Community Benefits Snapshot: Grain Belt Express Community Engagement and Benefits

Highlights

The Grain Belt Express is the highest capacity transmission line to ever be planned in the United States and the first to connect four grid regions. At 800 miles, it will connect Kansas and Indiana by passing through Missouri and Illinois. The project is expected to create thousands of jobs, generate millions of dollars in tax revenues and provide billions of dollars in energy cost savings for consumers. Despite these positive economic impacts, the line has generated grassroots opposition from landowners, which has delayed the line’s development for the past 13 years. While the program has not deployed a formal community benefits framework, we chose this project to highlight the importance of early, frequent and inclusive landowner engagement and put a spotlight on how restrictive state regulatory environments can make transmission development difficult.

Context

About the Project

The Grain Belt Express (GBX) is an 800-mile, 5,000 megawatt, 600-kilovolt high-voltage direct current transmission line traversing and delivering energy to Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. The project was originally owned by the merchant transmission developer Clean Line Energy before it was sold to Invenergy in 2018. The GBX line runs entirely through private land, requiring easements, including in certain cases easements acquired through eminent domain authority to secure its path.

GBX is an important transmission line for the country because of its potential to increase grid reliability, strengthen interregional transfer capability and transport large quantities of energy from the Central Plains to densely populated centers in the Midwest. By building high-voltage transmission lines like GBX, the U.S. can reduce grid congestion and improve power system reliability, especially in the face of extreme weather events and increasing electricity demand.

Proposed in 2010, GBX has secured state approval from all four of the states it will pass through.¹ The project is broken into two phases: Phase 1 will connect Kansas to northeast Missouri while Phase 2 will connect northeast Missouri to Indiana. Invenergy has acquired 97% of the land rights for Phase 1 and construction is expected to begin in 2026. Phase 2 does not have a start date yet.

Stakeholders who will be involved with the GBX project include landowners, farm bureaus, communities adjacent to the project and county governments.

Community Engagement

Clean Line and later Invenergy engaged stakeholders across a diverse set of communities and several levels of government to obtain approval to build the GBX transmission line. This included applying for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN), or an equivalent authorization, from utility regulators in the four states. In Missouri, the term Certificate of Convenience and Necessity (CCN) is used. These certificates subject prospective transmission line routes to a review process that assesses the project’s environmental impact, costs and benefits. The certificates can also grant eminent domain or serve as a prerequisite for eminent domain .

The regulatory process to obtain approval for the project has been complex and subject to several legal disputes, including efforts by counties to block the project using road-crossing regulations. When the project began, Clean Line employees said in interviews that its “understanding of Missouri state law” was that the company needed approval from every county hosting the transmission line in Missouri, a procedure they adopted in Kansas as well. In 2017, the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) rejected the GBX project, citing a previous Court of Appeals decision that said developers needed prior consent from every county impacted by the transmission line.

After it took over the project in 2018, Invenergy secured a CCN in Missouri without needing county approvals after the Missouri Supreme Court overturned the earlier Court of Appeals decision and instructed the Missouri PSC to re-evaluate the project without the county consent requirement. The Supreme Court clarified that while counties cannot block the construction of the transmission line, they can establish rules for how the GBX line crosses publicly owned roads. In other words, Invenergy would still need to negotiate with counties to acquire the necessary road crossing assents.

Clean Line and Invenergy’s engagement with counties and state public utilities commissions have been extensive and frequent to successfully navigate the complex regulatory landscape. Early in the project development process, Clean Line hosted open houses and workshops with county commissioners along the proposed line to identify and avoid areas they preferred not be developed in routing considerations. Invenergy continued engaging with state agencies and county commissioners after acquiring the project. GBX secured approval from the Missouri Public Service Commission in October 2023 after Invenergy increased the line’s capacity from 4,000 MW to 5,000 MW and reconfigured the facility to deliver up to half of the transmitted power to Missouri, facilitated by constructing an extra 40-mile connector line in the state.

The developers’ engagement with landowners, however, has been seen to be inadequate. Though Clean Line and Invenergy have stated that they were engaging with all impacted stakeholders, the perception among some stakeholders we interviewed was that Clean Line did not engage with landowners and the broader community early in the project. One landowner explained that they first had an open mind toward the GBX project, but became an ardent opponent after being turned away from a Clean Line press conference where they expected siting would be discussed. The landowner said they were told Clean Line was not yet ready to begin engaging with landowners. This exclusion led the landowner to mobilize opponents against the project for the next decade.

In interviews, other landowners expressed a wide array of concerns, including the use of eminent domain, potential visual and property value impacts and reduced agricultural efficiency.

In Missouri, grassroots opposition groups, such as the Missouri Landowner Alliance and the Missouri Farm Bureau have attempted to halt the GBX project and pushed for legislation to restrict or prohibit the use of eminent domain. The effort to revoke Invenergy’s ability to use eminent domain ultimately failed. However, in 2022, Missouri passed legislation requiring developers using eminent domain for electric transmission lines to pay landowners 150% of fair market value for agricultural and horticultural land, instead of the previous 100%. This legislation, endorsed by Invenergy, does not retroactively apply to GBX, but was seen as a way to protect the state’s landowners from  future large transmission line projects, while still allowing the GBX project to move forward in Missouri.

In Illinois, the Illinois Farm Bureau and other landowner groups have also challenged the GBX project in court. An Illinois state appeals court reversed the 2023 approval by the Illinois Commerce Commission of the Illinois portion of the project. The Illinois Supreme Court has taken up Invenergy’s appeal of the decision.

As this case continues to be litigated, Invenergy is obtaining the majority of easements from landowners in Kansas and Missouri through voluntary agreements. According to Invenergy, GBX has secured over 1,450 easements needed for the project, with 97% of landowners in Kansas and Missouri agreeing to the deals offered by the developer. Voluntary easements are often negotiated jointly by Invenergy employees and land agents from Contract Land Staff, a hired third-party agency specializing in land acquisition. For the rest, Invenergy is compensating landowners through eminent domain as a last resort.

Project Benefits

High-voltage transmission projects can benefit regional electricity grids through enhanced grid reliability by allowing more renewable interconnection and lowering energy system costs, all of which the developers of GBX have claimed in its CPCN applications and promotional materials. Additionally, transmission projects can provide a series of direct benefits to host communities.

The GBX project is expected to provide its host communities with the following key benefits:

Legal and Expected Benefits: These are legally required forms of compensation, such as taxes and easement payments, that naturally result from the development of a project.

• Taxes and construction impact mitigation payments: The GBX project is expected to generate significant property tax revenues for counties along its route, offering them an opportunity to invest that revenue in essential services, such as schools and fire departments. In Missouri, the GBX project is expected to provide $7 million in property tax revenue in the first year of operation. In Kansas, Invenergy benefits from a 10-year tax exemption on high-voltage transmission development. As a result, instead of receiving revenues through a traditional taxation scheme, Kansas counties will receive a one time “construction mitigation payment fee” in the first 10 years of operation. The counties will receive $7,500 per mile of transmission built within the counties’ boundaries, which amounts to a total of $2.8 million in payments to Kansas local governments. After 10 years, counties will receive standard tax revenues.
• Eminent domain and land payments: Invenergy will pay landowners to site the GBX project on their land through both voluntary easements and eminent domain, both of which are based on fair market evaluations. In Missouri and Kansas, Invenergy is expected to give $35 million in landowner payments in each state. Invenergy will pay landowners 110% of the fair market value of their land, plus an additional $18,000 for each tower placed on their property, with options for upfront or annual payments. Owners of century farms that have remained in the same family for over 100 years will receive an additional premium.
• Job creation: The project is estimated to create 22,300 direct jobs during the construction of the line and the new generation it is expected to enable, while operations will create 960 full-time jobs.

Procedural benefits: Procedural benefits are a class of optional benefits that developers often undertake to maintain goodwill with host communities and secure local and state approval.

• Providing local power: GBX project will deliver up to 2,500 MW of power to the line’s Missouri interconnection point, a portion of which will serve 39 community-owned utilities in cities and small towns in the state through a power purchase agreement with members of the Missouri Public Utility Alliance. The initial amount of power was increased after the project’s first CCN was rejected and developers wanted to ensure the project would satisfy the state benefits test requirements projects are subjected to during CCN review.
• Community grant program: Invenergy provides one-time grants of up to $500 to local organizations located along the route of the transmission line. These grants are intended to support community needs, including food insecurity, community development and other local initiatives. Invenergy also donates to the county fairs where its line is planned and sponsors and publicizes local events. These actions, according to interviews with Invenergy, are helpful in building trust and maintaining goodwill with the community. 

Strengths

Below are some of the project’s strengths as they relate to community engagement and providing communities with tangible benefits:

• The GBX project has demonstrated flexibility in its route design to address specific concerns. The project has made a series of modifications and adjustments to accommodate local and state interests and minimize environmental impacts. Both project developers made significant efforts to accommodate landowner siting requests. The project added the Tiger Connector, a 40-mile-long transmission line that will connect existing power infrastructure in Callaway County, Missouri, to the GBX transmission line in northern Missouri. The project was reconfigured to make it a 5,000 MW line, with half of the power delivered to Missouri. The project is also happening in two phases, enabling a gradual and phased approach to construction and development.
• Project developers remained committed to obtaining site control through voluntary easements even in the face of significant landowner opposition and litigation. Invenergy estimates that it needs 1,700 parcels of land to secure its route. Ninety-seven percent of property owners in Kansas and Missouri have agreed to the deals offered by Invenergy, which also said that it has voluntarily secured over 1,450 easements needed for the project. This could suggest that Invenergy is accommodating landowner siting requests and providing substantial land payments through voluntary easements. Eminent domain is being used as a last resort after all attempts to negotiate with a landowner fail. Since 2021, Invenergy has used eminent domain in 40 instances against Missouri property owners.

Challenges and Gaps

• The GBX project struggled to clearly articulate and communicate tax revenue benefits for counties along the transmission line. In our interviews, we found that county officials hold widely different estimates of revenues that will accrue to counties from the GBX project. County officials in Missouri and Illinois noted that they have “tremendous difficulty” estimating tax revenues from transmission development. A former Clean Line employee who was interviewed estimated that each mile of the line would generate $330,000 to $660,000 in taxes annually based on the line’s cost ($1 million to $2 million per mile and a utility tax rate of 33%). However, these estimates were met with skepticism from county commissioners, even as they welcomed a boost in revenues. The Missouri Times reported that the Missouri portion of GBX would likely pay about $7 million in property taxes in the first year of operation. This estimate would value the line’s tax potential at $35,000 per mile, nearly one-tenth the low estimate quoted by the former Clean Line developer. The ambiguity in estimating county tax revenue benefits can give government officials and other stakeholders a reason to oppose the project.
• Local opposition to the GBX project stemmed from the perception that benefits are spread broadly across large regions, but costs are concentrated along the transmission line. Interviews with landowners highlighted that the overall benefits of the project to their state and the nation, including grid reliability and provision of electricity to faraway places, were often not deemed sufficient to justify the project. Instead, they were concerned about the project’s potential to scar the landscape and negatively impact rural communities. Concerns were also raised about who is eligible for compensation. For instance, landowners whose land abuts transmission easements are not compensated for transmission’s visual and noise pollution One landowner described how a family-owned bed and breakfast, whose primary appeal was its rural aesthetic, expected to lose customers because the line would be sited next to their property. The bed and breakfast would not be compensated because they were not hosting the line. Similar complaints are cited in a hearing brief to the Missouri Public Service Commission. This reveals how crucial it is for transmission developers to identify and engage with all locally impacted community groups and clearly articulate local economic benefits to build support for projects. The GBX project also highlights that transmission projects that confer wide benefits but impose localized costs can often be challenging to build support for.
• Building support among state and local leaders before approaching landowners can spur local opposition. Grassroots opposition is more likely when landowners are not clearly notified of a project impacting them. For example, one landowner found out about the GBX project from their farm bureau president. After calling around to both their neighbors and local government offices, they found that none of their neighbors knew about the project but in some cases, county commissioners and state legislators had already agreed to the project. Community members also expressed dissatisfaction with how Clean Line communicated with individual landowners. In interviews, they contrasted the strategy adopted by oil pipeline developers, who would approach landowners individually at the beginning to start easement negotiations. Clean Line said their initial strategy was to notify landowners that the transmission line would cross their property via mail. Former employees of Clean Line acknowledged in interviews the shortcomings of this approach and shared that in their new roles with other developers they now solicit siting requests first from landowners — not county officials — to avoid grassroots opposition.
• Community engagement was constrained by state regulatory environments. The requirement that transmission lines (with some exceptions) receive CPCNs from each state they pass through can expose projects that prioritize early-on landowner engagement to greater risk. Ideally, developers would fully secure their line route through private easements before seeking state approval to better accommodate landowner siting requests. However, the cost and time entailed in doing so, especially on a project as large as GBX, can be prohibitive when developers have no guarantee of receiving a CPCN, which could impact whether they can complete their project. The burden of seeking CPCNs from states can also result in benefits that meet state priorities but not those of local communities, impacting host communities’ acceptance of the project. The Missouri Public Service Commission gave its approval in 2023 only after Invenergy agreed to expand the project to provide more renewable electricity within Missouri. While the Missouri spur line may have been critical for the project’s development, interviews with county commissioners and landowners revealed that this did not improve GBX’s standing with local communities.

¹ GBX’s state approval is under appeal in Illinois having once before been granted and appealed by farming interest groups. Its state approval remains in effect in Illinois while the Illinois Supreme Court has taken up the appeal.