Meet the ‘NIMBY People’ Trying to Kill Solar
Date Posted: October 11, 2019
Posted In: Discussion, Organizations,
From E&E News: Susan Ralston does not mind opponents attacking her for being part of the “NIMBY people.”
“My husband would say, ‘Well, what’s wrong with NIMBY?'” she said while drinking a skim latte at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. “So what if I don’t want it in my backyard!”
Ralston — a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and aide to Karl Rove — has for much of this year turned her attention away from national politics to focus on one thing: fighting a mega-solar project in Virginia across the street from her family farm.
“Solar is not going to save the planet,” she said. “It’s never going to replace fossil fuels.”
Ralston, now a 51-year-old self-employed Republican political consultant, has gotten what she wished for in Culpeper, a small county that has a rich Civil War history. Solar developer BayWa recently withdrew its application for Cricket Solar, a 1,600-acre, 80-megawatt utility project proposed near the Rapidan River. A BayWa spokesperson said the company is still discussing options for refiling its application.
Ralston said she plans to turn her 501(c)(4), Citizens for Responsible Solar, formed this spring, into a vehicle to help other citizens groups fight solar projects all over the country.
“You see this story played over and over again,” she said. “The states have just been overrun with solar. The land is cheap, and these developers come in. They come in and the citizens don’t know this is happening, and when they find out, it’s too late.”
Ralston’s group is one of many anti-solar organizations emerging to oppose what they say are mammoth projects that do not fit the character of their communities. They claim not to oppose solar energy but argue that large-scale projects should be confined to industrial zoned land, not land for agriculture. Solar also would be uneconomical if not for federal tax credits, they say.
Renewable supporters vehemently oppose these arguments, but say there are increasing concerns about some of the latest members of the NIMBY cause.
“There is no doubt that NIMBYism is a growing issue for the solar industry,” Abigail Ross Hopper, president of Solar Energy Industries Association, said in a statement, adding that the industry needs to continue to prioritize environmental and cultural concerns.
The number of anti-solar groups is difficult to track because they usually emerge quickly in reaction to a project application moving through local government, said Dave Anderson with the Energy and Policy Institute, which tracks opposition to clean energy nationwide. After the decision by local officials on a particular project is made, the informal groups tend to fall apart, he said. That means they rarely disclose their funders.
In addition, last year, the Trump administration changed rules for tax-exempt organizations — known as 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) groups — so that they are no longer required to disclose their individual donors.
“One of the challenges in researching this stuff is that there is often no money trail to follow,” Anderson said, adding, “I don’t think everyone who shows up to events in the community is an agent of the fossil fuel industry. But it’s hard to suss that out.”
The anti-solar groups appear to be separate from front groups that are propelled by fossil fuel interests, said Anderson.