End Run past Local Control bad for Climate
Shades of WESRA, the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act, in push to expedite siting?
The Governor’s Commission on Energy Infrastructure Siting and Permitting asked for comments by March 1 but will accept them through March 15, 2024. Survey questions include:
- How should Massachusetts balance the need to accelerate deployment of clean energy, ensure communities have input into the siting and permitting process, and ensure the benefits of the clean energy transition are shared equitably?
- How should we accomplish the above while also protecting health, safety, and community livability, particularly for vulnerable or under-resourced populations?
- How should we accomplish the above while also protecting the natural environment?
- Who should have a seat at the table when decisions are made about where to put clean energy infrastructure and what restrictions apply?
BEATING DOWN THE LITTLE FOLKS TO GET YOUR WAY IS NOT GOOD POLITICS
To members of the Governor’s Commission on Energy Infrastructure Siting and Permitting:
Your plan to strip local control over the siting and permitting of renewable energy facilities was tried once before and failed. For years, Governor Deval Patrick pushed the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act, which was fiercely opposed by voters across the state and eventually scuttled.
States like New York and Vermont, and others around the country, have found that similar efforts lead to angry opposition, and hostility toward clean energy development generally.
By contrast, when communities are offered incentives that residents think are fair, they welcome development projects. Fairness can translate into surprisingly reasonable dollar amounts. This is especially true in small rural communities desperate for revenues.
If you want to encourage the widespread buildout of clean energy facilities and infrastructure, then proffer rewards instead of wielding punishments. Do not strip municipalities of local control over the siting and permitting of renewable energy proposals.
Our state has a proud history of home rule. Municipal officials take seriously their responsibilities to apply local and state laws and regulations to the review of development projects. They generally apply those fairly, they abide by timelines built into those statutes, and they recognize that their regulatory role is to permit development while safeguarding public health and safety. As citizens, based upon what I have seen, they wholeheartedly support the expansion of clean energy. There is no reason to eliminate local control in order to accelerate the buildout of renewable energy facilities. There is no need for a trade-off. Both can co-exist.
So, to answer the first question of your survey directly: To ensure that communities have input into the siting and permitting process of renewable energy facilities, maintain local control. Offer tax and other incentives. Provide financial and technical resources so that local boards can work efficiently to permit projects.
To ensure that the benefits of the clean energy transition are shared equitably, divide your pool of available incentives more fairly between developers and municipalities. You will find that providing reasonable financial incentives will be a more effective way to accelerate clean energy construction than generating hostility by stripping towns of their historical rights of local control.
In addition, don’t expect rural communities in the central and western parts of the state to host the majority of large-scale projects simply because they have more open space and cheaper properties. If you are serious about equitability, then communities in the eastern part of the state, which have the largest populations and the greatest energy consumption, should host their fair share of renewable energy projects. Again, appropriately-scaled incentives will be key.
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We face not one but two catastrophes: climate change and crashing biodiversity. Climate change will be addressed by national commitments to energy research and technological improvements. The tools we have today will inevitably be replaced by more efficient, more effective tools down the road. That is the history and trajectory of technology. Biodiversity, once compromised, can never be restored to its original state. We cannot jeopardize our state’s irreplaceable natural resources in pursuit of clean energy goals. That should be our baseline position. Solar facilities should not supplant forests and fields, which sequester vast amounts of carbon in their trees, plants, and soils. Industrial wind turbines should not obliterate our state’s few remaining untouched ridgeline plant communities. Clean energy facilities must be sited within the built environment and on brownfields and other degraded sites.
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Finally, regarding the last of your four questions: Money talks. It is a lot cheaper to offer rewards than to fight in court, in town halls, and in the arena of public opinion. If you reward municipalities for hosting renewable energy projects, and provide the financial and technical support they need, you will find that those are built faster and with greater community support than if you strip towns of their primary role in the siting and permitting of those projects. So, abide by the current regulatory structure but add clear incentives to the mix, and you will succeed in your clean energy goals.
Sincerely yours, Eleanor Tillinghast, President, Green Berkshires, Inc.
Wind Wise ~ Massachusetts 
Eleanor, I respectfully suggest there is no place on earth for industrial wind turbines. A review of the construction, delivery, maintenance and decommissioning supports my statement. It is rather interesting that your article not once mentions the physical and human harm to humans and wildlife alike. I reiterate: there is no place on earth for industrial wind turbines.
Ruby Mekker Finch, ON