Lane Kingsbery 🌵

A bizarre state appeals court ruling this week that stalled a $7 bln transmission line is a great illustration of the need for permitting reform. Grain Belt Express is an 800-mile line bringing wind power from Kansas to Midwest. The project is necessary to meet growing load with clean power. It's also a test case on whether this country can build still big projects. One criteria of getting permits in Illinois is proving that the project is capable of getting financed. The developer, Invenergy, is one of the most experienced and largest independent renewables developers in the US, having built multiple 10-figure projects. Any project of this size not developed by a utility will use project financing, with a combination of bank debt and investor equity. Given Invenergy's experience, that rate payers bear no financial risk, precedent, and that the project was using standard financing structures, the IL Commerce Commission granted a permit. For added protection, it prohibited any construction in the state until the project was fully funded. But the appeals court reversed this decision, saying that the project did not have its financing lined up. This fundamentally misunderstands how projects are built and creates an impossible standard that no independent developer can meet. To qualify for project financing, banks require, among many other things, permits. But the Court created a chicken and egg dilemma, saying the Commission cannot grant a permit until the project has financing, and banks won't grant financing until a project has permits. In its opinion, the Court criticizes the Commission for accepting the argument that Invenergy is implicitly asking to “give us approval, then we will finance it, and then we will build it.” But that is exactly how these projects get built. If that sequence is not allowed, nothing will ever get built. For now, until the state Supreme Court hears an appeal, the project is frozen. In development, time is money. These delays reduce profitability to the point that good projects are killed or never even started. More broadly, this ordeal shows the insanity of permitting large projects in the US today. There are so many veto points in the system and any one can delay/kill a project. This is why federal permitting reform that allows good projects to be built in a timely way is so important. The US cannot meet its goals without it.