Big Pivots reports that a proposed 500-megawatt wind project in Kiowa County may be stalled because the federal review process required for tall turbines has effectively frozen. The Towner Wind Energy II project, also called Towner West, needs Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Defense review because its turbines could exceed 200 feet and potentially affect military radar, flight paths, or national security. According to a lawsuit joined by Colorado and other states, that process has stopped moving under the Trump administration.
This is not just another green-energy food fight. Kiowa County has the lowest assessed valuation of Colorado’s 64 counties, a population roughly half what it had in 1950, little irrigated agriculture, and almost no oil and gas development. The first Towner project is already under construction. The second could add another badly needed stream of property-tax revenue, but the county is now waiting on Washington to perform a review the law already requires.
There are legitimate local questions. The projects are near the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, the proposed turbines are enormous, and rural residents are allowed to ask what gets built around them. But asking questions is called process. Refusing to complete the process because the administration dislikes wind is something else entirely.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Federal law requires large wind projects to undergo aviation and defense review. The lawsuit alleges the Pentagon has frozen that work. Apparently “national security review” now means leaving the paperwork in a drawer until the politics improve.
- Towner East already received clearance and is under construction with 115 turbines. Towner West, planned for 148 turbines, remains in limbo. Same plains, same county, different federal mood ring.
- Kiowa County has an assessed valuation of only $39.4 million, the lowest in Colorado. County officials estimate each wind project could bring roughly $500,000 a year in property-tax revenue. In Denver, that buys a consultant. In Kiowa County, that can keep the lights on.
- The county’s concerns are real. These are industrial projects near a nationally significant historic site, and the turbines would be taller than Denver’s tallest building. Rural Colorado is not vacant land waiting for metropolitan planners to decorate.
- The larger scam is process as a political weapon. Democrats stretch it until their preferred project gets blessed. Republicans freeze it until a disliked project dies. Rural counties get the privilege of waiting while both sides congratulate themselves.
My Bottom Line
If the lawsuit is right and the Trump administration has deliberately frozen legally required reviews because it hates wind power, that is not energy policy. That is bureaucratic hostage-taking with a Pentagon letterhead. You do not defend rural America by kneecapping a rural county’s tax base and calling it principle.
And no, that does not make every wind turbine holy. Colorado’s renewable-energy priesthood has spent years acting like any local objection is evidence of backward thinking. Sand Creek matters. Local land use matters. Radar and military operations matter. The people who live there matter. A serious government reviews those concerns, makes a decision, and explains it. It does not bury the file because the president thinks turbines are ugly.
Kiowa County voted overwhelmingly for Trump. That should not matter to the legal review, but it sharpens the irony. Rural communities are constantly used as political scenery. One side poses beside a wind turbine. The other poses beside a pickup truck. Then both head back to Washington or Denver and leave the county holding the empty hat.
Rural Colorado is tired of being told to sacrifice for somebody else’s agenda. Climate virtue-signaling is not a substitute for local consent. MAGA mood-ring governance is not a substitute for lawful process. Do the review. Answer the questions. Make the decision. And stop treating places like Eads as a drive-through laboratory for whichever political faction currently has the federal letterhead.
Source: Big Pivots
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