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And what renewables can learn from it.
And more on this week’s top policy and energy news.
A conversation with Colorado's junior senator on the 2024 election, permitting reform, and what might happen with the IRA.
And more news on the biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects.
1. Magic Valley, Idaho – Sen. Jim Risch, one of the state’s loudest opponents of the Lava Ridge wind farm, said he believes Donald Trump will stop the project on Day 1.
2. Hardin County, Kentucky – Lightsource, a subsidiary of bp, is going to the mat against a chapter of prominent anti-renewables network Citizens for Responsible Solar over a project in the small Kentucky city of Elizabethtown.
3. Allegany County, New York – I’m keeping close tabs on a new solar-farmland fight in upstate New York between a plant nursery and a 3.7 megawatt SolAmerica solar farm.
Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on…
In Indiana, a Cobia Solar project that would use 7,000 acres seems to face an uphill battle to local permits.
In Maryland, the county of Dorchester is enacting new restrictions on solar development after facing initial opposition from the Solar Energy Industries Association and RWE Clean Energy.
In Virginia, planners in South Boston have recommended rejecting a 10 megawatt solar and storage project proposed by Cenergy Power.
In Missouri, an Evergy solar farm proposed at a Kansas City airport is taking much longer than initially anticipated per press reports.
In New Jersey, anti-wind activists are adopting a new strategy to kill the Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm: forcing the state bureaucracy into a new cost-benefit analysis.
In Oregon, anti-offshore wind activists are celebrating Donald Trump’s win at the ballot box.The state’s landmark legislation to overrule local opposition to renewable energy is being challenged by over 70 local jurisdictions.
The most important legal challenge for the renewables industry in America may have just been filed in Michigan.
On Friday afternoon, about 70 towns and a handful of Michigan counties appealed the rule implementing part of a new renewable energy siting law – PA 233 – providing primary permitting authority to the Michigan Public Services Commission and usurping local approval powers in specific cases, Heatmap can first report. The law was part of a comprehensive permitting package passed last year by the state legislature and seen by climate advocates as a potential model for combatting NIMBYs across the country.
The appeal challenges multiple aspects of the law’s implementation, saying it went beyond statute, as well as the rulemaking procedure itself, claiming it failed to follow proper processes. The lawsuit aims to effectively undo the law going into effect, or at least enjoin what opponents say are the most onerous restrictions on municipalities and county governments.
Some of the places involved in the litigation have solar, wind, or battery storage proposed in their backyards. But while it’s certainly the case that some opponents may just want to stop projects from being built, one of the attorneys behind the litigation – Michael Homier at Michigan law firm Foster Swift – told me the case represents how these laws inflame broader tensions between communities and their governments.
“[Renewables have] to be sited appropriately, because each community has unique priorities and circumstances that relate to them,” Homier said. “I think what it says is that local voices matter and when you try and implement policy on a one-size fits all approach with all of these local communities, they don’t like it.”
Local control laws like Michigan’s exist because, well, climate change is an imperative that calls for rapid action. Delays stemming from dissent at the municipal or county level can totally gum up the works, as we’ve shown you time and time again. Michigan’s no stranger to this problem. Opponents of the Michigan law sought to repeal it via ballot initiative before the lawsuit was filed, but that effort failed, and some ballot petition backers have since gotten a campaign finance complaint.
But it’s important to note these laws feel like shots to the heart of small-d democracy, and the notion of locally-controlled land use planning, too. As these policies become a go-to for anxious Democratic politicians trying to get shovels into the ground to bring down carbon emissions, one should hardly expect towns and counties to take it lying down.
Take Maryland, where legislators have sought to pass bills similar to Michigand’s. Despite the state’s ambitious climate goals, the Maryland Association of Counties has vociferously opposed bills to ban counties and towns from setting ordinances that restrict renewable development and let community-scale solar advance without strenuous local review. Or take New Jersey, where transmission cables for offshore wind may produce similar litigation to what’s in Michigan, testing the constitutionality of the state’s local control law.
In Michigan, it’ll take upwards of a year or two for the case to wind its way through court proceedings. Until then, we’ll pour one out for any developer or climate wonk who thought that the state's stab at “permitting reform” was going to help.
