SKIRPAN DENIES MOTION TO DELAY PATH HEARING - M. MORTON

(Created: Monday, January 10, 2011 5:23 PM EST)

 

State Corporation Commission Senior Hearing Examiner Alexander F. Skirpan Jr. today denied PATH Allegheny's request to change the procedural schedule for the renewed application to build the Virginia portion of its proposed 765kV transmission line from West Virginia to Maryland that would pass through northern Loudoun.

Ruling on arguments before him Jan. 6 in Richmond, Skirpan gave both sides a bit of what they wanted, but not all.

PATH did not get the delay it sought for the local public hearings, one of which is scheduled for Feb. 4 at Loudoun Valley High School in Purcellville, and for the evidentiary hearing April 25 in Richmond. On the other hand, he disappointed the various groups and Loudoun individuals who had requested that the application be dismissed with prejudice on grounds that it failed to demonstrate the project was needed at all or to rule it an incomplete application.
In his review of the situation, which included the request by PATH to defer the schedule only weeks after Skirpan had set the hearing dates, the hearing examiner discussed his options: to dismiss or deny the application; maintain the current schedule; or grant the application.
In establishing a "sort of Mexican standoff," as one participant termed it, Skirpan said he did not feel he had the authority dismiss or deny the application outright. He said he also thought it premature to deny the application by setting preconditions for re-applying.
Skirpan expressed concerns that the SCC could lose jurisdiction over the regulatory process to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission if the state fails to act on the application within one year of PATH's September re-application, although the company said it would not invoke FERC until after April 5, 2012. Noting there was "a risk that PATH-VA could choose not to abide by its agreement," Skirpan stated the safest alternative to prevent the SCC from losing jurisdiction to FERC was to maintain the current procedural schedule.

Skirpan ruled the current process be adhered to even though PATH representatives objected on grounds they could not comply with it.

The hearing examiner set a deadline of Jan. 18 to determine scenarios for updated load forecasts by the PJM electrical grid.
In coming to his decision, Skirpan heard arguments by a number of Lovettsville area residents, including Alfred, Irene and Theresa Ghiorzi and attorneys for a number of organizations, including the Sierra Club and the River's Edge residents, through whose properties the line would pass.
River's Edge attorney John Flannery noted Skirpan is holding PATH to a schedule the company says it can't meet, leaving it to comply or try to withdraw the application, as it did last year. Flannery said the River's Edge group feels PATH has now shown itself to be worthy of outright denial, because the new application is essentially no different from the one it withdrew last year, acknowledging at that time that energy demand projections did not demonstrate the need for the project.