Daisy Roser
Contributor
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.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Report Urges Trump To Slam Shut Key Green Energy Loophole In Signature Law)
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.
🚨BREAKING: I am conducting an investigation into the Grain Belt Express transmission line, a nearly $5 billion green energy scam that won’t serve Missourians and is built on false promises. pic.twitter.com/xrgqT3nx5P
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) July 2, 2025
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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The Green Blob’s accounting practices make Enron seem honest.
The entire Green Energy industry is a gigantic, government fueled fraud based on a web of lies. Shut it all down.
If you want to get rid of this ongoing fraud you must shut down entire government agencies…forever. They’ve done their job and picked all the low hanging fruits, now their only purpose is to ensure that they can still thrive on the taxpayer’s expense.
And the Lord said unto Gideon, “The people that are with thee are yet too many”
See also “Parkinson’s Laws and Other Studies In Administration” by C. Northcote Parkinson. Yes, THAT Parkinson.
Parkinson’s laws:
One would think that somewhere in the upper echelons of government there would be people (one or two at least) who could and would see this as the phony-baloney money grab that it is. But … I guess not.
There are plenty who see this. There just aren’t enough and as a consequence they are ignored. They even report the malfeasance to the press but that does no good at all. Just look at the British Isles – gov’t is totally corrupt but there are quite a few in gov’t who know this but can do nothing about it.
Some, possibly, see an opportunity to grab 10%.
Why would a supposedly conservative Republican like Senator Josh Hawley be proposing to raise the federal minimum wage?
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-signals-uncertainty-over-whether-he-support-gop-senators-push-boost-minimum-wage
What faster way to slash number of Federal employees than raising Federal minimum wage. Raise minimum wage, number of Federal employees drops, less money going out to pay Federal employees. It is just like lawfare or terrorism, use the tactics of our enemies against them.
That’s not it. The federal minimum wage sets the lowest wage an hourly employee must be paid (except for all the exceptions). States can set a higher minimum wage.
It’s not a just minimum wage for employees of the federal government.
Trump Admin will see to it this applies to USG employees only to start, then break out the sidebar cutter and clear the dead brush. Actually, just leak the plan to USG parasites and AFGE/AFSCME/NAGE/NFFE will torpedo it. Got to start thinking, people, turn these leftist enemies of America against each other.
This doesn’t make economic sense at all. Government doesn’t operate on a supply/demand curve and most economists know this.
Gutting bloated Federal employees is not a supply/demand issue, it is a driving out the parasites and grifters policy.
The concept is to reduce expenditures. Paying the same number of dollars to fewer people does not reduce the expenditures.
Will be paying less, the unions will scream against the raise, the Democrat Party will cave, idiot Republican Party will try to force it through and opposition will grow. Say it is good for America and the leftards will oppose it blindly.
In 1960 an hourly wage for a pizza seller was about $1.50. We considered it “spending money”, not a wage to support a household. Gasoline was 26¢/gallon. A loaf of white bread was about 20¢, so that pay would buy 7.5 loaves of bread. Inflation brings that wage to about $13.50 in 2025. I pay about $4.00 for gas and bread. So $7.50 will not quite get 2 loaves.
I wonder who is now making the current minimum of $7.50?
Why not just build gas fired electricity generation plants in Indiana? They have plenty of gas, problem solved.
You can multiply this lobbyist push times 10 if you look around and add up all the similar ‘transmission lines to nowhere’ funding scams. Consider Sunzia in AZ/NM touted by those blue governors and the attempts by Obama to ram through lines across the midsouth for Oklahoma wind.
Now if we could just quit burning corn as gasoline. Horribly inefficient and just makes food cost more for poor people. Unfortunately, the corn farmers love the sales price of corn to ethanol.
Stop wasting money on wind and solar they can’t replace fossil fuel and nuclear. Use that 5 billion dollars for new fossil fuel and nuclear generators. You will spend the same amount of money you had planned but instead of broken promises you will have clean, affordable energy on demand, something wind and solar can never deliver.