Ore. senator says AF held up wind power project

Ore. senator says AF held up wind power project
By Peter Urban - Gannett Washington Bureau
Posted : Thursday May 20, 2010 19:14:26 EDT

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ron Wyden lashed out at the Pentagon on Thursday for its late-in-the game opposition to another wind power project in Oregon.

Just weeks after the Defense Department withdrew its objections to the Shepherds Flat wind project, the Pentagon has raised similar concerns with the Montague wind power project, proposed by Iberdrola Renewable in Gilliam County.

“I am increasingly concerned about the gridlock between our national security and energy security,” Wyden, D-Ore., said during a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Wyden, a member of the committee, veered away from the hearing topic to go after a Pentagon official there to testify on a bill that would expand California’s national monuments, forests and parks to protect an additional 1.5 million acres from solar and wind projects.

Wyden complained that he had “put more than four years” into the Shepherds Flat project, only to have the Defense Department raise objections “at the very last minute.”