by jboullion | Feb 4, 2011 | Uncategorized
From a story on WTAQ, Madison:
MADISON, Wis. (WTAQ) – Governor Scott Walker’s office says it will keep trying to limit the locating of new wind energy farms in Wisconsin – even though his own Republicans in the Legislature are not going along with it for now.
Spokesman Cullen Werwie says Walker will try to get the state Public Service Commission to adopt his proposal. That’s after Republican legislative leaders said they wanted more time to review the impact.
Walker wants wind turbines to be at least 1,800 feet away from neighboring homes, instead of the current 1,250 feet. The Wisconsin Realtors Association pushed for the change.
Walker said it would help property owners who say the turbines cause too much noise and flickering light. But the wind energy industry says it would be the most restrictive setback in the nation – and they’re calling it a de-facto ban on new wind energy projects.
The group Renew Wisconsin says it could put up to $1.8 billion worth of future wind projects in jeopardy. And Denise Bode of the American Wind Energy Association said it would make a mockery of Walker’s claim that Wisconsin is “open for business.”
by jboullion | Feb 4, 2011 | Uncategorized
From a story on WTAQ, Madison:
MADISON, Wis. (WTAQ) – Governor Scott Walker’s office says it will keep trying to limit the locating of new wind energy farms in Wisconsin – even though his own Republicans in the Legislature are not going along with it for now.
Spokesman Cullen Werwie says Walker will try to get the state Public Service Commission to adopt his proposal. That’s after Republican legislative leaders said they wanted more time to review the impact.
Walker wants wind turbines to be at least 1,800 feet away from neighboring homes, instead of the current 1,250 feet. The Wisconsin Realtors Association pushed for the change.
Walker said it would help property owners who say the turbines cause too much noise and flickering light. But the wind energy industry says it would be the most restrictive setback in the nation – and they’re calling it a de-facto ban on new wind energy projects.
The group Renew Wisconsin says it could put up to $1.8 billion worth of future wind projects in jeopardy. And Denise Bode of the American Wind Energy Association said it would make a mockery of Walker’s claim that Wisconsin is “open for business.”
by jboullion | Feb 4, 2011 | Uncategorized
From a story on WTAQ, Madison:
MADISON, Wis. (WTAQ) – Governor Scott Walker’s office says it will keep trying to limit the locating of new wind energy farms in Wisconsin – even though his own Republicans in the Legislature are not going along with it for now.
Spokesman Cullen Werwie says Walker will try to get the state Public Service Commission to adopt his proposal. That’s after Republican legislative leaders said they wanted more time to review the impact.
Walker wants wind turbines to be at least 1,800 feet away from neighboring homes, instead of the current 1,250 feet. The Wisconsin Realtors Association pushed for the change.
Walker said it would help property owners who say the turbines cause too much noise and flickering light. But the wind energy industry says it would be the most restrictive setback in the nation – and they’re calling it a de-facto ban on new wind energy projects.
The group Renew Wisconsin says it could put up to $1.8 billion worth of future wind projects in jeopardy. And Denise Bode of the American Wind Energy Association said it would make a mockery of Walker’s claim that Wisconsin is “open for business.”
by jboullion | Feb 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article by Mike Ivey in The Capital Times:
When President Obama toured the state last week, he visited two companies in Manitowoc to promote Wisconsin’s high-tech, clean-energy economy.
First, the president stopped at Tower Tech Systems, which manufactures utility-scale wind towers. Then he toured Orion Energy Systems, which makes high-efficiency lighting and solar-focused products.
“These aren’t just good jobs that can help you pay the bills and support your families,” the president told some 200 workers at Orion. “They’re jobs that are good for all of us; that will make our energy bills cheaper; that will make our planet safer; that will sharpen America’s competitive edge in the world.”
But some are wondering whether Gov. Scott Walker, despite his “open for business” mantra, and the new Legislature share the same enthusiasm for emerging technologies and the promise of high-paying jobs.
During his first month in office, Walker has proposed strict rules that could hamper the wind power industry, nixed the Charter Street Biomass Project on the UW-Madison campus and returned more than $800 million in federal money for upgrading Wisconsin’s passenger and freight rail infrastructure. There’s also talk about limiting embryonic stem cell research, an issue that’s more symbolic than substantive.
Put together, it’s not exactly what economic development advocates were hoping to see from a governor who’s vowed to create 250,000 new private sector jobs.
“I don’t want to get in trouble here … but there’s some hand-wringing among our members,” says Bryan Renk, who heads BioForward, a trade association for the state’s bioscience and biofuel industry.
Both Gov. Tommy Thompson and Gov. Jim Doyle were big supporters of emerging technologies. Doyle in particular backed clean-energy initiatives and pushed a sweeping renewable energy bill in his last term that eventually died in the Legislature.
by jboullion | Feb 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
Madison – Kerry Schumann, Executive Director of Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters issued the following statement in response to Governor Walker’s State of the State address:
We couldn’t agree more with Governor Walker’s goal of leaving an even better Wisconsin to our children and grandchildren. As the nation as a whole has discovered, the key to accomplishing that goal lies in fully participating in the clean energy economy. Governor Walker’s failure to mention this opportunity paired with his actions in recent weeks speaks volumes.
In his short time as Governor, Governor Walker has introduced legislation to eliminate Wisconsin’s $400 million wind industry, rejected $800 million in mass transit funding (sending jobs to Illinois in the process), and prevented a coal power plant from transitioning to a plant run on homegrown, Wisconsin biofuels.
This week, understandably, we are taking a lot of advice from Vince Lombardi. Wisconsin would do well to remember this one, “We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.”
It’s time Wisconsin quit treating the clean energy economy as an impossibility. Instead, we must commit – with a “singleness of focus” – to creating the kinds of jobs that will sustain ours and future generations.
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Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to electing conservation leaders to the state legislature and encouraging lawmakers to champion conservation policies that effectively protect Wisconsin’s public health and natural resources. More information can be found at http://conservationvoters.org.
