Three Intervenors Support Motion to Revoke Completeness Determination in ATC Transmission Lines Case
Wisconsin Eagle/10343274

PORT WASHINGTON, Wis. - WisconsinEagle -- Three additional parties to the Ozaukee County transmission line case have gone on record supporting the Responsible Energy Alliance's ("REA") recent motion asking the Tribunal to revoke its completeness determination for American Transmission Company's ("ATC") application.

On Tuesday, local prominent artist Thomas Uttech and his wife, Mary, represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, and local landowners Kenneth and Erica Liss, represented by Nowlan Law LLP, each made filings with the Public Service Commission ("PSC") agreeing with REA's motion. Today, Restoring Lands Inc., a local land trust and conservation group represented by Pines Bach LLP, filed its own response in support.

REA filed its expedited motion Monday, arguing that ATC's application -- deemed complete on December 15, 2025 -- has since been so extensively altered that the completeness determination no longer reflects any real, fixed application. The three new responses add substantial new details supporting that point, and urging the Tribunal to revoke the completeness determination. This would send ATC back to the drawing board to refile - or to give up on the project completely.

The Uttechs note that ATC's application had a troubled history well before the completeness determination. ATC's original filing on Sept. 30, 2025, was itself found incomplete by the PSC on Oct. 28, 2025, before ATC refiled on Nov. 14, 2025 -- the version the PSC ultimately deemed complete on December 15.

Comparing that November filing to the red-lined version ATC produced July 10, 2026, the Liss family's response states that the application "has undergone no fewer than 11 rounds of edits and updates over the past 6 months." The Uttechs separately point to four distinct revisions of ATC's main application exhibit since the completeness determination.

The Uttechs' response also confirms the source and timing of an order both REA and the Uttechs rely on: on July 1, 2026, the PSC itself entered a remedial order after finding that ATC's post-completeness filings "have unreasonably complicated the identification of the current application in this proceeding." That order directed ATC to produce, by July 10, a fully updated and clean version of its application. However, REA pointed out that neither the original application nor the new application provided sufficient justification for ATC's proposal to take the extraordinary route directly through ecologically sensitive greenfield areas of Ozaukee and Washington Counties.

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Restoring Lands' filing details specific ways it says ATC still has not complied with the July 1 order, even after last week's court-ordered overhaul of its filings. Rather than incorporating the additional information the order required directly into the application narrative, Restoring Lands says ATC's July 10 redline repeatedly just points readers elsewhere in the docket, including to separate data-request responses.

Restoring Lands also says ATC never filed the redlined appendices the order required. Instead, ATC submitted a document that flags which appendices changed, but without showing what changed, leaving the public and the PSC to try to figure it out. Restoring Lands also stated that the application still contains at least one uncorrected error that Restoring Lands had flagged weeks earlier, involving a map exhibit that links to the wrong file. This is the second time in as many weeks that Restoring Lands has pushed back on ATC's handling of the July 1 order. Restoring Lands also opposed a separate ATC request asking the Commission to reconsider that order.

Restoring Lands' filing also adds a significant new piece of evidence: discovery responses from Vantage Data Centers show that the ultimate power needs of the data center campus could grow by another 2.2 gigawatts beyond what is currently disclosed in ATC's application, as the project moves into a second phase. Restoring Lands says that potential growth -- and its implications for the transmission infrastructure needed to serve it -- is nowhere reflected in the application that the PSC deemed complete.

Restoring Lands' filing warns that tolerating ATC's tactics, on full display in this docket, could set a troubling precedent as data center developers pursue similar transmission projects across the state. Restoring Lands describes "the fast-moving data center infrastructure rush that is sweeping Wisconsin and other states." Restoring Lands also criticizes ATC's suggestion that PSC and Department of Natural Resources staff should simply do additional work -- such as preparing a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement -- to make up for ATC's own voluminous and untimely filings. Restoring Lands points out that this would be improper given that testimony, public comment, and hearing deadlines already assume a completed application for public review by a date certain.

The Uttechs also raise a statutory timing concern: under Wis. Stat. § 196.491(3)(g), the PSC has only 180 days to act on a complete application, extendable once for an additional 180 days -- an extension the PSC has already invoked in this case. The Uttechs argue that ATC's rolling, piecemeal changes throughout that review period defeat the purpose of the statutory clock and prejudice the ability of intervenors and the public to meaningfully participate because the public and the PSC are essentially being asked to review a moving target.

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All three responses to REA's motion ask the PSC to vacate the completeness determination and require ATC to file a new, genuinely complete application. The Uttechs and the Lisses also ask that, at a minimum, the PSC extend the current deadlines for filing written testimony and for the August hearing if it declines to vacate outright.

Restoring Lands is more skeptical of that fallback: its filing states that a delay "may help intervenors to some extent, but it still requires scrambling" and "will not likely disincentivize ATC's conduct in this docket in the future." In Restoring Lands' view, revocation of the completeness determination -- not a delay -- is the more appropriate remedy.

Attorney Erik Olsen, of Eminent Domain Services, LLC, who represents the Responsible Energy Alliance, stated "It is comforting to see that every party that has looked closely at ATC's filings since December has reached the same conclusion: This is not the application the Commission found complete, therefore the determination of completeness should be revoked."

Olsen reasoned "we now have the Tribunal, as well as two landowner families and a prominent land conservation group, each represented by different law firms, all independently confirming the same thing: it is hard to see how the completeness determination should not be revoked. There is also the issue of new discovery showing the project is growing, but the application fails to address the extra 2.2 gigawatts. The application isn't complete and in my opinion this legally requires the completeness determination to be revoked."

If the PSC agrees to vacate the completeness determination, ATC would have to file a brand new application, restarting the review process. REA says that outcome is the step needed to give intervenors, PSC staff, and the public a fair chance to evaluate the project ATC is actually proposing today, not the one it proposed last November.

"This is too important to rush," Olsen added. "The stakes are too high. Wisconsin's precious natural, human and cultural heritage resources are at risk here."

This remains an ongoing matter and developing story. Further updates will be provided as more information becomes available.