1. Umatilla County, Oregon – A small town in Oregon this week declared a state of emergency over fears that a statewide pause on data center permits will harm its economy.

• Five of the six people on the Umatilla city council voted to adopt a resolution formally calling for a state of emergency “due to the threat of widespread financial loss.” Umatilla City Manager Dave Stockdale told the council before the vote that the data center pause enacted by Governor Tina Kotek puts millions in tax revenue at risk. Other city staffers told the council that current budget reserves are healthy, but this could complicate a bond for a new police station and delay executing their city’s master plan.
• Umatilla is home to more than 20 data center projects currently operating or under development, equal to roughly one-fifth of the state’s data center sector. Oregon law expressly grants cities and towns permission to declare a state of emergency over “financial loss.” And the Umatilla resolution is a clear legal threat; its text calls for “immediate reconsideration” of Governor Kotek’s directive pausing data center permits and “authorizes the city manager to coordinate with affected governments and legal counsel to pursue appropriate administrative and judicial remedies.”
• To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a municipal government has threatened legal action or declared a state of emergency over a state-wide permitting pause against data center development. It goes to show that what comes around goes around.

2. Saratoga County, New York – Is Trump’s country music superstar-turned-power-project combatant John Rich preparing to debut a new song about solar farms, or something more?

• Last Friday, Rich — Trump’s special rural landowner “envoy” — joined anti-renewables activist Alex Fasulo and former Trump Agriculture Department chief of staff Kailee Buller (currently running for Congress) at a roundtable in the small town of Schuylerville. The topic was ostensibly New York’s Office of Renewable Energy Siting, which has primacy authority over local energy permit rejections, and included Fasulo calling for the office to no longer exist. Per Fasulo, current officials and USDA staff based in D.C. also attended.
• Then Rich and Fasulo started teasing something bigger. “Check this out … MAJOR things happening, and about to happen in Upstate NY,” Rich wrote on X, sharing a post from Fasulo’s blog summarizing the roundtable. Fasulo shared Rich’s post, adding: “Dear Kathy Hochul … you paying attention yet?”
• This is important for Fight readers to watch closely because we’ve all been waiting to see what Trump will do next to attack renewable energy. But I’m confused about what we’re supposed to be paying attention to.
• Is it the song John Rich is teasing he wrote about Governor Kathy Hochul and solar development? (That’s a real thing he says will come out next week.)

3. Eau Claire County, Wisconsin – There’s now a must-watch race to see who is more anti-transmission in the race for Wisconsin’s 3rd congressional seat.

• The proposed BECI line is part of the MISO grid system and the grid operator’s plan for new reliability wires. And everyone seems to hate it, including the incumbent congressional representative for a large swathe of southern Wisconsin the line would cut through, Derrick Van Orden. So does Rebecca Cooke, his Democratic challenger, who is calling for development to stop and claiming Van Orden previously took votes supporting the project. (Van Orden has denied the claims.)
• Sparks flew over the wires at a candidate debate this week. Van Orden said the transmission line was poorly designed to import wind energy from North Dakota. “It’s the single largest Paleozoic plateau in the United States and it’ll be destroyed by these 765 kv lines but they have to use these big ones because they’re getting wind power from North Dakota,” Van Orden said.
• Cooke retorted that she’s against the transmission line but “all of the above,” maintaining support for renewable energy projects. Then it all devolved into mudslinging about donors to each respective candidate that the other candidate said was also misleading.
• Should Cooke prove victorious, her election is precisely the kind of political headwinds motivated by opposition to new energy and tech infrastructure that could complicate the chances for a federal permitting deal this year.

4. Adams County, Colorado – Here’s the chaser you needed: the largest solar farm approved in the Rocky Mountains.

• The Adams County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the Big Bronco solar project proposed by Lightsource BP, according to meeting minutes from an October 13 board meeting. Once completed, the 2,800 acre project will operate east of the Denver International Airport.
• There was minimal public opposition to the project, and it’s important to recognize that while Adams County is a very large county, it occupies the space between Denver and Boulder and is filled with people who commute to work in both cities. Heatmap Pro identifies the county as having medium-level risk — a score of 66 — for opposition to renewable energy development.