Legalectric

Here are a few comments filed, very articulate and specific reasons why the Department of Energy shouldn’t “participate” in this Section 1222 transmission project:

From BLOCK Plains & Eastern here are a few links (thanks for sending them, hard to get anything up here in the woods):

Please skip to page 264 of the PDF to read our BLOCK Plains & Eastern Clean Line: Arkansas and Oklahoma official comment:

http://www.energy.gov/…/Comment%20from%20BLOCK%20Plains%20%…

We would also like to acknowledge and thank Downwind, LLC, for formally supporting our efforts to date. They are an organization of landowners in eastern Arkansas (represented by Jordan Wimpy of Gill Ragon Owen, PA, Little Rock) that has formed in opposition to the Plains and Eastern project:

http://www.energy.gov/…/Comment%20from%20Downwind%2C%20LLC%…

Jordan Wimpy’s FANTASTIC comment on behalf of Downwind, LLC:

http://www.energy.gov/…/Comment%20from%20Downwind%2C%20LLC%…

Oklahoma Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt for his Office’s comment. The potential protection to landowners in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee that your comment might help afford cannot be overstated:

http://www.energy.gov/…/f24/Comment%20from%20OAG%2007-13-15…

Southwest Power Resources Association lays out the MANY problems RE: liability in this project, and their comment should be read by all with an interest:

http://www.energy.gov/…/Comment%20from%20Scott%20Williams%2…

Comment from the Colorado River Energy Distributors Association (The equivalent to SPRA for the Western Area Power Association) supporting SPRA’s objections to the Project:

http://www.energy.gov/…/Comment%20from%20Leslie%20James%20o…

Will tidy this up when there’s better access.  Internet is NOT to be taken for granted, nor is cell phone access, here on the Canadian Border!  It’s the “Not-so-Great Northern Transmission Line road show.  The same DOE office is handling the GNTL project as the Plains & Eastern Clean Line, different staff, but pretty close.  The transition from D.C. to Roseau and Baudette must be a rough one!  But there’s good coffee and treats, thanks for breakfast!

Quick — email angela.colamaria@hq.doe.gov and ask that they hold public hearings, just like they did for the environmental review!

Today is the deadline for Comments on the “Section 1222” review, time to tell the DOE what you think of this (&($%&(#@*%&()# project!

BLOCK_Comment_Motion_FINAL

BLOCK_Comment_Attachments_A-J

Are we having fun now?

And good news today too — we’re getting some “US TOO!” support on our previously filed Petitions and Motion.  YES!  That helps!

My latest book arrived today, put Little Sadie in the house when mailman arrived, had to sign for something else and didn’t want her to sink her teeth into him.  Anyway, it’s Dan T. Carter’s “The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics.  Someone posted an article recently that referenced it, and it seemed so fitting. You can order it HERE at www.abebooks.com!

I remember George Wallace and his runs for President, though I don’t remember his inauguration rallying cry when first Governor, much written by KKK wordsmith Ace Carter, “Segregation now… segregation tomorrow… segregation forever.”  I also remember clearly, and remember my distrust, as Wallace claimed to own the errors of his racist past and beliefs.  Still skeptical… but I’m reading this to get a better handle on white supremacy in the U.S., how it’s morphed over the years, and how it’s all connected.  This rage that I see so often, I don’t get it, didn’t then, don’t now, and I’m seeing it in people near and far, such visceral rage, and I just can’t understand the origin.  But in just the first 41 pages, I see it’s the same framing.  George Wallace did indeed tap into fears, tensions, hostility and hate, rewrapped it over time, and shaped the rhetoric of open and of submerged racism that’s still used today.

After a day in the bowels of FERC’s docket system as RM15-22-000, FERC rejected the BLOCK Plains & Eastern Clean Line Petition for Rulemaking.  It’s a binary thing, has to be either one or the other, so now it’s in the DOE’s hands.

FERC REJECTION_RM15-22-000  20150625-3025(30664807)

So, DOE, what cha gonna do?  You’ve been thinking about it, but it’s been 10 years since Section 1222 was passed.

DOE_PetitionRulemaking_Attachments_FINAL

And the grand finale of the Administrative Procedure Act, Section 553:

(e) Each agency shall give an interested person the right to petition for the issuance, amendment, or repeal of a rule.

Remember the Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project (see Legalectric posts and Citizens Against the Mesaba Project’s “Camp Site”), the boondoggle coal gasification plant that almost was, the project that got every legislative perk possible, got financing and grants based on wishful thinking and that “something else” that we just can’t identify (without which, who would think this was a good idea?  That plant that was to be built, according to the special legislation for this project, on a site WITH INFRASTRUCTURE?  This site… dig the infrastructure!

Anyway, it wasn’t built here.  But a similar plant WAS built in Indiana, the Edwardsport plant owned by Duke Energy.  As with the Mesaba Project it was proposed at a reasonable price, legislators were first told $700 million, and then it went upwards of $2.11 billion.  For Edwardsport, same story, and that price kept going up, up, up, and in Indiana, it was so extreme that costs recoverable from ratepayers were capped by the Indiana Public Utility Commission at $2.9 BILLION.  It was allowed to be built, and it started operating, sort of…  Average output has been 41%, when an 80+% capacity factor was promised.  Repairs?  That’s putting it mildly.  Now they’re going to try to get cost recovery for that.

Problems pile up at Edwardsport 06-14-2015

Now, let’s not all forget all the money given by the Joyce Foundation to support this nonsense.

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Here’s a specific and eloquent comment from Michael Mullet, very involved in opposition to the Edwardsport fiasco: