By Tom Kleckner

The U.S. Department of Energy released its final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Plains & Eastern Clean Line transmission project Nov. 4, clearing a major hurdle for the proposed $2 billion project.

The department said in the final EIS that it “did not identify widespread significant impacts as a result of construction or operations and maintenance of the project.”

However, Arkansas’ Congressional delegation urged Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to delay a decision on the project until concerns they outlined in a Sept. 14 letter are addressed. Among those concerns are possible infringements on private property rights and the exclusion of MISO and SPP from control of the line.

“We are very concerned that you have not provided a thorough written response, and we need to meet with you at your earliest convenience,” the delegation — Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton, and Reps. Rick Crawford, French Hill, Steve Womack and Bruce Westerman —  told Moniz. “The department should not have issued the [final EIS] before responding to our Sept. 14 letter.”

Transmission developer Clean Line Energy Partners said it expects a “record of decision” later this year that will determine whether and how the department will participate in the project. If approved, the department would act through the Southwestern Power Administration (SPA), a federal agency that markets hydroelectric power from 24 dams in six states.

The Plains & Eastern project stems from the Energy Department’s 2010 request for proposals for transmission projects under Section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Section 1222 authorizes the SPA to participate in “designing, developing, constructing, operating, maintaining or owning” new transmission in the states in which Southwestern operates, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas.

Environmental Endorsement

The Plains & Eastern would ship 4,000 MW of renewable energy from wind farms in the Oklahoma Panhandle through Arkansas and into Tennessee over 700 miles of HVDC transmission lines. It would interconnect with the Tennessee Valley Authority near Memphis, after dropping off 500 MW in a converter station in central Arkansas.

“The release of the final EIS marks the culmination of more than five years of work and the consideration of thousands of stakeholder comments,” said Clean Line President Michael Skelly in a statement.

Glen Hooks, director of the Arkansas Sierra Club, said the group endorses the Clean Line project because of its environmental and economic benefits. “This is a significant step toward ramping up clean wind energy in our region … and will also lead to the retirement of several dirty coal-fired power plants,” Hooks told RTO Insider.

Clean Line said the project will provide about $1 billion of private investment in Oklahoma. The Houston-based company also promised a direct investment of more than $100 million in Arkansas through the converter station near Russellville.

Conflict of Interest?

Despite that, the project has brought opposition from Arkansas landowners and government officials over the potential use of eminent domain.

A week before the Energy Department issued its final EIS, Cotton wrote to Moniz, accusing Clean Line of paying the salaries of department employees working on the statement.

“Clean Line representatives stated that they receive monthly invoices from DOE listing the names, roles and hours of DOE personnel working on their application,” Cotton wrote in his Oct. 27 letter. He claimed that Clean Line is paying the department between $10,000 and $1 million a month. “A process with consequences this serious should be conducted with integrity [and] transparency and free from blatant conflicts of interests.”

Clean Line responded that “there are many instances in which Congress has chosen to allow federal agencies to receive funds from private companies to enable the agencies to comprehensively review, assess and potentially to participate in a proposed project. The reasons for this approach are to ensure that the costs fall on the applicant and private sector, and that projects providing substantial public benefits can move forward without their costs being borne by the taxpayer.”

Meanwhile, Boozman and Womack are co-sponsoring a bill that would require the Energy Department to obtain approval from a governor, a state public service commission and any local tribal government before approving transmission projects and subsequent use of federal eminent domain. It also would require the projects to be placed on federal, rather than private, land whenever possible.

Boozman and Womack both spoke in support of the bill before a House subcommittee Oct. 28. Boozman said support for renewable energy projects “has been set back in Arkansas by a sense that a federal agency may force a transmission project for which there is no clear demand or demonstrated need.”

Clean Line said in a statement it “takes property rights very seriously” and would only use condemnation “as a very last resort after all reasonable attempts at voluntary easement acquisition have been exhausted.” The company projects it will have to spend more than $30 million to Arkansas landowners, “well above the estimated fair market value of those easements.”