Looking around in Greater Minnesota news venues today, we couldn't help but be struck by the many references to wind power.
Part of this is generated by the news that the American Wind Energy Association announced [pdf file] that Minnesota is now the third state national in terms of generating electricity from the wind.
We wrote Thursday about how in terms of Wind power: we're #3--and #2! (and how to keep those turbines spinning). That post included the need to extend the wind energy production tax credit. As the graphic on that post and this indicates, eliminating the production tax credit for wind takes the breeze right out of the industry's blades.
There's another tax issue that would help Southern Minnesota capture more of the revenue stream from the wind. KAAL-TV news reported last night on the Economic Power of Wind Energy:
Minnesota has set a goal to produce 25% green energy by the year 2025.
Every state legislator from Southern Minnesota voted for that renewable energy standard.
But who's putting up the wind farms to make that goal?
The Prairie Star Wind Farm is 15 miles southeast of Austin. Brian Lammers works for Horizon Wind Energy, which is the company that built the turbines.
In one year, 62 turbines will generate a lot of electricity.
“[That’s] enough power for about 30,000 average U.S. homes,” says Lammers.
Lammers is from Minnesota and says most of the dozen employees here are from Minnesota or neighboring states. Energia de Portugal or EDP, which is a Portugal-based utility, owns Horizon.
According to Minnesota Congressman Tim Walz's office, foreign companies own most of the wind turbines in the U.S. The current tax code gives credits for large companies, but not for small individual investors.
Mark Willers is one of 350 people who've invested millions into 11 turbines in the southwest corner of Minnesota. He says his group is the exception, and that's bad.
"If you have wind available and the tax credits are not useable by people here in the midwest, then you are forced to sell those wind rights or the energy from that wind off to another entity,” he says.
Entities like the Portuguese company that owns Prairie Star. But Lammers says regardless of whom owns the turbines, communities here benefit from tax revenue, jobs and rent paid to landowners.
Plus, Lammers says wind energy projects are just too expensive for local investors to get involved with.
Willers says more projects could work if the tax code were changed.
Lammers says ownership doesn't take away the net benefits of using more clean energy. Walz is pushing legislation that would change the tax code and allow for individual investors to receive a wind production tax credit. It’s a move that would make investing in wind turbines more economically feasible.
KTTC-TV reported Minnesota Goes Past Iowa in Wind Energy and Minnesota Number Three in Wind Energy. The Albert Lea Tribune applauded the rise of the area's wind industry in State now No. 3 in wind energy production. The Blooming Prairie Times (which has just launched an online edition) reported on March 20 that High Energy, LLC announce Wind Farm:
High Energy, LLC announce Wind Farm
High Energy, LLC, and Wisconsin Public Service Corporation, announced on Friday, March 14, that they have signed a letter of intent to acquire a 150 Megawatt portion of the High Country wind project. The High Country Wind Entergy Park, located in Dodge and Olmsted Counties, Minnesota, is planned to included a total of over 300 megawatts. . . .
Like its sister paper in Adrian, the Fulda Free Press reported on the Nobles Cooperative Electric Wind turbine erected. As we noted earlier, the Dodge County Independent noted Renewable energy program at library At mid-week, we posted Wednesday afternoon news digest: Call the wind, Marriah edition. And just outside the district, today's Marshall Independent reports about the current efforts geared toward Expanding wind energy across Minnesota.
We could go on, but you get the picture. The area papers report on new wind energy developments. The industry is a source of pride and optimism for farmers and business people, who have come to their congressman asking for the current tax credit to be preservation and for revision of the tax code so that they, too, can directly reap the economic opportuinty of investing in the wind industry
We've written before about how out-of-step with the district's support for renewable energy the endorsed GOP candidate is. But we're even more flabbergasted by a Karen Hanretty blog post that Tom Cole, chair of the NRCC, included in a national missive to supportive bloggers this week:
So while Pelosi and the Democrat majority pander to their fat-cat environmentalist patrons by debating the efficiency standard of a light bulb, offering tax credits for wind farms (none of which are to be built in Ted Kennedy's backyard, of course) and pushing for increased reliance on corn-based ethanol (maybe we can grow all the corn in ANWR) precious little has been done to increase the supply of oil in America. Yet, the Democrats are trying to "fool" you into believing they're offering viable options. . .
Hanretty's spleen seems particularly out-of-touch with the First, where farmers and other rural dwellers are racing to put up wind turbines on their land while arguing for keeping and expanding that tax credit. There's a lot of economic interest in ethanol as well, though no absolute allegiance to corn-brewed ethanol, since several of Walz's earmarks go toward researchong cellulostic feedstocks for ethanol. And, funny, but a lot of people in the First are concerned with environmentalism, though many might use the word conservation, and they're not fat cats.
So who is Hanretty, this fount of wisdom about energy policy? According to CBS News/Politico:
The National Republican Congressional Committee has hired longtime Republican operative Karen Hanretty as the new communication director, according to a GOP source familiar with the committee’s decision.
Hanretty succeeds Jessica Boulanger, who resigned last month to join Prism Public Affairs, a bipartisan consulting firm.
Hanretty most recently served as deputy communications director on Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign. She has been a fixture on the punditry circuit, regularly appearing as a Republican analyst on Fox News and other cable news networks.
She has also served as communications director for the California Republican Party and as the press secretary for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial bid in the 2003 recall election.
That West Coast, Hollywood focus must explain why Hanretty (a paragon of civil discourse) forgot to tell readers about another opponent of the Nantucket Sound sea-based Cape Wind Project:
. . .former candidate for U.S. President and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. . .
Can the NRCC fool Southern Minnesotans into thinking that arguments of distraction about Ted Kennedy's battle against a sea-based wind energy project are superior to economic development in their own communities? We'll not weigh in here on the merits or lack of a much different energy project in a distant state and community, other than to note in passing that both objections to and support of the Massachusetts project come from people across the political spectrum. Even the Alliance against the Cape Wind project supports land-based wind projects that are properly cited and enjoy community support.
Objections to wind projects in Southern Minnesota do exist, but they're fairly rare. In a recent instance in Mower County, the local planning commission and wind energy company worked to ask questions about the project, according to the Austin Daily Herald.
We think linking attacks on all wind energy--and the production tax credit--to the Cape Wind controversy is pure Tom Cole foolishness for Southern Minnesota. But at least Hanretty wasn't carrying on about Fred Thompson or family values this time. And while we're considering the source of the snark about the wind energy production tax credit, here's a video clip of Hanretty's defense of Scooter Libby:
Photo: The Nobles Coop wind turbine, from the Fulda Free Press
Comments