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Spotlight

A Wave of Anti-Renewables Bills Hits State Legislatures

It’s not just Trump.

Texas and Oklahoma
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

State legislatures are now a crucial battleground for the future of renewable energy, as Republican lawmakers seek massive restrictions and punitive measures on new solar and wind projects.

Once a hyperlocal affair, the campaign to curtail renewable energy development now includes state-wide setbacks, regulations, and taxes curtailing wind and solar power. As we previously reported, Oklahoma is one of those states – and may as soon as this year enact mandatory setback requirements on wind power facilities, despite getting nearly half its electricity from wind farms. According to a Heatmap Pro analysis, these rules would affect 65 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties.

Oklahoma is far from alone in potentially restricting land use. In Arizona, the State House last month passed legislation that according to one analysis would lock wind developers off more than 90% of all land in the state. Roughly half of the remaining available acreage would be on Native tribal lands and in or near national parks, which are especially tough areas to build wind turbines. The bill is currently pending before the state Senate. There isn’t much wind energy in Arizona but utilities, who’ve been mostly mum on the legislation so far, have been trying to build more wind and solar in order to wean off coal and gas power. Unfortunately, according to the Arizona Republic, this legislation was reportedly prompted by the backlash to a specific new wind project: Lava Run, a 500-megawatt wind project in the state’s White Mountains opposed by nearby residents.

When asked if the project would ultimately be built, Repsol – Lava Run’s developer – simply told me the company “believes that wind energy in Arizona represents an opportunity to benefit local communities and the state as a whole.”

Republican states have passed legislation to restrict renewables development in certain areas before, so this isn’t exactly a novel development. Florida last year banned all offshore wind projects, and in Ohio, a recent law empowering localities to block solar and wind projects has significantly curtailed industry investment in the state. Wisconsin Republicans are trying to enact similar legislation as soon as this year.

But the sweeping quickness of this legislative effort is striking – and transcends land use rules. Elsewhere, development restrictions may come in the form of tax increases, like in Idaho where the chief revenue committee in the state House has unanimously approved legislation that would institute a per-foot excise tax on individual wind turbines taller than 100 feet without local approval. (The average wind turbine is 320-feet tall.) In Missouri, Republican state legislators are advancing legislation that would create additional taxes for building solar projects on agricultural land, a proposal that echoes an effort underway in the U.S. Congress to strip tax benefits from such projects. And Ohio Republicans have introduced plans to axe all existing state subsidies for solar project construction and operation.

Then there’s the situation in Texas, where state Republican lawmakers are expected to revive a bill requiring solar and wind projects to get express approval from the Public Utilities Commission – a process that fossil fuel projects do not have to go through. The state is the nation’s top producer of renewable energy, generating over 169,000 gigawatt-hours last year.

The legislation passed one legislative chamber in the previous session and environmental activists are starting to sound the alarm that it could get even greater traction this go-around. Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment America’s Texas division, told me that if it becomes law, it would likely undermine investor confidence in developing solar and wind in Texas for the foreseeable future. “It’s very unclear if they could get a permit” under the bill, Metzger said. “If some wealthy Texans didn’t want a solar farm near their ranch, they could convince the PUC to reject their permit.”

Metzger said he is also worried that Texas acting to restrict renewables would produce similar regulation in other parts of the country given the state’s legacy role as a conservative policy braintrust.

“You could have this ripple effect that could end the industry,” Metzger said, “at least in several other states.”

The aggressive and rapid approach sweeping state legislatures has yet to get a national spotlight, so I'm curious how the renewables trade groups are handling these bills.

I asked American Clean Power and the Solar Energy Industries Association if they have any data on the rise of anti-renewables legislation and whether they have comments on this trend. Neither organization responded with data on how many states may soon pass renewables restrictions, but they did get back to me quite fast with comments. SEIA provided a statement from Sarah Birmingham, their vice president of state affairs, noting that energy demand “is rising across the country and we need all the electricity we can get, fast.” The group also pointed to polling it commissioned on solar energy popularity in Texas and a report it just happened torelease in January touting the benefits solar can provide to the state’s revenue base.

ACP meanwhile provided me with a similar statement to SEIA’s, defending renewables and criticizing state bills restricting solar and wind project development.

“Reducing their growth at state and local levels stifles innovation, raises consumer energy costs, and hinders a cleaner, more reliable grid, leaving communities vulnerable to energy shortages,” said spokesman Jason Ryan.

It’s clear some legislators agree with ACP. In Montana, legislation targeting wind turbine height is stuttering after a large cadre of industry representatives and property owners complained it would kill development entirely and kneecap tax revenue to the sparsely populated state. And in Mississippi, lawmakers appear to have abandoned efforts to enact a one-year moratorium on wind turbines for a study on the industry’s impacts on agriculture.

But it’s only March. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how aggressive – and how public – the fight over these bills this year will become.

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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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