Posted on 12/14/2024 9:30:30 AM PST by Twotone
Oklahoma hasn’t had a single county vote for a Democratic presidential candidate in 24 years. Every statewide elected official is a Republican, and the GOP holds overwhelming 4-1 majorities in both legislative chambers. Former President Donald Trump carried the state by 35 points. Despite this staunchly conservative profile, Oklahoma’s Republican leadership is allowing vital farmland and ranchland to be used for foreign land acquisitions tied to solar and wind energy projects. This move comes even as Oklahomans rejected the administration behind the Green New Deal. So what gives?
Last week, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt announced an agreement with Denmark’s ambassador, granting a Danish company the ability to purchase large sections of land in Payne County. The company plans to build solar, wind, and biomass energy projects, along with transmission lines across farmland and ranchland in the heart of Oklahoma. Stitt’s enthusiasm for these projects highlights his broader push for Green New Deal-style energy initiatives under the guise of creating jobs in the state.
“Just signed a historic memorandum of understanding between Denmark and Oklahoma,” a giddy Stitt announced. “The partnership will focus on developing affordable and reliable energy for our communities. Oklahoma fuels the world!”
He’s right. Oklahoma has enough oil and gas to fuel much of the world. The trouble is the memorandum he signed does not promote reliable energy. Instead, it prioritizes inefficient and heavily subsidized forms of energy, such as solar and wind, that depend on unsustainable land acquisitions, misdirect resources like cattle feed, and harm the local environment. Additionally, the memorandum emphasizes the “decarbonization” of the aviation industry — a goal that directly contradicts his stated support for oil and gas as part of an “all of the above” energy strategy.
The agreement with Denmark focuses on two key elements under the broader banner of promoting “economic growth and sustainability.” The first involves constructing solar and wind farms on pristine landscapes. The second includes building transmission lines, methanol plants, and data centers powered by these renewable energy sources, situated in areas designated as “national interest electric transmission corridors.”
After public pressure, Stitt on Wednesday joined other commissioners of the Land Office in voting to reject the solar project. A complementary green energy project on the agenda was approved to move forward, however. The vote saw support from the governor, lieutenant governor, and agriculture secretary, while conservative state Auditor Cindy Byrd cast the lone dissenting vote. This project is set to return for final approval by March 2025 in a public vote by the commissioners.
The transmission corridors associated with this plan should concern all Americans, not just Oklahomans. Expanded under the Biden infrastructure bill, National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors now give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authority to overrule local governments on power line placement to facilitate the delivery of solar and wind energy. The proposed corridor would stretch from northwest Oklahoma to Little Rock, Arkansas, ranging from four to 18 miles in width and 645 miles in length. This development would likely require eminent domain, seizing critical croplands and ranchlands for biofuels, solar, wind, and carbon capture projects.
The result? Higher food and fuel costs, all to support unreliable and expensive energy, instead of utilizing Oklahoma’s abundant oil and gas resources, which require less invasive infrastructure and preserve farmland. It is the most anti-environmental idea imaginable.
Beyond the land-grab, the push for “e-SAF” and biofuels diverts land away from fruit and vegetable farming and redirects cattle feed toward fuel production. These fuels rely on subsidies and mandates to remain viable, despite being neither wanted nor necessary. This misallocation of resources increases cattle feed costs for ranchers and endangers their land. In the process, the green energy agenda is a force multiplier of stupidity, jeopardizing both energy reliability and food security.
Green grifters often tout wind and solar power as some innocuous natural source that can power anything on-site. Reality is far different. These energy sources require vast amounts of land for transmission lines, as users are typically far from the “natural” energy source. This setup demands extensive high-voltage infrastructure sprawling over areas larger than many countries. The ongoing need for repairs, replacements, and upgrades makes the system costly and unsustainable. No rational policymaker with good intentions could have devised such an idea.
Democrats understand that embedding the Green New Deal in red states is key to transforming America. According to the New York Times, 80% of green energy projects have been allocated to Republican districts. This distribution has led many shortsighted Republicans to pretend to oppose the law while quietly working to cement it.
In an interview with theTimes, Barack Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, highlighted the importance of expediting transmission lines to implement the Green New Deal, which he described as “primarily built around decarbonization investments” and reinforced by Biden’s infrastructure bill. Emanuel sees this as a strategy for Democrats to make a political comeback. Ironically, deep-red state governors like Stitt appear to be working diligently to aid this effort.
Red states need an energy revolution that avoids overregulating viable energy sources while refusing subsidies for those that cannot sustain themselves. Solar and wind energy projects should no longer consume vast amounts of land.
For example, the picturesque area around Lake Eufaula in Eastern Oklahoma is set to host 900 turbines, which will include some of the tallest windmills in the world. This misuse of resources and land sacrifices our heartland for a harmful lie built on unsound energy practices.
If deep-red states cannot reject the Green New Deal — an agenda as destructive as it is unpopular — it might signal that Democrats, not Republicans, are successfully building a permanent political majority in this country.
“a giddy Stitt announced”
…giddy = $$$
I live in Payne, County. This whole thing makes me mad as hell.
“Allowing?”
Since when is a state allowed to determine national policy?
Kind of an overreach.
Paid off corrupt politicians are ruining this country.
If it helps, I doubt any of this crap will get built once DOGE tells these grifters “no more handouts” and that they’re on their own.
What am I missing? If Denmark wants to pay Oklahoma farmers to let it build something and they agree why should I care? It’s not like Denmark is an enemy of ours.
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“… the green energy agenda is a force multiplier of stupidity ...”
Stitt has just about finished me off. I’ve overlooked some of his garbage but no more. He has to go.
Just follow the money very very carefully.
It smells like grift and corruption of public officials.
Green energy has been so successful in Dimmark they want to export it. What they really want though is the US gooberment subsidies that I hope will soon end.
And those "unsound energy practices" are built on the lie of anthropogenic climate change.
We regularly drive through windmill infested areas. The most beautiful parts of California, Oregon and Washington states have been RUINED with forests of thousands of windmills, most of which are usually sitting there doing nothing. They were built in decades and will take CENTURIES to tear down. Meanwhile, our once-beautiful nation is covered in worthless rusting hulks.
In October, Google announced it will purchase nuclear-generated electricity from small molten salt modular reactors being developed by Kairos Power. This is the first corporate agreement for power from multiple small modular reactors (SMRs) in the U.S.
So we've got the damned government ruining our gorgeous country and corporations know that wind and solar won't meet their power needs. The government needs to stop chasing the big lie of wind and solar.
The Trump energy dept. will make or break these green boondoggles.
I hope for the best but Trunp is capable of boosting such enterprizes if he sees it as politically advantageous, locally, and at least marginally sustainable as a jobs project.
Everyone has their price.
Simple... the state is not represented by land owners. It’s represented by people.
And, while most farmers in OK are most likely republican, they don’t necessarily represent the majority of land owners in the state.
Most likely, it’s the federal government itself that owns the majority of land in OK... and/or Native American reservations.
Oklahoma Governor Stitt purchased 1.2 million hydroxychloroquine pills in April 2020, very shortly after the COVID outbreak. He hoarded it and did not distribute it. While keeping it off the market and killing countless Oklahomans, he also used his pulpit to discredit the life-saving drug. Then around May 2021, he got a refund for it.
Oklahoma abounds with stupid politicians. The current crop includes Stitt, Mullen, Lankford and the other little boy from Watts or Westville mr. wood just for starters. Whether it is greed or stupidity or both it is a black mark on the state already known for black marks.
Some on this thread, claiming it is all about free enterprise, ask why is there any opposition to a farmer selling his land in Payne Co for wind or solar activity. Well, it isn't done by free enterprise, it is facilitated by government grants and the imposition of imminent domain. The bastards tried this power line corridor a few years ago. Massive lines strung across the state to Little Rock and other points East for no benefit to locals and only a blight on the land of the people along the way. We fought it and defeated it then at great expense of time and money. WE should not have to do it again.
I am hopeful Trump puts an end to a lot of green foolishness but I think we are too hopeful about Trump's ability to tend to all the madness now in place across the fruited plain.
Did you see any public notice or EIS about 900 windmills arrayed around Lake Eufaula? Neither did I.
Back in the day Weyerhauser came into SE Oklahoma and blocked locals from their traditional and harmless hunting on previous Dierks lands. Their heavy handed methods were met with local opposition in the form of guys on horseback with bags of 20 penny spikes and 2 pound hammers. They would ride through the newly acquired Weyerhauser timberlands slated for clear-cutting and drive the spikes in trees at rider height. When the saws at Wright City hit the spikes it destroyed them. Weyerhauser was soon broke from sucking eggs and reopened the forest lands to traditional hunting. People should keep these things in mind before they do things they can but should not. The wind blows hard here in Oklahoma, sometimes there are tornadoes, transmission line towers in remote locations can become weak from all that stress and strain. Sometimes they fall over.
When is Stitt up for re-election? Could he be term-limited?
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. weasel words.
a foreign country/citizen buying American land ?
why is that allowed ?
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