‘They don’t own their view’: Michigan farmers seek state control of renewables - MLive.com

‘They don’t own their view’: Michigan farmers seek state control of renewables - mlive.com

LANSING, MI – A pair of Michigan farmers on Tuesday told lawmakers they are exhausted with people who enjoy looking at their farmland preventing them from using their property for renewable energy.

A Christmas tree grower and a grains and livestock farmer both testified in Lansing this week about their frustrations with local-level controls over renewable energy generation installations. They argued Michigan’s current township and county zoning system is broken enough that disrupted viewsheds alone are enough to kill a wind farm or solar field project.

“People in our township were spun into a frenzy because they were lied to by people who didn’t want their view to change. The problem is they don’t own their view,” said longtime family farm owner Clara Ostrander, of Azalia in Monroe County.

“Their view is farmland families like mine have tended, preserved, and paid taxes on for generations. They should not get to decide what we grow or what we harvest. And that includes harvesting the sun for electricity.”

Democrats on the state Senate’s energy committee voted on Tuesday to advance a pair of bills to overhaul how decisions are made across Michigan about where to build large-scale renewable energy generation. Under the legislation, the Michigan Public Service Commission would become the ultimate decision-maker for renewable energy installations with a 100-megawatt capacity or larger.

Votes to report House bills 5120 and 5121 to the full Senate floor fell along party lines, with every Republican on the committee voting against the bill package. The bills already passed the House and are expected to be voted on by the full Senate this week; if passed there, they would go to the governor for her signature.

Tuesday’s roll call committee votes came after a string of public testimonies that started with two Michigan farmers, both of whom want to install renewable energy on their land but were denied by local authorities.

Both Ostrander and Montcalm County farmer Dick Farnsworth testified during the committee hearing Tuesday in Lansing.

Related: Who should decide where in Michigan to build large wind farms and solar fields?

Farnsworth said he finds it ironic how those who oppose renewable projects because it would disrupt the rural nature of an area, may instead be hastening the loss of that farmland to residential or commercial development.

“Farming is a tough business. My family has owned the farm since 1880 and we would like to continue to operate it as a farm. Unfortunately, the land lease payments will not be able to cover the taxes and maintenance in the very near future. We signed a wind lease because we believe in renewable energy and that it would be a big boost in income, allowing us to keep the property as a farm,” Farnsworth said.

Instead, he “watched with dismay” as township officials were harassed and intimidated by those opposed to renewable energy, effectively clamping down the ability for any utility-scale wind or solar project to be developed. And that sort of across-the-board opposition to renewable energy just isn’t going to work in this climate anymore, the farm owner argued.

“As a Christmas tree farmer, I have been seeing that climate change is real and it is here now. We are responsible for the damage that we have done to our environment,” Farnsworth said.

The pending bills would effectively strip authority from local governments and give state regulators control over where large renewable energy installations will be built. A new amendment would allow an initial four- to eight-month period during which developers could work with local officials before state authority takes over, but locals could not enforce any rules stricter than state law.

Committee member Sen. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs, criticized the amendment as allowing local governments to merely “go through the motions of being involved” without maintaining veto power.

Bill sponsor Sen. Ranjeev Puri, D-Canton, said the intent of the legislation is to prevent aesthetics alone from being enough to block a renewable energy generation project. The legislation would instead require a holistic analysis but would streamline siting statewide without using eminent domain, he argued.

“I don’t think anything is going to be rubber-stamped. This is something that would go through a laundry list of criteria to make sure that the state is making the best decisions as to where to place these projects,” Puri said.

Related: Nuclear power would be clean but not renewable under Michigan legislation

Advocates for the bill package argue it’s the only way to get off fossil fuels fast enough to meet Michigan’s renewable energy goals. That’s because too many renewable projects were denied in recent years by township officials, but when local leaders did approve, they were ousted from office.

The legislation has vocal critics.

Representatives from statewide township and county groups complained the pending legislation would usurp local control and undo work communities did in recent years to draft zoning ordinances and negotiate agreements with developers.

Judy Allen from the Michigan Township Association complained that the only reason a project could be denied is for an incomplete application if it otherwise met state standards.

Madeline Fata from the Michigan Association of Counties criticized part of an amendment that would permanently take all local review measures away from communities whose decisions were overruled by state regulators or that ever had a renewable energy moratorium – even if it since lifted.

“It does not matter if the project interferes with the local master plan in any other way. If a local does deny the application for any reason other than setback distance, fencing height, or decibel level, and the (Michigan Public Service Commission) then approves it, that local unit no longer holds a compatible ordinance and there’s no process in place in this legislation for them to be eligible ever again,” Fata said.

Democrats who control both the state House and Senate are working to codify the state’s climate action plan. Proposed legislation between the two chambers is meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower energy costs for all Michiganders.

The bills are meant to force utilities off climate-warming fossil fuels faster than planned to meet 60% renewable and 100% clean energy standards by 2040.

However, Michigan has not built enough renewable energy to meet those benchmarks because of township-level opposition. These two bills sponsored by Puri and Majority Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash, D-Hamtramck, are meant to address that conundrum.

Unlike fossil fuels, renewable energy generation does not result in greenhouse gas emissions, which warm global temperatures and accelerate the climate crisis.

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