Two energy bills sponsored by Rep. Derrin Owens, R-Fountain Green, advanced unanimously from a Senate committee late last week in another move eyeing Utah’s energy landscape.
SB61, Energy Corridor Amendments, would require the entity proposing transmission lines or other energy projects first complete a citing analysis to demonstrate the most suitable location and not rule out federal land where many of these corridors already exist. Those factors would have been considered before any use of eminent domaine impacts private property.
Owens said cumbersome permitting delays in the federal process makes it easier for project proponents to seek out private land.
“The purpose of this bill, Energy Corridor Amendments, is to just ensure a more effective and efficient use of government lands and to protect private rights for our citizens. It changes the eminent domain law, not substantially, but it’s specific to telecommunication, electricity and power infrastructure,” Owens told the Senate Transportation, Public Utilities and Energy Technology Committee.
Owens called eminent domain a “sacred power” that should be used as sparingly as possible.
“But with our federal partners, it’s so difficult to get permits on federal land, so (for) the utilities not on their error or their fault, it’s faster and probably less expensive to just cause imminent domain and go over the top of landowners,” Owens said. “And those corridors are already there. Let’s use those first, if at all possible.”
Rep. Ron Winterton, R-Roosevelt, praised the bill.
“I love the bill. I don’t think it goes far enough, and I experienced this in my own county and in my district of how they ran over private landowners for a high voltage power line that was condoned and financed federally and they didn’t use any federal land,” Winterton said. “And it’s really hard to sell a farm when they’d come through and condemned it or put a tower in there. Now it upsets the whole ranch.”
He stressed: “So I don’t think we go far enough as a state saying, ‘No, you got to stay on your own land, until last resort.”

Wind, solar and tax credits
Owens’ other bill would require commercial wind and solar farms that produce more than 600 kilowatt hours of energy to be accompanied by battery storage or some other storage means in order to qualify for state tax credits.
SB192, Commercial Wind and Solar Incentives, would require those systems to able to deliver six hours of “nameplate” capacity to the grid.
“The bill also promotes energy reliability and storage in Utah’s clean energy sector while refining our tax credit eligibility. It incentivizes investment in clean energy while ensuring proper oversight in limiting some redundant tax credits, which I think are in place now,” Owens said.
“I think we should understand the intent of the bill is to continue to stretch our industry but incentivize them in the right manner.”
Representatives for the Interwest Energy Alliance and Utah Clean Energy spoke in favor of the bill.
“It’s really good that more and more, particularly solar installers, are adding battery storage to their projects,” said Josh Craft, director of governmental affairs with Utah Clean Energy.
“The prices are coming down. It helps make variable energy resource a dispatchable energy resource, and batteries themselves are important resources for our grid. They provide ancillary services like frequency regulation, so we want to see those grow.”
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