Author: Harlan Quill

A dusty patriot with a library card, a suspicious mind, and boots worn from pacing in protest. Raised on Tom Paine and taught by Orwell, Harlan doesn’t salute power — he scrutinizes it. He believes democracy is a rowdy dinner table, not a monologue from the rich. His columns are where forgotten truths resurface, cloaked in cautionary tales and sharpened by wit.

  • The Judge Said ‘Hold Separate.’ The FCC Heard ‘Go Faster.’

    ByHarlan Quill

    I was in the kind of public library that still smells like paste and civic optimism, the sort of place where the Constitution sits like it still has a fighting chance. Outside, the world kept doing what it does: consolidating, rebranding, consolidating again. Inside a Sacramento courtroom, the old American counterweight showed up in a robe and a rulebook: slow down.

    A federal judge hits pause on Nexstar’s acquisition of Tegna

    On Friday, April 17, Chief U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley (Eastern District of California) issued a preliminary injunction halting Nexstar’s acquisition of Tegna while antitrust challenges proceed. Earlier emergency court action had already kept the companies from fully integrating. This order is the grown-up version of “hold separate and stop pretending momentum is a legal argument.”

    The business chatter can argue about what the deal “really” costs depending on debt, cash, and corporate fairy dust. The civic issue is simpler: size. Nexstar and Tegna together would create a local-TV colossus, and that is not just a cable-guide problem. It is an information-plumbing problem, plus a “how much leverage can one company hold over your monthly bill” problem.

    What the challengers say, in plain English

    • Who sued: DIRECTV and a coalition of state attorneys general, including California and New York.
    • Core claim: The merger would lessen competition and raise prices by giving the combined company more power in retransmission negotiations.
    • How it hits viewers: blackouts, fee hikes, and the familiar ritual of being told to call your provider like you are negotiating a peace treaty from your couch.

    Approvals happened. So did the Clayton Act.

    Nexstar and Tegna got federal approvals, including an FCC sign-off in March, and the companies pointed to DOJ clearance as proof the boxes were checked. Then challengers showed up with a different box: Clayton Act Section 7, the one that asks whether a merger may substantially lessen competition. The court concluded, for now, that the challengers are likely enough to succeed that the safest move is to pause the merger rather than bless it and hope.

    The tradeoff: local journalism vs. local leverage

    Media mergers always arrive wrapped in the same ribbon: “local investment,” “community strength,” “competing with Big Tech.” Sometimes some of that is true. The other truth is leverage. When one owner controls more “must-carry” programming, negotiations turn into a game of chicken. The consumer is the hood ornament.

    The Paine test and the Orwell check

    The Paine test: does this expand liberty or concentrate power? If one company can dictate carriage fees that flow straight to household bills, “choice” starts to look like theater. And once consolidation happens, you do not un-bake that cake. The injunction recognizes the irreversibility problem.

    The Orwell check: watch the soft language. “Waiver.” “Flexibility.” “Modernization.” Those words are not automatically sinister, but they often function like dimming the lights in a committee room at midnight. Regulatory capture rarely arrives with a marching band. It arrives as process and complexity.

    What guardrails should look like now

    The court stopped the clock and forced evidence into daylight. Next should be plain-English explanations for waivers, auditable promises, and remedies that are measurable and enforceable if the merger is ultimately allowed. Sunlight, oversight, enforceable commitments. The boring stuff that keeps the republic from turning into a subscription package.

    Question worth asking out loud: if regulators can waive a diversity safeguard for a bigger media conglomerate, what safeguard do you think they will refuse to waive when the next giant comes knocking?

  • The Midnight Renewal: Congress Keeps Refilling the Surveillance Mint Bowl

    ByHarlan Quill

    I spent enough years in public libraries to recognize a classic move: if you want fewer people to read the fine print, you change the rules right before closing. On April 17, Congress pulled the legislative version of flicking the lights, stacking the chairs, and calling it “order.” A controversial surveillance authority was nearing expiration, so lawmakers did what they often do when the clock starts yelling: they passed a short-term extension quickly, by voice, and with the civic dignity of a vending machine refund.

    What happened: a stopgap to April 30

    The House approved a short-term renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on April 17. The Senate followed with its own quick approval by voice vote. The extension runs through April 30 and heads to President Donald Trump for signature. The point was simple: avoid a lapse and postpone the real fight.

    The process was the tell. This was not the daylight, committee-room version of legislating that shows up in civics books with cheerful clip art. This was a post-midnight scramble after longer reauthorization efforts ran into resistance. You can debate whether that resistance is principled or performative. The fact pattern is clearer: when surveillance is on the line, Congress moves like a fire drill.

    Section 702 in plain English

    Section 702 allows U.S. intelligence agencies to target foreigners overseas and collect their communications without an individualized warrant. In practice, Americans’ communications can be incidentally captured. For years, lawmakers have fought over what it should take for agencies, especially the FBI, to search those collected databases for information about Americans.

    The Orwell check: euphemisms doing push-ups

    Every time this debate returns, it brings the same polite vocabulary: “foreign” surveillance, Americans only “incidentally” affected, oversight is “robust,” the program is “vital.” “Short-term extension” also shows up like a houseguest who swears it is just one night, then asks for the spare key.

    The Orwell check is not pretending threats are fake. It is refusing to let comforting labels replace legal standards. If the government vacuums up Americans’ communications and then runs searches for Americans inside that pile, you still have a Fourth Amendment question.

    The liberty ledger and the tradeoff

    Here is the ledger Congress rarely reads out loud at 2:00 a.m.: Section 702 concentrates investigative advantage inside the executive branch and distributes risk outward to the public. The benefits and costs are both diffuse, and that is exactly why the guardrails matter.

    Before April 30 arrives and the next emergency extension starts warming up, Congress should put terms on paper:

    • A real warrant standard for searching Section 702-collected data for an American or someone in the United States, with narrow exceptions that are truly narrow and audited hard.
    • Transparency regular people can understand on how often U.S.-person searches happen, what they are for, and what violations occur.
    • Consequences with teeth. If the penalty is only another memo and a promise, the rules are decorative.
    • Stop governing by cliffhanger: hearings, roll call votes, and members on the record.

    The Paine test is simple: does this expand liberty or concentrate power? Congress renewed the power. The restraints are still “under negotiation.” That pattern should make any free citizen reach for a pencil and start underlining. April 30 is close. Will lawmakers do the hard work in public, or keep renewing surveillance while the public sleeps?

  • The 2 a.m. Extension: Section 702 Lives to April 30, and Privacy Gets Another IOU

    ByHarlan Quill

    I have spent enough time in public libraries to know the scent of last-minute decision-making: burnt coffee, humming lights, and that quiet panic when a deadline shows up like it was never on the calendar. Washington has its own version of that smell, and this week it drifted out of the Capitol after 2 a.m.

    Congress kept one of the federal government’s strongest surveillance authorities alive with a short patch and a shrug. Democracy, delivered with the same urgency as a gas station hot dog.

    What happened: Section 702 extended to April 30

    Early Friday, April 17, the House moved by unanimous consent to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for a short stretch. The Senate followed later that day with a voice vote or unanimous-consent style approval, sending the stopgap to President Donald Trump for signature. Section 702, otherwise set to expire on April 20, 2026, now gets a brief lease through April 30. Longer renewal efforts stalled amid intra-party conflict and civil-libertarian resistance, so leadership punted instead of settling the argument in daylight.

    What Section 702 does, and why people are mad about it

    In plain language, Section 702 lets U.S. intelligence agencies collect communications of targeted foreigners located outside the United States, without an individualized warrant, from U.S. electronic communication service providers. The dispute is not about whether the U.S. targets foreign threats. It is about spillover and what happens next.

    Americans’ communications can be incidentally swept in. Agencies, particularly the FBI, have faced long-running criticism for searching that data for U.S. person information without a traditional warrant, the practice often called a backdoor search.

    The Orwell check: “Clean extension” is a euphemism

    Washington’s favorite phrase was “clean” extension, as if a surveillance authority can be wiped down with a paper towel. “Clean” here means no meaningful reforms attached: no new warrant requirement for U.S. person queries, no stronger limits on retention and searching, and no hard guardrails on the modern workaround people should recognize by now: buying similar data from brokers, then calling it commerce instead of surveillance.

    The liberty ledger, and the tradeoff

    National security officials argue Section 702 is critical for foreign intelligence on terrorism, espionage, and cyber threats. That case is not imaginary. But the other side of the ledger matters: a giant dataset plus low-friction searching creates a temptation machine, especially when Americans’ data is involved.

    The tradeoff worth making is straightforward: keep strong foreign targeting, but require a warrant or court approval when the government deliberately goes fishing for Americans inside the 702 catch. Add real auditing, real consequences, and real transparency. Also stop pretending commercially purchased location and browsing data is less invasive because it came with a receipt.

    The Paine test: liberty or concentrated power

    The Paine test for 2026 is simple: are we protecting domestic liberty while targeting foreign threats, or concentrating search power inside the executive branch and hoping everyone behaves? A voice vote is fine for naming a post office. It is not fine for extending authority that touches private communications at scale.

    Before April 30: hearings, guardrails, and a real vote

    Between now and April 30, Congress should hold public hearings with intelligence officials and civil liberties experts in the same room, put the strongest reform proposals on the table, and vote on the record. Roll call. Names. Accountability. Call your representatives and ask three questions: do you support a warrant requirement for U.S. person queries, will you vote publicly, and what audits have you actually read?

    Two weeks is not much time. Do lawmakers plan to use it, or keep hiding behind the word “temporary” until it becomes permanent?

  • Green Card, Red Light: The Court Tests the Border’s Presumption of Guilt

    ByHarlan Quill

    I spent part of this morning with my nose in a Supreme Court docket, the modern version of a dusty card catalog: all the power, none of the romance. Big life decisions arrive as a sterile “question presented,” typed in a font that looks designed to make feelings illegal.

    Next week, the Court will hear a case that sounds technical until it is you, your spouse, your job, and your return flight from a funeral: when can the government treat a lawful permanent resident like a stranger at the door?

    What the Supreme Court is hearing

    The case is Blanche v. Lau, set for argument on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. The fight is about timing and proof, which is lawyer-speak for a bigger question: does the government get to flip a switch at the airport based on suspicion, then justify that switch later with evidence it did not have at the time?

    According to the government’s merits brief, Muk Choi Lau is a lawful permanent resident who committed a New Jersey trademark counterfeiting offense in March 2012, traveled abroad, and returned in June 2012 through John F. Kennedy International Airport. An FBI records check showed a pending charge, and an immigration officer paroled him into the U.S. for deferred inspection. He later pleaded guilty and was convicted in June 2013. DHS initiated removal proceedings in March 2014, charging inadmissibility based on a crime involving moral turpitude, alleging $282,240 worth of counterfeit-mark apparel.

    The Second Circuit threw out the removal order. In plain terms, it said the government must establish the statutory exception at the time of reentry, and under BIA precedent must do so by clear and convincing evidence. The government argues that’s backwards: removal proceedings are where proof happens, parole is discretionary, and line officers should not have to run a mini trial at baggage claim.

    The Orwell check: “parole” as a euphemism

    “Parole” sounds humane. At the border it can mean: physically allowed in, legally treated as if you are still outside. The INA says parole is not an admission. That is the lever. The temptation is obvious: keep someone here for prosecution while preserving the “arriving alien” posture for later.

    The Paine test: liberty or concentrated power?

    The government’s rule concentrates power where oversight is thinnest: the port of entry, the quick decision, the officer with a screen, the traveler with a pulse. Parole first, litigate later, justify with later evidence.

    The Second Circuit’s rule does not end enforcement. It makes it accountable: if you want to strip the presumption of reentry Congress wrote for lawful permanent residents, you need more than vibes and a pending charge.

    The liberty ledger and the tradeoff

    Who wins? DHS gets convenience and flexibility.

    Who pays? Lawful permanent residents as a class, through chilled travel and quiet downgrades in status.

    What are we buying, and what are we paying with? We buy border-management efficiency. We pay with due process timing and the basic assumption that a returning resident is coming home, not auditioning for entry.

    Guardrails, or this becomes the new normal

    If the Court accepts the government’s timing theory, it should not do so without guardrails: clear standards for what information justifies treating a returning LPR as “seeking admission,” documentation requirements, and meaningful review of whether the exception truly applied at the relevant moment.

    Congress also has work to do, and DHS should be pushed toward sunlight: aggregate data on how often returning LPRs are paroled for deferred inspection due to pending charges, how long that posture lasts, and what the outcomes are.

    The Court will hear the arguments. Congress can tighten the statute. Inspectors general can audit the practice. The rest of us can do the civic chore of paying attention before this turns airports into little committee rooms at midnight. Question: if “permanent” residency can be reduced by suspicion first and proof later, what else gets relabeled next?

  • The 6% Mirage: Mortgage Rates Dip, Housing Still Locked

    ByHarlan Quill

    The courthouse air always smells like old paper and fresh panic. Two things the American housing market produces in bulk. I read rate updates the way a clerk reads a docket: not for drama, for damage. A few basis points here, a hopeful headline there, and families still walk out into the same wind, priced out and waiting on a system that moves like a zoning board at 11:59 p.m.

    On April 17, the mortgage-rate chatter turned slightly sunnier. Not sunny, just less apocalyptic beige.

    Rates eased again, but the housing chokehold stayed put

    Fortune, citing Optimal Blue data, put the average 30-year, fixed-rate conforming mortgage around 6.247%, down a touch from the day before. The 15-year average in that same snapshot was about 5.591%.

    Freddie Mac’s weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey, released April 16, put the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 6.30%, down from 6.37% the week before. Freddie also put the 15-year at 5.65%, down from 5.74%.

    If you are staring at a monthly payment, that drift can feel like finding a coupon for a house. It is technically helpful. It is also not the plot twist people are praying for.

    The problem is not the decimal point. It is the bottleneck.

    Rates matter. They shape payments, tilt the rent-versus-buy math, and influence whether you can stomach moving at all. But here is what our civic conversation keeps dodging like a pothole: the United States has turned housing into a scarcity game. In a scarcity game, every improvement gets eaten by the same old predator: too few homes where jobs are.

    Drop the rate and you do not magically get more bedrooms. You get more bidders chasing the same listings. That can stabilize things briefly, or lift prices in places with tight inventory, but it does not fix the shortage. It is like lowering the speed limit on a bridge missing two lanes. Congratulations, we are now slowly stuck.

    The Paine test:

    Does this development expand liberty or concentrate power? A small rate dip expands liberty for a slice of borrowers close enough to qualify. But the deeper system concentrates power in the hands of whoever controls the choke points: the permit counter, the zoning map, the local veto disguised as a neighborhood meeting, and the finance gatekeepers who decide what kind of life gets approved.

    Who gains, who loses: the liberty ledger of a 6% world

    First-time buyers lose time. Existing homeowners with low-rate mortgages get stuck in “lock-in,” the golden handcuff program. Renters get squeezed from both sides when buying stays hard and new apartments stay blocked. And local governments get to play neutral referee while they quietly choose scarcity.

    The Orwell check:

    Watch the euphemisms: a dip becomes “relief,” stagnation becomes “stability,” shortage becomes “neighborhood character.” “Community input” can become veto power for the loudest homeowners, not democratic participation by everyone who needs a roof.

    The tradeoff we keep dodging: supply, rules, and rights

    The tradeoff:

    More supply means accepting change: duplexes, apartments near transit, accessory units, conversions of dead retail into living space. Tenant protections need predictable, lawful enforcement, not midnight rulemaking or vague standards that invite selective punishment. Property rights should be guardrails for everyone, not a synonym for letting the biggest player win.

    And if you want mortgage rates to do more than flicker, stop treating monetary weather as a housing plan. The Federal Reserve can influence the cost of money. It cannot zone a single lot, approve a single permit, or build a single apartment.

    Guardrails, right now

    Start with sunlight: publish simple, comparable dashboards on permits, approval timelines, appeals, projects killed, and rules cited. At the state level, legalize more homes by right in high-opportunity areas and near transit, tied to basic anti-displacement tools and infrastructure planning. At the federal level, do not let subsidies disappear into constrained markets without clear, auditable conditions. And keep civil-liberties guardrails tight: no data-hungry enforcement schemes that turn housing aid into a surveillance pipeline, and no “temporary” emergency powers that never go away.

    For the love of the town library, stop confusing a good week of rates with a solved crisis. Those decimals are not a housing policy. They are a vital sign. So I will ask it plainly: if 6.247% still leaves millions locked out, when do we stop worshiping the rate ticker and start reforming the choke points that make housing scarce on purpose?

  • When a Health Plan Leaves Medicaid, It Is Not Just a Business Decision. It Is a Civic One.

    ByHarlan Quill

    Health insurance news usually arrives like corporate weather: a “strategic decision,” a “realignment,” everybody pretend it is just numbers. But when you read it the way people live it, it sounds more like a courthouse hallway: paper, old carpet, and that quiet panic of someone clutching forms like a life raft.

    What Baylor Scott & White Health Plan says it is doing

    In plain English: Baylor Scott & White Health Plan says it intends to exit the Texas Medicaid Managed Care Program at the end of August 2026 and discontinue its individual ACA marketplace plans after December 31, 2026, pending regulatory approval.

    • People affected: about 225,000 Texans (about 125,000 Medicaid members and roughly 100,000 individual marketplace enrollees).
    • Jobs affected: the plan says 321 jobs across Texas are being impacted.

    The health system says its hospitals and clinics will still accept patients who have Medicaid and marketplace coverage. That is true and also confusing, because America loves naming two different entities the same thing and then acting shocked when patients cannot decode the org chart at the pharmacy counter.

    The liberty ledger: who loses choice, and who gets to call it “choice”

    This is not a provider slamming the door on Medicaid patients. It is an insurer backing out of two markets, and telling people they will be reassigned, re-shopped, or reprocessed. The business calls it a transition. Patients experience it as a trust fall with a deadline.

    Medicaid members are least able to absorb disruption: chronic conditions, disability, pregnancy, complex pediatric care, mental health needs, unpredictable work hours, transportation headaches. Even when continuity is promised, people still do the unpaid labor: new cards, new portals, new call trees, new denials, new surprises.

    Marketplace enrollees already live with narrow networks and the annual ritual of asking whether they can afford to be a person with a body next year. A plan ending after December 31, 2026 is not “flexibility.” It is moving day.

    The tradeoff, the Orwell check, and the Paine test

    One report cites the plan pointing to the state Medicaid procurement decision and marketplace “complexities.” Tradeoff: administrative order for the state, churn for patients. Orwell check: “complexities” is the soft word that means someone will lose time, money, or access. “Impacting jobs” is antiseptic, too; jobs are lost or changed.

    Paine test: does this expand liberty, or concentrate power? When a plan exits, remaining plans gain share, the state gains reassignment power, and the patient gets a packet explaining how to keep the same doctor if the new plan agrees they are allowed to.

    Guardrails that should be non-negotiable

    If exits like this are approved, regulators and lawmakers should insist on public, enforceable guardrails: continuity of care with teeth for active treatment; timelines designed for patient reality; plain-language disclosure of reassignment rules and options; and clear, readable rules on privacy and data-sharing during transitions. Sunlight beats euphemism, every time.

    If 225,000 people can be told to switch coverage because the paperwork got complicated, what exactly is the plan for protecting patients when the next exit notice arrives?

  • Section 702, the “Clean Bill,” and the Dirty Work of Guardrails

    ByHarlan Quill

    Washington loves an expiring authority the way a town hall loves a “temporary” committee: it’s always about to end, always too important to change, and somehow always back on the agenda before anyone has cleaned up the last mess.

    What Trump is pushing

    President Donald Trump is urging Congress to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, backing what supporters call a “clean” reauthorization. The idea is simple: renew the program for another 18 months, keep the tool running, and save the reform fight for later.

    Later is where rights go to misplace their receipts.

    What Section 702 does (and why the fight never stays “foreign”)

    Section 702 is built to target non-U.S. persons overseas. Intelligence officials argue it’s a vital foreign-intelligence tool, and that part is not hard to understand.

    The problem is the spillover. Americans can be swept in when they communicate with people abroad. Once those communications sit in the collection stream, agencies can search what was gathered. You do not have to be a spy to end up in the filing cabinet. You just have to have a modern life.

    What the privacy camp wants

    Critics in Congress are pressing for guardrails, especially a warrant requirement before the government accesses or searches for Americans’ communications in the Section 702 pipeline. Some lawmakers also want tighter rules and clearer reporting on how agencies, particularly the FBI, search these holdings and how much the public is told about it.

    And there’s growing attention on what looks like a workaround: buying personal data through brokers as a substitute for doing surveillance the old-fashioned way, with a warrant and a judge.

    The tradeoff (and the language doing the hiding)

    The Orwell check: in Washington dialect, “clean” often means “unchecked.” A clean bill is not a freshly mopped floor. It’s a deadline extension without added guardrails.

    The Paine test: does this expand liberty or concentrate power? A clean extension concentrates power first and negotiates limits later. That’s backwards. If Congress can pass an extension, it can pass an extension with teeth.

    The bottom line

    Extend the tool if lawmakers believe it’s necessary. But do not extend the amnesia. What, exactly, is Congress willing to require before the government goes looking for an American inside a database built for foreigners?

  • Section 702 Got a 10-Day Reprieve, Not Real Oversight

    ByHarlan Quill

    I like libraries for a simple reason: they run on receipts. Washington just extended one of the country’s most invasive surveillance authorities like someone replacing a smoke detector battery at 2 a.m. Lots of urgency, not much light.

    Early Friday, Congress approved a short extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was set to expire on Monday. The stopgap runs through April 30. The Senate cleared it by voice vote, with no roll call. The House, after a post-midnight scramble, ultimately moved it by unanimous consent.

    What happened (the verified spine)

    • Plan A: House Republican leadership and the Trump White House pressed for an 18-month, no-changes reauthorization.
    • Roadblock: A cross-ideological coalition, privacy hawks on the right and civil-liberties minded Democrats, resisted.
    • Pivot: Late Thursday, House leaders tried a five-year extension with revisions. It failed.
    • Retry: They returned to the “clean” 18-month bill. That failed too, with about 20 Republicans joining most Democrats to block it.
    • Endgame: After 2 a.m., Congress settled on the short extension to April 30, and the Senate quickly cleared it Friday.

    The pressure campaign

    The White House lobbying was not subtle. Republicans went to the White House Tuesday, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe spoke directly with GOP lawmakers Wednesday as leadership tried to line up votes. President Trump publicly urged Republicans to unify behind a clean bill. They did not.

    The Orwell check: “clean” means “trust us”

    In Washington, “clean” does not mean transparent. It means unamended. It means: no new guardrails, no fresh constraints, no new public receipts. Pair that with voice votes and unanimous consent, and you get the political version of “nothing to see here.”

    Recorded votes are democracy’s paper trail. If lawmakers are extending a power that can incidentally sweep up Americans’ communications, they should be willing to put names next to the decision in daylight.

    The tradeoff: security on credit, liberty as collateral

    Section 702 exists for a reason. It allows warrantless collection of communications of noncitizens located outside the United States, and national security officials argue it is vital to disrupting threats. But the civil-liberties hinge is spillover: collecting overseas communications can incidentally sweep up communications involving Americans.

    Opponents also point to past misuses. AP notes a 2024 court order describing FBI officials repeatedly violating standards when searching intelligence related to the January 6 attack and 2020 racial justice protests.

    Guardrails floated, then sunk

    In the House scramble, leaders floated revisions including limits on certain U.S.-person queries requiring authorization by FBI attorneys, review by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, stronger penalties for unlawful inquiries or disclosures, and more access for members of Congress and certain staff to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court proceedings. Even that could not pass.

    The Paine test (and the next two weeks)

    Does this episode expand liberty, or concentrate power? Extending Section 702 without clear, enforceable rules for U.S.-person queries concentrates power. Doing it without recorded votes concentrates it again.

    April 30 is coming fast. Should Congress keep renewing surveillance by midnight procedure, or write guardrails that survive the next panic?

  • The Fast Lane to the Grid (and Who Pays the Toll)

    ByHarlan Quill

    I spent part of yesterday in the kind of hush you only get in two places: a public library and a courthouse hallway. Both exist for the same civic ritual: someone writes rules, everyone else lives under them, and the public is invited to comment in a tone best described as “politely, from the hallway.”

    This week’s rules are about electricity. Specifically, the wires that carry it, and the stampede of mega-customers, including data centers, trying to plug in fast and at scale.

    FERC says it will act by June on large-load interconnection rules

    On April 16, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said it will take action by June 2026 in Docket No. RM26-4-000, a proceeding tied to an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking initiated by the U.S. Secretary of Energy. FERC’s stated goal is to make interconnecting massive loads to the interstate transmission system “timely, orderly, and equitable.” Those are nice words. They also do a lot of work.

    FERC framed the June action as part of a path it is already walking. It cited, among other items, a December 2025 order pushing PJM to adopt transparent rules for substantial loads co-located with generation, and a January 2026 approval of Southwest Power Pool’s High Impact Large Load initiative to accelerate interconnection while, in FERC’s telling, safeguarding consumer interests. It also noted it has accepted some tariff filings and rejected others when they exceeded FERC’s jurisdiction or did not reasonably allocate costs.

    The Orwell check: “timely, orderly, equitable” can hide the fight

    “Orderly” is the word that makes me reach for a wallet and a civics textbook at the same time. Orderly for whom? Orderly as in transparent and predictable, or orderly as in “please do not look behind the curtain while we rearrange the bills”?

    We do want predictable, non-discriminatory interconnection. We do not want a grid run like a velvet-rope line where the biggest spender gets waved in and everyone else gets told to wait.

    The tradeoff: speed versus due process, and reliability versus bill shock

    Interconnection delays are real. Reliability constraints are real. And the grid is a shared platform, not a private driveway. Speed can be good policy if it clears bottlenecks and clarifies responsibilities. But speed without guardrails is how “expedited” becomes “unexpected surcharge,” paid by households and small businesses that never signed the deal.

    FERC itself put a bright spotlight on cost allocation by saying it has rejected filings that failed to reasonably allocate costs. That is the pressure point: if a new mega-load triggers upgrades, who pays? If co-location uses the grid as backup, how is that backup priced? Those answers live in tariffs, definitions, modeling assumptions, and enforceable consequences.

    The liberty ledger: independence, transparency, and who gets stuck holding the bag

    The Department of Energy praised FERC’s direction the same day, framing it as part of a push for energy dominance and calling for quicker, more decisive action to integrate large loads, support co-location, and ensure new generation is built alongside demand. Bloomberg Law also noted the unusual character of DOE’s involvement and the questions it raised about FERC’s independence.

    So here is the liberty ledger: big loads gain speed and certainty; operators gain clearer process. If the rules are sloppy, ratepayers lose protection from cost shifting, smaller customers lose position, and the public loses meaningful input while the paperwork calls it “technical.” FERC has promised action by June. Fine. But before anyone cheers “timely” and “orderly,” the toll needs to be transparent, and the public cannot be the one paying it.

  • Ticketmaster Lost the Verdict. Now Comes the Part Where Power Tries to Win Anyway

    ByHarlan Quill

    I keep an old library card in my wallet like some people keep a lucky coin. It reminds me the republic runs on boring things: rules, records, and the stubborn idea that nobody gets to own the town square. This week, a federal courtroom in Manhattan tried to apply that idea to a modern town square: the place where you go to buy permission to sing along with 18,000 strangers.

    Jury: Live Nation and Ticketmaster ran an illegal monopoly

    On April 15, a federal jury in New York found that Live Nation Entertainment and its ticketing arm, Ticketmaster, violated antitrust laws in a case brought by a coalition of state attorneys general. The jury also found consumers in 22 states were overcharged by about $1.72 per ticket, a figure the judge could potentially order repaid.

    Now the case moves to remedies and penalties before U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian. This is where the fight stops being symbolic and starts being specific: what does accountability look like when the defendant is a national gatekeeper?

    New York Attorney General Letitia James, leading a coalition of 33 other attorneys general, said the jury found the companies unlawfully maintained and abused monopoly power that kept other ticketing services, venue owners, and promoters from competing. The state theory, in plain terms, pointed to Ticketmaster in ticketing services at major concert venues, Live Nation in large amphitheaters, and a tying arrangement that pressures artists using Live Nation amphitheaters to also use Live Nation promotion services.

    None of this prints next weekend’s coupons. But remedies set terms, and terms decide whether the live-events market stays an old company town with one landlord and a suggestion box nailed shut.

    The Paine test: break power, or just scold it?

    Does this verdict expand liberty, or just reshuffle who gets to charge you for it?

    The jury finding matters. But antitrust lives or dies in the remedy. The judge can consider financial penalties and, in theory, structural fixes like divestitures of certain venues. That is also when concentrated power gets nervous and hires enough lawyers to staff a small city.

    The tradeoff you can see from the cheap seats

    There is already a cautionary prequel. The Justice Department settled its claims days into the trial, and some states joined that proposed settlement. According to AP, the deal involves a cap on service fees at some amphitheaters and new ticket-selling options that could allow, but not require, promoters and venues to use competitors like SeatGeek or AXS.

    Settlements are not automatically dirty. But optional rights are not rights. If competition is merely permitted, the monopoly keeps its favorite weapon: inertia.

    The Orwell check: when “flexibility” means nobody has to move

    Watch the euphemisms. In antitrust land, the friendly word is flexibility. It sounds like relief. It often means nobody is obligated to do anything.

    Live Nation has said the verdict is not final and suggested the ultimate outcome, after remedies and appeals, may not differ much from what the federal settlement provides. That is a rational defense posture. It is also why courts exist: to decide whether the law still bites when the biggest player asks for gum instead.

    Liberty ledger: who gets options, who keeps the keys?

    • Consumers gained a finding of overcharge in 22 states and a path to potential repayment tied to the $1.72 figure.
    • Competitors gained a stronger argument that the market was foreclosed.
    • States gained leverage to demand remedies beyond fee cosmetics.

    But if the remedies phase becomes a war of attrition, the only guaranteed winners are billable hours. And if the outcome is capped fees at some venues plus permission slips for competition nobody uses, then the monopoly keeps the steering wheel and hands the public a horn.

    We finally got a jury to say out loud what millions of fans have muttered at checkout for years. Now the question is whether we settle for optional competition, or demand a remedy that actually changes who holds the keys.

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