Wind Energy

Urgent need for action by everyone who supports wind energy in Wisconsin

As the Wisconsin state legislature nears adjournment, AWEA has learned that a late-session effort will be made to repeal the state’s wind farm siting guidelines, which were the subject of lengthy negotiations between the wind turbines industry and other stakeholders in the state.

The following alert was sent out this morning.

Urgent need for action this morning by everyone who supports wind energy in Wisconsin —

As you may know, the Wisconsin Legislature is scheduled to wrap up its regular session calendar on March 15. With the end of session approaching, there has been a lot of legislative activity, as lawmakers attempt to push through legislation before time runs out.

Unfortunately, it comes as great concern that Senate leadership has scheduled a full Senate vote on Senate Bill 50 — legislation that would repeal PSC 128, the consensus guidelines for siting wind farms on which the future of wind power in our state relies.

Also, we have just been informed by Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald’s office that the bill will be scheduled for a floor vote today.

If this bill passes, Wisconsin would immediately lose jobs. It would kill $1.8 billion of potential investment in Wisconsin, translating into millions of lost hours in construction labor as well as manufacturing jobs producing wind turbine components. This comes at a time when Wisconsin was ranked this week as 50th out of 50 states for generating private-sector jobs – that’s right, every other state in the country ranked better at private-sector job generation than Wisconsin, which actually lost jobs during that period.

These wind power rules resulted from two years of hard work and compromise. They provide a critical foundation for future wind power development in Wisconsin. If these important rules are repealed, Wisconsin’s future wind farm projects and industry jobs will be lost.

Please call the following target Senators’ offices IMMEDIATELY THIS MORNING, and tell them to “VOTE NO ON SENATE BILL 50!”

Democrats:

Jon Erpenbach – 608-266-6670
Kathleen Vinehout – 608-266-8546

Republicans:

Dale Schultz – 608-266-0703
Rich Zipperer – 608-266-9174
Rob Cowles – 608-266-0484
Michael Ellis – 608-266-0718

Tom Gray, www.awea.org/blog