Jeff Hough did not pull any punches. Standing before a packed courthouse, the Republican county commissioner warned his colleagues that the vote they were about to take would directly violate America’s founding ideals. To underscore his point, he quoted the Declaration of Independence.
The three-person commission was on the verge of passing an ordinance that would outright ban utility-scale solar and wind energy development across Bannock County, Idaho.
"We cannot deny the entire county the opportunity to exercise their property rights," Hough declared to the room. "That goes against the principles this country was founded on."
A few minutes after his emphatic speech, the ordinance passed by a 2-1 vote, with Hough standing alone as the lone dissenter.
Since that consequential vote in March 2024, Hough has ascended to the role of commission chair and has dedicated himself to overturning the very ordinance he opposed. He will soon have an opportunity to make that happen. This fall, Hough and his fellow commissioners are set to vote on a revised ordinance featuring new language that would finally allow the development of solar and wind, alongside nuclear energy, within the county’s borders.
The Bannock County vote serves as a critical test case for rural America, exploring whether—and how—a community can revisit its assumptions regarding the costs and benefits of clean energy, ultimately deciding to welcome development it once swore off.
Recent data highlights just how contentious this issue has become nationwide. In 2025, nearly 1 in 4 U.S. counties implemented some form of ban, moratorium, or significant impediment to clean energy development, a notable rise from 15 percent of counties in 2023. Furthermore, an analysis by the Daily Yonder and Canary Media, utilizing data from USA Today and Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, reveals that more than 60 percent of counties with such bans are rural.
Bucking this national trend and reversing the ban would put Bannock County back in play at a time when the state of Idaho desperately needs to expand its energy portfolio. Idaho Power, the state’s largest utility, projects that electricity demand will surge by 1 gigawatt by 2030, representing a roughly 26 percent leap from current levels.
"The need to build stuff now is critical to Idaho’s economic future," said Aaron Menenberg, the Idaho policy manager for Renewable Northwest, a nonprofit organization dedicated to decarbonizing the regional grid. "We can’t afford to say no to anything."
Nestled in a scenic valley a few hours north of Salt Lake City and roughly 100 miles west of Wyoming’s Teton Range, Bannock County is geographically positioned as a prime location for new power generation facilities. It hosts the Populus substation, a vital electrical juncture critical for routing electrons onto the transmission grid and distributing power across Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and the Pacific Northwest. Constructing new power plants in close proximity to an established substation is significantly cheaper, and those logistical savings can ultimately help lower electricity costs for utility customers.
However, as Hough sees it, the greatest potential benefit for county residents isn’t necessarily utility bill savings; it is local economic development. In recent years, Bannock County’s population growth has lagged significantly behind the rest of Idaho. Meanwhile, the county’s rural communities are watching essential services disappear, while climate-fueled droughts make it increasingly difficult for generational family farms to stay afloat.
Hough firmly believes that renewable energy projects would inject much-needed capital into the local economy. Neighboring counties offer compelling proof of this potential: in 2024, clean energy projects in nearby Power and Bingham counties generated $909,000 and $639,000 in local tax revenue, respectively. Hough wants to send a definitive message to the renewable energy sector and prospective investors that Bannock County is "open for business" once again.
"Rural America is in a transition state," Hough said from his office in the county seat of Pocatello. "How do we make or help rural America transition to this new way of life, so that they can thrive and prosper?"
Not everyone shares Hough’s vision of economic prosperity. In the southern portion of Bannock County, his campaign to lift the ban has encountered fierce opposition. The local populace is effectively split into two distinct camps. On one side are residents who are eager to lease their private land to solar developers or who staunchly defend their neighbors’ rights to do so. On the other side are residents deeply skeptical of renewables who view leasing land to corporate developers as selling out—though many of these same skeptics voice strong support for nuclear energy.
Steve Criddle, a third-generation farmer and lifelong resident of south Bannock County, voiced his support for solar back in 2024 before the initial ban was enacted. Describing the current atmosphere in the valley, he kept it simple: "It’s confrontational."
Ironically, Bannock County’s original moratorium on solar and wind development stemmed from an unlikely architect: Hough himself.
In the fall of 2023, Hough attended an annual conference hosted by the Idaho Association of Counties in Boise. At the event, the Lava Ridge Wind Project—a massive 1-gigawatt development slated for more than 57,000 acres of federal land in southern Idaho—dominated discussions. County leaders from all over the state expressed deep anxiety regarding clean energy developers operating without adequate local oversight. (The Trump administration’s Interior Department ultimately canceled the Lava Ridge project in August 2025.)
The conference discussions prompted Hough to reflect on his own county. Months prior, he had learned that several major developers, including Chicago-based Hecate Energy and Moab, Utah-based Balanced Rock Power, had been actively approaching local landowners about potential solar projects in Bannock County.
With the cautionary tale of Lava Ridge fresh in his mind upon returning from Boise, Hough decided to take preventive measures.
"I realized that we didn’t have any kind of ordinance," Hough recalled. "So I knew they’d come in and do whatever they wanted."
On October 12, 2023, spearheaded by Hough, the county commissioners voted unanimously to enact a six-month moratorium on large-scale energy projects. The stated intention was not to permanently ban solar and wind, but rather to buy the county time to draft comprehensive regulations that would balance economic opportunity with responsible land stewardship. A public hearing was scheduled for the following February, with a final commission vote slated for March.
However, Hough’s temporary moratorium quickly took on a life of its own. In the ensuing months, a coalition of concerned local residents organized to push for a permanent ban.
Rebecca Falcon led that charge. A decades-long resident of Downey, a small town in south Bannock County, Falcon had been approached by Balanced Rock in September 2023 about leasing a portion of her 80 acres for a solar installation. Appalled by the prospect, she promptly turned the company away. However, Balanced Rock’s proposed Harmon Solar Project—a 300-megawatt facility paired with a massive 1,200-megawatt-hour battery storage system—also encompassed land owned by her neighbors. Stopping the project would require a community-wide effort.
Falcon and a fellow neighbor, Dez Hauser, who had also rejected overtures from Balanced Rock, encouraged other anxious residents to attend the February 2024 public hearing regarding the future of the moratorium.
Interest in the meeting was so overwhelming that officials had to relocate the proceedings from the county courthouse to a local high school auditorium in south Bannock County. Even then, the venue was packed to capacity. More than two dozen speakers, nearly all local residents, stepped up to voice their opinions, with the vast majority testifying in staunch opposition to solar energy.
When the commissioners reconvened the following month, Hough voted to repeal the moratorium, but the other two commissioners voted to extend it, framing the delay as necessary to study the impacts further. As controversy mounted through the spring and summer of 2024, the county declined to take additional action, leaving the ban firmly in place. Falcon, Hauser, and their allies had won.
Dale Lish, a grain farmer based in Downey and a retired U.S. Department of Agriculture worker familiar with clean energy programs, was deeply frustrated by the outcome.
"The approach was just no to everything, which bothered me," Lish said. "A straight-out ban—I don’t think that’s American. I think we, as private-property owners, ought to have a chance to do what we want within reason."
In 2023, Lish had signed a one-year contract with Hecate to option approximately 400 acres of his land for solar development. Because of the county’s subsequent ordinance, Hecate declined to renew the contract in 2024 and ultimately pulled out of the county entirely.
For the two and a half years following that pivotal March vote, Hough has persistently championed private-property rights while attempting to educate the community about Idaho’s surging energy needs.
While the commission will not vote on the new, permissive ordinance until later this fall following ongoing public review, at least one of Hough’s colleagues appears to have softened his stance. Ernie Moser, an incumbent commissioner who voted for the ban in 2024, acknowledged in an interview that his fears regarding solar and wind are "not as big" as they were two years ago. Nevertheless, Moser, who is retiring from the commission at the end of the year, stressed the importance of getting the policy right. The third commissioner, Ken Bullock, declined to comment.
The community’s deep divisions were further reflected during the May primary elections. Hough faced a challenger running on an explicit anti-solar platform. While Hough won the overall race by 14 percentage points, his opponent captured a striking 70 percent of the vote in Downey. With no Democratic challenger running, Hough secured his seat without general election opposition, mirroring the political dynamics of 2024 when a commissioner who voted for the ban lost his seat to a pro-Hough candidate while sweeping the Downey precinct.
For generational landowners like Steve Criddle, whose family roots in Downey trace back to 1876, changing economic realities and a worsening climate have made traditional grain farming increasingly unsustainable.
"We don’t get enough moisture anymore," Criddle explained. Fields farmed without irrigation now produce a fraction of their historical yields, forcing him to transition parts of his land to cattle grazing and take on odd jobs to keep the farm afloat. During a dry summer, an alfalfa field that once produced 800 bales of hay yielded only a dozen, forcing him to purchase feed for his livestock as extreme drought conditions gripped over 87 percent of the county.
As small-scale family farms struggle, Downey has seen its local infrastructure hollow out. Over the years, the rural hospital, bank, pharmacy, movie theater, grocery store, and farm-equipment shop have all closed their doors. For families like the Criddles, a solar lease represents a stable income stream to help maintain the land for their 11 grandchildren.
Lytton Bastian, another multigenerational farmer in Downey who owns over 2,000 acres, faced a similar dilemma. In 2021, he signed a five-year contract with Balanced Rock for 840 acres of his least productive land—primarily used as a gravel pit and seasonal cattle pasture—adjacent to the Populus substation. If the county lifts the ban, the lease payments will increase significantly. While critics like Falcon argue that leasing agricultural land is a betrayal of farming heritage, Bastian insists he would never lease prime, irrigated ground.
Beyond individual landowners, the broader community stands to lose out on vital property tax revenue that could help restore lost municipal services, such as a local grocery store. Anticipating the ban might eventually be lifted, Balanced Rock previously offered Downey a $100,000 community benefit program payment. If the project cannot proceed, those funds will vanish.
Despite these economic arguments, residents like Falcon remain deeply attached to the aesthetic and traditional character of the valley. Though transmission lines and the massive Populus substation already crisscross the landscape—structures her husband works on professionally for the Bonneville Power Administration—she draws a firm line at large-scale solar installations requiring thousands of acres.
Yet, when it comes to nuclear energy, Falcon and her anti-solar allies find themselves in broad agreement with local officials. A county survey conducted in January 2025 revealed that over 700 respondents showed an overwhelming 90 percent favorability toward nuclear energy development.
Southeast Idaho already houses the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), a leading hub for advanced nuclear research. Bolstered by federal pushes to expedite microreactor test beds and artificial intelligence integrations, alongside neighboring Wyoming’s TerraPower advanced nuclear plant under construction in Kemmerer, local excitement for nuclear technology runs high. Bannock County commissioners even hosted an educational forum with INL to explore potential involvement with small modular reactors.
For residents weary of sprawling solar developments, the prospect of a compact nuclear facility sitting on a few dozen acres sounds far more appealing. However, experts note that commercial small modular reactors remain years away from widespread commercial deployment, facing significant regulatory, engineering, and fuel supply hurdles.
Recognizing that nuclear power is a decade away from materializing locally, Hough continues to argue that Bannock County cannot afford to reject interim economic development opportunities like solar and wind.
"Everybody’s claiming nuclear is the future, which it is, but nuclear is 10 years away, maybe, so you’ve got to have something to help get you there," Hough said.
As the commission prepares for its crucial vote this fall, the future of energy in Bannock County ultimately rests in the hands of its three commissioners, who must balance fundamental property rights, economic survival, local safety concerns, and the preservation of the Idaho landscape for generations to come.