Idaho Legislature: Ask Legislators to VOTE YES on H0387 – Windmill bonding (posted 03/13/25)

• Bill: legislature.idaho.gov/s…

• Contact Legislators: emailidaho.com

(Check the linked page or use My Bill Tracker for the bill’s current status.)

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H0387 sets comprehensive regulations for wind energy development decommissioning:

• Wind turbine site owners must submit cash deposit to state treasurer before construction begins to ensure proper site restoration.

• State-licensed engineer assesses deposit amount based on anticipated costs of fully removing all wind turbine infrastructure, including subsurface materials, buildings, cables, electrical components, and roads, and returning the land to its original grade and productivity.

• Owners failing to submit required deposit can be fined up to $2,500 per wind turbine site per day.

• Creates a new wind energy fund to hold deposits (which accrue interest).

• Applies to all wind turbine sites, regardless of land ownership.

• Includes provisions for transferring ownership, inspecting decommissioning efforts, and allowing Idaho to use deposits to complete decommissioning if owner does not properly restore site.

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Strongest argument FOR upfront collection of decommissioning fees: When a wind turbine fails, repairing or removing it is very expensive, requiring specialized personnel and processes. The original installing company often is bankrupt and long-gone before decommissioning, leaving taxpayers, property owners, and rate payers to pay for repair or removal.

Wind energy via turbines generally does not perform as "green energy" proponents say. It has proven unreliable, expensive, difficult for the energy grid to handle, devastating to our landscapes, and harmful to birds, wildlife, and humans living nearby.

One must dig beyond Google Level 1 searches for counter-arguments to traditional rosy wind-energy narratives. Examples:

• Costly & Pathetic ‘Performance’: Thousands of Wind Turbines Being Replaced After 12 Years: tinyurl.com/wd7u2f6y

• Commercial Fishing and Offshore Wind with Bonnie Brady (RFK Jr Podcast): tinyurl.com/yp5xxpae

• Expensive Offshore Wind Is in Trouble: tinyurl.com/665cz3ez

• Trump EO: Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects: tinyurl.com/mua3mt83

One could debate all day about benefits vs. harms of wind energy. But most in Idaho do not want wind turbines. Thank goodness we dodged the Lava Ridge bullet – for now. Unfortunately, other such projects are in the pipeline, including Taurus Wind (see tinyurl.com/5n96trja ).