In the closing days of the failed Biden Administration, Washington, D.C., was desperately trying to do what the American public rejected weeks earlier at the ballot box: force its radical green agenda on an unwilling electorate. Case in point—Biden’s Department of Energy (DOE) approved a multibillion-dollar loan for the Grain Belt Express (GBE), a project so unpopular and unnecessary that its developers have resorted to eminent domain petitions against Missouri families to seize their land.
It’s not just a land grab. It’s a taxpayer-funded assault on property rights.
The GBE is a $11 billion, 800-mile transmission project that cuts across Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, and Indiana. Despite the massive scope and disruptive impact, most of its electricity won’t even serve Missouri customers. It will export energy from wind farms in western Kansas to other states, leaving Missouri to bear the brunt of the disruption while others reap the benefits.
And yet, supporters of the green project apparently couldn't make the math work on its own. If the Grain Belt Express were truly essential and profitable, there’d be no need for taxpayer help. But in November, after the election, the Biden Administration quietly stepped in and awarded the company behind it a $4.9 billion conditional loan guarantee through the DOE Loan Programs Office (LPO). This means federal taxpayers—not investors, not utilities, not even the project owners themselves—are on the hook if the project fails.
Worse, that same taxpayer-backed funding could now be used to fight the very people who are trying to stop it.
To date, more than 50 Missouri landowners have had to defend themselves in court after the parent company of the GBE filed condemnation lawsuits against them. Their crime? They want to keep the land their families have worked for generations. One couple, offered less than $8,100 for a permanent easement across their property, refused the deal—and were promptly sued. The company has filed dozens of such eminent domain petitions, aiming to force unwilling sellers into compliance. The legal pressure is relentless, and for rural families, the costs are real.
To show how tone-deaf supporters of the project have become, one GBE proponent suggested families not hold out against turning over their land, threatening a long court fight by saying, “They’re going to have to pay attorney fees on that. It’s going to be dragged out.”
It begs a very critical question: if this federal loan is finalized, will taxpayer-backed funds be used to finance the legal teams dragging Missouri landowners into court?
Fortunately, Missouri leaders aren’t standing for it. Attorney General Andrew Bailey has launched a formal investigation into the Grain Belt Express, citing a “history of lies and false promises” in how the company gained approval from the Missouri Public Service Commission. His office has already issued civil investigative demands and is demanding answers to questions the Biden Administration never bothered to ask.
At the federal level, Senator Josh Hawley is leading the charge. In a letter to DOE, he demanded the cancellation of the $4.9 billion loan and an end to its financial support for a project that actively uses eminent domain against American families. “Missourians should not have their land taken from them,” Hawley wrote, “so that Wall Street investors and energy executives can turn a profit.”
Both Senator Hawley and Attorney General Bailey are absolutely right.
This isn’t just a battle over one power line. It’s a test of whether federal power can be used to trample state sovereignty and property rights in the name of green energy. The American people rejected Biden’s energy agenda at the polls. In response, his administration rushed a last-minute loan through the back door, attempting to secure Missouri land and utilizing American tax dollars to do so.
It’s bad enough to go after the land of hardworking Americans who don’t want to sell. But it’s downright sinister to use a taxpayer-guaranteed loan to do it.
Larry Behrens is an energy expert and the Communications Director for Power The Future. He has appeared on Fox News, ZeroHedge, and NewsMax, speaking in defense of American energy workers. You can follow him on X/Twitter @larrybehrens.
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