Environment

EFSB cancels Invenergy show cause hearing

Rather than defend their actions before the Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB) at a January 30 “show cause” hearing and risk having their application delayed for months or even years, Invenergy this week worked to eliminate the problems the EFSB were concerned with, rendering the EFSB show cause order moot. This means that there is no longer an EFSB show

Rhode Island News: EFSB cancels Invenergy show cause hearing

January 24, 2018, 9:39 pm

By Steve Ahlquist

Rather than defend their actions before the Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB) at a January 30 “show cause” hearing and risk having their application delayed for months or even years, Invenergy this week worked to eliminate the problems the EFSB were concerned with, rendering the EFSB show cause order moot.

This means that there is no longer an EFSB show cause hearing scheduled for January 30.

Invenergy seeks to build a $1 billion fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant in the middle of the pristine forests of northwest Rhode Island.

In the order from the EFSB, signed by Chair Margaret Curran, the decision is explained:

“On December 12, 2017, the Energy Facility Siting Board ordered Invenergy Thermal Development LLC to appear before the Board on January 30, 2018 to show cause: (1) whether the Supplemental Water Supply Plan with the Narragansett Indian Tribe, as submitted, contains sufficient detail for the Board to evaluate and/or whether the Supplemental Water Supply Plan should not be dismissed from the pending application and (2) whether the application, as submitted, under the Board Rules 1.5 and 1.6 would be sufficiently changed as to the cost impact on ratepayers so as to require suspension during the pendency of the action before Federal Energy Regulatory Commission filed by Invenergy regarding an ISO-NE tariff.

“On January 22, 2018, Invenergy filed an informational filing with the Board notifying the Board that its contract with the Tribe had been mutually terminated. On January 24, 2018, Invenergy provided the Board with a copy of its motion to withdraw its pending complaint with FERC.

“Since the issues that were the basis of the Show Cause Hearing no longer exist, the order requiring Invenergy to appear to show cause is vacated as moot.”

There is still a case before FERC, and a request from the Town of Burrillville for a show cause hearing regarding that lawsuit.

Patricia Lucarelli, Administrative and Legal Support Services Administrator for the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission, explains, in a letter, “The Town’s January 10, 2018 Motion for a Show Cause Hearing in Docket No. 2017-01 regarding the joint filing at FERC by ISO-New England and National Grid has not been scheduled yet.”

Stayed tuned…


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