A federal court judge in Kansas City, Kan., is expected to hear a request for an injunction Wednesday morning against a Next Era industrial solar farm project planned for Jackson County, filed by plaintiffs who say the project did not adequately investigate its own possible environmental impact – required by federal law – before it was pursued.
Plaintiffs Thomas Hoffman, Joseph Strong, Vincent Shibler and David Shibler named former U.S. Treasury Department head Janet Yellen, Jackson County Commissioners and other officials in the lawsuit, which seeks an injunction to pause the 5,000 acre solar project until its environmental impact can be assessed.
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The complaint says the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) – often called the “Magna Carta” of U.S. environmental law – requires federal agencies to prepare a detailed statement of environmental impact for all “major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.” The complaint alleges federal entities other officials named as defendants failed to apply NEPA to renewable projects in Kansas and other states that received massive federal subsidies through the Inflation Reduction Act. Without those reviews, the plaintiffs allege the federal agents who approved the IRA tax subsidies for those projects acted unlawfully.
The Biden Administration’s “Inflation Reduction Act,” often maligned by critics for its massive federal spending which they say spurred post-Covid U.S. inflation instead of curbing it, included a program of transferable tax credits that cover as much as 70 percent of the cost of new industrial scale solar and wind farm projects. Those subsidies can be sold for tax-free revenue, and federal reports say the cost of those energy tax subsidies could top $1.8 trillion over the next decade. The incentives have spurred a boom in new solar and wind projects in the U.S., and pitted rural landowners anxious to lease their land to the projects against neighbors concerned about surface water runoff, ground water contamination, degradation of the rural landscape and decreased property values.
“The outcome of this hearing could set a precedent for how renewable energy projects are evaluated nationwide,” said Virgina Crossland-Macha with Stand For The Land Kansas, which filed a Friend of the Court Brief on behalf the plaintiffs. “It’s a fight to ensure our land, environment, and community voices are respected before irreversible decisions are made.”
The Wednesday, June 18, hearing is set for 9 a.m. in the Robert J. Dole Federal Courthouse in Kansas City, Kansas.
Dane Hicks is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA. He is the author of novels "The Skinning Tree" and "A Whisper For Help." As publisher of the Anderson County Review in Garnett, KS., he is a recipient of the Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award as well as more than 60 awards for excellence in news, editorial and photography.
