Peter Else’s attorneys filed their opening brief in the Arizona Court of Appeals today, December 14, 2023. The case challenges the Arizona permit for the amended version of the SunZia Transmission Project, issued by the Arizona Corporation Commission on November 21, 2022.

The SunZia project has undergone multiple changes in purpose, scope, and route since 2006. Their original Arizona permit was issued by the Commission in 2016. Else established legal standing as a party to the Arizona proceedings in 2015 because of his concerns about the adverse ecological impacts of the project.

Peter Else’s statement

I continue to point out the false and contested statements memorialized in the November 2022 decision by the Arizona Corporation Commission. Rather than acknowledging that a radical change had taken place in the plan of electrical service for the amended SunZia project, the Commission’s staff presented a materially misleading narrative to our elected Commissioners for a vote. The decision made by the Commission must be based on facts in their formal order, not false statements about there being no change in the anticipated use of the project.

The Commission’s staff has passively and uncritically accepted the push from the Biden administration and various politically aligned environmental groups to deliver New Mexico wind energy primarily to the high-priced electricity markets in California, in the process blazing new power line corridors through Arizona rather than following existing corridors to the highest degree possible. The amended version of the SunZia project is now an overpriced vertical monopoly that would harm Arizona’s electricity ratepayers. It is a radical change from SunZia’s previous claims of assuring multiple grid benefits and economical renewable energy for southern Arizona.

Other far less damaging energy development alternatives have existed throughout SunZia’s 17-year history of haphazard planning in Arizona and New Mexico. I feel compelled by conscience to continue to object to this poorly planned project.

Case summary
The Introduction of the opening brief gives the background of the case. The Summary of the Argument outlines why the plaintiff believes that the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) erred in 2022 when it granted an amended Certificate of Environmental Compatibility (CEC) for the SunZia transmission line.

The Commission is required by state statute to balance the need for “an adequate, economical and reliable supply of electric power” with the desire to minimize ecological and environmental impacts in Arizona. Plaintiff Else states that the plan of electrical service in the 2022 amended CEC is substantially different from that of the original CEC granted in 2016. He alleges that the amended CEC would create a vertical monopoly of wind power generation and transmission, and would allow SunZia to no longer provide open access and reliability benefits to Arizona’s electrical grid that would have been legally required in the original 2016 CEC.