Developer Urges Trump Not to Kill $11 Billion Power Line
(Bloomberg) -- Invenergy, a closely-held power developer, is calling on the Trump Administration to affirm its commitment to a $11 billion power line in the US Midwest after a US Senator from Missouri said he’s secured a pledge from federal officials to halt the project.
The Grain Belt line would carry electricity generated by wind farms and other energy sources in Kansas across Missouri and Illinois to Indiana. The project is capable of delivering four nuclear power plants’ worth of electricity and would be the highest capacity and second longest line in US history, according to the company.
“The Grain Belt Express transmission line is a critical energy security project, supported by a broad, multi-state coalition of stakeholders,” Invenergy Chief Commercial Officer Jim Shield wrote in a letter Friday to Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright. “It will strengthen grid reliability and resilience while saving US consumers billion of dollars,” said the letter obtained by Bloomberg News.
The request comes a day after Republican Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said in a statement that he had gotten a commitment from Wright to stop the project and end a $4.9 billion conditional federal loan guarantee offered in the final months of the Biden administration. The Energy Department and Senator Hawley’s office didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey also asked the Energy Department this week to stop the loan after his office opened an investigation into the project and called on state regulators to reconsider its approval.
The uncertain fate to the Grain Belt line comes as Americans grapple with rising electricity prices as demand jumps, in large part because of data centers to power AI. The Trump administration has been openly critical of renewable energy sources including wind and solar, and has pursued a pro-coal and fossil fuel approach to energy generation. A massive tax-and spending bill signed by President Donald Trump this month aggressively phases out tax credits for wind turbines and solar projects.
Senator Hawley has been pressuring the Energy Department for months to cancel the loan to Invenergy, calling it an “elitist land grab” that would harm Missouri farmers and ranchers.
Invenergy has said that the project is critical to modernizing American’s aging grid and will provide billions of dollars of savings to consumers and create 5,500 jobs.
(Updates with attempt to reach Hawley in paragraph four. An earlier version corrected the title of Invenergy executive in the third paragraph.)
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