Transcript

A transcript of the episode as it aired. Lightly edited for clarity: filler words and false starts are trimmed, and nothing that was cut from the audio appears here. Speakers appear with their permission.

Cold open

KERYN NEWMANWe formed a group called StopPATH WV, Incorporated, and we battled that project for two and a half years before it was first suspended by PJM, which is our grid operator, like you have MISO. And then later it was canceled.

Why this conversation

MICHAEL BROWNEBefore we jump into today's podcast, I just want to give a little background on this conversation and why it's so important and relevant to today. In 2007, two utility companies proposed a 765 kilovolt transmission line: 275 miles, from a coal plant in West Virginia across Virginia into Maryland, about 7,000 acres of new right-of-way, $2.1 billion paid for by ratepayers. It was never built. In August of 2012, PJM, the regional grid operator over in that area, canceled it. And the reason they gave was that the need for it no longer existed.

MICHAEL BROWNEOne of the people who spent four years making that case is Keryn Newman. She lives in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. She's not a lawyer, she's not an engineer. In 2009, she and her neighbors started a group called StopPATH. And when the line died, she just didn't stop. The companies turned around and asked ratepayers across 13 states to reimburse them $121 million for a line that was never built. Keryn and another West Virginia resident, Alison Haverty, took that to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, themselves, with no attorney, and then to a federal appeals court in Washington. And guess what, they won. The court threw out more than $6 million in public relations and lobbying costs that the company had been charging to people's electric bills.

MICHAEL BROWNEAnd here's why we're talking to her in Wisconsin today. American Electric Power was one of the two companies behind that line. AEP is a parent company of Transource. And Transource is half of the company proposing BECI here in Wisconsin. Same voltage, some of the same names, just 18 years apart. PATH is not our line. West Virginia is not Wisconsin. But she's been standing exactly where a lot of you are standing right now, and she came out on the other side. Keryn, thank you for joining us.

Taking FERC to court, without a lawyer

KERYN NEWMANSince that time, I've been working with other groups around the country to help them get organized and educated, and to strategize to beat other transmission projects around the country. It started during the PATH case. We were wondering about all the money the company was spending. It was sponsor a 10K. They had advertising on radio, TV, newspapers, everywhere you could be. And we thought, who is paying for this? So we dug into it through a process at FERC. It's a formula rate process. And we ended up filing a complaint, because they were collecting, of course, that money from us to buy advocacy for their project. And that was wrong according to FERC's rules.

KERYN NEWMANSo we filed a complaint, and that took a good five to seven years to go through FERC. And finally FERC found in our favor, and that was great. And they said, no, you cannot use ratepayer money to buy advocacy and advertising and things for your project. However, three years later, FERC changed their mind and allowed PATH to recollect the money. So we ended up having to take them to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, pro se, without a lawyer. That's the hardest thing I've ever done. But we ended up getting a precedent that the transmission companies cannot charge us for their advocacy and advertising.

KERYN NEWMANIn the process of that case, which drug on for 10 years from start to finish, I received over 270,000 PATH documents in discovery, and I had to search through them all to look for what I needed for my case. I did a lot of reading. I cannot disclose it, but it's all in my head.

MICHAEL BROWNESo where does that order sit today? Are utility companies and developers allowed to basically bill back their advocacy efforts to ratepayers?

KERYN NEWMANNo.

MICHAEL BROWNEWow. And we have you and your relentless effort to thank for that. I think that for everyone in the audience here, having something to look to, to say, someone has done this before, is incredibly important. Because many people just learned about this for the first time less than a month ago, and the deadline that the developer has imposed upon everyone is six days from now [Editor’s note: recorded September 1, 2026. The MGS study-segment comment deadline was September 7, 2026.]. That's 25 days from start to finish for initial feedback. That's a very compressed timeline.

The first notice, and the first month

MICHAEL BROWNESo many people here, especially on the BECI line, are just learning about this. I'm very curious to rewind you back to the very beginning. What did that first notice feel like? What did you do in that first month? And then after that, when did you actually realize that this was going to be years of your life instead of weeks or months?

KERYN NEWMANWell, of course, the first instinct, I guess, or the feeling, is a kick in the gut. Oh my god, this is coming. What am I going to do? And so I talked to my neighbor, and we talked to the rest of our neighbors, and we had a neighborhood meeting. And I invited the local TV station to come, and they came, and they filmed it. And we just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

KERYN NEWMANAnd after three months, the route actually got moved out of our community to the other side of the county. And they thought, we'll shut up those people over there in Shepherdstown, and we'll take it somewhere else, and they'll go back to their lives. But we said, hey, wait a minute. We've acquired so much knowledge in the past three months. We want to share it with the new people, because we know what it's like to get that kick in the gut. So we went down to the other part of the county to share our knowledge. And they said, oh, won't you please stay and help us? So I did. And we were at it for two and a half years.

What she does now

MICHAEL BROWNEAnd you today still write for and advocate for. Can you tell us exactly what you're doing today and what this looks like?

KERYN NEWMANWell, I am working with different groups around the country and helping out where I need to. And right now we have what a guy in Charleston called Son of PATH, which is the PATH project recycled, with a new purpose. And the new purpose is to serve all the data centers in northern Virginia, which is the data center capital of the world; the highest concentration of data centers in the world is there in northern Virginia. But they don't want to build power for them. So what they want to do is giant extension cords that come from West Virginia here, like 300 miles over to the data centers. So we're doing it all again. But I am not right in the middle of things. I'm kind of on the outside of things, trying to help people figure it out this time.

MICHAEL BROWNEAnd your writing, your blog, your website has been an incredible resource for me and others in our organization who have been working with you for some time now. What is that URL, and what can people find there?

KERYN NEWMANStopPathWV.com. And then once you get to the website, over on the left side menu, you click on the link for the blog. And that blog actually goes back to, I think, 2010, but some of the older stuff is not accessible. I need some help with that website. I've been keeping this chronicle for years and years, and it's to explain this complicated stuff to everyday people. And that was one of my hurdles when I was doing the FERC case, and I've applied it other places: you have to boil it down so normal people understand it. We went to the DC Circuit, but that doesn't mean that those judges knew everything about transmission rates. They knew about as much as you did, and we had to explain it to them as we went along. And apparently we did a good job, since we won.

KERYN NEWMANSo I like writing, and I like to put a little bit of humor in my writing if I can, because if you can't laugh during this, you're going to go completely crazy. But you make new lifelong friends, and you find things to laugh at amongst yourselves, and it helps make it better.

MICHAEL BROWNEThat's a great point. I interacted with many people last night who had just come to either their first meeting or they had attended an open house, and they were there last night. And the look of just defeat that I see with people. But at the same time, they're sitting in a room of energized people. And those people need to understand that, sure, the developer is backed by billions, and they're standing there proclaiming that this is a done deal. And it's absolutely not.

How PATH fell apart

MICHAEL BROWNEYou stopped a 765 kilovolt line from coming into West Virginia, and I'm really interested to know, and I know this is almost 20 years ago now, this is a very different thing today, but how did you exactly go through this? What was it that made the case kind of fall apart?

KERYN NEWMANWell, PATH was part of something that was called Project Mountaineer. It was an initiative that was unveiled at FERC, and it was to get 5,000 megawatts of coal-fired electricity out of West Virginia and to the East Coast. West Virginia has been supplying electricity, chemicals, everything that those Eastern states don't want to make themselves because it's dirty. We've been their source of it. So anyhow, it was part of Project Mountaineer, and there were actually four lines. The other three were 500s. This one was a 765.

KERYN NEWMANAnd so we had a lot of help from environmental groups like Sierra Club, NRDC, Earthjustice, and they got some lawyers on the case. And also we had our own lawyers. This project was going through West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland, so each different state had its own state PSC process. And it was during the Virginia case that the lawyers for the environmental groups pushed that we don't need this. A couple of things had happened since they originally determined we needed PATH. One was a new power plant had come online in northern Virginia, closer to where they wanted to put the power. And the other thing was, they were going to rebuild an existing 500 kilovolt line to increase its capacity 66 percent. So those two things were making it so we didn't really need PATH.

KERYN NEWMANAnd PJM, the grid operator, kept trying to defend it. No, we need it, we need it. And finally they got pushed up against the wall by the PSC judge, or it's really called the SCC, in Virginia. And he said, PJM, I want you to rerun all your numbers on this case, and you also have to add in that new power plant and add in the rebuild of this existing 500 kilovolt line. And when that happened, PJM fell on its sword and said, oh, looks like we don't need it after all. So that was when it got suspended. But they kept it in their plan in a suspended state for a year and a half before they finally just canceled it altogether.

MICHAEL BROWNEWhat did that moment feel like when you learned of that news?

KERYN NEWMANIt was incredible. It was a total shock. It's like when the circus comes to town, and it's leaving, and the tent comes down overnight, and then it's gone, and you're like, hey, wait, was there even a circus here? That was kind of what it felt like. And I found out when a reporter called me and said, hey, I've heard PATH has canceled. I'm like, what? So it was incredible. And I've worked with a bunch of different groups that have been victorious. Actually, I keep a list of projects that have been canceled, and it's incredible for each one. And we actually had a party afterwards. It was a couple of months later, but we called it a funeral, PATH's funeral. And we held PATH's funeral, and we drank, and we laughed, and we had a bonfire, and we threw all our PATH papers and junk in there and burned it up.

MICHAEL BROWNEOh, I love that. I love looking forward to basically forecasting and hopefully manifesting the moment when we're able to do that. But unfortunately, right now this is just the beginning for a lot of us here.

Where to spend a limited number of hours

MICHAEL BROWNEWith your experience, I'd really like to know, for people who have a limited number of hours, if you have advice to give people, where would you suggest they spend those hours on a weekly, monthly basis?

KERYN NEWMANWell, I think one of the things is trying to educate yourself on how the system works. I mean, transmission is very deep. There's the engineering aspect of it. There's the financial aspects of it, the rate aspects, the financial incentives at FERC. There is things going on at the Department of Energy and at your PSC. So find something that you relate to and try and figure out how it works. And I'm able to help people trying to figure out how it all fits together.

KERYN NEWMANAnd I guess to start with is organizing, getting your group together and doing the same thing. Some of the things you should do is talk to elected officials and talk to the media, especially the media, spreading your message, because the company is going to be spreading its message. So it's really important for you to spread yours. Find compelling stories among the landowners. And in this day and age, which we didn't have during PATH, make your own videos and put them on social media. So that's really a great thing to do.

KERYN NEWMANForm a group so that when the case is filed, you can intervene as a group. Or you can intervene pro se, or hire a lawyer to represent everyone. But you do need to participate in the PSC case, where you are a party to the case, and you can submit discovery questions that they have to answer. You can submit your own testimony. You can cross-examine their witnesses. You can file your own briefs at the end of the case. So that's really important to do. And if you don't want to do it pro se, you can join together as a group and then hire one lawyer to represent everyone in your group. That's something we did here at PATH, but other people have handled it in different ways.

KERYN NEWMANOutreach to everyone in your community is also kind of crucial, because the company will be going around and giving its presentations and doing its quid pro quo glad-handing with business organizations or social organizations. I'm thinking things like the Chamber of Commerce, or here it's the West Virginia Coal Association, things like that. And they are giving them a message, and they're like, hey, you want to advocate for this project. And they'll get them to write a letter or make a speech or speak in the media. So you need to work on doing that from your own end, finding your own advocates and champions, and getting their message out there.

MICHAEL BROWNEI love that you really just kind of summarized this as this educational journey. That's what it's been for me, and I see this happen with other people. They learn of something new, and it's enlightening to them, and they want to share it with others. And that's the natural inclination of humans. We want to convey the knowledge, or see if it provokes the same response in other people. And that's one of the reasons that No 765 Line has taken upon itself this charter to be a 10-county regional advocacy organization. I see communities popping up, and yes, this is amazing. All communities should come together and organize in their own way. And we, as an organization, just want to remind people that as an organizing entity, not everybody needs to reinvent the wheel. We're trying to find the right elements to provide everyone so that they don't have to do the things that we've been doing for a year or more now. And I look to the resource that you've developed, this blog site, with an amazing amount of information. It's chronological, and I encourage everybody to jump in and read.

Valley Link, and what Wisconsin should expect

MICHAEL BROWNEI want to do a fast follow on your explanation there, because at one point you said something about the financing and the money and FERC. And that is one of the questions that I have most for you, because right now you are working on fighting the Valley Link. And I think that's, correct me if I'm wrong, Transource, FirstEnergy, and Dominion. Is that correct?

KERYN NEWMANCorrect.

MICHAEL BROWNESo Transource is half of the company that was formed, MGS, to build BECI through Wisconsin. And if I'm not mistaken, FirstEnergy absorbed the company that was the other proponent in PATH.

KERYN NEWMANRight.

MICHAEL BROWNESo what are you watching them do in Virginia and West Virginia that Wisconsin should be expecting next?

KERYN NEWMANWell, we're kind of at the same place on the state level. They have released initial routes, and then they had their comment period, like you're going through now, which ended, I think it was like August 14th or something. And they said they're going to come back in November with revised routes, taking our comments into consideration and trying to alter the routes. And then they're going to have probably a proposed route, like a single route, with a couple of alternatives. And then they're going to come back and do another one of those open house series and show us the routes and take more comments. And then they said they're going to file an application in 2027.

KERYN NEWMANBut on the federal level, Valley Link had to apply for incentives, and a formula rate, and things like that at FERC, which is the money part you mentioned. And I intervened in that, and I've been participating in that case, and we are currently in settlement talks, and hopefully we'll have something there soon. But that process happened long before the public knew about it, where they filed. And I intervened, and we even started having meetings before people found out about this project. So there's all kinds of things going on in different venues. So it's not just what you see. People see me at public meetings, and I'm like, oh, no, there's a whole bunch of stuff going on at other places.

Following the money

MICHAEL BROWNEYeah, we actually saw that here with the BECI line. I don't think there was any resistance to when FERC granted MGS the ability to pass through the cost of a line if it's never built. And that's the shocking thing. I think these open houses that have all been conducted, the materials, the staff time, all these things, they stack into the project cost.

KERYN NEWMANOh, absolutely.

MICHAEL BROWNESo what an insult to say, I'm potentially going to take your land, and then in order to educate you about it, I'm going to send you a fee for the work of these people who don't live here to come and tell you about taking your land from you.

KERYN NEWMANYeah, this is something I pointed out during the Valley Link open houses, where they were handing out little bottles of water and little bags of different kinds of chips and chip mix and stuff. And I said to people, you might as well go get a bag, you're paying for it. And they're like, what? And I'm like, yeah, you pay for everything. And that was, I guess, part of the problem with the whole PATH project. They just thought, hey, we can collect anything we want.

KERYN NEWMANAnd the thing is, they file a yearly summary of expenses with FERC, and it's kind of advisory or information only. FERC does not audit that. They leave it up to the people who pay those rates, which is you and me and everyone else, to audit them and find out what's in them. And so that was the opportunity we took advantage of, when we go, OK, here's your total, tell me what was in here. And the things we found, oh, my goodness.

MICHAEL BROWNESo I love that action item, because I speak to a lot of people who, because of things like this, they love the research. They love to get in and find, here's the thing I can do. So you're suggesting that there might be a path for someone to write into FERC and explore what is being charged back and billed to the energy bill by the developers of lines and the utility companies. And that accounting needs to then be shared with you if you file for what? What does that process look like?

KERYN NEWMANWell, their formula rate, I haven't looked, but I'm taking your word for it that it's already been set. And so that means every year they would have to file a formula rate update, which says, this is my yearly accounting of cost for this year. And these get filed at FERC, and they get filed on PJM's website. I'm not quite sure how MISO handles it, but they have to file something publicly, which is probably somewhere on MISO's website, and says, here's our stuff. And then there is something that goes with the formula rate called the formula rate protocols, and those are your instructions for finding out how this stuff works and what's in there. And you can essentially do a discovery process on them and ask about what's in these rates. And then at the end of the discovery period, you have an opportunity to file a challenge or a complaint. And that's what we did with PATH.

MICHAEL BROWNEOh, I love this. Follow the money, Keryn. I am just in so much awe and respect for what you have pursued over the years.

KERYN NEWMANOne of my sayings is, George Washington is on the $1 bill because he never told a lie. And $1 will never lie to you if you find out where it's been.

MICHAEL BROWNEI love that.

After a line dies

MICHAEL BROWNEKeryn, one other thing I've heard you say is that the fight doesn't end when the line dies. What do people get wrong about what happens after a cancellation?

KERYN NEWMANWell, after a cancellation, you've got that whole money end that's kind of wrapping up. And the company, if it's got the abandonment guarantee, which your BECI project does, they have to file at FERC and say, here's all the stuff we spent that we didn't get back, and so now we want to collect all this. And FERC has to, they have a hearing and other things, and decide how much of that they can collect. So that went on after PATH died. That went on for four years or so. But actually, because of the open complaint and things like that with the rates, the whole thing didn't actually stop coming out of our electric bills until 2024. That was the last rate year where they collected anything before they shut it down. So that was a whole dozen years after it officially died. And then the 2025 rate year, guess what? We have Valley Link doing the same thing. It's like it never died. It was probably behind the baseboard and changed its costume and came back out again.

MICHAEL BROWNEOh, I laugh, but it is not funny.

KERYN NEWMANI know. You've got to find some humor somewhere, because it's just so predictable. And I've noticed so many similarities between what I saw on the BECI website and what we have here with the Valley Link website. I mean, it's the same companies, the same information. The one thing I found really intriguing is that yours has a little bit more detail, and they're trying to explain themselves a little bit more to you. Here they're not. It's just, here's this.

KERYN NEWMANWell, I'll tell you where those FAQs came from. The additional FAQs that you read came from the FAQs that we developed for our website.

MICHAEL BROWNEOh, very good. You got them on your heels.

The Department of Energy needs study

MICHAEL BROWNESo I want to get back to your website. I want to make sure that everybody knows the website URL. And then there's one last question I've got, about a recent post that you made. So Keryn, can you please tell us the URL? Spell it out for everybody.

KERYN NEWMANYes. It's stoppathwv.com. S-T-O-P-P-A-T-H-W-V dot com. And then when you get there, click on the link for the blog, which is over on the left-hand side.

MICHAEL BROWNEAnd today is September 1. There's something that we've not shared with our audience. You and I actually interacted about this a month ago. We were planning a campaign to educate people on the ability to comment on the DOE needs study. That window closes on September 7. We paused that campaign because MGS released their proposed route lines, and we turned all of our energy towards educating people on BECI and MGS. But for those listening today, September 7 is the deadline for commenting to the DOE. And Keryn, if you could just give 30 seconds on what that is and why it would be important to comment.

KERYN NEWMANSure. Section 216 of the Federal Power Act requires the Department of Energy to do a study every three years on transmission needs and congestion. And once that study is completed, then they use that study to decide whether they need to designate National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors, NIETCs. And the purpose of an NIETC is to have like a backstop permitting for a project that your state PSC says no to. Then they can just take that all to FERC and do it all again there at FERC. So it's like double jeopardy for landowners.

KERYN NEWMANSo three years ago they did their study, and then they designated, or they were proposing, 10 different NIETCs around the country. And these things, some of them are like 15 miles wide and 600 miles long. And every property within that designation was a space where they wanted to put a transmission line, possibly. It wasn't an actual transmission line. It was making space for a transmission line that could use FERC permitting if a state denied it. And I tell you what, the people were very outraged, and most of those got canceled. And then the Department of Energy just canceled the last three.

KERYN NEWMANSo we need to look at this National Transmission Needs Study for 2026. And of course the study found that we need tons of transmission everywhere in this country, which we do not. And so this is your opportunity to comment and tell them where they got it wrong, before they finish this study and then start designating NIETCs again. So hopefully that won't happen.

MICHAEL BROWNEAnd I just really can't express enough appreciation for you and the work you're doing. For everybody listening, to the DOE: go look at Keryn's August 19th blog post. She's got a great link there. Send your comments to the United States Department of Energy now. That deadline is, oddly enough, the 7th of September, which is the same deadline as MGS. So maybe we can, it is also Labor Day, maybe we can all just bill back our time and roll that into some reduced tax payments or something.

KERYN NEWMANThere you go.

MICHAEL BROWNEKeryn, thank you so much for your time, your energy, your positive attitude. It's something we all need in this event of adversity and solidarity. So thank you.

KERYN NEWMANOh, you're absolutely welcome. And one of the things, this is something that I've taken to every fight I've been part of. There was a cultural anthropologist in the middle of last century, her name was Margaret Mead, and she had a famous quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." So that is something that everyone needs to take to heart. Don't doubt your power. Find something to do and move ahead. You can do this.

MICHAEL BROWNE100 percent. Thank you again for your time. And I will be seeing you out there in the field, in the fight.

KERYN NEWMANThank you.

Before you go

MICHAEL BROWNEWell, that was Keryn Newman. Her blog is at stoppathwv.com. That's S-T-O-P-P-A-T-H-W-V dot com. And when you get there, click the blog link. And if you want to understand how these projects actually work, start there and read backward. It is a trove of information.

MICHAEL BROWNETwo things close on September 7th, and both of them are comment records. The first is the Department of Energy's National Transmission Needs Study; the one Keryn just walked us through. Her August 19th post has the link and tells you what to say. The second is MGS. They're taking comments on the BECI study segments through September 7th. Go to no765line.org, click Take Action, then Comment to MGS. It takes a few minutes. And right now, it's the only comment record that exists, because no application has been filed yet.

MICHAEL BROWNEAnd one more thing about what we just heard. The case for PATH did not fall apart on its own. A judge made PJM run its numbers again because people had spent years putting the questions on the record. And that's the work. It's slow, it is not dramatic, and it's what changed the outcome. West Virginia is not Wisconsin, and I'm not going to stand here and tell you this ends the same way, but it definitely can.

MICHAEL BROWNEThis podcast is for general information only. It's not legal advice. And for decisions about your land, talk to your own attorney. Thank you for listening.