The Department of Commerce’s Energy Facility Permitting has responded to UCAN’s Motion to Enforce Citizens’ Due Process Rights. It’s hilarious watching them try to respond to some of the same issues that I’ve been raising — at some point, with all these complaints about process and notice, sometime soon that 100th monkey has just got to jump out of its swing and declare “YES, they’ve got a point!<\/p>\n
Commerce Energy Facility Permitting response to UCAN Motion to \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 to\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/a><\/p>\n Here are some of the more hilarious highlights:<\/p>\n UCAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arguments demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the Minnesota Rules governing the environmental review of an application for a Certificate of Need. For the reasons explained below, UCAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s motions should be denied.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Commerce cites the entire notice rule, which includes this subpart:<\/p>\n F. those persons who own property adjacent to any site or within any route and then goes on to say that:<\/p>\n UCAN argues that the Commissioner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notice falls short of legal requirements because it was not uh-huh… the corridors are identified sufficiently to send out notices to the 73,000 landowners of the public informational meetings, so shouldn’t those 73,000 landowners also get notice of the Certificate of Need proceeding? If they’re not part of the CoN hearings, then they have no input into need, and if it should be deemed “needed,” then they can only intervene in the “where will we put it” siting docket, which is too late to be meaningful.<\/p>\n … and that argument ends with this choice snippet:<\/p>\n In this case where the list of potentially affected landowners is voluminous, such a requirement as UCAN suggests is not only unnecessary, but would be extremely burdensome for the Department in terms of cost for postage and staff resources to prepare such mailings.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ummmmm… Commerce’s EFP assesses the utility for costs,”EXTREMELY BURDENSOME FOR THE DEPARTMENT?” And what of the burden on landowners, who will lose their land for this nonsense? We can see where the Gov’s agency puts its priorities.<\/p>\n Arguing against UCAN’s complaint about publication of notice in newspapers, Commerce says:<\/p>\n The second argument about inadequate publication made by UCAN is that a low turnout As one who attended most of the meetings, which were VERY poorly attended, I think that their lack of publicity IS a problem, and I think that the low attendance is indeed indicative of insufficient publication.<\/p>\n And countering UCAN’s complaint that the scheduling is around the holidays when it’s inconvenient, and where the rule says it must be convenient, Commerce argues:<\/p>\n UCAN alleges that the Department EFP Staff purposely designed the meeting schedules Seems to me that Commerce did the same thing with public hearings for Mesaba, several people commented that the DEIS Comment hearings were also just before the holidays, and not as many people showed up as had previously. However, it is noteworthy that for all of the public meetings for CapX, they WERE held in heated rooms, unlike the Mesaba hearing in Hoyt Lake, where everyone was in coats and mittens, shivering, and where AlanMuller<\/a> said on the record:<\/p>\n MR. MULLER: My name is Alan Muller. Before I JUDGE MIHALCHICK: Nobody is suffering more There was a modern heated building across the highway, but noooo, we’re in the gym next to the hockey arena, where if the heat blowers were on, we couldn’t hear, so they turned the blowers off. Yes, perhaps we should be grateful that they held the CapX public meetings in heated rooms…<\/p>\n Here’s the UCAN Motion:<\/p>\n UCAN Motion to Enforce Citizens\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Due Process Rights<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here’s the judge’s Notice, dated February 6, 2008, giving 10 WORKING days “from the date of receipt” which I presume is the receipt of the Notice, and given the holiday Monday, well, I’d say that those 10 working days are up on Thursday, eh? You do the math, check my work:<\/p>\n Notice of time to respond to UCAN Motion<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, are there other responses out there that haven’t been emailed around?\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, here’s the Applicants’ via Mike Krikava:<\/p>\n Applicants\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Response to UCAN Motion<\/a><\/p>\n Applicants\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Response – Aff of Carlsgaard<\/a><\/p>\n Applicants\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Response – Aff of Carlsgaard Exhibit 1<\/a><\/p>\n Applicants\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Response – Aff of Carlsgaard Exhibit 2<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Department of Commerce’s Energy Facility Permitting has responded to UCAN’s Motion to Enforce Citizens’ Due Process Rights. It’s hilarious watching them try to respond to some of the same issues that I’ve been raising — at some point, with …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuts-bolts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocapx2020.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocapx2020.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocapx2020.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocapx2020.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocapx2020.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nocapx2020.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocapx2020.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocapx2020.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocapx2020.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nidentified by the applicant as a preferred location for the project or as a site or
\nroute under serious consideration by the applicant if such sites or routes are
\nknown to the applicant.
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nsent to all of the approximately 73,000 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153landowners and residents reasonably likely to be
\naffected by the proposed transmission line.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d UCAN recognizes that subpart 1(F), specifically
\nrelating to the potentially affected landowners that UCAN believes must receive notice of the
\nDepartment\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scoping meetings, does not come into play in this matter because no routes or sites
\nhave been officially identified. Yet UCAN would have the ALJ require the Department to send
\nnotice to these same landowners pursuant to subpart 1(D) (emphasized in the above quotation).
\nThe Department\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s EFP Staff believes this is an incorrect interpretation of the rule.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nat the public meetings compared to the number of persons potentially affected means that the
\nnotice provided was insufficient. This argument is also without merit. The Department\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s EFP
\nstaff estimates conservatively that over 500 persons attended these meetings. Moreover, persons
\nwho attended and provided comments indicated by the nature of their comments that they knew
\nthis proceeding related only to the Certificate of Need and not the route permitting process.
\nWhen the Applicants\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 route applications are filed, it is reasonable to expect that many more
\nlandowners will see a reason to participate, but at this point there is no indication that all
\nproperties have even been identified by the Applicants. However, blaming low turnout on the
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Department\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s defiance of Minnesota\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notice laws\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is not only unfair, but is entirely wrong. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nto effect its strategy to deliberately minimize the public\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ability to participate. Specifically,
\nUCAN alleges that holding the meetings in the weeks before the Christmas holiday is one of the
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153inconveniences that were designed into these meeting schedules.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d There is simply no basis for
\nthis charge. These are the sort of spurious allegations that are easy to make and impossible to
\ndefend. The Department follows the rules for environmental review as consistently and correctly
\nas possible and encourages public participation. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nbegin, I’d like to note that Mr. Micheletti is wearing
\ngloves, representatives of the Department of Commerce
\nare wearing gloves. Many people in the room are
\nwearing gloves and overcoats. I don’t know if the
\nrules of the Office of Administrative Hearings call for
\nholding public hearings in heated facilities, but that
\nmight be something to consider in the future.<\/p>\n
\nthan I am.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n