🏛️ Issues and Advocacy Training
Courses › Limiting Industrial Energy Projects Through Local Code

Lesson 1 of 9 · about 14 minutes

The Case for Limits, and Who Controls What

You'll be able to

  • State the advocacy position this course takes and the evidence it rests on
  • Sort private, state endowment and federal land by who makes the siting decision in Idaho
  • Name the pieces of a local energy siting framework and the order they go in
  • Explain what Bannock County's ban and its reconsideration show about durability

This course takes a side. Irrigated farmland, small towns and open public land are worth more to Idaho as what they are than as sites for industrial power plants built to export electricity. Utility-scale solar fields, wind farms, battery storage yards and the transmission lines that tie them together are industrial uses. They belong where industrial uses belong, on terms the host community sets, with the developer carrying every cost it creates. Local code is how a community writes those terms down before the first application arrives.

That position draws heavily on a citizen ordinance package Jeff Pierson prepared in 2026 for a south-central Idaho county: a rewritten utilities chapter for the comprehensive plan, a new energy facilities chapter, a rewritten conditional use chapter, position papers and a source catalog. The lessons use that package as the backbone. The examples move to an invented place, Owlcreek County, so the tools can travel to any county.

Advocacy is not a license to be sloppy. Where Jeff's package got a fact wrong or stretched a source, these lessons say so and give the corrected version, because the other side will find every soft spot. A county that adopts strong rules on weak evidence invites a lawsuit and a repeal.

Who controls which land

Before anyone drafts a setback, sort the land. County power runs from strong to thin depending on who owns it.

LandWho decides sitingCounty roleExample
Private land in unincorporated areasThe county, under the Local Land Use Planning Act (Idaho Code 67-6501 and following)Full: plan, zoning, permits, conditions, bonds, enforcementBannock County's 2024 ban on utility-scale solar and wind
State endowment landThe State Board of Land Commissioners decides whether to leaseReal: state agencies must follow local plans and ordinances unless another law says otherwise (67-6528)The Arco wind and solar lease on 11,160 acres approved in October 2024; Bingham County issued a conditional use permit for the wind portion
Federal land (BLM, Forest Service)The federal agencyAdvisory: coordination and consistency review under FLPMA, comments, testimony, political pressureLava Ridge, approved by BLM in December 2024 and canceled by Interior in August 2025
Inside city limitsThe city council under its own codeNone directly, but areas of city impact and annexation tie the two togetherSee the impact areas lesson in the planning course

One more referee sits outside this table. The Idaho Public Utilities Commission sets utility rates and service terms. Section 67-6528 adds that a local action is void to the extent it conflicts with a PUC order directing a utility, if the local government had a chance to appear before the commission first. So when a utility is under PUC orders to build a particular line, the county should be in that PUC case early, not just at its own hearing afterward.

The toolbox, in order

1. Comp planpolicy, maps 2. Districts anduse table, tiers 3. Objectivestandards 4. Conditionaluse findings 5. Bonds andenforcement Plan: says what the county wants and why (Idaho Code 67-6508). Districts: where energy uses are allowed, conditional or prohibited (67-6511). Standards: setbacks, height, noise, fire, soils, measured the same way every time. Findings: what the board must find, in writing, before any approval (67-6512, 67-6535). Bonds: money in hand for removal and restoration; penalties for violations. A moratorium (67-6523, 67-6524) buys time to build all five.
The order matters. Each layer leans on the one before it.

The order carries legal weight. Idaho Code 67-6511 says zoning districts "shall be in accordance with the policies set forth in the adopted comprehensive plan." Section 67-6512 lets a board grant a special use permit only if the use is not in conflict with the plan. A strong energy chapter in the zoning code sitting on top of a plan that celebrates renewable development is an invitation to a challenge. Write the plan first.

The Idaho Planning and Zoning course explains how LLUPA works in general. The data center course follows one kind of large load through the same system. This course is about the generation, storage and transmission that large loads pull in behind them.

What a ban looks like, and why durability matters

Bannock County is the closest Idaho test of the hardest version of this position. Commissioners adopted a moratorium on October 12, 2023, and in March 2024 voted 2 to 1 to ban utility-scale solar and wind, according to reporting by The Daily Yonder republished by Grist in September 2026. Then the politics moved. The commissioner who cast the dissenting vote became chair and put a draft ordinance out for review that would allow solar, wind and nuclear with decommissioning bonds and battery fire planning. Farmers with option contracts spoke up. One told the reporter he projected solar lease income per acre at four to five times what he earns from wheat. Opponents raised farmland loss, decommissioning, and a developer's federal application for a second project that residents found through public records requests.

Bannock teaches a hard lesson. A ban with thin findings depends entirely on who holds the majority. The alternative a reconsidering board reaches for is the toolbox above: bonds, fire planning, standards. Advocates who already wrote strong standards get to shape that alternative. Advocates who only wrote "no" get handed someone else's draft.

Example: what Owlcreek County is facing

Owlcreek County (invented) has 210,000 acres in its agricultural zone, most of it irrigated. Three applications are rumored: Highline Solar LLC, 300 MW on 1,800 acres of irrigated ground near the town of Pell; Copperwind Energy, a wind project mostly on BLM land with a substation on private ground; and a 100 MW, 400 MWh battery yard next to an existing substation.

Sort them first. Highline is private land: full county authority. Copperwind's turbines are federal: the county gets coordination, and controls only the private substation and any private access roads. The battery yard is private: full authority, and the fire district needs a seat at the table from day one.

Scale check on Highline: 1,800 acres divided by 300 MW is 6 acres per MW, the developer's own figure. Against the 210,000-acre ag zone, 1,800 / 210,000 = 0.86 percent from one project. Three projects that size would take 2.6 percent, and every one of them would want the flat, irrigated ground nearest the transmission line.

Common mix-ups

  • Claim: The state legislature has made it state policy to block energy projects that hurt farmland. What the evidence shows: HCR 32 (2026), adopted by both chambers by voice vote and delivered to the Secretary of State on March 27, 2026, is a concurrent resolution. It states findings and policy about transmission, ratepayers and base load generation. It is not a statute and does not bind a county or a court. Jeff's package described it as adopted only by the House and as broader than its text; quote it accurately.
  • Claim: State land is outside county zoning. What the evidence shows: Section 67-6528 says state agencies comply with local plans and ordinances unless another law provides otherwise, and the Arco project, which includes endowment land, obtained a Bingham County conditional use permit for its wind portion.
  • Claim: A county resolution can stop a project on BLM land. What the evidence shows: It can influence one. Lava Ridge was opposed by area county resolutions in 2022 and still received federal approval in 2024; it was canceled by a new federal administration, not by the counties.

Reporting angle

  • Request the county's current comprehensive plan chapters on land use, agriculture and utilities, and the zoning use table, under the Idaho Public Records Act (Idaho Code 74-101 and following). Note whether "solar," "wind," "battery storage" or "energy facility" appear at all.
  • Ask the planning office for every pre-application meeting held with an energy developer in the last two years. Pre-application meetings often precede public filings by months.
  • Check the county recorder for recorded memoranda of solar or wind options and leases. They show where developers already hold land.
  • Watch State Land Board agendas for energy lease items and BLM's ePlanning site for right-of-way applications in your county.
  • Ask each commissioner on the record: would you support a moratorium while the county writes standards? Get the answer before an application exists.

Research angle

Check yourself

1. Under Idaho Code 67-6528, do state agencies such as the Department of Lands have to follow county plans and ordinances?

2. Who makes the final siting decision for a wind project on Bureau of Land Management land?

3. When did Bannock County adopt its ban on utility-scale solar and wind?

4. Why does this course put the comprehensive plan before the zoning ordinance?

5. Which of these is outside a county's land use power in Idaho?

Terms in this lesson

Utility-scale (industrial-scale) energy facility
A generation, storage or transmission project built to sell power into the grid rather than serve the property it sits on.
Siting authority
The legal power to decide where a facility may go and on what conditions.
Endowment land
Land granted to Idaho at statehood and managed by the State Board of Land Commissioners to earn money for public schools and other beneficiaries.
Coordination (federal land)
The duty in FLPMA for the BLM to keep informed of, consult on and try to stay consistent with local land use plans.

Full glossary

Sources