Who hitches their cart to a dinosaur?

On the Alternate Route

It's Spring.

Dave and I have to apologize for being absent bloggers lately. It’s not that there hasn’t been a lot going on in the Clean Line world, it’s simply the time of year.  Things that we’ve put off as long as possible to deal with Clean Line can’t be put off any longer. Fences need to be built. Gardens and crops need to be put in the ground. And, as Jennifer Gatrel so powerfully mentioned in her HB 1027 testimony before the Missouri House of Representative’s Environment and Energy Committee, for many of us, our farms are our lives:

“This is our business. This is our place of business. It is our livelihood. It is our vacation destination and it is our retirement… all rolled into one.”

(We should note here that the hearing for HB1027, which would hinder Clean Line's access to eminent domain for its Grain Belt Express line, had to be split into two days because so many landowners came out to testify in favor of the bill.)

In other words, we don’t have the luxury of taking a weekend off to go to a wedding with Anna Wintour...

Okay, do we really care that the Zilkahs rub noses with Ms. Wintour? Of course not. And a truly sincere congratulations to Daniel and Janie. Marriage is a wonderful, infuriating, brilliant endeavor. 

Do we care about Daddy Ziff’s “Rosebud Made of Stone”?  Nah. The idea is awesome, even if the rock thing was sketchy as all get out. The truth is… I’ve worked in Westchester. There’s not a lot that surprises me anymore. 

I just wish all these people’s venture capitalist relatives would get their damn paws off my mother-in-law’s property. And off the property of every angry, hurt, confused, hardworking, taxpaying Okie, Arkie, or Tennessean who actually worked their tail off for their small “piece of the pie”, and who deserve better than to be forced to give up what they’ve busted their knuckles for so rich people can get richer.

As Jenny so perfectly put it, yet again:

“I cannot tell you the amount of work and worry… I have met with veterans that have stood up and cried at the thought of losing their sweat equity in their farm.  I have met with women who have lost their hair and who have had to go on antidepressants.”

You want health effects? I’ll give you health effects. And the line’s not even built yet. Though apparently our only real objection to this project is what it’ll do to the view:

"Clean Line says none of those concerns are backed-up by modern science. They say the real reason for objecting to the line is simpler: people don’t feel like looking at power lines on their property."

Burn, landowners! Burn! So now we know exactly what they think about us. I know, I know—you’re thinking that’s not an actual quote. Surely Clean Line with their “we are so deeply concerned about landowners’ concerns” rhetoric would have denounced such a dismissive statement, but no… Rather, they posted a link to the article on their Facebook page. I think that qualifies as a pretty strong endorsement.

And speaking of the “well-funded”…

Recently, “Team Clean Line Energy Partners”, via Michael Skelly, via the Power of Wind (which oddly claims to be leading a movement for “fairer energy policies”) and the AWEA, issued a plea for signatures on a letter bemoaning the fact that “well-funded anti-wind energy groups are trying to get Congress to oppose the common-sense energy policies that would allow wind power to continue to expand.”

(“Well-funded” is code for Koch money. I can say that because my progressive street cred includes a presidential vote for Nader)

Now, he seems to be talking about the Production Tax Credit (I'm somewhat amazed they didn't bash oil and gas subsidies. It's kind of required...), but I’m going to go on the record here anyway and say that, as a group, we get nothing from nobody. Our flyers, our signs, our gas, our time… all of that comes out of our own pockets. We survive on each other. On the people who give what they can, when they can.  We have no loaded lobbyists, so forgive me if I don’t shed too many tears for one industry fighting a slightly different one. (And Big Wind seems to be operating with a massive Napoleon complex—Nothing must be done that can in any way, shape, or form hinder the holy development of poor, little, falsely maligned wind! NIMBYs and burdensome long-eared bats, consider yourselves warned!) 

Our only lobbyists are the people we elect to send to Washington and Little Rock, and in this situation, though I may disagree with them on much, they have served the people I love well.  You can call that Koch influence if it makes it easier to sleep at night while eighty-five year old Mrs. Stockton sits at her window looking out and worrying about her future. I believe the legislation and resolutions we’ve seen over the last few months are the honest result of the thousands of phone calls, emails, and letters our representatives received in the last year. I believe it’s the system working the way it’s actually supposed to. If you’re not willing to entertain that possibility, you can’t hope to look at this thing objectively. By the way, I should mention that both the cities of Ozark and Dyer passed resolutions in opposition to Clean Line just last night. And Quitman passed one some time ago. We had no idea... just in case anyone was thinking all these resolutions were the result of a few vocal agitators. 

Oh sure, everyone has a bias. I expressed mine pretty clearly in the first section… and in every endless blog post I’ve written on how totally inappropriate eminent domain is in this situation.  But what happens when you don’t learn from your bias? That’s the question… Well, you might try to solve the perceived “balkanization” of the transmission permitting process in our country by using a concept painfully similar to one already rejected by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as by the people most directly affected by it.

I’d like to include some quotes here from the lawyer whose working paper included the argument that local/state control over siting is ineffective because state and local governments are more responsive and accountable to their constituents than federal agencies. However, it clearly states on the bottom of each page that the reader is not to cite or quote from the paper without permission. Odd to reserve a right for yourself so similar to one you readily endorse violating for others.

But here, read Mr. Casey’s testimony regarding the NIETC debacle:

“Basically, what the Federal Government has told us, in essence, implicitly--this is what I derive from their failure to respond to the State of Pennsylvania--is there is going to be a  superhighway of power lines across Pennsylvania, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. The Federal Government is going to take over this effort and put those lines across the State of Pennsylvania. 

Well, I have news for them. Pennsylvania is full of a lot of people who are concerned about this, whether they are in small towns or urban areas, and, as we are going to be speaking to tomorrow, rural areas in Pennsylvania, farm communities. Most of those counties designated there are in rural communities. If the Federal Government and the Department of Energy or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or anyone else in this town wants to fight about this, we are ready to fight, and we will fight morning, noon, and night until our State, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is treated equitably.” 

You want bulldogs? We’ll give you bulldogs.

If you want more on NEITCs, start with this post of Keryn’s  and just keep going. Welcome to the rabbit hole.

Now, if Dave were writing this, right here is where he’d get into Jimmy Glotfelty’s ties to Section 1221 and 1222 (by way of his advocacy of the processes that lead to their creation). No, he wasn’t at the DOE when the sections went through in 2005, but his fingerprints are all over them.

So, how do you ram home a policy that essentially steals the states’ authority to participate in decisions that affect their own constituency? You use two words: “jobs” and “taxes”. Does it work? Well, it sure didn’t in Arkansas, and it looks like Missouri isn’t that impressed either:

Bonus points: Watch Mark try to explain how Clean Line intends to work solely within the confines of Missouri’s state laws/PSC. “Pay no attention to that parked 1222 application for Grain Belt behind the curtain!”

Maybe some of the legislators had already been made aware of Mr. Skelly’s testimony in that regard. I’ve posted it before, but hey…

Skelly said Clean Line’s application for Section 1222 authority for Grain Belt Express is still pending at DOE but inactive. And the company would exhaust efforts to persuade state regulators to approve the project before turning back to the federal government.

“We would look at the no and figure out a way to turn it into a yes,” he said.”

http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2014/11/13/clean-line-pursues-key-approvals-for-transmission-projects/

Or, how about Clean Line's tactic of attempting to obtain the right of eminent domain before signing easements? They wish to obtain easements on a "voluntary" basis, but aren't going to try to do so until they can hit landowners over the head with the "eminent domain" hammer:

Who pays for all that cheap energy? Not the bottom line.

So why? Oh, Lordy, why are we here in the first place? Why build this line at all? There must be some deep, driving need, right? Utilities that can’t keep the lights on? The need for a transmission backbone through the country?

Ah, no. Like Jenny said, it’s all business. It’s the business of development. Of transmission. Of speculation. Of bringing “the very best wind” to markets on the East Coast that haven’t asked for them. If it’s a backbone, it’s a fossil. An idea ten years old being rapidly usurped by newer tech, local utility scale generation, and conservation. Want to know where “the very best wind” is? It’s everywhere. And it’s located close to the load centers that might want to use it. 

With Dragonfly proposing Arkansas’ first real wind farm to deliver 80MW of true homegrown juice (assuming they can buck the Napoleon thing and actually work with surrounding landowners) and AEEC getting into solar farms it’s only a matter of time before Clean Line’s proposed 500MW guilt deposit in our state is a paltry drop in our renewables bucket. It’s certainly not worth the damage it would do to so many people. Why? Because jobs and taxes aren’t everything. And because 500MW of locally produced wind power fueling permanent, local jobs and tax revenue is infinitely preferable to imports. If the cost of wind is coming down as much as Clean Line claims, there is no reason it's generation should be restricted to the panhandle. Last week there was a story about a farmer in Oklahoma who had shifted to wind development as an alternative means for income. Arkansas farmers deserve to be able to make their own decisions on that same opportunity. 

Which brings me, finally, to the question of who’s gonna buy Clean Line’s tainted juice?  I’m not talking about whether rapid response gas plants or other baseload generators will be required to ramp up production to fill in windy gaps. And, yes, we’ve heard them say over and over that there won’t be any end user/utility contracts until after the permitting. You’ve heard us say, over and over, that generation potential and an “if you build it, they will come” attitude is insufficient to justify the use of eminent domain. That’s not what I’m talking about either. I’m asking what company or utility is willing to dip a toe into the “Bog of Eternal Stench” the execution of this project, if permitted, will become?

As someone who actually has talked to hundreds of landowners on the route (as well as their neighbors, who get an extra raw deal since they receive no remuneration for their property value loss), I can tell you that this thing is going to get ugly. Not a threat, but a simple observation. This is seven hundred miles of Bundy Ranch with the exception that the vast majority of these people aren't wealthy ranchers and actually own the land at issue.  And, for them, it’s not just about the money. It’s about respect. Or the lack of it. 

Knock on a front door on the route and ask them the story of their property. In most cases you better have forty minutes and a notebook. These aren’t short-term apartments we’re talking about, but parcels handed down through generations. Sorry, but there aren’t enough windmills in the panhandle to trump this image (and yes, she'd just gotten home from church):  

Not when there are gentler, more effective, and less damaging ways to go green. Who in their right mind is willing to tie their public reputation to a project that unnecessarily steals land from grannies?


**Update** April 15, 2015- Just got word of this beauty. Regardless of what happens with Clean Line, this is a big day for Arkansas: http://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2015/04/first-utility-scale-solar-energy-project-proposed-arkansas 

Entergy Arkansas today filed a power purchase agreement with the Arkansas Public Service Commission for a 20-year supply of solar energy from a solar facility near Stuttgart, Ark. The large-scale solar farm will begin construction in spring 2016 and be ready to connect to the grid by mid-2019.

The facility, to be called Stuttgart Solar, will consist of solar panels covering nearly 500 acres of land capable of producing 81 MW of electric power. This will be the first large-scale renewable energy facility in Arkansas.

In response to today's news Glen Hooks, chapter director for the Arkansas Chapter of the Sierra Club, issued the following statement:

“The clean energy revolution has now officially begun in The Natural State. As our first home-grown renewable energy project, this is a truly historic announcement. The Sierra Club congratulates both Stuttgart Solar, Entergy, and NextEra on this move and looks forward to welcoming Arkansas solar energy into our state's power supply.

The Sierra Club has long advocated for Arkansas to generate our own solar and wind energy here at home, just as our neighboring states have done for years. Today's announcement proves Arkansas is ready to get started as a renewable energy leader.”