Who Is Mary Anne Sullivan?

At the center of CLF's charge that Northern Pass Transmission LLC (NPT) exerted undue influence on the selection of the EIS contractor is NPT's counsel, Attorney Mary Anne Sullivan. Who is she?


The Conservation Law Foundation's allegation

"NPT’s counsel – who was once DOE’s top lawyer and still appears to have extraordinary access and influence at DOE – handpicked the new EIS contractor team, with what appears to be minimal DOE involvement. Counsel for NPT acted as the new contractor team’s agent, recruiting the team, pulling together its submission of qualifications and a work plan proposal to DOE, and organizing a face-to-face meeting between DOE, NPT, and the team. It appears DOE conducted no real search of its own, in violation of governing regulations requiring that EIS contractors be chosen 'solely' by DOE" (CLF blog).

Sullivan's career

Sullivan received her J. D. from Yale University in 1976.

From 1977 - 1993, Sullivan was in private practice as a member of the energy group of a Washington D. C. law firm, Hogan & Hartson. She represented oil, gas, coal, and electricity interests before the Department of Energy (DOE), U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of Treasury, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The next phase of Sullivan's career was with the DOE. From 1994 to 1998, she was the DOE's Deputy General Counsel for environment and nuclear programs. In 1998, President Clinton appointed Sullivan as the DOE's top lawyer. She served as General Counsel of the DOE until 2001.

Sullivan then returned to Hogan & Hartson (which subsequently became Hogan Lovells), where she is currently partner. At the top of her list of experience, she includes "representing the developer of a major new electric transmission project in a Presidential Permit proceeding before DOE."

Sullivan's Continuing Involvement with DOE

In the last several years, Sullivan has defended the DOE's troubled loan guarantee program for renewable energy projects against critics. When Russian battery maker Ener1 Inc. went bankrupt, Sullivan argued that it was still a good investment:

"In an interview today, Mary Anne Sullivan, a former DOE general counsel who now serves as head of the law firm Hogan Lovells’ energy regulatory practice in Washington, D.C., said Ener1′s bankruptcy announcement does not mean the company failed to advance the development of lithium-ion batteries.

"'The mere fact that they haven’t been able to make their business case so far doesn’t take away from the fact that they may have made a valuable contribution to the development of advanced batteries that will have a bright future,' Sullivan said." [January 30, 2012]

"Mary Anne Sullivan, who previously served as DOE general counsel and now heads law firm Hogan Lovells' energy regulatory practice in Washington, D.C., said: "You want the government to be where the private sector sees a risk they won't take. But it calls for judgment. There is no formula that tells you, 'Yes, this will succeed,' or, 'No, this won't.''' [April 8, 2012]

And when Energy Secretary Stephen Chu testified before a house investigation panel in November 2011 concerning Solyndra, another DOE backed renewable energy project that went bankrupt, Attorney Sullivan provided a third-party opinion that justified the legality of the DOE's loan:

"Democrats also plan to tout a letter written by Mary Anne Sullivan, former Energy Department general counsel during the Clinton administration, that says the department's decision to restructure the loan guarantee in February was legal. The letter supports the conclusions made by DOE Chief Counsel Susan Richardson in a February memo that justifies the restructuring." [November 16, 2011]

Sullivan and the First EIS Contractor, Normandeau

Attorney Sullivan initially dismissed calls for removing Normandeau because of conflict of interest (Feb. 16, 2011 letter), but later reversed course because of what she termed "strong expressions of concern by certain members of the public" (March 7, 2011 letter).

Sullivan and the "Well-Organized" Opposition to Northern Pass

In a recent interview concerning opening up public lands to the development of renewable energy projects, Sullivan worries that there will not be enough qualified government staff to move the projects along in a "business-sensitive time frame."

But Attorney Sullivan also worries about what happens when private citizens organize effectively to oppose the development of energy projects on their own land:

But don’t think the delays are only caused by encroachments on public lands. "I’m involved in a transmission project that involves both public and private lands, and I cannot say that the public land section is more difficult. Private land is extremely challenging as well when the opposition is well-organized," Sullivan concluded. [January 31, 2012]

If you would like to reach out and express your thoughts to Attorney Sullivan about the current EIS contractor, her email address is maryanne.sullivan@hoganlovells.com

Not So Fast, Northern Pass

Not So Fast, Northern Pass

What the September 23rd Easton Meeting Teaches Us

When Northern Pass developers announced on September 19th, nearly four years into the project, that V-string design could allow them to construct 85’ steel lattice HVDC towers in the White Mountain National Forest rather than 100’-135’ towers, REAL asked, what changed? Why this sudden engineering epiphany in Hartford and Montreal?

Now that the air has cleared of the developers’ press buzz over the V-string towers, BNP says, not so fast, Northern Pass. In the first full scale revision of the project website’s “Communities” pages that the developers have just completed under the guise of incorporating the V-string announcement, critical information has disappeared. All proposed tower heights in individual communities have been removed.

Proposed HVDC towns. For each of the thirteen towns below Groveton that lie outside the WMNF and for which Northern Pass has proposed HVDC towers – Bethlehem, Bristol, Campton, Dalton, Franklin, Hill, Holderness, Lancaster, New Hampton, Northumberland, Sugar Hill, Thornton, Whitefield – the developers have removed specific tower heights and substituted the following notice:

“The design of The Northern Pass project continues to be refined as new engineering data is gathered. The project recently announced a proposed design that will lead to reduced structure heights in the White Mountain National Forest. As a result, the Northern Pass team is evaluating whether this design can be applied to the remainder of the DC section of the line. We expect our final proposed structure heights to be announced in the near future.”

Given that the developers have now stretched out a request to the DOE for a 60-day extension into eighteen months and continue to delay their announcement of a “new Coos route” to the point that Wall Street has grown skeptical, the “near future” is not likely to be any time soon. And do not assume that tower heights in non-WMNF towns could be significantly lower. Other than to play as a strategic mitigation card later on, why would Northern Pass withhold such news four years into project planning?

Proposed HVAC towns. For the seven towns south of Franklin proposed for a new HVAC line – Northfield, Canterbury, Concord, Pembroke, Chichester, Allenstown, Deerfield -- the developers have also removed specific tower heights and substituted the following statement in their recent website revision:

“The design of the Northern Pass project continues to be refined as new engineering data is gathered. Northern Pass has determined that the project can be built within the existing Right-of-Way with no requirements for expansion. We expect our final proposed structure heights to be announced in the near future.”

Note what is missing in this statement: Northern Pass makes no mention of the possibility of reduced tower heights from Franklin south. Indeed, without the expansion of the ROW that the developers had planned upon with the benefit of eminent domain, tower heights will almost certainly have to be higher than those previously proposed.

Under cover of the V-string news, the newly revised “Communities” pages on the Northern Pass website have taken all previous proposed tower height information for 140 miles of the project off the table. This comes on top of a project that has taken required alternative routes and a large chunk of the preferred route out of consideration; Northern Pass remains “headless” for some 40-60 miles in northern Coos County. Northern Pass must be the only major infrastructure project in history to offer the public less and less required data as time goes on. Northern Pass’s disrespect for New Hampshire apparently knows no limits.

The yawning information void surrounding Northern Pass has been called out by the Appalachian Mountain Club; it deprives the public of the fair chance to comment upon the project now, during the ongoing scoping period, AMC argues. In lieu of responsible action by the developers to inform the public, the AMC has made a vital contribution by offering the first credible figures on the visual impact of Northern Pass’s proposed towers. Fittingly, the AMC previewed these figures in a public venue open to all, the Easton meeting of September 23, and later released them via conventional news outlets.

The form in which the AMC offers its findings is equally important. While each community deserves and should demand to know what the developers propose within its boundaries, just as each landowner with a ROW is entitled to know such information now (four years in, it has to have been calculated), the project’s sole emphasis on community-based information encourages the “my backyard” myopia that it consistently decries. This narrow view distracts the public from focusing on the cumulative impact of the project upon the state. Emphasis on tower heights out of all context further deprives the public of any meaningful form of understanding visual impact.

The AMC study fills these voids by conservatively assuming a 90’ tower, accepting in good faith the developers’ questionable assertion that the number of towers would not increase, and projecting the real-time visual effects of the project upon New Hampshire. It calculates that for just over one half of the project, the known 120 miles of a probable 200 mile route through New Hampshire, approximately 95,000 acres, from Lancaster to Deerfield, would be visually impacted. Concord would be as hard hit as the state’s scenic heartland to the north.

Over 120 years ago, the AMC evolved out of a dedicated group of biologists and botanists, who first studied the flora and fauna of the White Mountains. These scientists educated the world about the environment of the alpine areas in New Hampshire, and their pioneering efforts led to the conservation and wise use of these special places. Several unique species were preserved as a result, to mention only one obvious public service of the AMC. Today, the AMC continues to fulfill its broad educational mission by informing the public about the effects of Northern Pass.

The AMC’s study says to New Hampshire: take the large view, not the tunnel vision that the developers encourage you to adopt. It is inexcusable that community-specific information, the essential data building blocks, has been removed from the project website, but we must see beyond individual communities or even our own backyards to an encompassing view of what Northern Pass will do to New Hampshire as a whole. 95,000 acres of visual impact . . . and counting.

On September 23rd in Easton, Rebecca Weeks More asked us to take the long view of the White Mountain National Forest. From 1911 on, it was assembled slowly and with painstaking effort for the best public use and should not be subjected summarily to the profit-driven whims of a particular private developer in 2012. And Kenneth Kimball asked us to consider the effects of the project through the wide-angle lens of total visual impact on New Hampshire. Together, Dr. More and Dr. Kimball direct our vision to what the developers would hide from New Hampshire's sight.

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The text of More's talk is available here. Audio and written transcripts of other Easton speakers provided courtesy of Brian Tilton are here. The AMC's visual impact assessment is here.

Cross-posted with permission from "REAL," Responsible Energy Action LLC.

 What Will You Do?

Northern Pass will announce its new route soon, REAL believes.

On September 11, the Northern Pass website posted a copy of the “project overview” presented that same day by project director Anne Bartosewicz to the Platts transmission planning and development conference in Arlington VA. The audience included FERC Commissioner Jon Wellinghoff and Lauren Azar, senior advisor to Energy Secretary Chu.

Bartosewicz’s overview was atypical of Northern Pass’s public statements. It focused in detail upon the opposition to the project. “Almost immediately,” Bartosewicz explained, the project received “negative reactions from residents in Northern NH . . . [who] mobilized through the use of community meetings and protests, newsletters, and social media.”  She further explained that in New Hampshire property rights are held as “sacred” and that the state’s first in the nation primary encourages “political activism” among its citizens.  She posed the question of how developers can “overcome the NIMBY challenges” in siting new transmission.

Bartosewicz’s effort to demonize continuing citizens’ opposition throughout the state as a northern New Hampshire “NIMBY” problem before a national audience confirms REAL’s belief that Northern Pass is gearing up to announce its new route through upper Coos County. We believe there is a substantial probability that this will occur within the next 2-4 weeks.  We base these expectations on conversations with property owners, interested organizations and other sources.  As we explain in this blog, we also base these expectations on our own assessment of Northern Pass’s incentives and potential strategies, most recently evidenced at the Platts conference.

However, we want to emphasize that we believe any route announced in this time frame will remain theoretical. In other words, Northern Pass would announce the proposed route before it has secured all the necessary land rights.  While we expect the announcement to coincide with the confirmation of several additional land acquisitions by Northern Pass, we believe important gaps will remain.  If this is correct, it would mean that the new route announcement would not necessarily accelerate the already delayed project timetable.  The critical step to move the timetable forward is for Northern Pass to acquire all necessary land rights.  In our view, a route announcement without these land rights in hand would likely be, to a large extent, a strategic exercise of smoke and mirrors.

If the route is announced, we expect this could be followed in short order with a new filing with the Department of Energy (DOE) to restart the review process for the presidential permit needed for the transmission line.  The DOE permit process can be restarted without all necessary land rights in place.  This step could give the appearance of new momentum for Northern Pass.

Why would Northern Pass “pre-announce” a theoretical route for which it has not yet obtained full land rights?  We believe there are several reasons why Northern Pass would feel this strategy is in its best interests.

First, Northeast Utilities (NU), now the 100% equity owner of Northern Pass, has come under pressure to shore up its credibility with the securities markets.  Market analysts have recently highlighted the repeated delays in Northern Pass’s timetable and now openly question NU’s projection of a late 2017 “in service” date for the project.  Northern Pass is critically important to NU’s growth story and stock market valuation, and the company has a strong motivation to try to demonstrate some sort of progress.

Second, Northern Pass will wish to create the appearance of momentum and inevitability in order to reduce resistance among landowners who refuse to sell.  Not all landowners will have the time or resources to assess the actual remaining gaps in the route.  We believe Northern Pass may feel that the route announcement will cause anxiety among these landowners and increase its chances of coming to terms with them.

Third, a new route announcement that shows relatively few “gaps” (that is, portions of the route where land rights have not yet been obtained) could increase pressure on governmental bodies and other organizations to work with Northern Pass to find solutions to what it caricatures as “NIMBY” holdouts.  Northern Pass would likely tell the story that “we’re almost there” so “don’t let just a handful of NIMBY landowners prevent our transmission lines.”  We would expect Northern Pass to lobby intensively in Concord to seek assurances of state cooperation on river crossings, road crossings and potentially on use of state land or land rights (for example, highway rights of way) to address the gaps.

Fourth, Northern Pass may expect that a route announcement within the next 2-4 weeks would discourage contributions to and thus undermine the Forest Society’s new “Trees Not Towers” campaign scheduled to conclude at the end of October.  This campaign aims to raise money to fund conservation easements on key blocking parcels along Northern Pass’s likely route.  Northern Pass has a clear incentive to create the appearance of progress in the face of the Forest Society’s significant moves to block the project and to seek to undercut the Forest Society’s efforts.

Fifth, a new route announcement and a restart of the DOE process would create a basis for Northern Pass to re-launch conversations with various stakeholders.  We would expect Northern Pass to make a new round of calls on the relevant federal, state and local government bodies, conservation organizations, and other interest groups to try to build momentum toward “yes” on the project. A new filing with the DOE to restart the presidential permit process could create the impression that the clock is ticking and it is time to try to come to terms with Northern Pass.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, having suffered a number of critical setbacks because of the intense citizens’ opposition to the project throughout the state, Northern Pass is increasingly focused on trying to neutralize this push back, as evidenced in the Platts conference presentation. Northern Pass may see a new route announcement (even one that lacks all of the actual land rights) as a step that could be perceived as shifting strength and momentum from the opposition side to the Northern Pass side.  Northern Pass has a strong incentive to employ strategies that may sap the energy and enthusiasm of the opposition, especially now as it re-surges in Coos County and takes new forms elsewhere.

However, let’s keep a new route announcement for upper Coos County (and a restart of the DOE process) in perspective.  A new route through upper Coos County does not make Northern Pass into a good project for New Hampshire.  A serpentine route cobbled together through upper Coos based on finding landowners willing to sell out is necessarily a random, opportunistic path; it is a manifestly bad route in terms of community, social, environmental, visual, property value and other impacts.  And regardless of any route through upper Coos County, Northern Pass is bad for New Hampshire, our communities and our people.  All of the many reasons the opposition has fought Northern Pass up and down the state will remain in full force after a new route announcement.  Massive, destructive, unnecessary, for-profit, above-ground transmission lines do not belong in New Hampshire, let alone our most pristine areas such as the White Mountain National Forest.  A thousand new alternative routes through upper Coos County would not change this essential fact.

This brings us to the critical question.  What will you do on the day, fast approaching, when Northern Pass announces its new route?  Please think this through now and decide upon your course of action.

Here are a few suggestions:

• Take a few moments and reflect on all the reasons why Northern Pass is bad for New Hampshire, for your community, and for your friends and family.  Remind yourself why you stand strong in opposition to Northern Pass, and recommit yourself to the opposition effort.
• Study the new route announcement and talk it over with your family, friends, neighbors and other opposition members.  If we are right and the announcement is largely a “smoke and mirrors” strategy, do your part and explain this to others.  Don’t let Northern Pass’s strategy of misleading the public have its intended effect; instead, make the cynical route announcement into a rallying cry that strengthens the opposition.
• Make a second donation to “Trees Not Towers” so that the Forest Society can report that during the week following the new route announcement, numerous people dug deep a second time to save New Hampshire from this travesty. (You must donate a first time, of course, to do this; donations do not need to be large to be important.  Give what you are comfortable giving, but please be counted as a donor.)
• Enter a new scoping comment to share your thoughts about Northern Pass and its strategies.  Every scoping comment becomes part of the permanent record of opposition to the project.  Go here to make a scoping comment.
• Send project director Anne Bartosewicz and Leon J. Olivier, CEO of PSNH, an email and tell them how you feel as a critical stakeholder in this proposed project.  Here are their email addresses: anne.bartosewicz@nu.com; leon.olivier@nu.com.
• Spend $0.85 in postage and send a letter to Quebec’s new Premier expressing your feelings about Quebec’s attempt to convert New Hampshire’s territory and greatest assets into Hydro-Quebec’s extension cord:

Premier Pauline Marois
                Édifice Honoré-Mercier, 3e étage
          835, boul. René-Lévesque Est
       Québec (Québec)  G1A 1B4

Canada