You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the legislature is blowing: on the issue of wind, they’re taking charge, with proposals to tax, regulate, and strip wind power transmission lines of their right to blow over property owners. But expect a little push-back from industry lobbyists.

Rep. Kermit Brown (R-Laramie) described to the House Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee his first view of coal-bed methane development from the air. The wells, once drilling rigs were finished, were relatively modest protuberances of pipe; but with those wells spaced at five acres, there was a spider web of power lines and roads connecting them.

The same problems is foreseen with the “collector” powerlines that bring the juice from wind turbines to substations. Wind power doesn’t come from a single source, like a big coal-fired plan with a single set of massive transmission lines emerging. And under current law, energy companies can condemn private land to run those collector lines.

So Brown is pushing House Bill 79 to put a moratorium on the wind producers right of eminent domain for a year. (Ironically, power companies have no right of eminent domain when it comes to siting a wind farm – but they can condemn the paths of their power lines.)

And the lobbyists are out in force, says Gov. Dave Freudenthal, saying “life in Wyoming is going to end, and western civilization will end, and the world will collapse.”

Well, not exactly. Rather, they were telling Brown and the committee to watch their language – in the bill that is – so that they don’t accidentally lump transmission lines in with collector lines – because Wyoming seriously needs those big transmission lines, and more of them, to get its abundant energy to markets. Larry Wolfe, who represents Duke Energy, one of the largest wind developers working in Wyoming, says regulation is tolerable, but you have to get the wording right.

Brown admits that in the rush to protect landowners, the bills “may get a little muddled” and said he’d take all the help he could get. But the committee moved quickly to slow down eminent domain by passing the bill to the full House. Said Chairman Tom Lockhart (R-Casper): “Slow down, time out.”

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No time out in the House, however, on the taxing of wind: a bill is moving forward that would charge wind producers $1 per megawatt-hour beginning in 2012 (for producers who have been producing for three years).

Wind farms provide tax revenues in the early stages, but once they’re up and running, there’s no severance tax or other method of extracting some bounty for either the state or local governments. Lobbyists like Wolfe see some sort of wind energy contribution to the local coffers as inevitable, but they want the legislature to take some time to study it, and look at other methods besides an excise tax.

The House keeps pressing forward, but the lobbyists seem to have more clout in the Senate Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee. Expect the tiny committee room to be stuffed to the rafters with pin-stripes when the House bill comes over – they’ll have to open a window and let in a breeze. (That’ll be $1, please…)