The PUC’s Order granting withdrawal of Xcel’s Hollydale Transmission Project application, WITH CONDITIONS, just came in:

14-0046_Order_WithdrawalConditions

Here’s the interesting part:

The Commission requires parties seeking to withdraw filings without prejudice to demonstrate that withdrawal would not contravene the public interest, would not prejudice any party, and would not raise issues requiring Commission action.5

5 See, e.g., In the Matter of CenterPoint Energy’s Petition for Approval of a Miscellaneous Tariff Change, Docket No. G-008/M-13-333, Order Permitting Withdrawal of Filing (Nov. 13, 2013) (articulating standard).

Oh really?  That’s good to know, but it’s a little different than briefing papers and initial resistance to conditions would indicate.  Here’s that Order, and you can see how the “standard” was articulated:

Docket No. G-008/M-13-333 Order_201310-92266-01

The articulation of the standard?

The Commission finds that the proposed withdrawal does not contravene the public interest, does not prejudice any party, and does not raise issues requiring Commission action. The Commission will therefore permit withdrawal.

That’s it — no discussion in the order, just this statement!

A novel about fracking…

Fractures, by Lamar Herrin

It’s a beautiful day today, just had a meeting all afternoon in the park in Zumbrota, and it’s a perfect day to sit on the deck in the SUN (what a concept!) and read!

For those of us “in the middle” dealing with frac sand mining and the Bakken BOOM trains, this book is a must read, dealing with the big picture and the more mundane, how one family copes and doesn’t cope when fracking comes to their community and their land.  This book is a welcome sidebar to our day to day activism.

It’s at the Red Wing library, in the SELCO system, and you can find it at abebooks.com.

Again today, the 100 mile garage sale, up and down both sides of Lake Pepin! The sun peeped out a few minutes ago, so maybe it’ll be coming back.

The Humane Society of Goodhue County is having a Fundraiser/Garage sale with items for sale, animals to pet, and treats! 725 Wilkinson St , Red Wing, MN

100 Miles of Garage Sales

Little Sadie, HSGC alum, says “See you along the Mississippi!” — at 100 Mile Garage Sale/Fundraiser.

Photo provided by the City of Lynchburg, Virginia April 30, 2014.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Platts confirms it was Bakken BOOM! crude oil:
CSX says 15 cars derailed from train in Virginia

From Bloomberg:

This time it’s Lynchburg, Virginia. Don’t know where the train originated, what type of oil, but there is indeed a trend!

Video from News8000.com

Bakken BOOM crude oil MUST be DEGASIFIED before it is shipped, shipped by rail, shipped by pipeline, it must be DEGASIFIED before it goes anywhere, because the high gas content is what makes it dangerous.  DEGASIFY now.  How many more towns must burn before they DEGASIFY?

Here’s the DOT letter regarding degasifying:

1_2_14 DOT Rail_Safety_Alert

And here’s the part that addresses degasifying the crude before transport:

Come on, DOT, how hard is that to understand?  Bakken crude must be degasified before it goes rolling down the track.

From Common Dreams:

Black Smoke, Flames Spew from Train Derailment

From Reuters:

CSX train carrying oil derails in Virginia in fiery blast

From desmogblog:

Breaking: CSX Railroad “Bomb Train” Carrying Crude Oil Explodes in Lynchburg, Virginia

From the STrib:

Tanker cars carrying crude oil derail, catch fire in Lynchburg, Va.; buildings evacuated

Well, that’s not quite right.  This “rulemaking” has yet to get ON track, and that’s what’s bothering me.

Remember when the MPCA staff said they couldn’t imagine how a rulemaking advisory committee could or would work?  From an earlier blog post, “Someone explain rulemaking to the MPCA“ here’s the MPCA resistence and an explanation:

MPCA staff’s report to the EQB stated inexplicably that they were “confused,” claiming ignorance of how rulemakign works and the impact of comments at this stage:

i. Staff requests Board direction on a question that arose at the August 2nd public meetings.

Members of the public expressed interest in a citizen committee to participate in the rulemaking. It is not clear how a citizen committee would affect the rulemaking process laid out in Minn. Statutes Ch. 14. A multi-step public review and comment process is already required in that statute and we just completed the preliminary step. Rulemaking is essentially creating law: Minnesota Rules have the force and effect of law. Rulemaking is a lengthy process, averaging about two years.

Once more with feeling, state law clearly and expressly authorizes and establishes the role of a Rulemaking Advisory Committee.  The statutory purpose is to COMMENT on the proposed draft… BEFORE it’s published:

14.101 ADVICE ON POSSIBLE RULES.

Subd. 2.Advisory committees.

Each agency may also appoint committees to comment, before publication of a notice of intent to adopt or a notice of hearing, on the subject matter of a possible rulemaking under active consideration within the agency.

Once more with feeling… you’ve got to have a DRAFT to COMMENT ON!

Here’s the link for the state’s Silica Sand Rulemaking Advisory Panel page.  And from that page:

Past meetings

April 2014

• See the recorded WebEx (part 1)
• See the recorded WebEx (part 2)

March 2014

• Meeting notes (March 2014)
• See the recorded WebEx
• Presentation: Air permitting 101 – Air regulations and permits

January 2014

The panel first met on January 29.

• Meeting notes (January 2014)
• Presentation: Rulemaking 101

Look at this presentation, beginning at 10:40, where there’s an “explanation” with a slide for the group:

Catherine Neuschler’s explanation, at the April meeting (rough version, not quite exact) which goes around the PURPOSE of an Advisory Committee, which is to review drafts:

Your role is to inform the agencies on their silica sand rulemakings … on proposals or other key issues, things we bring to you and you want to bring to us… There’s not going to be… we do not expect any preparation for a panel report, meeting notes and recordings, provide record of what was said, not expecting a panel report.  Of course all of you can make official comments as part of the rulemaking process… (no mention of draft review!!!), if you want to work together as a group to write some comments, or as a subgroup, to write some comments…  To bring home what those places are where you may have the opportunity, where you will have the opportunity to weigh in (referring to chart above).  Here’s a simplified version of the rulemaking process as a reminder, the process we’re in now is”Agency develops rules and SONAR” so that’s where we’re looking for stakeholder input … Various agencies, depending on how they do their process, may release drafts rules for public review, certainly if we do that, if any of the agencies do that, that will be a place you can weigh in.  The next step is Agency and Executive Branch review…

WOW!  Then a discussion of how this process goes forward:

The way I view then, the next step, what we’re doing internally in the PCA, is that in the summer, we’ll present, the agencies will present some conceptual overviews of rule concepts, and I am adamant, that’s going to look a lot like this, that it’s going to say something like, what’s there, what do we think we want to do, if it’s Air Emissions, OK, we think Best Management Practices, monitoring, something else, what do we think those will consist of, and present that to you for your feedback, so that you really have a sense of what do we think is important, where do we see this rule going, and can respond to that and give us that feedback.   Charlie and I were talking about this a little bit in the car, sort of to give you that concept before we get into that, what do all the little details of the words have to say, because then I think you can understand where we think we’re going, give us some feedback on that, and then when we start to write the language, if it doesn’t operationalize the concepts that we talked about, you can say, that is not what you said you were going to do, we read this as something completely different.

The way I view this going foward, in the summer, we’ll present some of those conceptual overviews, various agencies will do that, then at the end of the summer, Will and I have been talking about it, we’ll use an EQB meeting, as sort of a public review of those conceptual overviews from all of the agencies and the where the public can have more input as well, and then in the fall, if the agencies would make presentations with some more defined rule proposals, and how defined they is going to vary by agencies, but probably some real concrete rule language and SONAR.

So that’s how we view it moving forward, and if something is a really big concern to you guys, obviously we can adjust.  Your advice and your input is very, very valuable to us…  It’s advice and input… We don’t expect a written product, we don’t expect that this is a voting process.  We’ll be listening for consensus, for what we hear… that you’re all on the same page and you agree, that some people are kind of reserved about it it but you can live with it… we’re not going to be doing voting….  Our goal is that the rules that result from this process is that we’ll have rules everyone can live with.  That’s really what we’ve found with this stakeholder process.

So what I’m getting out of this is that this summer, “concepts” will be brought to the committee for feedback, and that maybe, MAYBE, they might get some draft rules before the agencies present it with the SONAR for comment.  Most I’ve heard is that they “hope” to have some draft language.  The law was passed what, last May?  These meetings started in January, and September is 9 months from January.  It shouldn’t take that long.  Bottom line, I think this is a “make work” thing for avoiding producing the draft rules for review.

From the MPCA site:

Upcoming meetings

All of these meetings will be held at the People’s Energy Cooperative (Oronoco, Minn.) and run from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

• May 16

• June 17

• July 24

• August 28