Local Control Message to Beacon Hill
June 26, 2012
Although the headline sounds authoritative (Gov knocks wind farm siting bill fears), WWLP’s Christine Lee’s interviews with wind opponents suggest the “fears” are justified:
“If this bill goes through then there’ll be a state decision… overriding town government and that’s what we really don’t want to have happen, it would be disastrous actually, ecologically, economically and it’s just not a wise choice,” said Nancy Richards Marcus of Berkshire County.
House bill 4112 has been approved by the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy and is advancing through the Legislature.
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Wind Wise ~ Massachusetts 
The Governor must think we were all born yesterday!
The Governor says ““That is baloney. I want to be absolutely clear about that. The bill we have proposed is all about local control and also about clarity so that we have similar or the same rules across the Commonwealth,”
How can we have local control if he makes the rules to apply across the state?
I am pretty sure what he means is that he will write the rules and give local boards the power to reject any project that is not in compliance with his rules. And, just to be “fair”, a locally rejected project can be appealed to some state authority with override authority.
The only projects that local authorities will be able to reject are the ones that violate the Governor’s rules, As long as the Governor is in charge of the rules, he can get anything he wants and he wants 2,000 megawatts of wind turbines, which he cannot get without smashing local control.