Legalectric

FYI, if you search for “Contact” you get this:

And click on “Privacy” and you get a long, long load of blather and no contact form or phone numbers.

p.s. White House Switchboard: (202) 456-1414; White House Comment Line: (202) 456-1111 (it’ll hang up on you!).

Do you really want an answer?

Executive Orders? Presidential Actions? Earlier, when I looked at the White House page, searching for “Executive Orders” there was nothing, but there was a “Presidential Actions” page (which presumes a certain someone could act presidentially, FALSE!), and it’s gone now. I’m remembering during the prior administration, they had an Executive Order page where everything is listed, and then that disappeared. Anyway, if I search for the “Presidential Actions” I do get a page headed “Presidential Actions” with a list:

Presidential Actions

Initial Rescissions Of Harmful Executive Orders And Actions January 20, 2025

Organization of the National Security Council and Subcommittees January 20, 2025

HOLDING FORMER GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS ACCOUNTABLEFOR ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND IMPROPER DISCLOSURE OF SENSITIVE GOVERNMENTAL INFORMATION January 20, 2025

WITHDRAWING THE UNITED STATES FROM THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION January 20, 2025

Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects January 20, 2025

Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing January 20, 2025

Unleashing American Energy January 20, 2025

Privacy January 20, 2025

DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT January 20, 2025

There are many pages linked:

… but click on them, 2, 3, 4, 5, and here ya go: GO HOME!

And since there wasn’t much there when I took a look at that page of the White House site, I did another search for “Executive Orders,” and there is now an “Executive Orders” page, with these links, which all have a “Presidential Actions” designation. It’s a very long list and one was added in the 2-3 minutes it took to put these up, so I guess it’ll be longer by tomorrow morning when I can work up the stomach to look at this again. Until then:

• Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• DESIGNATING CARTELS AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AS FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS AND SPECIALLY DESIGNATED GLOBAL TERRORISTS Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., FEDERAL HOLIDAY, 2025 Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• REFORMING THE FEDERAL HIRING PROCESS AND RESTORING MERIT TO GOVERNMENT SERVICE Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Establishing And Implementing The President’s “Department Of Government Efficiency” Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• AMERICA FIRST POLICY DIRECTIVE TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• PROTECTING THE UNITED STATES FROM FOREIGN TERRORISTS AND OTHER NATIONAL SECURITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY THREATS Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• UNLEASHING ALASKA’S EXTRAORDINARY RESOURCE POTENTIAL Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• PROTECTING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AGAINST INVASION Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Global Tax Deal (Global Tax Deal) Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Organization of the National Security Council and Subcommittees Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• REEVALUATING AND REALIGNING UNITED STATES FOREIGN AID Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Declaring a National Energy Emergency Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Restoring Accountability for Career Senior Executives Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• RESTORING THE DEATH PENALTY AND PROTECTING PUBLIC SAFETY Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Putting People Over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• SECURING OUR BORDERS Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Unleashing American Energy Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• CLARIFYING THE MILITARY’S ROLE IN PROTECTING THE TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY OF THE UNITED STATES Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• America First Trade Policy Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Memorandum to Resolve the Backlog of Security Clearances for Executive Office of the President Personnel Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• DECLARING A NATIONAL EMERGENCY AT THE SOUTHERN BORDER OF THE UNITED STATES Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• HOLDING FORMER GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS ACCOUNTABLE FOR ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND IMPROPER DISCLOSURE OF SENSITIVE GOVERNMENTAL INFORMATION Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Restoring Accountability To Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• WITHDRAWING THE UNITED STATES FROM THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• APPLICATION OF PROTECTING AMERICANS FROM FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS ACT TO TIKTOK Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• GRANTING PARDONS AND COMMUTATION OF SENTENCES FOR CERTAIN OFFENSES RELATING TO THE EVENTS AT OR NEAR THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6, 2021 Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Putting America First In International Environmental Agreements Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Hiring Freeze Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Regulatory Freeze Pending Review Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Return to In-Person Work Presidential Action January 20, 2025
• Ending The Weaponization Of The Federal Government Presidential ActionsJ anuary 20, 2025
• Restoring Freedom Of Speech And Ending Federal Censorship Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Initial Rescissions Of Harmful Executive Orders And Actions Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• Flying The Flag Of The United States At Full-Staff On Inauguration Day Presidential Actions January 20, 2025
• President Trump Announces Cabinet and Cabinet Level Appointments Presidential Actions January 20, 2025

A website as chaotic as this administration.

As if the “National Transmission Planning Study” wasn’t enough:

First, that National Transmission Planning Study, starting with some maps to catch your interest. As with tariffs, who do you think will be paying for all this?

• Executive Summary describes the high-level findings from across all six chapters and next steps for how to build on the analysis.
• Chapter 1: Introduction provides background and context about the technical design of the study and modeling framework, introduces the scenario framework, and acknowledges those who contributed to the study.
• Chapter 2: Long-Term U.S. Transmission Planning Scenarios discusses the methods for capacity expansion and resource adequacy, key findings from the scenario analysis and economic analysis, and High Opportunity Transmission interface analysis.
• Chapter 3: Transmission Portfolios and Operations for 2035 Scenarios summarizes the methods for translating zonal scenarios to nodal-network-level models, network transmission plans for a subset of the scenarios, and key findings from transmission planning and production cost modeling for the contiguous United States.
• Chapter 4: AC Power Flow Analysis for 2035 Scenarios identifies the methods for translating from zonal and nodal production cost models to alternating current (AC) power flow models and describes contingency analysis for a subset of scenarios.
• Chapter 5: Stress Analysis for 2035 Scenarios outlines how the future transmission expansions perform under stress tests.
• Chapter 6: Conclusions describes the high-level findings and study limitations across the six chapters.

And then, just released, adding insult to injury:

In this rush to build whatever utilities want for market share and al those economic benefits that MISO/MEMBERS will reap, MISO is incubating “Tranche 2.1” which includes a “transmission superhighway” across Minnesota:

LRTP Tranche 2.1 Portfolio Update

Watching all this happening is so discouraging, and watching our so-called regulators spurring this on, disgusting.

Here it is, one of my favorite resources of all time — NERC’s Long Term Reliability Assessment. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) sets the reliability standards for our electric system. It comes out annually and gives an overview of our electric situation based on utility information forwarded to NERC. Logically, there’s some bias here, but NERC has inserted some reality orientation over the years, particularly in documentation of reserve margins, based on what’s up and running, and what’s likely to be built over the foreseeable future (knowing that all that’s planned is not gold).

You can find LTRAs going way, way back — I have them from 1998 forward, and now I see they’re going back to 1992, so I’ll grab those before they disappear. Here’s the list from their “Reliability Assessments” page, nope, doesn’t copy well, so you’ll have to go to the “Reliability Assessments” page, well worth the trip!

As for the 2024 Long-Term Reliability Assessment, here ’tis:

And if you really want to dig in, here are Supplemental Charts and Graphs — what fun!

Supplemental Charts and Graphs

Here’s what you’ll find:

Here’s something that jumps out at me — the reserve margins (p. 13):

Forever, the standard reserve margin has been at 15%, but when they started this massive transmission build-out 20 years ago, the mantra was that by building so much transmission, by interconnecting everything, able to send those electrons from any “Point A” to any “Point B,” RESERVE MARGINS WOULD BE LOWER!! So take a look at these reserve margins, and do tell, why oh why is that “Figure 3” chart stretching all the way to 25%, and even more bizarre, WHY IS FIGURE 4 SHOWING MISO FIVE-YEAR PLANING RESERVE MARGIN — WINTER WAY UP TO 60%, AND AT ITS LOWEST, NEARLY 40%??? Looks to me that through 2029, we’re doing just fine. Note that it’s Summer 2029 that’s it’s just below 15% “Anticipated” and just above “Prospective” and every year there are more and more projects proposed. We are NOT going to freeze in the dark in an incubator without a job. Prove me wrong!!!

Back in 1999, in the midst of a transmission hearing, as I was seriously getting into the engineering, transmission specifications, electric reliability, and forecasting of transmission and generation, an engineer approached with a document in hand, the 1998 NERC Report, saying “YOU NEED THIS!” Yup, sure did. That report demonstrated that the histrionics about need for transmission was absurd. Oh well, they built it all anyway, and so much more to follow.

Thanks, NERC, for a little light reading in the dark depths of winter!

Written by someone who KNOWS, this book is great, and his testimony is even better!

George C. Loehr, Testimony, Hearings of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, July 31, 2008

His leading points?

And if you’re looking for some wonkish light reading, complete with SCADA and N-1 references, check out:

“We are only four meals from anarchy!” Maybe a few more, but remember virulent sturm and drang when people couldn’t get their hair done in 2020?!?!?!

What happens to the system when the CapX 2020 system goes down? And now MISO is proposing an even higher voltage 765KV “electric superhighway.”

Distributed generation, anyone??

Here’s the Jack Smith Report that has been so difficult to release — take the time to read it. The first two sentences is a great start:

Trump is having a fit… must be a lot of truths in this… so read it

Maisy’s the one, coming home with us tomorrow! She was very sociable with us, while Boomer was afraid, hiding in a corner, pawing at the door to get out, wouldn’t come for treats or pets. Wanted nothing to do with us, though he was attached to the shelter worker.

Here he is, Boomer, the one who caught Alan’s attention, 3.5 year old male, over puppy stage. Here’s the link for Boomer:

We were on a bench in the cat room, and as soon as Alan crawled down in the middle of the floor, Boomer ran over to me for attention and I was able to hold him in my lap. He did that a couple times, and we tried again, experimenting, Alan moving from the bench to the floor, and he’d jump up. Seriously avoiding Alan. Maisy, on the other hand was an equal opportunity attention seeking grrrrrrrrrl. Loves balls, chew toys, and we have many, and she’ll love going to the tennis court to “play tennis.” We have some time to get the house ready, like dig out the cloth crate, put the dog food bucket back in the mudroom and DOH! get some dog food, sort out the dog toys (I did gather them and they’re washed), and lay out the many dog beds (she’s pretty much the same size as Sadie, our “medium” pup).

Some backstory — she is 6.5 years old (much prefer older dog) and she and Boomer lived together, though not really bonded, and lived with cats. Their owner needed to move to apartment and was upset to lose them. She’d been boarded at the shelter before and they went to our vet, so she’s a known quantity. They haven’t been at shelter long, were just posted yesterday, and they’ve lived with cats so we’ll see how she does with ours — this is major consideration (there’s a 21 day return clause).