Battle over power line in Nebraska Sandhills back in court

A group of Sandhills area ranchers and a Native American tribe are suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over a 220-mile transmission line proposal for wind energy, called the R-Project.

The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and a nonprofit called Preserve The Sandhills seek a preliminary injunction in the U.S. Civil Court of Denver, where Fish and Wildlife personnel named in the case are based.

The Nebraska Public Power District venture through western Nebraska and South Dakota has been discussed before, but permits were vacated in a 2020 lawsuit. Sandhills rancher Brent Steffen said a recent National Energy Emergency executive order was misused when the wildlife service reapproved the project, despite an endangered species in the area.

“Most of us feel like routing it through the environmentally important and very fragile Sandhills is the wrong thing and the wrong place for the wrong reasons,” Steffen said. He has run a cow-calf operation for 34 years.

The whooping crane is an endangered animal in the area, while threatened species like the American burying beetle could become endangered if the R-Project goes through, Preserve The Sandhills said. Other important Sandhills wildlife like eagles and Sandhill cranes could be impacted as well.

The Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota also wasn’t brought into the process soon enough, with the executive order passing the project through, Steffen said.

“Using that order, they minimized the rights of the Native American tribes to do their cultural and historic surveys,” Steffen said.

He added that the group anticipates being successful and is using the same lawyer who halted the first proposal in 2020.

“It's just a very wrongful, misguided project, and the Sandhills are truly Nebraska's finest natural resource and should be protected,” Steffen said. “In Kansas, the governor has taken the initiative to protect the Flint Hills from industrialization with wind energy development, and unfortunately, our legislators have not had enough foresight to do that.”

In an emailed statement to Nebraska Public Media News, NPPD spokesperson Grant Otten said the “R-Project is a critical transmission project that is desperately needed to improve reliability and reduce congestion on the Nebraska grid.

“In February 2026, after a permitting process that has spanned almost 14 years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the final step to approve an incidental take permit for the American burying beetle so the R-Project could move forward,” Otten said. The [Fish and Wildlife Service] permitting process met all requirements of the law.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service did not respond to a request for comment in time for this story. Defendants have until Wednesday to submit a reply.