November 2020 E-News
Following ELPC’s and Iowa Environmental Council’s effective advocacy, Alliant Energy will close its Lansing coal plant by the end of 2022 and convert its Burlington coal plant to natural gas by next year. Alliant will add 400 MW of utility-scale solar by 2023 and 100 MW of distributed generation, or smaller-scale solar and battery storage, by 2026. In 2019, we intervened in Alliant’s rate case before the Iowa Utilities Board and, among other things, achieved a rate case settlement requiring Alliant to complete an analysis of the economics of its coal plants.

As ELPC Senior Attorney Josh Mandelbaum said, "uneconomic coal plants are in nobody’s interest. The voluntary resource planning process we agreed to last year in our rate case settlement … is a step forward for the state, and we are seeing the benefits of that process. Retiring the uneconomic Lansing plant and the commitment to adding solar will benefit consumers and the environment."
ELPC analysis shows the Trump EPA has backed down from appropriate and necessary Clean Water Act enforcement in Region 7, which covers Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and nine tribal nations. The latest report complements ELPC’s Region 5 report, released in April, which showed similar trends in Great Lakes states. ELPC Senior Attorney Josh Mandelbaum said in the Des Moines Register that this lack of enforcement “sends a signal to companies that should be following the law that it doesn’t matter. They don’t think there’s going to be penalties for polluting, and it creates a lot of bad behavior.”
ELPC and the Michigan Climate Action Network have filed an appeal after a Michigan Public Service Commission Administrative Law Judge denied our motion to consider the impacts of climate change on the permitting of Enbridge’s proposed Line 5 tunnel through the Straits of Mackinac.

ELPC Senior Attorney Margrethe Kearney said, “the conduct at issue in this case – construction of a tunnel and pipeline that will lead to the transport and use of significantly more greenhouse gas-emitting petroleum products – must be subject to environmental review under Michigan law. Not only is the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions required by law, but Gov. Whitmer’s recent Executive Order on Climate Change also makes clear that reducing carbon emissions is a high priority for the future well-being of Michiganders.”
ELPC public interest attorneys filed a flurry of briefs and motions last month in Wisconsin on behalf of the Driftless Area Land Conservancy and Wisconsin Wildlife Federation. We are challenging the merits of the Commission’s approval of the Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) for the unneeded Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line, which would cut a wide swath through the scenic Driftless Area’s valued natural resources, family farms, and communities with 17-story high towers.

We are also challenging two of the Public Service Commissioners’ participation in approving the proposed 345 kV high-voltage transmission line because of their, at least, the appearance of bias, lack of impartiality, and ex parte communications with parties during the contested case proceedings before the Commission. Find additional coverage by the Wisconsin State Journal.
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