Ridgeline wind opponent Annette Smith says bill threatens fundamental rights
By Guy Page
Vermont’s renewable power industry is promoting a Senate bill, now under committee review, that would weaken local communities’ say during the state approval process for renewable power projects.
S.236 would “limit adjoining landowner participation in 30 V.S.A. § 248 [Public Utilities Commission energy project licensing] cases to public health and safety and traffic and to remove the aesthetics criteria.” The PUC is the state’s ‘energy court,’ resolving all questions dealing with energy projects, including licensing.
State law currently requires that “with respect to a facility located in the State, in response to a request from one or more members of the public or a party, the Public Utility Commission shall hold a nonevidentiary public hearing.” S.236 would add this ‘yes, but’ condition:
“If an adjoining landowner or other person who claims an interest in any proceeding held under this section as a result of owning or occupying property in proximity to the facility under review seek permission to intervene as a party in any proceedings held under this section, their participation is limited to whether the facility will have an undue adverse impact on public health and safety or traffic, and “they must prove that they have a particularized interest protected by this section that may be affected by an act or decision of the Public Utility Commission and that no other party adequately represents their interests.” [Italics mine]
The renewable power industry is clearly rankled by its failure to consistently receive PUC approval for project sitings. Under former PUC chair Anthony Roisman, wind turbine projects in particular were held to the letter of Vermont law. But many ‘community solar’ projects also foundered amid neighbors’ objections.
With longtime PUC staff attorney Ed McNamara named to succeed Roisman, the renewable power industry may hope for a more receptive energy court. But the industry also badly wants to see the law changed. And its case for reducing local influence over energy siting was made January 24 by utility lawyer Joslyn Wilschek.
The husband and wife partners of Wilschek Iarrapino Law Office in Montpelier, Wilschek and Anthony Iarrapino, first practiced law together as students at Vermont Law School’s South Royalton Legal Clinic. When Wilschek testified on January 24 to Senate Finance about S.236 the longtime utility lawyer noted that “these are my opinions and I speak for myself rather than any client.” However, much of her testimony first was presented, at times verbatim, to a sympathetic audience in an October, 2023 speech to the Renewable Energy Vermont (REV), the renewable power industry trade association.
In both testimony and speech, Wilschek shows her frustration with “NIMBYs” (Not In My Backyard) who have “captured” the energy siting regulatory process with their “self-interested and occasionally irrational opposition.”
“Despite the solid proof that global overheating is happening at a frighteningly fast and increasingly lethal pace and the transition to a renewable energy system is happening at a distressingly slow place, the Vermont legislature, executive branch, regional planning commissions and municipalities captured by small factions of NIMBYs have made it more difficult over the years to build renewable energy projects,” Wilschek said. “It is so bad in Vermont that Vermont’s opposition to renewable energy projects has been discussed in the national media. This from a New York Times opinion article by Ezra Klein in 2022: “The Sierra Club published a revealing report on how Vermonters were organizing against renewable power. The Sierra Club reported: ‘In 2012, Vermont had at least a dozen wind projects in development. Today, there are none.’ The article had to awkwardly note that the Vermont chapter of the Sierra Club had helped kill several of those projects.”
Whatever role ‘NIMBYism” played in stopping ridgeline wind turbine projects, it should also be noted that federal wind power project tax incentives were set to expire in 2012. Although eventually continued, the uncertainty of the federal incentives, coupled with local and statewide opposition, combined to discourage further wind turbine development. The last major wind power project in Vermont was built in Deerfield in 2017.
Vermonters for a Clean Environment (VCE) executive director Annette Smith told Senate Finance January 16 that her opposition “is about the fundamental right of Vermonters to participate in energy generation development proposals that affect their particularized interests as neighbors, and it proposes to eliminate aesthetics entirely from review of all types of energy generation development projects.
“This legislation is part of a national trend to strip local control for siting wind and solar energy, based on the premise that we must build out as much renewable energy as possible quickly in response to the climate crisis. With state level PUC permitting, Vermont already has state level control. Most states have been siting solar and wind through local zoning. This legislation presumes that neighbor objections are slowing renewable energy development in Vermont, and that solar panels and wind turbines everywhere are good and necessary and should be accepted regardless of the aesthetic impact.”
But that’s true because Vermont’s particular topography and competing values limit development, Smith said.
“Because of our terrain and topography and competing land use needs, Vermont has limitations on development. Lots of rock, water, steep slopes, an agricultural economy, forests especially valuable to address climate change, housing development, tourism, commercial and industrial uses compete for limited available buildable land. This is a fact we all need to recognize.”
S.236 is sponsored by Sens. Anne Watson, Martine Gulick, Tanya Vyhovsky, and Rebecca White – all strong supporters of renewable power and carbon reduction.
Smith is scheduled to testify about S.236 at 1:30 pm today in Senate Finance. She will be followed by Ben Edgerly Walsh, Climate & Energy Program Director of the pro-renewable energy advocacy group VPIRG, Ben Edgerly Walsh, Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG (1:45 PM), and Gregg Faber, Legislative Liaison for the Public Utility Commission.
The hearing may be viewed in person in Room 6 of the Vermont State House or via livestream. Links to other video testimony and discussion include:
Jan. 19: Friday afternoon, Peter Sterling of REV
Jan. 26: Friday afternoon, PUC staffer Gregg Faber
Jan. 31: Wednesday afternoon, citizen Alison Despathy
Feb. 1: Friday afternoon Committee Discussion
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Categories: Energy
As senators vyhovsky, white, watson and gulick prostrate themselves at the altar of the climate evangelist, hadn’t an adult in the senate chamber call these petulant children on their “settled” science of carbon victimization?
Perhaps, Senator Mazza might wish to see irrefutable evidence that “climate change” is indeed the man made house of horrors these climate grifters insist it is?
Senator Starr? or Senator Ingalls? Care to have a go with the apparatchiks in your chamber? phil scott may have succumbed to the evangelists, but as the “experts” fine tune laws for their advantage- hadn’t some of our “representatives” ought represent the constituent- instead of the donor and lobbyist?
I came to ask the same question. WHEN are the public servants going to actually work to serve the public????? NOTHING they are doing has done so.
When state Rep. Laura Sibilia — the reporter of S.5 to the full House from the Environment and Energy Committee — rose from her seat on April 20 ,2023 to explain the bill, she made the following blockbuster admission:
“We have heard folks say that stopping all of Vermont’s emissions would do nothing to change the weather patterns that we are seeing with climate change. With apologies to my environmental friends, I mostly agree. If Vermont cannot stop climate change, then why bother bringing forward sweeping climate change bills like the Global Warming Solutions Act and the Clean Heat Standard?”
I would suggest that representative Laura Sibilia shares her wisdom with all her colleagues in the House and the Senate , and also with Joslyn Wilschek
While the renewable industry must be very displeased with that statement, the Legislature ,which represent the people of Vermont not the renewable industry, should be strongly opposed to S. 236 as indeed there is zero proven correlation between the weather patterns and the spread of wind turbines and solar panels in Vermont . However Vermont will lose its most precious asset, the very reason that brings tourists or new residents , its landscape of fields, forests and mountains .
ms. sibilia’s comment’s that day included her motivation for passing S.5:
“You know, if we don’t do this, then it’s not getting better for our kids. It’s not getting better for people on a fixed income,” Sibilia said. “Who is going to do this? Who is going to do this? These are measured steps.”
In only 10 months, sibilia’s words have shown to be false- Before even a program has been established, the harm to “our kids” and “People on a fixed income” has become obvious- the pretending exposed for what it was- lies.
She seemed to embrace passage of S.5 out of some duty or unknown personal requirement. Perhaps, the motivation was out of personal requirement and duty-but that duty was and remains to the donor class of elitists that further her political career. When viewed thru the lens of patronage, the motivations of many political opportunists seem clear- the constituent is not the represented, but the ruled- the represented are those that further the politician’s ambitions. Perhaps someday sibilia’s role as a nomenklatura and apparatchik for the party will become obvious-
but the harm of her actions is already apparent.
Put simply, her vote in favor of S5 was virtue signaling.
“This legislation is part of a national trend to strip local control for siting wind and solar energy, based on the premise that we must build out as much renewable energy as possible quickly in response to the climate crisis.”
As there is provinng to be NO CLIMATE CRISIS, this trend in globalist control is no longer an
issue.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/un-says-melting-arctic-ice-is-a-key-indicator-of-climate-change-but-its-not-melting-5580038
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/trillions-spent-on-climate-change-rely-on-inaccurate-temperature-readings-and-faulty-modeling-5575177
There are many more articles about this climate hoax.
“This legislation is part of a national trend to strip local control for siting wind and solar energy, based on the premise that we must build out as much renewable energy as possible quickly in response to the climate crisis.”
Good, as there is no climate crisis, this reasoning is moot.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/trillions-spent-on-climate-change-rely-on-inaccurate-temperature-readings-and-faulty-modeling-5575177
How do low-life environmental assassins like the two “lawyers” mentioned here get a license to practice law? Is it because they are so foul, ugly and cruel that they can pay the corrupt Bar Association for the right to abuse Vermont citizens?
And, apaprently, Vermonters are supposed to ignore the fact that the U.S. is producing more crude oil today (and for the last year) than at any other time in its history – including the Trump drill-baby-drill years. WTF?
If our legislators care about Vermont and the residents they represent, it seems time that each read (or re-read) the Mountain Manifesto at:
https://mountainmanifesto.org/ . This should be a prerequisite to voting on this bill. The manifesto was written in 2017 with inputs from knowledgeable participants who cherish our Vermont mountains.
Oh brother, did Vermont produce these two? No matter, their views make me think they were planted by the WEF with the intent to specifically destroy our Constitutional and inalienable rights and freedoms.
Electrification of everything!!!!! How exciting!!! First lets put up enough wind turbines to power everything, a few thousand should do it. Then, for the 75% of the time the wind isn’t blowing, let’s put up enough solar panels to power everything, yes, yes, all the farm fields covered in solar panels! Then, for the 85% of the time when there is little sunlight (like the past 3 very cloudy months, gulp) and the wind isn’t blowing, – lets have batteries!! The children in Cambodia will be happy for the work digging lithium with their bare hands!! Then, for when the wind isn’t blowing, the sun isn’t shining and the batteries are dead, let’s have the conventional grid – nuclear, natural gas and hydro. Wait, wouldn’t it be cheaper to just have the conventional grid, rather than subsidising all this other stuff? Yes, yes it would, but Vermont must lead the world in saving the planet! Its the law!! And, we have a moral obligation!! Just ask Senator Bray.
Josyn’s royal blue dress is made with fossil fuels.
Even with Section 248 in tact, the PUC process is burdensome for individual landowners. The deck is stacked in favor of industry, with the DPS allegedly protecting ratepayers, not all affected parties. The amount of paperwork is enormous. Keeping on top of it takes over your life.
Josyln Wilschek, another carpetbagger, smarty-pants (on paper anyway) reigning from none other than the corrupt (satanic) judicial State of Colorado (see how their judiciary works these days?) In Vermont, she worked hand-in-hand with green energy fraudsters and corrupt government officials to make enough serious coin to hang her own shingle and continue the fraudulent grift with her spouse. et tu brute
Vermont Business Magazine: “Governor Peter Shumlin has appointed Joslyn L. Wilschek of PRIMMER an alternate member of the State of Vermont Environmental Commission for District 5.Joslyn has almost a decade of experience advising utilities and private renewable energy developers on all aspects of project development, including permitting, real estate, net metering programs and projects, easement acquisition, state agency coordination, and contract negotiation for renewable energy projects and reliability projects such as substation and electric line upgrades.”
Primmer Piper Eggleston& Kramer 2017: “Joslyn Wilschek obtained a Certificate of Public Good on behalf of a Vermont based solar company for a 5 MW solar project in Grand Isle, Vermont where all produced energy will be sold to Vermont Electric Cooperative, Inc.”
WILO Law Offices: “Joslyn graduated magna cum laude from the Ithaca College, Park School of Communications in 1999, and magna cum laude from Vermont Law School in 2003. She served as a law clerk to Justice Gregory Hobbs, Jr. of the Colorado Supreme Court from 2003-2004. The following year she served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Paul L. Reiber of the Vermont Supreme Court. Joslyn was admitted to the Colorado Bar in 2003, the Vermont Bar in 2005, and the New Hampshire Bar in 2016. Joslyn worked at Primmer Piper Eggleston & Cramer from 2005-2017, and was a partner from 2014-2017.”
Thank you for the information, Melissa.
You’re welcome Guy – always good to show the pedigrees and training facilities of those who profit off doing more harm than any good to our State. Dogs of war indeed!
Aha! Wilschek is another gift to Vermont from the head grifter Shulman.
Joslyn Wilschek was one of two attorneys who spoke in favor of the Attorney General’s Criminal Investigation of me, based on a complaint filed by attorney Ritchie Berger of Dinse, alleging I was practicing law without a license for assisting people in participation in PUC (then PSB) proceedings about solar and wind siting. https://vermontersforacleanenvironment.wordpress.com/2016/01/23/state-investigating-head-of-vce/
Joslyn Wilschek and attorney Leslie Cadwell were quoted in a Vtdigger article saying they would testify against me. https://vermontersforacleanenvironment.wordpress.com/2016/01/23/ags-office-investigating-complaints-against-annette-smith-anti-wind-advocate/
Green Mountain Power came out in support of me. https://vermontersforacleanenvironment.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/gmp-activist-did-not-cross-any-line/
GMP had been hiring those two attorneys to do contract work, and I heard that as a result of what they said about me, GMP let them go. This was confirmed by seeing them withdraw from GMP cases at the PUC. All together, that is at least three renewable energy attorneys who actively tried to shut down public participation at the PUC.
At the time Joslyn’s husband, Anthony Iarrapino, was the attorney for landowner Travis Belisle who was trying to do the Swanton Wind project, and Leslie Cadwell was the attorney for Swanton Wind. Martha Staskus who is REV’s board was the project leader for Swanton Wind, and was David Blittersdorf’s project manager for Georgia Mountain Wind. After the investigation was closed, Ritchie Berger told the press that he filed the complaint against me on his own and was not representing a client. But several months before, I was served with a letter from Ritchie Berger on Dinse letterhead that began “I represent David Blittersdorf”. You can read it here https://vermontersforacleanenvironment.wordpress.com/2016/01/31/i-represent-david-blittersdorf/.
During the 19-day AG investigation, I got a call from someone who told me that someone walked into his office and said “I know who is behind the AG Complaint against Annette Smith. I heard her regaling people in a Montpelier restaurant about how they were going to take down Annette Smith.” Yep, I know who was behind it.
During that period, four Vermont newspapers published editorials in support of me. Here’s one https://vermontersforacleanenvironment.wordpress.com/2016/02/05/guest-editorial-moneyed-interests-just-made-annette-smith-a-vermont-hero/
How did it end? Here’s John Dillon’s write-up from VPR https://vermontersforacleanenvironment.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/ag-citing-first-amendment-drops-probe-of-activist-annette-smith/
And as a result of all that, the Burlington Free Press named me Vermonter of the Year https://vermontersforacleanenvironment.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/burlington-free-press-2016-vermonter-of-the-year-annette-smith/
Except it didn’t end. Here we go again, the same set of players led by REV and VPIRG, attacking public participation instead of promoting working with people on siting renewable energy. I guess VPIRG needs to take “Public Interest” out of their name. “Industrial Interest” is a better fit.
An attorney discussing a case out in public a breach of confidentiality? It sounds like hostile, slanderous professional misconduct to me. Considering the players involved, ethics is not their strong suit or any of their concern. No one in their circle of co-consipirators will hold them to account.
Let’s not forget that the climate mitigation process is exacerbated by Stratospheric Aerosol Injection projects, Solar Radiation Management, ScopEx (Thanks Gates!), and atmosphere perturbation experiments run rampant that make it look like the planet is in a dire condition. Hopefully, NH can straighten things out with HB7100-FN, RI with H6011, and CT introducing legislation that prohibits geo- engineering. All states must act on this now, as there are no (state) borders in the atmosphere. Has anyone really looked up in the sky lately?
Plenty of information here:
zerogeoengineering.com
So let’s see if I understand what’s up here… These folks are part of the born again cult who have experienced the climate epiphany. They have failed to convert us to their enlightened vision…their missionary work has failed. Their recourse to legal bullying with the “democratic majority” is bumping up against objections …and we now get their lamentations with much indignant seething and gnashing of teeth at us ignorant/selfish NIMBY neighbors.
Seeing that our state’s economy is so dependent on tourists the legislators need to consider that when crafting environmental bills including wind and solar. Tourists do not come here to see a bunch of huge wind turbines on ridge lines of the beautiful mountains. Smaller Solar farms do not necessarily spoil the view for miles and miles around but these wind turbines do. I look at those in Lowell and wonder how few people are reaping an economic benefit from them. Then I wonder how those ugly turbines have disturbed the visual beauty of so many towns and so many miles around them on both sides of the mountain. Did neighboring towns have any say about them? Even immediate neighbors complained and opposed them but they were installed anyway. Visual impact can have a negative impact on tourism housing for tourists for miles around a project. I still react negatively every time I travel Route 100 north, south and in Lowell when I see those turbines, and wonder what negative effect they have on the natural habitat and wildlife therein, as well as health concerns for residents in the immediate vicinity. I see so many solar panels discreetly installed on residential buildings, business buildings and even medium solar fields that have much less impact. Smaller wind turbines on farms have been seen for many years and also have minimal impact when used on residential property. But massive turbines are so out of place in our beautiful state. Legislation to prohibit individual or local municipal input on proposed bills that will have any negative impact on their businesses or lands must be free to contest those projects on the grounds that a project may disturb the natural beauty and pleasant visual impact of their neighborhood or community! My concerns also include any and all projects legislators dream up to supposedly combat “global warming”. Anything that impacts the revenue for an individual, local or statewide economy needs to be considered important. The projects being conceived to replace fossil fuels may have a much greater negative impact on the environment, state, and individual towns and citizens than our legislators think, if they are thinking about us at all. Will we have to wait and see that their ideas to legislate carbon tax laws are not effective after the laws cause damage?
Can we start a fundraising page to raise enough money to pay any or all neighbors of this couple to start raising hogs? It would fun to watch the hysterics at the select board meetings to follow.
I want a law that says renewable “wanters”, can only have electricity when the sun shines or the wind blows. With smart meters its simple to do. — that will educate the renewable believers.