When the final tally was taken Thursday on a bill designed to improve the siting of renewable energy projects in the Senate, it passed 22-3.
Sounds like a slam-dunk piece of legislation with wide support, right?
This bill was anything but that. Senators spent four and a half hours wading through some 30 amendments before ending up with a patchwork bill that almost no one likes.
“There are significant flaws,” said Ben Walsh, energy policy advocate for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, a pro-renewable energy organization. “There were things added today that were slap-dashed in.”
“I’m disappointed,” said former lieutenant governor Brian Dubie, a Franklin County resident fighting a proposed wind project. “Vermonters asked for help. The Senate said no.”
The overall bill is intended to give local communities more say in where wind and solar projects are sited. More than 100 Vermont towns have signed a petition arguing that the state Public Service Board approves projects without regard to local sentiment. But some of those critics argued the bill still leaned too heavily in favor of energy developers.
Sen. Chris Bray (D-Addison), chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, started Wednesday thinking he had reached what he called “a grand bargain” of compromise amendments that he and Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell (D-Windsor) hoped would win over those critics.
By Thursday afternoon, his bargain looked more like a grand mess, and Bray was backing away from part of it. “It was an attempt to get some reconciliation,” he said, adding, “It was not much of a bargain.”
One piece of Bray’s compromise called on the state to monitor sound levels at wind projects, including those already built, at the developers’ expense. Neighbors of three large wind projects — in Lowell, Sheffield and Georgia — have argued that complaints about wind turbine noise have gone unheeded for several years.
Melodie McLane, who lives next to the four-turbine Georgia Mountain wind project, attended Thursday’s vote, trying to persuade senators that having unbiased, continuous sound monitoring is the only way she’ll be able to prove the turbines exceed sound limits.
Her hopes quickly dimmed as Bray withdrew his support for the monitoring.
“I plan to vote no on that amendment,” Bray told fellow senators. “That’s because of what I’ve subsequently learned about the cost.”
Green Mountain Power is spending $264,000 a year to monitor sound at the 21-turbine Lowell project it owns following a noise violation there, Todd Bailey, a lobbyist for the company, told lawmakers. To retroactively require all wind developers to pay for that kind of monitoring is unnecessary and unfair, renewable energy advocates argued.
They got their message to Bray and other senators in a hurry. The Senate voted 18-8 to strike sound monitoring from the bill.
What started out as an agreement to appease wind energy critics appears to have left them more peeved. Sen. John Rodgers (D-Essex/Orleans), who has sought a moratorium on wind projects, was so miffed at the turn of events that he stormed out of a morning meeting where Bray’s committee was discussing amendments.
“We had an agreement,” Rodgers said while awaiting Senate floor action in the afternoon. “There’s no one with any spine in the committee to deal with these complaints we’ve been hearing about for years.”
The Senate did go along with other amendments that were part of Bray’s late compromise, including directing the Public Service Board to settle a pending case involving wind noise complaints in Sheffield. It’s unusual for lawmakers to insert themselves into a specific ongoing case.
Several senators suggested that irritation with the Public Service Board had reached a boiling point. “What we’re really angry about is the board and its performance,” said Sen. Ann Cummings (D-Washington).
Even as senators approved the bill, they grumbled about the confusing amendment process and the lack of vetting for some of its contents.
“I don’t have a clue what anyone’s talking about,” Sen. Peg Flory (R-Rutland) said less than halfway through the late-afternoon debate, expressing a sentiment others clearly shared.
“Today, we’ve had a number of aspects of the bill entirely written on the floor,” said Sen. David Zuckerman (P/D-Chittenden), who voted against the bill. “I don’t even know if they are all properly worded.”
By 7 p.m., when the final vote came, the majority of the senators appeared to be voting for the bill just to put an end to the day’s events.
Lobbyists milling outside the Senate chamber quietly indicated that they would look for the House, where the bill goes next, to make alterations.
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Here is a “time line” showing the history of Wind Turbine Noise problems, going back as far as 1979. Each entry provides documentation:
http://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline/lat…
1979 “First complaints received from a dozen families within a 3km radius of turbine”.
1981 “Wind turbine operation creates enormous sound pressure waves”
1982 “Closed windows and doors do not protect occupants from LFN”
1982 “NASA research on human impacts provided to wind industry”
1985 “Hypothesis for infrasound-induced motion sickness”
1987 “Wind industry told that dB(A) unsuitable to measure LFN emissions from wind turbines”
…
2004 “Wind industry knows noise models inadequate” (from Vestas)
…
2011 “Vestas knew that low frequency noise from larger turbines needed greater setbacks”
Who are these brain dead scumbags, that are elected to serve the people of this state. remember that November is coming. lets send them packing back to New Jersey.
You ever feel like a mushroom (Vermonter) they the Vermont Leg, keep you in the dark, then put (shit) manure on you. Then say, when Vermonters complain? Oh, were sorry. How can we help? Sorry, the Vermont Leg, with these individuals, who want to say its all good, the money individuals, from these Wind-tower, Solar Companies, just want to make fast money, then leave the mess of large Metal, Electrical, laying in Vermont’s fields or Vermont Mountains, Ridge-lines, for Vermont Towns Cities and Environment to take care of. They don’t care of the cut down of all tree’s, or the next door neighbors tree’s, that blow down, or the erosion of the local streams. They don’t care of the loss of Wildlife habitat. Its all good for the Vermont Environment, trust us? Stupid, Vermont Leg started this in the first place. In my opinion, as I am a native Vermonter. You Vermont Leg, you took away the Billboards as it took away the beauty, on the sides of the road. You took away the right of Vermonters from building in flood plains, but then you Vermont Leg, let the Vermont State Buildings in Waterbury, be rebuilt in a flood plain? Mad, yes as a native Vermonter, I am mad to see you not, stand up, for Vermonters. That’s all I got to say about that.
The Legislature and Shumlin got renewable energy siting wrong from the start and no amount of window-dressing “reform” can hide their error. All industrial energy must come under the full jurisdiction of Act 250 and local zoning, like every other development project in the state. I hope there will be some serious candidate recruitment across the state from the likes of Annette Smith, and thoughtful politicians like Democrats Peter Galbraith and John Rodgers, plus Republicans Phil Scott & Bruce Lisman. There needs to be a slate of candidates against these so-called “representatives” in the Legislature who have given away the store and the health and property values of their own constituents solely for the private profit of their industrial energy campaign donors. I would heavily target State Senator Chris Bray and the former environmentalist/turned-industry-rep. Tony Klein. It would be a very big message if these two lost reelection.
The Public Service Board needs to be reminded the first two words in their title is Public Service.
That link to the VPR story about the Bennington solar project denial is a case I worked on with Bennington residents. It was the result of one rabbit pulled out of the hat after another after another, and its denial was likely politically motivated. It isn’t over yet, though, as the Wall Street lawyers are filing so many motions to vacate, reconsider, introduce new evidence, and will likely appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court. The town intervened in the second of the two contiguous projects, and they will now have to spend tens of thousands of dollars defending against these litigious lawyer/developers. So yes, the PSB denied one solar project out of thousands, and yes, it was the right thing to do. But do not be misled into thinking that it is the norm. It is a major exception, and could easily have gone the other way. I wrote it up, and included the write-ups of the Intervenor and the homeowner’s association, you can read them here http://vce.org/THE%20STORY%20OF%20THE%20PS… to see what it takes to participate as an individual at the PSB.
Bray went back on his word on the sound amendment when the people with the big check books and their army of lobbyists told him that they did not want to be monitored because they know that they are constantly in violation of their CPG. Energy developers give tens of thousands of dollars a year to legislators and spend even more on lobbyists. Vermont energy policy is not about what is best for Vermonters it is about what is best for the developers with the big check books.
What happened yesterday? Good legislation was proposed that would protect Vermonters from suffering the effects of industrial wind, building up hope, then, once again, right to your face saying “we don’t care about you!” Senator Brian Campion on the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee denied the effects of industrial wind, then lo and behold, he had the courage to visit a family on Georgia Mountain and what to his wondering ears did he hear? Horrible noise! Noise so horrible that he couldn’t believe it was coming from the turbines. He saw the light! He was converted! He promised he would do something meaningful. He promised as late as Thursday afternoon that the family he visited would “really like” what was proposed. Sometime between Thursday evening and Friday morning, something happened, or someone happened to him. How could he go from caring for weeks to refusing to make any eye contact with any of us, and virtually running away from that Victim he visited. I find it very strange that someone can have a heart and compassion one day and the next day be cold and ruthless. Brian spends a lot of time “chatting” with VPIRG people and they’re all smiles. Could that have something to do with it? To the people of Vermont – YOUR Senate made a few baby steps progress in S.230, but they jumped ship on making meaningful progress that protects Vermonters health, welfare, and property values. And, now it goes to the House and Tony Klein has made it perfectly clear that he doesn’t care about Vermonters health and welfare, so tune in to the circus that is our Capital.