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St. Louis Post Dispatch: Missouri blocks Grain Belt Express wind project

In a win for a group of rural Missouri landowners, utility regulators blocked a multi-state transmission line that backers say would transport Kansas wind energy to eastern electric grids.

The Missouri Public Service Commission’s 3-2 vote to deny the Grain Belt Express project’s route stalls the entire line, which already won approval from Kansas and Indiana.

In their vote to deny the project, the PSC majority cited opposition from a vocal group of farmers and rural landowners opposed to eminent domain.

“You had to come down to the property rights,” PSC Commissioner Scott Rupp said, explaining his vote to block the project. “The fact is this did not come from a planning organization. … This was a business model of a private company.”

Transmission line routes must be approved by state regulators, who give the developers the right to use eminent domain if they can’t secure all the property necessary for the lines.

Typically, the developers are utilities and the projects are chosen through a planning process by regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and paid for by all ratepayers across a region.

Read the rest on StLToday.com

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