March 1, 2023 |
At the legislature, the clock ran out Monday on House Bill 3. As a result, Wyoming counties will retain control of assessing the wind and solar power companies in their jurisdictions beyond January 1 of 2024.
The State Assessment of Independent Power Producers bill was hotly debated during floor and committee debates. HB 3 would have returned the authority of assessing the property values of renewable energy installations to the Wyoming Department of Revenue which had conducted the assessments for a decade up until last year. A review of state law in 2020 showed that the DOR did not have the authority to conduct the assessments. HB 3 would have provided the legal authority.
In the meantime, the power to conduct the valuations defaulted to county assessors, which assess retail, commercial, and large industrial complexes in their jurisdiction.
Wind industry lobbyists testified against counties conducting the assessments, saying they were more comfortable with the state conducting the valuations.
The main argument for local control is that wind companies oversell their projects to county commissioners with promises of high tax returns, but underdeliver after the project is operating. Converse County Assessor Dixie Huxtable has been the point person for local control. Huxtable testified at a senate committee meeting in February where she said that the taxes received in her county are half of what was promised when companies applied for special use permits to build their projects.
The issue of state versus local control became touchy at times during the session but HB 3 passed the House on third reading by a wide 54 vote margin on January 19.
The bill went to the Senate, where it sat. When HB 3 saw the light of day, in early February, at an appropriations committee meeting, swords were drawn. Senator Tara Nethercott, a committee member and supporter of state control over the assessments, said political opposition to the bill stemmed from “anger” over wind energy projects in general.
Photo – Capitol Building – Bigfoot99 File Photo
Sen. Cale Case, who was testifying in opposition to HB 3, pushed back hard. The long-time critic of wind farms said the real politics over who conducts the assessments lays at the state level, not with the counties.
The politics did not end there.
House bill 3 languished on the Senate floor after the Appropriations Committee recommended it on a do-pass vote of 3-2 back on February 6.
This past Monday was the last day for any bill to be considered by the Committee of the Whole in second house. House Bill 3 never appeared. It is dead.
At Tuesday’s Carbon County Commissioners meeting, Chairwoman Sue Jones shed some light on what happened to the bill that her board opposed.
The next chapter in this ongoing story is finding out whether this year’s valuations for wind farms come back from county assessors higher, lower or the same, as the ones done in recent years by the state.
