Comment

Comment by Monique Aniel Thurston on March 29, 2013 at 9:48am

Thank you BDN for providing important background information in this piece.

Click on the link in the second sentence of this article to open Naomi Schallit's 2010 investigative reporting on Baldacci's Wind Power Task Force, which clearly exposed the deficiencies of the Task Force process and the resulting Expedited Wind law.

From Schallit's piece:

But an investigation by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting of the workings of the wind power task force through numerous interviews and a review of relevant documents reveals a number of problems with the law and its development:

• Appointing wind power supporters to the task force and rushing the legislation through the Legislature failed to address public skepticism about the state’s wind power policy. Issues that may have been aired through a State House debate continue to be raised by a growing number of critics of wind power, who doubt the policy’s premises that wind power brings widespread economic benefits, moves Maine off fossil fuels or can be developed without compromising the quality of Maine’s landscape.

• Members of LURC, who review proposals for wind power development in the unorganized territory, have expressed consternation about the contradictory and perhaps unachievable goals of the Wind Power Act — to promote wind power development, ensure communities get benefits from the development and protect the very parts of the Maine landscape where wind power turbines are likely to be built.

• The designation of “expedited wind power zones” along some of the state’s wildest mountaintops has raised the value of that real estate, since it is now a target for wind power development. That had the unintended effect of creating competition for conservationists who want to protect that land.

• The task force ignored the need for massive new transmission line construction to move wind energy from turbines to market, which could be costly to ratepayers, disrupt habitat and landscape and engender significant opposition from towns and conservation groups.

• At least one significant task force recommendation — to allow the DEP commissioner to modify permits if wind turbines made too much noise — was left out of the governor’s bill that became the wind power law.

• One of the most crucial discussions held by the task force — what lands to open to expedited wind power development — is not in the public record. There were no minutes taken or produced for those final two meetings of the task force.

steve thurston

 

• T

• • −
  • +

Comment by freemont tibbetts on March 29, 2013 at 5:02am

 Well said Monique, The True Facts and all on Record !!!.

Comment by Monique Aniel Thurston on March 28, 2013 at 11:33pm

Congratulation to  all the people  who  took  time out of  their  busy schedules to come  to  testify  about getting  their  essential  rights  back,  to allow  a more  just  appeal  process and to allow  access to  public hearings for wind projects.

It  has  been now  4  years  that incessant  screams for  justice  have  come  out  of the mouths  of  the victims  of  the  most facist  law  ever  written  in Maine, aka the Expedited Wind Law.

All  of  those  bills presented today  tried  to redress the intolerable consequences of LD 2283, a  totalitarian  bill imposed by  John Baldacci in 2008 based on a private and political whim  rather  than on susbstantiated  premises .

John  Baldacci muzzled  Mainers  in  a way  never  seen in  history, removed  the rights from some  people to  decide  of the fate  of their own communities and  imposed the  methodical destruction of Maine 's landscape by 400 foot  steel turbines and considered the victims  of  turbine  noise  as collateral damage .

Baldacci 's bill was introduced in the second session of the 123rd Legislature and two weeks later it was enacted by both houses. It was signed within a week. Here is the timeline from 2008:

March 27: The House and Senate accepted the bill and referred it to the Utilities Committee.

March 31: Forgoing the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires a two-weekend public notice before a hearing, the Utilities Committee had the public hearing on LD 2283. The day was Monday, so the public had one full business day (Friday, March 28) to become familiar with a bill that reversed five decades of protection for Maine’s mountains.

April 2: The committee scheduled a work session less than 48 hours after the public hearing closed. It reviewed the enormous bill in one afternoon and immediately voted unanimously “ought to pass.“

April 8: Four business days later, the bill was reported out of the committee for House and Senate action.

April 9: The Senate accepted the committee report, suspended the rules and did both first and second readings at the same time without a vote. It then sent it to the House, where in minutes the exact same “expedited” approval happened without a vote.

April 9: Both the House and Senate suspended the rules again, this time forgoing the customary day of waiting and sending the bill for its first passage to be “engrossed.” They adjourned that day’s session with the bill having been approved three times in each body, but without a vote. These preliminary votes often are not recorded votes, but the speed of these was sufficient — especially given the crush of late-session business — to move it through without notice.

April 11: The bill got its final enactment in the House and Senate without any dissent. House: 139-0, Senate: 34-0.

April 18: Gov. Baldacci signed Ch. 661 into law, and the wind power gold rush was unleashed on an unsuspecting populace.

In February 2009 and in December 2010,  a  moratorium  on windpower was  requested  from Baldacci. David   Farmer, Baldacci spokesperson said at the time, “The wind power laws on the books are the result of a careful process that included a transparent task force and unanimous support in the Legislature.”

That was  absolutey  wrong and nothing  will  make  this  any  more  evident that the argument used  by  Iberdrola -CMP  today in   opposition  to  the request for  restoration  of  the basic  rights  of  self determination  to  the residents  of  some Plantations : do  not  give  back those rights to residents  because  if you do  we  will  lose  money !!

The Energy, Utility and Technology  committee has  a clear  choice: to favor or not    an industry at the expense of  their constituents' rights.

Fascism: collusion  between  state  and  industry, how  much clearer  does  this get?

Monique  Aniel CTFWP

www.windtaskforce.org

Comment by Donna Amrita Davidge on March 28, 2013 at 10:02pm

good for the rural numbers..and thank you ALL so much...wish i could have been a part of it..