BDN - Southern Maine Dems Suppressing Citizen Rights and Interfering with DEP

The suspicious timing of this bill is as bizarre as the bill itself. It looks like a favor to the wind industry so specific projects can qualify for "free" taxpayer money.

By streamlining wind approval, Maine Legislature is preparing to sell out northern Maine

Posted Feb. 19, 2014, at 2:46 p.m.
EXCERPTS:

Even worse, LD 1750 gives a blank check to foreign and out-of-state industrial wind companies to build thousands of huge turbine towers across the middle and top half of Maine with limited environmental review. Southern Maine voters don’t want wind turbines there, so the Legislature is effectively arranging for hundreds of towers to be built in northern and central Maine where, under current law, residents won’t even get the chance to decide if they want these huge industrial zones or not.

This bill wasn’t introduced until the second half of the current legislative term, which — under the Maine Constitution — is largely reserved for bills “of an emergency nature.” It’s unclear to me why this bill is so urgent and critical as to be labeled an emergency. What is clear, however, is the catastrophic environmental, social and economic impact of industrial wind development

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Comment by Sherwin Start on February 23, 2014 at 1:32pm

THE Wind Industry Has a Lot of Money and theyhave  Hired VERY Expensive  LAWYERS and LOBBYISTS to Do their "DIRTY WORK" For Them! In addition they are "BUYING OFF" numerous Members of The Legislature with VERY Expensive Gifts and Relection Campaign Contributions thru PACS!! All it Takes folks is MONEY -Money Can Buy u ANYTHING in Augusta!!  

Comment by Hart Daley on February 21, 2014 at 3:17pm

Just another Baldacci "emergency legislation" attempt!

Comment by Monique Aniel Thurston on February 20, 2014 at 11:05am

Nothing suspicious  about  that  bill.  It is a  continuation  of  the  same wind industry favoritism which began in April 2008 with "emergency bill" LD 2283, the heinous Wind Act.  But now  the wind industry's quest for utter domination of all the means of power (legislature, media, Law Court, BEP, regulatory agencies) is a bit shaken by 5 years of relentless citizen activism and the methodical demonstration of the false  promises and false premises of  wind power.  

Commissioner Aho's articulate response to Alfond's charge of "a DEP gone wild" made it clear that DEP was only trying to enforce  the demands  of  LD 2283  regarding the demonstration of emission savings and electricity rates, acknowledge the  absolute  importance of  public  input, and to follow the law regarding decommissioning, fire prevention, visual impacts, and shadow  flicker by requiring wind developers to respond to these issues in their applications.

The wind industry wants absolute certainty that no wind project in Maine will be denied for any reason and is attempting to further bullet proof the permitting process.  Fast tracking their permits enables developers to take advantage of federal subsidies that are here today, but might be gone tomorrow, such as the PTC, which is only available for projects that begin construction in 2014.

This  is  why  the wind industry asked Alfond to submit this "emergency" bill.   They know they are living on borrowed time. 

Monique Aniel

 

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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