September 30, 2025
What If: Strategies to Push Back on Energy Parasites
Sacramento has become a disease!
By: Jeff Pierson
Disclaimer
I am not an energy expert. I am just an average Idahoan trying to understand why California’s failures demand rewards. These thoughts are written from the perspective of a citizen who wants to protect Idaho from parasitic corporations, destructive energy policies, and the failed experiments of states like California.
Is Idaho at the mercy of California?
Idaho cannot directly force California to change its energy laws. California’s Renewable Portfolio Standards, zero-carbon deadlines, and reliance on solar and wind backed by imports are products of its own legislature and regulators. But Idaho, along with other energy exporting states, does have leverage points. These strategies could make California feel pressure to adjust its energy model.
1. Transmission Leverage
What if Idaho counties and the state government treated transmission corridors as bargaining chips?
Projects like SWIP (Southwest Intertie Project) and Boardman-to-Hemingway require siting approvals, permits, and easements through Idaho. By conditioning, delaying, or even denying approval when there is no clear Idaho benefit, Idaho could force California utilities to confront the political and financial costs of relying on neighbors.
2. Cost Transparency
What if Idaho leaders exposed the hidden subsidy?
California utilities and developers use Idaho land, water, and permitting to serve California demand, while Idahoans are left with the land-use impacts and grid risks. By documenting and publicizing these hidden costs, Idaho could strengthen its hand in demanding fairer terms before allowing more projects to advance.
3. Federal Pressure
What if Idaho’s congressional delegation made California’s spillover problems a national issue?
California’s policies already cause regional consequences: rolling blackouts, emergency imports, and reliability crises that spread into neighboring states. Idaho’s federal representatives could push DOE and FERC to prioritize regional reliability over California’s unilateral mandates when considering interstate projects.
4. Regional Alliances
What if Idaho didn’t stand alone?
Montana, Wyoming, and Utah face the same challenge: California consuming land and resources to satisfy its renewable mandates. If these states coordinated, they could collectively delay or refuse to prioritize export projects unless California committed to investing in firm, dispatchable capacity within its own borders.
5. Resource Adequacy & Reciprocity Changes
What if Idaho adopted a reciprocity standard for reliability?
In some regional power markets, utilities must first meet their own “resource adequacy” obligations before exporting electricity elsewhere. Idaho could consider a similar approach by requiring any export-oriented project to demonstrate that the importing state, such as California, is not undermining grid stability and maintains comparable reliability standards.
6. Market Reality
What if Idaho and its neighbors limited transmission and let market forces speak?
With fewer export corridors available, California would face stark choices:
- Build firm capacity at home (gas, nuclear, or long-duration storage), or
- Pay skyrocketing prices for imports.
At some point, California voters and industries may rebel against endless costs and repeated blackouts, forcing Sacramento to confront reality.
Bottom Line
Idaho cannot legislate California’s energy policy. But it can:
- Deny infrastructure that essentially serves only California.
- Expose and politicize the subsidy.
- Coordinate with other exporting states.
- Push Congress and FERC to prioritize regional reliability.
This doesn’t directly “force” California to change. But it boxes California in. If enough neighboring states say no, California will have no choice but to fix its own broken energy model.
Regardless of whether decisions are made in Washington, Boise, or Sacramento, local citizens must have a voice, and affected property owners should always have the right to say no to ancient easements.
Related
Subsidizing California Energy: 10 Questions Idahoans Should Ask Their Local and State Officials
