"Shocked and Outraged" says Eversource. I really wonder how shocked they were?. In my past career in Berlin, I was the project manager for an energy project that met the criteria for requiring a NH SEC permit. There was a process in place to get a waiver around the full formal procedure that we applied for and eventually received but I expect in the VFTT readership I might be one of the few who have sat before the SEC as an applicant. The need for a statewide comprehensive permit on energy projects has been around since the highly controversial never approved major oil refinery and nuclear plant at Seabrook with the realization that a major energy project impacts a region much larger than a town boundary. It took awhile for the law to end up in its current state and just prior to the NP application the makeup on the board was tweaked to give the public more input. These projects are inevitably large dollar speculative projects with the potential for long term profits. The developers have to have deep pockets to gain approval and they are pitted against typically underfunded local entities so it is difficult to make it a fair process. The losing side of a major permit inevitably says the committee is biased, just a rubberstamp permit for big business as the vast majority of the projects are approved. If denied, which is pretty rare, then the losing party is "shocked and outraged".
For the VFTT crowd the two largest projects permitted under the SEC in NH impacting the whites would be the Millsfield Wind Farm and the Groton wind farm on the ridge line overlooking Plymouth. The Millsfield windfarm went through the permit process fairly easily, the conservation community made some objections but the project pretty well was out of sight out of mind in an area with long history of being working woods and I expect most including myself regarded the project as an extension of the working woods history. I kept far less track of the opposition to the Groton wind farm (near Plymouth). I believe the opposition was higher but even though it is a visual blight on the ridgeline in Plymouth, it physically is located in Groton. In this case the project was approved and in general wind farms with similar characteristics seem to be a blind spot in the regulations and developers have learned to "bribe" the local town adequately to support the project. The smaller Jericho windfarm in Berlin was not large enough for an SEC permit and was approved locally. Luckily NP had physical presence in many towns so the viewshed impact from towns outside the towns in the corridor was not an issue except in the WMNF which were largely subdued by the burial modification.
When our project went before the board to hopefully gain a waiver from the full process, we had to prove that we had considered the following and NP had to do the same thing. These are not arbitrary, for each project, they are the law and have been for over 20 years.
"
(a) The applicant has adequate financial, technical, and managerial capability to assure construction and operation of the facility in continuing compliance with the terms and conditions of the certificate.
(b) The site and facility will not unduly interfere with the orderly development of the region with due consideration having been given to the views of municipal and regional planning commissions and municipal governing bodies.
(c) The site and facility will not have an unreasonable adverse effect on aesthetics, historic sites, air and water quality, the natural environment, and public health and safety.
(d) [Repealed.]
(e) Issuance of a certificate will serve the public interest." Here is a link to the RSA
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/XII/162-H/162-H-16.htm
The import thing to note is that the permit is not issued unless all four conditions are proven based on the record from the public hearings. In case of NP, the SEC could not reconcile the record with Item B. The record developed during the hearing phase was quite the contrary. Few if any towns outright supported the project with the exception of Franklin, which would be the site for the DC converter station which would be a major new taxable property. The majority of the towns formally opposed the project and many were interveners in opposition. Many towns had advisory votes and written public comments opposing the project and the public hearings overwhelmingly showed opposition despite NPs heavy handed attempts to trying to quell opposition.
Therefore in this case, the SEC elected to stop the process as they had reached a fundamental impasse between the record and the law. This shouldn't have been a "shock" to Eversource, the only real supporters of the project were those with direct or indirect economic impacts and politicians who had received past financial support from Eversource. In the case Les Otten's Balsams project, despite months of public denials that his advocacy for the project has no strings attached, in sworn testimony before the SEC he admitted that funding to support the Balsams was conditional on his public support. The SEC does have the right to impose conditions on the approval of a project but I don't think it would have been productive to grant a permit and put in enforceable conditions that Eversource would have to get overwhelming support from the towns and the public at large to proceed. An infinitely large checkbook probably wouldn't turn the tide as certain landowners in northern NH elected to sell their land or development rights at far less to SPNHF then what was being offered by NP.
IMHO, knowing that the process inevitably was going to end up at the state supreme court, the SEC decided they might as well not delay the process. I expect the leagues of lawyers on both sides have built up very long lists of potential points to be appealed. My understanding of state law is the court cant issue a permit all they can do is remand it back to the SEC with guidance on where the process erred from the statute. The NH governor is also unable to force a permit and I expect attempts to change members of the SEC to those who would vote to approve the permit would be met by further appeals. As the opposition knows, the best option to kill the project was just delay it long enough until the project is reconfigured or it becomes not worth pursuing.
A somewhat relevant side note is that Eversource in NH is going to be shrinking substantially as they have just divested their power generation assets. They will now become a regulated transmission and distribution operation. This is a regulated business and the state has oversight in their operations. They will not be allowed to maintain a bloated middle and upper level staff to support their new smaller footprint in the state. The NP project could have potentially been a home to excess staff for 2 to 4 years but without the permit some folks will end up on the street sooner than later. The best approach they have now is try to keep a brave face on and try to delay the inevitable. I expect some high level heads will elect to "retire" as upper management of Eversource is going to need cover.
The state supreme court to date has been hesitant to get involved. There were a couple of attempts to short circuit the SEC permit process by the opposition and it appears as though the court elected not to get involved knowing that they would be involved at a later date. I just don't see any outcome of an appeal that puts the process back on track. I could speculate that NP could attempt to force the SEC to go back into deliberative session but I don't see the outcome changing so its just delaying the inevitable. Ideally NP would be best off requesting a new permit based on burial along existing roads but I expect the Franconia parkway section may require congressional involvement to allow expansion of the developed area. I don't think the option of putting it under the parkway would pass muster as that would require the highway to be closed outright for months to support the construction. They could try to shift to the proposed burial alignment in place in the application but to date there are many indications that the plan in place has created opposition in most towns it runs through. The only other "nuclear option" is to get the project declared a critical regional electric infrastructure project. In theory the Federal Government passed a fast track federal method of bypassing state and local opposition to critical infrastructure projects but despite the intent I don't think it has really been used successfully. Given that there is permitted project in VT and two other far less controversial powerline proposals on the table, I expect Mass will jump on one of them and I don't see a lot of future for NP.
