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Will this renewable energy powerhouse become the first state to ban renewable energy?
There’s a nascent, concerted effort to make Oklahoma the first state to ban new renewable energy projects. And it’s picking up steam.
Across the U.S., activism against wind and solar energy has only grown in intensity, power, and scope in tandem with the recent renewables boom. This is in direct contrast to hopes many in the climate movement had that these technologies would become more popular as they entered communities historically hostile to the idea of switching away from fossil fuels. If anything, grassroots angst toward the energy transition has only surged in many pockets of the country since passage of the nation’s first climate law – Inflation Reduction Act – in 2022.
Nowhere is this more true than Oklahoma, which on paper resembles a breadbasket of possibilities for the “green” economy. Oklahoma is the nation’s third largest generator of wind energy, home to a burgeoning solar energy sector, a potential hydrogen hub, and maybe even the nation’s first refinery for cobalt, a rare metal used in electric vehicles. Yet yesterday, hundreds of people flocked to Oklahoma City, filled a giant hall in the state’s capitol building to the brim, and rallied for the state’s governor Kevin Stitt to issue an executive order to stop new wind and solar energy facilities from being built.
“Welcome Oklahoma, for braving the cold out there into this very warm and receiving Capitol. And y’know what? Our warmth today was not brought to us by green energy,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond told the rally audience.
It’s exceedingly likely these folks won’t get an executive order any time soon. Oklahoma Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, has embraced these technologies as job creators. “Oklahoma is an oil and gas state through and through, but we also generate about 47% of our electricity from renewable sources,” he wrote on X in August. “I just don’t think the government should pick winners and losers or force us to choose between one or the other.” Weeks ago, he signed a memorandum of understanding between the state and the nation of Denmark to collaborate more on wind energy.
But the political gusts are blowing in the direction of a ban. Exhibit A: Drummond, who it’s rumored may run to replace Stitt and who at the rally pledged to work with legislators to pass a bill ending the deal with “quasi-socialist” Denmark. The rally also featured Oklahoma’s Education Secretary Ryan Walters, whose name has also been included in gubernatorial chatter.
This uprising in Oklahoma has been happening for quite some time, without much fanfare due to a persistent and pernicious news desert problem in the state (and many others). Like other states, it is becoming more commonplace for towns and counties there to face pressure to support moratoriums against developing new projects, and GOP lawmakers are also increasingly facing primaries over offering any support to wind or solar energy, or even just remaining neutral on whether projects get built. One such casualty in the last election cycle was Kevin Wallace, the GOP chair of the Appropriations and Budget Committee in the statehouse, who was dethroned by a political newcomer – Jim Shaw, who ran heavily on anti-renewables policies, including a statewide moratorium.
“It’s a groundswell,” said Pam Kingfisher, an environmental activist in northeast Oklahoma. Kingfisher is a Democrat but she has her own concerns with the environmental impacts that wind turbines could have in her community, the town of Kansas. So she’s grateful for this uprising.
“They’re attacking their own people and being very effective and I’m standing back going, ‘hey yes, take them on.’”
Suffice it to say, these activists feel emboldened by the primary wins and Trump’s election. Charity Linch, chair of the Oklahoma chapter of the Republican National Committee, told me she doesn’t believe the “pro-renewable Republican” will exist much longer in the state.
“I don’t believe that’s going to continue in Oklahoma,” Linch told me. “If they haven’t figured it out yet, they will very soon.”
Linch is the proud founder of Freedom Brigades, a grassroots network of activists with members in several states. The Freedom Brigade chapters for two counties conflicted over wind – McIntosh and Pittsburg – were instrumental in organizing the rally. Linch said Freedom Brigades also helped support some of the successful primary challengers in this past election cycle, and that her members were partially responsible for the Oklahoma GOP censuring Sen. James Lankford last year over a bipartisan border deal in Congress – causing the bill to die.
From talking to Linch, it’s clear to me that renewable developers should pay close attention to the Oklahoma uprising. So should Washington, because as talk in Congress proceeds toward changing the Inflation Reduction Act, rest assured some of these people will contact their members of Congress when the time comes. And you should expect the same from the myriad of anti-renewables activists in other states fighting solar and wind projects in their own backyards.
Getting Red In The Face
Why is this rebellion happening in Oklahoma? Well, if you ask Oklahomans, they’ll count the reasons.
Activists involved in planning the rally told me the biggest reason for the uproar was that solar and wind projects aren’t bringing the ample jobs developers and policymakers promise, making their presence in communities more difficult to stomach. Others point to environmental concerns, from the impacts these projects can have on species to the chemicals used to make them. Like Saundra Traywick, a donkey farmer who attended the rally and author of a Change.org petition supporting a state renewables ban that has more than 3,000 signatures. The petition claims wind turbines present “hazards to the health, safety, and welfare of the people.”
“They resort to calling us names instead of listening to us,” Traywick told me. “None of us wanted to get involved in any of this. We didn’t want to be involved in politics. These are farmers that are dealing with freezing temperatures,” referencing the temperature outside the rally.
There’s a serious issue of tribal opposition, given a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that found nearly half of all lands in Oklahoma fall under some form of tribal sovereignty. As Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin explained last year, this means developers may also need to get mineral rights approvals from tribal government bodies. Two weeks ago, a federal judge ordered the removal of 84 wind turbines on those grounds, stating the developer Enel Green Power failed to get adequate permission from the Osage Nation.
Some involved in this push for a renewables ban are also open about another rationale: They want to help oil and gas production, a key source of employment in the state.
“Why are we as a state being forced to fund our own demise essentially, with our federal taxpayer dollars, to prop up an industry that’s literally killing the backbone industry of our state, which is oil and gas?” Shaw said on Breitbart’s Conservative Review podcast in December.
To anyone who believes, as the vast majority of scientists say, that climate change is real and to avert catastrophe we must quickly build an energy grid that produces far fewer carbon emissions, these may all look like terrible reasons.
But if you don’t believe that climate change is real, or you believe it’s an overrated problem… renewables are just a much harder sell.
“Most of us do not believe we need to reduce our CO2 to begin with,” NeAnne Clinton, an activist fighting a large NextEra solar-plus-battery project in Garfield County, Oklahoma, told me. “We know that it’s a scam and we don’t support it. And we don’t support using our taxpayer money for something that we didn’t have a voice in.”
Cheyenne Branscum, chair of Sierra Club’s Oklahoma chapter, told me it is difficult for supporters of renewable energy to counter this insurgent populist movement against the sector. Part of the dilemma is that environmental activism itself is seen by many of the state’s most red-blooded Republicans as a “radical” act, so if climate advocates were to organize counter protests it would likely backfire. When asked how her organization and others could best deal with the anti-renewables sentiment rising in her state, she talked about education programs – not confrontation.
“We’re not going to change anything at the state capital,” Branscum told me. “All a counter rally is going to do is make them have more opportunities to make us into a meme. They’re going to have some angry picture out there with a sign and be labeled some crazy radical that doesn’t care about their community. And it is unfortunately a hurdle.”
The Sooners’ Warning Shot
The Oklahoma rebellion should be cold comfort for anyone who buys into one of the implicit political principles behind the country’s first climate law – the Inflation Reduction Act.
Whether folks in D.C. want to admit it or not, the American anti-renewables revolution is rising up as Donald Trump retakes the White House and it is going to try and make its own impact on the Inflation Reduction Act. While much ado has been made about how the overwhelming majority of monetary benefits from the IRA are supporting investments in Republican-controlled states, as veteran lobbyist Frank Maisano put it to me last year, “Businesses will support many things that they have their tentacles into and Republicans will support many things that are going on in their districts that constituents like.”
“The reality is, if you’re going to try to repeal it,” Maisano said, “you’re going to have to do it through Congress and a lot of the action in the energy transition is in Republican districts. It becomes a constituent issue.”
What if many Republican constituents simply don’t like these new investments, in spite of the promises of jobs or tax benefits? What happens if Republicans in Congress are primaried simply for allowing solar and wind to keep getting federal tax breaks?
None of this surprises Nathan Jensen, a Texas University professor specializing in resource politics, who believes Oklahoma will only be the first to face a movement for a state-wide ban on new renewables. Just look at Texas where, like Oklahoma, the energy sector has become a panacea for wind and solar energy but many GOP policymakers have turned on economic development packages for new renewables. A state-wide ban hasn’t been discussed yet, but Jensen can imagine the idea gaining traction.
Jensen said he believes the organizing on platforms like Facebook only tells part of the story. Clearly, he says, a lot of people are joining that cause because the industry’s grown large enough that people are hearing from the farm or town next to theirs about solar and wind projects. And whether climate advocates want to hear it or not, these people are not loving what they’re hearing. Solar and wind projects don’t create that many jobs after they’re built. They do create a flurry of construction, but that’s a form of labor that leaves when it’s done and is often resented by neighbors, leading to disputes over dust, noise, or water. Then there’s the tax abatements for developers, which aggrieved residents see as taxpayer dollars going to large companies without their say – precisely the message gaining traction in Oklahoma.
This means places that seem safe for renewable developers are no longer safe and companies need to be really careful about how they approach community benefits. It’s not something you can just say – you really need to deliver what you promise.
“I know there’s a lot of news about organized anti-solar, which clearly happens, but also there’s this organic opposition that happens where it’s like, ‘You’re asking for how much from our school district?’” Jensen said. “Some of it is organized Facebook groups against solar but I think there is a lot of frustration.”
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A conversation with VDE Americas CEO Brian Grenko.
This week’s Q&A is about hail. Last week, we explained how and why hail storm damage in Texas may have helped galvanize opposition to renewable energy there. So I decided to reach out to Brian Grenko, CEO of renewables engineering advisory firm VDE Americas, to talk about how developers can make sure their projects are not only resistant to hail but also prevent that sort of pushback.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Hiya Brian. So why’d you get into the hail issue?
Obviously solar panels are made with glass that can allow the sunlight to come through. People have to remember that when you install a project, you’re financing it for 35 to 40 years. While the odds of you getting significant hail in California or Arizona are low, it happens a lot throughout the country. And if you think about some of these large projects, they may be in the middle of nowhere, but they are taking hundreds if not thousands of acres of land in some cases. So the chances of them encountering large hail over that lifespan is pretty significant.
We partnered with one of the country’s foremost experts on hail and developed a really interesting technology that can digest radar data and tell folks if they’re developing a project what the [likelihood] will be if there’s significant hail.
Solar panels can withstand one-inch hail – a golfball size – but once you get over two inches, that’s when hail starts breaking solar panels. So it’s important to understand, first and foremost, if you’re developing a project, you need to know the frequency of those events. Once you know that, you need to start thinking about how to design a system to mitigate that risk.
The government agencies that look over land use, how do they handle this particular issue? Are there regulations in place to deal with hail risk?
The regulatory aspects still to consider are about land use. There are authorities with jurisdiction at the federal, state, and local level. Usually, it starts with the local level and with a use permit – a conditional use permit. The developer goes in front of the township or the city or the county, whoever has jurisdiction of wherever the property is going to go. That’s where it gets political.
To answer your question about hail, I don’t know if any of the [authority having jurisdictions] really care about hail. There are folks out there that don’t like solar because it’s an eyesore. I respect that – I don’t agree with that, per se, but I understand and appreciate it. There’s folks with an agenda that just don’t want solar.
So okay, how can developers approach hail risk in a way that makes communities more comfortable?
The bad news is that solar panels use a lot of glass. They take up a lot of land. If you have hail dropping from the sky, that’s a risk.
The good news is that you can design a system to be resilient to that. Even in places like Texas, where you get large hail, preparing can mean the difference between a project that is destroyed and a project that isn’t. We did a case study about a project in the East Texas area called Fighting Jays that had catastrophic damage. We’re very familiar with the area, we work with a lot of clients, and we found three other projects within a five-mile radius that all had minimal damage. That simple decision [to be ready for when storms hit] can make the complete difference.
And more of the week’s big fights around renewable energy.
1. Long Island, New York – We saw the face of the resistance to the war on renewable energy in the Big Apple this week, as protestors rallied in support of offshore wind for a change.
2. Elsewhere on Long Island – The city of Glen Cove is on the verge of being the next New York City-area community with a battery storage ban, discussing this week whether to ban BESS for at least one year amid fire fears.
3. Garrett County, Maryland – Fight readers tell me they’d like to hear a piece of good news for once, so here’s this: A 300-megawatt solar project proposed by REV Solar in rural Maryland appears to be moving forward without a hitch.
4. Stark County, Ohio – The Ohio Public Siting Board rejected Samsung C&T’s Stark Solar project, citing “consistent opposition to the project from each of the local government entities and their impacted constituents.”
5. Ingham County, Michigan – GOP lawmakers in the Michigan State Capitol are advancing legislation to undo the state’s permitting primacy law, which allows developers to evade municipalities that deny projects on unreasonable grounds. It’s unlikely the legislation will become law.
6. Churchill County, Nevada – Commissioners have upheld the special use permit for the Redwood Materials battery storage project we told you about last week.
Long Islanders, meanwhile, are showing up in support of offshore wind, and more in this week’s edition of The Fight.
Local renewables restrictions are on the rise in the Hawkeye State – and it might have something to do with carbon pipelines.
Iowa’s known as a renewables growth area, producing more wind energy than any other state and offering ample acreage for utility-scale solar development. This has happened despite the fact that Iowa, like Ohio, is home to many large agricultural facilities – a trait that has often fomented conflict over specific projects. Iowa has defied this logic in part because the state was very early to renewables, enacting a state portfolio standard in 1983, signed into law by a Republican governor.
But something else is now on the rise: Counties are passing anti-renewables moratoria and ordinances restricting solar and wind energy development. We analyzed Heatmap Pro data on local laws and found a rise in local restrictions starting in 2021, leading to nearly 20 of the state’s 99 counties – about one fifth – having some form of restrictive ordinance on solar, wind or battery storage.
What is sparking this hostility? Some of it might be counties following the partisan trend, as renewable energy has struggled in hyper-conservative spots in the U.S. But it may also have to do with an outsized focus on land use rights and energy development that emerged from the conflict over carbon pipelines, which has intensified opposition to any usage of eminent domain for energy development.
The central node of this tension is the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline. As we explained in a previous edition of The Fight, the carbon transportation network would cross five states, and has galvanized rural opposition against it. Last November, I predicted the Summit pipeline would have an easier time under Trump because of his circle’s support for oil and gas, as well as the placement of former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as interior secretary, as Burgum was a major Summit supporter.
Admittedly, this prediction has turned out to be incorrect – but it had nothing to do with Trump. Instead, Summit is now stalled because grassroots opposition to the pipeline quickly mobilized to pressure regulators in states the pipeline is proposed to traverse. They’re aiming to deny the company permits and lobbying state legislatures to pass bills banning the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines. One of those states is South Dakota, where the governor last month signed an eminent domain ban for CO2 pipelines. On Thursday, South Dakota regulators denied key permits for the pipeline for the third time in a row.
Another place where the Summit opposition is working furiously: Iowa, where opposition to the CO2 pipeline network is so intense that it became an issue in the 2020 presidential primary. Regulators in the state have been more willing to greenlight permits for the project, but grassroots activists have pressured many counties into some form of opposition.
The same counties with CO2 pipeline moratoria have enacted bans or land use restrictions on developing various forms of renewables, too. Like Kossuth County, which passed a resolution decrying the use of eminent domain to construct the Summit pipeline – and then three months later enacted a moratorium on utility-scale solar.
I asked Jessica Manzour, a conservation program associate with Sierra Club fighting the Summit pipeline, about this phenomenon earlier this week. She told me that some counties are opposing CO2 pipelines and then suddenly tacking on or pivoting to renewables next. In other cases, counties with a burgeoning opposition to renewables take up the pipeline cause, too. In either case, this general frustration with energy companies developing large plots of land is kicking up dust in places that previously may have had a much lower opposition risk.
“We painted a roadmap with this Summit fight,” said Jess Manzour, a campaigner with Sierra Club involved in organizing opposition to the pipeline at the grassroots level, who said zealous anti-renewables activists and officials are in some cases lumping these items together under a broad umbrella. ”I don’t know if it’s the people pushing for these ordinances, rather than people taking advantage of the situation.”