In 2023, the Department of Energy released the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETC) study identifying areas they speculate would experience transmission capacity constraints of congestion. The map identified more than 2 million acres or 24% of the state of New Mexico and a corridor area in southeastern Colorado ranging from five to 15-miles wide across Prowers, Baca and Kiowa counties. Other identified lines are located in parts of Nebraska and the Dakotas and a third across northern Pennsylvania and Lake Erie.

I’m revisiting this after the DOE reopened the comment period window briefly last year and then went quiet. For farmers and ranchers in the wide swath through New Mexico and southeastern Colorado, there hasn’t been much news but, with Gov. Jared Polis’ clean-energy goals and a history of being the redheaded stepchildren, they’re doubtful no news is good news.

For operations like Kyle and Tonya (Orr) Perez’s ranch near Nara Visa, New Mexico, the lack of information about the potential width of the area — ranging from 5 to 15 miles wide — could potentially affect 10 to 15,000 acres of their family operation. They are part of a large group of landowners hoping for a hard stop to what they say is a landgrab.

At an upcoming Colorado Independent Cattle Growers Association meeting, they’re hoping to gather support to write to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. Rollins recently opened a portal for farmers and ranchers to report lawfare after some high-profile cases came to a fair ending after Rollins and the Trump administration stepped in. One of those cases was the South Dakota case of Charles and Heather Maude, who were indicted separately on federal criminal charges of theft of government property based on the location of a generations-old fenceline that left 10 acres of their ground on the Forest Service side, and 10 acres of USFS land on their side.

A 2005 bill granted the Department of Energy the power to use eminent domain to establish corridors to bring high-voltage transmission lines to areas suffering from a lack of access to power. The DOE attempted to exercise this power twice, once on each coast, but were thwarted by the courts.

In 2021, the Biden administration announced via executive order their intention to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The same year, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 amended the Federal Power Act (FPA) granting the Department of Energy broad discretion to establish NIETCs so the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) can permit interstate electric transmission facilities. On Dec. 15, 2022, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to amend its existing regulations for permits to site interstate electric transmission facilities. According to Landmark, the Infrastructure Act amendments to FPA “questionably expanded DOE’s authority to establish National Corridors to include geographic areas expected to experience such constraints or congestion.” The $2.5 billion Transmission Facilitation Program can be accessed by the designation of NIETCs would allow DOE to enter public-private partnerships to co-develop transmission projects within NIETCs. This is an open invitation for speculative projects making the vast farm and ranch country heavily industrial and leaving the communities that depend upon the agriculture industry in the lurch.

The DOE said the law didn’t limit the shape, proportion, or size of the corridor, and there is the opportunity for public-private cooperative projects within the NIETC so there’s no guardrails on potential projects within the exceedingly wide swath. Multiple transmission lines, other transmission infrastructure, distributed energy sources, other solutions, alternative non-transmission solutions, battery storage, intensive hydrogen power generation and nuclear power generation have all been mentioned in discussion with the DOE.

Landowners facing the potential transmission lines and the eminent domain powers granted to the DOE, are asking Sec. Rollins to step in based on the potential for irreparable harm to the agriculture industry that produces about $1.9 billion in New Mexico annually and another $504 million annually in the three affected Colorado counties.

With massive wildfires across so much of western Nebraska and record low cattle herd numbers, now is not the time to replace cows with power poles, especially if the benefit of those lines bypasses the rural areas and lands on the Front Range at the expense of rural Colorado. Again.

Green energy shouldn’t come at the expense of Colorado farmers and ranchers especially when they’re already shouldering crippling challenges in the pursuit of feeding the state. To lend your voice to agriculture producers, you may sign on to a letter to Sec. Rollins at nietcopposition.com/letter.

Rachel Gabel writes about agriculture and rural issues. She is assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, the region’s preeminent agriculture publication.