Better Plan, Wisconsin

LOBBYIST HELPS A PROJECT HE FINANCED IN CONGRESS

via The New York Times, www.nytimes.com

By Erick Litchtblau

January 12, 2012

Amid the revolving door of congressmen-turned-lobbyists, there is nothing particularly remarkable about Mr. Delahunt’s transition, except for one thing. While in Congress, he personally earmarked $1.7 million for the same energy project.

So today, his firm, the Delahunt Group, stands to collect $90,000 or more for six months of work from the town of Hull, on Massachusetts Bay, with 80 percent of it coming from the pot of money he created through a pair of Energy Department grants in his final term in office, records and interviews show.

WASHINGTON — Soon after he retired last year as one of the leading liberals in Congress, former Representative William D. Delahunt of Massachusetts started his own lobbying firm with an office on the 16th floor of a Boston skyscraper. One of his first clients was a small coastal town that has agreed to pay him $15,000 a month for help in developing a wind energy project.

Amid the revolving door of congressmen-turned-lobbyists, there is nothing particularly remarkable about Mr. Delahunt’s transition, except for one thing. While in Congress, he personally earmarked $1.7 million for the same energy project.

So today, his firm, the Delahunt Group, stands to collect $90,000 or more for six months of work from the town of Hull, on Massachusetts Bay, with 80 percent of it coming from the pot of money he created through a pair of Energy Department grants in his final term in office, records and interviews show.

Experts in federal earmarking — a practice of financing pet projects that has been forsaken by many members of Congress as a toxic symbol of political abuse — said they could not recall a case in which a former lawmaker stood to benefit so directly from an earmark he had authorized. Mr. Delahunt’s firm is seeking a review of the arrangement from the Energy Department.

Mr. Delahunt’s work for the town raises legal and ethical questions, mainly because of federal restrictions on the use of federal funds for lobbying, several legal experts said.

Beyond the town of Hull, Mr. Delahunt’s clients include at least three others who received millions of dollars in federal aid with his direct assistance while he was in Congress, records show.

Mr. Delahunt declined repeated requests for an interview last week. In a statement released through his office on Friday, he also declined to respond to specific questions about his work, but said: “I want to be clear — I have no federal lobbying relationship with any past or current client. I have not lobbied anyone in Washington since leaving Congress.

“Further, while in Congress, I had no conversations with anybody regarding any future consulting contract,” he said, “and I am extremely proud of our work and the assistance we were able to bring to many communities throughout our district.” Federal law prohibits former congressmen from lobbying some ex-colleagues for one year after leaving office.

Mr. Delahunt was a natural choice for the job, said Philip E. Lemnios, town manager for Hull, because he was familiar with the stalled project and did impressive work getting the seed money for it while in Congress. The town now hopes to get $60 million or more in federal, state and private funds for four offshore wind turbines that might someday power the entire town and serve as a model for other towns.

“Obviously he’s got connections into the federal government that we don’t have,” Mr. Lemnios said in an interview. “We’re hoping he can open doors at the federal level that we could never open.”

An affable New Englander known for close ties with Republicans as well as fellow Democrats, Mr. Delahunt, 70, has quickly established himself as a go-to lobbyist in the Boston-Washington corridor.

He has capitalized on relationships he developed with many Massachusetts groups in his 14 years representing one of the state’s most affluent districts, which includes Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard.

The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, for instance, paid the Delahunt Group at least $40,000 to lobby for approval of a casino. Mr. Delahunt had secured Congressional earmarks for the tribe totaling $400,000 in 2008 and 2009 for a substance abuse program and other projects, the records show.

The city of Quincy, Mass., meanwhile, brought on Mr. Delahunt last year to help deal with federal officials on a downtown redevelopment program. In 2008, Mr. Delahunt secured nearly $2.4 million in earmarks for the city on a separate tidal restoration project.

And a fishermen’s group on the elbow of Cape Cod hired Mr. Delahunt to navigate regulatory issues; he had helped the group get a low-interest, $500,000 federal loan in 2010, records show. The group, which thanked Mr. Delahunt, then a congressman, for his help getting the loan, used the money to renovate a historic coastal home as its headquarters.

“Bill was an ally of small boat fishermen in Massachusetts, absolutely,” said John Pappalardo, chief executive of the group, the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association.

After Mr. Delahunt left Congress, the fishermen’s group hired him “to get the lay of the land politically” about possible changes in federal and regional fishing policies, Mr. Pappalardo said. The group paid the Delahunt Group $14,000 last year for its work, according to lobbying records filed in Massachusetts.

“He was sort of like an emissary,” Mr. Pappalardo said in an interview.

With nearly 400 former members of Congress hired as lobbyists or corporate “consultants” in the last decade, it has become commonplace for ex-members to work for groups or industries that they had helped get financing while in office.

For example, former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, has drawn criticism over possible conflicts stemming from his earmarks. After leaving the Senate, he was paid $65,000 in consulting fees from a lobbying shop that represented clients he had helped with earmarks.

Mr. Delahunt’s financial connections to the energy project are much more direct, however.

“That’s not something I’ve ever heard of,” Kenneth A. Gross, a Washington lawyer who specializes in political ethics issues, said when asked about a former congressman receiving fees from earmarks he appropriated.

Several issues could influence whether the unusual arrangement was considered illegal or unethical, Mr. Gross and other ethics lawyers said.

Questions include whether Mr. Delahunt knew that he might go work for the town at the time he requested the earmarks; whether federal funds were being used to “lobby” Congress in violation of federal restrictions; which federal officials Mr. Delahunt’s firm contacted as part of its work; and whether those contacts fell within the one-year “cooling off” period.

Barney Keller, communications director for the Club for Growth, an influential conservative group in Washington that tracks earmarks, said: “I cannot recall such an obvious example of a member of Congress allocating money that went directly into his own pocket. It speaks to why members of Congress shouldn’t be using earmarks.”

Mr. Delahunt, a former district attorney who was known in Congress for embracing liberal causes, also became known over his time in Washington for bringing home federal money. He was particularly active in 2009, ranking in the top fifth of all House members, with more than $46 million in earmarks, including the Hull and Mashpee tribe grants, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group in Washington.

On retiring in early 2011, he told home-state reporters that he was hesitant to go the typical route of lobbying. But within a few months he did just that, starting the Delahunt Group, where he serves as chairman. He brought in three top congressional aides to help lead it and set up four offices in Massachusetts and Washington, and joined with a national law firm and another lobbying shop as well.

“This is nowhere as stressful as being a congressman,” he told The Cape Cod Times last June as he showed off the firm’s new office on the cape.

But he rejected any suggestion that he was cashing in on his time in Congress. “To say that former members wouldn’t use the skill set they developed, particularly if they are passionate about the interests of their clients, I really think is wrong-headed,” he told the newspaper.

But concerns about possible financial conflicts have already slowed the Delahunt Group’s work on the wind energy project in Hull.

Executives at Mr. Delahunt’s firm have been working informally on the energy project for several months, attending meetings and offering guidance, and they are expected to meet with “key federal and state officials” and provide advice on securing grants for the project, according to a draft of the $15,000-a-month contract.

But the town and the Delahunt Group have delayed signing a formal contract for at least a few weeks. They want to first make certain that Energy Department officials have no concerns about Mr. Delahunt’s unusual dual roles in earmarking the money for the project and now getting paid as a consultant to work on it, according to Mr. Lemnios, the Hull town manager, and Mark Forest, the Delahunt Group’s executive director.

“So far, they don’t have an issue with it,” Mr. Lemnios said. “But it would be a natural thing for people to think there might be a conflict of interest, and if people do have questions about a conflict, we want to be able to address that.”

From Ontario

FARM FEDERATION WANTS BLOCK ON WIND POWER

By Lee Greenberg

via Ottawa Citizen, www.ottawacitizen.com

January 21, 2012

Plans to dot Ontario’s countryside with wind turbines should be shelved, says the province’s largest agricultural organization.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture is calling on the government to properly address a range of concerns, including the health effects of turbines, before it issues any more permits for development.

“A lot of these issues haven’t been resolved,” says Mark Wales, president of the OFA. “It’s really dividing rural communities and that’s not healthy, that’s not good.”

In a statement Friday, the OFA identifies numerous concerns with wind power, including its inefficiency, excessively high prices and inadequate rules on the distance of turbines to the nearest home.

They’re also pushing the government to give power back to local municipalities.

The provincial Liberals took siting authority away from municipalities because of concerns over NIMBYISM (“Not In My Back Yard”).

“We elected not to give all 440-plus municipalities in the province of Ontario a veto,” says Energy Minister Chris Bentley. “Because the natural result of that would be that no projects would proceed.”

New wind turbines are massive steel structures that stand as tall as 146 metres – higher than most modern skyscrapers.

The OFA is not targeting solar power, or any other less intrusive form of green energy encouraged by Ontario through 2009 legislation.

Wales denies the new position is a knee-jerk reaction against wind.

“Our members are telling us we need to come out strongly,” he said. “The time is now to slow the process down and get it right. There’s so much divisiveness in the rural community, you can’t have a healthy discussion, you can’t find the right solutions.”

Provincial regulations state all turbines must be 550 metres away from the nearest home.

Wind opponents believe low-frequency noise from the turbines disturbs sleep and causes a range of other conditions, including anxiety, de-pression and even hypertension causing heart disease.

Bentley says the OFA helped the government come to that decision. He also says the health concerns “have been reviewed by Ontario’s medical officer of health, the federal health Canada officer (and) a number of tribunals.”

Bentley added that a current review of the legislation could result in more changes, including ways to ensure “greater local input.”

The OFA represents 37,000 farm families across the province. In a statement, the Canadian Wind Energy Association said it was “surprised and disappointed” by the OFA’s position.

“We will continue to provide fact-based answers to ensure Ontarians have the information they need to make informed choices as Ontario moves toward a cleaner, stronger and affordable energy system,” the lobby said in the statement.

The new OFA position comes just days after a couple in Stayner, Ontario, announced a lawsuit against a nearby farmer who leased some land to a wind company. John and Sylvia Wiggins say they have been unable to sell their $1.15 million 48-acre horse farm since the new project was announced.

From Minnesota

WIND FARM WILL SEEK PERMIT TO LEGALLY KILL EAGLES: TURBINES PLANNED NEAR RED WING WOULD ENDANGER PROTECTED SPECIES

 by Josephine Marcotty

Via Star Tribune, www.startribune.com

January 20 2012 

A controversial wind farm proposed near Red Wing plans to ask for federal permission to legally kill eagles, making it one of the first in the nation to participate in a new federal strategy aimed at managing the often-lethal conflict between birds and turbine blades.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials say they urged the developers of AWA Goodhue Wind to seek the new permit because the deaths of an unknown number of eagles and endangered golden eagles will be inevitable once the 50-turbine project is up and running.

The process for such “incidental take” permits was devised in 2009 as a compromise between the demand for clean energy from the growing number of wind farms and the rising concern over the estimated hundreds of thousands of birds and bats that they kill every year.

The 18.75-square-mile site in Goodhue County is home to a number of nesting eagles, and many more migrate through the area every year. There also have been sightings of two rare and endangered golden eagles, which come down from Canada to winter along the Mississippi River bluffs in southeastern Minnesota.

To get a permit, the company must provide a detailed plan designed to minimize the impact on protected species, project how many are likely to be killed each year, and keep track of the outcome.

The plan would have to be approved by the federal wildlife agency, giving it some future influence over the design and operation of the project, which is now under the jurisdiction of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC).

“There are a lot of issues,” said Mags Rheude, a wildlife biologist with the Minnesota office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “We’d have to come to an agreement.”

The developer, AWA Goodhue Wind, stated its intent to file for the federal permit in filings with the PUC, but did not respond to requests for comment.

Without the permit, the company could be subject to federal prosecution if the project results in the destruction of the birds or their nests.

In recent years, there have been four documented deaths and one injury to bald eagles from North American wind farms, and many more among golden eagles at one wind farm built along their migration path in California, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

So far, only one wind project, the West Butte Power Project in Oregon, has submitted a request for such a permit, but more are expected.

“There are a fair amount of wind farms lined up – hesitantly,” Rheude said. “I think there are a lot of people watching to see how the process will go.”

Regulators have doubts

In the meantime, however, federal and state wildlife officials say they have significant concerns about AWA Goodhue Wind’s wildlife protection plan, which will go before the PUC on Feb. 2. The commission’s decision is key in determining when and if construction starts on the locally contentious project, which has been in the works for more than two years.

For example, in its filings with the PUC, the company says it has been unable to accurately count eagles or predict how many might be harmed, because local opponents are engaged in an artificial feeding campaign to attract birds to the area.

But, in their sharpest critique, both the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Fish and Wildlife Service said in their filings that no such campaign has been verified by state investigators. The project, they noted, is located in an agricultural area, where livestock and wild animal carcasses are common.

“Due to the large number of eagles already present in the area, it is likely eagles will discover carcasses quickly,” federal officials said. “Eagles feeding on carcasses will likely be a long-term issue for AWA Wind.”

Both the state and federal agencies also expressed concern about the company’s plan to remove woods and other habitat to keep birds and other wildlife away from the turbines. That would only serve to harm other species, they said.

They also raised questions about the company’s plans to measure the project’s impact on bats, which are becoming as great a concern among conservationists as birds. New research is finding that some species of bats are particularly susceptible to wind turbines, because even if they manage to avoid the turbines, the pressure changes that occur as the blades move through air can cause fatal internal bleeding.

“In the next few years there may be more endangered species on the site,” Rheude said.

With abundant new supplies of gas making it the cheapest option for new power generation, the largest U.S. wind-energy producer, NextEra Energy Inc., has shelved plans for new U.S. wind projects next year.

Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) -- A shale-driven glut of natural gas has cut electricity prices for the U.S. power industry by 50 percent and reduced investment in costlier sources of energy.

With abundant new supplies of gas making it the cheapest option for new power generation, the largest U.S. wind-energy producer, NextEra Energy Inc., has shelved plans for new U.S. wind projects next year and Exelon Corp. called off plans to expand two nuclear plants. Michigan utility CMS Energy Corp. canceled a $2 billion coal plant after deciding it wasn't financially viable in a time of "low natural-gas prices linked to expanded shale-gas supplies," according to a company statement.

Mirroring the gas market, wholesale electricity prices have dropped more than 50 percent on average since 2008, and about 10 percent during the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a Jan. 11 research report by Aneesh Prabhu, a New York-based credit analyst with Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC. Prices in the west hub of PJM Interconnection LLC, the largest wholesale market in the U.S., declined to about $39 per megawatt hour by December 2011 from $87 in the first quarter of 2008.

Power producers' profits are deflated by cheap gas because electricity pricing historically has been linked to the gas market. As profit margins shrink from falling prices, more generators are expected to postpone or abandon coal, nuclear and wind projects, decisions that may slow the shift to cleaner forms of energy and shape the industry for decades to come, Mark Pruitt, a Chicago-based independent industry consultant, said in a telephone interview.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/17/bloomberg_articlesLXVBKF07SXKX01-LXYC0.DTL#ixzz1jkQGvFlH

BLISSFIELD WIND ENERGY PROJECT TO RELOCATE

By David Frownfelder and John Mulcahy,

via Daily Telegram, www.lenconnect.com

January 14, 2012

“The developer has concluded it is unable to develop its project in Riga, Palmyra and Ogden townships due to significant opposition to wind generation by the residents of Lenawee County."

RIGA, Mich. — Lenawee County is apparently not going to be home to a major wind turbine project — at least not in 2012. Officials from Blissfield Wind Energy LLC filed an amendment to its contract with Consumers Energy seeking permission to move the project from Lenawee County to Gratiot or Ionia counties.

Exelon Wind is one of the partners on the Blissfield project. Doug Duimering, project manager for Exelon Wind, said the group has not given up on Lenawee County, but because the contract with Consumers Energy states they would build wind turbines in 2012, the group is looking at other sites.

“We are disappointed with the way things turned out,” Duimering said. “We will continue to explore our options in Lenawee County.”

Larry Gould, president of Great Lakes LLC, which owns 50 percent of Blissfield Wind Energy LLC, said there are negotiations to take the project elsewhere, but the Michigan Public Service Commission must approve the transfer first. Gould said he could not say much due to a confidentiality agreement.

“There’s other communities that are inviting us to go someplace else,” Gould said.

Both Blissfield Wind and Consumers Energy are asking the MPSC to allow the contract between the two parties to be amended.

The request from Consumers reads: “The developer has concluded it is unable to develop its project in Riga, Palmyra and Ogden townships due to significant opposition to wind generation by the residents of Lenawee County. Hence, the developer has relocated its development plans to either Ionia County or Gratiot County, Michigan.”

The Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition Inc. was formed in opposition to the wind turbine project. Kevon Martis of Riga Township, a director of the IICC, commented on the development in an email.

“As much as the developers tried to paint this as a question of NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) opposition to change, the bottom line for most residents is that this particular project reeked of crony capitalism and corporate welfare of the worst kind: increased industrial profits at private citizens’ expense,” Martis wrote. “Couple that with solid scientific evidence that the noise limits and setbacks proposed by the developers are, in fact, unsafe, as the IICC maintained throughout this whole episode.”

Paul Wohlfarth of Riga Township headed the group Riga Residents for Wind. In an email, he expressed his disappointment at the announcement.

“We have a well-funded nonprofit corporation based in Lenawee County who collects money from across the country to spearhead an agenda that is against green wind generation in Lenawee County, Michigan and across the country,” Wohlfarth wrote. “I believe this whole project has been misrepresented by a well-funded vocal minority. It’s too bad the majority of the tri-township area didn’t take the time and visit a nearby wind farm. I think the outcome would have been much different.”

The potential siting of wind turbines in Riga, Ogden and Palmyra townships brought organized opposition from the IICC and recalls of Ogden Township Supervisor Jim Goetz and Clerk Phyllis Gentz and recall attempts against Riga Township Supervisor Jeff Simon and Trustee Richard Beagle.

The Blissfield Wind project was the only one that had reached the development stage. Another interested party was juwi Wind, a wind power company also considering a project for the area. A spokesman for juwi said its status remains unchanged.

“We are continuing to monitor and evaluate the situation,” said Aaron Peterson, manager of community relations and regulatory affairs.

In November, a referendum vote in Riga Township upheld the wind turbine ordinance enacted in July 2010. A similar vote on the Palmyra Township ordinance is slated for May 8. An Ogden Township citizens committee is weighing the benefits of a police power ordinance, which can take the place of zoning in special instances.

In addition, the Raisin Township Planning Commission is developing a wind turbine ordinance. Officials are taking the step despite no stated intentions of a wind turbine project for Raisin Township.