San Francisco and New York may be showcases for progressive, dystopian governance, but they lack one thing the left increasingly needs: land. That’s why green energy companies — backed by federal subsidies and environmental branding — are targeting rural America for industrial-scale wind and solar farms, along with carbon capture pipelines. Despite their eco-friendly image, these projects often scar the landscape and face strong local resistance.

Ironically, many of these initiatives move forward with the support of Republican officials who claimed to oppose Joe Biden but now embrace one of his signature policy goals. A recent example comes from Eastern Wyoming.

Salt-of-the-earth Wyoming landowners are expected to sacrifice their property so that global corporations can pay a premium to showcase their climate credentials to retail clients and investors.

Last Thursday, the State Board of Land Commissioners approved a 40-year lease of public lands in Converse and Niobrara Counties for two separate wind farm projects backed by foreign-owned companies. The board includes the governor, secretary of state, state auditor, state treasurer, and superintendent of public instruction.

Secretary of State Chuck Gray, the lone conservative among the Republican officials, cast the only dissenting vote on both projects. Most local residents opposed the wind farms, but their concerns were overruled.

The issue isn’t just that wind turbines are visually intrusive in a state where coal and natural gas remain abundant. It’s that they fail to serve as reliable infrastructure. Instead of contributing stable power, wind farms often operate as economic parasites — consuming massive resources to generate relatively little electricity.

Local officials have raised concerns about the large volumes of water required to operate these wind farms, but those objections have gone largely ignored.

In most cases, a power source earns public support by producing more value than it costs. But these wind farms don’t even power the local communities. The energy is being funneled into a new industry with a dystopian twist: investors want to use Eastern Wyoming’s land and water to produce carbon-offset hydrogen jet fuel — so global airlines can claim they’re “green.”

In the end, rural residents are being sacrificed in the name of questionable science and corporate virtue-signaling. Wyoming’s landscape and resources are being drained, not to meet local needs but to satisfy the environmental claims of distant corporations.

The first project, led by Sidewinder H2 LLC, will occupy roughly 120,000 acres about 10 miles west of Lusk. The second, smaller project, run by Pronghorn H2 LLC, will take up 46,000 acres 20 miles east of Casper. Both companies are based in Delaware but operate as subsidiaries of Acciona and Nordex Green Hydrogen — a joint venture between Spain’s Acciona and German wind turbine manufacturer Nordex.

On its U.S. venture page, Acciona calls for the “decarbonization” of America. The company criticizes the Paris climate agreement as insufficient and urges a rapid shift toward renewables. Its stated goal is to achieve “net zero” emissions by transforming the energy sector “without delay” and “decoupling from fossil fuels.”

So why, in a state Trump won by a landslide and at a time when he’s pledging to dismantle the “green new scam,” are Republicans handing over land to foreign energy firms that aim to shut down U.S. fossil fuel use?

Why are Republican leaders enabling green energy companies — many backed by subsidies from Biden’s climate agenda — to displace Wyoming’s natural resources and burden local landowners in the name of global “carbon offsets”?

The truth is Gov. Mark Gordon and his allies are violating the fundamental trust between state leadership and the people of Wyoming.

At a recent board meeting, Chuck Gray asked Paul Martin, president of Focus Clean Energy, why these companies couldn’t produce fuel “the good ol’ fashioned way” instead of eating up vast tracts of land. Martin’s response was striking.

“Those guys might want to tell the Targets of the world and different clients that they’re reducing their carbon footprint,” Martin said. “That means they’re willing to pay extra for a product that’s gone through this complex process.”

In other words, multigenerational, salt-of-the-earth Wyoming landowners are expected to sacrifice their property so that global corporations can pay a premium to showcase their climate credentials to retail clients and investors.

Yeah, right.

Landowners in conservative states are beginning to push back against green energy land-grabs, though legislative progress remains slow. The Arizona House recently passed a bill to ban wind and solar projects near residential neighborhoods. Lawmakers in Arkansas are weighing several proposals to restrict or prohibit such projects outright. Similar tensions have emerged in the Oklahoma legislature.

Still, no state has enacted a new law this session, although some counties have begun taking action at the local level.

In Wyoming, residents must make it clear: If corporations want to virtue-signal, they should do it on their own land in places like San Francisco or Los Angeles. To defend the open, free land that defines Wyoming, voters need to elect Republicans who actually represent those values — not politicians like Mark Gordon, who seems more at home in California than the Cowboy State.