It’s Time to End Wind and Solar’s Free Ride on Federal Lands
It’s Time to End Wind and Solar’s Free Ride on Federal Lands
Finishing the Free Ride
On Tuesday, July 29th, the U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the agency would be “curbing preferential treatment for unreliable, subsidy-dependent wind and solar energy.” The One Big Beautiful Bill Act starts to roll back the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) lavish financial incentives, but wind and solar are still getting a free ride on federal lands.
Here is one suggestion for the Interior Department: require renewables projects to pay a federal royalty that is shared with the states, just like oil, natural gas, and coal.
Coal, oil, and natural gas produced on federal land are subject to royalties, a tax which takes between 12.5 percent and 18.75 percent of the natural resources’ taxable value. These royalties generated $12.8 billion in revenues for American taxpayers in 2024, and these revenues are typically shared fifty-fifty with the states, ensuring locals share in the financial benefits from natural resource development in their backyards. These revenue-sharing agreements provide important revenue streams for Western states where the federal government is a large landowner.
Take Wyoming, a state where 48 percent of the land is owned and managed by the federal government. Always On Energy Research and the Wyoming Liberty Group determined that wind and solar projects contribute much less in tax revenues on an energy equivalent basis than oil, natural gas, and coal.
Wyoming levies a state tax of just $1 per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity produced by wind turbines built on privately owned lands, and solar generation is not taxed at all. Oil pays nearly $11.72 per MWh in federal and state taxes, while natural gas pays nearly $3.72 per MWh, and coal $1.71 per MWh.
https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/5294cd75...","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":325,"width":554,"resizeWidth":646,"bytes":46337,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/png","href":null,"belowTheFold":true,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":"https://energybadboys.substack.com/i/169879082?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5294cd75-5b15-4242-89d2-9f883e34d161_554x325.png","isProcessing":false,"align":null,"offset":false}" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!JPBu!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5294cd75-5b15-4242-89d2-9f883e34d161_554x325.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!JPBu!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5294cd75-5b15-4242-89d2-9f883e34d161_554x325.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!JPBu!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5294cd75-5b15-4242-89d2-9f883e34d161_554x325.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!JPBu!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5294cd75-5b15-4242-89d2-9f883e34d161_554x325.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy" class="sizing-normal" />
Over the next five years, Wyoming’s wind capacity is expected to double. Unsurprisingly, wind developers are seeking to build 60 percent of these projects on federal lands because it allows them to avoid paying Wyoming’s $1 per MWh tax on wind generation while still building new wind generation in the state.
If DOI were to levy a modest three percent royalty on wind and solar generation on federal lands—still less than the lowest royalties on coal, oil, or natural gas—it could yield $12.5 million for the state of Wyoming, and $13 million for the federal government per year, by 2030.
https://energybadboys.substack.com/p/its-time-to-end-wind-and-solar...","text":"Share","action":null,"class":null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" class="button-wrapper">Share
It's not just that wind and solar can operate royalty-free on federal land. The Biden administration had given wind and solar developers an 80 percent-off sweetheart deal on fees for leasing lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
Luckily, the Trump Interior Department is walking that rule back, with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum noting the move will ensure “taxpayers get the maximum return from the responsible use of our public lands.” That’s the right approach, and the administration should scour its rules, including resource management plans, for the prioritization of wind and solar projects over other worthwhile uses of federal lands.
If oil, natural gas, and coal developers are expected to pay for the privilege of extracting resources from federal lands, it’s only fair that wind and solar developers pay for the privilege to tap into wind currents and harvest solar rays. Western states like Wyoming shouldn’t be left empty-handed when their federal lands are poached by subsidized wind and solar projects. A federal royalty on wind and solar would help ensure that public resources serve the public good rather than the politically favored.
Subscribe to Energy Bad Boys
Views: 3
Comment
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
Not yet a member?
Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?
We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
-- Mahatma Gandhi
"It's not whether you get knocked down: it's whether you get up."
Vince Lombardi
Task Force membership is free. Please sign up today!
Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
© 2025 Created by Webmaster.
Powered by
You need to be a member of Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine to add comments!
Join Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine