WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) today introduced legislation to delay the Lava Ridge Wind Energy Project. This bill would prevent the Secretary of the Interior from authorizing the Lava Ridge Wind Energy Project until a GAO study is conducted to analyze the projects impact to the Minidoka National Historic Site. During Wednesday’s Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee business meeting on the Energy Permitting Reform Act, Chairman Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) made a commitment to place this bill on a business meeting agenda in September.
“The Lava Ridge Wind Energy Project is opposed by virtually all Idahoans and especially the Japanese American community. The Interior Department cannot continue to push through a project without considering the impact to the Minidoka National Historic Site, where Japanese Americans from across the West were incarcerated during World War II,” said Risch. “My bill ensures this project does not proceed until the real impacts to Minidoka and our cultural and natural resources are considered.”
Earlier this year, Senator Risch led the Idaho delegation in introducing the Don’t DO IT Act, which would require the Secretary of the Interior deny any wind or solar energy project proposed on public land that is disapproved of by the State legislature. Idaho’s State legislature unanimously passed a resolution in March 2023 expressing opposition to the Lava Ridge Wind Energy Project in Southern Idaho, a 370-turbine project spanning 146,000 acres. Among other concerns, 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 Lava Ridge Project has been opposed by many in the Japanese American Community including the Minidoka Pilgrimage, the Friends of Minidoka the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community and Exclusion Memorial Association in Washington State, the Japanese American Museum of Oregon, the Japanese American Citizens League, the Japanese American Confinement Sites Consortium, and Minidoka survivors and descendants from across the country.
