Marty Lyons: Yes. Paul, first of all, I do apologize again for the technical difficulty you and others experienced apologize for that and the inconvenience. I don’t think we have anything that we could point to in terms of return. I would say this. I mean, when we bid on these projects, we’re very cognizant of what we think our cost of capital is and what appropriate return expectations are for these projects. So that’s certainly taken into consideration when making any bid. So I think the assumption should be that is a winning bidder of this project that we expect to earn a fair return on the project.
Paul Patterson: Sure. Okay. But I guess maybe it’s competitive to tell us what that might be? Is that right? Or can you?
Marty Lyons: Yes, I think so. I mean, we’ll give some consideration post the call to whether there’s anything we can point to. But yes, I think that probably not something that I think we could point to today.
Paul Patterson:
Marty Lyons: Well, I think, Paul, as it relates to the court cases as we watch court case around the country, both in Texas as well as a couple of other states. We’ve seen them run into problems in Texas. We’ve seen the ROFRs upheld in other states. So we’re going to continue to watch the developments across all of these cases. And then make sure that whatever we bring forward, which we do plan to bring forward next year, these rights of first refusal, both in Illinois and Missouri. That we make appropriate adjustments to the proposed legislation to ensure that they’re able to withstand legal challenges and hold up. If for some reason through the process of these things going through the courts, we don’t believe that they’d be lawful.
Obviously, that would affect whether we move forward with seeking these rights of first refusal or not. But as we sit here today, we do believe both in Missouri and Illinois that these rights of first refusal really are very beneficial to our customers and communities. I think we just talked about this [indiscernible] that we won, which was this Orient-Denny-Fairport project. And I think it just goes to show that we are a low-cost constructor. We are a low-cost operator. And we do believe that these projects have very good value for customers. And when MISO puts these forward Tranche 1, I mean what’s to come in Tranche 2, these projects have very good benefit to cost ratios. And by not assigning those to the incumbent transmission operator by putting them out for bid, you’re delaying those benefits to customers by two years or so.
And again, we’ve certainly demonstrated we’re a low-cost provider. So we do think that these rights of first refusal are in the best interest of our customers. The citizens of both the states of Illinois and Missouri. And we look forward to working with stakeholders as we move towards the next legislative session to really build a stronger coalition and make sure people really understand the value, and we’ll work with all stakeholders to put forward legislation that we think not only can pass, it should pass, but can withstand any core challenges. So back to your question, Paul, we’ll continue to monitor these cases as we have and adjust as needed.
Paul Patterson: Okay. And absolutely, I hear you on your ability to demonstrate your competitiveness and stuff. But just I guess what I’m saying — I guess what I’m asking about is the Supreme Court, I guess, what I’m wondering is would that invalidate ROFRs? Do you follow what I’m saying — I mean across the country? Or do you see this as being specific to — I mean I guess what I’m saying — I don’t know stands an industry question, if you follow me to sort of — I’m trying to figure out for my own edification or like what happens if it is in [indiscernible] I guess that would mean the Fifth Circuit would stand. And if that is the case, what — how do we think about the ROFR people where I’m coming from?
Marty Lyons: Well, I do. And I guess we’d have to see how the Supreme Court rules, what they say. But when — we talked about this a little bit on the last call. When we looked at Texas, we thought it was really more applicable to the situation in Texas whereas when we looked at crafting the rights of first refusal we’ve been putting forward more aligned with states where the ROFRs have been upheld in the courts. So I think we’d ultimately have to look at the ultimate — the Supreme Court decision and its applicability. But I guess I can’t really comment further at this time, Paul.
Paul Patterson: I got you. I appreciate. Thanks so much and thanks.
Marty Lyons: You bet. Thank you. See you soon.
Operator: Our final question comes from Anthony Crowdell with Mizuho. Please proceed with your question.
Anthony Crowdell: Hey, good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in. Just hopefully an easy one. You talked a lot about the financing plan. It seems like it’s intact. A lot of capital opportunities, rate base opportunities. I’m just wondering what do you think is the most challenging part of the play that you have?
Michael Moehn: Yes. Hey, Anthony, it’s Michael. Look, I think it’s just about continued execution around all these projects, right? I mean I think we got some robust rate base growth, 8.4%, as you just noted, $20 billion of capital plans. We got to continue to execute these wells, get them into service, make sure we realize all the benefits associated with them. Obviously, we’re in a different financing environment today than we were a couple of years ago. So that creates some headwinds you’ve got to continue to work through. But I mean ultimately, I think we talked about this in the past, we’ve got a number of mechanisms to recover those financing costs pretty rapidly through both on the Illinois side. We can always accelerate some rate reviews that we needed to on the Missouri side.
But at the end of the day, I think it’s really — this comes back down to just an affordability opportunities just making sure that we keep cost as low as we possibly can for customers as we work through this incredibly important clean energy transition. Marty, anything to add to that?
Marty Lyons: No, I think that’s well covered. Anthony, any other questions?
Anthony Crowdell: No, I’m good. Thank you so much. I’ll catch you guys up in Phoenix.
Marty Lyons: Look forward to seeing you.
Michael Moehn: See you next week.
Operator: Mr. Lyons, there are no further questions at this time. I’d like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.
Marty Lyons: Well, thank you all for joining us today. Once again, I apologize for the technical difficulties, some of your experiences — you experienced, and as I mentioned, we’ll make sure that we opposed a replay of this call as quickly as possible. I think what you heard today is we have really had a strong start to 2023. We’ve gotten through these important summer months. And just with just a couple of months left, remain very confident in our ability to achieve our earnings per share growth goals for this year and earnings per share range that we’ve outlined today. We make sure that we’re focused on continuing to deliver strong value, both for our customers, our communities as well as for our shareholders. As we underscore today, we continue to expect 6% to 8% earnings per share growth for ’23 to ’27.
It’s supported by strong investment in rate-regulated infrastructure and rate base growth of 80.4% compound annually from 2022 to 2027. So we feel very good about our execution of our plan, and I thank you all for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you all soon. Have a great day.
Operator: This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.
