The single most important rural economic development initiative before Congress this year is renewable energy legislation. No other debate in Congress has greater potential to create jobs and directly impact rural revitalization in the Midwest and Great Plains.

Recently the Center for Rural Affairs analyzed Department of Energy research on the economic impact of wind energy development that would result from a twenty percent Renewable Electricity Standard - a requirement that power companies obtain twenty percent of the electricity that they sell from renewable sources, like the wind.

The results of that analysis, entitled Renewable Energy and Economic Potential in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota, found that expanding production of renewable electricity to twenty percent of generation has the potential to create as many as 3,900 permanent jobs in South Dakota. Congress has passed lots of jobs bills, and lots of economic development initiatives, but none in recent memory had the potential for long-term job creation in South Dakota as that contained in the American Clean Energy Leadership Act.

Advertisement

Moreover, a review of Department of Energy wind resource maps show that South Dakota’s best wind resources are widely dispersed, primarily in rural South Dakota. For the first time in a long time an initiative with considerable job creation and economic development potential would heavily favor rural South Dakota counties that have lost population and experienced chronic economic hardship.

Jobs are only a part of the potential economic benefit of the energy legislation and renewable energy standard that passed the Senate Energy Committee earlier this summer. South Dakota farmers and ranchers would stand to benefit as well — to the tune of approximately $21.5 million in rental payments to farmers and ranchers annually for leasing land for wind turbines, access roads and the like. Averaging $5,000 annually per turbine, the potential economic benefit to landowners is considerable. Wind energy development initiatives that allow farmers and ranchers to share in the ownership of turbines as well as the profits generated by their operation would provide even greater economic benefits. In addition, South Dakota is projected to gain over 29,000 medium-term jobs averaging one year in duration — jobs related to transportation, manufacturing, site preparation and turbine construction.

The Senate renewable energy bill would also make wind energy production a priority for future development of the nation’s interstate electric transmission grid. Ultimately, achieving a twenty percent renewable electricity standard will depend on our ability to move wind generated electricity from places like the wind rich Great Plains to the nation’s population centers. And, in addition to setting a strong standard, focusing future transmission on wind and other renewable electricity generation is crucial if South Dakota hopes to figure prominently in the nation’s energy future and fully realize the economic benefits that would accompany that destiny.

Whether or not the potential for rural revitalization related to wind energy development materializes depends in large measure on the fate of federal renewable energy legislation, especially legislation pending before the United States Senate. When the renewable energy bill came to the Senate Energy Committee it contained a somewhat anemic fifteen percent renewable electricity standard and was then weakened to twelve percent. The standard was then further diluted until, upon passage out of committee, the renewable standard was effectively less than ten percent.

There will almost certainly be an amendment on the floor of the full Senate to raise the renewable electricity standard to nearer twenty percent. The national media will describe the debate over that amendment as an environmental issue, and it is important to protection and stewardship of our natural resources. But to rural people in South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and much of the rest of the Midwest and Great Plains, it will also be an unprecedented opportunity to create genuine economic opportunity and a better future for their communities.

If farmers, ranchers and other rural South Dakotans can convince their Senators that the economic fate of much of rural South Dakota is closely tied to America’s renewable energy future, and those Senators stand with other Midwest and Great Plains Senators and call for strengthening the renewable electricity standard on the floor of the Senate, then rural South Dakotans’ energy and economic future could be a great deal brighter.

John Crabtree

Center for Rural Affairs