In 2007, two utility companies proposed a 765-kilovolt transmission line: 275miles, 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 2012, PJM, the regional grid operator for that part of the country, cancelled it. The reason PJM gave was that the need for it no longer existed.Keryn Newman spent four years making that case. She lives in Shepherdstown, WestVirginia. She is not a lawyer and not an engineer. In 2009 she and her neighbors formed StopPATH WV. When the line died, the companies asked ratepayers across 13 states to reimburse them $121 million for a line that was never built, and 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. They won. The court threw out more than $6 million in public-relations and lobbying costs the company had been charging to people's electric bills. In this episode she walks through what actually happened: why the need case forPATH fell apart in the Virginia proceeding, what she and her neighbors did in the first month and over the following years, where someone with a limited number of hours should spend them, and how to read a formula rate to find out what is being charged back to your electric bill. She also explains the U.S. Department of Energy's National Transmission Needs Study, and what a national interest electric transmission corridor designation would mean for landowners. Here is why we are talking to her in Wisconsin: American Electric Power was one ofthe two companies behind PATH. AEP is a parent company of Transource, and Transource is half of Midcontinent Grid Solutions, the company proposing BECI here. Same voltage. Some of the same names. Eighteen years apart. Two comment windows close September 7, 2026. MGS is taking comments on theBECI study segments: https://no765line.org/take-action/comment-to-mgs/. The Departmentof Energy's National Transmission Needs Study comment window closes the same day; Guest: Keryn Newman, StopPATH WV — https://stoppathwv.com Sources for figures cited in this episode: - FERC order on MGS Wisconsin's BECI transmission incentives, including the abandoned-plant incentive discussed at 24:00 background: https://no765line.org/news-beci-ferc-incentives/ - PATH advocacy and public-relations costs: U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, No. 20-1324, decided December 28, 2021 - U.S. Department of Energy, National Transmission Needs Study (section 216 of the Federal Power Act) - Comment to MGS on the BECI study segments: https://no765line.org/take-action/comment-to-mgs/ Speakers appear with their permission; the views in these interviews are the speakers' own. This podcast is for general information only and is not legal advice. For decisions about your land, consult your own attorney. Music: "Slow Burn" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC BY 4.0. Chapters|| 0:00 | Cold open - "and then later it was cancelled" || 0:18 | Why a West Virginia fight matters in Wisconsin || 2:19 | The money: who paid for the company's advertising || 5:34 | The first notice, and the first month || 6:56 | Son of PATH, Valley Link, and the StopPATH blog || 10:06 | Project Mountaineer - why the need case for PATH fell apart || 12:25 | The day PJM cancelled it || 13:43 | Where to spend a limited number of hours || 18:21 | Valley Link: what Wisconsin should expect next || 22:30 | Reading a formula rate to find what you are being charged || 24:29 | The fight doesn't end when the line dies || 27:15 | September 7: the DOE Needs Study, section 216, and NIETCs || 30:48 | "Don't doubt your power" || 31:22 | Before September 7 - what you can do
