Last week, Maine Gov. Paul LePage, issued a moratorium on all wind energy projects in the state. Citing tourism concerns while saying the state "must act judiciously to protect our natural beauty," LePage established a committee (with no public accountably) that will examine wind power’s economic impact and suggest potential regulatory change.

The move threatens to bring Maine's burgeoning wind power industry to a screeching halt. Stats from 2016 showed the state ranked 8th in the nation in annual installed wind energy capacity, adding 288 megawatts of utility-scale wind, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Maine was also one of fourteen states with more than 10 percent of in-state electricity generation from wind. Nearly 1 of every 7 kilowatts was coming from wind turbines. It's total wind capacity is 900 megawatts, equivalent to a nuclear power plant. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Maine wind turbines generated three-fifths of all utility-scale wind power that came from New England's six states in 2016.

LePage, a longtime critic of wind energy, claimed that "out-of-state interests are eager to exploit our western mountains in order to serve their political agendas." Wind power groups obviously had a different take.

“This is an attempt to thwart billions of dollars of investment that is looking at Maine,” Jeremy Payne, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association, told the Portland Press Herald. “What kind of a message are we sending to the world here when the governor is able to decide without any statutory authority to wreck a billion-dollar industry?”



Furthermore, the director of LePage's Energy Office admitted to Bloomberg that he was unaware of "any hard evidence" that Maine's tourism, which grew in 2016, had been negatively affected by wind turbines. And the new committee, known as the Maine Wind Energy Advisory Commission (MWEAC), will not be subject to Maine’s Freedom of Access Act, nor will it make public appearances. While LePage has called claims of secrecy "fake news," it is written right into the MWEAC executive order.

The moratorium has already drawn lawsuits. The Conservation Law Foundation (CFL), dedicated to "lasting solutions to environmental challenges for the people of New England," has sued the state for what it claims is a violation of separation of powers.

In 2008, then-Governor John Baldicci signed the Maine Wind Energy Act (WEA), a controversial piece of legislation that gave developers a fast track for creating wind turbines on Maine ridge lines and high ground. While the WEA wrote wind power prioritization into the state's law books, environmental groups have claimed that the Act "does not address the issue of cumulative visual impacts of wind power projects on the viewer" and has left the state open to development at perhaps too rampant a pace. Despite LePage's best efforts, the law remains on the books—a fact that the CFL hopes to exploit with its suit against this new measure.

“This Executive Order is a naked political attempt to impose the Governor’s own anti-renewable energy philosophy on the people and businesses of Maine,” said CLF Maine Director Sean Mahoney in a press statement. “Not only is it illegal, but it is also bad for Maine’s economy."

Source: Bloomberg

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io