Letter: Who is actually accountable for AES battery development?

Who exactly are we being asked to trust?

Supporters of the proposed battery energy storage system have repeatedly assured Dubois County residents that there’s nothing to worry about. But a simple internet search raises an important question.

AES is being acquired by a consortium that includes Global Infrastructure Partners (part of BlackRock), EQT, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), and the Qatar Investment Authority.

These are massive global investment organizations headquartered far from Dubois County, with no obvious local roots or accountability to our community.

If an emergency ever occurs, who will ultimately be responsible? The executives in New York? The investment managers in Stockholm? The pension officials in Sacramento? The sovereign wealth fund in Doha?

Or will it be the families, farmers, schools, volunteer firefighters, first responders, and taxpayers of Dubois County who are left living with the consequences?

Residents who ask these questions are too often dismissed as being “anti-progress.” They are not. They are asking the most basic question any community should ask before accepting a project of this scale:

Who is ultimately accountable to us?

If the answer isn’t the people who have to live beside it, perhaps we should think twice before accepting assurances that everything will be fine.

But maybe we’re looking at this all wrong.

At least we’ll have the comfort of knowing that the ultimate corporate decisions affecting this project will be guided from boardrooms in New York, Stockholm, Sacramento, and Doha—not here in Dubois County.

Allen Hartman
Dubois County