Note: The public may speak at a work session only if a committee member requests further public input and the presiding chair grants permission. 

If you are not planning to attend in person, please tune in on the Web at the following link to listen to today's work sessions on LD 791 and LD 828 described below. One bill is from the wind industry, the other from citizens. If they start late or take a break, there will be dead air.…

Pat Woodcock is the director of the Governor’s Energy Office. “We have a goal for wind — the amount of wind to be installed in the state,” Woodcock said. “We have goals for solar, we have goals for hydro. Actually, I look at energy policy as technology is a means to carry out policy. The actual policy that we should be looking for in our state is lower pollution, lower cost.”

Woodcock said there are other bills coming from LePage this session to change Maine’s energy policy, ranging…

Has Maine been ripped off yet again? This one's not about wind, but arguably arises from some of the same conditions that have allowed the wind fraud.

“I think somebody needs to call the Legislature to task for not doing their due diligence on this........."

"“I’m really angry to hear how (the Maine New Markets…

Oklahoma Legislature,

like Congress,

takes aim at taxpayer-funded wind energy credits…

The reality is that natural gas exists today, not sometime and somewhere in the future. And it’s a much cleaner alternative to the oil and coal fuels it replaces. Natural gas pipelines can be built safely and sensitively — as they are throughout the country — to bring cheap Marcellus gas into New England. Our businesses, workers and families shouldn’t have to pay the highest energy costs in the nation when a plentiful supply of domestic natural gas is available just a few states away. Make…

"..........the power density of wind energy — as I have repeatedly proven — is 1 watt per square meter. Therefore, the land area needed to produce that much renewable electricity would total about 31 billion square meters or 31,000 square kilometers, which is about 12,000 square miles. Put another way, just to meet electricity demand in Massachusetts with wind energy would require an area larger than the state itself..........At the same time, they promote landscape- and wildlife-destroying…

I was really excited to read this blog post from Friends of Maine's Mountains a few minutes ago:

http://www.friendsofmainesmountains.org/fmm/2015/4/18/climbing-ever...

If we're all pulling an oar and pulling in the same direction, we'll cover a lot more ground!

Marcy Reed, president of National Grid Massachusetts, said she supports the construction of two new natural gas pipelines into the region to bring down electricity costs and to allow more customers to shift to gas for heating and cooking. She said she would welcome hydroelectricity from Canada, but stressed that the state’s current subsidies for renewable energy are not sustainable.

She said the cost of one form of subsidy, called net metering, is expected to double in National Grid’s…

Apple funds conservation of 32,400 acres in The County

Tech giant Apple has given an undisclosed amount of money to The Conservation Fund, which plans to use the money to conserve 32,400 acres on the Mattawamkeag River in southern Aroostook County.…

Ms. Barnett,

I did not get a confirmation from you on how you would like to be involved, but I wanted to let you know that we are holding a public meeting for the Weaver Wind…

Funny how these stories find their way into to the media headlines. Over the last few weeks there has been a lot of buzz about the wind industry's rigged energy production numbers. These scumbags know that the public is closing in on their bogus wind turbine energy production numbers.

The story below talks about how wind energy deliveries are down. The problem with this story is that CA has had a very mild year beginning in Sept, the beginning of our rainy season.  Yet for…

From Friends of Maine's Mountains:

LD 1107 is a curious bill that seeks to do three things:



1. Mandate a 40% off-peak discount for electricity customers. This would be good for electric thermal storage heat, electric vehicles, etc. Much of the off-peak time is when New England electricity is cleanest (the dams and nuke plants can satisfy almost all demand).



2. Mandate T&D (poles and wires) rate discounts (to be determined) for…

Another bill, by House Democratic Whip Sara Gideon of Freeport has the support of the wind industry, which helped her craft the legislation...... Karen Pease, a resident of Lexington Township, agreed: “The fact is that what we do on our property can and often does impact our neighbors. That’s why we created zoning ordinances,” she said. The Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry will hold work sessions on Dunphy’s and Gideon’s bill in the coming weeks. Both proposals will face…

Paid off  wind shills, political self - servers  and paid off enviro-groups like NRCM  made the law, PL-661 (The Expedited Wind Law of 2008).

The damage has festered and grown for years now.

Damage has been inflicted  to  legal process , to Maine's environment and to the citizenry , for next to naught in benefit.

This "lie", called a legislative emergency bill, PL-661, was the take over by wind corporate interests and unctuous self-serving political…

Wind gobbles up the largest share of subsidies yet produces little power.

But policymakers at the federal and state level, unfortunately, have decided that the American people will have renewable energy, no matter how high the costs. As a result, taxpayers will be stuck paying the cost of subsidies to wealthy wind producers.

Meanwhile, electricity consumers will be forced to purchase the more expensive power that results from state-level mandates for renewable energy…

Please tune in on the Web at the following link to listen to today's public hearing on LD 791 and LD 828 described below. One bill is from the wind industry, the other from citizens. If they start late or take a break, there will be dead air.

http://legislature.maine.gov/committee/#Audio/214

After clicking the above link, turn up your speakers and use the audio buttons immediately to the right of…

Last month, the selectmen warned the Planning Board that they aren’t obligated to bring any proposed changes to local voters. They also advised the board to honor any rules in the current ordinance if a wind power application arrives......A citizens group calling itself the Friends of Dodge Hill has opposed the town’s current wind ordinance on the grounds that it won’t protect, among other things, home values or the scenic beauty in mountainous North Orland.…

"In the last 40 plus years there has been thousands of publically funded alternative energy demonstration projects throughout the state and l have never seen any special interest group bring a single concrete technical report of the results accomplished relative to the promises made. Why have we never seen a single successful anniversary story in the…

Meeting Notes:

Somerset County: Is the Somerset Economic Development Corporation “selling out the county?” Karen of Lexington Township is fighting wind development and sent us the SEDC’s “economic development strategy” handout.  …

The project was initiated by First Wind, which SunEdison bought earlier this year.....Peggy Bensinger, an assistant attorney general representing the Department of Environmental Protection and the Board of Environmental Protection, argued that state site law for wind projects does allow those boards to consider the collective effects of a project on scenic resources.…