(Updated, 2 p.m.)
PROVIDENCE – A bipartisan group of 29 governors called Tuesday for the federal government to do more to support the development of wind farms across the nation.
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The Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition, whose vice chairman is R.I. Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, urged President Barack Obama and Congress to take broad steps to encourage wind farm construction.
“This is all about a sense of urgency,” Carcieri said during a conference call about the report. “We need to get serious and get serious fast in this nation about energy issues.”
The governors’ report said the country should adopt a national standard of generating at least 10 percent of its electricity from wind farms. They argued the lack of a national standard discourages investments in the United States and has led companies to focus on Europe, where countries have established ambitious standards and created a guaranteed market for wind power.
They also said the nation’s transmission system needs to be upgraded to allow electricity from far-flung wind farms to be delivered to areas where it will be consumed.
They said the private sector could cover the estimated $75 billion to $100 billion in infrastructure investments required for the country to generate 20 percent of its electricity from renewable energy. The report said the private sector already invests $5 billion to $10 billion annually in transmission upgrades, and additional costs could be passed onto customers.
The governors asked the federal government to invest in research to develop better wind turbines, offshore installation techniques and lower-cost ways of placing turbines far offshore and in rough seas.
The governors also asked the federal government to streamline its permitting process for offshore wind farms. While the report did not cite any projects by name, the Cape Wind project has been mired in years of federal permitting delays to the frustration of wind backers.
During the conference call, Carcieri said speeding up federal permitting was particularly important. Currently, he said, the permitting process is estimated to take seven years.
“There’s private capital ready to go, ready to invest, but it cannot sit for seven years waiting for these things to get approved,” Carcieri said.
The larger of the two wind farms proposed off Rhode Island’s coast by Deepwater Wind LLC would sit entirely in federal waters and be subject to the federal permitting process. The Hoboken, N.J.-based company’s smaller proposed wind farm, off Block Island, would sit in state waters and hence avoid the federal process.
The governors urged Congress to extend a federal tax credit that supports wind farm developers by offering the credits as straight grants. Deepwater plans to use the credits to help finance its first proposed project.
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, who chairs the group, said the report represented the first time a group of governors had put together such an extensive set of recommendations related to wind farm development. And he stressed that the report showed there was not necessarily a conflict between onshore wind farms, such as those in Iowa, and offshore farms, like the ones proposed off Rhode Island and other East Coast states.
“There is no choice between offshore and onshore wind projects between the Midwest and the Northeast … the nation needs both. We need all the clean and cost-effective resources we can generate,” Culver said.
The Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition was created in 2008. Rhode Island joined the group last year and is represented on it by Timothy M. Costa, Carcieri’s policy director. Other members include Mass. Gov. Deval L. Patrick, Maine Gov. John Baldacci and Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In a letter to Obama, the governors said wind farms would help lead to energy independence for the country, improve the environment and create a new industry offering high-paying jobs.
“We share a common concern that our dependence on imported energy sources poses unacceptable and unnecessary risks to the nation’s energy, economic and national security,” the governors wrote. “We offer our assistance in working with your administration and Congress to achieve one of the nation’s principal energy goals, energy independence, and increasing the role that wind energy plays in meeting that challenge.”
Additional information is available at governorswindenergycoalition.org.
“This is all about a sense of urgency,” Carcieri said during a conference call about the report.”
Aye, its urgent that the big utilities that have been quietly seizing the windpower industry get ever more subsidies and ever less regulation. This has become a very sad race to the bottom by gullible poliiticians.
The urgent thing is to do it right, not charge like bulls at investors waving green flags, only to get stuck with endless costs with little power to show for it., Why is it that multi billion dollar companies alway have their hands out the most?