Legalectric

Testing, one, two! Check, HEY!

On August 8, 2022, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission issued its “Order Accepting Post-Construction Noise Monitoring Report and Compliance Review.” It’s a jaw-dropper:

And so, 20 days later, we file:

Onward. Xcel Energy has 10 days to respond, well, anyone who wants to has 10 days to respond, and then the Commission will take it up, or not and let it languish and be denied by default.

At 10:16 a.m., the day before the PUC meeting on Xcel’s nuclear cask docket 08-510, PUC staff sends out “Revised Decision Options,” eliminating the requirement of selection and disclosure of whatever cask they’re wanting, crossed off of the staff recommended decision options proposed by Commerce-DER:

Whose brilliant idea is that?

Tune in tomorrow:

Agenda
Live Webcast

As in Minnesota, there are a lot of wind projects in Wisconsin operating, under construction, and applied for. The Wisconsin Public Service Commission opened a docket to take comments on “Application Filing Requirements,” what all needs to be included in a wind project application. Here’s what’s proposed:

I got notice on this last week, I’d filed joint comments for two solar CPCN clients, Grant County Intervenors and Jewell Jinkins Intervenors, on the solar Application Filing Requirement docket (5-AFR-700) a year and a half ago, and now this.

Here’s the tome filed earlier today:

And because rules are not supposed to be adopted sans review and advice from the Wind Siting Council, which is being reformed after a multi-year hiatus, I filed our comments on their docket too:

Why? Well, they’re supposed to issue a report every 5 years, a legislative mandate:

They did meet, and issued the first report in 2014:

Note the Minority Report, Appendix F, p. 50-66:

After that, nada. The next report was due in 2019, and crickets… but people have been raising some ire, and they’ve reformed, repopulated the Wind Siting Council, with representatives, and it looks like they just might meet. Opened up PSC Docket 5-WF-2022:

New members appointed after discussion in a Commission meeting, and they will open a separate docket every year in January to record the workings of the WSC.

We shall see…

Oh my… Debra Steidel Wall, Acting Archivist of the U.S. tells it like it is!

Yet not so long ago…

As we left our Craters of the Moon Nat’l Monument campsite in Idaho in May…

… and headed southeasterly, on the way to the rather new Minidoka Nat’l Historic Site, Alan discovered that there was a Lava Ridge wind project proposed for the area.

Here’s today’s notice from BLM:

Details:

Thursday, August 25, 2022

9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time

Virtual via Zoom – Zoom Registration

Agenda

The first meeting was on July 7, 2022:

View the recorded meeting here