While NextEra Energy Resources is challenging the decline of approval for a solar farm in northeast Oklahoma’s Wagoner Country, it won a court fight over another solar farm proposed in northeast Kansas.
Four landowners and the city of Rossville sued in a move to stop NextEra’s proposed 500-megawatt Jeffrey Solar project in Jackson County. But this past week, Kansas City U.S. District Judge Holly Teeter dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue.
Like the proposal in Oklahoma, NextEra had plans for a 5,000 acre farm in Jackson County.
In their lawsuit, the landowners and Rossville charged that the solar farm would result in environmental harms and challenged the ability of NextEra to receive federal tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act without undergoing an environmental review as part of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The judge ruled the environmental concerns of the plaintiffs were “mismatched” with their challenges and they did not “plausibly allege the substantial federal control and responsibility necessary to trigger NEPA review.” She said such challenges raised in the lawsuit should be aimed at the legislative branch and not the judiciary.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department sided with the project and claimed that such projects qualifying for the tax credits don’t need federal environmental reviews.
Those named in the original lawsuit were:
The United States Department of Treasury.
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- Janet Yellen, in her official capacity as U.S. secretary of Treasury.
- Aditi Hardikar, in her official capacity as acting assistant secretary of the Treasury for Management.
- Laurel Blatchford, in her official capacity as the chief implementation officer for the Inflation Reduction Act.
- Aviva Aron-Dine, in her official capacity as assistant secretary for tax policy at the treasury.
- Daniel Werfel, in his official capacity as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.
- The Council on Environmental Quality.
- Brenda Mallory, in her official capacity as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality.
- Keith Kelly, Mark Pruett and Linda Gerhardt in their official capacity as the chair and members of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners.