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GILLETTE—The Biden administration’s proposal to end federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin will have “grave” and “drastic” consequences for Campbell County, the nation’s largest coal supplier and a bulwark of Wyoming’s economy for the past 50 years, residents and local officials say.
If implemented, the proposal will destroy the livelihoods of thousands of miners and their families here and gut the community’s economy, Gillette resident George Dunlap said.
“We have to stop the Biden administration from destroying it because they will. We can’t sit back and say ‘What’s going on?’”
Dunlap, who owns and operates a photography business in Gillette, was among several speakers to address the Campbell County Commission on Tuesday. The commission solicited public testimony during its regular meeting to accompany a formal protest letter opposing the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal.
The five-member commission is hoping to rally a massive outpouring from the public and is encouraging the state to take immediate legal action to stop the BLM from banning federal coal leasing.
“The effects it’s going to have on this local community are going to be grave, and we need to fight,” Commission Chairman Del Shelstad said.
But the commissioners’ efforts to solicit testimonials garnered participation from only a handful of residents Tuesday — a disappointment for the body, even considering the shift-work nature of this blue-collar community and the 11 a.m. weekday timing of the hearing. Residents who spoke were outnumbered by other elected officials and reporters.
The coal industry — which includes 10 active mines in the county and directly employs more than 3,000 workers here — was a no-show.
Shelstad asked whether there were any coal producers or representatives of coal mining companies in the room. There were none, which elicited a frustrated response from Shelstad.
“I think that’s a darn shame that the coal producers aren’t here fighting — if for nothing else, for their employees,” he said. “They’re probably going to have a strategy that takes a little different approach, and I’m OK with that. But it’s really shameful that we can’t get them here to make public comment and to enter this fight with us.”
The public comment hearing was organized in response to what many regard as a historic move by the Biden administration to effectively set an expiration date for one of the nation’s largest sources of electrical power generation, as well as planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions: Powder River Basin coal.
The BLM on May 16 announced its preferred “no future coal leasing alternative” in a federal court-mandated update of its land use plans for the Buffalo, Wyoming and Miles City, Montana field offices that oversee coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, which spans portions of both states. Conservation groups had successfully argued the federal agency must fully consider the environmental, climate and human health implications of leasing federal coal in the region.
In its proposal to ban further federal coal leasing, the BLM estimated that existing leases will support the current rate of Powder River Basin coal production to 2041, according to the agency.
Cooperating agencies — such as local and state governments in the region — have until June 17 to file letters of intent to protest the BLM’s preferred no future leasing alternative. That gives those entities legal footing to challenge the decision. In addition to filing a protest letter, Campbell County commissioners are circulating an online petition urging the BLM to reconsider its preferred alternative.
“The coal industry employs thousands of workers across the country, and this ban will put many of these jobs at risk,” the petition states. “Additionally, coal is a vital source of baseload electricity for millions of Americans. Without a reliable supply of coal, our nation’s energy grid could become unstable.”
As of Wednesday morning, the county had collected 455 petition signatures, according to officials. Shelstad said he hopes to eventually collect at least 20,000 signatures.
Coal proponents in Wyoming say the BLM’s coal leasing ban is the latest in a series of Biden administration actions designed to kill the industry in favor of renewable energy sources and an effort to appeal to voters concerned about the global climate crisis.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in April issued four “final” rules aimed at drastically cutting coal pollution, including a mandate that operators of existing coal-fired power plants commit to cutting or capturing 90% of the planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions by 2032 or convert the facilities to natural gas or close altogether.
Those coal-fueled power plants represent nearly the entirety of the Powder River Basin coal market today.
Energy market analysts, along with conservation groups, have suggested that the administration appears to be issuing rules and compliance deadlines that follow market trends already in motion, noting that many utilities are moving up coal plant retirement dates and that mining companies have not nominated a major new federal coal lease in the Powder River Basin since 2012.
Market trends have already cut production in the region by half since 2008, and the decline in demand for Wyoming coal appears to be accelerating — down by 20% so far this year. In fact, one of the region’s biggest coal producers, Arch Resources, has said it plans to sell or close its two coal mines in Campbell County: Coal Creek and Black Thunder.
Rep. John Bear (R-Gillette) and other local elected officials assured commissioners that they’re hearing pleas from their constituents to use every resource to fight the federal rules. If there is a lack of presence among coal companies themselves, Bear told WyoFile, it might be attributed to years of bad news and mounting pressures on the industry.
“The local [mining companies], most of those boards are located in St. Louis [Missouri] and they’re not interested in fighting this fight the way we’re going to have to fight it as government entities,” Bear said.
Wyoming Mining Association Executive Director Travis Deti, who could not attend the meeting, has said the mining companies rely on the association to speak on their behalf in the state, as well as other advocacy groups at the national level.
“As far as the Mining Association, which represents those companies, we’re fully engaged with our congressional delegation, with the governor’s office, with the Legislature, and we’re using every tool at our disposal to try to fight back on some of this stuff,” Deti told WyoFile by phone on Wednesday.
Some state and local officials are skeptical that the market has already spoken louder than the Biden administration. While some companies such as Arch Resources might not anticipate a future in Powder River Basin coal, others see an opportunity to apply carbon capture technologies and coal-to-products manufacturing — all of which is under threat by the BLM’s no future leasing proposal, according to Bear.
“Even if we’re forced to do it alone, other investors will see an opportunity,” Bear told WyoFile. “They have to see that somebody is fighting back right now.”
Bear said he worries that even some in Campbell County might not be aware of future opportunities for coal, or the dire consequences if the industry goes away completely.
“The rest of the country is going to be in trouble, too,” he said, adding that the rapid move to shut down coal plants presents an electric reliability issue. “Reliability is absolutely critical and that’s what this stuff provides.”
Though most coal miners and residents here squarely pin the blame for the coal industry’s decline on the Obama and Biden administrations, they’ve been burned by coal companies in the past.
Most infamously, Blackjewel in July 2019 abruptly closed its Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr coal mines — among the nation’s largest — leaving some 600 miners in limbo about whether they could return to work or collect paychecks. The company furloughed many workers and eventually brought others back as both mines resumed operations. But the company’s unannounced mine closures and subsequent bankruptcy left coal miners as well as local businesses and governments fighting to get paid for wages and taxes owed.
Arch Resources (then Arch Coal) and Peabody Energy separately announced massive layoffs on the same day in March 2016, cutting jobs for some 500 miners. Both companies subsequently shed billions of dollars in debt in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganizations.
NUCLEAR: Pacific Gas & Electric disputes advocates’ claims that operating the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant until 2030 will cost $12 billion as California lawmakers propose canceling a $400 million loan for the facility. (Newsweek, Associated Press)
SOLAR:
WIND: Developers bring a 152 MW wind facility online in southeast Idaho. (Idaho State Journal)
BIOFUELS: Northwest advocates look to block a proposed wood pellet plant’s air quality permit, saying regional regulators underestimated the Washington facility’s potential harmful emissions. (news release)
CLIMATE: A civil grand jury finds San Francisco lacks a comprehensive funding plan for climate adaptation and existing infrastructure is inadequate to handle worsening floods. (Los Angeles Times)
OIL & GAS:
PUBLIC LANDS:
CARBON CAPTURE: A Western governors’ group urges the Biden administration to “promote not impede” carbon capture deployment at power plants. (WyoFile)
TRANSITION:
COAL: Documents reveal Utah Gov. Spencer Cox ignored pleas from more than a dozen local officials and agencies to veto legislation aimed at taking ownership of an aging coal plant to keep it operating beyond its scheduled retirement. (Salt Lake Tribune)
CLEAN ENERGY: Local and state opposition to renewable energy projects is “widespread and growing,” with local governments putting 55 new moratoriums, bans, and other restrictions in place in the last year, Columbia University researchers find. (Utility Dive)
OVERSIGHT: The U.S. Senate confirms three nominees to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, filling the five-member board as it prepares to guide the nation’s grid buildout. (E&E News)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Oil and gas industry trade groups sue the U.S. EPA over its strengthened tailpipe emissions rules meant to drive electric vehicle manufacturing and sales. (The Hill)
GRID: Residential distributed energy resources like electric vehicles and at-home battery storage systems could allow utilities to meet growing power demand through 2035 without new generation, a consulting group finds. (Utility Dive)
SOLAR:
NATURAL GAS:
POLITICS: Former President Trump spent a third of his time on Capitol Hill this week talking about energy, a Republican senator says, repeating campaign talking points in favor of fossil fuels and against electric vehicles. (Politico)
WIND: Developers of the Revolution Wind project unveil the first U.S.-built ship designed specifically for offshore wind construction. (WPRI)
NUCLEAR: Pacific Gas & Electric disputes advocates’ claims that operating the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant until 2030 will cost $12 billion, as California lawmakers propose canceling a $400 million loan for the facility. (Newsweek, Associated Press)
BIOFUELS:
CARBON CAPTURE: A Western governors’ group urges the Biden administration to “promote not impede” carbon capture deployment at power plants. (WyoFile)
ACTIVISM: A Chicago permaculture expert, educator and climate advocate plants roots in a West Side neighborhood to build community gardens and promote greenspace that she says are essential to overall community health. (Energy News Network)
NATURAL GAS: Massachusetts lawmakers consider legislation that would require proposals to expand natural gas service to consider climate impacts and whether there are “less costly or less polluting alternatives.” (Boston Herald)
ALSO: Residents of a Pennsylvania community are seeking answers as chemicals used in fracking are suspected in a spike of cancer cases. (The Guardian)
SOLAR:
WIND:
BUILDINGS: Rhode Island lawmakers weigh competing bills to measure emissions from buildings, which advocates say will be critical to reducing the sector’s climate impact. (Rhode Island Current)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
TRANSPORTATION:
GRID: Developers of New England’s first utility-scale standalone energy storage facility say they have secured financing for construction. (Renewable Energy World)
UTILITIES: Maryland regulators reject a multi-year rate increase proposed by an Exelon subsidiary, saying that front-loading capital expenses “undermines regulatory review, and shifts risks to customers.” (Utility Dive)
COMMENTARY: The executive director of the Maine Port Authority defends the state’s decision to site an offshore wind staging facility at Sears Island, highlighting weaknesses of a competing site nearby. (Bangor Daily News)
EMISSIONS: North Carolina regulators receive hundreds of comments complaining Duke Energy’s plan to meet state emission goals arbitrarily limits solar and battery storage and relies too much on unproven hydrogen technology to justify building nearly 9 GW of new gas plants. (Energy News Network)
ALSO: Researchers measure levels of carcinogenic ethylene oxide up to 20 times higher than previously estimated in Louisiana’s industrialized “Cancer Alley.” (Associated Press)
PIPELINES:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
SOLAR:
GRID: Duke Energy power equipment in North Carolina is struck by gunfire, causing an oil leak, sparking a fire and prompting an FBI investigation a year and a half after a shooting attack on substations elsewhere in the state. (WRAL)
COAL ASH: The U.S. EPA’s recent update to its coal ash rules still relies on companies to self-report and propose fixes for ash storage sites, which could lead to inconsistent enforcement. (E&E News)
STORAGE: A Texas startup looks to sell distributed battery storage systems to customers with the intention of boosting the grid while providing customers a source of backup power. (San Antonio Express-News)
UTILITIES: A Florida municipal utility board votes down a motion to fire its general manager after a debate over reducing its capital and operating expenses. (Alachua Chronicle)
CLIMATE: A North Carolina researchers links intense heat and drought with a spike in emergency room visits by young people reporting mood disorders and suicide risks. (Inside Climate News)
POLITICS: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin questions whether a $21 million solar installation at the Pentagon might incorporate Chinese technology, despite Biden administration assurances the panels adhere to an executive order and “Made in America” laws. (WRIC)
COMMENTARY: Virginia regulators’ consideration of mitigation rules for certain solar farms ignores the development of new practices and technology, suggesting an eventual proposal won’t benefit anyone, writes an energy columnist. (Virginia Mercury)
WIND: New York officials break ground on an $861 million facility on Brooklyn’s waterfront to support construction of the Empire Wind project. (Spectrum News)
ALSO: Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey touts the state’s efforts to help students prepare for careers in the clean energy sector. (MV Times)
GRID: In a report released last week, New York’s grid operator warns of reliability concerns as fossil fuel retirements outpace new clean energy development, and data centers and other energy-intensive projects increase demand. (Reuters)
STORAGE:
TRANSPORTATION:
SOLAR:
CARBON CAPTURE: A Pennsylvania bill would allow development of underground carbon capture with consent of 60% of landowners, which advocates say is “setting the bar very low.” (Capital and Main)
HYDROPOWER: Industries push back on a proposal to remove four dams in Maine, which collectively could support nearly 47 MW of electricity, according to the company that owns them. (Bangor Daily News)
CLIMATE:
COMMENTARY: An editorial praises Maryland’s progress on reducing emissions, but says lawmakers need to do more to ensure the transition is affordable. (Baltimore Sun)
SOLAR: A conservation group’s new report identifies roughly 300,000 acres of polluted brownfield properties and former coal mining sites in Indiana that could host solar projects. (WFYI)
ALSO: Scientists at Iowa State University and elsewhere look for ways to blend solar power and agricultural production, such as at a project outside Lawrence, Kansas, where developers plan to incorporate sheep grazing. (Harvest Public Media)
OHIO:
GEOTHERMAL: A Minnesota school district is reducing its energy use with a geothermal system even after installing air conditioning for the first time. (Sahan Journal)
OIL & GAS: An Ohio nonprofit oil and gas watchdog group says the industry is increasing water withdrawals and waste production during hydraulic fracturing, becoming less efficient as well production declines. (Times Leader)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
EMISSIONS: Michigan agriculture regulators will monitor ozone levels in eight counties to help avoid elevated smog levels during the summer. (Bridge)
CLEAN ENERGY: Former Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes forms a new organization to help connect residents and businesses with clean energy funding available under the Inflation Reduction Act. (UpNorthNews)
COMMENTARY:
GRID: Amid concerns about how data center growth will affect the grid, Microsoft says it is committed to “paying its own way” when it comes to potential upgrades to power a planned Wisconsin facility. (WPR)
ALSO: Ohio regulators approve new transmission charges for AEP Ohio that consumer advocates say will sharply increase residential customers’ bills. (Dayton Daily News)
HYDROGEN: Minnesota-based 3M is investing in research that aims to lower the costs of producing green hydrogen and make it more competitive with renewables and fossil fuels. (Star Tribune)
OIL & GAS: Marathon seeks to remove air pollution permit limits and increase production at a Detroit refinery that has previously violated air quality laws multiple times. (Bridge Detroit)
CLIMATE: Michigan Republicans criticize the state attorney general’s effort to recruit private-sector attorneys to help pursue climate lawsuits against major fossil fuel companies. (Michigan Public)
PIPELINES: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is holding a pair of hearings today in Wisconsin on Enbridge’s request to reroute a portion of Line 5 around tribal land in northern Wisconsin. (Journal Sentinel)
POWER PLANTS:
SOLAR: Converting farmland to commercial solar projects could be a sticking point in the upcoming federal Farm Bill, though advocates say solar and farming can coexist under agrivoltaics practices. (E&E News, subscription)
EFFICIENCY:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
Solar developers will pay a premium to build projects on prime farmland under new rules in the works in Maine.
The state Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry is drafting the rules based on a 2023 law that authorized it to collect extra fees from developers whose projects impact at least 5 acres of “high-value agricultural soils,” which regulators will define in rulemaking underway this summer.
The program could involve a range of new fees for different kinds of farmland and project impacts, with money being set aside for “farmland conservation and solar mitigation projects.” Proponents hope the rules will push renewable energy development toward areas with less conservation value.
“We would much rather see balanced solar siting than full-out moratoriums on solar energy development,” said Shelley Megquier, the policy and research director for Maine Farmland Trust, which supported the legislation authorizing the new rules.
Critics, though, say the rules unfairly single out solar based only on anecdotal evidence of the industry’s impact on farmland. A recent report by the American Farmland Trust projected that low-density housing and other types of urban sprawl threaten to swallow more than 53,000 acres, or 5% of all Maine farmland, by 2040.
The law also authorized the development of a similar scheme for wind and transmission projects that affect certain kinds of fish and wildlife habitat.
Some advocates say the new fees single out renewables without clear evidence that a use like solar puts prime farmland more at risk than any other kind of development.
“The narrative around this has really been: how can we protect high-value farmland from solar development?” said Lindsay Bourgoine, the policy director for ReVision Energy, a major New England solar developer. “ReVision has a really big concern about the lack of data around that narrative.”
Maine’s climate plan includes a goal of moving to 100% renewable electricity by 2040, and also aims to put 30% of the state’s land into conservation easements, including for farming, by 2030.
The state has already built close to a gigawatt of solar, most of it in smaller-scale projects. The five-acre minimum covered by the new compensation fees can support about a megawatt of solar.
Bourgoine’s company estimates that even if all of Maine’s existing solar projects under 5 megawatts had gone on prime agricultural lands, it would cover less than half a percent of all such land across the state. A recent report from the Center for Rural Affairs estimated a similar proportion for solar in Midwest states.
Groups that supported Maine’s new fee rules agreed that they hope legislators and state policymakers will turn their focus in the near future to both gathering more land-use data, and to considering expanding mitigation tools to uses that may be more common, such as housing, commercial development or roads.
“If we’re talking about environmental impacts, we’re requiring mitigation of the one type of development that is benefiting the environment,” said conservation biologist and GIS manager Sarah Haggerty of Maine Audubon, which supported the bill to create the clean energy fee programs.
Absent better data, Megquier said farmers and farm conservation groups like hers can only go on what they observe — which is “farmland being converted for solar production in pretty large amounts,” she said.
“Some of that (is) what we would categorize as really high-value farmland, where unfortunately it’s being lost to agricultural production,” she said. “There may be farmers that would be interested in accessing that land to grow food for our communities.”
Andy Smith and his partner run The Milkhouse dairy farm in Monmouth, Maine. They have their own small solar array and sit close to a power substation, and so have fielded extensive interest from solar developers who want to rent and build on some of their land. Some have offered more than $1,000 an acre for a 30-year lease, he said.
Smith said he’s strongly supportive of an energy transition and sees frequent effects of increasing weather extremes on his farm. But he said solar is tough competition for farmers who lease or buy space from other landowners, often to grow hay to feed dairy cows like Smith’s.
“If young people are trying to buy farmland, and they’re competing with solar developers, they’re not going to be able to buy farmland,” he said.
For farmers that affirmatively want solar on their land, Megquier’s group hopes the new fee structure will incentivize projects to go on “marginal” land that’s less productive, unforested or disconnected from large active growing areas.
“We hope that … this rulemaking takes those sorts of complexities into account,” she said. “We would want to see permitting for a solar development that supports current agricultural operation as sort of fast-tracked or, in some way, expedited.”
ReVision supports a similar outcome.
“We would just say that a landowner should have the default ability to be able to site solar on their property if the purpose of it is for revenue diversification to keep the farm in operation,” Bourgoine said.
Evelyn Norton is one such landowner. Her father raised dairy cows and harvested hay to feed them on her family’s farm in Livermore Falls, Maine. As that business declined and her dad got older, Norton said she realized, realistically, that she and her sister “were not going to be out on the tractors haying… and so we realized we needed to figure out what else we could do to bring income into the farm.”
Numerous solar developers had contacted the family about putting an array on their land. Many were eyeing a particular flat, treeless area, close to grid infrastructure, with sandy soil. It had been the least productive plot for hay on the farm, Norton said.
“Someone referred to it as a Walt Disney solar farm property,” Norton said. “It was just like it was designed to be a solar array.”
Her family worked with ReVision to build a community solar array on that 20 acres, covering about 15% of the farm’s total area. The grass beneath the panels is grazed by sheep, and the array provides power to five school districts — a nod to Evelyn’s mother, who was a long-time teacher.
Annual lease payments now provide the farm’s largest source of revenue, supplemented by various other agricultural uses, such as tree-growing and a farmer who rents space for his cattle.
“We’re still wanting to stay as a one-unit farm and not have to sell off piece by piece. This allows us to do that,” Norton said. “It gives us the security to know that 135 acres is protected because of the 20 acres.”
Norton worries that the new fee structure, if not designed with the right exceptions, could prevent some farmers from using solar as she did to keep her farm viable.
Some advocates said they hope the rules will primarily help balance solar development costs so that farmland isn’t automatically the cheapest option.
Smith, the dairy farmer in Monmouth, said he hopes at least the new fees will encourage development on “lower-quality soils.” But it’s easier said than done — these soils may be less well drained, for example, and contain areas classified as wetlands, leading to more regulatory complications.
“It just often feels like, you know, a (good) solar site is going to be on well drained soil with southern exposure, which is also the best farmland there is,” he said.
“We sincerely hope that this effort will not have a chilling effect… and, in some cases… could assist solar companies in terms of the predictability,” Megquier said. “The current structure is really not a structure. It’s very … project-to-project. And that is not to the benefit of advancing our conservation goals, nor is it to the benefit of advancing our renewable energy goals.”
Under the new rules, regulators will have to define “dual-use agricultural and solar production,” such as agrivoltaics projects where crops and solar are co-located. Megquier hopes the new fees will incentivize this approach.
For Smith, dual-use methods are the best hope for easing rural and neighbor backlash to solar energy, which he worries will slow its growth as a tool for fighting climate change.
“It would really suck if the whole solar industry got like a black eye because of developing these open spaces,” he said.
Haggerty, with Maine Audubon, said increasing costs for building on farmland could make more costly solar sites — including brownfields and developed spaces — more appealing for builders by comparison.
“It may very well be that this legislation balances out some of those costs, you know — if you’re gonna have to mitigate… ag land or wildlife habitat, maybe it makes that brownfield more affordable, and it’s not as much cheaper to go elsewhere,” she said. “That’s one of the things that we hope to see.”
The state is currently gathering stakeholder input on a draft farmland rule expected out this summer. The Maine legislature will have to approve the eventual fee structures, which will apply to solar arrays that begin construction after Sept. 1, 2024.
WIND: An energy and port services company says the state won’t consider their alternative offshore wind port plan, which they say would be cheaper and not have land use concerns like the state’s preferred site on Sears Island. (Portland Press Herald)
ALSO:
GAS: A Massachusetts firm wants to invest $100 million to build an anaerobic digestion facility in Pennsylvania’s Adams County to turn food waste into gas. (Fox 43)
SOLAR:
GRID:
TRANSPORTATION:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
BUILDINGS: A Maine firm will soon open a new assembly line process to manufacture 25 – 50 prefabricated homes that meet passive house standards every year. (Bangor Daily News)
WORKFORCE: Three Massachusetts schools will share a $3.4 million grant to provide clean energy job exposure and training to underserved students . (Mass Live)
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