Wyoming Infrastructure Authority

Freudenthal Raises Power Line Siting Issue With Feds
Gov. talks energy in D.C.

By JEREMY PELZER - Star-Tribune capital bureau - with wire reports | Posted: Thursday, February 4, 2010 12:00 am |

CHEYENNE — During a White House meeting on Wednesday, Gov. Dave Freudenthal advocated erasing federal requirements that power companies seeking to build transmission lines on public land must first examine alternate routes on private land.

Freudenthal and 10 other state governors also discussed coal usage, carbon sequestration and a wide range of other energy topics during the meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Freudenthal raised the power line siting issue after hearing concerns last week from Lincoln County residents over the proposed route of new transmission lines through the area.

The lines would be part of the Gateway West Transmission Line Project, a proposed $2 billion, 1,150-mile power line that would carry electricity to customers in Wyoming, Idaho and other western states. The project is a joint venture between Rocky Mountain Power and Idaho Power.

Scheduled to be completed by 2014, Gateway West has faced delays as landowners in Lincoln and Converse counties, as well as in east-central Wyoming and Idaho, have opposed the proposed route of the power lines.

“The problem … does come up on every single project,” said Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen. “Where private land is involved, we are asked by private landowners, ‘Why can’t you use public lands?’”

Eskelsen said while the exact route of the lines is still being worked out and the power companies have usually been able to find alternate routes on private land, the Gateway West transmission lines will end up crossing over some federal land.

But with landowners’ concerns in mind, Freudenthal wants reforms that would erase the priority given to public lands in laying out power lines, said gubernatorial spokesman Jonathan Green.

Instead of simply favoring the construction of transmission lines on private land instead of public lands, Green said, power line routes should be determined using a variety of other factors, such as the environmental impact, cost and the impact on local residents.

Without addressing the power line siting issue specifically, Freudenthal said in a prepared statement that “there were a lot of good things said by the federal government” during the White House meeting.

“I just have to wait and see if any of it happens,” he said in the statement.

A Forest Service spokeswoman said no one was available for comment late Wednesday afternoon.

Freudenthal said he and the other state governors also held a “broad discussion” on a wide variety of energy topics, with “quite a bit of emphasis” on coal utilization and carbon capture and sequestration. The latter issue deals with the idea of reducing fossil fuel emissions released into the atmosphere by diverting and storing them underground.

Many of the governors were from coal- and corn-producing states, and were invited to the White House as Obama seeks to rally support for a languishing energy bill and bolster his image as a leader willing to work with Republicans as well as Democrats.

“There’s no reason we can’t work on a bipartisan way to get this done,” Obama told governors in the White House State Dining Room.

A presidential task force on energy on Wednesday recommended more aid for the biofuel industry with a combination of federal dollars and private-sector investments. The United States’ current production of 12 billion gallons annually is hardly the 36 billion that federal lawmakers have mandated by 2022.

Obama also announced a new task force to study coal’s role in the nation’s energy needs.

Energy has served as a major plank of the president’s domestic agenda, finding places on his travel schedule, in his speeches and in his budget proposal released on Monday. In that plan, Obama’s team called for tangible accomplishments that Democrats can champion as they head into a 2010 campaign season that has become more perilous since Republican Scott Brown won a special election to replace the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Officials said their recommendations would build on some $786 million allocated for environmental projects ranging from ethanol research to pilot programs at biorefineries. The plans also would mesh with Obama’s budget proposal, which called for ending oil and gas subsidies, a move that could save $36.5 billion over a decade.

Besides Freudenthal, Wednesday’s meeting included Republican Govs. Jim Douglas of Vermont — the chairman of the National Governors Association — Bob Riley of Alabama and Mike Rounds of South Dakota.

Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer of coal-rich Montana and six other Democratic governors also attended.

Contact capital bureau reporter Jeremy Pelzer at 307-632-1244 or jeremy.pelzer@trib.com

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
February 03, 2010

Presidential Memorandum — A Comprehensive Federal Strategy on Carbon Capture and Storage

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE
THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR
THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE
THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE
THE SECRETARY OF LABOR
THE SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION
THE SECRETARY OF ENERGY
THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT
AND BUDGET
THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY
THE CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY
COMMISSION
THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY POLICY
THE CHAIR OF THE COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL
QUALITY

SUBJECT: A Comprehensive Federal Strategy on Carbon
Capture and Storage

For decades, the coal industry has supported quality high-paying jobs for American workers, and coal has provided an important domestic source of reliable, affordable energy. At the same time, coal-fired power plants are the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and coal accounts for 40 percent of global emissions. Charting a path toward clean coal is essential to achieving my Administration’s goals of providing clean energy, supporting American jobs, and reducing emissions of carbon pollution. Rapid commercial development and deployment of clean coal technologies, particularly carbon capture and storage (CCS), will help position the United States as a leader in the global clean energy race.

My Administration is already pursuing a set of concrete initiatives to speed the commercial development of safe, affordable, and broadly deployable CCS technologies. We have made the largest Government investment in carbon capture and storage of any nation in history, and these investments are being matched by private capital. The Department of Energy is conducting a comprehensive clean coal technology program including research, development, and demonstration of CCS technologies and is pursuing important international cooperative initiatives to spur demonstration and deployment of CCS. The Environmental Protection Agency is developing regulations that address the safety, efficacy, and environmental soundness of injecting and storing carbon dioxide underground. The Department of the Interior is assessing, in coordination with the Department of Energy, the country’s geologic capacity to store carbon dioxide and promoting geological storage demonstration projects on public lands. All of this work builds on the firm scientific basis that now exists for the viability of CCS technology.

To further this work and develop a comprehensive and coordinated Federal strategy to speed the commercial development and deployment of clean coal technologies, I hereby establish an Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage (Task Force). You shall each designate a senior official from your respective agency to serve on the Task Force, which shall be Co Chaired by the designees from the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Task Force shall develop within 180 days of the date of this memorandum a proposed plan to overcome the barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS within 10 years, with a goal of bringing 5 to 10 commercial demonstration projects online by 2016. The plan should explore incentives for commercial CCS adoption and address any financial, economic, technological, legal, institutional, social, or other barriers to deployment. The Task Force should consider how best to coordinate existing administrative authorities and programs, including those that build international collaboration on CCS, as well as identify areas where additional administrative authority may be necessary. The Co Chairs shall report progress periodically to the President through the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality.

Ultimately, comprehensive energy and climate legislation that puts a cap on carbon pollution will provide the largest incentive for CCS because it will create stable, long-term, market-based incentives to channel private investment in low carbon technologies. My Administration’s new CCS strategy will pave the way for this energy transition by identifying and removing barriers to rapid commercial deployment and by providing greater legal and regulatory clarity. This will help to spur private investment in CCS in the near term — investment that will create good jobs and benefit communities.

This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

The Secretary of Energy is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

2/1/2010

****** For Immediate Release ******

Contact: Press Secretary Jonathan Green

Phone: 307-777-7437
Mobile: 307-421-0197

E-mail: jgreen3@state.wy.us

Governor Freudenthal promotes wind project legislation

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Problems associated with the massive development of Wyoming wind energy “are simply opportunities dressed in work clothes,” according to Gov. Dave Freudenthal.

“With proper ground rules, wind energy can generate income for the agricultural community, help diversify Wyoming’s economy and tax base and perhaps become a significant source of employment,” the Governor continued. Freudenthal has scheduled an 11 a.m. news conference today to discuss four proposals for the Legislature to consider:

(1) Strengthening the Wyoming Industrial Information and Siting Act to ensure adequate bonding or other financial assurances so that the facility will be operated properly from initial site construction, through operation, decommissioning and eventual reclamation.

(2) Providing minimum state standards and enhancing county permitting requirements for the proper siting of wind facilities, such as setbacks from homes, roads and towns.

(3) Imposing a $3.00 per megawatt hour excise tax on wind energy produced in Wyoming, with a provision to send 40 percent of the revenues to local governments, and 60 percent to the state General Fund. The tax would return an estimated total of $5.9 million per year to the six counties where wind projects are already in operation. Converse County would receive the largest share of that figure, an estimated $2.25 million in 2011. In the aggregate this is believed to equate to a 5 percent excise tax.

(4) Suspending the power of condemnation for one year where it might be used to gain access to private lands to construct wind energy collector lines (those lines that tie the wind farm to the electric grid) and asking the Legislature to study the issue before adopting a permanent solution.

Freudenthal praised the Wind Task Force created by the 2009 legislative session for its policy recommendations to improve the Wyoming Industrial Information and Siting Act and local government permitting requirements.

“During the last legislative session, we all knew it was time for a long, hard look at wind development in Wyoming,” Freudenthal said.

“With representatives from across the spectrum, from local governments to the wind industry itself, we all got an education and, ultimately, a first cut at some meaningful changes that will hopefully lead to better planning and more involvement from local governments and private citizens on the front end of these projects,” the Governor said. Proposals (1) and (2) are a direct result of the Wind Task Force Report.

“Wind energy developers should pay an excise tax based on the amount of power generated with a large share of the revenue returned to the county of origin. A production tax moves towards a level playing field for all Wyoming energy producers and helps diversify Wyoming’s tax base. While wind energy is one of the heroes of the former Vice President’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’ and it enjoys a most favored position in the federal tax code, we must remember that it remains a profit oriented business that should be treated the same as other energy producers,” Freudenthal said.

The Governor is concerned with the broad powers of condemnation wind developers enjoy when building transmission lines from the wind farm to the electrical grid because the developers are, by their nature, merchant ventures.

“I doubt that most legislators or citizens understand the degree to which current state eminent domain law favors the merchant developer over the private property rights of the landowner. This tends to weaken the landowner’s position during negotiations. It also encourages building lines on private rather than public lands since condemnation cannot be used against federal or state land interests,” Freudenthal said.

Citing a need to “take a breath” on the question of condemnation, Freudenthal noted his hope “that the right of condemnation for collector systems could be suspended for a year so the Legislature can define appropriate sideboards for the exercise of eminent domain by wind developers, particularly tied to the issue of landowner compensation.”

“The increasingly heated discussions around wind projects and power lines are just the beginning. We must develop a set of fair rules that protect Wyoming people while providing certainty to wind developers. The wind energy development problems can be addressed by taking this opportunity to do right by Wyoming. And opportunity seldom knocks twice,” Freudenthal said.

-30-

Jonathan Green
Press Secretary,
Office of Gov. Dave Freudenthal
307-777-7437 Desk
307-421-0197 Mobile
** This email may be subject to public records disclosure law and hence may be released to third parties.

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

A southeast Wyoming landowners group is urging public officials to place a moratorium on commercial-scale wind farms in the northern Laramie Range and consider permanently banning industrial developments above certain elevations.

The 600-member Northern Laramie Range Alliance on Tuesday warned a Converse County planning committee that ranchers will face “chaotic and uncontrolled energy and transmission development” if officials do not restrict such projects in the rugged mountain terrain.

The alliance is petitioning the five-member planning and zoning commission to place a three-month moratorium on new large-scale industrial projects and pass zoning rules permanently banning such development at elevations above 5,500 feet.

“There’s a very strong tradition here that respects private property,” said Ken Lay, a founding member of the alliance who serves on the group’s steering committee. “We need a moratorium until the public and county government has had enough time to consider a permanent solution to this issue.”

Earlier efforts by the alliance to halt wind development across a broader area of the county were rejected by Converse officials who determined that such a moratorium would likely face a legal challenge. Converse is one of only a few Wyoming counties that has no zoning laws, a hands-off approach that has traditionally been welcomed by landowners.

But public sentiment appears to be shifting as energy developers look to the Laramie Range as a potential location for new wind turbines.

Industrial wind projects “would require construction of vast and intrusive supporting infrastructure, including roads, substations and transmission lines,” the group’s petition reads.

Large projects would also threaten the quality of hunting and fishing in mountainous areas home to spruce, Douglas fir and aspen trees, as well as vast stretches of open range, Lay said.

“We’d like to have this southwest corner of the county — where all the recreational opportunities exist — declared off-limits to industrial wind,” he said, adding that many ranchers depend on revenue generated by hunting and fishing fees.

The high plains of northern Converse, by contrast, would be ideal for wind power development, Lay said. Those areas are typically held by fewer landowners and do not have the same mixed-use history, he added.

The alliance’s latest proposal was narrowed to include only high-elevation areas south and west of Interstate 25. While the exact acreage is unknown, Lay estimated the area to be no more than one-fifth of the 4,254-acre county.

“There’s a balanced approach here that we’re looking for,” he said.

David Pellatz, vice chairman of the commission, said Tuesday’s standing-room-only crowd of 150 was a reflection of how important the issue is to Converse residents, but that the diversity of opinions underscored the challenge facing the commission.

“This is just one of a string of hearings and other meetings we’ve held to get a sense of where the county wants to go with this issue,” Pellatz said.

The board will now decide whether to recommend the proposal to the county commissioners, decline it, or recommend an amended version. Pellatz said he was unsure when a decision would be made but cautioned that similar industrial zoning recommendations made by his board to the county commission have all failed.

“They’ve been fairly blunt that the recommendations we’ve been sending them are a waste of their time,” he said.

Curbing renewable energy rush
What southeast Wyoming lacks in tradition mineral resources it makes up for with winds that howl from Casper to Laramie.

With up to 15,000 megawatts of wind power potential — enough to power some 5 million homes — developers have flocked to the Cowboy State in hopes of profiting from a lucrative market for renewable energy subsidized by federal tax incentives.

Firms have already submitted more than 90 wind monitoring applications covering some 1.5 million acres of federal land, said Janelle Wrigley, of the Bureau of Land Management’s Wyoming office. Collectively, those applications would translate into 34 million acres if fully developed.

The agency is reviewing six applications for commercial-scale wind farms, Wrigley added. Meanwhile, Converse saw its fourth farm — Duke Energy Corp.’s 99-megawatt Campbell Hill project — come online last month under a 20-year contract that will send the power west to markets in Utah and Oregon.

But while many in Wyoming welcome wind farms for their economic development potential, some ranchers and landowners have fought against the placement of turbines, transmission lines and other energy infrastructure on pristine mountain landscapes.

Under intense pressure from the alliance, developers of the $2 billion, 1,150-mile Gateway West Transmission Line last year decided to reroute the project west of the Laramie Range instead of crossing over to its eastern slope.

Lay counts that decision as a victory for his group but said he is worried many landowners are now selling rights-of-way to a Utah developer seeking to build a major wind farm on the range.

“The independent companies approach landowners pretty much in secret to sign them up,” he said. “They create a kind of fait accompli.”

In addition to landowner resistance, wind power developments in Wyoming are restricted by a state mandate to protect sage grouse “core areas” deemed essential to the survival of the chicken-like bird.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to announce next month whether to list the bird as a federally protected species, a decision that could cripple the expansion of wind farms and other large-scale development projects in Wyoming.

Saving the ranch
As opposition mounts in places like Converse County, several pro-development groups have formed to promote wind farms, touting their clean energy benefits, job creation and added local revenue.

Bob Whitton, chairman of the Renewable Energy Alliance of Landowners, argued against the zoning petition at Tuesday’s hearing, saying recreational opportunities would be preserved if ranch owners could generate revenue from wind power agreements. Without such income, many would be forced to sell their lands to residential developers who would impose a much wider and long-lasting mark on the land, he said.

“Our position as landowners is that we have a right to do what we want on our deeded land,” he said, echoing Lay’s argument for property rights. “But they want to be able to reach across the fence lines and say, ‘You can’t build a wind farm because it would be in my view.’”

REAL’s 300 members own 800,000 acres in six counties, including areas considered ripe for wind power development. Depending on the size of the ranch and the turbines involved, ranchers stand to gain up to $8,000 per tower annually, Whitton said.

“Cattle ranching is a very risky business,” he said. “They make money some years, they lose money in others.” And for many, supplementary income from wind power agreements is needed just to keep the business afloat.

Moreover, Whitton added, in addition to exporting coal, oil and gas, and beef, Wyoming is also exporting high school and college graduates. Promoting wind development in the state could create service and manufacturing jobs needed to stanch the flow of young Wyoming natives, he said.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D), a proponent of wind energy development, has said he is sensitive to those who want to direct the massive turbines to certain areas, but he has cautioned against unreasoned opposition.

“You can’t come to me and say, ‘Governor, we want to support alternative energy, but that power line — I just don’t want them,’” he told attendees of the Wyoming Wind Symposium last August. “The state has to be careful that it keeps a fair and open playing field so that people can build those power lines. Because without power lines, all of the things we’re talking about won’t happen.”

But Freudenthal also called on energy firms “to do a little more” to aid in the state’s economic development. “We expect them to talk about manufacturing plants being in Wyoming, we expect construction facilities to be in Wyoming and we expect the jobs to be in Wyoming.”

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By MATT JOYCE - Associated Press writer | Posted: Thursday, January 21, 2010 12:00 am

CHEYENNE — Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal said he’s working with lawmakers on a proposal for the upcoming Legislature to tax wind energy production.

Freudenthal’s pursuit of a wind tax bill follows a November vote by the Joint Revenue Committee against sponsoring two bills to tax wind energy generation.

The governor said a wind tax would level the playing field.

“All of the other sources of energy pay to contribute, to help build the state, and it’s only fair,” Freudenthal said. “One of the things I want to do in this bill is to return a big chunk of the revenue back to the counties where the turbines are located, because they have to maintain the roads and they have to do all of that.”

Freudenthal wouldn’t discuss specifics of a potential new wind tax bill during an interview last week or name the legislators he’s working with.

The Wyoming Power Producers Coalition, a wind industry group, planned to meet with the governor’s office today to discuss the wind tax issue, said Cheryl Riley, the group’s executive director. The coalition planned to present some “numbers and concepts” requested by the governor, she said.

She said the group’s position on a wind tax will depend on the specifics.

“All along we’ve said that we want to be part of a solution figuring this out,” Riley said.

Wyoming wind farms currently pay property tax, and when an exemption sunsets at the end of 2011, wind developers will begin paying sales tax on equipment.

The two bills the Joint Revenue Committee voted down would have implemented a state tax on electricity generation while also providing exemptions and credits so other power generators, such as coal-fired power plants, would ultimately break even.

Wind industry representatives told committee members that the proposals would increase costs for Wyoming households and hurt the wind industry.

Freudenthal said the previous proposal died because it was too confusing. He said his renewed effort “may or may not work.”

“It’s a new idea,” Freudenthal said. “If you look at it, there’s a whole set of new issues surrounding wind that we have to figure out the principle of on our terms.”

Posted in State-and-regional, Energy on Thursday, January 21, 2010 12:00 am Updated: 10:45 pm. | Tags: Wyoming, News, State, Regional, Wind, Wind Energy, Taxes, Dave Freudenthal, Legislature