Dear Friends,
A great deal has happened since our last update.
First, the good news: There is no industrial facility construction underway – yet – in the Northern Laramie Range.
The imminent threat, of course, is the proposed Wasatch Wind “Pioneer Wind Park” venture in the Boxelder-Mormon Canyon area. Here’s the update:
1. As we reported last month, the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council (ISC) voted to approve the industrial wind development project that Wasatch Wind wants to develop in the Boxelder-Mormon Canyon area of the Northern Laramie Range. The vote was 4-3, with the deciding vote cast for Wasatch by a member of the Council who had not attended the first three days of the hearing (when NLRA presented its extensive evidence and expert testimony), dropping in only on the fourth and last day to hear Wasatch’s rebuttal testimony and closing argument before voting.
While formally approved, the ISC permit carries 21 conditions. Importantly, while Wyoming law requires an applicant to show its financial capability and further requires the ISC to determine that the applicant has financial resources, the ISC failed to reach adequate conclusions about these matters. Instead, in “Special Condition #19”, the ISC requires that “[p]rior to the start of construction, Permittee shall provide evidence acceptable to the Council…that the Permittee has obtained sufficient financial resources to construct, maintain, operate, decommission and reclaim the facility.” In this and a number of other areas, the ISC process and permit do not meet the requirements of Wyoming law, and NLRA intends to appeal the permit in the courts.
The ISC permit document is available here
2. Moody’s, one of the two leading credit rating agencies, has further downgraded Edison Mission Energy (EME), the Southern California generating company to which Wasatch intends to sell the “Pioneer Wind Park” deal. Moody's now gives EME a "Caa" rating, which Moody's says it gives to debtors that it judges “to be of poor standing and ... subject to very high credit risk.” As just noted, one of the conditions ISC imposed is that Wasatch show it has the financial capacity to build, maintain, operate, decommission and reclaim this $200+ million project. At the ISC hearing, Wasatch introduced EME as the source of this financial capacity. Obviously, Moody's action - just 16 days after the end of the ISC hearing - makes it even less likely than before that Wasatch can show the required financial capacity. The Moody’s report on EME is available here
3. In a further development, on July 11 NLRA filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in Washington a Petition for Declaratory Order challenging Wasatch’s “self-certification” that “Pioneer Wind Park” is two “qualifying facilities” under a federal law designed to encourage small-scale alternative energy production. “Qualifying facility” status allowed Wasatch to force Rocky Mountain Power to let it on the grid ahead of many other applicants, and at a price not determined by the normal competitive process. Wasatch got away with this even though, throughout this period, it has continued to describe “Pioneer Wind Park” as a single, 100 mw facility that otherwise would not qualify for this special treatment.
Wasatch makes its "two-project" claim even though these allegedly separate projects share common ownership, a single “collector” transmission line and point of connection to the grid and common operations and maintenance facilities. These are exactly the features that FERC has suggested point to an attempt to “game” the “qualifying facility” provisions of the law. This “gaming” has become common enough in the wind energy business that the Idaho Public Utilities Commission and Pacificorp (Rocky Mountain Power’s parent company) are challenging it in Idaho, and the Edison Electric Institute, which represents 70% of the public utilities in the United States, has asked FERC to deal with the problem. Rate-payers need to pay attention: This kind of gaming drives up your electricity prices, and clearly was not what Congress intended when it passed the federal law in question.
The NLRA filing with FERC can be viewed here
4. As we previously announced, NLRA has appealed Wasatch’s Converse County permit on a number of grounds – that appeal currently is pending.
Another important issue is the proposed Gateway West transmission project. On July 5, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that publication of the Gateway West environmental impact statement is imminent. There are a number of routes under consideration in that document, including “1-E” and “1-E-B” routes that would skirt the western edge of the Northern Laramies from the southeast corner of Natrona County and loop through Albany County, turning west into Carbon County and a junction with the “Aeolus” substation near Medicine Bow. We urge everyone to take a look at the current Gateway West routing proposals and weigh in on this issue. There’s an interactive map on the BLM website: http://www.gatewaywestmaps.com/.
Thanks once again for your continuing support, and we’ll let you know as these important matters develop. Again, the good news is that, as yet, there’s no industrial facility under construction in the Northern Laramie Range. With your continued support, we can keep it that way.
If you have questions or comments, please call Sharon Rodeman on 307-258-1713.
Sincerely,
The NLRA Steering Committee
Bret Frye
Kenneth Lay
Willard McMillen
Sharon Rodeman
Sally Sarvey
Tom Swanson
Diemer True
August 2, 2011