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Bennington County Farm Bureau president urges no size cap on solar fields; committee narrows bill to protect prime agricultural soils
Summary
Arthur Whitman, president of the Bennington County Farm Bureau, told a legislative committee he opposes a fixed size limit on solar projects and urged lawmakers to focus instead on siting them off prime agricultural soils; the committee removed an explicit size cap from S.323 and discussed borrowing PUC decommissioning language to ensure developers cover end-of-life costs.
Arthur Whitman, president of the Bennington County Farm Bureau and a Shaspberry resident, told a legislative committee reviewing S.323 that imposing a size cap on solar facilities would unfairly restrict farmers’ ability to generate income from their land.
“I just don't understand why you would restrict a landowner or a farmer... their ability to generate power on a certain size,” Whitman said, arguing that larger facilities can produce lower per-unit costs because of economy of scale.
Committee members responded by saying they had decided to remove the bill’s proposed size restriction. “We’re going to strike that size portion out of this bill,” the chair said, signaling the committee will pursue other protections instead of an arbitrary acreage cap.
The committee’s discussion shifted to limiting impacts on prime agricultural soils. Whitman and members agreed that large solar fields are feasible only near three-phase or high-tension lines, which means their siting is constrained and not likely to "take over the whole state." Members said the bill should steer projects toward less-valuable portions of farms where possible to preserve prime soils used for food production.
Lawmakers and staff also debated requiring an engineering audit that would estimate life-cycle energy payback, carbon emissions, and the 25-year disposal costs for panels, concrete footings, transformers and batteries. One committee member proposed adding language requiring a licensed firm (approved by the Agency of Natural Resources) to perform that audit; others said parts of that information are already required in PUC proceedings.
On decommissioning and financial assurance, staff and counsel described the Public Utility Commission’s existing practice: developers must demonstrate financial assurance (a letter of credit and periodic certification) tied to a project's decommissioning obligations and the PUC oversees compliance. Committee members agreed it would be reasonable to borrow or reference PUC decommissioning language in S.323 to ensure obligations survive transfers of project ownership.
The committee did not take a final vote on S.323 in this session but members said they planned to circulate revised language (including the refined section 9 language) to the Agency of Natural Resources and attempt to move the bill out of committee the next day. The committee also signaled it would continue conversations with the House and other stakeholders on related zoning and tiering issues.
The committee’s next procedural step is to finalize and circulate drafted language and reconvene for a potential vote; no formal motion or recorded vote occurred during the testimony.
