Eastern Montana Lawmakers Sponsor Bills Seeking to Restrict Wind Development
Opponents say wind turbine setback bill would ‘kill’ new wind development in Montana
By Amanda Eggert for Montana Free Press
Two Republican lawmakers representing rural eastern Montana districts are sponsoring bills to restrict where new wind turbines can be built and how tall they can be.
Proponents of the proposals argue they will reduce wind farms’ impact on neighboring landowners and communities. Opponents counter that the bills will stifle a growing but underdeveloped Montana industry — and tax base — by making utility-scale wind development a less profitable, if not nearly impossible, enterprise.
Under House Bill 389, sponsored by House Speaker Brandon Ler, R-Savage, new wind turbines would have to be built 3,000 feet from a public road or highway and 1.5 miles from a neighboring landowner’s property line unless that landowner is also party to a wind-lease agreement.
During a February 10 hearing before the House Energy, Technology and Federal Relations Committee, Ler and the bill’s four proponents said the legislation would address some of the noise, aesthetic and property value-related concerns raised by neighboring landowners.
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Casey Mott, a Custer County rancher who also serves as a regional director for the Montana Farm Bureau Federation (MFBF), said his opposition is informed by his experience living near a wind farm built “right up on the property line,” and for which he does not receive “any of the economic benefit.” Mott argued that cattle don’t like to be around the wind turbines. He told the committee he’d rather not work young horses with “them damn things going off,” and he’d like to spare other Montanans his fate.
“The things are noisy in the summertime,” he added. “There’s a cooling engine that [makes it sound] like you’re living right by an airport. … When you’re on a ranch, that’s the last thing you want to have.”
MFBF state affairs coordinator Karli Johnson said that while her organization is generally supportive of wind-generated power as an alternative form of electricity, the federation also wants the Legislature to begin a discussion on setbacks. The association’s membership includes a variety of perspectives on wind development, she added.
“We have members that have wind leases, we have members that have neighbors that have wind leases, and we have members that don’t,” she said. “We appreciate that you all are having a conversation around this.”
To opponents, the bill would hinder a burgeoning industry and the tax collections that go with it. HB 389 opponents argued that Montana needs all of the electricity generation it can develop as the country grapples with growing power demands from the rise of artificial intelligence and other energy-intensive enterprises.
Bruce Spencer, who identified himself as lobbying on behalf of the Montana Energy Business Alliance, described the setbacks as a “punitive” measure that will hamper attempts to address Montana’s “energy crisis.” He also took issue with the creation of a “state mandate over local decision-making and input.”
“What’s at risk here is over $4 billion — that’s with a ‘b’ — $4 billion of investment in the state of Montana,” Spencer told committee members, adding that he was using 2023 data and that figure may have grown since.
“Wind and solar projects have paid over $143 million to date in property taxes. All of that goes away if this bill is passed, and I’m not doing hyperbole. Every single developer I spoke with said, ‘We can’t meet these standards and they will kill the projects.’”
County commissioners from two eastern Montana counties also provided input on the bill, albeit on opposing sides.
Lobbying on behalf of the Rosebud County Commission, Shelby Demars argued that the county’s tax coffers benefit from wind development, which bolsters the general fund and helps pay for road maintenance. Passing the bill would send the wrong message about Montana’s business climate, she added.
Darin Miske with the Wibaux County Commission countered that wind farms are “invasive” and devalue land.
“You got to look at both sides of the [property rights issue],” he said. “Who pays for the devaluation of land if these go in wherever the wind industry wants them to go in? I have yet to see anybody write a check to their neighbors saying, ‘I’m sorry we devalued your land. Here’s a settlement for it,’” Miske said.
Miske also described the zoning ordinance Wibaux County passed to address residents’ concerns with wind energy. New wind towers in Wibaux County have to be 1,250 feet from neighboring property lines, he said.
As of February 24, the House Energy, Technology and Federal Relations Committee has not taken executive action on HB 389.
Senator Bob Phalen, a Republican from Glendive who represents the Legislature’s largest geographic district, is sponsoring Senate Bill 283.
Like the Ler proposal, which Phalen co-sponsored, SB 283 is short at just two pages. It limits new wind towers to 350 feet in height and prohibits them from being “excessively lit.”
SB 283 garnered a similar roster of opponents to those who testified at the HB 389 hearing. Opponents included the Montana Environmental Information Center, the Montana Chamber of Commerce and Puget Sound Energy, a utility that ships energy from Montana’s largest existing wind farm to its customers in western Washington. Pattern Energy, which plans to break ground on a 600-megawatt wind project in Rosebud and Treasure counties later this year, also expressed opposition to both bills.
At the February 18 hearing for SB 283, Spencer argued that the restriction “precludes the most modern and efficient technologies and constrains the efficient use of the land.”
“If you have a height restriction, more turbines have to be built for each project, so there will be more turbines on the ground, not less,” he said.
Puget Sound Energy lobbyist Dan Stusek said his client is “proud to invest in Montana’s all-of-the-above energy economy,” including the Colstrip coal-fired power plant, a facility the utility has co-owned for decades but will soon exit.
Stusek continued that Montana has “some of the best wind resources in the nation” and the Beaver Creek wind project PSE is developing won’t come online as quickly as anticipated if it’s expected to comply with the bill’s “aggressive mandate around timing.” In addition to requiring that the turbines not be “excessively lit,” the measure requires FAA-approved aircraft detection lighting systems to be installed on all wind turbines taller than 200 feet by next January.
Once it’s operational, Beaver Creek is anticipated to contribute $1.8 million to local and state tax collections per year as well as $7 million in impact fee payments for Stillwater County, Stusek added.
Proponents of SB 283 highlighted a range of impacts to the environment and neighboring communities.
Dawson County resident and former state legislator Ric Holden, one of the bill’s two proponents, argued that the state is facing a “wind tower industrial complex that is completely out of control.” Holden expressed concern about wind developments’ footprint and impact on property values.
Holden produced a graphic demonstrating that modern wind installations are taller than the Space Needle in Seattle.
“There is only one chance — one chance — to stop this madness, and that’s right here,” Holden continued. “If you do not do anything to limit the size of these wind towers, they are going in.”
Carbon County resident Lisa Bennett focused her remarks on environmental impacts ranging from wind blades shedding carbon fiber material to wind farms’ use of toxic materials such as BPA, a plastic that has since been banned in many products, and PFAS, a type of “forever chemical” that doesn’t break down in the environment.
“The reason I’m a proponent of the bill [and] opposed to the wind turbines is the bigger they are, the more of an environmental impact they will have,” Bennett said.
The Senate Energy, Telecommunications Committee has not taken executive action on SB 283 as of February 24. The transmittal deadline for both bills to pass to the opposite chamber is March 7.
Hey, let's just go back to the telegram and the Pony Express, while we're at it. Wonder how much Big Oil is paying those guys.