SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Grain Belt Express Clean Line LLC of Houston, Texas, plans to start constructing an overhead direct current transmission line through Central Illinois in 2017 – providing the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) gives the privately owned, for-profit company the go-ahead.

Clean Line, as the project is known, is a direct current transmission overhead line of about 780 miles in length. The goal is to deliver low-cost wind power from western Kansas to Missouri, Illinois and other neighboring states. Illinois is expected to benefit from a new source of cost-competitive renewable energy that will reduce wholesale electricity prices, create hundreds of construction and manufacturing jobs and provide revenue to local com-munities, said the Grain Belt Express Clean Line website.

On April 10, Clean Line applied to the ICC for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to build and operate the transmission line within the state. In addition, an agricultural impact mitigation agreement with the Illinois Department of Agriculture commits Clean Line to minimizing the negative agricultural impacts that could result from construction of the line.

When constructed the line would cross through Pike, Scott, Greene, Macoupin, Montgomery, Christian, Shelby, Clarke and Cumberland counties, noted Illinois State Rep. Frank Mautino (D-Spring Valley). From District 76, Mautino serves as state House deputy majority leader; his assignments include the Agriculture and Conservation and the Revenue and Finance committees.

Mautino noted Friday landowners in the path of the proposed transmission line should make sure the Texas company does not obtain eminent domain on the property (eminent domain is the government’s right to take private property for public use by a state, municipality, or private person or corporation). "Transmission power is always important, but so are property owners’ rights that have to be paramount," he said. "If they want to come across the property, then they have to work out a deal with the owner because the land is (the owner’s). It’s not eminent domain because the public good is not served by those lines. It’s a company seeking profits, so they must negotiate for the pieces which will produce their profit.

"Whether it is a turbine, whether it is a power line, they negotiate that. If they want to cross your property, but don’t want to negotiate with you, then find another property. There are certain property rights that you have and you should exercise them all."

Neither the Illinois Senate nor House will vote on the ICC’s decision. "What (promoters) try and do – and which we have to be careful of – is they’ll try and get negotiations from all the landowners to sign off on," Mautino explained.

"Depending on the number of landowners who (haven’t signed off), a lot of times they’ll come to (the legislature) to get a quit (claim) deed on the property. That’s really about the only time we get involved, otherwise it’s the ICC and eminent domain in the court system. If it comes to us, usually it’s the company trying to get around the last people who don’t want to agree to their properties."

According to its website, Grain Belt Express is capable of financing the transmission line project without significant adverse financial consequences to its customers or investors. "The Grain Belt Express project is necessary to provide adequate, reliable and efficient service to customers and will promote the development of an effectively competitive electricity market that operates efficiently, is equitable to all customers and is the least cost means of satisfying those objectives," the company stated.