John Millhone
Narrator
Ed Nelson
Interviewer
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April 10, 1978
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EN: Today is April 10, 1978. I’m at the office of John Millhone, the director of the [Minnesota]
state Energy Agency. My name is Ed. Nelson.
Mr. Millhone, how long have you been with the Minnesota Energy Agency?
JM: I was named by Governor Anderson to be director of the Minnesota Energy Agency starting
in September 1975.
EN: And what did you do prior to this position?
JM: Prior to this, I was director of the Iowa Energy Policy Council, the state energy office in
that state.
EN: And what sort of educational background do you have?
JM: My educational training is primarily in journalism with a Bachelor of Journalism degree
from the University of Missouri in 1950. I’ve also had some graduate work in political science
and law at the University of Missouri and the Detroit College of Law.
EN: What does your position here at the Energy Agency entail?
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JM: The Energy Agency has overall responsibility for the administration of energy policy in the
state. As director of the agency, I’m responsible for all of its programs. These range from
conservation to information, education, to local community programs, to technical services in the
engineering area, to research in energy-related topics, to serving as the repository of energy data,
to the forecasting of future energy needs, to the development of energy policies and programs
designed to see that we have adequate supplies of energy in the future, and to the dealing with
energy emergencies.
EN: How old is the Energy Agency?
JM: The Agency was created in 1974.
EN: And you became director then shortly there after?
JM: Yes. I came a little over a year afterwards. The first director was John McKay who retired
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in 1975.
EN: When did you first become involved with the CPA-UPA 400+/- kilovolt DC transmission
line?
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JM: One of the first certificates of need that was requested of the Energy Agency dealt with that
transmission line. The Agency has the power that I should have mentioned earlier, and that is the
responsibility for determining whether large energy facilities are needed or not. A proposer who
wants to build a large energy facility, including a large transmission line, files an application
with the Energy Agency requesting a certificate of need. There’s a hearing process. And based
on that hearing process, the hearing officer makes a recommendation to me. I review all of the
record and the hearing examiner’s recommendation, and then decide whether or not a certificate
will be granted or not. That law became operative in the fall of 1975. And one of the first
applications that I received was from CPA-UPA for a certificate of need for that 400 DC line.
EN: Did this cover the plant in North Dakota or just the transmission line?
JM: This covered just the transmission line. Since the plant in North Dakota is not in Minnesota,
that requires no state certificate, however, in determining whether or not a certificate—a project
will be granted or not, the alternatives to the proposed facility are required to be considered. So it
would have been possible, and at that time we did consider the possibility of some other facility
that would meet the electric demand requirements of the CPA and UPA co-ops, other than the
DC line that had been proposed.
EN: You mentioned considering alternatives. Maybe it’s a good time to ask the question, what
sort of other alternatives were there to this project or to the transmission line?
JM: Well, alternatives could have been using an AC line instead of a DC line. The alternative of
bringing the coal to Minnesota and creating a power plant here rather than using a mine mouth
plant in North Dakota, those are the principle alternatives. Of course there’s also the no-build
alternative, the alternative of simply not having the transmission line.
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EN: What were the arguments against, say, hauling the coal or using a DC instead of an AC
line?
JM: The arguments in favor of an AC line were that there was more familiarity with that kind of
transmission line.
The arguments for the DC line were that there would be less electricity lost because of using a
DC line over that distance. The type of facility that is used for transmission of large volumes
over long distances depends in part upon just how much the load loss would occur in the
transmission itself. DC lines provide significantly less loss of electricity.
As far as the location of the plant in Minnesota, instead of in North Dakota, generally for
Minnesota if you’re using lignite, which is a low BTU coal, then facilities at the mine mouth in
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central North Dakota have some desirable aspects than with a transmission line into the state, or
at least that was the record that was made in the hearing. Whereas if you go further west, then
you have longer transportation, and you also have a higher BTU coal. And so there are some
advantages in bringing the coal to the state and having your power plants located here. Lignite,
besides being closer to Minnesota, also has a lower BTU content so that the transportation costs
of bringing lignite from central North Dakota would be greater than with a higher BTU coal.
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Now these were the principal factors that led me to conclude that the proposed project was the
best of the alternatives that were considered. Also a factor here that I think had some bearing was
that a considerable amount of work already had occurred on the North Dakota project, and
although it was not a decisive factor at all, I think that one of the things that I was aware of that
bore on my decision in part was knowledge that if I decided some alternative ought to be used,
there would be a considerable loss because you would have had to have abandoned the work that
had been done on the facility at that time. As I recall, it was several hundreds of millions of
dollars had been spent on that project. And that, of course, would have been an expense that
would have to have been borne by the CPA-UPA customers, if we had scaled back and gone
some other direction.
EN: What would an application for such a facility as the CPA-UPA facility consist of?
JM: The application itself was a document several inches thick that describes the facility and
describes the need that is forecast by CPA and UPA with a considerable amount of
documentation and tables showing what the two co-ops anticipated their future needs would be.
In addition, there are the filings by the opponents to the transmission line. Then during the
hearing stage, the applicant submits testimony, and the witnesses for the Energy Agency also
submit testimony, any other parties that are opposed to the facility or in support of it would
submit testimony. Each of those producing testimony may or may not produce exhibits to
support their testimony. And then the transcripts of the hearings are also part of the record. And
then the hearing examiner looks at all of this material before making his recommendation to me,
and his recommendation to me is also part of the testimony.
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So I was carrying the stuff around in a box when I was working on that decision. And it pretty
much filled. It happened to be one of these—I think a six gallons of wine box or something like
that—a typical kind of liquor store box and it was pretty full of all the records and exhibits. So
this was quite a thick record for me to look at before I made the decision.
EN: Was there just one hearing for this line in one place or was this—?
JM: No, we had hearings. Most of the hearings were in the Twin Cities but we also had a
hearing in Alexandria and asked people along the line to take part in the record here, if they
wanted to, but also at the hearing in Alexandria. And a number of them did. The parties that are
participating in the protest against the line participated in the hearings as well. So the positions
that they’re expressing now are positions that were expressed during the hearing and were heard
by the hearing examiner who recommended in favor of the line and were also considered by me
in my decision.
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EN: I’ve talked to a number of opponents who’ve expressed criticism of the needs hearings. Said
things like the state took the utilities’ word for everything. It didn’t do any independent study.
Maybe I could ask you to react to that.
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JM: Well, I think that criticism isn’t valid. We did considerable, fairly strenuous crossexamination of the position that was put forward by the utilities. And the Agency did have some
of its own forecast as well, although we had just been a newly created operation, and we didn’t
have some of our forecasts and projections in as good a shape as we do today. But I think we
gave quite a thorough cross-examination of the case put forward by the company and did present
information ourselves. The Agency was a participant as a party in the hearing.
The issues really weren’t that complicated. CPA and UPA provide a very small percentage of
their own electricity. These are large generation and transmission cooperatives that sell their
power then to local distribution cooperatives. And they have a very small portion of the
generating capacity that they need. They’ve been able to purchase power in the past. In the future
they will not be able to make the same purchases—much of it from the Bureau of Reclamation,
from the hydroelectric generating plants in the Dakotas. These plants are going to be serving
what they call their first priority customers to an increasing degree in the future and will have to
curtail the amount available to the CPA and UPA cooperatives. So the need for additional
generating capacity for CPA and UPA is a fairly clear matter.
Although the controversy was quite apparent at that early stage, once some time was spent
looking at the needs of the two cooperatives and their existing facilities. It was fairly clear to me
that some additional electricity was required for CPA and UPA and of the alternatives that were
available at that time, the mine mouth plant in North Dakota with a DC line into Minnesota was
quite clearly the most attractive of the alternatives.
EN: I’ve heard it suggested that the CPA-UPA could have bought the power from NSP. NSP
was selling electricity out of the state that could be kept in the state. Would that have been
possible?
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JM: No, that wouldn’t have been possible. Minnesota generally has been a power deficit state.
We have over the years bought more power from outside the state than we’ve sold to people
outside of Minnesota. And this has been true for all the utilities, including NSP. It goes back to
the time when cheap, relatively cheap, electricity from natural gas was available. Something that
won’t be true in the future, isn’t true now. So there hasn’t been the excess capacity from NSP to
provide it to CPA and UPA. In fact NSP has been involved in quite a rapid expansion of its
generating facilities to meet its own requirements.
EN: Is it difficult to project what the needs will be, to go through this process?
JM: Yes. The projection of future electricity needs is exceedingly difficult because there are a
number of things currently that are changing. For a long time you could just extrapolate the
changes that were taking place historically into the future and be fairly close. But a number of
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things have changed that. I might name some of them.
One is price elasticity, the extent to which people use less electricity because it’s more
expensive. And for many years electricity was a bargain and price elasticity wasn’t very
influential, but now each unit of electricity is more expensive than those that existed in the past.
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The total cost of electricity has climbed quite rapidly. So there is already, and will be
increasingly in the future, a reduction in electricity demand because of the higher prices of
electricity.
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In addition, there are a number of things that are reducing electricity demand because of
conservation, such as the legislation that the Energy Agency supported and helped get through
that sets energy efficiency requirements for air conditioners. These kinds of efforts through
conservation are reducing demand as well. So you have price elasticity and conservation
reducing demand.
On the other hand you have electricity being used as a substitute for natural gas or petroleum.
And with natural gas supplies diminishing a little bit each year, this is happening to an increasing
degree. This substitution is increasing demand for electricity over what it otherwise would have
been.
Then when we were in the mid 1970’s and shortly thereafter and we were going through a
recession nationally, the pattern of electric demand that had occurred prior to that time was not
occurring. Electric demand was flattening out for a few years.
We also had the problem of trying to determine the effects of those three factors that I’ve
mentioned, as well as the problem of determining how long the recession was going to last and
when the economic upturn would occur and when it did occur, how vigorous it would be.
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So the period that we were looking at was one where electric demand projection was particularly
difficult. It wasn’t really that difficult as far as CPA and UPA go, because they already needed
additional facilities just to continue to be able to meet their existing customers. But when we
started looking at requirements in the mid 1980’s, as we did in some other applications, some of
these things that I’ve mentioned made those forecasts, those need decisions very difficult.
I might also mention that if you look at the rate of increase in electric demand in CPA and UPA
service area, it was increasing at the most rapid rate of any part of the state, with the exception of
the MP&L, Minnesota Power & Light’s demand. That was as a result of the expansion of the
taconite companies where there is a close industry expansion relationship. So the rural areas of
the state have been areas of rapid increase in electrical demand. This is in part increased use of
electricity in farmsteads, the increased use of irrigation, and also in many of the areas of the state
served by the co-ops, an increased use of electric resistance heating for new construction.
EN: What role do the citizens and the utilities and the state have in the needs determining
process? Do you involve a lot of people?
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JM: There are involvements at two levels. Once an application is filed, we send notices to all the
papers in the area that would be affected, all the organizations that we know of that might be
interested in participating in the need process, and encourage participation that way. We also
provide information on when and where and how so people can see how they can participate.
I’ve been quite flexible in allowing people, parties to come in after the deadline for filing as
parties in order to encourage participation. And then we have held hearings, as we did in this one
in Alexandria, in the area affected. So I think that we have been aware of the need to try to
encourage citizen participation. I think since then we see that even though we made the effort,
we probably should do more. Since then we have adopted some changes in our regulations to
provide for additional public participation.
We’ve also agreed to prepare an environmental report that describes the environmental impacts
of the proposed facility early in the hearing process. In addition to that we have a statutory
responsibility every two years to develop what amounts to an energy plan for the state to the
legislature and to the governor. And this involves long-term forecasts of electric requirements
and other energy requirements as well. We submitted our biennial report to the governor and the
legislature in January, 1976. And that was our first one. We held hearings throughout the state on
that report. So, aside from participation in the need hearing, this gives the public a chance to
participate in the electric requirements that we see statewide, as well as other energy issues.
We’re doing that again this year.
EN: On the 400 +/- [k/V] controversy there were a number of court cases and things like that.
Were you involved in that?
JM: Well, we were one of the parties that was sued by the opponents of the transmission line.
The Energy Agency, as far as the need decision, was a target of the lawsuit. And of course I’m
on the Environmental Quality Board, which made the routing decision. And the EQB was also a
target, and probably the principal target, of those lawsuits.
EN: What would have happened had you had to rescind the certificate of need?
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JM: Well, if the courts had found any part of the certificate of need decision that would lead it to
direct that certificate be rescinded, we’d probably have required that new hearings be held on
part of the area or on the entire certificate. If that had happened, then there would have, I would
guess, have been a new filing, and we would have looked at the certificate of need issue again,
incorporating the findings or changes of the court. Of course this didn’t happen. The court found
that we had abided by the law in determining that the need existed.
EN: A lot of the controversy centered on health and safety issues. Is that something you took
into consideration in determining what sort of facility is needed?
JM: The law requires that we look at wide ranging impacts on the public in determining whether
to provide a certificate of need decision. So, the health factors would be a consideration that
would be made under the certificate of need procedure. The health factors in this particular
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controversy really weren’t raised until later on when the issue got before the Environmental
Quality Board. So, as I recall, an ozone and health issues of the transmission line itself were not
a major consideration in the certificate of need decision. Those came later.
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I’d also point out that you have to look at the health effects of the alternatives as well and the
health effects of a coal-fired generating plant within the state. There would be health factors
there that should be weighed as well. So we’re not in the happy position of having any option
without some health problems. Each of the options that we have, if we’re going to have
continued energy facilities, involve some kind of health risks, and we’re involved in tradeoffs.
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We’re also involved in tradeoffs, if we were to not have any energy facilities because to not have
the electricity that we need to do some of the things that are needed in work and health care,
education, private home uses, and all the ways that we use energy for, if we were to not have
some of that energy, there would be health consequences as well. So even the no-facility
decision would have some health impacts.
EN: Would public opposition to proposed facilities at the need hearings affect whether or not the
certificate of need is issued or not?
JM: Public opposition would have an influence on whether the decision was made for or against
an energy facility. But it’s not a popularity contest. If most of the people who participated in a
need certificate were against the certificate, but they had the weaker arguments, then it might go
the other way. Certain statutory criteria that are necessary to be considered in making that need
decision, and the affect on the public is one of them.
It’s understandable when you’re looking at a facility that those directly affected by it would not
want it. But it’s necessary to look also at the others in the state that would benefit from a facility
and try to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of all individuals that would be affected,
rather than those who would be affected most directly.
EN: Is the Energy Agency involved in developing alternative sources? There have been a lot of
suggestions that the state isn’t doing enough to avoid having to build large facilities.
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JM: Well, we have more people working on conservation and spend more money on
conservation than any other area. In fact half or more of our activities are in the conservation
area. We also have supported actively during this past legislative session property tax exemption
for solar facilities, plus sun rights legislation, plus planning and zoning requirements that solar
facilities be considered in any of those areas. We also have supported and have developed
legislation for research on alternative energy resources and have state funded research in this
area.
We also actively participated in seeking the Solar Research Institute here, and although we didn’t
get the national facility, we have gotten the regional facility for twelve states in this area. So, we
also supported the development of solar energy standards. So I don’t think that there is any state
in the union, with the possible exception of California, that has more aggressively sought to
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develop alternative energy resources.
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We have an alternative energy policy program that has looked at the alternative energy potential
of solar, active solar, passive, peak systems, wind, urban solid wastes, agricultural residue,
timber products. And we’re trying to, and are developing specific recommendations in each of
those areas. A long term energy plan that was just developed points out fairly specifically that
unless we develop these alternative energy systems, as well as strenuous conservation, we simply
won’t have enough energy to go around in the late 1980’s and in the 1990’s. So, a major thrust of
the Agency has been the development of alternative energy systems as rapidly as possible. We
have, I think, the most far-reaching and comprehensive and. aggressive conservation program of
any state in the country. So those who say that we haven’t done enough in those areas, in my
view, are just not aware of what’s going on.
EN: Is there a larger, perhaps a national, energy plan that Minnesota fits into with the
development of North Dakota coal and demands growing in the eastern United States?
JM: Minnesota has had and is having an influence on some of the things that are happening
nationally. Governor Perpich is chairman of the Energy Conservation Subcommittee in the
National Governor’s Association. I serve as staff chairman for him. In that capacity we have
been trying to get the national government to recognize the significant role that should be given
the states in the energy area. If we’re talking about energy conservation, we’re talking about
building codes and energy and information programs, utility rate design, transportation, planned
use issues that are primarily state concerns. So we have argued nationally that the states ought to
be recognized as the principal vehicle through which energy conservation can be achieved.
This is also somewhat true in terms of alternative energy sources because each state has its own
unique inventory of possible alternative energy resources. In some places it’s good sunlight. In
some places it may be ocean thermal. Other places it may be energy crops. Other places it may
be wind. These are quite state specific in nature as well. So instead of having a sort of national
energy plan, despite all the attention that’s been given there, it’s far more important that each
state has an energy plan that involves conservation and alternative energy resources, as well as
programs that deal with alternative sources.
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We have been fairly successful in trying to get recognition that this is important. The White
house Governor’s Conference on Energy last summer recommended that energy conservation
legislation be coordinated into one single program. Governor Perpich, with me working with
him, has represented the governors on this effort. We developed what’s called a comprehensive
state energy management program legislation. The White House has endorsed this approach, and
we are told, will submit the legislation to Congress to establish a State Energy Program some
time within the next few weeks.
EN: Are Minnesota’s energy needs going to grow? What sort of impact do you see happening in
terms of conservation and alternative energy?
JM: The energy requirements for the state are expected to grow, but at an increasingly slower
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rate than has existed in the past. But even with this growth occurring, because natural gas and
petroleum are sources that are producing less and less energy nationally and less and less energy
is available to Minnesota. So that even with a lower rate of demand increase because of declining
supplies in the natural gas and petroleum area, it’s necessary for Minnesota to increase its use of
coal, increase its conservation efforts, and increase its development of alternative energy sources.
What we have tried to do is maintain a comprehensive and balanced policy for the state that
recognizes the importance of all three of these traditional sources plus conservation and
renewable resources.
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EN: What impact has the opposition to the 400+/- [kV] line had on other needs? First of all,
other need certificate hearing processes?
JM: Well, I think it’s helped us improve our procedures for dealing with these issues. I think this
in a sense is sort of a tragic aspect of what’s happened. We have recognized the need for still
additional public participation in the process and have changed our rules accordingly. We have
provided environmental reports available early in the certificate of need process so that those
issues are flagged early. On the EQB, we have supported and developed new legislation that
provides for an improved process by which these routing and siting decisions are made. So I
think that the state regulatory mechanism for making these decisions is far better now than it
would have been if there hadn’t been the protest. Now the tragic part about this is that those who
have been the protestors and who have been in an important way responsible for this
improvement in the government process aren’t going to benefit from these improvements in
terms of the project that they’re most concerned about.
EN: Has it helped or had any effect on state attitudes towards energy use?
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JM: Well, I think that that’s very difficult to measure. But I think that there is some slowgathering awareness of the need to conserve energy and that the protest has had some influence
in that direction. But if you look at how some of the legislators from that area voted on the
omnibus energy bill we considered this time, you would wonder whether they had had that
influence or not. So part of it has just been sort of a negativism towards government. That hasn’t
been very constructive, but I think that in terms of the increasing attention to the effects of
increased unbridled increases in electric energy demand that this has had some benefits and will
continue to have some.
EN: Has the controversy had an impact on yourself, your office here? I know there was some
controversy around Richard Wallin who is a certificate of need person.
JM: Dick Wallin.
EN: Dick Wallin.
JM: Well, there hasn’t been any impact in terms of personnel changes or anything like that. I
don’t think that my reading of what the protesters have said—I’ve met with them and tried to
listen to what their concerns were –and I don’t think that they have pointed into areas where we
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have fallen down significantly in doing the job. So I haven’t made any personnel changes or any
reassignments based upon inadequacies in our operation that they’ve pointed out.
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You know, if you’re in government, and if you’re particularly in a regulatory area, and if you’re
particularly in the area of energy regulation, you expect protest and controversy and. people to
say that you’re not doing your job and all kinds of comments like that. And that just goes with
the territory. I wish sometimes that it would be possible to communicate with some of the people
there more constructively, so that they might open their minds to looking at some of the things
that I feel should be considered. They undoubtedly feel as if I’m too closed in my considerations
as well.
But it hasn’t been a source of great personal duress, although during the protest out there I have
been very concerned that someone might be hurt. Even if you feel as if you’ve made the right
decisions, the possibility that someone might get injured seriously as a result of a process that
you had some responsibility regarding is something that causes some personal concern, worry.
Anxiety probably would be too strong a word, but sort of a serious personal concern that—I hope
and pray that things will be worked out without any serious bloodshed.
EN: I’ve heard it suggested that one of the problems is that persons such as yourself are
appointed officials and they’re not responsive to the people, and maybe the Environmental
Quality Board and the Minnesota Energy Agency should be headed by people who are elected.
Do you have a response to that?
JM: Well, I am responsible to people who are elected. I’m responsible to legislators, and I’m
primarily responsible to Governor Perpich and before that, Governor Anderson.
My response would be that to have an elected Energy Agency director would be a serious
mistake. For one thing, at the present tine that office would get a lot off attention, and there may
be people that the citizens would be knowledgeable about who would be running, but we’ve had
a lot of experience with bedsheet ballots where people don’t know people who are being elected.
And if you started electing all state commissioners, you would have an enormous bedsheet
ballot.
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In addition, I think that it’s probably desirable to have people who are sort of one step away from
the direct election process, who have a responsibility to those who are elected, but who are not
directly under the gun in terms of having to make decisions that are expected to have only the
greatest voter appeal. If we were to look at the most outspoken public response, if the director of
the Energy Agency considered only those things, there would probably be very few, if any,
energy facilities that were certified. And the net result of that would be inadequate energy
supplies in the future, brownouts and blackouts in the electric utility area, loss of jobs and loss of
quality of life because the facilities simply wouldn’t be there that would be needed in the future.
Now, elected officials certainly can and do make tough decisions and might make the tough
decisions necessary to provide those facilities. But I think in terms of having someone who could
spend the time to look at those issues, weigh all the factors that need to be weighed, and yet at
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the same time have someone who is accountable to the public through elected officials, the
current system is far preferable.
EN: Have you ever been involved with other controversies of this nature in your years in
Minnesota?
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JM: Well, I have been involved in a number of controversies before the Environmental Quality
Board. When I was head of the Iowa Energy Policy Council, I had to make recommendations in
terms of which railroad branch lines would be approved for funding, and those were quite
controversial decisions. And prior to that I was in the newspaper business for about twenty years
and writing investigative and other types of articles, and oftentimes those involved a great deal of
controversy. So I’m not new to public controversy.
EN: Why do you think that this controversy occurred? Any speculation on that?
JM: Sure, I can speculate some. I think that there are a number of factors that came together. I’ll
name them without giving kind of priority. One is, I think, that when we changed our sort of
national awareness and public legislative awareness to recognize the significance of the
environment, that we wrote environmental considerations into our statutory language in such a
way that when we were looking at power plant siting and utility line routing we excluded or gave
a high priority to certain environmentally attractive areas and almost by default led to routing
decisions more on agricultural land.
I think at the same time the low farm prices and other governmental actions completely apart
from energy facilities led farmers to feel as if they weren’t getting the attention from public
officials and their governments that they should have. I think if you look back at areas where
there had been protesting farm groups historically in Minnesota that some of the areas affected
have been involved in protest.
Another factor has been the feeling that—it’s fairly widespread—that we should get away from
the huge energy facilities more to community size or smaller scale or appropriately scaled
technologies. So this was a factor that also led to the controversy.
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I think CPA-UPA cooperatives did an exceedingly poor job, throughout the early steps in the
process, in terms of educating the people would be affected by it as to the need, and to being
sensitive to the concerns that would arise as a result of the process.
There has been some quite able and vocal, articulate leadership among the people that were
concerned. So they have brought so many things together. I think Minnesota has, and for very
good purposes it should continue, opened up the process so that there is more public participation
possible now than in most other states. But I think when you get public participation, the public
tends to interpret that as public determination and that there’s going to have to be sort of an
educational process while the public learns that public participation doesn’t mean that each
group of protestors gets to decide what’s done.
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All these factors, it seems to me have sort of rolled together into creating the elements that have
given the controversy the force that it has.
EN: You said you’ve worked closely with the governor. What sort of role does he have in this?
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JM: The governor has wanted to be, and has been, informed quite frequently on each step of the
developments. Now, I probably should be saying where he has not been informed. I make the
certificate of need decisions individually. In this instance, because I knew it was a controversial
one, I’ve read the entire record and the attachments as well plus the hearings. So that was my
decision alone. He wasn’t involved in my making of that decision, although once it was made I
informed him, along with everyone else.
Now when the controversy developed, and he has from time to time met with both sides, the
protestors and the utilities and with the Energy Agency, Peter Vanderpoel from State Planning,
Sandra Garter Green from PCA [Pollution Control Agency] and Bill Nye from the Agriculture
Department have met with the governor from time to time. When the governor has had decisions
involving what steps to take in response to the protest, some of his commissioners have met with
him to discuss the options and programs at that time. I’ve been involved in those discussions as
well. That’s the manner in which the governor’s been involved.
EN: Being a former media person, how would you evaluate the role of the media in this?
JM: Oh, I think the media has done a responsible job. Certainly a great deal more coverage has
been given to the protest than the reasons for commissioners like myself in terms of the decisions
that they’ve made, but that’s the nature of controversy of this type. So, I’ve got no complaints. I
have made many efforts in terms of our hearings and comments and talks and what have you to
try to get a fuller explanation of need for the facility. I find it somewhat frustrating that the need
issue seems to come up again and again. I really haven’t been able to get very good coverage of
the reasons for the facilities. Maybe that’s because I haven’t been more aggressive in getting that
information out. But I think the media coverage has been responsible.
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EN: I’m not sure if there are other things that I haven’t covered or additional things you’d like to
comment on?
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JM: I think we’ve covered it pretty well.
EN: Do you foresee an outcome of this?
JM: I think the outcome is still up in the air. The Supreme Court decision is may have some
ramifications, the recent decision in terms of the transmission line, but one that says that existing
routes have to be chosen over new routes. Apparently—I haven’t read the decision, I don’t want
to—but that would make the line more controversial, and yet it’s a decision that the
environmentalists probably would support. I guess if I were to make a prediction, it would be
that with spring coming along, spring planting, it looks like with some improvement in farm
prices, some progress in terms of the construction of the transmission line, that the issue will
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slowly subside and be settled, and the transmission line will go up and be operative after a period
of continued problems in terms of sabotage and some of that. But that’s, you know, I’d say it’s
sixty-forty in that direction, with forty being still a range of uncertainty that isn’t very
comforting.
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EN: Okay. Well, I thank you very much.
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