{"id":29411,"date":"2018-03-01T12:29:59","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T18:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=29411"},"modified":"2018-03-01T12:29:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T18:29:59","slug":"wind-companies-reconsider-oklahoma-as-lawmakers-roll-up-economic-welcome-mat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2018\/03\/01\/wind-companies-reconsider-oklahoma-as-lawmakers-roll-up-economic-welcome-mat\/","title":{"rendered":"Wind Companies Reconsider Oklahoma As Lawmakers Roll Up Economic Welcome Mat"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_29414\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"A line of wind turbines near Seiling, Okla.\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/03\/20180223-dewey-county094_WEB.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-29414\" alt=\"A line of wind turbines near Seiling, Okla.\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/03\/20180223-dewey-county094_WEB-620x413.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A line of wind turbines near Seiling, Okla.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>The Dewey County Courthouse is one of the newest in Oklahoma. The offices are spacious, and the courtroom has fresh carpet and shiny wood trim. County Commissioner M.W. \u201cJunior\u201d Salisbury is excited to play tour leader.<\/p><p>\u201cI\u2019m pretty proud of our little courthouse here,\u201d he says. \u201cI really, really am.\u201d<\/p><p>Officials figured they would need 25 years to pay it off, but it took less than five. One major reason: wind farms.<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/407102718&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=true&show_comments=false&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=false\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p><p><!--more--><\/p><p>Oklahoma started wooing wind companies in the early \u02bc90s with generous tax breaks. The state is now the country\u2019s No. 2 wind producer and Wind Catcher, the <a href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2017\/07\/28\/largest-u-s-wind-farm-under-construction-in-oklahomas-panhandle\/\">nation\u2019s largest wind farm<\/a>, is under construction in the Panhandle. But the cost of these incentives ballooned as the industry grew. State legislators started missing the money as oil prices crashed and state budget gaps widened.<\/p><p>To understand how contentious the wind industry debate has become in Oklahoma, state Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, recently called police after finding a tracking device planted under his pickup truck and alleged a plot straight out of a political thriller.<\/p><p>\u201cI pissed off a huge corporation,\u201d McBride is heard telling an officer in footage from a police body camera. \u201c You know anything about wind farms?\u201d<\/p><p>McBride speculated, to the officer, he became a target after supporting increasing taxes on the wind industry. McBride filed a lawsuit to find out who was behind the tracking device. The case is under investigation; the wind industry denies doing any wrongdoing.<\/p><p>So an industry that was once a political darling is now at the center of a Capitol catfight with battle lines drawn in dueling press conferences and TV ads.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_29415\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"County Commissioner Junior Salisbury in the courtroom at the Dewey County Courthouse in Taloga, Okla. Sales tax revenues from nearby wind farms helped the county pay off the new building before it opened, Salisbury said.\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/03\/20180223-junior-salisbury-pics004_WEB.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-29415\" alt=\"County Commissioner Junior Salisbury in the courtroom at the Dewey County Courthouse in Taloga, Okla. Sales tax revenues from nearby wind farms helped the county pay off the new building before it opened, Salisbury said.\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/03\/20180223-junior-salisbury-pics004_WEB-620x413.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">County Commissioner Junior Salisbury in the courtroom at the Dewey County Courthouse in Taloga, Okla. Sales tax revenues from nearby wind farms helped the county pay off the new building before it opened, Salisbury said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Credit, cancelled<\/h3><p>Wind incentives have proved essential for many landowners and local governments.<\/p><p>Commissioner Salisbury says wind farms generate substantial revenue for his local schools and he\u2019s grown more frustrated with state lawmakers over the years as they\u2019ve <a href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2017\/04\/18\/fallin-signs-bill-to-end-tax-credit-that-helped-fuel-oklahomas-wind-energy-boom\/\">steadily ended<\/a> incentives for the wind industry. He\u2019s also mad at some legislators who want to pull back tax credits already promised to wind companies.<\/p><p>Salisbury is also pushing lawmakers to vote down a new tax on wind-produced electricity proposed by Gov. Mary Fallin and groups backed by the state\u2019s influential oil industry.<\/p><p>\u201cI promise you, I\u2019m gonna get in there and fight harder and harder to swing this back our way,\u201d he said.<\/p><p>A state revenue package backed by prominent business leaders that included a wind production tax was defeated in February but still has support in many political circles.<\/p><p>The Wind Catcher <a href=\"http:\/\/www.windcatcherenergy.com\/\">project<\/a> in the Panhandle is being built without using any state tax credits or incentives, said Stan Whiteford, spokesperson for Public Service Company of Oklahoma, the wind farm\u2019s co-developer.<\/p><p>The incentive rollback is causing other wind companies, however, to reconsider. One company, E.ON Climate and Renewables, signed lease agreements with more than a hundred landowners representing 60,000 acres in Dewey County for a two-part project creating a 280-megawatt wind farm near Vici.<\/p><p>\u201cThose landowners were incredibly disappointed,\u201d said Sean Logsdon, vice president of Southwest Development for the company. \u201cThe county commissioner was incredibly disappointed. Me, being from Oklahoma, I was incredibly disappointed.\u201d<\/p><p>E.ON invested millions laying the groundwork for the project but canceled its plans in December 2016. \u201cWe just couldn\u2019t take the risk in Oklahoma,\u201d Logsdon said.<\/p><p>Instead, the company used the money to invest in a $400 million wind farm that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eon.com\/en\/about-us\/media\/press-release\/2018\/eon-starts-construction-of-a-new-wind-farm-in-texas-and-makes-important-progress-in-us-business.html\">just started operating<\/a> in south Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Dewey County Courthouse is one of the newest in Oklahoma. The offices are spacious, and the courtroom has fresh carpet and shiny wood trim. County Commissioner M.W. \u201cJunior\u201d Salisbury is excited to play tour leader.\u201cI\u2019m pretty proud of our little courthouse here,\u201d he says. \u201cI really, really am.\u201dOfficials figured they would need 25 years [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":29414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[490],"tags":[749,713,144],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29411"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29418,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29411\/revisions\/29418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}