[Pages S668-S671]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

PAYROLL TAX EXTENSION

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, there are reports in some of the
newspapers this morning that there is an effort to try to slip into the
negotiation about extending the payroll tax break for the next year a
big loophole for the rich and for the investment bankers and for most
of the people President Obama keeps talking about as people whose taxes
he would like to raise. What I mean by this is I have heard there may
be an effort to put into the payroll tax agreement a 4-year extension
of the so-called production tax credit, which is a big tax break for
wind developers. I cannot think of anything that would derail more
rapidly the consensus that is developing about extending the payroll
tax deduction than to do such a thing. We are supposed to be talking
about reducing taxes for working people. This would maintain a big
loophole for investment bankers, for the very wealthy, and for big
corporations.
We hear a lot of talk about Federal subsidies for Big Oil. I would
like to take a moment to talk about Federal subsidies for Big Wind--$27
billion over 10 years. That is the amount of Federal taxpayer dollars
between 2007 and 2016, according to the Joint Tax Committee, that
taxpayers will have given to wind developers across our country. This
subsidies comes in the form of a production tax credit, renewable
energy bonds, investment tax credits, federal grants, and accelerated
appreciation. These are huge subsidies. The production tax credit
itself has been there for 20 years. It was a temporary tax break put in
the law in 1992. And what do we get in return for these billions of
dollars of subsidies? We get a puny amount of unreliable electricity
that arrives disproportionately at night when we don't need it.
Madam President, residents in community after community across
America are finding out that these are not your grandma's windmills.
These gigantic turbines, which look so pleasant on the television ads--
paid for by the people who are getting all the tax breaks--look like an
elephant when they are in your backyard. In fact, they are much bigger
than an elephant. They are three times as tall as the sky boxes at
Neyland Stadium, the University of Tennessee football stadium in
Knoxville. They are taller than the Statue of Liberty in the home State
of the Presiding Officer. The blades are as wide as a football field is
long, and you can see the blinking lights that are on top of these
windmills for 20 miles.
In town after town, American residents are complaining about the
noise and disturbance that come from these giant wind turbines in their
backyards. There is a new movie that was reviewed in the New York Times
in the last few days called ``Windfall'' about residents in upstate New
York who are upset and have left their homes because of the arrival of
these big wind turbines. The great American West, which
conservationists for a century have sought to protect, has become
littered with these giant towers. Boone Pickens, an advocate of wind
power, says he doesn't want them on his own ranch because they are
ugly. Senator Kerry, Senator Kennedy, Senator Warner, and Senator Scott
Brown have all complained about the new Manhattan Island sized wind
development which will forever change the landscape off the coast of
Nantucket Island.
On top of all that, these giant turbines have become a Cuisinart in
the sky for birds. Federal law protects the American eagle and
migratory birds. In 2009, Exxon had to pay $600,000 in fines when oil
developments harmed these protected birds. But the Federal Government
so far has refused to apply the same Federal law to Big Wind that
applies to Big Oil, even though chopping up an eagle in a wind turbine
couldn't be any better than its landing and dying on an oil slick. And
wind turbines kill over 400,000 birds every year.
We have had some experience with the reliability of this kind of wind
power in the Tennessee Valley Authority region. A few years ago TVA
built 30 big wind turbines on top of Buffalo Mountain. In the Eastern
United States, onshore wind power only works when the wind turbines are
placed on the ridge lines of Americas most scenic mountains. So you
will see them along the areas near the Appalachian Trail through the
mountains of scenic views we prize in our State. But there they are, 30
big wind turbines to see whether they would work. Here is what
happened:
The wind blows 19 percent of the time. According to TVA's own
estimates, it is reliable 12 percent of the time. So TVA signed a
contract to spend $60 million to produce 6 megawatts of wind--actual
production of wind--over that 10-year period of time. It was a
commercial failure.
There are obviously better alternatives to this. First, there is
nuclear power. We wouldn't think of going to war in sailboats if
nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers were available. The
energy equivalent of going to war in sailboats is trying to produce
enough clean energy for the United States of America with windmills.
The United States uses 25 percent of all the electricity in the
world. It needs to be clean, reliable electricity that we can afford.
Twenty percent of the electricity that we use today is nuclear power.
Nearly 70 percent of the clean electricity, the pollution-free
electricity that we use today is nuclear power. It comes from 104
reactors located at 65 sites. Each reactor consumes about 1 square mile
of land.
To produce the same amount of electricity by windmills would mean we
would have to have 186,000 of these wind turbines; it would cover an
area the size of West Virginia; we would need 19,000 miles of
transmission lines through backyards and scenic areas; so 100 reactors
on 100 square miles or 186,000 wind turbines on 25,000 square miles.
Think about it another way. Four reactors on 4 square miles is equal
to a row of 50-story tall wind turbines along the entire 2,178-mile
Appalachian Trail. Of course, if we had the turbines, we would still
need the nuclear plants or the gas plants or the coal plants because we
would like our computers to work and our lights to be on when the wind
doesn't blow, and we can't store the electricity.
Then, of course, there is natural gas, which has no sulfur pollution,
very little nitrogen pollution, half as much carbon as coal. Gas is
very cheap today. A Chicago-based utility analyst said: Wind on its own
without incentives is far from economic unless gas is north of $6.50
per unit. The Wall Street Journal says that wind power is facing a
make-or-break moment in Congress, while we debate to extend these
subsidies. So that is why the wind power companies are on pins and
needles waiting to see what Congress decides to do about its subsidy.
Taxpayers should be the ones on pins and needles. This $27 billion
over 10 years is a waste of money. It could be used for energy
research. It could be used to reduce the debt. Let's start with the $12
billion over that 10 years that went for the production tax credit.
That tax credit was supposed to be temporary in 1992.
Today, according to Secretary Chu, wind is a mature technology. Why
does it need a credit? The credit is worth about 3 cents per kilowatt
hour, if we take into account the corporate tax rate of 35 percent.
That has caused some energy officials to say they have never found an
easier way to make money. Well, of course not.
So we do not need to extend the production tax credit for wind at a
time when we are borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar, at a time when
natural gas is cheap and nuclear power is clean and more reliable and
less expensive.
I would like to see us put some of that money on energy research. We
only spend $5 billion or $6 billion a year on energy research: clean
energy research, carbon recapture, making solar cheaper, making
electric batteries that go further. I am ready to reduce the subsidies
for Big Oil as long as we reduce the subsidies for Big Wind at the same
time.
So let's not even think about putting this tax break for the rich in
the middle of an extension of a tax deduction for working Americans
this week. Let's focus on reducing the debt, increasing

[[Page S669]]

expenditure for research, and getting rid of the subsidies.
Twenty years is long enough for a wind production tax credit for what
our distinguished Nobel Prize-winning Secretary of Energy says is a
mature technology.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a film review
from the New York Times on February 3 entitled, ``Turbines in the
Backyard: The Sound and the Strobes.'' This is about the movie
``Windfall,'' about upstate New York communities that have experienced
having these huge things in their backyards. An article by Robert
Bryce, ``Why The Wind Is Full Of Hot Air and Costing You Big Bucks,''
an article from the Los Angeles Times on wind farms, and another
article from February 2 in the Globe, ``Town turns off wind, opts for
solar energy.''
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From the New York Times, Feb. 2, 2012]

Turbines in the Backyard: The Sound and the Strobes

(By Andy Webster)

We can all agree that energy independence is a worthy
objective, right? Alternative energy sources like solar power
can help free the United States from fossil fuels and the
grip of unstable Persian Gulf states. And wind power--wait,
not so fast, says ``Windfall,'' Laura Israel's urgent,
informative and artfully assembled documentary. An account of
rural Meredith, in upstate New York, when wind turbines came
to town, the film depicts the perils of a booming industry
and the bitter rancor it sowed among a citizenry.
In 2004 residents of this once-flourishing dairy center
were approached by companies offering to pay a nominal fee to
erect turbines on their property while insisting on
confidentiality agreements (to keep competitors ignorant of
costs). Economically beset, some people, like Ron and Sue
Bailey, jumped at first. But others, like Keitha Capouya, now
the town supervisor, dug into the research and sounded an
alarm.
Turbines are huge: some are 40 stories tall, with 130-foot
blades weighing seven tons and spinning at 150 miles an hour.
They can fall over or send parts flying; struck by lightning,
say, they can catch fire. Their 24/7 rotation emits nerve-
racking low frequencies (like a pulsing disco) amplified by
rain and moisture, and can generate a disorienting strobe
effect in sunlight. Giant flickering shadows can tarnish a
sunset's glow on a landscape.
People in Lowville, N.Y., farther north, express despair on
camera at having caved to the wind companies' entreaties;
Bovina, N.Y., banned turbines entirely. Meredith is riven by
the issue, which pits the Planning Board against the Town
Board and neighbor against neighbor. Former city dwellers
escaping urban anxieties are surprised to see themselves as
activists. Concerns like setback (the distance of turbines
from a property line) are debated.
Government officials are seen only in glimpses of
television talk shows. Conspicuously absent are
representatives of corporations like Airtricity, Enxco or
Horizon Wind Energy (though the financier and wind advocate
T. Boone Pickens comes off as a wolf in good-old-boy
clothing). And despite Ms. Israel's inspired use of a local
demolition derby as a metaphor for Meredith's struggles, her
accelerated pacing almost overheats.
But the film's implications are clear: The quest for energy
independence comes with caveats. Developers' motives must be
weighed, as should the risks Americans are willing to take in
their own backyard. Despite BP's three-month blanketing of
Gulf of Mexico beaches in crude oil; the nuclear disaster in
Fukushima, Japan; and the possible impact of hydraulic
fracturing (fracking) on the water table, energy companies
remain eager to plunder nature's bounty in pursuit of profit.
____

[From FoxNews.com, Dec. 20, 2011]

Why the Wind Industry Is Full Hot Air and Costing You Big Bucks

(By Robert Bryce)

The American Wind Energy Association has begun a major
lobbying effort in Congress to extend some soon-to-expire
renewable-energy tax credits. And to bolster that effort, the
lobby group's CEO, Denise Bode, is calling the wind industry
``a tremendous American success story.''
But the wind lobby's success has largely been the result of
its ability to garner subsidies. And those subsidies are
coming with a big price tag for American taxpayers. Since
2009, AWEA's largest and most influential member companies
have garnered billions of dollars in direct cash payments and
loan guarantees from the US government. And while the lobby
group claims to be promoting ``clean'' energy, AWEA's biggest
member companies are also among the world's biggest users
and/or producers of fossil fuels.
A review of the $9.8 billion in cash grants provided under
section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
2009 (also known as the federal stimulus bill) for renewable
energy projects shows that the wind energy sector has
corralled over $7.6 billion of that money. And the biggest
winners in the 1603 sweepstakes: the companies represented on
AWEA's board of directors.
An analysis of the 4,256 projects that have won grants from
the Treasury Department under section 1603 over the past two
years shows that $3.37 billion in grants went to just nine
companies--all of them are members of AWEA's board. To put
that $3.37 billion in perspective, consider that in 2010,
according to the Energy Information Administration, the total
of all ``energy specific subsidies and support'' provided to
the oil and gas sector totaled $2.84 billion. And that $2.84
billion in oil and gas subsidies is being divided among
thousands of entities. The Independent Petroleum Association
of America estimates the US now has over 14,000 oil and gas
companies.
The renewable energy lobby likes to portray itself as an
upstart industry, one that is grappling with big business and
the entrenched interests of the hydrocarbon sector. But
billions of dollars in 1603 grants--all of it exempt from
federal corporate income taxes--is being used to fatten the
profits of some of the world's biggest companies. Indeed, the
combined market capitalization of the 11 biggest corporations
on AWEA's board--a group that includes General Electric and
Siemens--is about $450 billion.
Nevertheless, the clock is ticking on renewable-energy
subsidies. The 1603 grants end on December 31 and the
renewable-energy production tax credit expires on January 1,
2013. On Monday, AWEA issued a report which predicted that
some 37,000 wind-related jobs in the US could be lost by 2013
if the production tax credit is not extended.
But the subsidies are running out at the very same time
that a cash-strapped Congress is turning a hard eye on the
renewable sector. The collapse of federally backed companies
like solar-panel-maker Solyndra and biofuel producer Range
Fuels, are providing critics of renewable subsidies with
plenty of ammunition. And if critics need more bullets, they
need only look at AWEA's board to see how big business is
grabbing every available dollar from US taxpayers all in the
name of ``clean'' energy. Indeed, AWEA represents a host of
fossil-fuel companies who are eagerly taking advantage of the
renewable-energy subsidies.
Consider NRG Energy, which has a seat on AWEA's board. Last
month, the New York Times reported that New Jersey-based NRG
and its partners have secured $5.2 billion in federal loan
guarantees to build solar-energy projects. NRG's market
capitalization: $4.3 billion.
But NRG is not a renewable energy company. The company
currently has about 26,000 megawatts (MW) of generation
capacity. Of that, 450 MW is wind capacity, another 65 MW is
solar, and 1,175 MW comes from nuclear. So why is NRG
expanding into renewables? The answer is simple: profits.
Last month, David Crane, the CEO of NRG, told the Times that
``I have never seen anything that I have had to do in my 20
years in the power industry that involved less risk than
these projects.''
Or look at E.On, the giant German electricity and natural
gas company, which also has a seat on AWEA's board of
directors. In 2010, the company emitted 116 million metric
tons of carbon dioxide an amount approximately equal to that
of the Czech Republic, a country of 10.5 million people. And
last year, the company--which has about 2,000 MW of wind-
generation capacity in the US--produced about 14 times as
much electricity by burning hydrocarbons as it did from wind.
Despite its role as a major fossil-fuel utility, E.On has
been awarded $542.5 million in section 1603 cash so that it
can build wind projects. And the company is getting that
money even though it is the world's largest investor-owned
utility with a market capitalization of $45 billion.
Another foreign company with a seat on AWEA's board:
Spanish utility Iberdrola, the second-largest domestic wind
operator. But in 2010, Iberdrola produced about 3 times as
much electricity from hydrocarbons as it did from wind.
Nevertheless, the company has collected $1 billion in section
1603 money. To put that $1 billion in context, consider that
in 2010, Iberdrola's net profit was about 2.8 billion Euros,
or around $3.9 billion. Thus, US taxpayers have recently
provided cash grants to Iberdrola that amount to about one-
fourth of the company's 2010 profits. And again, none of that
grant money is subject to US corporate income taxes.
Iberdrola currently sports a market cap of $39 billion.
Another big winner on AWEA's board of directors: NextEra
Energy (formerly Florida Power & Light) which has garnered
some $610.6 million in 1603 grants for various wind projects.
NextEra's market capitalization is $23 billion. The subsidies
being garnered by NextEra are helping the company drastically
cut its taxes. A look at the company's 2010 annual report
shows that it cut its federal tax bill by more than $200
million last year thanks to various federal tax credits. And
the company's latest annual report shows that it has another
$1.8 billion of ``tax credit carryforwards'' that will help
it slash its taxes over the coming years.
The biggest fossil-fuel-focused company on AWEA's board is
General Electric, which had revenues last year of $150
billion. Of that sum, about 25 percent came from what the
company calls ``energy infrastructure.'' While some of that
revenue comes from GE's wind business, the majority comes
from building generators, jet engines, and other machinery
that burn hydrocarbons. The company is also rapidly growing
GE Oil &

[[Page S670]]

Gas, which had 2010 revenues of $7.2 billion. GE Oil & Gas
has more than 20,000 employees and provides a myriad of
products and services to the oil and gas industry.
GE has a starring role in one of the most egregious
examples of renewable-energy corporate welfare: the Shepherds
Flat wind project in Oregon. The majority of the funding for
the $1.9 billion, 845-megawatt project is coming from federal
taxpayers. Not only is the Energy Department providing GE and
its partners--who include Caithness Energy, Google, and
Sumitomo--a $1.06 billion loan guarantee, as soon as GE's 338
turbines start turning at Shepherds Flat, the Treasury
Department will send the project developers a cash grant of
$490 million.
On December 9, the American Council on Renewable Energy
issued a press release urging Congress to quickly extend the
1603 program and the renewable-energy production tax credit,
because they will ``bolster renewable energy's success and
American competitiveness.''
But time is running short. Backers of the renewable-energy
credits say that to assure continuity on various projects, a
bill must be passed into law by March 2012. If that doesn't
happen, they are predicting domestic investment in renewable
energy could fall by 50 percent. A bill now pending in the
House would extend the production tax credit for four
additional years, through 2017. The bill has 40 sponsors, 9
are Republicans. The bill is awaiting a hearing by the House
Ways and Means Committee.
____

[From Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2011]

Wind Farms Multiply, Fueling Clashes With Nearby Residents

(By Tiffany Hsu)

Tehachapi, CA.--Donna and Bob Moran moved to the wind-
whipped foothills here four years ago looking for solitude
and serenity amid the pinyon pines and towering Joshua trees.
But lately their view of the valley is being marred by a
growing swarm of whirring wind turbines--many taller than the
Statue of Liberty--sweeping ever closer to their home.
``Once, you could see stars like you wouldn't believe,''
Donna Moran said. ``Now, with the lights from the turbines,
you can't even see the night sky.''
It's about to get worse.
Turbines are multiplying at blistering speeds as wind
developers, drawn by the area's powerful gusts, attempt to
meet an insatiable demand for clean energy.
Helo Energy plans to scatter 450-foot machines across
hundreds of acres in nearby Sand Canyon. A few miles away,
near the Old West Ranch enclave, Terra-Gen Power is building
the nation's largest wind farm with hundreds of turbines, if
not more. The project, Alta Wind Energy Center, is backed by
hundreds of millions of dollars from Google Inc. and
Citibank.
Federal and local officials hail the Tehachapi Valley, a
harsh desert expanse about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, as
an alternative energy mecca that will help wean Americans off
fossil fuel. Kern County, home to the nation's largest
concentration of wind farms, is looking forward to millions
of dollars in much-needed tax revenue and has approved most
proposed installations.
But wind projects aren't only proliferating in the region's
outskirts. Nearly 3,000 turbines, many of them bigger than
Ferris wheels, were installed across the country last year.
The growth is being propelled by federal incentives and
state clean-energy mandates. In April, Gov. Jerry Brown
signed a law that requires California utilities to get 33% of
the state's electricity from renewable sources by 2020. As of
the first quarter of 2011, they're at 17.9%.
But with thousands more wind projects on the drawing board,
they're increasingly generating opposition among local
residents. Less than 100 miles from Tehachapi in the Antelope
Valley, proposed turbine developments are facing similar
resistance. Across the country, Cape Cod, Mass., residents
and political heavyweights such as Sen. John Kerry waged war
against what could be the country's first offshore wind farm.
And the issue isn't just with wind turbines, said Tom Soto,
an environmental activist and managing partner of Craton
Equity Partners.
``These large projects enter at their own peril without
involving the community,'' Soto said. ``Just because they're
renewables instead of landfills doesn't mean they're off the
hook.''
Residents of Blythe, Calif., near the border with Arizona,
showed up at the recent groundbreaking of Solar Millennium's
massive solar plant there to protest its proximity to sacred
Native American sites. Gleaming mirrors will blanket nearly
6,000 acres, helping to generate electricity for Southern
California Edison.
In San Diego County, critics have spent the better part of
a decade trying to block the Sunrise Powerlink transmission
network, which would bring electricity from far-flung solar
and wind farms.
Activists there and elsewhere say that the fight is more
than a classic case of ``not in my backyard'' resistance.
Large, remote projects aren't the only solution to the
nation's energy woes, they say.
City-dwellers could produce just as much clean electricity
without the transmission hassles, they said, using rooftop
solar panels, small wind turbines, fuel cells and other
adaptable forms of renewable energy generation.
``We're going to need to find space to place these
projects,'' Soto said. ``A successful portfolio will be
balanced, with some utility-scale projects and some urban
projects.''
Tehachapi activist Terry Warsaw said he's worried his
community will soon be surrounded by turbines.
``Alternative energy has lulled us into a sense of
complacency,'' he said. ``The potential is here to take over
every ridge and every mountainside if the community isn't
careful.''
Veterinarian Beverly Billingsley has been hosting anti-
turbine community meetings in her new Sand Canyon barn, just
up the slope from where the cluster of 450-foot machines is
slated for construction.
``They are not benign things,'' she said. ``We've seen
turbines go berserk.''
The machines get no more sympathy from Mother Mary
Augustine, who lives cloistered at the Norbertine Sisters
Monastery in a cradle of hills recently eyed for wind
development.
``Monstrous insects,'' she calls them. ``I look at the
propellers for a moment and my head gets dizzy.''
It's not that they dislike alternative energy, residents
say. Many employ solar panels and smaller turbines to power
their homes.
Lately, though, locals say that farm animals have begun
cowering as construction vehicles rumble across lawns and
surveyor helicopters roar overhead. There are worries about
turbine oil leaking into water wells and turbines obstructing
landing maneuvers at the local airport.
``Avian cuisinarts,'' said Sand Canyon resident April
Biglay. She worries that more turbines could slaughter birds
or cause ground vibrations that could decimate native
species.
``We are resembling hundreds of towns around the country,''
she said.
Last year, an older machine began spinning uncontrollably,
forcing authorities to shut down a main freeway for hours.
The resulting traffic was an anomaly in a community where
most jams are caused by high school football games and
meandering sheep.
Fire is also a concern, with turbines' finicky electrical
wiring, long fire department response times and limited roads
on which to flee.
And the turbines could topple in an earthquake, since
they're situated in sedentary soil directly on the Garlock
fault line, residents say.
Some suggest that removing trees to make way for the
machines could lead to erosion and flooding.
They also argue that the projects aren't helping the local
economy. Local residents say pickup trucks driven by
construction workers often have out-of-state license plates.
Each new project causes nearby property values to plunge as
much as 40%, city officials say.
And because companies aren't required to dismantle the
turbines when they stop functioning, many will join the
hordes of ``mechanical dinosaurs'' that already crowd the
area, critics say.
Other residents say they're tired of making sacrifices for
electricity that will go to other counties.
``It's a question of what you're willing to give up to be
green,'' said local lawyer Kassandra McQuillen of some recent
project plans. ``It's like proposing clear-cutting Griffith
Observatory or the cliffs of Malibu.''
Residents say they've won some victories. Developer Terra-
Gen yanked its 7,000-acre Pahnamid project last month after
opponents slammed plans to set up nearly 150 turbines on the
Tehachapi crests.
``It is not unusual for projects to fall by the wayside
early in the development process,'' Terra-Gen said in a
statement. ``The decision to pull back in an early stage on
the Pahnamid project was a result of several important
development concerns, including local opposition.''
By the end of the year, the developer said it will have
invested $2.2 billion in Kern County, become the county's
third largest taxpayer with $30 million a year and made more
progress building its 1,100-megawatt Alta project.
But with so many projects on the plate for the region,
Tehachapi city officials are urging Kern County to impose a
temporary moratorium on wind projects near homes. And the
city that has long been associated with the fields of
propellers is now trying to draw tourists by talking up its
chili cook-offs, historic downtown and pristine mountains.
``We've coexisted with the turbines for a long time,'' City
Council member Susan Wiggins said. ``But we don't want to
look like one big wind park.''
____

[From Boston Globe, Feb. 2, 2012]

Town Turns Off Wind, Opts for Solar Energy

(By Robert Knox)

At a time of accelerating production of both wind and solar
energy, Duxbury officials have decided to buy solar energy
produced elsewhere and take their own wind project off the
table.
``It's an opportunity to save money,'' Jim Goldenberg,
chairman of the town's Alternative Energy Committee, said
after town selectmen signed a 20-year agreement with a solar
energy company that plans to build its facility in Acushnet.
The deal is expected to save the town up to $30,000 a year
in energy costs and supply

[[Page S671]]

about 25 percent of the energy the town needs to run
facilities such as schools, Town Hall, and other buildings,
officials say. The producer, Pegasus Renewable Energy
Partners LLC of Marstons Mills, has yet to begin construction
of the solar farm. It's expected to take about a year to
begin producing power.
Duxbury is also moving ahead on a plan to lease its capped
landfill to a private developer, American Capital Energy, a
national company whose customers include the Army, to build a
solar energy farm there. Town Meeting backed the project last
fall.
The town's move to buy solar energy was made in conjunction
with the Alternative Energy Committee's decision to put a
hold on the possibility of building a wind turbine. The
decision comes at a time when neighboring Kingston is touting
the construction of five turbines within its borders.
Kingston officials said their town's wind and solar projects
together would earn up to a $1 million a year in new revenue.
Until recently Duxbury was planning to build a wind
turbine, too. Goldenberg's committee had planned to seek
funding from Town Meeting to continue its feasibility study
of a wind turbine on town property next to its North Hill
golf course.
But that plan came under attack by a group of residents who
said they feared that living near a turbine would undermine
their health, lower their property values, and alter the
neighborhood's residential character. They hired an attorney,
produced a report attacking the financial basis of the
project, and won a vote from selectmen urging the committee
not to seek funds for the project.
Local wind power advocates cried foul. They said opponents
were relying on a corporate-quality website and dubious
information supplied by an anti-wind lobby with little
connection to the town.
But Goldenberg said his group chose the solar option solely
based on a comparison of the economics of the wind turbine
project relative to the solar deals committee members have
been working on. The bottom line, he said, is that a wind
turbine on North Hill would produce electricity at $.155 per
kilowatt hour versus $.10 per kilowatt hour to buy solar, a
35 percent cost differential.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.

____________________