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Legislation that will affect your community
Credit: Wind Wise ~ Massachusetts, windwisema.org ~~
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Even if you want wind turbines in your community, you won’t want legislation now being considered on Beacon Hill.
This fall, the Massachusetts legislature will vote on a bill called the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act (WESRA) that:
Your community has enough area with wind resources to be affected by this legislation.
Here is more information on WESRA:
The Wind Energy Siting Reform Act shifts final decision-making power over everything to do with permitting industrial wind turbines in your municipality from local elected officials to an appointed state board that has never rejected a power plant application.
If your municipality has a spot where even a single industrial-scale wind turbine could be erected, your municipality will be subjected to this unprecedented loss of local control.
The purpose of WESRA is to promote the development of wind turbines by streamlining and accelerating the permitting process and by restricting – and in most cases eliminating – traditional rights of appeal by municipalities and the public.
There are two virtually identical versions of WESRA, Senate No. 1666 and House No. 1775.
Both are the subject of two public hearings, one that already took place on September 7, 2011, in Hancock MA, and the second scheduled for September 26, 2011, in Barnstable MA.
After the second hearing, the legislature could vote at any time to adopt WESRA.
Please weigh in by calling or submitting written comments to the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities & Energy.
Your state legislators, the Senate President and Speaker of the House, and the Massachusetts Municipal Association also need to hear your opinion.
WESRA will be adopted if communities like yours do not object.
Here are the key points of WESRA:
Here is what happens at the local level under WESRA:
Under WESRA, if the state determines that your municipality has at least one “significant wind resource area,” your select board must appoint a Wind Energy Permitting Board (WEPB) which is completely independent of any municipal oversight. If your municipality does not have such an area but, nonetheless, one or more wind turbines totaling 2 megawatts in size is proposed, then your select board has the option of appointing a WEPB or designating the planning board as the WEPB:
Here is what happens at the state level under WESRA:
Once the wind developer receives a written decision from the local WEPB – whether or not it is an approval – the next step is the state Energy Facilities Siting Board. The EFSB is appointed entirely by the governor and his staff:
The governor’s office, which is pushing WESRA, has claimed repeatedly that the legislation does not override local denials of a permit. That is not true. Under current law, if a project of any type requires both local and state permits, it cannot be constructed without both sets of permits. That is not the case under WESRA. Under current law, there is an exception for some large power plants, but those can seek an overriding state permit only after demonstrating every effort to obtain local approval first, and all rights of participation in the review process and appeal by neighbors, municipal officers and boards, and other interested parties still apply. Not so under WESRA.
WESRA completely re-writes the rules for a single industry, and regardless of your opinion about the value of wind turbines in your municipality, ceding control to an appointed state agency over the location, size, and operation of a wind facility, roads, and transmission corridors ought to be of concern to every local public official. After all, if the wind industry succeeds in carving out special privileges for itself in state law, every other powerful industry will seek the same benefits.
Keep in mind that WESRA will affect not just development of wind projects in your municipality, but also all other development because wherever massive wind turbines are erected you can be sure residential and commercial development will avoid those areas.
There is tremendous political pressure on the state legislature from the governor’s office and the wind industry and its allies to pass WESRA. Please contact your state legislators, the Massachusetts Municipal Association, and the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities & Energy. The Senate President and Speaker of the House need to hear your position, also.
WESRA will pass if your municipality and others do not object.
Here is the schedule for the hearings of the Joint Committee:
Here is the information for contacting key legislators:
Senator Ben Downing, co-chair Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities & Energy
(617) 722-1625
Representative John Keenan, co-chair Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities & Energy
(617) 722-2263
Senator Therese Murray, Senate President
(617) 722-1500
Representative Robert DeLeo, Speaker of the House
(617) 722-2500
Here is the person to contact at Massachusetts Municipal Association:
Geoffrey Beckwith, Executive Director
(617) 426-7272
To learn more about WESRA, you can download the Senate and House versions:
http://www.malegislature.gov/Bills/187/Senate/S01666
http://www.malegislature.gov/Bills/187/House/H01775
If you have questions or want more detailed information, please visit our website, <www.windwisema.org>.
Please don’t file away this email: your input is needed now before the legislature votes this fall on WESRA!
Thank you very much for your attention to this legislation.
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Wind Wise ~ Massachusetts P.O. Box 260 Brimfield, MA 01010 info@windwisema.org www.windwise.org www.facebook.com/windwisema |
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