An article in this morning’s Columbus Dispatch indicates that 2014 legislation, sponsored by Republicans Bill Seitz and Keith Faber, is holding up more than $2 Billion in investment in Ohio on clean wind power.
www.dispatch.com/…
Overly restrictive rules on wind-turbine placement have put billions of dollars of investment on hold, say government leaders from northwestern Ohio, who want to see the rules changed.
The local-government officials teamed up with a wind-energy trade group today to call for the Ohio General Assembly to undo the restrictions that were put in place three years ago.
A few years ago, 2014, I believe, ALEC proposed model legislation to impose highly restrictive setback requirements on the placement of wind turbines with the purpose of significantly reducing where wind farms could be placed. Now we are seeing the impact of that legislation, which Bill Seitz, then the Ohio chairman of ALEC, sponsored, and in fact, because they couldn’t pass the legislation cleanly in a bill directly addressing the issue, they sneaked it into other legislation, a common ALEC trick to get bad legislation in through the back door. From the article:
Snip . . .
The limits on turbine placement were changed in 2014 in a way that allows fewer turbines in a project area. The revision, which was inserted into an unrelated bill, was in response to some residents who had concerns about turbines being built close to their property.
The following comment was in the print version of the story, but appears important to me:
snip . . .
Asked to comment on the leaders’ concerns, Seitz referred to a 2016 email in which he said the current rules are “quite mainstream” and cited examples from other states and counties that have similar rules.
I am certain that Mr. Seitz is referring to fossil fuel friendly ALEC legislation that imposes nearly impossible setback rules on the placement of wind turbines, and because they have been implemented elsewhere, even though they are ALEC requirements, they have now become “mainstream”.
The bottom line here is that ALEC inspired back door legislation is holding up $2 billion in investments in clean, renewable energy for Ohio, and for which customers are already lined up. A new Amazon distribution facility in the village of Etna, Ohio is contracting to run its entire facility on renewable energy. Ohio State University has contracted with existing Ohio wind power sites to buy their clean power. What is standing in the way? An ALEC dominated legislature that favors the dirty fossil fuel power industry. ALEC, get the hell out of our way!!!
PS — Meteor Blades did a diary on this topic a few years ago, but I have been unable to locate it. If a comment can provide a link to that diary, I will update this post.