As CLF begins a third year of advocacy on the Northern Pass project, some updates are in order:

The “New Route” Drama

With 2013 only days away, it is looking more and more likely that Northern Pass Transmission LLC (NPT) will not have secured 100% of a “new route” for the project’s northernmost portion by year end, as its public statements have been promising for months. As chronicled in a Boston Globe front-page story published earlier this week (the national daily’s first major story on Northern Pass), landowners are rejecting repeated offers from NPT, and our friends at the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests have secured agreements to conserve key parcels along what appears to NPT’s preferred new path. (According to report in yesterday’s Union Leader, NPT officials are readying some kind of “update” on the project’s progress, which may raise more questions than it answers.)

If NPT fails to make good on its promised “new route,” it will be a singular embarrassment and signal more wasted months of self-inflicted delay. It also will continue NPT’s troubling pattern of misleading investors and peddling falsehoods about the project.

Whatever the success of NPT’s attempt to buy a transmission corridor through New Hampshire’s North Country, Northern Pass overall will remain the same flawed proposal that affected communities and stakeholders have overwhelmingly rejected over the last two years. Susan Arnold of the Appalachian Mountain Club and I penned an op-ed with this message, and it was widely published in New Hampshire newspapers this month. Please take a moment to read the op-ed here.

NU’s False Statements Get Noticed

Over the last month, the Boston Globe, the Concord Monitor, Connecticut newspapers, and NHPR (complete with audio) published stories on Northeast Utilities CEO Tom May’s blatantly false statements about support for Northern Pass. Instead of correcting the comments, NU’s spokesperson compounded Mr. May’s misstatements by insisting, contrary to any possible interpretation of the comments, that Mr. May was speaking about support for the Cape Wind project – a renewable energy proposal backed by a strong public campaign that is co-sponsored by many of the region’s environmental groups. The contrast with Northern Pass couldn’t be starker.

A Broken Permitting Process

The Department of Energy’s permitting process for the Northern Pass project remains tainted by its abdication of responsibility to select an independent and impartial contractor to prepare the crucial environmental impact statement for the project. In a recent letter to Senator Shaheen, DOE repeated its prior position that it sees nothing wrong with the way the current contractor team was selected because NPT’s extraordinary role in the selection process was not unusual. As I explained in October, a precedent of repeating a mistake is no justification. In November, CLF filed a new Freedom of Information Act request to understand the activities of the contractor team, DOE, and NPT during the last year and the extent of NPT’s influence over the direction of the permitting process.

An Underground Alternative Emerges

Meanwhile, we are learning more about a realistic alternative to NPT’s current proposal that could address some community concerns and provide new public revenues. In November, a state legislative commission released an important report highlighting the feasibility of siting underground high-voltage transmission lines in state-owned transportation corridors. The report can be found here (PDF) and followed a lengthy process of collecting testimony and input from dozens of stakeholders, including CLF and a number of other conservation organizations. The report found that underground transmission technologies and corridors are “being used extensively throughout the U.S. and internationally,” “may increase the reliability and security of the electric transmission system,” and “may be technically and financially competitive with other transmission designs and locations.” The commission pointed to other pending transmission projects that incorporate underground technologies sited in state-owned transportation corridors as an indication that this approach “can be technically and financially viable.” (Earlier this week, New York officials recommended approval of one of these projects – the Champlain Hudson Power Express between Québec and New York City, which now includes more than 120 miles of underground high-voltage transmission in active railroad corridors and highways.)

While the state agency officials participating in the commission were reluctant to endorse specific policy proposals in the report (which they saw as outside the commission’s charge), many commission members emphasized the need for a proactive, comprehensive energy plan and a regulatory framework that would help New Hampshire assure that new transmission projects provide meaningful public benefits.

A majority of the commission’s legislator members recommended changes to the state siting process for energy projects, including a requirement that a transmission developer bring forward an underground alternative to any overhead project. It is expected that these recommendations will be among the many legislative proposals to amend the state siting law during the 2013 session of the New Hampshire legislature.

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What will 2013 bring for the Northern Pass project and New Hampshire’s energy future? Stay updated by signing up for our newsletter Northern Pass Wire, and be sure to check in with CLF’s Northern Pass Information Center (http://www.clf.org/northern-pass) and all of our latest Northern Pass posts on CLF Scoop. You can also follow me on Twitter, where I often point to recent news articles on Northern Pass.

CLF and all stakeholders concerned about the fairness and objectivity of the environmental review process for the proposed Northern Pass electric transmission project scored an important victory today.  Responding to concerns raised by CLF and others, Northern Pass Transmission, LLC has today formally requested termination of an agreement with the Department of Energy that tasked Northern Pass’s contractor, Normandeau Associates, with preparing the federal Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed project.  Northern Pass Transmission, LLC has requested that the Department of Energy, which is administering the environmental review as part of its Presidential Permit process, select a new contractor to prepare the Environmental Impact Statement.

In filings with the Department of Energy last month, CLF and other parties sounded the alarm about the Department of Energy’s choice of Normandeau on the grounds that Normandeau was also working for the project applicant, Northern Pass Transmission, LLC and demanded that the Department of Energy retain a different contractor without a conflict of interest.  More recently, New Hampshire’s two U.S. Senators added their voices to the chorus questioning the selection of Normandeau to prepare the EIS.  With the pressure mounting and scoping meetings for the EIS scheduled to take place next week, Northern Pass’s action today means that the Department of Energy should now move forward with the environmental review of the Northern Pass project with the objectivity and independence that federal law requires.

As the process gets underway and a new contractor is selected, CLF will continue to advocate for an open, fair and rigorous environmental review of this transmission project, its many significant potential impacts and all possible alternatives to the current proposal.

On Wednesday, CLF received some welcome, high-profile help in its effort to ensure that the Department of Energy’s environmental review of the Northern Pass electric transmission project is unbiased, objective, and legitimate.

As noted in the Concord Monitor, Senators Shaheen and Ayotte joined CLF, its partners the Appalachian Mountain Club and Coos Community Benefits Alliance, and others, in questioning the Department of Energy’s selection of Normandeau Associates, the same consulting firm that project proponent Northern Pass Transmission, LLC has engaged to obtain other permits for the project, to prepare the Environmental Impact Statement or “EIS” for the project.

Both New Hampshire Senators sent letters to Secretary Chu (Senator Shaheen’s is here and Senator Ayotte’s should be posted here soon) demanding an explanation for Normandeau’s selection.  As Senator Shaheen put it:

In order for the public and those affected by the proposed transmission project to have confidence in the DOE permitting process, it is essential that there be no conflict of interest in the approval process. While DOE, Normandeau and Northern Pass LLC have sought to address the potential conflict of interest by separating the employees and teams working on their respective aspects of the project, even the perception of a conflict is problematic given the significance of this project.

Senator Shaheen attached CLF’s and its partners’ formal objection filed with the Department of Energy to her letter.  As our objection made clear, Normandeau’s conflict of interest is both clear as a matter of common sense and forbidden by the federal regulations governing the environmental review process.

The Department of Energy has not said when (or even if) it will rule on CLF’s and others’ objections to Normandeau’s selection. It is critical that it do so soon, as the EIS “scoping” process is about to kick off with a series of scheduled public meetings throughout New Hampshire in mid-March.

CLF will be an active participant throughout the environmental review process for the Northern Pass project, and an overview of the project and CLF’s concerns is here.  As the process moves forward, we will be posting additional resources on the project, its impacts, and the permitting process on CLF’s website.

CLF, with the Appalachian Mountain Club and Coos Community Benefits Alliance, has filed an objection with the US Department of Energy (DOE) challenging the DOE’s selection of a contractor to prepare the Environmental Impact Statement for the Northern Pass electric transmission project. The objection comes out of concern that the contractor chosen will not be able to provide an objective, unbiased analysis, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

“The preparation of an objective Environmental Impact Statement is a core requirement of the public review and fully-informed decision making mandated by NEPA,” said Tom Irwin, director of CLF New Hampshire.  “DOE’s selection of a contractor—one that simultaneously owes a duty to the project applicant to help obtain state-level permits—flies in the face of this objectivity requirement and will undermine the legitimacy of the NEPA review process from day one.” More >