Press & media kit
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Everything you need to cover the proposed 765 kV line accurately — the facts with sources, how to describe the project precisely, our boilerplate, and contact. Quote any of it.
At a glance
Two proposed high-voltage lines on 150–200-foot steel towers, crossing southern Wisconsin — including the Driftless region — as part of MISO’s Long-Range Transmission Plan (Tranche 2.1). Source · MISO LRTP; MariBell and BECI project descriptions
MISO’s planning case claims $1.80–$3.50 of benefit per dollar spent; MISO’s own Independent Market Monitor (Potomac Economics) told federal regulators in March 2025 that a properly calculated return would be less than 40¢ per dollar; its corrected estimates run about 40¢ to 70¢. The benefit case is contested. Source · MISO LRTP Tranche 2.1 benefit metrics; Potomac Economics (MISO Independent Market Monitor), comments to FERC, Docket EL22-83-000, March 13, 2025, p. 3; IMM feedback to the MISO Board, Oct. 30, 2024
The line reaches the Wisconsin PSC as two segments on two clocks. A CPCN application for the western MariBell segment is expected in fall 2026; for the eastern BECI segment, the developer told Richland County officials it intends to file in February 2027. Each filing opens its own docket for public comment and intervention. Source · Wisconsin PSC CPCN process; MGS statements to Richland County officials, July 9, 2026
Wisconsin’s electricity demand has been essentially flat for two decades; by one measure 2024 retail sales were modestly lower than 2005. The growth cited for new transmission is concentrated elsewhere — and the corridors are not designed to deliver power to the communities they cross. Source · EIA-861 Wisconsin retail sales, 2005–2024
How to describe the project (precisely)
The lines are not “private” or “merchant” projects — they are part of MISO’s publicly planned, cost-allocated Long-Range Transmission Plan, and Wisconsin ratepayers help pay for them. What is accurate to say is that private companies profit: GridLiance Heartland (a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Transmission), Transource Energy (an AEP/Evergy partnership), and BHE Transmission (Berkshire Hathaway) are for-profit firms earning a regulated return on the build; Dairyland Power Cooperative, MariBell’s co-developer, is a member-owned co-op.
So: “publicly planned regional transmission projects that private, for-profit developers would profit from, paid for in part by Wisconsin ratepayers.” Accurate, and it survives scrutiny.
Source · MISO Long-Range Transmission Plan (Tranche 2.1); project filings; MISO cost allocationBoilerplate
No 765 Line, Inc. is a Wisconsin 501(c)(3) nonprofit and a citizen coalition of neighbors across southern Wisconsin. It equips communities to take part in the energy decisions being made about their land, their rates, and their future, and it opposes the two proposed 765 kV transmission projects, MariBell and BECI. The organization works to build an accurate, sourced public record before the Wisconsin Public Service Commission and to support the landowners and communities along both proposed corridors.
Media contact
For interviews, statements, photos, or to verify a fact before you publish, reach Michael Browne, Media Lead, at press@no765line.org or 412-335-8295. We respond quickly to reporters on deadline. For regulatory and subject-matter questions we can also put you with Rob Danielson, a board member who intervened in the Badger-Coulee proceeding.
Route data — GeoJSON, shapefile & Google Earth
Two projects, two developers, two sets of files. Each project’s current files are captured verbatim from the developer’s own public map and provided in open formats (GeoJSON, Esri shapefile, KMZ) so newsrooms and county GIS offices can map them directly. Neither developer has filed a route with the Wisconsin PSC; verify against the developer’s map before publication and note your own retrieval date. Every file carries its source URL, its retrieval date and the attribution line to use.
BECI (Midcontinent Grid Solutions)
The developer’s 78 preliminary “study segments,” its nine-county study area, and its five identified connection points. These are preliminary study segments, not proposed or final routes; the developer has said it expects to narrow them to preliminary routes later this fall.
Attribution requested: “Route data: developer’s public project map (mgs-projects.com/BECI), captured by No 765 Line.”
Source · mgs-projects.com/BECI (geometry captured August 2026, reproduced verbatim)MariBell (Dairyland Power Cooperative and GridLiance Heartland)
The developer’s 250-foot buffer layer for the Wisconsin stretch (Mississippi River near Genoa to Bell Center), its twelve route segments from Minnesota to Genoa, and the six lines of its Wisconsin alternate-route study, with the developer’s own layer names and circuit-type colors. Our June 1 capture of the same buffer layer, which then covered the whole line, is included and labeled. In Wisconsin the September buffer matches it within 35 feet. In Minnesota the developer now draws line segments instead: four leave the June buffer, by up to about 3,550 feet, and none reaches its northern end, about 4.3 miles farther north.
Attribution requested: “Route data: developer’s public comment map (maribelltransmissionproject.com), captured by No 765 Line.”
Source · maribelltransmissionproject.com/comment_map, files proposed-route.kml and alt-route.kml (captured Sept. 22, 2026, reproduced verbatim)Corrected September 24, 2026. The first MariBell bundle (September 22) called the Wisconsin polygon a right-of-way, gave it the layer name DBO.Maribell_Route_ROW, and filed the Minnesota segments under the buffer layer’s name. In the developer’s file, proposed-route.kml, DBO.Maribell_Route_ROW describes the Minnesota line segments, and the Wisconsin polygon sits in a layer named DPC_
Logos & photos
Free to reproduce in coverage with the credit line included in each pack. Every file is campaign-owned; none are AI-generated. No people appear in the photo set — we ask individuals before releasing images they appear in, so if you need people for a story, email press@no765line.org and we will arrange it with their consent.