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Public Service Commission certifies Southern Spirit transmission project but bars ratepayer cost recovery, after heated debate
Summary
After a multi‑hour contested hearing, the Commission certified Southern Spirit’s merchant transmission project under the siting order but approved a substitute motion conditioning the approval so that design and construction costs may not be borne by Louisiana ratepayers. The decision followed intense landowner objections and debate over cost‑benefit and jurisdictional evidence.
The Public Service Commission voted on a contested certification for Southern Spirit Transmission’s proposed 325‑mile high‑voltage DC transmission line (Docket 36669). The ALJ recommended certification and a public‑interest finding; commissioners and interveners sharply debated whether the record included necessary cost‑benefit and interconnection studies demonstrating public need in Louisiana.
Landowners and local interveners testified at length against the project’s public‑interest finding, citing property burdens, uncertain routing, and absence of demonstrable benefits to Louisiana ratepayers. Michael Amin, representing Marston family interveners, summarized the landowner view: the record “does not indicate power delivery to the state” and therefore lacks a demonstrable public benefit, he said.
Commissioner Campbell offered a primary motion that questioned the ALJ’s public‑interest conclusion; Commissioner Scetta offered a substitute motion that accepted certification but added a firm condition: at no point now or in the future shall any design or construction cost for the transmission line be recovered from Louisiana ratepayers. Southern Spirit representatives said early cost‑benefit studies are not possible because no Louisiana off‑taker has been identified, and that interconnection studies in MISO are ongoing.
MISO representatives confirmed Southern Spirit had filed into the interconnection queue and that the first round of studies could be completed near the end of the year; witnesses said those studies (and any cost assessments that would affect Louisiana) are not yet in the Commission’s record. Commissioners split on whether that procedural posture justified delaying action.
On a substitute motion that rejected the ALJ’s cost‑benefit approach but approved certification subject to the explicit no‑cost‑recovery condition, the Commission voted (after discussion and a roll call/reconsideration sequence) to adopt the substitute motion. Commissioners also approved staff’s concurrent rulemaking to revise the 2013 transmission siting order to clarify jurisdiction over projects physically in Louisiana regardless of whether they directly serve Louisiana customers.
The order requires Southern Spirit to comply with reporting and interconnection study conditions and to notify the Commission before the start of construction; any future petitions seeking cost recovery from Louisiana ratepayers would require subsequent Commission review and a separate determination.
