Grain Belt Express

The U.S. Department of Energy said it canceled a loan guarantee for the transmission project, which would transport wind energy generated in Kansas to Missouri and other Midwest states, because it was not a responsible use of taxpayer money. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley had advocated for the cancellation.

The $7 billion clean-energy project would stretch from Kansas to Indiana, and is designed to bring wind and solar energy to communities across the region. It's scheduled to begin construction this year and be completed in 2028.

After nearly a decade of road blocks, Missouri's Public Service Commission approved final plans for the Grain Belt Express line, which will drop off 2,500 megawatts of wind energy in Missouri. Construction could start as soon as 2025.

For years, Invenergy has been working through regulatory approvals and acquiring land easements to build the 800-mile high-voltage transmission line, which will carry renewable energy from wind-swept western Kansas across Missouri. The transmission line is expected to have the capacity of roughly four new nuclear power plants.

Grain Belt Express’ developer announced its transmission line will now deliver 2,500 megawatts of clean energy to Missouri, up from 500. But that increase requires an extra 40-mile connector line, which Grain Belt asked state regulators to approve as an amendment to its original plan, instead of a new line that would be governed by higher land price for farmers.

The measure is in response to a long fight over the Grain Belt Express, a planned transmission line that will cut across a 200-mile stretch of northern Missouri. The changes, however, will not affect that project.

The proposed transmission line would carry clean energy from Kansas to Indiana, but to do that, it needs easements on landowners’ property across eight counties in northern Missouri.

The transmission line known as the Grain Belt Express would deliver wind energy from southwest Kansas to other parts of the country — the equivalent of 15 million barrels of oil annually. Some landowners oppose a private company using eminent domain to complete its project.

Missouri landowners who are fighting a high-voltage wind energy transmission line set to be built across the state are angry that agents seeking…