After Inslee’s push for bigger Tri-Cities wind farm, lawmaker wants to limit his authority
A Tri-Cities state legislator wants to take the politics out of approving energy projects across Washington state by removing the governor as the decision maker.
Now the Washington state governor has the final say on whether energy projects, including the huge Horse Heaven wind farm by the Tri-Cities, are approved.
Sen. Matt Boehnke, a Kennewick Republican , plans to introduce legislation for the 2025 state legislative session that would give the Washington state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council the responsibility to make the decision, rather than recommending to the governor whether a project should be approved and under what conditions
The bill, if approved, would affect future decisions but would not be retroactive for a decision on the Horse Heaven wind farm.
EFSEC spent three years taking public comment and studying the proposed Horse Heaven Clean Energy Center before recommending this spring that Gov. Jay Inslee allow the project but eliminate about half of the proposed turbines unless the developer could find space for them somewhere else within the project boundary.
Inslee returned the recommendation and asked the council, made up mostly of Washington state employees, to revise the proposal to give a higher priority to the need for more clean energy.
On Sept. 13 the council complied, voting 4-3 to send Inslee a recommendation that allowed more turbines on 24 miles of the Horse Heaven Hills just south of Kennewick.
The revised proposal reduced protections for endangered ferruginous hawks and traditional cultural properties. It also would restrict turbines from within a quarter mile of wildfires recorded since 2000 to allow aerial firefighting by small aircraft but not DC-10s.
It proposed no mitigation for the project's visual impacts for residents of the Tri-Cities.
However, EFSEC Chairwoman Kathleen Drew said limitations that remained in the proposal to mitigate other issues could help reduce the number of turbines visible along the southern skyline of the Tri-Cities.
Horse Heaven decision within 60 days
The Tri-Cities concerns were not heard, Boehnke said.
"I've heard from many Tri-Citians who have concerns about disrupting the habitat of the endangered ferruginous hawk, impeding on lands held sacred by Native Americans and altering the skyline and scenic beauty of the Horse Heaven area," Boehnke said. "The EFSEC heard these concerns and agreed to a smaller-scale project and has now reversed course based on the governor's request."
Canadian company Scout Clean Energy has proposed the Horse Heaven Clean Energy Center have either up to 222 turbines about 500 feet tall or 147 turbines about 670 feet tall, plus solar arrays and battery storage.
According to EFSEC estimates, the revised proposal could eliminate 50 of the 222 shorter turbines, rather than the approximately 111 in its original recommendation. If Scout Clean Energy pursues the project option with 147 taller turbines, it could impact 34 turbines rather than the approximately 73 under the council's original recommendation that the governor asked be revised.
Scout Clean Energy also has complained about the latest recommendation, which would prohibit turbines within 0.6 mile of a ferruginous hawk nest, down from 2 miles in EFSEC's earlier recomendaiton.
It is concerned that a technical advisory committee then would make a conclusion on turbines between 0.6 and 2 miles from a nest historically used by ferruginous hawks.
That would delay the final design of the wind farm for many months or possibly much longer, which would leave Scout with no certainty to finalize the financing needed to construct the project, it said.
The new EFSEC recommendation was sent to Inslee on Monday. He will have up to 60 days to approve or reject the proposal, but this time cannot return the proposal to EFSEC with a request for revisions, according to EFSEC.
"The governor is a political official and should not be part of this process," Boehnke said. "I believe the EFSEC is better positioned than the governor — any governor — to review proposed projects objectively. If the bill I will file becomes law, EFSEC would have the final say on project approval and mitigation measures. The governor would not."
