The rich get richer
The Advertiser-Tribune | May 24, 2018 | www.advertiser-tribune.com
Investment tycoon, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and multi-billionaire Warren Buffett was quoted as saying: “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate. For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
Wind turbines are at best 40-percent efficient (if the wind blows) and uncompetitive relative to other lower-cost energy sources (without the benefit of government sponsored subsidies) and investors reap the benefits of federal tax credits. Who pays for this? It’s all of us as taxpayers.
As landowners where there are 19 proposed wind turbine locations within 1.5 miles of our home, not only do our taxes help fund Big Wind, but our property values are reduced and the quality of our rural lifestyle is sacrificed. All of this without the opportunity to vote on the issue.
We also find it odd and a bit ironic that zoning regulations in local townships such as Eden and Clinton townships that exist to protect the personal property of landowners are overridden by state exemptions exclusively written for wind farms (Ohio revised Code 4906.13). As a property owner in a zoned township, you can’t build a fence or locate an outbuilding too close to your neighbor’s property, but wind farms can erect a 600-foot tall industrial power plant right next door without any zoning hearing or variance. What happened to our constitutional rights that protects property rights?
Please contact your local and state politicians and encourage them not to support wind farms in Ohio and Seneca County and to state your opposition to the proposed changes to the setback rule (Senate Bill 238) that would allow the turbines to be located even closer to inhabited residences. We also highly encourage the general public to attend a public information meeting at 7 p.m. May 31 at Attica Fairgrounds to learn more about the issue.
Greg and Janeen Smith,
Bloomville
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2018/05/24/the-rich-get-richer/