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Hotspots

Fox News Takes on ‘Farm Wars’ Solar Attacks

And more of the week’s top news about renewable energy conflicts.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Nassau County, New York – Opponents of Equinor’s offshore Empire Wind project are now suing to stop construction after the Trump administration quietly lifted its stop-work order.

  • The lawsuit filed in federal court argues that the government violated the Administrative Procedures Act by allowing work to continue without “a factual basis for the reinstatement” or studies ordered by President Trump about the ecological impacts of offshore wind.
  • I personally struggle with how to read this lawsuit and would recommend our readers expect the project to continue construction unless a surprise comes in court proceedings. While the order may have facially been lifted “arbitrarily,” it was also put in place arbitrarily – which would’ve been the basis of litigation against the stop-work order had it been filed.

2. Somerset County, Maryland – A referendum campaign in rural Maryland seeks to restrict solar development on farmland.

  • Grassroots activists, backed by politicians in Somerset and other rural parts of the state, are fighting a new permitting law enacted in Maryland taking effect next month that pre-empts localities and counties from banning renewable energy.
  • It’s a tall order but not impossible for this petition – organized by Farmers Alliance for Rural Maryland – to get onto the ballot. In order for that to happen, the petition needs signatures totalling roughly 3% of the votes cast for governor in the previous election.

3. Tazewell County, Virginia – An Energix solar project is still in the works in this rural county bordering West Virginia, despite a restrictive ordinance.

  • The ordinance – which requires a lengthy list of documents – is being followed by Energix, per county officials, who have disclosed the company has not completed its permitting yet but has support.
  • I’d still be holding my breath if I were Energix though, as Tazewell County has a 77 risk score in Heatmap Pro’s database, indicating the likelihood of intensifying opposition remains high.

4. Allan County, Indiana – This county, which includes portions of Fort Wayne, will be holding a hearing next week on changing its current solar zoning rules.

5. Madison County, Indiana – Elsewhere in Indiana, Invenergy has abandoned the Lone Oak solar project amidst fervent opposition and mounting legal hurdles.

  • Invenergy had tried to litigate the county’s rejection of a permit extension, but the state Supreme Court rejected their appeal.
  • The county is deemed extremely high risk by Heatmap Pro, thanks to an opposition intensity score of 93.

6. Adair County, Missouri – This county may soon be home to the largest solar farm in Missouri and is in talks for another project, despite having a high opposition intensity index in the Heatmap Pro database.

  • Perhaps to obviate any risks, the county is telling the developer of this new project – Azimuth Renewables – that it wants a lot of assurance before any type of agreement is made for another solar farm, including travel routes and any information about risks that could exist in the near 35-year time-frame of the project. Decommissioning also seems to be a real concern for regulators.

7. Newtown County, Arkansas – A fifth county in Arkansas has now banned wind projects.

  • Newtown enacted the ban via an emergency ordinance, a municipal government practice that allows counties to circumvent more formal hearing and comment procedures. It is a temporary restriction though and will require a vote by county regulators by the end of the year to keep in place.
  • Arkansas is now set to restrict wind development under state law too, thanks to legislation enacted in April that would require officials create standardized requirements for wind turbines. We hate to say I told you so, but… we told you so.

8. Oklahoma County, Oklahoma – A data center fight is gaining steam as activists on the ground push to block the center on grounds it would result in new renewable energy projects.

  • Residents in the town of Luther are angsty about the data center over the footprint it may create for energy generation. Saundra Traywick, a prominent anti-renewables activist in Oklahoma whom we’ve previously written about, is involved in organizing the fight against the project, arguing it would result in new solar and wind farms.
  • “These industries will target Oklahoma and then they could also purchase land at skyrocketing prices to put in solar and wind and produce their own energy for these industries … so what that will do is price out farmers,” Traywick told a local Fox affiliate in the area.
  • This matters because increasingly in my research, I am finding data center opposition and renewables conflicts go hand-in-glove and that groups fighting data centers essentially inflame anxiety about renewables, too. Maybe I should write about that soon…

9. Bell County, Texas – Fox News is back in our newsletter, this time for platforming the campaign against solar on land suitable for agriculture.

  • In a four-minute segment that aired last week, Fox News interviewed a Texas farmer Robert Fleming who has become a mini celebrity in the Texas anti-renewables space. Although Fleming did not target any individual project during the segment – called Farm Wars – the clip has gone viral on Facebook and indicates conservative television networks are beginning to adopt this once-fringe talking point used by activists.
  • I’d note this comes after the Trump administration signaled it’ll go after solar on farmland, which we were first to report.

10. Monterey County, California – The Moss Landing battery fire story continues to develop, as PG&E struggles to restart the remaining battery storage facility remaining on site.

  • The company tried to restart the facility but discovered a chemical leak, prompting a new closure. This comes mere days before a court hearing that will decide whether ongoing litigation by nearby residents will be heard in state or federal court.
  • Anecdotally speaking, I have seen this news kick up fresh angst over battery storage projects in various other communities across the country over social media, and will be tracking the impacts in the days and weeks to come.
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Q&A

How the Wind Industry Can Fight Back

A conversation with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications

The Q&A subject.
Heatmap Illustration

Today’s conversation is with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications, a D.C.-based communications firm that focuses on defending zero- and low-carbon energy and federal investments in climate action. Moyer, a veteran communications adviser who previously worked on Capitol Hill, has some hot takes as of late about how he believes industry and political leaders have in his view failed to properly rebut attacks on solar and wind energy, in addition to the Inflation Reduction Act. On Tuesday he sent an email blast out to his listserv – which I am on – that boldly declared: “The Wind Industry’s Strategy is Failing.”

Of course after getting that email, it shouldn’t surprise readers of The Fight to hear I had to understand what he meant by that, and share it with all of you. So here goes. The following conversation has been abridged and lightly edited for clarity.

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Hotspots

A New York Town Bans Both Renewable Energy And Data Centers

And more on this week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Chautauqua, New York – More rural New York towns are banning renewable energy.

  • Chautauqua, a vacation town in southern New York, has now reportedly issued a one-year moratorium on wind projects – though it’s not entirely obvious whether a wind project is in active development within its boundaries, and town officials have confessed none are being planned as of now.
  • Apparently, per local press, this temporary ban is tied to a broader effort to update the town’s overall land use plan to “manage renewable energy and other emerging high-impact uses” – and will lead to an ordinance that restricts data centers as well as solar and wind projects.
  • I anticipate this strategy where towns update land use plans to target data centers and renewables at the same time will be a lasting trend.

2. Virginia Beach, Virginia – Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project will learn its fate under the Trump administration by this fall, after a federal judge ruled that the Justice Department must come to a decision on how it’ll handle a court challenge against its permits by September.

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Spotlight

The Wind Projects Breaking the Wyoming GOP

It’s governor versus secretary of state, with the fate of the local clean energy industry hanging in the balance.

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

I’m seeing signs that the fight over a hydrogen project in Wyoming is fracturing the state’s Republican political leadership over wind energy, threatening to trigger a war over the future of the sector in a historically friendly state for development.

At issue is the Pronghorn Clean Energy hydrogen project, proposed in the small town of Glenrock in rural Converse County, which would receive power from one wind farm nearby and another in neighboring Niobrara County. If completed, Pronghorn is expected to produce “green” hydrogen that would be transported to airports for commercial use in jet fuel. It is backed by a consortium of U.S. and international companies including Acconia and Nordex.

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