Legalectric

The hearing schedule has been issued in the First Prehearing Order in the CapX 2020 docket.  For more info, go here:

CapX 2020 Transmission Prehearing Order

And for the whole scoop, it’s at www.nocapx2020.info

Senate District 25 election is today!

No excuses, get out and vote!

Stolen “Fair Use” from NWS-Shreveport! 

We’re in another of those confusing spots, one that leaves me wondering whether Excelsior Energy had to blow a lot of money on legal fees before the end of the year… it’s hard to find another explanation for the flurry of inexplicable activity zipping through the wires lately (see prior posts, chimp scratching).   Excelsior and Xcel are fighting in the Appellate Court, see Excelsior Appeal – Statement of the Case

And then there’s the Excelsior Energy Petition under Minn. Stat. 216B.1694 where they are saying that the statute says they get transmission associated with the Mesaba Project free and clear, with no requirement of a Certificate of Need, but hey, guys, if the PPA has not been approved, and if the Chair of the Commission is saying “You’ve got to come up with something else,” and “No one wants it, no one needs it, and we’re not going to force it on anyone,” get a grip… there’s NO project, and NO entitlement… give it up…

I couldn’t let that Petition sit like the fart in the elevator so today I filed this:

MCGP Motion to Dismiss Excelsior Energy Petition re: Transmission

Now why might they want to shore up their claim to transmission for a project that doesn’t exist!

Doing some catch-up here. I’m still downloading and finding files and getting everything into this computer, dealing some with my hospitalized mother, a brief time out that just wasn’t sufficient, and on and on and on… so, here goes!

Did you catch the great article about Lisa Goodman’s role in the Kandiyohi proposal for the Midtown Eco-Crapper? It’s here in the STrib:

Goodman’s actions on burner questioned

As an investor, Lisa Goodman left the debate on the project and did not vote. But was her letter to the MPCA a conflict of interest?

By STEVE BRANDT, Star Tribune

Last update: December 24, 2007 – 7:43 PM

Lisa Goodman says she did everything by the book when she invested last year in Midtown Eco Energy, which wants to generate energy in Minneapolis’ Phillips neighborhood by burning wood.

The Minneapolis City Council member filed a statement with the city clerk disclosing a conflict of interest. She left the room during the council’s discussion of Midtown Eco Energy’s request that the city reserve up to $86 million in tax-exempt revenue bond authority for the project. She abstained from voting on the request. She didn’t lobby colleagues.

Goodman said those actions exceed what’s required.

But she also wrote in August to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, urging it to issue an air quality permit for the facility.

Although on personal stationery, the letter began by referring to her post as a council member. It didn’t disclose that she had invested at least $2,500 in Midtown.

The wood-burning proposal has attracted opponents, some of whom look askance at the Goodman letter.

“I think it’s a little sleazy,” said Carol Greenwood, a Seward neighborhood environmental activist. She called Goodman’s omission of her investment “a little disingenuous.”

Goodman’s action may not run afoul of the city’s ethics ordinance. It says that a city official should avoid any situation that might give rise to a conflict of interest. A conflict is defined as participating in the discharge of official duties in a government decision, action or transaction in which one has a financial interest greater than an occupational peer.

An ethics professor weighs in

But the proscription appears to apply only to city officials influencing a city decision, not a state action. David Schultz, who teaches government ethics at Hamline University’s law school, calls that a “statutory gap.”

“She’s got a conflict of interest, no doubt about it,” Schultz said, even if no law is broken. “What’s she’s doing here more than anything else is using her position as a council member for personal gain. That fits under one of the classic definitions of conflict of interest.”

In an interview, Goodman refused to disclose the amount of her investment but it’s at least $2,500, the threshold that required her to disclose it on an economic interest statement last year.

“I can’t afford to be making a large investment,” Goodman said. But she also said: “I could lose a ton of money.”

She described it as an investment in a project in which two “people who are in my life like family” are involved.

They are Kim Havey, the city’s former Empowerment Zone director, and Michael Krause, a former Green Institute president and city DFL chairman. They are two of three partners in Kandiyohi Development Partners, which is proposing the Midtown project. They said they asked friends and family to invest seed money in the project.

Goodman and Havey have known each other since college days in the 1980s and shared a condo for years. Goodman, Krause and Havey own an 8-acre Kandiyohi County farmstead.

Goodman adapted form letter

Goodman, who represents downtown and the Cedar-Isles area, said most of her letter was copied from a form letter circulated by the Midtown project. But she inserted her council title at the form letter’s start. Although it’s on personal stationery, her letterhead also lists her council title.

Asked about that, Goodman said: “I was just listing what my job was. It wasn’t a position of the city.”

Schultz disagreed: “She’s using her position. If she had just signed it Jane Doe at 1 Elm Street, maybe that wouldn’t have been so much of a problem.”

“She’s using her influence as a City Council member,” said Nancy Hone, one of the activists opposing the Midtown project. Another opponent, Alan Muller, who discovered the letter in state files, said it raises questions about Goodman’s ethical sensitivity.

After Goodman was asked by the Star Tribune about the letter, she wrote the agency to clarify that she was not acting in her official capacity.

The city’s ethics code requires those working for the city to “maintain the highest ethical principles and avoid misconduct and conflicts of interest, apparent or real.”

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438

Here are endorsement letters by various officials, from Speaker Margaret Kelliher to Mayor Rybak to Corcoran’s Eric Gustafson and East Phillip’s Carol Pass (Pass revoked her endorsement at the MPCA public meeting, but is it in writing in the MPCA record?).

Speaker Kelliher endorsement using form letter from Kandiyohi

Toadies on parade – Rybak, et al…

Let’s watch as the endorsement retractions roll in…

Hmmmmm… Outland Renewable Energy proposes another “it’s for wind line” NOT… what does this mean? Do I detect trajectory?

Otter Tail Power’s Big Stone II coal plant is floundering, and the transmission for that project is pending at the Minnesota PUC, transmission that necessarily must connect to CapX 2020’s “it’s for wind” NOT line:

• “Outland Renewable Energy” proposes an “It’s for wind” line…

• It’s a regular ol’ corporation, and does not have the power of eminent domain.

• FERC regulations prohibit any transmission provider to discriminate against generators, generation types, etc., wind, coal, nuclear, whatever… An “It’s for wind” line can’t be done. Legally it must transmit whatever is out there…

• oh… and a google reveals that Ingrid Bjorklund, V.P. of Governmental Affiars and Associate General Counsel for Outland, is also an Ottertail Power lobbyist.  She has since filed a termination notice for Otter Tail, hmmmmm.

Oh… OK… sigh…

Here’s their Press Release that was picked up verbatim by Shakopee Valley News and North American Windpower (Finance & Commerce did a bit better, bit it’s not online yet, rumor has it that F&C will be online soon) and probably others who didn’t put any thought into whether this is possible, legal, or just PR hype from toadies of coal hedging their bets as the transmission line that BSII depends on hangs in limbo…

OUTLAND ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR A COMMUNITY-WIND POWER LINE
December 21, 2007 – Chaska, Minnesota

Minnesota-based, Outland Renewable Energy, LLC (Outland) announced today their plan to build a community-wind generator-owned power line focused on moving wind energy from the wind-belt of southwest Minnesota to the Twin Cities area. Outland is a non-utility, private company and will finance the Minnesota Independence Line itself. This privately funded line will significantly increase the ability of wind energy resources available to meet the increasing demand for clean, renewable energy and will help Minnesota meet its Renewable Energy Standard, which states 25 percent of the state’s electricity will come from renewable energy sources by 2025.

“Outland is proud of its mission to harness the power of wind, creating a clean, safe and secure energy future for our communities,” said Ingrid Bjorklund, vice president of government affairs and associate general counsel for Outland Renewable Energy. “We are tackling the transmission bottleneck with an innovative solution to get the state’s abundant wind energy to market sooner.”

The Minnesota Independence Line will be a high-voltage transmission line approximately 150 miles in length, running from the Buffalo Ridge area to the Twin Cities area. This wind line will have the potential to move up to 3,000 megawatts of wind out of the wind-rich Buffalo Ridge region. Outland hopes to have the line operational in 2012. This will help the state meet the first milestone in the Renewable Energy Standard, which is 12 percent by 2012.

Since Outland’s wind-energy generation is community-based, it conforms to Minnesota’s goal that we develop more of our state’s renewable resources as homegrown energy. Outland’s commitment to Community-Based Energy Development (C-BED) ensures that Minnesota renewable energy and the associated economic development stays in the state.

As an extension of our wind generation, Outland’s transmission line is also community focused. Outland envisions that landowners along the transmission route will embrace and participate in community ownership. This will enable those communities in Minnesota that do not enjoy the same abundant wind resource that exists in southwestern Minnesota to share the economic benefits of the state’s wind energy resources.

“This is a community endeavor where we will actively reach out to our communities to discuss every step of the project,” Bjorklund said. “Outland has the expertise and financial strength to deliver the potential of wind energy to Minnesota and revitalize our rural communities.”

The transmission grid in southwest Minnesota is at its maximum capacity and cannot support the significant increase in new wind energy that will be needed to meet Minnesota’s Renewable Energy Standard. This transmission congestion in that area is causing a backlog of projects, which is inhibiting wind farms from fully developing. The Minnesota Independence Line will significantly increase transmission capacity in southwest Minnesota, which will help Outland deliver wind more quickly.