(Will be updated as warranted)
State regulators on Thursday decided to open an investigation into transmission line siting in the aftermath of the controversy stirred by approval of NextEra Energy’s plan to build a transmission line from Kansas into Missouri.
The Kansas Corporation Commission agreed to open the inquiry as part of agreeing to approve the NextEra transmission line linking the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant near Burlington to the Blackberry substation across the border in Missouri.
The line cut a path across Coffey, Anderson, Allen, Bourbon and Crawford counties, drawing complaints from area residents.
The commission will examine the principles and priorities to be used in future transmission line siting proceedings.
The commission directed its staff to propose the scope of the investigation and the topics that should be included.
The investigation permits a “very thorough review of the role that local and state concerns at issue should play in locating future transmission lines and future transmission line sitings,” said Commissioner Dwight Keen.
“I think this is and certainly will become an important commission-initiated docket,” Keen said.
The commission’s action comes at about the same time that an interim legislative was planning to take up transmission line siting later this year.
The Special Committee on Energy and Utilities will meet for four days to take up several issues including the impact of renewable energy, electric rates and developing a new state energy plan.
Transmission line siting was part of the committee’s proposed agenda, but it was unclear how much that would be affected by the KCC’s investigation opened on Thursday.
Republican state Rep. Leo Delperdang of Wichita chairs the interim committee on energy.
Delperdang said the committee would likely hit on the issue, but he wondered whether its work would overlap with the KCC’s investigation.
“Anything we would have done, may have led to that,” Delperdang said of a KCC inquiry.
Spurred by NextEra transmission line, a handful of residents asked lawmakers during the last legislative session to limit utility companies’ ability to use eminent domain in locating transmission lines.
They said the utility companies have too much power that should be reined in by the Legislature.
They said local county commissions who are familiar with the area should have a voice in how eminent domain is used for constructing transmission lines.
The utility companies said they try to work with landowners when undertaking projects that could affect their property.
The eminent domain bill came up late during this year’s legislative session and didn’t get out of committee but is expected to return next year.
Organized by Virginia Crossland, the group wanting new limits on transmission line siting has created a website and has a Facebook page dedicated to its efforts.
Republican state Sen. Tim Shallenburger of Baxter Springs tried to add the bill to separate legislation on the Senate floor, but it was declared not germane.
Shallenburger was glad to see the agency take up the issue but was doubtful that it would lead to any meaningful reform.
“I’m glad they’re taking it up, although the KCC tends to be very utility oriented so I doubt that anything comes of it,” he said
“I do believe that before you get too far down the road anticipating where they’re going to put things, they should have local conversations with local communities and let them have some input,” Shallenburger said.
“There are ways to build transmission lines that are not upsetting to the residents,” he said.
“When you have to go get new sitings cut through the middle of people’s property, you can easily make a few rights turns and make people happy.”
