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