Anti-wind group backs LePage in fight against renewable energy initiative

Spruce Mountain, Maine...before Patriot Renewables' wind project
Leola Ballweber Photo

From the Sun Journal:

AUGUSTA — Friends of Maine's Mountains, a group that opposes the proliferation of grid-scale wind power, announced Thursday that it's supporting Gov. Paul LePage's push against a citizen initiative that would expand the state's renewable energy portfolio.

Maine currently mandates that utility companies derive a certain percentage of electricity from renewable sources. However, a coalition called Maine Citizens for Clean Energy has launched a citizen referendum to increase the requirements in the state's so-called Renewable Portable Standard.

The initiative runs sharply against the governor's energy policy. Last year, LePage tried to freeze the current RPS mandate but met stiff opposition from the state's wind-power lobby and environmental groups.

On Wednesday, the governor told the Capitol News Service that the citizen effort to expand the Renewable Portfolio Standard was "nothing more than a scam to make a few people wealthy."

On Thursday, the Friends of Maine's Mountains group backed the governor.

"This would be an environmental and economic disaster for Maine," said Chris O'Neil in a prepared statement, adding that passage of the citizen initiative was a "de facto mandate for an unsustainable buildup of wind turbines and costly transmission systems on Maine's mountains."

He added, "Markets would not support any wind power at all if not for a complicated brew of incentives, grants, mandates, tax breaks, surcharges and other government-created gimmicks."

Read the rest of the story here.