Earning the Trust of Landowners to Power America

By Mark Smither, Chief Strategy Officer, Paulsen

The U.S. is at a crucial inflection point in its energy infrastructure. The grid must expand and modernize rapidly to support electrification, data-heavy economies, and climate goals. But many proposed high-voltage transmission lines become contentious—with communities raising concerns and opposition as a reflexive barrier.

Here's what the industry often misses: community resistance isn't irrational. It's a values collision.

Rural landowners aren't saying no to progress. They're saying no to being treated like real estate instead of stewards. They're saying no to projects that see their land as a path of least resistance rather than a generations-long commitment to something bigger than profit. They're pushing back against the pattern of extraction—where benefits flow elsewhere and burdens stay put.

The real breakthrough won't come from legal muscle. It will come from earning real social license, especially by treating landowners and communities with the respect they've always deserved but rarely received.

The North Plains Connector (NPC), a project of Grid United, offers a useful case study in how a developer can break out of the old paradigm and build toward partnership, not confrontation.

The Stakes & Why It Matters

NPC is envisioned as a ~420-mile, 525 kV HVDC transmission line connecting Montana to North Dakota, bridging Western and Eastern grid systems and enabling bidirectional transfers among SPP, MISO, and Western markets. The project is estimated at about $3.2 billion and will support enhanced grid resilience, better resource sharing, and more efficient electricity flows across regions.

Because NPC crosses multiple landowners and jurisdictions, it epitomizes the challenge: linear transmission lines inevitably impose burdens on many. Those burdens—visual, land fragmentation, rights-of-way—are real and felt. And they land on the shoulders of people who are already doing the heavy lifting for this country.

These are families who've spent decades—sometimes generations—managing land, protecting water, raising livestock, and building something that lasts. They understand stewardship. They understand infrastructure. What they don't understand is why the companies building billion-dollar projects so often treat them like obstacles instead of partners.

If a community perceives only downsides while profits and power move through their land to serve distant cities, opposition becomes entrenched.

Social License as a Strategic Imperative

The lesson is clear: transmission developers must live by a different logic than "permit first, persuade later." Instead, the path to success lies in centering landowners, building meaningful benefits, and turning local voices into design partners.

This isn't charity. It's fairness. It's also smart business.

A research report from Data for Progress, WRI, and the Great Plains Institute underscores the value of what they term Community Benefits Frameworks (CBFs)—which include community benefits agreements (CBAs), host-community agreements, or benefit-sharing programs—as powerful tools to reduce opposition.

Their findings emphasize that CBFs work best when:

• They begin early and transparently.
• They prioritize landowner needs and integrate local concerns into design.
• They offer both monetary and non-monetary benefits aligned to local priorities.
• They include accountability mechanisms so communities can see performance.

In other words, they work when developers show up with respect, not just ROI projections.

What Right-by-Landowners Looks Like

From the NPC example and broader CBF research, here are guiding principles for how developers can credibly earn consent rather than override resistance:

Route Flexibility as a Respect Signal

Even if a more direct route is technically cheaper, offering adjustments in response to landowner input shows sincerity. Marginal increases in capital costs may pale in comparison to delays, litigation, or project cancellation. More importantly, it shows you're listening. Rural communities are used to being talked at, not listened to. When developers treat route planning as a conversation, not a foregone conclusion, trust starts to build.

Benefit-Sharing & Local Investment

In NPC, Grid United has structured community engagement and benefits programs, channeling funds through local foundations and advisory boards to support nonprofit projects, infrastructure, or community priorities. This isn't a handout—it's a recognition that when infrastructure crosses your land, you should share in its value. Rural America has been producing food, fiber, and energy for the rest of the country for generations. It's about time the infrastructure that moves that value started giving back.

Transparent Process, Enforceable Commitments

Benefits must not be vague pledges but measurable, enforceable promises—with clear metrics, timelines, and reporting to communities. That kind of accountability builds trust. Rural people value a handshake and a promise kept more than any slick presentation. Give them both substance and follow-through, and they'll respect the work. Break your word, and you'll earn exactly what you deserve: opposition.

Listening as Design, Not Afterthought

Two-way community input—surveys, workshops, design charrettes—should shape siting, mitigation, and benefits decisions. If participants see their input reflected in outcomes, the impulse to resist weakens. This is the difference between asking "Where can we put this?" and asking "How can we do this right by you?" One treats communities as geography. The other treats them as partners.

Delivery Before Expectation

Committing community grants or small-scale investments early—even before revenue generation—helps demonstrate that the project is not just about extraction but shared value. Show up with good faith capital before asking for cooperation. Invest in the FFA chapter, the volunteer fire department, the county fairgrounds. Prove you're not just passing through.

Why This Matters Now

Transmission developers who follow the old script—file permits first, talk later—face intensifying resistance. Projects are delayed or canceled, not because the power model fails, but because they skipped the human work.

And here's the reality: rural America isn't waiting around to be convinced that the grid matters. Rural communities already know infrastructure matters—they've been building and maintaining it for generations, often without the budgets or fanfare that follow urban projects. What they're waiting for is to be treated like the backbone of the system, not the back forty.

In contrast, Grid United's NPC offers a model for how developers can earn "permission beyond permits." Moreover, the broader research shows that community benefits frameworks are not theoretical: they are becoming a benchmark in resilient infrastructure, and their principles are being adopted even in federally funded programs.

America's grid challenge is urgent. However, faster deployment only matters if those wires can withstand the test of time—and public trust. Overcoming community resistance is not a persuasion contest. It is a commitment to do right by the people whose land the grid traverses.

Because here's what too many developers forget: the land you need to cross is more than a corridor. It's someone's life's work. It's soil that's been cared for, water that's been protected, a legacy being built for the next generation. Treat it that way, and you won't have to overcome resistance—you'll have earned a partner.

Want to Learn More?

At Paulsen, we help energy infrastructure leaders translate technical necessity into meaningful social partnership. We don't parachute in with messaging. We walk alongside developers to help them understand what rural communities value, how to design benefits that matter, and how to build trust from Day One.

If you are planning transmission projects or navigating community opposition, contact Paulsen to learn more about trends in energy communication, designing benefits frameworks, and how to earn a social license—not just permits.

When developers put landowners first and build trust from the ground up, they turn opposition into support—and transform transmission from a burden into a shared opportunity.

Because you can't have a strong grid without a strong rural America, and you can't have a strong rural America without respect.