The Daily - A Wind Farm in Coal Country

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

Wyoming has powered the nation with coal for generations. Many in the state consider the industry part of their identity.It is in this state, and against this cultural backdrop, that one of America’s largest wind farms will be built.Today, we look at how and why one local politician in Carbon County, Wyo. — a conservative who says he’s “not a true believer” in climate change — brought wind power to his community.Guest: Dionne Searcey, a domestic correspondent for The New York Times. Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: The tiny town of Rawlins, Wyo., will soon be home to one of the nation’s largest wind farms. But pride in the fossil fuel past remains a powerful force. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Wind energy, a cornerstone of President Biden's climate agenda, is becoming a popular target for Republican leaders and pundits. He's not okay with energy. He wants windmills, the windmills. The windmills that don't work when you need them. Who mock it as an unreliable eyesore. People who support wind farms as a rule live very far from wind farms.

That, in their telling, is being forced on the country by out-of-touch liberals. How would you like a massive power plant in your backyard humming and buzzing and chopping up birds? That's what a wind turbine is. So why are local conservative lawmakers embracing wind farms? Today, my colleague Dion Searcy traveled to Wyoming to find out. Travel to Wyoming to find out. It's Tuesday, March 16th.

Dionne, you recently returned from a reporting trip to Wyoming. Why Wyoming? Well, I knew that Wyoming was one of the reddest states in the nation. People there supported President Trump, you know, overwhelmingly in both elections. This is a state that has powered the nation for generations in coal. You know, people really latched onto Trump's promise to bring back coal there. And I learned that one of the nation's biggest wind farms was being built there. And so I headed to the home of that wind farm, which is a town called Rollins in a county called Carbon County. It's actually called Carbon County. That's a little on the nose. Yeah. People say there's so much coal in this part of Wyoming and in Wyoming in general,

like you can swing a three iron and you'll be able to mine all of it. I mean, that's all it takes. And what did you find when you got there? What I found in Rollins was a community that was bustling. Adventure awaits. Embrace the landscape and escape the crowds of Carbon County, Wyoming. A little town, about 9,000, which is, you know, probably a medium-sized town for Wyoming. But, you know, we had a really nice downtown, a coffee shop, a bar, that kind of thing.

People coming and going. Get your West on in Wyoming's Carbon County. And the person who I met with there, who showed me around town, is a guy called Terry Wycombe. He's the mayor of Rawlins, and he loves Wyoming. It's a great place to do business and to live. It's as good as it gets.

The best fishing, the best hunting ever, and best place in the world to eat Mexican food. Most warm and loving people you've ever been around. He loves the views. He loves the landscapes. You know, if you get tired of people, drive over one hill and you won't see anybody for hours. He should be on the tourism board,

the way he talks about it. Not all people would like it here because, you know, the wind blows and the winters are a little bit rough, but most beautiful place in the whole world for summertime. You just fall in love with the place, you know? He loves it. I mean, a lot of people there are like Terry. He really is kind of an embodiment of the zeitgeist of the state. I moved to Rawlins in 1978. The oil field was booming as well as the coal mines were going full blast. It was kind of tough to rent a place and whatnot. But what kept me here was, number one, the opportunity, because I totally believe quality of life begins with a paycheck.

Did Terry ever work in the coal mines or in the oil industry? No, he didn't. He kind of worked profiting off of those industries. You know, when there's a boomtown situation going on, I mean, there are jobs for everyone, right, in all kinds of fields. For example, he ended up working in a sign-making business where he would print billboards and signs for coal mines. That was a lot of his work, was working with the industries but not directly for them.

Mm-hmm. So the people in those industries become his clients. His clients, his customers were coal miners for many years. miners for many years. So like many Americans who live in coal country or oil country, those industries are vital to him and to his sense of himself and the community. That's exactly right. I mean, really, people have a lot of their identity in Wyoming wrapped up in coal. When I first moved here, it was like coal will never go away. We've got a lot of it. It's just a lot of pride and power in the United States with energy. This is the industry that put food on the table, that put their kids through college,

and they're proud of it. And how would you describe Terry's politics, his worldview? politics, his worldview? Terry is conservative. He voted for Trump in both elections. And he is a huge supporter of the industry that made Wyoming what it is, and that is fossil fuels. I'm not a true believer in, when you say climate change, Al Gore's face comes into my vision. I'm not a radical climate change believer, okay? I'm just not. I don't know. You'd have to talk a long time to convince me that I should take a different viewpoint. I'm sorry. He just doesn't buy it. So I wonder what happens to people like Terry and to this community when inevitably, as we all know, these local industries, especially coal, starts to enter a period of decline? Well, when that happened in Carbon County in the 80s, when mines started closing down,

it was devastating. People's identities were suddenly pulled out from under them. People's identities were suddenly pulled out from under them. The town of Rollins used to be twice as big as it is now. I mean, half the town moved away. There just were no jobs. And it wasn't just the coal miners. People like Terry saw his business decline. All the industries that profited off of the coal mining situation there were all just cratered.

It was really hard for everyone. You know, when they close the coal mine, that's like one day you go to work and you're making, you know, exceptionally good money for the area. And then the next day you go and you don't have a job. A lot of houses got repossessed, several service stations closed, and then several restaurants closed. It sounds pretty devastating. Yeah, it was. I mean, can you imagine one day just, hey, there's no place to work? It all happened within about a year, year and a half, and it was pretty sudden, if you

will, you know. All of us lost a little bit when they closed those coal mines. Everyone had to make this dramatic shift to figure out what they were going to do next. How were they going to survive? How is the town and how is Carbon County going to survive? Hmm. But of course, Terry Wycombe doesn't work in that industry.

So what ends up happening to him? Well, he saw Carbon County, you know, really, really struggling to figure out what was next for it and what was going to become of it with all these mines closing down. He was a business guy. He had a lot of experience and a lot of jobs. And he decided that he could put that business acumen to use. And he decided to run for county commissioner. You know, the fact of the matter is there was a lot of people walking around

on their bottom lip. You know, the government is not good at running businesses and the government, whether it be city or county or whatever, is a lot of times not good at anything about business. And so I felt that me being a businessman, I would bring a new perspective. He knows that he is there as a representative of the business community, and he can maybe start to make some decisions that will keep Carbon County on the map. And maybe start to make some decisions that will keep Carbon County on the map.

And what are those decisions? What kind of options does Carbon County and this commission really have at this point? Well, around the late 2000s, developers start approaching Terry and coming before the commission with ideas about building giant wind farms. With wind, it was kind of a gold rush, if you will. And everybody and anybody wanted to get in the wind business. I think at first he was pretty intrigued. A decent amount of money in tax revenue that the county could get. But then all of a sudden, tons of companies start coming before the board. One particular company was so abrasive.

Oh my God. Just try to bully you into it. And it was like, well, you're going to get all this money. Yeah, but I'm giving up my entire way of life. You know, just stuff like that used to just drive me crazy. And then opposition started. What started out as sounding like a cool way to make some cash for the county suddenly seemed like, huh, maybe we better slow down and think about this.

There are certain places you don't want wind farms. For instance, let's say that it's out where it's all public land, and then you permit a wind farm there, then all of a sudden you can't hunt there because hunting and whatnot is a way of life out here. It's something almost everybody does. And their favorite vista too, right? Right. That's what some people come to Wyoming to see.

And we had to reserve certain places like that just because it made common sense. He kind of realized that he had a situation here and a huge decision to make for the county. And so what does Terry do? So Terry puts a halt on things. He starts talking to people. He goes all over the state. He talks to other county officials. He goes to the state capitol. He talks to lawmakers. He talks to wind developers. He talks to people like everyone around town. He tries to figure out what people are thinking and what the developers themselves are pitching. What are the long-term consequences? What are the short-term consequences?

Just how many jobs are these things going to produce? Are they going to be a blight on the landscape? He just basically looks around and weighs everything that he's learned, and he decides it's in the best interest of the county to start approving some of these things. And he does just that. I mean, he allows some of the wind farms to start

to break ground. He is seeing the bigger picture here. And that bigger picture is what in his mind? So for Terry, the bigger picture comes down to dollar signs. It has nothing to do with ideology. It doesn't have anything to do with fossil fuels, emissions, pollution, climate change. It's all about the bottom line. He wants to help Carbon County survive and head into the future in a good place. We'll be right back. So Dion, how does Carbon County start to change once Terry and the commission approve these wind projects? So, it's a real change for Carbon County and for Rollins itself. You know, workers are coming in.

They're spending money at hotels. They're spending money at the local bar, the Rifleman's Club. They start seeing, you know, even amid all the decline of fossil fuels, they start seeing real revenue come into their coffers from, you know, sales tax and, you know, the other fees that the wind projects have to spend. And a new rec center goes up, you know, improvements are made to the school. You know, things are happening in the town and there's a real difference that's felt. So this is doing precisely the thing that Terry Weichemann, his fellow county commissioners, had hoped it would do. Absolutely. But the problem is, is it's not coal. There aren't as many jobs

in the end. One wind farm that I toured when I was in Wyoming, it took 300 workers to build some like 50 some turbines. And once it's up and operational, it'll only take 10 workers to operate. And that's for, you know, the next 20, 30 years, the life of, you know, the wind farm. And that's a huge, huge decrease from, you know, a coal mine, right? Which takes workers constantly, you know, in and out. And so it's different. But as Terry likes to say, it's something, and something is better than nothing. Like, at least these jobs, you know, this handful of jobs will exist.

So as these wind farms start popping up, delivering jobs, not as many jobs as coal, but jobs, what is the reaction to them from the community over time? How does Terry characterize that? Well, the reaction is pretty mixed. You know, some people like how they look. Some people think the wind turbines are pretty. What went through your mind the first time you saw the wind turbines propped up on the land? I loved them. I did. They were mesmerizing to me.

But one of Terry's friends told him that he can't even look at them when he drives by them. He just averts his eyes. One of the guys I work with today, I was telling him what I was doing today, and his first thing out of his mouth was, I hate looking at them. Well, look the other direction. I don't know what to tell you. I don't. There are certain cars that some manufacturers make. I hate looking at them too, but they're allowed. And that resistance to these farms eventually cost Terry. What do you mean? That resistance to these farms eventually cost Terry. What do you mean?

Well, and what happened when you ran for re-election to the commissioner's office the last time? Well, I won two times in a row, and the last time I lost by 24 votes. When Terry ran for re-election to the county commission in 2014, he lost his seat. And he blames WIND. Well, Dionne, you were there, and you talked to lots of residents in the community. I assume many who opposed WIND. How do you explain what they were thinking and perhaps why he lost?

I think they just don't like how it looks. I really do think that's part of it. I think it's, you know, they love, they all talk about wide open spaces. You know, I do this thing sometimes when I go into rural communities, I walk around a cemetery and like the local town cemetery, I really feel like you get kind of a vibe for the town in these graveyards. And I noticed on, you know, a number of gravestones, there were empty landscapes, like mountains and trees and whatever, etched onto the headstones themselves. And, you know, that's how much people love their empty vistas. They want to be buried for eternity, you know, underneath that. Wow.

And I thought that was, you know, that's real. But also, you know, underneath that. And, and I thought that was, you know, that's real, but also, you know, there's this identity thing going on there. What do you think was behind that frustration with wind, even if it was just, you know, those 24 votes? Well, I think it's because they're more, Because they're more... Because it's new and it's scary. You know, when you have 80% of the people that live in our county working in the extraction business, of course, they're going to not want to help feed a competitor.

People love coal and they see coal and wind in competition. And this is a place that grew up with coal and they don't like it. I don't look at it as competition. I don't have a choice of wind or coal. I turn on my electricity, it comes on or it don't. But a lot of people think or feel that coal is literally hurting coal and oil competitively. And it sounds like the environmental benefit of wind as an alternative, that it's cleaner, that it's far cleaner as a source of energy is not persuasive to those skeptics. That's how a lot of people feel. Not everyone, but, you know, instead of,

you know, workers climbing down into the mines, now they're climbing up into wind turbines and not as many of them. And, you know, they just feel like this is a direct affront to their way of life. You know, you can get rid of wind energy in Carbon County if you want, but then we won't have coal. We will have a limited amount of oil and gas, and we won't have wind. It isn't going to bring back coal and oil and gas. As far as like people here wanting them because they're greed energy, very few percent of the people thought that way about it. So Terry has lost his seat as county commissioner, in large part, he thinks, because of these

growing wind projects. Where does that leave wind initiatives after 2014? Does it discourage more development? Is it seen as a setback for wind? I don't really think so. I mean, other wind projects are still coming online and are still, you know, getting approved. And in fact, the very reason that I came to Carbon County is this big giant wind farm right south of town that Terry helped usher in. And it's going to be humongous. You know, construction is still going on and will be going on for a few more years. But, you know, there's something like a thousand turbines

and it's big enough to power a city of a million. And, you know, it's just, it's going to be really, really massive and sprawling. And that's Terry's legacy. So I'm curious, can you tell me a little bit about the chokecherry plant? Because Carbon County is likely to be known now as home of the biggest wind farm in the United States. Instead of coal country, it might be wind country now.

How do you feel about that? Oh, I feel like a champion. I helped make it happen. You know, they could go anywhere and do whatever they're going to do, but they, you know, they chose here. And, you know, it's one of those things where we, we probably could have worked our tail off and got rid of them. But man, am I glad we didn't. They're creating jobs, they're spending money downtown. It's just going to get better and better and better. Dan, how should we be thinking about Terry Wycombe in this very important and interesting moment

in the United States debate over really the future of energy? He pushes through these wind projects, but not because he believes they are an important part of fighting climate change. On the contrary, he doesn't believe in climate change. He sees them purely through an economic lens. And yet he suffers politically for having done that and on those terms.

Well, I think America is filled with climate skeptics like Terry Wycombe's. I mean, guys who aren't going to do this kind of work, bringing in green energy because, you know, they have some big sense of ideology. I think, you know, a lot of politicians in the country are practical, especially at the local level. And that's where this change is going to happen. You know, the new president, Joe Biden, and the Democratic Congress, and, you know, those folks can do a lot for climate. There's the Paris Accord. There's, you know, all kinds of high-minded, big-picture climate actions that they can take.

big picture climate actions that they can take. But it's going to come down to communities like Rollins, to city councils, to county commissions, to people like Terry Wycombe, who are going to make these decisions, you know, in the best interests of the residents in their own towns and cities. I feel like that's why we hear the new president talking about renewable energy in economic terms. He always talks about these projects as job creators. He does not talk about it purely as a question of climate and the environment. He kind of talks about it the way Terry Wycombe does. And I feel like that's not an accident. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that Carbon County is a case study for the entire nation when it comes to renewable energy and how we should look at wind and solar and selling, you know, this move away from fossil fuels. And that became particularly clear, you know, in the recent past because last year, you know, all the counties in Wyoming were in the red.

All their budgets were just facing these huge, huge deficits. But Carbon County is one of three counties, all of which have wind projects going on to end the year 2020, the most awful of years, in the black. They have budget surpluses. And Terry really knows that that's his work. It all came from wind, and he's really proud of it. And when you are driving along and look out at these wind turbines or see them spinning in the distance now,

what goes through your mind? Cha-ching. Money. It's not going to be an easy sell in a lot of communities. It's just not. And so I think, you know, in order to make the future more green, I think that we're just going to have to figure out what works for different communities and what the best approach is.

what works for different communities and what the best approach is. It feels like you have an opportunity to really remake yourself as a community here. Oh, absolutely. We're in the biggest transformation ever. When in the world could you ever, from the ground up, do this? It's like one of the girls that works at the courthouse. One day she just looked at me with this look on her face, I wish I could duplicate, and she said, you do realize this is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make Rollins bigger and better.

And I'm just so fortunate to have the timing of being the mayor at this time. You know, it's exciting to me. Well, Dion, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks so much. Terry, thank you so much for spending so much time with us and using up your lunch break

to talk to us. I really appreciate it. Well, I appreciate you drawing attention to my town. Can you send people out here and let me show them around? I will. Because if they come out here and they spend any amount of time, they're going to want to move here. Our air is clean and we're good people. On Monday afternoon, the U.S. Senate narrowly confirmed President Biden's nominee for Secretary of the Interior

and a key player in his climate agenda, Congresswoman Deb Haaland of New Mexico, the first Native American to run a cabinet agency. The Times reports that Haaland is expected to rapidly expand the development of renewable energy, including wind, which she has repeatedly pushed for in her home state. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Much of Italy is imposing new lockdowns on residents as the country tries to fend off a

third wave of infections a year into the pandemic. Half of Italy's 20 regions, including the cities of Rome, Milan, and Venice, will operate under the restrictions until April 6th. Infections are spiking in several European countries, where vaccines are in short supply and have been rolled out at a sluggish pace. In Italy, new cases are up 34% over the past two weeks. Today's episode was produced by Michael Simon Johnson and Leslie Davis. It was edited by Mark George, Dave Shaw, and Claudine Abade McElwain, and engineered by Marion Lozano. That's it for The Daily.

I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.