Urbana residents have fought against its location, and now two West Virginia women are challenging the way a high transmission line project is being funded.
Keryn Newman of Shepherdstown, W.Va., and Alison Haverty of Chloe, W.Va., filed a preliminary challenge to the Potomac Appalachian Transmission Highline’s formula rate arguing that taxpayers are wrongly footing the bill for lobbying expenses, membership dues and other efforts in getting that project built.
Under an agreement with the regional grid operator, an annual revenue requirement for yearly PATH project expenses has been collected from the organization’s 51 million ratepayers every year since 2008. This includes the addition of pre-construction costs that were accrued prior to March 2008 and are currently being amortized over the five-year construction period. Newman and Haverty have been examining PATH’s 2009 Formula Rate Annual Update since August.
“The more questions we asked, the worse PATH’s accounting looked,” said Newman, who has a background in corporate accounting.
Their challenge alleges that the expenses for the PATH project were neither prudent nor recoverable by the Allegheny Energy and American Electric Power customers in 2009.
“The way we determined they had improperly included over $3 million worth of expenses in their Revenue Requirement and Ratebase was through asking and receiving information requests/responses from PATH and comparing their accounting to the guidelines in [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s] (FERC’s) Uniform System of Accounts and generally accepted accounting principles. In addition to imprudent expenses, there were a plethora of basic accounting errors that resulted in over-collection of allowable costs,” Newman said. “Our intention with the filing is to correct PATH’s accounting errors and ultimately refund to the 51 million ratepayers expenses which were collected in error or imprudently, with interest as provided in the OATT. In addition we hope to force PATH to follow guidelines more closely in the future and to be more careful with their accounting and to be more open with the ratepayers who ultimately fund their project.”
The utility companies have until
Jan. 3 to resolve the challenge, according to Newman and Haverty. If a resolution cannot be achieved, a formal challenge may be filed with FERC.
“We are aware of the preliminary challenge and will respond appropriately,” said Allegheny Energy spokesman Todd Meyers.
Locally, Urbana’s opponents to the project were successful in a push for the denial of the Kemptown substation necessary for the PATH project. The Frederick County Board of Zoning appeals recently rejected a request for a special exception to allow the substation to be built in an agricultural zone off Bartholows Road.