H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Energy@h-net.msu.edu (November 2007)
Paul Wellstone and Barry M. Casper. _Powerline: The First Battle of
America's Energy War_. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981.
Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. xiii + 314 pp.
Index. $17.95 (paper), ISBN 0-8166-4384-9.
Reviewed for H-Energy by Julie Cohn, Department of History, University of
Houston
Grassroots Politics, Power, and Bureaucracy in the Heartland
In _Powerline: The First Battle of America's Energy War_, co-authors Paul
Wellstone and Barry Casper argue that the 1970s struggle over a
high-voltage transmission line across Minnesota marked the emergence of a
new rural and environmental coalition poised to play a significant role in
defining America's energy future. They further suggest that the
established avenues for public participation in electric power development
in Minnesota privileged the utilities. As a result, there was no authentic
forum for debating energy policy and determining where, when, and how to
expand utility infrastructure. Through a chronological narrative tracing
unfolding events from 1972 to 1980, the authors reveal the process by
which farmers became environmental activists, tested the limits of
regulatory processes, and, through civil disobedience, challenged the
assumptions that underlay energy planning in the United States.
Wellstone and Casper provide a straightforward description of the power line
controversy. In 1972, the Cooperative Power Association of Edina,
Minnesota (CPA) and the United Power Association of Elk River, Minnesota
(UPA) approached the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) about
financing the construction of a large coal-fired electric plant in North
Dakota and a high-voltage transmission line to carry the power across
Minnesota to the Twin Cities. Concurrently, the Minnesota legislature
overhauled state laws and regulatory agencies to address the environmental
impact of new infrastructure projects. These changes removed eminent
domain proceedings from the local level to the state level and
reconfigured the relationship between utilities, regulators, and the
public. When Minnesota farmers learned that their land would serve as the
corridor for the power line, they united in a multiyear, and ultimately
unsuccessful, effort to stop the project. The farmers and their supporters
expressed their opposition in meetings with elected officials, in public
hearings, in the state courts, in the press, and finally, through acts of
civil disobedience on their own properties. The power line was built, in
spite of the farmers' formal and informal protests, face-to-face
confrontations with survey crews, and clandestine sabotage of the
construction work.
The power line battle embraced several themes central to the confluence of
environmental history and energy history. Farmers were initially opposed
to the placement of the power line across their land and they expressed
opposition based on aesthetic, economic, and safety concerns. They also
resented the anti-rural sentiments revealed in the computerized model used
to identify the power line corridor. In this system, urban areas and
wildlife preserves received a high rank number, while agricultural land
received a zero value. This "not-in-my-backyard" environmentalism matured
into more sophisticated questions about the actual need for additional
power in Minnesota, the absence of conservation initiatives in the state's
energy plans, and the minor role of renewable sources in energy policy
development. Over time, the farmers became proficient participants in a
dialogue about health risks associated with high-voltage power lines and
ambiguity in the scientific research. Finally, farmers, politicians, and bureaucrats were
all called upon to weigh expedience against personal risk in a conflict
embracing both environmental and energy policy decisions.
As activists directly involved in the opposition to the power line, former
United States senator and political science professor Paul Wellstone and
physics professor Barry Casper tell an insider's story. While the
narrative is not without bias, the authors provide an effective portrayal
of the growth of an authentic grassroots movement. They legitimate the
concerns of the farmers, reveal the growing sophistication of the
movement, and elicit sympathy for the cause. The use of interview excerpts
to build profiles of individual activists is particularly effective in
enabling the reader to appreciate the character of the opposition movement
and the depth of frustration experienced by the farming community. At the
same time, the authors manage to present the actions of the utilities,
regulators, and elected officials with a degree of objectivity. They
provide context for decisions unfavorable to the farmers and they focus on failures of the
regulatory system that drove strategies on both sides. For example, the
state's hearing process was designed to address solely where the power
line should go and whether the technical specifications were sufficient to
protect public health and safety. As a result, utilities were able to
side-step questions about whether the power line was really needed while
farmers were forced to resort to extralegal actions to bring
attention to their concerns.
In _Powerline_, Wellstone and Casper fail to address two central
environmental issues: whether the debate for the farmers was ever truly
larger than the question of where the power line would go, and whether it
is legitimate to cast agricultural land as ecologically valuable. While
the farmers raise questions about the immediate need for more electricity
in Minnesota, the lack of conservation initiatives, and the safety of
high-voltage transmission lines, the issue always seems to return to
the intrusion on individual farmland. As farmer Jim Nelson, who is still
actively working his land, says, "every time I see the towers, every time
I walk in the fields, it kind of brings back all the memories of fighting
the thing, and in a way every time I see it, I feel more bitter" (p. 128).
The farmers and their supporters also focus on what they characterize as
"things coming into our rural environment, destroying natural beauty and
farms" (p. 265). While there are valid reasons for embracing this
perspective, it is important to remember that farms were built at the
expense of natural ecosystems in western Minnesota, they operate with
extensive manipulation or elimination of naturally occurring species, and
rural beauty is largely man-made. These shortcomings, however, do not
prevent Wellstone and Casper from persuasively arguing that the farmers
fought a losing battle within a system designed to promote the growth of
electric power generation and consumption in the state.
Despite the fact that _Powerline_ contains no footnotes, citations, or
bibliographic references, it is clear that the authors have extensive
personal knowledge of the transmission line battle. They quote
politicians, bureaucrats, utility representatives, activists, and news
reports extensively, albeit without interview or publication date
information. The opening chapter contains substantial unreferenced
information about the development of the REA, the local utilities, and
electric power usage in Minnesota. The book would have benefited from more
formal citation of sources, both to give weight to the arguments made by
the authors and to enable other researchers to make use of this material in future
investigations.
_Powerline_ makes an important contribution to the history of electric power
development, the grassroots movement, and the regulatory process. It
reveals the ability of individuals to coalesce around a common problem,
the limits of a democratic process that is grounded in questionable
assumptions about energy sources and energy needs, and the opportunity to
leverage local aesthetic, economic, and safety concerns into a deeper
investigation of national environmental and energy policy issues. For
students, _Powerline_ offers an accessible story of real, and relatively
recent, clashes over energy policy on the local and state levels. For
scholars, the book adds personal voices to the documentary evidence of how
electric power decisions are negotiated. For the general reader, as well
as environmental and regional historians, _Powerline_ provides fascinating
insights into the relationships among farmers, regulators, politicians, grassroots
organizers, and city-dwellers in the midwestern United States.
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