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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 Heather O’Neill of Advanced Energy United.
This week’s conversation is with Heather O’Neill, CEO of renewables advocacy group Advanced Energy United. I wanted to chat with O’Neill in light of the recent effective repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean electricity tax credits and the action at the Interior Department clamping down on development. I’m quite glad she was game to talk hot topics, including the future of wind energy and whether we’ll see blue states step into the vacuum left by the federal government.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
During Trump 1.0 we saw blue states really step into the climate role in light of the federal government. Do you see anything similar taking place now?
I think this moment we’re in – it is a different moment.
How are we handling load growth? How are we making sure consumers are not paying for expensive stranded assets? Thinking about energy affordability? All of those challenges absolutely present a different moment and will result in a different response from state leaders.
But that’s where some of the changes our industry has gone through mean we’re able to meet that moment and provide solutions to those challenges. I think we need aggressive action from state leaders and I think we’ll see that from them, because of the challenges in front of them.
What does that look like?
Every state is different. Take Virginia for example. Five years after we passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act – a big, bold promise of action – we’re not on track. So what are the things we need to do to keep the foot on the accelerator there? This last legislative session we passed the virtual power plant legislation that’ll help tremendously in terms of grid flexibility. We made a big push around siting and permitting reform, and we didn’t quite get it over the finish line but that’s the kind of thing where we made a good foundation.
Or Texas. There’s so much advanced energy powering Texas right now. You had catastrophic grid failure in Hurricane Uri and look at what they’ve been able to build out in response to that: wind, solar, and in the last few years, battery storage, and they just passed the energy waste reduction [bill].
We need to build things and make it easier to build – siting and permitting reform – but it’s also states depending on their environment looking at and engaging with their regional transmission organization.
You saw that last week, a robust set of governors across the PJM region called on them to improve their interconnection queue. It’s about pushing and finding reforms at the market level, to get these assets online and get on the grid deployed.
I think the point about forward momentum, I definitely see what you’re saying there about the need for action. Do you see state primacy laws or pre-emption laws? Like what Michigan, New York, and California have done…
I’m not a siting expert, but the reform packages that work the best include engagement from communities in meaningful ways. But they also make sure you’re not having a vocal minority drowning out the benefits and dragging out the process forever. There are timelines and certainty attached to it while still having meaningful local engagement.
Our industry absolutely has to continue to lean into more local engagement and community engagement around the benefits of a project and what they can deliver for a community. I also think there’s a fair amount of making sure the state is creating that pathway, providing that certainty, so we can actually move forward to build out these projects.
From the federal government’s perspective, they’re cracking down on wind and solar projects while changing the tax credits. Do you see states presenting their own incentives for renewables in lieu of federal incentives? I’ve wondered if that’ll happen given inflation and affordability concerns.
No, I think we have to be really creative as an industry, and state leaders have to be creative too. If I’m a governor, affordability concerns were already front and center for me, and now given what just happened, they’re grappling with incredibly tight state budgets that are about to get tighter, including health care. They’re going to see state budgets hit really hard. And there’s energy impacts – we’re cutting off supply, so we’re going to see prices go up.
This is where governors and state leaders can act but I think in this context of tight state budgets I don’t think we can expect to see states replacing incentive packages.
It’ll be: how do we take advantage of all the flexible tools that we have to help shape and reduce demand in meaningful ways that’ll save consumers money, as well as push on building out projects and getting existing juice out of the transmission system we have today.
Is there a future for wind in the United States?
It is an incredibly challenging environment – no question – for all of our technologies, wind included. I don’t want to sugar-coat that at all.
But I look at the whole picture, and I include wind in this: the technologies have improved dramatically in the past couple of decades and the costs have come down. When you look around at what resources are around to deploy, it’s advanced energy. We’re seeing it continue to grow. There’ll be headwinds, and it’ll be more expensive for all of us. But I look at what our industry and our technologies are able to offer and deliver, and I am confident we’ll continue to see growth.
The Grain Belt Express was just the beginning.
The anti-renewables movement is now coming for transmission lines as the Trump administration signals a willingness to cut off support for wires that connect to renewable energy sources.
Last week, Trump’s Energy Department with a brief letter rescinded a nearly $5 billion loan guarantee to Invenergy for the Grain Belt Express line that would, if completed, connect wind projects in Kansas to areas of Illinois and Indiana. This decision followed a groundswell of public opposition over concerns about land use and agricultural impacts – factors that ring familiar to readers of The Fight – which culminated in Republican Senator Josh Hawley reportedly asking Donald Trump in a meeting to order the loan’s cancellation. It’s unclear whether questions around the legality of this loan cancellation will be resolved in the courts, meaning Invenergy may just try to trudge ahead and not pick a fight with the Trump administration.
But the Grain Belt Express is not an anomaly. Across the country, transmission lines tied to both renewable sources and more conventional fuels – both fossil and nuclear – are facing a growing chorus of angst and anguish from the same crowds that are fighting renewable energy. In some ways, it’s a tale as old as widespread transmission itself. But I am also talking about farmers, ranchers, and rural towns who all now mention transmission lines in the same exasperated breaths they use to bemoan solar, wind, and battery storage. Many of the same communities fighting zero-carbon energy sources see those conflicts as part of a broader stand against a new age of tech industrial build-out – meaning that after a solar or wind farm is defeated, that activism energy is likely to go elsewhere, including expanding the grid.
I’ve been trying to figure out if there are other situations like Grain Belt, where a project facing local headwinds could potentially be considered no longer investable from a renewables-skeptic federal perspective. And that’s why since Invenergy lost its cash for that project, I have been digging into the Cimarron Link transmission line, another Invenergy facility proposed to carry wind energy from eastern Oklahoma to the western part of the state, according to a map on the developer’s website.
Do you remember the campaign to ban wind energy in Oklahoma that I profiled at the start of this year? Well, one of the most prominent scalps that this activism movement has claimed was bagged in late 2024, when they successfully pressured Governor Kevin Stitt into opposing a priority transmission corridor proposed by the Biden administration. Then another one of the activists’ biggest accomplishments came through an anti-wind law enacted this year that would, among other things, require transmission projects to go through a new certification program before the state’s Corporation Commission. Many of the figures fighting Cimarron and another transmission line project – NextEra’s Heartland Spirit Connector – are also involved in fighting wind and solar across the state, and see the struggles as part and parcel with each other.
Invenergy appears to want to soldier on through this increasingly difficult process, or at least that’s according to a letter some landowners received that was posted to Facebook. But these hurdles will seriously impact the plausibility that Cimarron Link can be completed any time soon.
Now, on top of these hurdles, critics want Cimarron Link to get the Grain Belt treatment. Cimarron Link was told last fall it was awarded north of $300 million from the Energy Department as a part of DOE’s Transmission Facilitation Program.
Enter Darren Blanchard, a farmer who says his property is in the path of Cimarron Link and has been one of the main public faces of opposition against the project. Blanchard has recently been pleading with the DOE to nix the disposition of that money if it hasn’t been given already. Blanchard wrote the agency a lengthy request that Cimarron get similar treatment to Grain Belt which was made public in the appendix of the agency’s decision documents related to the loan cancellation (see page 23 of this document).
To Blanchard’s surprise, he got a reply from the Transmission Facilitation Program office “responding on behalf of” Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The note, to him, read like they wanted him to know they saw his comment: “We appreciate you taking the time to share your views on the project,” it read.
Now, this might’ve been innocuous. I haven’t heard back from the Energy Department about Cimarron Link and I am personally skeptical of the chances a grant is canceled easily. There is no high-level politician calling for the cancellation of this money right now, like there was in Sen. Josh Hawley and the Grain Belt Express.
But I do believe that if there is a will, there is a way with the Trump administration. And as anti-renewables sentiments abound further, there’ll be more ways to create woe for transmission projects like Cimarron that connect to renewable resources. Should voices like Blanchard aim their sights at replicating what happened with Grain Belt, well… bets may be off.
Over the next few weeks, I will be chronicling more fights over individual transmission projects connected to zero-carbon sources. Unique but with implications for a host of proposed wires across the country, they’re trend-setters, so to speak. Next week I’ll be tackling some power lines out West, so stay tuned.
And more of the week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – The fight over Vineyard Wind is back with a vengeance. But can an aggrieved vacation town team up with conservative legal activists to take down an operating offshore wind project?
2. Henry County, Virginia – A fresh fiasco around a solar farm is renewing animus against solar projects in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
3. Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana – Solar developer Aypa is now suing this parish on the grounds it allegedly used zoning rules in an unfair and biased manner against one of its projects.
4. Outagamie County, Wisconsin – If at first you don’t kill the solar farm, try and go after the substation.
5. La Paz County, Arizona – Republicans in Congress are helping at least one area open up for more solar development.
6. Idaho – The federal government will officially re-do its review of the LS Energy Lava Ridge wind farm.
7. Monterey County, California – The EPA is finally getting more involved in the Moss Landing battery plant cleanup, after the agency declared this week it approved a new comprehensive remediation plan under CERCLA, a law that also governs the Superfund program.