Four months after he asked Elon Musk and his then-DOGE program to investigate the nearly $5 billion in federal loan guarantees to the wind energy transmission-line project, Grain Belt Express, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has started his own probe of the project.
He contends the developer fraudulently inflated the number of jobs to be created, misled landowners in Kansas, Missouri and Illinois and overstated cost savings. Bailey said in a press release he had issued a Civil Investigative Demand to Grain Belt Express, LLC folllowing “widespread concerns over misleading claims and a track record of dishonesty surrounding its transmission line project.”
At the same time, he submitted a formal letter to the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC), to offer the full force of his Office’s support in a reevaluation of GBE’s prior approval based on seemingly false assumptions and fraudulent data.
“Grain Belt Express has repeatedly lied to Missourians about the jobs it would create, the benefits it would deliver, and the land it seeks to take,” said Bailey. “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.”
GBE is currently backed by a Biden Administration $4.9 billion conditional federal loan guarantee and has filed nearly 50 eminent domain lawsuits against Missouri landowners to seize property for a speculative project, which seem to increasingly serve out-of-state data centers, not Missouri families.
The New York Times calls Attorney General Bailey’s actions, “a major setback for Invenergy, the energy company that is behind the project…”
The demand issued by the Attorney General’s Office compels GBE to produce documents and communications related to its economic claims, promises of job creation, marketing tactics, environmental impacts, landowner outreach, and shifting project goals. These actions are taken under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, which prohibits false promises, fraud, and deceptive practices in connection with business activities in the state.
Attorney General Bailey’s letter to the PSC also urges the Commission to reevaluate the Certificate of Convenience and Necessity previously granted to Grain Belt Express. The letter notes that GBE’s application relied on speculative and possibly fraudulent assumptions, including the existence of a carbon tax that was never enacted by Missouri or federal law and does not exist.
The Attorney General’s Office is calling on the PSC to exercise its full authority under Missouri law and recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Orders 1920, 1920-A, and 1920-B, which empower state utility commissions to demand updated long-term planning and revoke project approvals that are no longer in the public interest.
“Our mission is to stand up for Missouri’s farmers, families, and landowners, and that means stopping billion-dollar land grabs disguised as infrastructure,” concluded Attorney General Bailey. “We are launching this investigation to protect landowners and demand accountability from a project built on broken promises. We will not allow a private corporation to trample property rights and mislead regulators just to secure federal subsidies and political favor.”
In March, he asked the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk to look into the project that he called a “scheme” and was “one of the most egregious abuses of taxpayer dollars in recent memory.”
In a letter to DOGE, he charged, “In the waning, chaotic days of the Biden Administration — when the former president’s mental decline had grown to such a severe state that we now know he was not actually running his own White House and often signed documents without even knowing what they contained — left-wing bureaucrats seized the opportunity to advance their radical ‘green agenda.’ In the shadows of this confusion, far-left deep staters advanced a $4.9 billion green energy federal loan guarantee boondoggle to bankroll the Grain Belt Express (GBE), one of the most egregious abuses of taxpayer dollars in recent memory.”
Bailey emphasized that the project is less about renewable energy and more about lining the pockets of wealthy investors.
The CID served on Grain Belt Express is available here.
The full letter to the Public Service Commission can be read here.
