1. United States
2. Mo.
3. Letter

I urge you to oppose SB879 (Fitzwater), SB849 (O'Laughlin), SB933 (Crawford), and HB2477 (Lewis), bills that would halt Missouri’s transition to clean energy and prioritize corporate utilities over the public good. SB849, SB933, and HB2477 impose an immediate moratorium on all solar project construction until at least 2028. This is a complete shutdown of an entire industry. It halts projects currently being built, putting people out of work and killing investments already made in our communities. While these bills claim to wait for environmental rules, a blanket ban is not a thoughtful pause. It is a giveaway to traditional energy interests that fear competition from clean, affordable power. We cannot afford to wait years to address the climate crisis, and working Missourians cannot afford to lose these jobs. SB879 is equally damaging. It creates a confusing web of new restrictions designed to make solar construction nearly impossible. It caps solar projects at two percent of a county's cropland. It mandates massive setbacks of one thousand feet from property lines. These are not compromises; they are poison pills. In addition, it creates a new, regressive tax structure for solar energy. Under the guise of "simplifying" taxes, this bill would dramatically underfund our schools and local services by locking in a flat, low payment for solar companies regardless of their actual value. This bill also takes away decision-making power from local communities. While it gives counties some permit authority, it then overrides them with state-level caps and mandates. It forces counties to hold public meetings and then allows the county commission to ignore public input and deny a permit anyway. This is not local control. It is a labyrinth designed to exhaust and defeat community-supported clean energy projects. These bills are an attack on our shared future. They protect the profits of monopoly utilities at the expense of ratepayers who want lower bills. They prioritize corporate landowners over the need for a livable planet. By making solar development harder, they lock us into dependence on fossil fuels, which disproportionately harms low-income communities and communities of color that bear the brunt of pollution. We need to build a clean energy economy that works for everyone. We need fair taxes on corporate energy projects that fund our schools. We need local input that leads to good projects, not endless veto power. These bills move us in the exact opposite direction. I strongly urge you to vote no.