By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
A proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) was the topic of a long discussion at last Wednesday's State Legislative Budget Committee meeting in Topeka. Rep. Troy Waymaster of the 109th District that includes Russell and Ellsworth counties, questioned members of the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) about the scope of the project and how it would impact Kansas residents in its path. Waymaster said the 5-mile wide corridor, as proposed, could be destructive to local landowners and economies.
"You're also talking about a community, almost three years ago, that was devastated by a calamity of a natural disaster," Waymaster said. "Now, it's coming to being a calamity of federal government overreach, in their opinion."
Justin Grady, Deputy Director of Utilities at KCC referenced several meetings that have been held and various accounts of the proposed project in media reports.
"The most unfortunate thing about this whole process, to me, is, and you've hit on it a couple of times Representative, is this misunderstanding that they're going to bulldoze a 5-mile wide swath 380 miles through Kansas," Grady said. "That's not how transmission lines are built. That's not what's going to happen. I can't imagine that would happen."
Paul Owings, Deputy Chief Engineer with KCC, outlined the Grain Belt Express (GBE) project and how it was tied to the proposed NIETC. GBE was approved to become a public utility on Dec. 7, 2011. In November 2013, a 370-mile portion of the GBE was granted a siting permit that followed the later-proposed Midwest-Plains NIETC. Owings said GBE plans to formally request the Department of Energy (DOE) to narrow the Midwest-Plains Corridor from five miles wide to half a mile wide. Out of approximately 1,000 parcels of land associated with GBE, only eight of the easements (three percent) are being contested.
Owings said he believes GBE supports the NIETC because it increases capacity contracts with the DOE serving as an anchor customer that could purchase up to 50 percent of the energy provided by GBE. A DOE corridor would also make low-interest loans from the DOE available.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 established a federal back stop authority granting line siting authority to the DOE and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC can only site transmission lines within corridors designated by the DOE, and there are three trigger scenarios for FERC back stop authority.
One trigger is no action. If KCC receives an application for a transmission line and does not act on it within one year, FERC can gain authority. If state conditions around a project are so severe they impair a project, FERC may be able to step in and override those conditions. And finally, if KCC denies a permit, FERC may have back stop authority. Waymaster called that an overreach of federal power.
"In my personal opinion, I think it was passed in the bipartisan infrastructure law, and actually was passed in 2005 as you had in your presentation, is a violation of state rights and the 10th Amendment," Waymaster said. "I think, in a way, by having a back stop for FERC, depending on what the actions are of the KCC, it's circumventing your authority as an entity in the state of Kansas."
Waymaster said he already has legislation pending regarding the issue.