Environmental group sues LePage, says wind farm ban is unconstitutional
Environmental group
Sues LePage,
Says wind farm ban is unconstitutional
The Conservation Law Foundation says the governor's action violates the constitutional separation of powers.
The lawsuit doesn’t weigh in on a second element of LePage’s executive order, which would establish a special commission to study the economic impact of wind energy in the western mountains and coast. That study group could meet in secret and would be exempt from public access laws.
A regional environmental advocacy group has gone to court in an attempt to overturn a moratorium imposed last week by Gov. Paul LePage on most new wind energy projects in Maine.
In a suit filed Tuesday in Cumberland County Superior Court, the Conservation Law Foundation charges that the governor’s action is unconstitutional, because it violates the separation of powers. The Maine Legislature has passed laws for the permitting of wind energy, the group says in its complaint, and the governor can’t change that by executive order. The group is asking a judge to declare the ban unconstitutional and void the governor’s order.
Maine’s so-called expedited wind law has made the state New England’s leader in wind development, with construction of 378 wind turbines and an investment of more than $1 billion.
But it has also been a source of anger and frustration for some rural residents who live near the projects and are subject to seeing and sometimes hearing the turbines and their massive, spinning blades. Critics gained a partial victory two years ago, when 40 towns and plantations were removed from the expedited area.
LePage’s bill would essentially gut the existing law, in part by expanding from eight to 40 miles the area around turbines that could be subject to visual impact studies. But it keeps parts of Aroostook County in the expedited area, because they are outside the mountain and coastal regions.
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Comment
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Comment by Jim Wiegand on February 1, 2018 at 11:50am
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Gov Page should hire me so I can use scientific proof, to show the public what fools and sellouts this CLF group really is. Conservation Law has nothing to do with fraud and rigging unless you are CFL.
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Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on February 1, 2018 at 10:49am
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► Reuters ◄
► MaineBiz ◄
A lawsuit filed Tuesday in Maine's Superior Court by the Conservation Law Foundation seeks to block Gov. Paul LePage’s recent executive order imposing a moratorium on new wind project permits and creating a special commission to make recommendations on wind power development.
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Another sellout group that has been hijacked by the green mafia....."For 50 years, CLF has taken on powerful opponents who would pollute our air and water and squander our resources. Our deep local knowledge, legal acumen, and policy expertise make CLF a prime mover in building our clean energy future, countering climate change, and safeguarding our communities." Fifty years ago the prime movers in building a clean energy future and the climate change scarecrow did not exist. They will go away if you just make these idiots put real science on the table.
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Comment by John F. Hussey on January 30, 2018 at 6:56pm
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CFL:
"Protecting Maine’s Air, Land, and Water for All
From the rugged peaks of Baxter State Park to Acadia’s rocky shores, from the quiet beauty of our lakes to the bounty of our many farms, Maine is the place CLF has pledged to protect with all the tenacity, passion, and skill that we have..." But they don't have a problem bulldozing and blasting mountain tops and ridge lines........
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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