Idaho's most important elections are won in the primaries. If you want to have a say in how Jerome County is run, you have to vote in the primary.
The Lava Ridge Wind Energy Project was formally cancelled by the Trump administration’s Department of the Interior in August 2025. The infrastructure and policy decisions that made Jerome County a target are still in play.
Years of resident opposition got Lava Ridge cancelled. But the Midpoint Substation, the transmission corridor, and the ordinance changes that would allow the next project are still on the table. Winning once is not the same as winning.
The Lava Ridge Wind Energy Project was a proposal by Magic Valley Energy, a subsidiary of LS Power, to build a large-scale industrial wind facility on public land in Jerome, Lincoln, and Minidoka counties. At its peak scope, the project envisioned up to approximately 400 wind turbines as tall as 740 feet across roughly 84,000 acres of BLM-administered range, with a nameplate capacity well above 1,000 megawatts.
The project was approved via a federal Record of Decision under the Biden administration. After years of sustained opposition from landowners, tribes, hunters, ranchers, and local governments, the Trump administration’s Department of the Interior formally withdrew the Record of Decision in August 2025, effectively cancelling the project as permitted.
Lava Ridge was not sited in Jerome County because Jerome County asked for it. It was sited here because the transmission infrastructure that would carry the power away from our county to markets outside Idaho already exists and is being expanded. That infrastructure is why the fight is not over, regardless of Lava Ridge’s cancellation.
What it did: It stopped a specific project under a specific federal approval. It validated the legal and procedural concerns residents raised for years. It demonstrated that sustained, organized public comment and agency engagement can reach the federal decision-makers who actually set the terms.
What it did not do: It did not undo the Midpoint Substation buildout near Jerome. It did not cancel SWIP-N, the 500 kV transmission line terminating at Midpoint. It did not remove the policy signals in proposed Chapter 11 of the Jerome County Zoning Ordinance and Chapter 10 of the Comprehensive Plan that would make the next industrial energy project easier to approve locally.
In short: one project is cancelled. The conditions that made our county an attractive target remain.
Jerome County sits at the terminus of a growing western-grid energy corridor. The infrastructure and projects in the pipeline include:
Whether the next Lava Ridge–scale proposal is blocked or rubber-stamped depends on local decisions that Jerome County Commissioners make over the next few years — specifically, the amendments to Chapter 11 (Energy Facilities), Chapter 7 (Conditional Use), and Chapter 10 of the Comprehensive Plan that are actively being heard right now.
I did not start paying attention to Lava Ridge when I filed to run for office. I attended the federal, state, and local proceedings throughout the process:
Attendance records, written public comments, and federal comment-response documents are public. Verify for yourself.
The people who fought Lava Ridge for years earned the cancellation. They also know better than anyone that the same conditions that produced Lava Ridge can — and will — produce the next proposal. Vigilance at the local level is how you make sure the next one does not slip through when nobody is watching.
The 2026 Idaho Republican Primary is Tuesday, May 19, 2026. Winning once is not the same as winning.
DOI formally withdrew the Record of Decision in August 2025 after years of resident opposition.
Midpoint Substation, SWIP-N, Taurus Wind, Salmon Falls Wind, and solar/BESS proposals remain in play.
Chapter 11, Chapter 7, and Comp Plan Ch. 10 amendments determine whether the next project is blocked or rubber-stamped.
Direct landowner notice, decommissioning bonds, inter-county coordination, full public record.
Every claim on this page is grounded in public law, public records, or directly observable public conduct.
"Lava Ridge was cancelled because people showed up for years. The next one will only be blocked if we keep showing up."— Jerry Holton