Legalectric

Last night was the Goodhue County Planning Advisory Committee.  On the Agenda was the new Solar Ordinance, something we need to get moving on, but which needs work.

Here are the Comments I sent, though not until 2:50 p.m. yesterday:

Cover_and_Overland_Comments

FERC Order Terminating GIAs  ER14-1719-000_H061

FERC Order Terminating GIAs ER14-1684-000-5_H062

There was an open house before hand, and then the PAC meeting and a hearing on it.  This was a noticed “Public Hearing,” the purpose of which is to take comments on the Proposed Ordinance, not the price of solar, or interesting new designs, but on their proposed Ordinance.  There were a few commentors, most of whom had energy infrastructure siting experience.  Everyone was on point and specific, and it didn’t last all that long.

Bernie Overby was being his usual inciteful self — someday soon, Bernie, we’ve got to have a chat about what your nephew is hauling with the lime green large car and that shiny steel trailer.

But in deliberations and discussion, Dan “Wrongzigel” started with a low key rant about the number of comments and the detail (hello?  We’re supposed to be commenting on the specific Ordinance, anything else would be off point!) as if that’s a problem, and then goes off about the U.S. Constitution and how it’s vague, doesn’t even specify the number of Supreme Court justices, and then there’s Russia trying to control everything down to the last detail, “and guess who’s still around.”  So was the implication that attention to detail means collapse, that we commentors are Communists, that there’s too much information for him to handle, too much effort to fill in the blanks, that considering issues raised might slow down his steamroller, or ??  What do you mean, Dan?

And these comments from a teacher who “teaches classes such as Honors American Government… [who] takes great pride in bringing government into his classrooms.”  Wrongzigel’s taken some notes and proceeds to diss almost every comment, one by one, waving it away with his hand, towards Bernie, saying “we can deal with that in the CUP.”  And he even argued against setting some guidelines for how much ag land could be taken out of production by saying,”we’re for preserving agriculture, not preserving ag land.”  This, Mr. Wrongzigel, is a topic for some discussion — what exactly do you mean?  What’s the race to get this Ordinance through?  Whose interest are you representing?

And Dan, on August 18, 2014, looking at the state of our Constitution, can you really “guess who’s still around.”

Yeah, right, Dan, look around… our Constitution has been shot full of holes…  Yesterday was not the day to make such a bizarre statement!

YES!  The Appellate Court agreed with us in the AWA Goodhue (T. Boone Pickens) appeal!  The appeals have been dismissed as premature, that we can/should file AFTER the Public Utilities Commission decides on the several pending Motions for Reconsideration.  We have been invited to file again, with no additional filing fees. GOOD.  That’s a reasonable decision and we’re not out the filing fees (I’d asked the Court for costs, out of the PUC’s hide, but this is sufficient).

Reconsideration Motions will be heard on November 10, 2011, not before 10:00 a.m. at the Public Utilities Commission, 121 – 7th Place East (3rd Floor Large Hearing Room), St. Paul, MN  55101.

This Appellate Court Order is a good outcome, the court agreeing that the PUC’s position that we had to appeal by September 22, 2011 or lose our opportunity to appeal was not grounded in law.

Here’s the choice nugget:

The general provisions of chapter 14 do not supersede more specific provisions governing appeals from the public utilities commission. In re Complaint Against N. States Power Co., 447 N.W.2d 614, 615 (Minn. App. 1989), review denied (Minn. Dec. 15, 1989). The more specific provision controls. Id.

DUH!!!  SNORT!!!!  And the entire Order, hot off the press:

Appellate Court Order to Dismiss – November 1, 2011

It all stemmed from this MemoranDUMB issued by the PUC that was something I’ve never seen the likes of:

PUC Memorandum saying FILE APPEAL OR ELSE!

Guess they won’t be doing that again, will they!!!

It’s a complicated thing.  The PUC made its oh-so-contorted decision on AWA’s Goodhue Wind Project:

PUC’s Site Permit for AWA Goodhue

And then we filed our Motions for Reconsideration… here’s one:

GWT – Reconsideration – Site Permit

Today AWA filed their respose:

AWA Goodhue Wind Reply to Reconsideration

For all of them, go to www.puc.state.mn.us and click on the blue “Search eDockets” button and search for docket “08-1233” and “09-1186.”

So far on the Appellate  site and the filings that we’ve exchanged (the Notice of Appeal was in my inbox before I got back to Red Wing, with a reference to Belle Creek, though not Goodhue County’s but their filings were in the inbox!):

A111681 – Belle Creek

Belle Creek Township’s Appeal – Initial Filings – Petition for Writ and Statement of Case

A111689 – Goodhue Wind Truth

GWT – Appeal Notice & Initial Filings – Petition for Writ and Statement of Case

No Appellate Docket yet – Goodhue County

Goodhue County Appeal –  Initial Pleading – Petition for Writ and Statement of Case

No Appellate Docket yet – Coalition for Sensible Siting

CSS Appeal – Initial Pleading – Petition for Write and Statement of Case

This is shaping up to be a “robust” appeal… I’m so tickled to see the county’s recognition and appreciation of Goodhue Wind Truth’s efforts (really, read the pleadings).  And personally, it’s a thrill to see how far we’ve come since the struggle of the nuclear  “in Goodhue County” days.

A little birdie told me there was an op-ed in the STrib that I had to read.  Sure enough…

Right here in Minnesota, a windfall of bad policy

The birdie cocked his shining eye and said:

Ok, how cool is it that I now have my answer to the question “what could Carol and Jason Lewis possibly agree on?”

It’s close but not quite. Not by a long shot… and close doesn’t count.   Lewis is not doing anyone any favors with this piece.  He’s agitating by deviating away from the problems with this project, and by unreasonably tying it to selected others, both projects and people, he’s misfiring.  He may get people worked up, but they’ll miss the boat too.

Look at the way he frames sand mine opposition and AWA Goodhue Wind Project opposition, and his claim that “environmental activists” are stopping the fracking sand mine, but ignoring the on the ground environmental activists who are tracking, (photo)shooting eagles, pulling in USFWS to document the eagles.  And he’s framing mine opposition and AWA Goodhue wind opposition as separate universes when there are many opposed to both and for a variety of reasons.   He also frames it as a partisan issue when it is not — there’s strong bi-partisan support for wind.  There is strong bi-partisan opposition to wind.  Has he forgotten that the Green Chameleon was a champion of wind, coal gasification, and transmission?  Has he forgotten that Republican House Speaker Steve Sviggum bought in hook, line and sinker and promoted wind generally and C-BED specifically, that the 2005 Energy Omnibus Bill from Hell couldn’t have passed without him, and look at the way it turned out… somehow the plans for the first C-BED wind project out the chute had a turbine and substation on Sviggum’s land???  What, Lewis didn’t forget… he didn’t know?  Oh, right… uh-huh… oh, my…

And he ends on this note, which is blatant misrepresentation:

… silica sand mining (primarily used to make glass) has been a fact of life in the upper Mississippi Valley for as long as anyone can remember. In fact, there are sand- and gravel-mining operations in every county in Minnesota, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

Really!!!  And there’s no mention of the Wabasha County silica sand mine moratorium, begun a couple months ago. Statements like that don’t do anything for his credibility, and don’t help us get any closer to a turn-around of the PUC decision.

I do trust my “little birdie” doesn’t really think Jason Lewis is expressing my take on this!!!

Here’s the whole thing, get out the waders:

Right here in Minnesota, a windfall of bad policy

September 17, 2011 – 3:32 PM

Wind-energy projects are damaging to nature, to taxpayers and to residents, but onward they buzz.

If you want to know what’s wrong with the nation’s energy policy, look no further than Goodhue County, Minn.

Environmental activists are blocking a job-creating and profitable sand-mining operation that is vital to the newest energy technology that’s releasing copious amounts of shale gas and oil from far beneath the Earth’s surface. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is ramming through a taxpayer-subsidized, 78-megawatt wind farm that promises little in the way of abundant or affordable power.

Indeed, were it not for the sophistry of the political entrepreneurs behind America’s newfound obsession with wind, the citizens of Goodhue County might be casting their lot with the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., last seen chasing wind developers out of Hyannis Port. They might also be enjoying the economic benefits of domestic energy exploration.

Instead, it now appears that residents justifiably alarmed with the placing of more than 300 massive wind turbines in their back yards have but one last chance to stop the Texas-based AWA Goodhue Wind project.

The county is asking for reconsideration of the PUC’s June site permit allowing T. Boone Pickens to dump his surplus of GE wind turbines in Minnesota after similar plans in the Lone Star State failed a basic test of supply and demand. Let’s hope, for the taxpayers’ sake, that it succeeds.

Pickens, who has a knack for publicizing energy policies that coincidentally include his own projects is set to cash in on both federal and state subsidies for going “green” in Goodhue.

Thanks in part to Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s dogged effort in extending federal “renewable energy credits,” AWA Goodhue will no doubt share in the $23-per-megawatt-hour “windfall” reaped by solar and wind projects nationally.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the Energy Information Administration reports that, by comparison, subsidies for coal and natural gas come in at just 44 and 25 cents per megawatt hour, respectively.

It gets worse.

State Rep. Tim Kelly, R-Red Wing, is calling on the PUC to decertify the project as a Community Based Energy Development eligible for the Minnesota’s CBED tariff (read rate hike) in the Power Purchasing Agreement between Xcel Energy and AWA Goodhue — if for no other reason that the word “community” in this case statutorily means based in Minnesota, not Texas.

The Minnesota PUC, like successive Republican and Democratic administrations, seems hellbent on ending local control over wind developments that swallow up thousands of acres, relying instead on the state’s renewable energy standards.

Enacted under the euphemistic title of “next-generation energy” legislation in 2007, the ill-advised mandate means that Minnesota utilities are now busy passing along the costs to ratepayers.

Because generating power from wind is about as reliable as, well, the weather, utilities will still need to pay for steadier sources as backup. As a result, a Beacon Hill Institute study says the average Minnesota household will have paid an extra $1,814 for electricity by the time the standards are fully implemented.

Regardless of the economics, it’s becoming quite obvious that these mammoth wind developments are every bit as damaging to Mother Nature as anything the fossil-fuel industry could dream up.

For the price of intermittent power, nearby homeowners put up with 400-foot towers with flashing lights; high-voltage transmission lines; flickering shadows from 95-foot rotors, along with the potential for dangerous ice shards flying off the blades during winter, and near-constant high- and low-frequency background noise disturbing to the human ear.

Estimates vary as to how many birds are slaughtered each year due to wind power, but it’s certainly in the tens of thousands.

The Washington Post reports that “one of the nation’s largest wind farms, the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area near Livermore, Calif., has killed an average of nearly 2,000 raptors annually, including more than 500 eagles, over four years, according to federal agencies and bird watchers.” Hardly good news for the bald eagle along the Mississippi flyway for migratory birds.

Where’s the Endangered Species Act when you need it?

Meanwhile, hope for a more-sensible energy future remains hostage to a few activists who get their talking points from movies like “Gasland” (environmentalists used to love natural gas until they realized you had to drill for it). Hydraulic fracturing, known pejoratively as “fracking,” has the potential to dramatically alter America’s economic landscape by lowering the costs of domestic energy production.

The Rand Corp. (a nonprofit research organization) says there are 800 billion barrels of recoverable shale oil — three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia — in the United States alone. Remarkably, “if the full potential of domestic oil and gas production could be achieved while also increasing imports from Canadian oil, all of America’s liquid fuels could come from secure North American sources within 15 years,” notes the American Petroleum Institute in a study released last week.

One key component of fracture drilling is silica sand, ubiquitous in the sandstone bluffs throughout southeastern Minnesota. That’s why another Texas company, Windsor Permian, wants to start constructing sand mines and transportation facilities in and around Red Wing for its operations in the lucrative Permian basin. And it plans to do it with no “renewable energy credits” or state CBED tariffs.

It seems that something which is viable needs no subsidy — while all the subsidies in the world won’t make viable that which isn’t.

Alas, the Goodhue County Board adopted a one-year de facto moratorium on the Windsor project earlier this month, despite the fact that silica sand mining (primarily used to make glass) has been a fact of life in the upper Mississippi Valley for as long as anyone can remember. In fact, there are sand- and gravel-mining operations in every county in Minnesota, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

No matter, because for now our energy future is just blowin’ in the wind.

* * *

Jason Lewis is a nationally syndicated talk-show host based in Minneapolis-St. Paul and is the author of “Power Divided is Power Checked: The Argument for States’ Rights” from Bascom Hill Publishing. He can be heard from 5 to 8 p.m. weekdays on NewsTalk Radio (1130 AM) or online at jasonlewisshow.com.

Above, Chuck Burdick with attorney Todd Guerrero arguing at PUC last November.

Today Exceptions to the Report of the Administrative Law Judge were due in the AWA Goodhue docket.

First, the ALJ’s Recommendation:

Recommendation to PUC on AWA Goodhue Wind docket

And now for the Exceptions:

Goodhue Wind Truth – Exceptions

Goodhue County – Exceptions

Belle Creek Township – Exceptions

Coalition for Sensible Siting – Exceptions

Dept of Natural Resources – Exceptions

AWA Goodhue – Exceptions