Hey, remember Senate Bill 30? The wind moratorium bill, from which the “moratorium” was dropped before the bill was approved by the strongly anti-wind Senate Natural Resources Committee?
Well, it’s been rewritten again, and rendered even more bland and toothless. And a scheduled vote by the full Senate has been postponed until March 26, apparently because Lt. Gov. Phil Scott (noted wind skeptic) is out of town this week, and S.30 backers want every available hand on deck.
Which certainly indicates that S.30 doesn’t have majority support, since Scott would only vote in case of a tie. Opponents of S.30, who don’t want any new restrictions added to an already rigorous process for siting renewable energy projects, are cautiously optimistic they can defeat the bill on the Senate floor. (In fact, at least one lobbyist was hoping the vote would be held today, in the belief that S.30 would lose.)
And should it survive the Senate, it stands no chance of getting through the House. Governor Shumlin, who opposes S.30, made that clear at his weekly news conference this morning:
“I’m not overly concerned about that particular bill for the reason that, in talking to my colleagues in the House, I understand that they’re not any more enthralled with it than I am. So I’d be surprised if it comes to my desk.”
As for the rewrite: it begins with a complete overhaul of the “Findings.” In the old S.30, the “Findings” were chock full of anti-wind rhetoric. The new version is a lot shorter and basically neutral in tone.
The rest of the bill contains very little in the way of new rules and requirements; instead, it’s full of orders that the Department of Public Service “consider” certain things and “report” on a laundry list of ideas. As far as I can tell, the only remaining new mandate is the imposition of Act 250 requirements on new energy projects.
And the vast majority of its requested reports are for items that have already been fully explored and addressed by state agencies — as I recounted in my previous diary on the regulatory history of wind energy in Vermont. Health, environment, wildlife, aesthetics, water quality and erosion control, and the commercial viability of wind farms.
The revised S.30 also raises the trigger point for such regulation; the old bill required Act 250 review for any new facility capable of producing 500 kW or more; the new bill raises that floor to 2.2 mW, which would exempt many solar installations.
In sum, backers of tougher wind regulation are back on their heels. Which is not to say the battle is over, but things are not looking good for Senate Bill 30.
to send a message that VT is not as friendly to wind as other areas. We don’t need that.
on the controversial wind issues plus the scrutiny applied to industrial wind that is not applied to other energy sources and related risks of preempting other regulating agencies:
http://vtdigger.org/2013/03/20…
“I am not afraid of being thought a sentimentalist when I say that I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society. I believe that whenever we destroy beauty, or whenever we substitute something manmade and artificial for a natural feature of the earth, we have retarded some part of man’s spiritual growth.”
Let’s get real about climate change and address our transportation and home heating problems.
http://www.c2es.org/energy/sou…
… it just gets moved around the globe. There’s a robust market for our vast U.S. reserves of coal, and four new ports are being pushed in the NW to ship it. The transportation of that coal as exports will create its own CO2 problem, along with coal dust (500pounds per 500 miles). Coal-whack-a-mole.
http://news.nationalgeographic…
We need a major shift in our energy policy along with corporate/utility regulation. And it will likely take drastic events for the rank and file among us to realize that they can no longer live large.
We are going to need the ecosystem services of our mountains and their habitats more and more as we go forward, as well as their beauty. That’s right, their beauty, which is thrown in for free along with their services when they are protected and valued.
As I was reading the Reformer online, this caught my eye, from last week:
http://www.reformer.com/locale…
None of this comes as any surprise, however sometimes I forget that even though this is VT, we are not immune to these surreptitious forces influence from behind the scenes. I’m pretty sure this bunch will not find it difficult to find ‘new recruits’ from the controversial project areas. When listening to the doubletalk & spin, the methodology has the same familiar ring as the shit shoveled by VY supporters & all of the junk science used to back up their dubious claims.
…the fact that, first and foremost, Industrial Wind is about PROFIT for those Wall Street Power Companies in the ENERGY BUSINESS? (ENERGY REICH) It’s not about Global Warming, or Alternate Energy. It’s about $$$$$$, and a lot of them, for the Corporations and Developers. It is ASTOUNDING that seemingly otherwise intelligent people equate Industrial Wind Farms with some pie-in-the-sky (hear the F-35s?) Save The World notion that comes out of some old National Lampoon magazine cartoon about Hippie ‘Earth’ Communes.
This is CORPORATE BULLSHIT. This is corporations saying: “Hey, you Environmentalists Want To Save The Environment? Well, we figured out how to ‘get the lock’ on this Wind Energy business. Ain’t we wonderful? Why even McKibben and Sanders love us. Give us a hug. Oh, and, by the way, after we get all these Windfarms up and running, and the countryside sounds like New Jersey, we’ll need to increase your rates a little. You’ll pay a little more for Wind, won’t you? We need more funds to invest in developing how to make our NUKES and OIL competitive with WIND. Thank you, Environmentalists.”
Or, as a famous Major in Vietnam (during Tet) might put it: “It has now become necessary to destroy the environment in order to save it. Hey, can you HEAR me?”
Wind Power needs to happen for all of us and the World, NOT for PROFIT, but in a way that protects the LANDSCAPE and SOUNDSCAPE, while we concurrently cut back on our dependency on fossil fuels, and also NUKES.
You know years ago in the fifties, a guy named Admiral Hyman Rickover developed a system of SAFE Nukes for the U.S. Navy, which service today can still boast of 0 reactor accidents. So, nuclear power can be made ‘safe’, or done right, but only when you curtail the profit motive.
There is something almost Kafkaesque about Industrial Wind and Environmentalists. Wind is free, right? Why can’t every poor dairy farmer in Vermont have his or her own windmill to heat the barns in Winter, and maybe sell some energy to his neighbor? Why can’t we just go to WalMart and buy a BACKYARD WINDMILL at the 4am sale? Who’s allowed now to put up Windmills? Only the power Companies? Montpelier is a Wind Tunnel. Why not Windmills on State and Main Streets’ buildings, shut or powered-down at night so folks can sleep? No? Of course not, Peter. Not when there’s all that prime country land ripe for devaluing (more profit).
Come on, give me a break. I have a great deal of respect for those people in Lowell and others in Vermont who raise the questions about what Lib-er-als have handed over to the RICH and POWERFUL, who are…what?…oh yeah, REPUBLICANS.
TAR SANDS OIL is concurrently being pushed as Wind Energy is being pushed, and, I’ll bet if you look under the rocks there, you’ll find a RICH CORPORATE BASTARD lighting his cigar with a GREEN $100 dollar bill.
You can call up your neighbors and ask them if they can turn off or turn down the noise. When you call up the Power Company, they will say: “Fuck you. If you don’t like it, sell us your land and move. Here’s 10 bucks.”
Guess that makes me a WINDY. Although most of the Wind being blown here is coming from the other side.
Keep it up, Katrinka. There’s also something ‘lazy’ about Industrial Wind Farm advocates. It’s like: “Put up the Windmills and fix Global Warming so I can go back to sleep. Let me close the windows, turn on the air-conditioner, and put on these new QUIET TIME Earmuffs–I bought ’em at Green Mountain Power’s Alternate Energy Fair. God, I’m so glad I moved up here from New Jersey.”