Alexander keeps up criticism against wind-power projects

Alexander keeps up criticism against wind-power projects

With many from both parties backing green power, may lose fight

BY HILARY ROX£
Associated Press

WASIINGION—U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander is raging against the wind.

The Tennessee Republican has filed bills, made speeches and taken numerous opportunities to voice his opposition to one of the nation's fastest-growing sources of renewable energy — windmills.

But wind-power advocates say Alexander's repeated flailing at windmills, like the fictional Don Quixote before him, is unlikely to be successful.

"He might not accomplish much of anything except making some noise on the Senate floor. Wind energy is a very popular item with Republicans and Democrats," said Jaime Steve, the legislative director of the American Wind Energy Association.

Alexander this year filed a bill that would give local communities more say in the siting of wind farms and restrict the federal tax credit that props up many fledgling wind projects. He revised that proposal Thursday, loosening where the tax-credit restrictions would apply and offering communities more time to review wind farm proposals but no new authority over their placement.

Earlier this year, he introduced a massive energy bill that backed clean-coal technologies, solar power and other forms of green power — but left out wind power producers.

Alexander has criticized the cost of wind production, saying the federal tax credit for wind could cost about $3 billion, a sizable piece of the $11 billion the Senate has discussed for energy tax incentives.

He also said large, industrial windmills could mar scenic vistas. In addition, wind turbines produce power only about 40 percent of the time, and though advocates say producers account for wind's intermittent nature, Alexander said the power is too unreliable.

"At a time when America needs large amounts of low-cost reliable power, wind produces puny amounts of high-cost unreliable power," Alexander, who has never visited a wind farm, said on the Senate floor.

Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said many environmentalists were surprised by the vehemence of the senator's attack, partly because the chairman of the Senate's Energy Subcommittee has been a vocal proponent for clean air.

"A leading senator ... in a key committee assignment launches a factually inaccurate ... attack on wind power right at the beginning of a national energy debate, and people are just caught off guard," Smith said, disputing Alexander's descriptions of the structures.

The vast majority of wind energy is generated in 10 states — California, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

Though wind-power developers have historically focused on the Great Plains region, which Smith called "the Saudi Arabia of wind," he said they are increasingly turning to other areas.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, a seven-state public utility, has Tennessee's only wind-power project. Windmills lined along a two-mile stretch of Buffalo Mountain, west of Knoxville, have the capacity to generate 29 megawatts annually, enough for about 3,000 homes.

After Alexander asked TVA this year for a two-year moratorium on new wind farms, the agency said it has no plans to build more. But Smith said that East Tennessee offers pockets of potential, and other groups are gathering data for "a handful" of possible projects.

Critics charge there is a more personal component to the opposition to wind projects. AJexan.. der, who grew up in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains and has a home nearby, has expressed an concerns about windmills popping up on Tennessee mountain ridges.

The only co-sponsor for the wind power bill, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., last year tried to block offshore wind projects. Critics charge the opposition was designed to stop a proposed 130-turbine wind farm off the Massachusetts coast, a region Warner's family has visited regularly.

"We see this as a continuation of the not-in-my-back-yard philosophy," Steve said.

But John Ullyot, Warner's spokesman, said the senator wants to strengthen federal laws governing the placement of wind farms. Though his family "has been associated with Cape Cod," the senator hasn't visited the region "in several years" and was concerned last year about potential projects off Virginia's coast, Ullyot said.

Two Tennessee congressmen — Rep. John Duncan, a Republican, and Rep. Bart Gordon, a Democrat — plan to introduce a bill similar to Alexander's revised wind plan in the House. Alexander said he plans to offer his proposal as an amendment next week to the Senate's sweeping energy bill.

Not everyone agrees with Alexander's opposition. Senators have filed proposals to extend or expand the tax credit, and some influential Republicans have historically backed wind-power incentives. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, helped create the tax credit in 1992.

Alexander's crusade prompted Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to jokingly give him a small, handheld fan at a committee hearing late last month.

Without missing a beat, Alexander noted that it would probably only work 40 percent of the time.

Windmills lined on a two-mile stretch of Buffalo Mountain near Oliver Springs

The Tennessee Valley Authority windmills lined on a two-mile stretch of Buffalo Mountain near Oliver Springs have the capacity to generate enough electricity for about 3,000 homes. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., has launched a campaign against wind farms, saying large, industrial windmills mar scenic vistas and are unreliable producers of power.