Wind energy has been a hot topic in Oklahoma for the last year. Lawmakers introduced several bills to limit where wind turbines could be installed, sparking discussions about property rights and rural identities. Others pushed back on the restrictions, saying the wind industry had done their communities good. Wind energy opponents organized an anti-green energy rally at the state capitol.
For NPR's Climate Solutions Week, Oklahoma reporters are exploring how wind energy lets some Oklahomans live where and how they want. In the second story of that three-part series, we'll look at what policymakers and economists are saying about Oklahoma's growing wind sector.
'It's about progress' and preservation of family farms in the panhandle
The wind energy industry sparks different feelings for different people. But in general, people in western Oklahoma tend to have a more positive relationship with nearby turbines than their eastern counterparts.
Casey Murdock is Oklahoma's westernmost state senator, hailing from Felt in the far reaches of the panhandle. He said he likes seeing the white wind towers because he knows they're helping his neighbors.
"It's about progress," Murdock said. "It's about bringing in revenue to a part of the state that doesn't get a whole lot."
Leasing land to wind projects helps people weather the blizzards, droughts and wildfires the panhandle deals with.
"Any kind of revenue that can come in to help get through those bad times is great," Murdock said. "And when you're looking at $15 to $20,000 a year per turbine[...], that will get you through some bad years."
And Murdock said the ad valorem taxes paid by energy companies have been a godsend for schools and county governments.
He's spoken against the proposed setback regulations, which he said go against his conservative Republican values. He's not a fan of "protectionism" in the state legislature, and he feels it's being applied to oil and gas at the expense of wind.
"An industry will come to this building and say, 'We need you to run this legislation,'" Murdock said. "But if you dig in, we're setting rules and regulations to protect this industry so that another industry can't come in and be competition."
On a less philosophical level, Murdock said regulation to stifle the wind industry will hurt his part of the state.
"You will see a mass exodus," Murdock said. "What you will see is that small farm — that family farm that, in our mind, is what a farm is — you're going to have a corporate farm."
Murdock said he doesn't want to slam corporate farms. But if people can't afford to keep farming and ranching in the panhandle, they don't have many local options to supplement their incomes. There's not much oil. There's not much industry. And neither of those things is likely to change soon.
"Who we are is: we're family farms," Murdock said. "I don't want to lose that lifestyle and that avenue. In my part of the state, if we don't have something, we're going to just have more corporate farmers."
Lawmakers' attempts to regulate wind turbines fizzle after dramatic discussions
Both chambers of the state legislature set their sights on wind turbines this session. But proposed regulations raised questions about how to balance the property rights of Oklahomans who want wind turbines on their land against the rights of neighbors who might object.
"What about [...] the liability that can happen whenever a tower malfunctions and it throws a blade 4,000 miles into someone's living room?" Sen. Shane Jett, R-Shawnee, asked in a February meeting of the Senate Energy Committee. "Or even worse, into someone's bassinet and kills a baby? What about those rights?"
Sen. Grant Green, R-Wellston, balked at the melodramatic misstatement.
"Senator, for one, if it throws it 4,000 miles, we do need to address that," he deadpanned.
Hypothetically, a wind turbine could fling a blade (or anything stuck to a blade, like ice) about 1,700 feet. An analysis from 2008 (when turbines were slightly smaller than they are now) showed ice only flung ice within much smaller radius, approximately 300 feet.
To address that risk, Green's Senate Bill 2 would have made a 100-word addition to existing law, detailing the quarter-mile setback and an exemption for any projects already underway.
The House approved Green's setback bill, but tacked on seven pages of new legislation. Those seven pages came from Rep. Trey Caldwell's House Bill 2751, which had failed in the Senate Energy Committee.
It would have required a setback from property lines based on the height of the turbine, plus a half-mile setback from homes. It would apply in counties that meet requirements for low average wind speeds and high population densities — namely, most counties east of Interstate 35.
After the additions to Green's original bill, Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton opted to "hit pause and find a better path forward" on turbine setback legislation.
"Politics, misinformation and petty personal agendas have co-opted the debate on this bill, resulting in senators being harassed and making it nearly impossible to have a serious, rational policy discussion on this bill," Paxton said in a late-May statement.
One wind turbine measure did become law this session. Senate Bill 713 requires new wind projects to install "light-mitigating technology" that makes the aircraft-avoidance lights less disruptive to people on the ground. Stitt vetoed the measure, calling it "an unnecessary and expensive burden that will get passed along to customers." Lawmakers overrode him.
Where is this anti-wind push coming from?
Murdock said the strong uptick in anti-wind sentiments has one main source.
"Donald Trump," he said. "And it's all politics. It was the rhetoric of a campaign that he was ginning up on this battle against Joe Biden."
On the campaign trail, it makes sense to speak against policies your opponent favors. The Biden Administration poured billions of dollars into renewable energy. But now that the campaign is over, Murdock said he hopes Trump will look at the economic benefits of wind and shift some of his rhetoric.
Beyond political messaging, many of the objections to wind turbines are aesthetic.
"Some people, when they look out on the horizon, they don't want to see red flashing lights at night or the obstruction of wind turbines," said Cortney Cowley, an Oklahoma-based agricultural economist with the Kansas City Federal Reserve. "I think that that's also a valid point when talking about where people live and how they live there."
But in terms of economics, Cowley said wind energy isn't at odds with Oklahoma's big agricultural moneymakers. Cows and wheat tend to coexist well with turbines.
"We've still seen really strong growth in our agricultural economy alongside growth and renewable energy," Cowley said.
As for the state's biggest moneymaker, the oil and gas industry? It's often pitted against wind, but it's also continued to grow alongside wind in Oklahoma, according to a report Cowley coauthored, albeit at a slower pace.
Murdock said state policy should support that tandem growth.
"We don't need the two big dogs in the room fighting with each other," Murdock said. "We need them expanding what we have across the country and working on it together."
Shannon Ferrell is an agricultural law and economics expert with the OSU Extension. He grew up in Roger Mills County, where his school district struggled with a dwindling budget.
The story he tells about oil and gas money helping his community in the 1980s echoes the one Murdock tells about the wind industry. The energy market has changed in the decades since, but the needs haven't.
"I think in the 21st century now we're seeing that more and more with renewables," Ferrell said. "They're really providing an important tax base boost to those rural schools that could be in some real jeopardy if it weren't for that. So it can be a real game changer."
Some of the pushback to wind may be simply because it's new, and it doesn't have the generations of goodwill oil and gas have accrued in Oklahoma.
"Change is hard," Ferrell said. "That is a universal principle that applies to everything ever, forever and always."
'We need more wires' to put wind to use
Oklahoma's wind turbines are primarily located in the state's western half, but most of its population is in the eastern half. Getting all that wind energy where it needs to go takes transmission infrastructure.
"We just basically need more wires," said Ferrell. "You can't really have a discussion about the future of power, whether we're talking about renewables or not, if we don't have a discussion about transmission capacity."
But like wind projects, transmission projects face pushback from Oklahomans.
Oftentimes, the people who would wake up every day to see a transmission line on their land wouldn't be earning money from generating the electricity or from using it. It's just passing through overhead.
"How do we make that something that is desirable for the landowner without making it too expensive to build profitably for the utilities?" he said. "It's got to be something that makes it worthwhile for both parties, or it's not going to happen."
And experts say more transmission is necessary to keep up with growing energy demand, both from increased household use and new power-hungry projects, such as data centers or aluminum smelters.
Murdock offers a straightforward solution.
"Let me build my wind turbines," Murdock said. "You don't have to look at them. You got to look at that one transmission line and that's it. I'll make sure your lights come on. Just let me get my power to your front door."
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
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