Would Be U.S. Senator Angus King Hammered on Wind Power Cronyism (Washington Post)

8/20/12

Excerpt:

The next line of attack will likely center on crony capitalism. As governor, King signed a law requiring Maine utilities to produce at least 30 percent of their energy from renewable sources such as wind — and then, after leaving office, moved quickly to profit from the mandate he enacted by forming a wind energy business. He secured a $102 million taxpayer-backed loan guarantee from the same Obama Energy Department program that backed Solyndra. A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigation found that King and his partners should not have gotten the federal loan guarantee because they already had sufficient capital to build the project. So why seek federal money? Summers argues it is because the loan guarantee transferred the risk for the wind project from King and his partners to the American taxpayer. “He got a Solyndra-type loan and put the taxpayers on the hook,” Summers said. He pointed out that Maine taxpayers just had a rate increase to pay for augmented transmission lines to handle King’s wind energy project — this in a state where high energy costs are already deterring businesses from moving and investing here.

Bottom line: King profited from a law he passed as governor, took taxpayer money he did not need from President Obama’s discredited “Green Energy” loan program and personally benefited from Obama’s failed stimulus spending bill. That’s a political trifecta. In addition to being the “King of Spending,” look for Republicans to crown the former governor as the “King of Wind” and the “King of Cronyism.”

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Comment by Donna Amrita Davidge on August 23, 2012 at 1:04pm

King is corrupt and not a cheerleader at all for Maine or its residents.

Comment by freemont tibbetts on August 21, 2012 at 8:44am

    The facts facts and more facts that are on record about Angus King and his wind farm in the Town of Roxbury Maine on Record Hill. I would like to thank all the people that do the hard work of looking up and getting these true facts on the Citizens" Task Force on Wind Power-Maine.                                      THANK YOU !!!!!.  Freemont Tibbetts 37, Bruce Tibbetts dr, Dixfield.

Comment by Long Islander on August 21, 2012 at 1:38am

Perhaps one of the most despicable things about King's wind cronyism is that for the longest time, Angus King's partner in his wind projects mysteriously hid behind the Delaware shell company name of Bayroot. We had long speculated that Bayroot (the name of a college drinking game) was in fact Yale University. Our questions in this regard were ignored by King and Yale.

 

We then got our answer when King and Bayroot received the $102 million Department of Energy loan guarantee for this wind project - the cat was out of the bag and indeed, King's partner all along was the Yale University Endowment.

 

This is significant for two reasons. First off, this is one of the richest university endowments in the world - worth upwards of $20 billion and like Bernie Madoff, known for its gravity-defying returns. Very simply, there is no reason in the world that such a deep pocketed investor should have been awarded a public loan guarantee. But they were, (thanks in part to the intervention of U.S. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree), meaning the public takes all the $102 million of risk while the profits are all private.

 

But second, and what makes this so nauseating is that BAYROOT is known to be responsible for some of the most savage liquidation harvesting in the state. They leave veritable moonscapes in their wake. Yet Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies preaches to us about how they are one of the foremost forest stewards and planetary protectors in all of creation. So while the Yale Endowment would have us all believe their investment success is due to some monopoly they have with IQ points, their hypocritical worst-in-class liquidation harvesting tells us at least some of those profits are the result of their scorched earth approach to the environment.

 

Not unlike hypocritical Mr. King telling us we need his wind farm to curb our carbon while at the same time his multiple homes, vehicles and other toys burn up carbon with abandon. Do as the King says, not as he does pitiful subjects.

 

With regard to CO2, there are several studies that show that wind turbines avoid virtually no CO2 emissions. These are of course all vigorously discredited by the wind industry and their paid off shills.

 

But there is one set of data that the likes of Angus King and the wind cheerleaders like the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM)  cannot argue with - because NRCM is the source of the figures. NRCM used these figures for the purpose of dimensionalizing how much CO2 wind "farms" avoid. Yet in doing so they have unwittingly handed over to us information which when put in proper perspective demonstrates that the 360 miles of ridgeline destruction they envision for Maine via wind turbines will have an effect on global warming/cooling equal to that produced by a mere 1% of the Maine woods. In other words, the wholesale transmogrification of Maine's core essence, its natural beauty and tranquility, is being done in exchange for virtually nothing. Unless one is of course Angus King or a braggart at the Yale Endowment.

Our analysis of NRCM's CO2 figures and this most lopsided ill conceived tradeoff may be read here:

NRCM_CO2_From_a_Different_Point_of_View.pdf

 

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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