FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

SIERRA CLUB TO APPEAL AUGUST 1, 2008 PSC DECISION APPROVING TRAILCO ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION LINE

The Sierra Club is disappointed with, and will appeal to the West Virginia Supreme Court, the decision issued today by the PSC approving TrAILCo's proposal to build an interstate electric transmission across West Virginia.  The evidence in the PSC's January hearings established that the line was intended solely to "move large amounts of coal from west to east" and to provide the infrastructure for the construction of four new coal fired electric generation plants, which are cited as part of the economic justification.  

The line is not needed now or in the future to supply electricity to West Virginia -- which exports 60 million of the 90 million giga-watt hours of electricity it produces each year -- and results in a gross imbalance between electric needs and environmental degradation.  Virtually all of the immediate environmental degradation will be absorbed by citizens of this state; the long term impact of vastly increased CO2 emissions, certain to result from the increased use of coal fired electricity.  

Moreover, the line will increase the already disproportionate dependence of West Virginia consumers and businesses on what is certain to be much higher cost coal once a cap and trade system is adopted to govern the trading of CO2 credits.  The impact of the failure to diversify West Virginia's energy sources will permanently cripple economic development in the state and reinforce the position of West Virginia citizens as among the lowest income earners in the country.

The purported justification based upon enhanced "reliability" was effectively rebutted by electric grid experts at the January hearings, and that rebuttal wase the basis for the well reasoned opposition to the TrAILCo line expressed in the post-hearing brief filed by the PSC Staff.  To be sure, TrAILCo itself recognized on January 19 that it had failed to carry its evidentiary burden.

The recognition of that failure in the public hearings was obviously the motivation for the extensive communications with PSC's staff attorneys and section heads, conducted behind closed doors and with no public participation, documented in the nearly 3,000 pages of materials released to the Sierra Club pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.  The result of TrAILCo's extensive ex-parte contacts were straight forward -- the PSC Staff's executed the legal equivalent of a complete back flip.  In the April 15 Joint Stipulation filed with the Commission the PSC Staff announced its decision to withdrew its opposition to the TrAILCo line for very meager economic incentives that in no way altered the evidence in the record regarding electric need or environmental degradation.  

Indeed, the alternate line route proposed in the April 15, 2008 Joint Stipulation was, by TrAILCo's own analysis, much worse than the originally proposed route.  It had the sole advantage of substituting a new group of unsuspecting land owners -- who'd had no reason to intervene before -- for the landowners affected by the original proposal, a far more vocal group who was effectively silenced by TrAILCo's last minute bait and switch, and the PSC Staff's enabling flip-flop on the evidence. 

The Sierra Club will pursue all legal remedies in an effort to halt the environmentally destructive, electrically unnecessary and economically unfeasible electric line.