KANSAS (KSNT) — The Biden administration approved a loan guarantee of $4.9 billion for a controversial project that would dissect Kansas with an electric transmission corridor.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it would be giving a conditional loan to Grian Belt Express LLC as part of the Biden-Harris Administration's Investing in America plan.
If completed the project would run a 578-mile-long 2,500-megawatt transmission line from Ford County, KS to Callaway County, MO. Parts of that project are already approved. According to the DOE, the project will connect three regional grids together: the Southwest Power Pool, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator and Associated Electric Cooperative Incorporated.
The US DOT highlights several reasons to move forward with the project such as: improving grid reliability and resilience, alleviating congestion and reducing consumer costs, meeting future generation and demand growth and increasing clean energy integration.
The loan comes in the form of a conditional commitment. The DOE describes a conditional commitment as "a loan or a loan guarantee to a project on the terms and subject to conditions set forth in a term sheet negotiated between DOE and the applicant".
The project has sparked concerns about eminent domain being used to move landowners out of the way of the project. Pawnee County Attorney Douglass McNett expressed his concerns:
“I think where the confusion has arisen between the Grain Belt and the Department of Energy’s proposed energy corridor is it looks like the Department of Energy simply used the schematics or the drawing that Grain Belt has established privately as their basis and just said ok we’ll go 2.5 miles either side of that grain belt transmission line,” said McNett. He says Pawnee County does not have concerns with the transmission line itself. “It’s the proposed energy corridor that would, in theory, give the federal government the authority to use eminent domain to take a five-mile swath for potential future needs,” he added.
Senator Roger Marshall’s office released a statement about the proposal earlier this year.
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s plan to federalize the approval process for future transmission lines, including the use of eminent domain, if needed, is wrong. I have stood firm in my opposition to giving the federal government the ability to overrule states on local projects and will continue to push back on this Administration’s overreach of power. We must let Kansans be the ones who approve new projects for their communities, not Washington DC bureaucrats,” said Sen. Marshall in a statement.
According to the Grain Belt Express website, the project will bring $1.2 billion in cost savings to Kansas customers, 19,350 direct jobs to the Sunflower State and $8.1 billion in economic activity during the construction.
KSN News' Carina Branson contributed to this article.
For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here.
