transmission project.  Now, I'm not saying that Invenergy's fattened hog is going to use the same tactic in Oklahoma to ensure it has the power of eminent domain before re-filing its suits to enter and take land for Cimarron Link, but it's certainly possible.  Keep an eye on what's happening at the Oklahoma legislature this year!  And while you're keeping an eye out for amendments to Oklahoma eminent domain laws, perhaps you might want to propose some of your own?

Thanks to the NIETC public relations disaster, landowners are talking to each other and comparing notes about the things they have been told by Cimarron Link.  And, if any of the things I have heard are true... shame on you, Cimarron Link!  Invenergy's Grain Belt Express project has a "Code of Conduct for Land Agents" that set some ground rules for interaction with landowners.  Oklahoma landowners might be quite shocked to find out which tactics are not allowed on a different Invenergy merchant transmission project.  Why isn't Invenergy using this same Code for the Cimarron Link?  Don't Oklahoma landowners deserve the same respect and honesty as the landowners in Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois who are targeted by Grain Belt Express?  Maybe someone wants to ask Invenergy why it doesn't have a Code of Conduct for Cimarron Link?

Cimarron Link's little piggie ate too many government handouts and has now turned into a full blown hog.  Everything was going great until Cimarron Link ate that NIETC dangling over its trough.  Cimarron Link brought this public relations disaster upon itself, and now it has to pay the consequences.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The DOE's proposed NIETC map went from this:

To this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri was the first U.S. Senator to oppose the U.S. Department of Energy's recent proposal of National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors.  Hawley introduced the Protecting Our Farmers from the Green New Deal Act meant to:

• Prohibit FERC from issuing electrical siting permits where State regulators already have jurisdiction to authorize these projects.
• Require FERC to find that any proposed electrical transmission projects it approves minimizes adverse effects on landowners and farmers, adequately compensates them for any loss, and provides benefits to consumers in the State.
• Prohibit FERC from reviewing any electrical siting applications where a State regulator has previously denied an application.

Now Kansas Senator Jerry Moran has jumped on the train to stop NIETCs.  Senator Moran says:

While I applaud what you are doing... can we get it together here, guys?

Although DOE tried really, really, really hard to keep its proposed NIETCs under wraps earlier this year, word is slowly leaking out and America is horrified!  NIETCs proposed would take 103 MILLION acres from landowners across the country and place it into designated transmission corridors, without any compensation at all to the landowners.  That's millions of landowners nationwide that would have their private property made available to the whims of greedy transmission developers.  Is it any wonder that they are outraged by this plan?  We've only just scratched the surface of people finding out that the federal government is coming to take their biggest investment and make it worthless.  Opposition to this plan is going to be off the charts when public engagement and notification begins later this year.  And because the ones who have found out are quickly getting their elected officials involved, it's going to spread.  Elected officials who refuse to help their constituents are on the chopping block.  (Eh, Joe, you were halfway out the door already, good riddance to bad rubbish!)

NIETCs are not Constitutional.  That hasn't been tested yet, has it?  It will be.

Everyone is incensed by the U.S. Department of Energy's preliminary 5 mile wide National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) that was magically centered on Invenergy's proposed Grain Belt Express transmission line.  How and why was that preliminary designation made?  And for what purpose?

A NIETC's purpose is to designate a geographic area where one or more transmission projects serving the "national interest" can be sited.  A transmission project inside an NIETC can apply for a federal permit and eminent domain if its state application is denied.  NIETCs are a way to overturn a state decision you don't like.

But GBE claims to have all the state approvals it needs.  So, why the corridor?

Why is it 5-miles wide?

And what ever happened to GBE's Environmental Impact Statement being prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy's Loans Program Office to facilitate a "get out of debt free" card provided by taxpayers if GBE cannot repay its loan?

All these questions (and more!) were answered recently, and the answers did not come from DOE.  DOE has put its interactions with greedy transmission developers under lock and key.  No, the information came from another (anonymous) source whose accuracy can be trusted.

The Midwest Plains Preliminary NIETC was submitted to DOE by GrainBelt Express (GBE) as a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor because of the federal funding opportunities that a NIETC designation opens up, as well as the potential last resort option of the use of federal backstop siting authority in States where the initial state approval is currently under appeal, such as Illinois.  The corridor was originally submitted as five miles in width because GBE thought that it had to be at least wide enough to encompass two lines. 

Because of all the stink you made, GBE has submitted comments to DOE requesting that the corridor be substantially narrowed to no wider than is necessary to site just the GBE line. 

But would a narrow, specific "corridor" that only enables one transmission line actually be something that DOE can do?  It positively smacks of government graft.  Wouldn't a wider corridor give the DOE plausible deniability?  It seems like the DOE was only too happy to create a 5-mile wide corridor (which is supposed to be based on DOE's factual transmission needs study, btw, not greedy requests).  Who knows what DOE will do with this corridor in the fall.  Will they stick with their 5-mile wide corridor, or will they prove that they are nothing more than a corporate puppet by granting GBE's second request to narrow the corridor just wide enough for GBE?

If designated this fall, this NIETC will have to undergo a federal Environmental Impact Study, just like the one GBE is already involved in required by its request for a government loan guarantee.  But the study already underway only studies the very narrow GBE corridor.  It doesn't study a 5-mile wide NIETC.  If the NIETC is any wider than GBE itself, then GBE's EIS will have to go back to start.  But perhaps that is required in any instance, since the basis for the EIS and governmental action will have changed completely between a government loan guarantee and a NIETC.  You could probably litigate on changing purpose in midstream for a long time.  Maybe GBE will have to fund two separate EIS reports, one for each purpose?  Each EIS takes a minimum of two years.

Meanwhile, back at the DOE, the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing.  Don't these gals ever see each other in the hallways and stop to chat?  Maybe not because they are all likely "working from home".  I hear that nobody answers the phone at DOE HQ anymore.  Is any work being done in that empty building we pay for?

DOE says the LPO (Loans Program Office) will publish the draft EIS for public review and comment this winter.  DOE is plunging ahead with the EIS for the loan, while not even acknowledging another one has to be done for the NIETC designation.  At least they're only wasting GBE's money with this duplication of effort.  Carry on, ladies!

And here's another thought brought on by the preliminary NIETC designations.  GBE's western terminus will be in Ford County, Kansas.  We've been told that for years.  The story goes that GBE will ship all that untapped wind energy in Kansas to "where it's needed most" (Mars?  Polsky's imagination?  Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous?).  GBE is now asking for approval of two "collector lines" in southwestern Kansas for wind AND solar projects not yet built.  See KCC docket 24-GBEE-790-ST available at this link for more info.

Kansas, huh?  Then what is the Plains - Southwest NIETC for, and why does it reach its cold little finger up into Ford County Kansas?  Is it trying to export even more Kansas wind, or is it importing wind from other states that will be shipped through Kansas on GBE?

Kansas officials who have been falling all over themselves to give GBE whatever it wants because they think it's going to cause massive economic development in Kansas may end up with a massive Dodo bird egg all over their faces if it turns out that Kansas is just being used as another "fly over" state facilitating Invenergy's profit.  Who remembers that Invenergy owns "the country's largest wind farm" in the Oklahoma panhandle?  Whose idea was this Plains - Southwest corridor, and who is going to profit from it?  Invenergy's giant wind farm was planned and construction began (to preserve tax credits) way back in 2018 as part of AEP's ill-fated WindCatcher project that was supposed to connect Invenergy's wind farm to the Tulsa area via a new transmission line AEP wanted to build.  AEP did not receive approvals for that scheme and the project was cancelled.  And there was Invenergy with the country's biggest wind farm in process and no transmission line to serve it.  Invenergy bought the remnants of Clean Line's Grain Belt Express later that same year.  Kismet!

Anyhow... maybe, just maybe, the longer this debacle goes on, the GBE koolaid that some of the project's biggest cheerleaders ingested seems to be wearing off.  Wakey, wakey, little officials!  There's a wolf among your sheep!

Thousands of citizens across the country gave the U.S. DOE their thoughts and opinions about the potential designation of multiple National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs) across the country this week.  And it seems like nobody thought it was a good idea, except a handful of clueless congress critters playing politics.  I'm going to bet they didn't ask any of their constituents who would be impacted by NIETCs what they thought about it, and they suck up to the political teat at their own peril at the ballot box.

​This is probably my favorite line from all the comments I managed to read before they got sucked down into DOE's black hole.  This comment comes from the Inskeep family in Kansas.

Congress, the U.S Department of Energy, and the DC political machine never considered the thousands of people impacted by their desire to turn rural America into energy slaves for their glistening cities, nor put it into the context of how it will be remembered by the history books.

The midwestern state farm bureaus submitted excellent comments, and the Missouri Farm Bureau wrote this opinion piece.

These are the Missouri Farm Bureau's comments.

And these comments came from the Illinois Farm Bureau and a collection of impacted landowners in that state.

Further east, I submitted these comments on the designation of multiple NIETC segments in West Virginia for the purpose of shipping coal-fired power to Virginia's "data center alley" via new high-voltage extension cords.

Read the whole thing here:

A citizen asked DOE where they could read all the comments that were submitted.  DOE's response was

This is not a transparent process.  DOE is most likely up to no good, but how can we know for sure when the public is shut out of a process that could take their land and destroy their economic well-being?  What happened to "transparency" and "public participation"?  It's out the window.

Nevertheless, you inserted yourself into a process where you were not welcome.  It's the only thing you can do when your government is holed up with special interests and planning to take what's yours.  The legal challenges will come later.  Thank you to everyone who participated!

What's next?  The DOE plans to issue its decision this fall with "draft" designation reports.  You'll be allowed to comment on these reports, but DOE will have already made its decision and you'll be in the position of trying to change their mind.  Where has democracy gone?

For each corridor that receives a draft designation, the DOE will have to undertake an Environmental Impact Study, which is a multi-year process where they are required to involve the public.  But we already know what DOE thinks of public comment, right?  They have made that plain.  They are in a real big hurry to railroad this process forward before the election in November.  Don't forget to vote!

The Kansas Heartlander asks if residents are informed enough to comment on the U.S. Department of Energy's National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors proposal?

No, no they are not.

Last week, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley sent a second letter to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm asking for clear and complete information on the NIETC proposal so that his constituents will be informed enough to make comment.  Senator Hawley also requested a 45-day extension of the comment deadline.

​Senator Hawley said...

That's because the only information the public has is a vague, not to scale map with a line drawn on it.  And the DOE has done nothing to notify citizens that they may be in a corridor.  DOE has done shockingly little press on its proposal to conscript the land of millions of Americans and turn it into high-voltage electric transmission corridors.  If not for the knowledge of a handful of watchdog citizens, DOE would be getting away with it!

It's not like DOE doesn't have the information, it's just that DOE refuses to disclose the information it used to draw its vague maps.  DOE solicited "recommendations" for corridors from greedy transmission developers back in December 2023.  DOE needs to share the information it received so that citizens can base their comments on the same information DOE will use to evaluate this proposed corridor for designation.  Citizens are drawn into a duel without any weapons.  It's absolutely shameful!

A future NIETC designation is a land use planning decision that changes the use and marketability of land in perpetuity.  Who would buy a home in a NIETC if a future transmission line is planned to destroy it?  Who would buy land and build a house in a NIETC that is subject to federal eminent domain?  How can farmers plan improvements to their businesses when they have no idea if they will even get their investment back?  It's bad enough that Missouri farmers have been threatened with Grain Belt Express for more than a decade, now the DOE is planning more transmission within a 5-mile swath of their remaining properties.  On top of that, there is no compensation offered by the DOE for property taken by a NIETC.  It's private property taken for public use, without just compensation.  The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits such a taking.  It also prohibits depriving citizens of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, and DOE is shutting down all due process for citizens impacted by its corridor proposal.

Senator Hawley is not afraid to stand up to the DOE and demand due process for citizens.   But why are the rest of our elected officials asleep?   Bravo, Senator Hawley, and thank you for your work!  I hope other Senators are brave enough to join you!