Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley announced Thursday that the Department of Energy (DOE) is canceling its Grain Belt Express project.
Hawley’s X post announcing the DOE’s decision to cancel the project followed a conversation with President Donald Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The post also called the Grain Belt Express a “green scam” that is “costing taxpayers BILLIONS.”
The Grain Belt Express was a $11 billion transmission line project designed to carry electricity from wind farms in Kansas across Missouri and Illinois to Indiana. “Energy demand is growing – our grid needs an upgrade,” the project’s website states, “No other project saves consumers more.”
The Grain Belt Express line faced investigation by Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office in early July. A press release from Bailey’s office stated that the investigation stemmed from “widespread concerns over misleading claims and a track record of dishonesty.”
“We will not allow a private corporation to trample property rights and mislead regulators for a bait and switch that serves out-of-state interests instead of Missourians,” Bailey said in the July 2 press release.
The investigation, a Civil Investigative Demand (CID), pointed out the dependence of the Grain Belt Express upon “speculative and possibly fraudulent assumptions,” including a made-up carbon tax that “was never enacted by Missouri or federal law and does not exist.”
The use of this fictitious “carbon tax” in projecting supposed benefits of the project “more than likely” inflated the value predicted for Missouri consumers, according to Bailey’s formal letter to the Chair of the Missouri Public Service Commission. The predicted benefits included $52 billion in energy cost savings over 15 years, according to the Grain Belt Express Website.
Hawley’s announcement follows several Trump administration cuts to expensive green energy projects since taking office.
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