Baldacci Admin. (Maine) puts best face on "Ocean Windfarm Waterloo"

http://www.maineville.com/detail/139938.html">Baldacci Administration puts best face on "Ocean Windfarm Waterloo"

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Huber said that LD 1810 originally offered the same incentives to build windfarms in state waters as had been enacted by the legislature several years ago for upland windfarms: price supports, immunity from environmental laws, unaccountability to the Maine Board of Environmental Protection, authority to 'take' land to run their cables through to the grid. "Not to mention stripping towns' of municipal authority to regulate windfarms within their borders," Huber said, "And fat fees to keep LURC and MDEP budget mavens happy.

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Despite its reservations, the Administration was convinced by the wind industry and its NGO supporters CLF, NRCM, Island Institute and Maine Audubon that the heating industry, fishermen, and coastal tourism industries should be brushed aside for the greater good, and off-the-shelf windfarm operations speedily set up in state waters as a 'transitional technology' to deepwater offshore wind.

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Then the other shoe dropped. The offshore wind farm technology developers at the University of Maine saw the legislators looking askance at state waters windmills, and worried that tax incentives and other goodies for their baby - also in the LD1810 - could go out with the inshore bathwater if the bill stalled over nearshore concerns. So the academics too started disparaging state waters windmills to the legislature.

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This unexpected put down of inshore wind stiffened the legislators' resolve to protect Maine's inshore fisheries. With the aid of the Maine's Lobstermen's Association's executive director Patrice McCarron, the Utility and Energy Committee trimmed away the incentive package for state waters windmills from the bill. The parts of LD 1810 mandating reduction in the use of heating oil by Mainers also disappeared. Cleansed of its inshore wind incentives and heating oil disincentives, the bill was voted out of committee with a unanimous Ought To Pass as Amended.

"This was a real Waterloo for the ocean windfarm industry's nearshore plans" Huber said, Governor Baldacci thought he was sweeping all opposition aside. He was badly mistaken."

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http://www.maineville.com/detail/139938.html">Baldacci Administration puts best face on "Ocean Windfarm Waterloo"