May 9, 2016
Blogs, Maine

Bangor Daily News omits Baldacci wind company vice chairmanship from its energy retrospective

BDN Omits Baldacci Wind Company Vice Chairmanship from its Energy Retrospective | Posted by Long Islander on May 8, 2016 | Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine | www.windtaskforce.org

This article, which looks back at recent Maine energy legislative activity, entitled “Who benefits from this year’s changes in Maine energy laws?”, makes no mention of ex-Governor John Baldacci’s connection to this activity. Nor is the heinous LD 1513 mentioned by name. This is the same type of reporting that has allowed scores of wind articles to unfailingly regurgitate the wind industry’s false claims, e.g., “such and such wind project will power 20,000 homes”.

WHY DOES THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA CONTINUALLY FAIL US? We need to know the who, what, when, where, why and how on this.

http://bangordailynews.com/2016/05/08/the-point/who-benefits-from-this-years-changes-in-maine-energy-laws/

Just to recap on Baldacci:

• In December 2015, ex-Governor John Baldacci, architect of the wind power virus in Maine, became Vice Chairman of Avangrid, Iberdrola’s wind power division. This is the second largest wind company in the U.S. Not a single word on this has been reported by the media. See 8K dated 12/18/15 at http://www.avangrid.com/InvestorRelations/secfilings.html

• For a very long time, transmission/distribution companies such as Iberdrola have been forbidden from owning wind projects or other generation. This is why Iberdrola, the 2nd largest wind generation company in America presently owns no wind projects in Maine. The failed attempt this year to pass LD 1513 was special interest legislation which would allow such companies to get into the wind business by setting up an “affiliate” for the sole purpose of avoiding such a conflict. In the case of Iberdrola, the affiliate, is called “Avangrid”, our former “wind governor” John Baldacci’s new company. So not only does Iberdrola have sock puppet private concierge service in the legislature which executes whatever requests Iberdrola makes of them, but they also rent ex-Governor John Baldacci, now “Handmaiden Baldacci”.

• The Chairman of Avangrid and Iberdrola is the same person (Ignacio Galan) yet they claimed the two companies wouldn’t know anything about each other when defending their BS “firewall” between the two companies!!!!!

• Baldacci declared LD 1513 (before it had a name) a priority back in 2009 while governor after meeting with Iberdrola in Spain.

Please see the red colored text in the excerpted article below from September 2009.

There was also an article in the PPH back then where upon his return from the Iberdrola-hosted trip, Baldacci told reporter Matt Wickenheiser that “I need to look into changing the law on owning generation and transmission”. The statement below in red font implies that the state is planning on making the change when in fact, the PPH story made it sound much more like Gov Baldacci was going to personally look into it on behalf of his friends in Spain.

Excerpts from 2009 Article: Horizon ‘close’ to going ahead with huge Maine wind farm

EDP-owned US wind developer Horizon is close to giving the go-ahead for a huge project in Maine, Governor John Baldacci tells Recharge … Baldacci was speaking in Spain during a trip to Europe to promote deals with wind developers and equipment manufacturers … He held meetings in Madrid with companies including EDP, Iberdrola, Acciona and Gamesa, and visited Iberdrola’s CORE control centre in Toledo before moving on to Zaragoza … However, the project suffered a blow in February when a proposed solution to grid restrictions fell through after Horizon declined to invest in a trans­mission project proposed by Iberdrola-owned Central Maine Power that would have linked northern Maine to the New England power grid … Baldacci also says the state is planning to change local regulations to allow Spanish renewables giant Iberdrola Renovables to invest in wind farms there.

Iberdrola is unable to invest in generation because of the transmission and distribution assets it owns in the state through Central Maine Power; however, Baldacci says legislation being proposed in the state legislature would change the rules for renewable generation. He says Maine has introduced a simplified permissions system for wind farms, based on a number of designated zones for wind farm development. This means that once the application is made, construction could be under way in “less than a year”.

“We have zones defined where there is expedited permitting,” the governor says. “By getting together with the environmental community and forging an alliance, we have created areas where you can just go in and develop, instead of fighting.”

—Published: Friday, September 25 2009 | Last updated: Tuesday, October 6 2009
http://www.rechargenews.com/business_area/politics/article192595.ece

Steve Thurston’s excellent post: