California lawmakers are advancing a controversial measure to expand the state’s solar-use easement program to allow more farmland to be leased for renewable energy projects. Despite recent amendments aimed at winning over rural lawmakers and counties, farm groups continue to raise fears of accelerating the permanent loss of productive agricultural land.
Assembly Bill 1156, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, seeks to revive a dormant 2011 law that allows farmers to rescind Williamson Act contracts and convert that land into long-term solar-use easements. The updated version of the bill, now in the Senate, changes that rescission to a suspension, intending to make the process reversible, and allows energy storage facilities under the easements for the first time. While supporters frame it as a needed solution for drought-impacted landowners, opponents say the bill still lacks adequate safeguards.
“This is probably my most amended bill of the year — and that's a pretty high bar,” said Wicks, when presenting the measure to the Senate Environmental Quality Committee last week.
The Western Growers Association, which supported a similar measure last year to ease Williamson Act restrictions, has expressed strong support for the concept but remains skeptical of the current legislation and is pushing for further amendments to add clarity. According to Gail Delihant, senior director for governmental affairs, the association’s board of directors is considering the latest amendments to AB 1156 at its quarterly board meeting this week.
The Almond Alliance of California initially supported the bill but has now fallen back to a support-if-amended position as well. Agricultural opposition has also grown to include the California Cattlemen’s Association along with progressive groups like California Certified Organic Farmers, the California Climate and Agriculture Network and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers.
Concerns over farmland protection and water eligibility
Tom Stein, American Farmland Trust (photo: AFT)At the heart of the opposition is the bill’s expanded eligibility criteria. The original program barred solar easements on prime farmland. The new version lifts that restriction, instead requiring landowners to demonstrate the land is unsuitable for agriculture due to water constraints. But critics say that standard is subjective and too easy to manipulate.
“We really should be developing solar, but where we should, not just where we can,” said Tom Stein, California regional director at American Farmland Trust. “There's a lot of land, including brownfields, including marginal land and land that's truly without water that we can and should be prioritizing — because once land's developed, it's gone.”
While the bill now requires the California Department of Conservation to consult with local groundwater sustainability agencies before approving any easement, opponents question whether that offers meaningful oversight.
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The bill also imposes a 120-day deadline on the department to make its determination, after which applications are automatically approved if no action is taken. Farm groups worry that this “deemed approved” clause could lead to hasty conversions of valuable farmland without adequate review.
“We urge caution,” said Peter Ansel, a senior policy advocate at the California Farm Bureau, during a separate committee hearing earlier this month. “These are going to be permanent conversions of industrial-scale solar, with batteries on transmission lines identified by [the California Independent System Operator]. These are not going to be temporary conversions. So any benefits need to be substantial and meaningful.”
Loss of local tools and long-term accountability
While the amendments reinstate some local control — such as allowing counties to non-renew easements after a solar project ends — AB 1156 limits what counties can require from developers. Under the current version, counties cannot mandate restoration bonds, offsite mitigation or additional financial assurances for land recovery. That shift has drawn criticism from counties and land preservation groups that rely on those tools to ensure land is restored after solar projects are decommissioned.
Critics argue that by eliminating these protections, the bill undermines the long-standing framework of the Williamson Act, which offers tax incentives to preserve farmland.
Another point of contention is that landowners, along with local governments, can now initiate applications for solar-use easements. While intended to empower farmers, opponents fear this removes the county’s ability to control land-use patterns and coordinate solar development with broader planning efforts.
Ongoing rural divide and legislative trajectory
Proponents argue that AB 1156 is necessary to help landowners generate income from fallowed land, especially in counties hit hard by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
“Kern County right now has had its water allocation cut to 34%. Pretty soon it will be 20%, and we're hearing that it could go as low as 0%,” said Shannon Eddy, lobbying on behalf of the Large-scale Solar Association.
Eddy added that farmers with enough water to irrigate a thousand acres of crops anticipate that will be reduced to just 80 acres.
“Their options for that are very limited,” she said. “Without water, they're going to be losing their farmworkers, they're going to be losing jobs, they're going to be losing their income stream.”
One of the association’s developers had approached the Semitropic Groundwater Sustainability Agency in Kern County asking for 5,000 acres of land that would be losing water. According to Eddy, the answer was: “Yes, and could you take 20,000?” She warned of the dire water situation already at play, saying that “this is real. This is happening today.”
The bill has passed out of the Assembly and through five policy committees and awaits a key Senate Appropriations vote next month.
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