David Farmer’s recent complaints (“Stress as Republicans play beat the clock,” April 4 column) that Gov. Paul LePage is rushing bills even if “some ideas are not ready for prime time” ring hollow when compared to Gov. John Baldacci’s record.
As a private citizen who has been fighting the “not-so-ready-for-prime-time” idea of industrial wind power for three years, I would like to refresh Mr. Farmer’s memory. Mr. Farmer, Gov. Baldacci’s spokesperson, surely remembers the timeline for the wind act, one of the most destructive pieces of environmental legislation in Maine’s history.
LD 2283 was introduced in the second session of the 123rd Legislature and two weeks later it was enacted by both houses. It was signed by the governor 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.
Another example of Gov. Baldacci’s haste to steamroll his wind power agenda involved health impacts from wind turbine noise, an issue which continues to plague the industry. On Feb. 8, 2009, the Rumford Community Hospital staff sent a request for a moratorium on wind projects to Gov. Baldacci, based on emerging reports of health effects. The request also was addressed to Dora Mills, who was then head of the Maine Center for Disease Control.
On Feb. 10 of that year, Dr. Mills emailed: “I did some scanning overnight of some of the research on health effects due to wind turbines as well as existing Maine laws. Comparing their findings to existing Maine laws it appears that our own law (under Maine DEP statute) is quite comprehensive and inclusive of the issue related to wind turbine development.”
The moratorium was rejected less than a week after it was requested.
Dr. Mills’ opinion of the safe siting of wind turbines based on her overnight research never changed and helped reject the appeals of several projects both at the BEP and the law court during her term under the Baldacci administration.
Two years later, in September 2011, after more than a year of studies and eight hours of testimony and cross examination of medical experts in medicine and acoustics, the BEP voted to improve the noise regulations even though Dr. Mills opposed it again.
Both the expedited wind law passed by the Legislature and the “expedited opinion” of Dr. Mills on the subject of wind turbine noise have created a multitude of hardships for Maine residents forced to live too close to turbines, with inescapable noise and under gag orders if “noise easements” have been granted to the wind company (without disclosure by the wind company of the potential effects).
After another moratorium was requested in December 2010, Farmer said, “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.” No, just a legislative rush with painful consequences for too many residents, and the numbers are growing,
Monique Aniel, MD, co-chairs the Citizens Task Force on Wind Power. She lives in Oquossoc.
Monique, Democrats do not like being confronted with the facts. If anyone wants to see what the limousine liberals have brought us, take a ride north on US Route one from Danforth towards the Orient to a place called “the million dollar view” which overlooks East Grand on the Canadian border. Then turn around.
I suppose we should vote for Angus King for US Senate who works (part Owner) for a wind energy firm. Million dollar view isn’t as nice as before with all the horizon full of wind turbines.
Remind me which Republicans voted against this bill again…?
“Farmer said, “The wind power laws on the books are the result of a careful process that included a transparent task force”.
Virtually the entire task force was made up of either wind industry personnel or the environmental shill groups that they pay off, such as the $500,000 they got from TransCanada for looking the other way on the Kibby wind travesty installation in God’s Country.
The stated purpose of the task force was to identify and remove any obstacles to industrializing Maine with wind turbines and their hundreds of miles of new mammoth transmission lines.
Take a look at Danforth they need jobs not wind power
To see how turbines improve the view at Roxbury Pond, home of Angus King’s famous Record Hill Wind project check out this video. http://www.windtaskforce.org/video/wind-turbines-over-roxbury-pond-maine Can lower property taxes and paltry checks for so called “free electricity” compensate for the impact of turbines on this scenic jewel of the western mountains? King is only giving back money he got from the US taxpayer for his “green” wind turbines.
Mr. Thurston, that video makes me cry and tears into my Maine soul. How can we allow such a gorgeous place in Maine to be encircled by ugly, useless wind turbines? I can’t imagine the destruction that was done to the ridgeline to get these huge 400+ foot tall machines in place! What a shame for a pittance of unreliable electricity. Angus King, who developed this project and the other wind thieves are in it as a way to reap taxpayer subsidies and REC sales under the guise of “clean energy”.
Those who harvest our tax dollars often seem to have a “higher purpose” like Angus King saving the planet with wind turbines or little King saving the poor with SUBSIDIZED housing.
Don’t worry, the new law passed today will let those property owners sue the state for loss of value, since the expedited wind law allowed the turbines to go in, which caused the loss of value. Then the wind companies can sue the state when the new noise regs cause a loss of value to their project. Or else the state can just grant a waiver. What a great bunch of legislators we have.
I just looked at the video. I am stunned. This is a crime commmitted on one of Maine’s beautiful mountains and the criminal is now running for Senator.
Let us not forget that Governor Baldacci’s Task Force never performed a cost analysis of the potential increase in energy rates or the increase in the transmission capacity needed to facilitate wind energy development. They also “ASSUMED” that wind energy could easily be integrated into the grid. While the Task Force performed a useless economic study on “potential benefits” they said they didn’t have the time to do a nuts-and-bolts review of the impact of wind energy’s enormous capital cost. If it wasn’t necessary than why approve authority to the PUC to give these wind farms power purchase agreements above current market rates? Because it was all crony capitalism to benefit the politically connected: Angus King at Record Hill Wind: Kurt Adams at First Wind while he sat on the PUC; NRCM and its hefty wind industry donations, et al.
A law, written by the wind industry, that sets in motion 1,800 or more essentially useless bird killing wind turbines in some of Maine’s most hallowed places and many times almost on top of people – not even discussed by the unwitting 2008 legislature who blindly signed it.
It is time for the next legislature to make this right.
Thank you, Monique Aniel, for exposing the blatant lack of ethics displayed by the Baldacci administration. Have things improved with the LePage administration? We shall see. Time will tell if Maine’s iconic and storied landscapes (and her biggest economic engine, tourism) survive this insane industrial apocalypse. Industrial wind has the power to bankrupt this state, but it doesn’t have the power to do much else.
Wow, am I dreaming or did a “real reporter” report a negative againist a liberal Democrat, albeit factual?
There must be a blue moon on the rise!
The House and Senate should be ashamed for being so lazy and not bothering to do their homework. It reminds me of Enron when so many knew there was something fishy going on, but said and did NOTHING because there was so much money rolling in. Time to rework this flawed legislation and do it right. Thanks Monique for the timeline. David Farmer is either misinformed or too lazy to check the facts. Or just plain gullible with his hand out.
The wind law and how it got enacted will go down in Maine history as one of the biggest cases of croneyism ever. It is a shameful incident that continues its legacy whereby the Expedited Wind Permitting section of PL 661 severely restricts citizen input into siting of wind projects and forces DEP and LURC staff and commissioners into rubber stamping the destruction of Maine’s uplands with these sprawling projects. Surely, if this heinous law had not been forced onto Maine, the same DEP & LURC staff and commissioners who highly regulate moving a rock on someone’s camp lot would oppose large scale blasting and leveling of our uplands to put in machines as tall as Boston skyscrapers.
and send all the money to BOsTON
Yes, there seems to be some hypocrisy on Mr. Farmer’s part. On one hand, he’s critical of the late rush of legislation this session, especially those bills submitted by our current governor. However, when it was his boss, John Baldacci, who was rushing through last minute legislation of enormous scope in 2008, Mr. Farmer was okay with it – even proud of it. Perhaps Mr. Farmer could tell us why its okay for his team to rush far-reaching bills at the last minute, but not someone else’s team.
David Farmer: “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.”
Careful process? Not hardly. What record exists shows a last minute rush by the task force to deliver their work to Baldacci by a deadline so that the bill could be submitted toward the end of the 2008 short legislative session. They were cobbling together provisions of enormous consequence that should have been given a great deal of time for consideration. There was no reason to rush the process other than to satisfy Baldacci and wind developers’ personal goals.
Transparent. Also not true. The report just released by independent analysts for the 2012 OEIS Wind Assessment concluded that some of the most important parts of the current expedited permitting laws were created behind closed doors. This is corroborated by records of emails between Wind Task Force members.
Unanimous support in the Legislature? That’s what happens at the end of a short session and very few legislators even know what’s in the bill. Most probably never even read it – some have admitted to it. And now we’re stuck with indefensibly weak standards for siting wind turbines in Maine.
Baldacci was a self serving politian who rewarded his friends and punished his enemies….just like LePage.
If Chinbro corporation and landowner Haynes get their way, the” Million Dollar View” will have yet another Industrial windfarm on top of East Grand Lake. May have to change the name to the Five dollar view.
Many thanks to Ms. Aniel and to the BDNews for printing her fine article on the chronology of the enctments of Maine’se wind power laws. As a lifelong Democrat I am appalled by the irresponsible way our Party imposed wind power on Maine’s ratepayers. Disappointed, too, that Maine media remained largely silent as the laws were railroaded through withourt debate or questions. But those grievous failures pale in comparision with the Democratic Legislators who refuse to recognize that the imposition of expensive wind power and unnecessary transmission lines was a huge mistake. Meanwhile, every daily newspaper in the State continues to support wind power as a “road to nowhere ‘” magnet for federal funds. The task today is for voters to ask each Legislator why he/she voted in the blind for wind power andwhether they support wind power today. They cannot undo the harm they have done but they can prevent the continuation and extansion of this travesty into the future. ClydeMacDonald, Hampden
Perfectly said! Maybe you should write that as an opinion piece!
If angus King gets into the senate ,expect more of the same..destruction of Maine’s mountains for personal gain.
Yet another Inconvenient Truth.
One thing that upsets me is that Baldacci remains at large
There are so many lies around the wind energy scam..yes many of us have shed tears for the wildlife and the pristine scenery that will be ruined (or already have been) but also the promise of jobs is so despicable..I was at the TIF meeting when the 80 people of Oakfield voted for the First Wind Project and the 20 vehemently, bravely and proudly opposed it..thank you Tim for giving Gary from Lincoln your 2 minutes when people threw rumpled paper at Gary for speaking the truth about the company’s financials and their schemes-thank you Mike from Lincoln for showing them the photo of the red flashing glaring lights (and even if they don’t flash they ruin a once star filled dark sky) on the lake you live on. ( and thank you Mike from Mars Hill for giving us a tour of the wind turbines on top of certain peoples homes in Mars Hill). When a resident stood up and asked the FW executive if the Oakfield citizens would get jobs like plowing the roads they would create for the transport of these huge monsters, the wind guy fumbled and then said :”uh, yes I guess so.” You could tell he was searching for something to say..David Corrigan, Maine guide who testified in the Bowers case which recently won on scenic impact influencing the guides’ livelihood, leaned over to me and said : They bring their own plows”- just like they bring their own contraction companies from away- and even if these companies are in Maine their work will dry up too when these useless turbines are left standing,.,how can this help tourism? it cannot- how can it create local jobs? it will not..and all because Baldacci RUSHED an unfounded law that will take away everything Maine stands for..it is tragic, whether you live near them or not..because our beautiful State will be degraded forever. Monique has fought tirelessly with Steve Thurston to educate those of us newer to the game about how this LAW makes it virtually impossible for us to fight for what Maine has ALWAYS been..untouched by billboards, mindful and careful of our woods and protecting the heritage and history that has always made it so rich and special- even THAT history does not count in this expedited WIND LAW- so UNDO this one please and do not criticize LePage for doing his job as he sees fit to protect the people of Maine, I wish Baldacci had.
This is such a shame. We need to be decommissioning the industrial wind
mistakes already installed rather than promoting their disgusting existence. I called and talked with Eric Bryant, Senior
Counsel in the Public Advocates office. He said that he worked hard to
deny the decision. The next steps he said might include calling for
public hearing even though those were formally completed. I also called
the PUC and got information about how to listen to yesterday’s discussion
and follow issues and how to make a formal complaint. We Mainers must
really pull together to remove all industrial wind-turbines from Maine.
Pub Advocate http://www.maine.gov/meopa/ind…
MPUC http://www.maine.gov/mpuc/inde…