If you opposed Lava Ridge, the fight did not end when the noise died down. Citizens who treat public battles like weather — a storm comes through, tempers flare, officials lie, reporters distort, then the sky clears and everyone drifts back to sleep — are the reason citizens lose. The issue did not vanish when the executive order was signed. The infrastructure logic remains. The political machinery remains. The questions about who governs Idaho’s land, water, and electric future remain entirely open.

This is the first article in a new series: Feeding the Beast That Will Eat Us — a sustained investigation into how energy development, transmission buildout, regulatory structure, and political economy combine to reshape southern Idaho over the objections of the people who live here. We are naming what is happening, documenting it with primary sources, and demanding that public officials answer for it in plain language.

The Steel Was Real: What the Federal Record Actually Says

The first and most important question is whether the threat from Lava Ridge was ever real, or merely a political frenzy. The federal record settles this cleanly.

In December 2024, the Bureau of Land Management issued a formal Record of Decision approving a right-of-way grant for the Lava Ridge Wind Project on public lands in Jerome, Lincoln, and Minidoka Counties.^[1] The approved plan authorized up to 241 wind turbines — reduced from the original proposal of 400 — with turbine heights reaching up to 660 feet, on a 38,535-acre siting corridor disturbing approximately 992 acres of BLM-managed land.^[2] The project was developed by Magic Valley Energy, an affiliate of LS Power, and had been in federal permitting since 2019.^[3]

That is not hypothetical. It is documented. The right-of-way was approved. The only honest question is what happens next — not whether the project existed in the first place. Any public official or commentator who told citizens the threat was “exaggerated” was either misinformed or deliberately minimizing what the federal government had actually signed.

On January 20, 2025 — the first day of his second term — President Trump issued executive orders halting new wind energy approvals, citing Lava Ridge by name. The official federal cancellation came in August 2025, when Interior Secretary Doug Burgum reversed the BLM’s approval.^[4] The turbines will not be built, at this time, under current federal leadership.

⚡ LOGICAL POINT FOR REVIEW

The cancellation rests entirely on executive action, not on permanent statutory protection, revised federal land use policy, or enforceable local ordinance. What an executive order giveth, a subsequent administration can take away. This is precisely why local land use ordinances and state legislative protections matter independently of federal political cycles.

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SWIP-N: The Corridor That “Wasn’t About Wind Power Alone”, but Maybe Still Is!

The Southwest Intertie Project-North (SWIP-N) is a $1+ billion, 285-mile, 500-kilovolt transmission line running from the Midpoint Substation near Twin Falls, Idaho, south to the Robinson Summit substation near Ely, Nevada.^[5] It is the final segment of a longer transmission corridor — stretching through Nevada toward the California grid — that LS Power describes as enabling approximately 2,000 megawatts of bidirectional flow across the entire system. SWIP-N itself delivers 500 megawatts northbound to Idaho Power customers. That is the public benefit the IPUC approved. The remaining capacity — over 1,100 megawatts southbound — is allocated to the California ISO (CAISO).^[6]

The Lava Ridge project was designed to connect directly to this corridor. Its 500-kV transmission line was specifically planned to tie into the Midpoint Substation or a point along the SWIP-N alignment.^[7] In other words, SWIP-N was the enabling infrastructure: build the corridor, then build the generation, then route the power south. That is the sequence. It is not speculation. It is the project record.

“The SWIP-North project is the only active proposal providing direct access to Idaho wind resources.”— California ISO Transmission Planning staff, December 2023

But here is what citizens must understand about SWIP-N as of early 2026: it is still being built. In December 2025, the Idaho Public Utilities Commission approved a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity for SWIP-N, finding that Idaho Power demonstrated the project will benefit customers and address capacity deficiencies.^[8] The IPUC found SWIP-N to be Idaho Power’s “least-cost, least-risk option” for meeting identified capacity needs.^[9] Construction was slated to begin in 2025, with completion targeted for 2027 to 2028.^[10]

Idaho Power owns 23% of SWIP-N and frames its investment as serving Idaho customers during winter months, when the desert Southwest has surplus power to sell northward.^[11] The California ISO will fund approximately 77% of the project, reflecting its interest in the southbound capacity — which can carry Idaho wind (or future generation) down to California markets.^[12]

✓ Key Structural Reality — The Asymmetry of the Deal

Idaho Power’s 500 MW northbound is the public benefit the IPUC approved to justify the CPCN. But over 1,120 MW of southbound capacity on the same line is allocated to CAISO — California’s grid operator — which is also funding 77% of the project’s cost. The line was designed around California’s interest in Idaho-region generation, not Idaho’s interest in winter imports. The Idaho ratepayer is the financing vehicle. California is the customer.

The New Proposal: Nuclear on the Same Ground

The Lava Ridge cancellation did not leave the Jerome County site quiet for long. In July 2025, Sawtooth Energy and Development Corporation announced plans to build a 462-megawatt small modular nuclear reactor project on 320 acres of BLM land near the Midpoint Substation — on land that overlaps with the former Lava Ridge development area.^[13] The project, called Midpoint Small Modular Reactor Project #1, would use six 77-MW NuScale VOYGR modules and is described as occupying a fraction of the footprint of the wind project.^[14]

Project supporters argue it could produce 462 megawatts of reliable baseload power on just 40 acres of active infrastructure — compared to Lava Ridge’s 1,000 megawatts scattered across nearly 200,000 acres.^[15] The project manager noted that Sawtooth deliberately chose the Midpoint site to leverage LS Power’s predevelopment work from Lava Ridge, reducing the environmental review burden.^[16]

⚡ CITIZEN SCRUTINY REQUIRED

As of mid-2025, the company had no confirmed relationship with NuScale, no interconnection request filed with Idaho Power, and no utility offtake agreement. The project manager has no prior nuclear industry experience and carries a prior criminal conviction for tax fraud. These facts do not foreclose the project — but are essential context for community members evaluating whether this is a serious proposal.

Community meetings in July 2025 drew dozens of Jerome County residents who expressed concern primarily about nuclear waste, groundwater impacts to the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer, and the absence of a confirmed national disposal site for spent fuel.^[17]

The aquifer question alone warrants independent hydrological analysis before any BLM approval moves forward. Community meetings organized by a developer are not a substitute for independent technical review funded by a neutral party.

Whether nuclear power is appropriate for this site is a legitimate policy debate that deserves honest community engagement and independent technical review — not developer-controlled meetings and rushed timelines. The aquifer question alone warrants independent hydrological analysis before any BLM approval moves forward.

For a number of reasons this project is unlikely to move forward.

The IPUC: Structure, Funding, and the Question of Independence

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission is the body charged with regulating investor-owned utilities, including Idaho Power. It sets rates, reviews rate cases, and — critically — decides whether large infrastructure projects like SWIP-N are in the public interest. Its December 2025 approval of SWIP-N’s Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity is therefore a decision of substantial consequence for southern Idaho.^[19]

Several structural features of the IPUC deserve public attention. First, the Commission’s operations are funded by fees assessed on the utilities it regulates — the same utilities whose rate cases and project proposals it must judge.^[20] This is standard utility commission practice nationally, but it creates a structural dependency that citizens should understand. Second, the Governor appoints all three commissioners, with confirmation by the Idaho Senate — meaning political control over the appointment process directly shapes the regulatory body’s composition and potential alignment.^[21]

✓ Documented Research Finding

Academic research published by the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University found that states where the legislature is involved in commissioner selection experience “significantly higher political donations” from regulated utilities and authorize “significantly higher returns on equity” than states with elected commissioners. The research found that when utilities can legally contribute to political campaigns, authorized returns run approximately 0.4 percentage points higher — translating to roughly $4 million in additional annual revenue for an average-sized utility.

The article’s original framing referenced allegations of corruption at the IPUC and specific whistleblower claims. Those claims are noted here, but this publication applies a standard of documented evidence. What is documentable is this: regulatory capture — the process by which a regulated industry shapes regulatory outcomes through access, deference, revolving-door personnel, and narrative dominance — is a well-studied phenomenon in American utility regulation, and the conditions that enable it are structurally present in Idaho.^[22]

The IPUC’s own 2024 Annual Report notes that Commissioner Edward Lodge previously served as Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs for a utility-sector enterprise before his 2023 gubernatorial appointment.^[23] This does not constitute evidence of wrongdoing. It does constitute exactly the kind of background that, in combination with appointment structure and funding mechanisms, merits sustained public scrutiny.

The article’s original framing referenced allegations of corruption at the IPUC and specific whistleblower claims. Those claims are noted here, but this publication applies a standard of documented evidence. What is documentable is this: regulatory capture — the process by which a regulated industry shapes regulatory outcomes through access, deference, revolving-door personnel, and narrative dominance — is a well-studied phenomenon in American utility regulation, and the conditions that enable it are structurally present in Idaho.^[22]

The IPUC’s own 2024 Annual Report notes that Commissioner Edward Lodge previously served as Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs for a utility-sector enterprise before his 2023 gubernatorial appointment.^[23] This does not constitute evidence of wrongdoing. It does constitute exactly the kind of background that, in combination with appointment structure and funding mechanisms, merits sustained public scrutiny.

Opinion

I believe that Idaho Power’s participation in SWIP-N was so that FERC would allow ratebasing — and the IPUC certificate was a necessary rubber stamp based on Idaho Power’s word and privileged documents the public isn’t allowed to access but has to pay for.

My assertion is an analytical conclusion, not a proven finding — but it is grounded in how FERC transmission rate recovery works and is the kind of structural argument that deserves public examination rather than dismissal. What would confirm it: Idaho Power’s FERC rate filing for SWIP-N showing the 23% ownership stake included in its transmission rate base; IPUC proceeding records showing the Commission relied primarily on Idaho Power’s own modeling with no independent load forecast commissioned; and confirmation that key cost and demand documents submitted to the IPUC were filed under confidentiality protection, shielded from public intervenors. What would rebut it: an independent load analysis that corroborates Idaho Power’s winter capacity claims; FERC rate filings that show SWIP-N was not rate-based; and IPUC proceeding records showing substantive adversarial review rather than deference. None of these documents are currently in the public domain in a form accessible to ordinary citizens — who fund the IPUC through the utility fees that pay the Commission’s operating budget.

📖 Term Explained: Ratebasing

Ratebasing is the process by which a utility includes a capital investment in its regulated rate base — the total value of assets on which FERC authorizes the utility to earn a guaranteed rate of return, paid by ratepayers. Once an asset is rate-based, customers pay not only the construction and operating costs of the infrastructure, but also the utility’s profit margin on that capital — every year, for the life of the asset. For a $1+ billion transmission line in which Idaho Power holds a 23% stake, ratebasing converts roughly $230 million in capital investment into a permanent, FERC-protected revenue stream extracted from ratepayer bills. The IPUC’s Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity is the required state-level precondition for Idaho Power to pursue FERC rate recovery on its SWIP-N stake. Without the CPCN, FERC ratebasing of the Idaho portion of the investment would face significant regulatory exposure.

The Political Ecosystem: Who Benefits and How

The article’s original framing identified what it called a network of “establishment Republican” figures connected to economic development, real estate, and energy interests. This observation has structural merit, even if the framing requires precision. The political economy of energy buildout, transmission expansion, and land conversion creates a self-reinforcing ecosystem: economic development boards, chambers of commerce, utility allies, real estate interests, and project developers all share an interest in continued buildout. They do not need to conspire. Shared incentives are sufficient.

The giveaway is always the reaction. Watch who immediately attacks citizens and community opponents rather than answering substantive questions. Watch who frames scrutiny as “anti-progress” or “backward.” Watch who is more offended by community resistance than by the prospect of agricultural land conversion, regulatory favoritism, or inadequate local benefit from large-scale projects that primarily serve distant markets.

Sidenote: Over the last several months many of the strongest, on the ground opponents of these projects, Senator Zuiderveld and Rep. Leavitt and legislative candidate Lyle Johnstone have come under fire from many directions for thier conservative views, adherence to the Republican party platform, but much of the unhappiness towards current legislators is likely to supporting bills to hold big energy and big data accountable.

“Idaho has spoken very clearly in opposition to this project… The Lava Ridge project is a jewel in the Biden Administration’s Green New Deal crown and the Administration is moving ahead regardless of the damage to Idaho farms, ranches, rural communities, agricultural aviation, water supplies, wildlife, and historical sites.”— Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, December 2024 ^[24]

The BLM’s own Record of Decision acknowledged that the project’s justification included national directives on renewable energy and the Energy Act of 2020 — meaning the federal agency was operating from a policy framework already predisposed toward buildout, regardless of local conditions or community opposition.^[25] Local communities were not negotiating on a neutral field. They were pushing against a system with federal policy ambition, utility economics, transmission logic, and state-level political alignment all pointed in the same direction.

That does not mean resistance was hopeless. The fact that Lava Ridge was ultimately cancelled is evidence that organized, sustained public opposition — combined with favorable federal political transition — can stop a large project. But cancellation via executive order is not the same as building durable legal and policy structures that protect communities through multiple political cycles. That work remains undone.

Questions That Demand Answers

Accountability requires specificity. The following questions are addressed to each of the relevant decision-making bodies. They are not rhetorical. They deserve written, on-the-record responses.

QUESTIONS FOR IDAHO LEGISLATORS

1. Idaho Power’s 23% stake in SWIP-N is almost certainly subject to FERC transmission rate recovery — meaning the cost of that investment, plus a guaranteed profit margin, flows back to Idaho Power customers for the life of the asset. Has the Legislature reviewed Idaho Power’s FERC rate filings to confirm whether SWIP-N has been rate-based, what the authorized rate of return is, and what the total lifetime ratepayer cost will be? If not, why not?

2. The IPUC’s CPCN proceeding relied substantially on Idaho Power’s own modeling, some filed under confidentiality protections. Idaho ratepayers fund the IPUC through utility fees — yet cannot access the documents that justified a billion-dollar commitment made in their name. Will the Legislature require that documents forming the evidentiary basis of any CPCN decision be made publicly available within 30 days of the Commission’s final order?

3. Idaho lacks a statutory prohibition on large-scale industrial energy development in agricultural preservation zones. Will you introduce and support legislation that gives counties enforceable, state-backed authority to restrict or condition such development in agricultural areas, rather than relying on discretionary CUP processes that have proven vulnerable to developer pressure?

4. The IPUC’s operating budget is funded by fees from the utilities it regulates. Have you examined whether this funding structure creates institutional pressures that compromise independent judgment? Will you conduct a legislative oversight hearing on the subject?

5. The Sawtooth Energy nuclear proposal targets Jerome County’s Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer footprint. What independent hydrological review will the Legislature require before BLM approval is considered, and who funds that review?

6. SWIP-N has been justified in part by Idaho Power’s stated need for winter capacity. Has the Legislature independently verified those capacity projections, or is it relying exclusively on Idaho Power modeling?

7. If a future federal administration reverses Trump’s Lava Ridge cancellation and reactivates the LS Power right-of-way, what state-level legal mechanisms exist to block it? If the answer is ‘none,’ will you draft them?

QUESTIONS FOR THE GOVERNOR

1. The IPUC commissioners are your appointees. Have you established formal criteria requiring that commissioners have no prior employment relationship with the utilities they are assigned to regulate?

2. Idaho Power’s ownership interest in SWIP-N — and the IPUC’s December 2025 approval — creates a financial alignment between state utility infrastructure and a transmission line originally designed to carry Idaho power to California markets. How does your administration define the public interest in that alignment, and who represents Idaho agricultural landowners in that proceeding?

3. The Lava Ridge cancellation rested on federal executive action, not state law. What durable state-level protections have you proposed or signed to prevent a similar project from being reauthorized under a future federal administration?

4. Jerome County and Lincoln County passed resolutions opposing Lava Ridge. In what specific ways did your administration act on those local resolutions in its communications with federal agencies, and can those communications be made public?

QUESTIONS FOR JEROME COUNTY COMMISSIONERS & LOCAL OFFICIALS

1. Has the Board of County Commissioners formally requested an independent hydrological assessment of potential aquifer impacts from the Sawtooth nuclear SMR proposal before it advances to NRC or BLM review? If not, why not?

2. Does the current Chapter 11 energy facilities ordinance explicitly address BESS facilities in agricultural zones, impose setback requirements, and establish liability bonds sufficient to cover remediation?

3. SWIP-N will traverse Jerome County. What conditions, if any, did the county negotiate for landowner protection, agricultural operation continuity, and decommissioning liability?

4. Public meetings for the Sawtooth nuclear project were organized by the developer. Will the county organize its own independent community information session, with technical experts not paid by the developer?

5. How many acres of prime farmland in Jerome County have been converted — or are under active application for conversion — to industrial energy use, data center use, or related infrastructure in the past five years?

QUESTIONS FOR THE CONCERNED PUBLIC

1. What organizations, communication channels, and early-warning systems does your community have in place to monitor the next project proposal before it reaches the Record of Decision stage?

2. Are you aware that Idaho Power customers will help fund SWIP-N — and that its southbound capacity was designed specifically to enable large-scale generation export from Idaho to California?

3. Are you connected to the water users, irrigation districts, and agricultural organizations that would have the most at stake in an aquifer contamination event? If not, how do you make that connection?

4. Do you know what Jerome County’s current energy ordinance says, what it permits, what it prohibits, and how the permit process works?

5. What would it take for your community to build a standing civic infrastructure — legal defense fund, technical advisory network, media presence — that exists before the next application is filed?

The Work That Remains

Citizens who once stood up for this land had better stay awake. The cancellation of Lava Ridge was a real victory. But a victory secured by executive order is a provisional victory, not a permanent one. The transmission corridor that made Lava Ridge possible — SWIP-N — is still being built, with state regulatory approval, with utility investment, and with federal backing. A new development proposal is already on the same site. The political and economic forces that advanced the original project have not dissolved.

The work that remains is structural. It is county ordinances with real teeth. It is state legislation that gives local governments enforceable authority over industrial energy siting in agricultural zones. It is legislative oversight of a regulatory body whose independence from the utilities it regulates is structurally compromised by appointment structure and funding mechanism. It is sustained, organized civic engagement that doesn’t depend on the fortunes of any single federal administration.

That is why this series exists. That is why memory matters. And that is why the beast we helped create by permitting this infrastructure without adequate local protection may yet eat the very communities it was supposed to serve.

Next in this series: The Data Center Trap — How Idaho’s HB 521 Tax Exemptions Invited Industrial Development Without Agricultural Protection, and What HB 895 and HB 897 Tried to Fix.

Footnotes & Citations

1 Federal Register, Vol. 89, No. 238 (Dec. 11, 2024), FR Doc. 2024-29099, “Notice of Availability of the Record of Decision for the Lava Ridge Wind Project in Jerome, Lincoln, and Minidoka Counties, Idaho.” Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior. federalregister.gov

2 Bureau of Land Management, “BLM Advances Lava Ridge Wind Project in Southern Idaho,” December 9, 2024. The approved plan authorizes 241 wind turbines (not 231 as noted in some preliminary documents) and related infrastructure disturbing 992 acres within a 38,535-acre siting corridor. blm.gov

3 Idaho Capital Sun, “BLM Issues Final Approval of Scaled-Down Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho,” December 10, 2024. Magic Valley Energy submitted its initial plan of development in February 2020. idahocapitalsun.com

4 Wikipedia, “Lava Ridge Wind Project,” citing multiple sources. “On the first day of the second Trump administration, the project was halted. The official cancellation came in August 2025 as the project approval was being reversed by Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.” wikipedia.org

5 LS Power, “U.S. Department of Energy Selects LS Power’s SWIP-North Project for the Transmission Facilitation Program,” April 25, 2024. SWIP-North described as a “$1+ billion, 285-mile, 500-kilovolt (kV) transmission line.” lspower.com

6 Utility Dive, April 25, 2024; CAISO December 2023 transmission planning presentation. Idaho Power’s northbound allocation: 500 MW. CAISO’s southbound allocation: ~1,120 MW. NV Energy holds shares in both directions. LS Power’s “2,000 MW bidirectional” figure refers to the full corridor system (SWIP-N + ON Line + DesertLink), not SWIP-N alone. The Idaho public benefit case rests on the 500 MW northbound figure.

7 BLM Final Environmental Impact Statement for Lava Ridge Wind Project (June 2024). The project’s 500-kV line was designed to connect to the Midpoint Substation or an alternative location along the SWIP-N alignment. FR Doc. 2024-12460.

8 Capital Press, “Idaho PUC Advances Southwest Intertie Project-North Transmission Line,” December 18, 2025. “The Idaho Public Utilities Commission approved an application requesting a certificate of public convenience and necessity as well as an entitlement agreement related to the project.” capitalpress.com

9 Idaho Power, SWIP-North project page. “The 500 megawatts of northbound power from SWIP-North is Idaho Power’s least-cost, least-risk option for meeting customers’ needs.” idahopower.com

10 LS Power press release, 2024; Capital Press, December 2025. Construction slated to begin 2025, completion 2027-2028.

11 Idaho Power, SWIP-North FAQ. “Idaho Power owns 23% of the SWIP-North Project. Idaho Power’s ownership interest in SWIP-North is only to bring energy into Idaho, not to sell energy to California or elsewhere.” Note: the bidirectional line’s capacity allocation tells a more complex story.

12 Utility Dive, “DOE Sets 2-Year Deadline for Federal Transmission Permitting,” April 25, 2024. “The ISO would fund about 77% of the project and Idaho Power would fund the rest.” CAISO’s 1,120 MW southbound capacity was explicitly designed to access Idaho wind resources.

13 Utility Dive, “Nuclear Could Replace Wind Power at Lava Ridge Site in Idaho,” July 14, 2025. Sawtooth Energy and Development plans a 462-MW nuclear plant on public land previously earmarked for Lava Ridge. utilitydive.com

14 Utility Dive, July 2025; Capital Press, August 11, 2025. “Midpoint Small Modular Reactor Project #1 would use six 77-MW NuScale VOYGR modules to produce an electric output of 462 MW.” capitalpress.com

15 KIVI TV, “Nuclear Power Proposal Emerges for Jerome County Site,” July 10, 2025. Sawtooth project manager Adamson compared 462 MW on 40 acres to Lava Ridge’s 1,000 MW across nearly 200,000 acres.

16 KIVI TV, July 2025. “We have been piggybacking on their draft environment statement because it covered much of the ground where we are located,” said project manager Dan Adamson.

17 KMVT, “Community Express Concerns About Nuclear Project Proposal in Jerome County,” July 22, 2025. Community members at first public meeting cited nuclear waste, aquifer risk, and absence of a national disposal site for spent fuel. kmvt.com

18 Capital Press, August 2025. Rep. Jack Nelsen (R-Jerome) stated: “My concern would be putting a light water reactor on top of our aquifer.”

19 Capital Press, December 18, 2025. IPUC CPCN approval for SWIP-N.

20 Idaho Public Utilities Commission, “About” page. “Commission operations are funded by fees assessed on the utilities and railroads it regulates.” puc.idaho.gov

21 Idaho PUC. “The Governor appoints the three commissioners with confirmation by the Idaho Senate.” Ibid.

22 Utility Dive, “Why States Should Prohibit Utility Political Contributions,” December 19, 2023. Citing research from the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University: utilities that can contribute politically receive authorized returns approximately 0.4 percentage points higher — roughly $4 million in additional annual revenue — compared to utilities in states with contribution restrictions.

23 Idaho Public Utilities Commission, 2024 Annual Report. Commissioner Edward Lodge previously served as Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs before gubernatorial appointment in February 2023. puc.idaho.gov (PDF)

24 Idaho Office of Attorney General, “Attorney General Vows Opposition Despite BLM Decision,” December 2024. ag.idaho.gov

25 BLM Record of Decision, December 2024. The ROD cites the Energy Act of 2020 and characterizes the approval as advancing national renewable energy directives for public lands, explicitly framing the decision within Biden-era federal policy objectives rather than primarily local benefit.