It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

The Power Plant Siting Act annual hearing, a la Minn. Stat. 216I.15, is the time to let the Public Utilities Commission know what works and what does not work in the Commission’s siting of power plants, transmission, wind, solar, and even pipelines!

Here’s the problem — all they have to do per the statute is “advise the public of the permits issued by the commission in the past year.” What happens after that, well, it goes to the PUC but that’s about it. It is a good time to vent, and get on the record all the horrible things that have happened over the year, and the historical trends, such as elimination of the Advisory Task Force.

Here’s the decades old law providing for Advisory Task Forces:

And this session, after the Public Utilities Commission and their OAH ALJs were denying, denying, denying after so many Advisory Task Force Petitions over so many years — simply repealed, eliminated:

It’s GONE! And eliminating the reference of Task Forces as an aspect of public participation:

Ja, we “Public Participants” get the PUC’s message loud and clear:

Public participation via the Public Utilities Commission? Remember the Report of the Office of the Legislative Auditor?

Public Utilities Commission’s Public Participation Processes – OLA-Report

Fat lot of good that did. Instead of improving public participation, we hear the Commission Chair saying, “What can we do to make this faster for you?” and “What can we do to speed this permitting up?” and that whole “streamlining” effort, which is really STEAMROLLING. Fast tracking permitting, denial of interventions, failure to have project proponents witnesses at hearings for questioning…

PUC Strategic Plan

Here are the reports from the last 20 years — often they hold it on my birthday, but not this year. You can see that year after year, it’s the same issues:

2000 Summary of Proceedings

2000 Report EQB

2001 Summary of Proceedings

2001 Report EQB

2002 Summary of Proceedings

2002 Report to EQB

2003 Summary of Proceedings

2003 Report to EQB

2004 Summary of Proceedings

2004 Report to EQB

2005 Report to PUC

2006 Report to PUC – Docket 06-1733

2007 Report to PUC – Docket 07-1579

2008 Report to PUC – Docket 08-1426

2009 Report to PUC – Docket 09-1351

2010 Report to PUC – Docket 10-222

2011 Report to PUC – Docket 11-324

2012 Report to PUC – Docket 12-360

2013 Report to PUC – Docket 13-965

2014 Summary Report– Docket 14-887

2015 Summary Report – Docket 15-785

2016 Summary Report – Docket 16-18

2017 Summary Report – Docket 17-18

2018 Summary Report – Docket 18-18

2019 Summary Report_Docket 19-18

Summary Report – Docket 20-18

2021 Summary Report – Docket 21-18

2022-Summary-Report_Docket 22-18

And last year’s Report from the 2023 hearing, held on December 20, 2023:

There’s a trend… And here we go, on Tuesday, another year of banging heads against the wall.

Association of Freeborn County Landowners filed a Complaint with the Public Utilities Commission against Commissioner John Tuma and Chair Katie Sieben last week.

The PUC responded with this… oh my… and an Affidavit from John Tuma, he DID contact a Freeborn County Commissioner about pre-empting the township’s Ordinance and local control:

And under the statute, Minn. Stat. §216A.037, the PUC must refer it to the Office of Administrative Hearings:

The administrative law judge assigned to the ex parte complaint proceeding by the Office of Administrative Hearings shall conduct a hearing investigation and shall issue a report within 30 days after the matter is referred. If the administrative law judge determines that the report cannot be properly completed within that time period, the judge shall report that fact to the commission within the 30-day period and shall file a final report within a reasonable time thereafter, no later than 60 days after the referral to the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Minn. Stat. §216A.03

… so today, it was referred. GOOD!

Why? Well, this is about the July 16, 2020 meeting, the one where you just have to listen to the video – yeah, we’ve got the transcript, but the video just conveys so much more: