Feds cancel Grain Belt Express loan guarantee
The U.S. Department of Energy announced July 23 that it was canceling a conditional $4.9 billion loan guarantee for the Grain Belt Express, a planned transmission line designed to transport electricity from wind farms in Kansas across eight states, including Missouri.
The Grain Belt Express, and its loan guarantee, are signature projects of former President Joe Biden’s green energy initiatives. If completed, the Grain Belt Express would be the single largest transmission line in United States history. Proponents claim it is needed to upgrade the U.S. grid and distribute green energy.
Illinois-based Invenergy, the company behind its construction, claims it has secured most needed properties and permits. The Missouri Public Service Commission claimed it would lower electricity bills for 17 million Missourians. But it has been fighting a stubborn group of rural landowners opposed to having the line cross their land.
Those opponents have been supported by Missouri’s elected officials opposed to Invenergy’s use of eminent domain. Missouri’s U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley has held multiple hearings on the project and has often declared his intent to shut it down.
Earlier in July, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced that he has issued a Civil Investigative Demand to Grain Belt Express, LLC following widespread concerns over “misleading claims and a track record of dishonesty surrounding its transmission line project,” according to his office. Bailey submitted a formal letter to the Missouri Public Service Commission “to offer the full force of his Office’s support in a reevaluation of GBE’s prior approval based on seemingly false assumptions and fraudulent data.”
“Grain Belt Express has repeatedly lied to Missourians about the jobs it would create, the benefits it would deliver, and the land it seeks to take,” Bailey said. “We will not allow a private corporation to trample property rights and mislead regulators for a bait and switch that serves out-of-state interests instead of Missourians.”
GBE has filed nearly 50 eminent domain lawsuits against Missouri landowners to obtain property for a speculative project, which opponents said were to increasingly serve out-of-state data centers, not Missouri families
The Attorney General’s Office said it will compel GBE to produce documents related to its economic claims, promises of job creation, marketing tactics, environmental impacts, landowner outreach, and shifting project goals. The actions were taken under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, which prohibits “false promises, fraud, and deceptive practices in connection with business activities in the state.”
Bailey’s letter to the PSC also notes that GBE’s application relied on “speculative and possibly fraudulent assumptions, including the existence of a carbon tax that was never enacted by Missouri or federal law and does not exist.”
“We are launching this investigation to protect landowners and demand accountability from a project built on broken promises,” said Bailey.” We will not allow a private corporation to trample property rights and mislead regulators just to secure federal subsidies and political favor.”
GBE has made contingency plans to continue the project without the federal loan guarantee.
David Murray can be reached at [email protected].
