Missouri Senate considers bills to halt solar development on farmland

This story was first published by the Missouri Independent.

The conversion of Missouri farmland from food to solar power production creates feuds among neighbors, pits residents against developers, and raises questions about property rights.

Those tensions were on full display Tuesday in the Missouri Senate commerce committee, which held hearings on two bills aimed at halting solar power development and a third that would impose new regulations and taxes on large-scale development.

No votes were held on any of the bills.

Laura Stinson told the committee her parents’ Callaway County home, once a peaceful respite, is now plagued with construction noise, dust, and blinding glare from a new development surrounding their 16 acres.

“They are running full steam ahead, and they don’t care who they run over,” Stinson said, pleading with members to pass the bills.

But Dane Reed of Vernon County said his decision to lease land to a solar developer is the best use of his property.

A moratorium, he said, ​“strips landowners of our fundamental right to choose our most profitable crop. And right now, solar energy generates twice the revenue of any other crop we can produce.”

Thousands of acres across the state are being used to construct large-scale solar projects, some for commercial sale of power and others that will be dedicated to supply other new developments like data centers.

State Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin, a Shelbina Republican, and state Sen. Sandy Crawford, a Republican from Buffalo, are sponsoring the moratorium bills. The bills would halt all work on commercial-scale solar power installations and direct the state Department of Natural Resources to issue rules on their ​“construction, placement and operation.”

The moratorium would expire Dec. 31, 2027, or when regulations become effective, whichever is later.

The goal of the moratorium, O’Laughlin said, is to force developers to make their plans known so residents can judge for themselves whether the project will benefit the community. Currently, she said, the public becomes aware of projects only after contracts are signed with landowners and the result seems predetermined.

“Communities become divided as the neighbors are pitted against one another, those who signed and those who don’t, and those who bear the environmental, visual, and infrastructure impact versus those who are being paid and receiving compensation,” O’Laughlin said.

The bill establishing regulations, sponsored by state Sen. Travis Fitzwater, a Republican from Holts Summit, would not halt current construction.

Instead, it creates a process for public notice and local approval at the county level that must take place before an application to proceed with a project is submitted to the Public Service Commission.

Without approval from a county commission, the application could not move forward.