newsroom

AWEA Statement on “here we go again,” Anti-wind Amendments
in Coast Guard and Defense Legislation

As high demand for natural gas causes electricity prices to soar, wind farms in 30 states will supply clean, home-grown electricity to 2.5 million households this winter, reducing the need for gas-fired generation and giving consumers modest but badly needed price relief. Unfortunately, anti-wind energy provisions in two pending bills in Congress would create unnecessary and costly hurdles for wind development at the very time our country urgently needs to diversify its energy mix.

Both provisions offer harmful bureaucratic “solutions” for nonexistent problems:

• Military radar study of wind turbine impacts: An amendment inserted by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) into H.R. 1815, the Defense Authorization Bill, calls for a study of how wind energy projects might affect military radar systems, even though previous studies have already shown that radar interference is not a problem. As justification for his unilateral action, Sen. Warner cites concerns in the United Kingdom about possible impacts on military radars, but, ironically, the British Ministry of Defense (MOD) recently announced that “actually it really isn’t a problem for the air defense community.” And here in the U.S., as part of the Environmental Impact Statement for a wind farm proposed off Nantucket Island, the U.S. Air Force has found that the proposed project would not negatively affect the force's Cape Cod radar installation.

• Coast Guard review of wind projects: Language in the manager’s amendment to H.R. 889, the Coast Guard authorization bill, calls for the Guard Commandant to review offshore wind energy projects—an unnecessary provision that adds a wasteful and redundant layer of red tape to a thorough permitting process in an attempt to delay proposed clean energy wind projects. The Coast Guard already has the authority to review offshore wind projects on the issue of navigation—it does not need to be asked to do its work twice.

Such anti-wind energy efforts are not guided by public policy concerns, but by Not-In-My-Backyard sentiments which lead wind energy opponents to try time and again to delay or derail a project. Sen. Warner, a co-sponsor of an earlier failed effort to delay development of the Cape Wind offshore project in Massachusetts, has family members who own property on Cape Cod.

Wind energy is a safe, domestic, clean source of energy, and one of the world’s most environmentally-friendly sources of electricity. Wind farms are planned and built in an environmentally responsible way. Electricity generated from America’s vast and inexhaustible wind reserves is a key component of a balanced energy policy aimed at achieving energy security and affordability for all Americans.

Member Center | News | About AWEA | Events | Legislative | Policy | Small Wind | Publications | Resources | Utility | Top of Page

AMERICAN WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION®
1101 14TH Street NW, 12th Floor | Washington, DC 20005 | Phone: 202.383.2500 | Fax: 202.383.2505 | windmail@awea.org
Copyright 1996 - 2008 American Wind Energy Association. All Rights Reserved.
Please report bad links and other technical problems to the Webmaster.