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Some rural Nevadans want Trump to stop the state's solar energy boom
Panels in MGM Resorts’ Mega Solar Array are shown after it was launched on June 28, 2021 in Dry Lake Valley, Nevada. The project sits on 640 acres of desert about 30 miles north of the Las Vegas Strip in the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
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Ethan Miller/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
DYER, Nev. – Leaving Las Vegas, where the sprawl once gave way to scrub land and Joshua trees, the desert in many places is being transformed.
New industrial scale solar farms go for miles, their neat rows of millions of panels glaring in the sun. And there are a lot more planned, such as the “Esmeralda Seven,” projects near the southwest corner of the state bordering California that would provide enough power for an estimated three million homes.
“It’s being pushed down our throats,” says Mary Jane Zakas, who lives near the 100 square mile stretch of high desert where the seven are proposed.
Esmeralda County, population 736, is one of the most remote and poorest parts of the country. Zakas sees little benefit from the solar boom other than a few construction jobs. The power, she says, will just get exported to cities at the expense of local viewsheds and wildlife.
“Imagine, looking out your window any way and only seeing solar,” Zakas says. “It’s the Biden administration at the moment that has told the state of Nevada we have to comply.”
Aerial view of a Solar Farm near Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 24, 2018. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP) (Photo credit should read DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
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DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images/AFP
The 2024 Election marked the first time Nevada has backed a Republican for president in twenty years. President-elect Donald Trump’s win may in part be due to rural backlash against these new, industrial scale solar energy projects. But it’s also not a given that Trump will stop or even slow the solar boom.
Biden’s carbon-free pledge
The controversy in rural Nevada comes after the Biden administration’s goal to get the U.S. to 100% renewable power sources by 2035. A big part of that initiative includes the Department of Interior’s new Western Solar Plan. It’s on track to be finalized in the coming weeks and could possibly open up tens of millions more acres of federal land across eleven western states.
Almost a third of the plan involves Nevada, which is roughly 85% federal land. But it’s also remote, sparsely populated and often sunny. Federal land managers say their plan identifies the least disruptive locations that are near transmission lines or new planned transmission corridors.
But in rural Nevada, mistrust of federal agencies goes back generations. It’s been estimated that close to half of Esmeralda County could be open to new solar development under the plan. Mark Hartman, a farmer near the tiny town of Dyer, thinks there’s been too much emphasis on green energy during the last four years.
“What we do know is that the Trump administration wants energy independence,” Hartman says. “And that is through multiple means, not just solar or wind.”
Whether Trump’s energy policy will be “all of the above,” or just “drill baby drill” is the source of tremendous speculation across the West right now.
Trump’s appetite for solar in question
Ben Norris, vice president of regulatory affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association, says many companies are expecting a similar situation to what occurred in 2017. Federal offices set up to fast track renewable energy permitting were dismantled or applications for new projects weren’t seen as a priority by federal land regulators.
“We are concerned that this type of administrative slow walking could be something that the industry has to deal with again,” Norris says.
But on the other hand Norris says Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Interior, Doug Burgum, has a pro-green energy track record. Burgum, who’s also been tapped to head a new National Energy Council, will have a lot of say over energy development on federal land. As North Dakota Governor, he set a goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030. He also presided over a significant expansion of wind power.
“He appears to have a sensible all of the above approach to energy issues generally in his state,” Norris says.
Norris generally supports the overall Western Solar Plan because it would increase the amount of federal land available to the industry by close to tenfold. Though that’s still far less than what’s open to oil and gas companies.
In Nevada, about a quarter of the state’s electricity comes from solar. But it’s forecast to soon double as its population keeps booming.
Strange bedfellows
Meanwhile, opposition to industrial scale solar isn’t just coming from conservatives here. Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director for the Center for Biological Diversity says some projects will directly threaten wildlife and important watersheds.
Donnelly doesn’t think Trump will slow down all the capital that’s flooding into Nevada for solar projects either.
“There are companies that want to exploit public lands for financial gain and Trump’s all about that, and whether it’s lithium or whether it’s gold, solar or oil, they approve it,” Donnelly says.
Still, some of Trump’s most staunch supporters seem to have faith that he will intervene and slow down the solar boom. High rural turnout in statewide elections in Nevada can overpower more Democratic leaning Las Vegas. Esmeralda County went 82% for Trump. Mary Jane Zakas was also elected to the local county commission.
“Trump has never had limited thinking,” Zakas says. “He is very good at bringing all of the net together for the best of America’s needs.”
Zakas says Trump will give rural people a voice again.
Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, the Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator, said she was fired from the agency Friday after she declined to resign.
She said she did not know who had ordered her firing or why, nor whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knew of her fate. The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The departure reflected the upheaval at the F.D.A., days after the resignation of Dr. Marty Makary, the agency commissioner. Dr. Makary had become a lightning rod for critics of the agency’s decisions to reject applications for rare disease drugs and to delay a report meant to supply damaging evidence about the abortion drug mifepristone. He also spent months before his departure pushing back on the White House’s requests for him to approve more flavored vapes, the reason he ultimately cited for leaving.
Dr. Hoeg’s hiring had startled public health leaders who were familiar with her track record as a vaccine skeptic, and she played a leading role in some of the agency’s most divisive efforts during her tenure. She worked on a report that purportedly linked the deaths of children and young adults to Covid vaccines, a dossier the agency has not released publicly. She was also the co-author of a document describing Mr. Kennedy’s decision to pare the recommendations for 17 childhood vaccines down to 11.
But in an interview on Friday, Dr. Hoeg said she “stuck with the science.”
“I am incredibly proud of the work we were doing,” Dr. Hoeg said, adding, “I’m glad that we didn’t give in to any pressures to approve drugs when it wasn’t appropriate.”
As the director of the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, she was a political appointee in a role that had been previously occupied by career officials. An epidemiologist who was trained in the United States and Denmark, she worked on efforts to analyze drug safety and on a panel to discuss the use of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most widely prescribed class of antidepressants, during pregnancy. She also worked on efforts to reduce animal testing and was the agency’s liaison to an influential vaccine committee.
She made sure that her teams approved drugs only when the risk-benefit balance was favorable, she said.
The firing worsens the leadership vacuum at the F.D.A. and other agencies, with temporary leaders filling the role of commissioner, food chief and the head of the biologics center, which oversees vaccines and gene therapies. The roles of surgeon general and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also unfilled.
The U.S. Supreme Court
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The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday to allow Virginia to use a new congressional map that favored Democrats in all but one of the state’s U.S. House seats. The map was a key part of Democrats’ effort to counter the Republican redistricting wave set off by President Trump.
The new map was drawn by Democrats and approved by Virginia voters in an April referendum. But on May 8, the Supreme Court of Virginia in a 4-to-3 vote declared the referendum, and by extension the new map, null and void because lawmakers failed to follow the proper procedures to get the issue on the ballot, violating the state constitution.
Virginia Democrats and the state’s attorney general then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to put into effect the map approved by the voters, which yields four more likely Democratic congressional seats. In their emergency application, they argued the Virginia Supreme Court was “deeply mistaken” in its decision on “critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the Nation.” Further, they asserted the decision “overrode the will of the people” by ordering Virginia to “conduct its election with the congressional districts that the people rejected.”
Republican legislators countered that it would be improper for the U.S. Supreme Court to wade into a purely state law controversy — especially since the Democrats had not raised any federal claims in the lower court.
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Republicans without explanation leaving in place the state court ruling that voided the Democratic-friendly maps.
The court’s decision not to intervene was its latest in emergency requests for intervention on redistricting issues. In December, the high court OK’d Texas using a gerrymandered map that could help the GOP win five more seats in the U.S. House. In February, the court allowed California to use a voter-approved, Democratic-friendly map, adopted to offset Texas’s map. Then in March, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the redrawing of a New York map expected to flip a Republican congressional district Democratic.
And perhaps most importantly, in April, the high court ruled that a Louisiana congressional map was a racial gerrymander and must be redrawn. That decision immediately set off a flurry of redistricting efforts, particularly in the South, where Republican legislators immediately began redrawing congressional maps to eliminate long established majority Black and Hispanic districts.
An explosion and fire drew a large emergency response on Friday to a lumber mill in the Midcoast region of Maine, officials said.
The State Police and fire marshal’s investigators responded to Robbins Lumber in Searsmont, about 72 miles northeast of Portland, said Shannon Moss, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Mike Larrivee, the director of the Waldo County Regional Communications Center, said the number of victims was unknown, cautioning that “the information we’re getting from the scene is very vague.”
“We’ve sent every resource in the county to that area, plus surrounding counties,” he said.
Footage from the scene shared by WABI-TV showed flames burning through the roof of a large structure as heavy, dark smoke billowed skyward.
The Associated Press reported that at least five people were injured, and that county officials were considering the incident a “mass casualty event.”
Catherine Robbins-Halsted, an owner and vice president at Robbins Lumber, told reporters at the scene that all of the company’s employees had been accounted for.
Gov. Janet T. Mills of Maine said on social media that she had been briefed on the situation and urged people to avoid the area.
“I ask Maine people to join me in keeping all those affected in their thoughts,” she said.
Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, said on social media that he was aware of the fire and explosion.
“As my team and I seek out more information, I am praying for the safety and well-being of first responders and everyone else on-site,” he said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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