Lets get back to that memo from former Energy Secretary Steven Chu telling Power Marketing Agencies to start pushing wind energy for a moment. So if former Energy
Secretary Chu’s memo to exploit Section 1222 for the wind industry raised a ruckus, who was complaining? It wasn’t
the public. We weren’t aware of it at
the time. Apparently, the Western
Farmer’s Electric Cooperative in Oklahoma and New Mexico was one of the objectors. Here's a portion of their statement.
(FYI, PMA are Power Management Agencies, like the Southwestern Power Administration who manages the electricity generated from Corp of Engineer's hydroelectric dams.)
(FYI, PMA are Power Management Agencies, like the Southwestern Power Administration who manages the electricity generated from Corp of Engineer's hydroelectric dams.)
Like the other PMAs, SWPA charges the “lowest possible
rates, consistent with sound business principles” (Section 5 of the Flood
Control Act of 1944). This means that SWPA sets its wholesale power rates at
levels that are sufficient to recover the investment costs of the hydropower
and transmission system – plus interest – as well as the annual operating and
maintenance costs of the Corps’ hydro plants and SWPA. The PMAs are one of the
few federal programs that recover all associated federal costs. But Secretary
Chu wants the PMAs to take on new responsibilities well beyond simply marketing
federal hydropower. What does this mean?
Mission creep for DOE and higher costs for
electric consumers!
The Western
Farmer’s Electric Cooperative predicted this one correctly. This abuse of Section 1222 of the 2005 Energy Policy Act is mission creep. The WFEC continues with more insight.
Get ready for a bunch more proposals for SWPA to use its
federal eminent domain authority to acquire rights-of-way for transmission
lines that likely will provide little or
no benefit to federal power delivery and could provide little or no benefit to
interconnectivity of the grid – another goal identified earlier in the Chu
memo. There is no provision in the memo to seek changes in Section 1222 to
shield PMA hydro customers from any of the costs or other liabilities
associated with
SWPA’s participation in transmission construction for third
parties.
That sums up Plains & Eastern Clean Line fairly well.
The
Daily Signal also had commentary about the Chu memo to use the SWPA to
implement the Administration’s green agenda.
If the PMAs need such investments, then
they should be made because it makes business sense—and funded through PMA
revenues—not with taxpayer dollars because the
President is running out of more transparent ways to advance his green energy
agenda.
So if the SWPA
has to sell energy at below market rates, how is the SWPA allowed to sponsor Plains
& Eastern to sell at a premium to wholesale rates?
For that matter, does the SWPA feel betrayed
and used by the administration to promote a wind energy agenda?
Section 1222 was added to the 2005 Energy
Policy Act to promote the SWPA advance hydroelectric energy, Plain & Simple. The Administration has abused Section 1222 to
the point where the Department of Energy is using the SWPA as a surrogate to
obtain an easement through eminent domain for Clean Line Energy, who intends to
sell the project to National Grid once the Right-of-Way is acquired. What ever happened to the SWPA’s original
purpose to generate and market hydroelectricity?
In the end, we
still have the Obama’s Administration using the Department of Energy to force
the Southwestern Power Administration to utilize a portion of the 2005 Energy
Policy Act to use eminent domain muscle to acquire of 16,000 acres of easement
through Oklahoma and Arkansas for a privately owned speculation company to
build a powerline to promote the members of the American Wind Energy
Association. There is no one to appeal
this seizure of private property other than the Department of Energy who is
under control by the President of the United States.
What about Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness?
What happened to the
appreciation of private ownership of property?
The Declaration of Independence?
The Constitution?
The Rule of
Law?
We live in a new area of a “living
breathing Constitution” where the Administration is not bound to laws. The Administration through the Department of Energy can seize your land to
build a speculation company's powerline to advance a political agenda.
It is a good
guess that the SPWA is asking the same questions and has the same contempt for
Clean Line Energy with there Plains & Eastern Clean Line as Arkansas residence and others in the Midwest fearful of an
abuse of eminent domain by the federal government to promote a political agenda.
In the end, the Obama administration,
wind energy and Clean Line are nothing more than looters that used the guise of
“clean” energy to justify the seizure of our means of living, income from our
farms, our homes and privately owned lands. With Secretary Chu gone and Secretary Ernest Moniz holding the job, prudence will prevail and this abuse of Section 1222 will come to an end.