BOISE, Idaho - U.S. Senator Jim Risch called out the Biden-Harris administration for ignoring Idahoans’ vehement opposition to the Lava Ridge Wind Energy Project in order to accomplish its woke green agenda.
On Idahoans, his opposition to Lava Ridge:
“To say that people in the Magic Valley are not too red hot about [Lava Ridge] is the biggest understatement I’ve heard. Nobody down there wants this.”
“It's 100,000 acres of open space that people love down there. They're going to put these towers on there that are as big as the space needle or higher—hundreds of them on this spot. Then, they're going to generate electricity and send it to California. If California wants the energy, so be it. But build the windmills and take 100,000 acres of their public lands.”
On the Biden-Harris Administration and the United States Department of the Interior:
“If you want to understand the Biden-Harris administration, it’s about two things: it’s about woke, and it’s about green. Everything they do is in done in that vein.”
“[U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland] said, ‘Well, the public does have a say.’ The problem is they’re not going to listen to it…They clearly are not.”
“They’ve got a private contractor that they’re trying to make a deal with to do this. It’s wrong, just flat wrong.”
“The result of the [presidential] election is going to be determinative of a lot of things on Lava Ridge…If Donald Trump gets elected, the Lava Ridge project is no more.”
Risch led the Idaho delegation in introducing legislation and other measures to block the Lava Ridge Wind Energy Project, which would build hundreds of wind turbines on nearly 150,000 acres of public land in Southern Idaho.
The proposed Lava Ridge project would visually compromise the Minidoka National Historic Site, a relocation site where more than 13,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War Two.
The project has received repeated, formal, and passionate opposition from the Idaho State Legislature, Idaho’s Constitutional Officers, impacted county and city officials, and many in the Japanese American Community.
