By SCOTT McFETRIDGE and DAVID PITT

ANKENY, Iowa (AP) — When Todd Miller began his two-person solar installation business in a suburb of Des Moines, one of the challenges he faced was keeping up with customer orders, as tax incentives and plunging prices for the boxy roof panels created a booming demand for this form of clean energy.

Four years later, Miller’s company has grown to 14 employees, but now he faces a real obstacle: action in the state Legislature that he says could put solar companies out of business.

The threat is coming from an unlikely source, a utility known as an alternative energy champion for its installation of thousands of wind turbines across the landscape. The wind energy darling is pushing lawmakers to tack on an extra cost to future solar customers, even if doing so makes solar energy economically uncompetitive.

“Everything should be lined up for the best year we’ve ever had,” Miller said. “Instead, it’s been a lot of sleepless nights.”

For years wind and solar were friendly twins in the campaign for green alternatives to fossil fuels, but the relationship is getting ugly in a number of states, especially in Iowa, where more than 4,000 turbines generate 34{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} of the state’s electricity, the second highest rate in the country.

About half of those turbines were installed by Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy, a wind energy leader that proudly notes its towering blades spin enough power to equal its customer demand. The utility has taken aim at a growing solar industry made up of dozens of small companies across the state.

The acrimony comes as alternative energy sources are powering an increasing percentage of the country’s needs. Since 1990, the country’s wind energy capacity has grown from a tiny 0.2{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} to 6.5{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} in 2018, and in the past decade solar capacity has had an average annual growth rate of 50{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b}. About 2 million solar systems have been installed on homes and businesses nationwide, with 3,700 in Iowa.

As alternative energy becomes more popular, the questions are growing about the appropriate level of tax incentives and other rules designed to jumpstart such power sources.

MidAmerican has received billions of dollars in federal tax credits to build its wind farms. With those incentives being phased out, MidAmerican and other utilities are now challenging the special perks that solar receives. The federal tax credits covering solar installation costs will decline in the coming years, ending for residential in 2022 and sticking at 10{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} for commercial projects.

A key to solar’s recent success in Iowa and many states is that when panels produce excess energy, state law requires it be sold to utilities at a premium price. Solar advocates argue that if the price is lowered or other fees added, as MidAmerican has proposed, the foundation of the industry’s expansion is threatened.

“At a time when we’re being ravaged by extreme weather events that are the result of a warming planet and climate change, we should be thanking people, businesses, farmers and homeowners that have taken it upon themselves to produce some carbon-free energy where they live and work,” said state Sen. Joe Bolkcom, a Democrat and advocate for alternative energy. “We should be thanking people for doing more of that, not trying to kill all the jobs and undermine the good work that’s gone on across the state.”

MidAmerican has pushed hard for the measure in the Legislature that would require a homeowner with an average solar array to pay about $27 a month, cutting deeply into the savings customers see if they install a system at a cost of $30,000 or so.

While energy savings vary regionally, advocates contend that solar systems can roughly pay for themselves over 25 years.

The state Senate has approved the measure, mainly with Republican votes. It’s awaiting action in the House, but is opposed by legislators who note farmers are enduring tough times and that new fees would deprive them of an option for saving money.

MidAmerican argues the new fees would go toward maintenance of the electrical grid, which solar customers use when they sell excess power back to the utility.

“It’s about customer fairness,” MidAmerican spokeswoman Tina Hoffman said. “Paying for the grid if you use the grid is what this policy is about.”

Utilities across the U.S. have made similar arguments when they proposed increasing fees to solar customers or paying less for their excess power. While about 20 states have approved rules encouraging solar, Republicans in many states often have been sympathetic to utility arguments that tax breaks simply shift costs to other customers.

MidAmerican is a big contributor to both Republican and Democratic politicians in Iowa, and the state takes pride in the utility’s success in making Iowa a wind energy mecca.

In Maine, utilities also lobbied for measures that would make solar less attractive economically. Then-Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, backed the moves, but new Democratic Gov. Janet Mills reversed his actions this year.

Kansas regulators in 2018 eliminated much of the cost savings for solar users who sell back extra power. In Indiana, utilities gained passage of a bill that reduced the rate solar customers were paid for excess power, prompting a giant drop in panel installations. It was a similar story in Nevada in 2016, but a backlash prompted lawmakers to quickly make a U-turn.

Miller, who operates his solar business in the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny, said he thinks the issue is less about fairness and more about a profitable utility eager to limit competition and dominate solar as it now does wind power. Last year, MidAmerican reported a profit of $682 million.

Miller noted that at a legislative hearing, a MidAmerican lobbyist promised that the utility would use the additional fee to invest in large-scale solar projects.

“They’re using that as the stepping stone to take over any and all solar,” Miller said. “If energy is being produced, they want to produce it.”

Nationally, utilities are increasing investment in solar and in 2018 were responsible for more than half of new installations, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Ashley Brown, who leads Harvard University’s Electricity Policy Group, said state authorities who oversee private utilities could step in if they believe companies are pushing out smaller competitors. But Brown argues that users shouldn’t expect a free ride on infrastructure owned by utilities.

“The people who want to use the system should have to pay for it,” he said.

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By DAVID CRARY

NEW YORK (AP) — The lawyers’ ads on the internet aggressively seeking clients to file sexual abuse lawsuits give a taste of what lies ahead this year for the Boy Scouts of America: potentially the most fateful chapter in its 109-year history.

Sexual abuse settlements have already strained the Boy Scouts’ finances to the point where the organization is exploring “all available options,” including Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But now the financial threats have intensified.

The reason: States have been moving in recent months to adjust their statute-of-limitations laws so that victims of long-ago sexual abuse can sue for damages. New York state has passed a law that will allow such lawsuits starting in August. A similar bill in New Jersey has reached the governor’s desk. Bills also are pending in Pennsylvania and California.

In New York and elsewhere, lawyers are hard at work recruiting clients to sue the Boy Scouts, alleging they were molested as youths by scoutmasters or other volunteers.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers “recognize that this is a very unique and lucrative opportunity,” said attorney Karen Bitar, who formerly handled sex-crime cases as a prosecutor in Brooklyn before going into private practice.

Attorney Tim Kosnoff, a veteran of major sexual abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church, said Tuesday that he and his team have signed up 186 clients from dozens of states in just the past few weeks who want to be part of litigation against the Boy Scouts. Kosnoff said 166 of them identified alleged abusers who have not been named in any of the Boy Scout files made public in past years.

Boy Scouts spokeswoman Effie Delimarkos said the organization continues to evaluate its financial situation, and she defended its current abuse-prevention policies. The organization serves more than 2.2 million youths.

A bankruptcy by the Boy Scouts could be unprecedented in its complexity, potentially involving plaintiffs in virtually every state, according to several lawyers. It would be national in scope, unlike the various Catholic Church bankruptcy cases in the U.S., which have unfolded diocese by diocese.

“A Boy Scout bankruptcy would be bigger in scale than any other sex abuse bankruptcy,” said Seattle-based attorney Mike Pfau, whose firm is representing more than 300 victims in New York state.

Jeffrey Schwartz, a New York-based bankruptcy expert with the firm McKool Smith, said the Boy Scouts don’t have a particularly large flow of cash and might be forced to sell off property in bankruptcy. The Boy Scouts have extensive land holdings, including camping and hiking terrain.

“They’ll play for time,” Schwartz said. “If their defense costs and settlement costs are greater than their membership fees, it could be a death spiral.”

However, Dallas-based trial attorney Michelle Simpson Tuegel, part of a team representing numerous sex abuse survivors, said bankruptcy might benefit the Boy Scouts and reduce any payouts to plaintiffs.

“It can be a tool that these institutions use to shield assets and avoid having to reveal some information,” she said. “In many ways, it’s a disservice to victims.”

Illustrating the depth of its problems, the Boy Scouts filed lawsuits last year against six of its own insurers, saying they have improperly refused to cover some of the sex abuse liabilities incurred by the organization. The insurers say the coverage obligation is voided because the Boy Scouts failed to take effective preventive measures such as warning parents that scouts might be abused. The suits are still pending.

The intensifying pressures on the Boy Scouts coincide with the mounting threats to the U.S. Catholic Church in regard to its own long-running sex abuse scandal. Catholic bishops will be meeting in Baltimore in June to discuss the next steps.

Both the church and the Boy Scouts are iconic, historically well-respected institutions now known as having been magnets for pedophiles trying to exploit the trust of boys and their parents.

“When you cloak people in badges of respect, you create the perfect opportunity for bad people to get access to children,” said Chris Hurley, whose Chicago law firm is representing 11 former scouts in sex abuse trials scheduled on a monthly basis this year.

Another common denominator for the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts: Both kept voluminous secret files with names of suspected abusers, yet balked at sharing the information with the public.

Since the 1920s, the Boy Scouts have been compiling “ineligible files,” which list adult volunteers considered to pose a risk of child molestation. About 5,000 of these files have been made public as a result of court action; others remain confidential.

Delimarkos said when any BSA volunteer is added to the database for suspected abuse, “they are reported to law enforcement, removed entirely from any Scouting program and prohibited from re-joining anywhere.”

Minnesota-based attorney Jeff Anderson, who had led many lawsuits against the Catholic Church, released a court deposition in New York on Tuesday in which an expert hired by the Boy Scouts said she tallied 7,819 individuals in the “ineligible files” as of January, as well as 12,254 victims.

Anderson expressed hope that litigation triggered by New York’s new Child Victims Act would increase pressure on the Boy Scouts to make public more of the still-confidential files.

Some of the files were ordered released after a 2010 sexual abuse case in Portland, Oregon, that led to a nearly $20 million judgment against the Boy Scouts on behalf of a man molested by a Scout leader in the 1980s.

Paul Mones, the plaintiff’s lawyer in that case, said there are no overall figures on Boy Scout abuse settlements because the details are kept confidential.

Both the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church say they now have policies in place to sharply curtail abuse that abounded in past decades. In the Boy Scouts ′ case, the steps included requiring criminal background checks for all staff and volunteers, and requiring two or more adult leaders be present with youth at all times during scouting activities.

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This story has been corrected to show that Effie Delimarkos is a spokeswoman, not a spokesman.