Wind and solar power opponents make headway in state legislatures – Daily News

By David Montgomery, Stateline.org

WATER VALLEY, Texas — On a recent day when the wind gusted close to 40 miles per hour, 82-year-old George Neill was making repairs on his ranch, oblivious to the nearby cluster of wind turbines churning the sky behind him.

“After about a year, you never know the things are here,” said Neill, who leases part of his West Texas property to an East Coast-based renewable energy company that placed three wind turbines on it four years ago.

Hundreds of other wind turbines stretch across this landscape, instantly visible to motorists traveling to nearby San Angelo and other towns. The turbines aren’t the only renewable energy producers amid the mesas: From a distance, a glistening array of solar panels resembles a small lake.

Texas is famous for producing oil and gas, but renewable energy has become deeply embedded in the state’s culture and economy. Texas led the nation in generating electricity from wind power and utility-scale solar power in 2023, and wind and solar energy projects contribute tax revenue to local governments and struggling school districts. Texas landowners are expected to receive nearly $30 billion in lease payments under current and expected projects, according to an industry study.

But in recent years, Texas has loosened its political embrace of alternative energy. For the second legislative session in a row, many Texas lawmakers are trying to derail or curb future renewable energy projects.

The shift is rooted in a number of a factors, including the second Trump administration’s antipathy toward renewables and an aggressive recommitment to fossil fuels in Texas energy policy. There is lingering concern over the reliability of the state’s electrical grid, after all types of power sources failed during a devastating 2021 winter storm. Some people object to the aesthetics of wind and solar farms, or note that turbines and panels can harm some wildlife.

Texas is not alone. Once focused on stopping individual projects at the local level, renewable energy opponents have been making inroads in other state legislatures, too. They have received backing from the oil and gas industry. And they’ve been galvanized by the 2022 passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest-ever attempt to speed the transition to clean energy.

In neighboring Oklahoma, for example, hundreds of people rallied at the state Capitol in January to urge Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt to issue an executive order halting new wind and solar projects. Like Texas, Oklahoma is a major oil and natural gas producer, but it generated 45% of its total in-state electricity from renewable resources in 2023.

Stitt, a strong supporter of renewable energy, is highly unlikely to issue such an order. But he will leave office in two years, and several Republicans discussed as possible successors appeared at the rally. One of them, Attorney General Gentner Drummond, recently on social media criticized what he called “the green energy scam” and urged Stitt and state lawmakers to tighten wind farm rules during the current session.

In Arizona, the House earlier this year approved a bill that would bar wind farm projects within a dozen miles of any property zoned for residential use — a restriction that would apply to about 90% of the land in the state, according to an analysis by the Arizona Republic.

In Ohio, a 2021 law allowing county commissioners to create restricted areas where utility-scale solar and wind projects can’t be built has had a huge impact, as 26 Ohio counties have banned renewable energy projects. This year, GOP lawmakers have introduced legislation that would end all state solar subsidies.

And in Missouri, Republican legislators are pushing a bill that would raise taxes on farmers who lease their land for wind or solar energy projects.

The expanding opposition to renewables isn’t unexpected, said Joshua Rhodes, a research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin who studies the power grid. He noted that wind, solar and battery storage have rapidly become the “cheapest way to put more energy on the grid.”

“They’re victims of their own success,” he told Stateline. “They are relatively new players to the market, so there’s going to be pushback from incumbents.”

Opposing sides

At the center of the current debate in Texas is state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, a Republican committee chair who has resurrected a 2023 bill that would require new utility-scale solar and wind projects to get permits from the state’s Public Utility Commission, regulations that aren’t imposed on projects for natural gas and other energy sources. The bill also calls for set-back requirements and cleanup funds.

Kolkhorst, in a statement to Stateline, called the legislation “a common-sense approach to the encroachment of wind and solar facilities being scattered across our great state with no consideration or safeguards for landowners or the environment.”

At an hourslong Senate committee hearing recently where opponents of Kolkhorst’s bill outnumbered supporters, farmers, ranchers and small-town Texans sometimes found themselves on opposite sides, either arguing that sprawling wind farms and solar arrays are a lasting source of economic vitality or a threat to a beloved way of life.

“The land isn’t just a piece of property to us,” said Laurie Dihle, who lives on 154 acres in Franklin County with her husband. “It’s our home, our sanctuary and a big part of who we are. When we look out across the road, we see rolling green pastures and trees. Now we’re facing the possibility of that view and so much more being replaced by a sprawling solar farm.”