These transcripts are taken directly from video of the hearings recorded by WisconsinEYE and are provided here for those whose internet speed isn't fast enough to allow them to watch the video.

Watch or listen to the entire hearing by clicking on the links below:

(Video and audio courtesy of Wisconsin Eye -- click here for source)

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10th Testimony- FOR

Hearing on Wind Turbine Siting Reform
Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
May 12, 2009

Testimony of Terry McGowan
Business Manager of International Union of Operating Engineers Local 139

Video time mark 01:09:48 to 01:14:01

Terry McGowan: Thank you Chairman. Thank you everybody. My name is Terry McGowan, I’m the business manager of Local 139. We are a statewide union representing over 9,000 members in the state of Wisconsin.

Our primary work is road building, bridge construction. Our members run the heavy equipment. We run the cranes, the earthmovers, the backhoes and a variety of other equipment.

But the second-most important phase in our industry is energy. Building energy infrastructure, power plants, natural gas pipelines, ethanol plants, and sometimes our brothers from the IBW even let us on the transmission lines.
[Laugher]

But I just want to point out that we recognize the importance of green energy in Wisconsin’s future. We’re not certain solve all of our future power needs with wind, but it is an important part of it.

We support SB 185 and SB 256. Without this legislation we fear that good Wisconsin Jobs will be lost to Iowa and Minnesota. As it is right now, a lot of our members who are residents of Wisconsin have traveled to those states in order to sustain a livable salary so they can feed their families.

The wind will get built somewhere. And we’d like to make sure some of it is built here. And unless we have some uniform standards in the state we will not see the full potential for wind here in Wisconsin.

Wind farm construction is good for our members. As many of you recall, we lost the Cassville powerhouse. There was a lot of opposition at the Cassville hearings and a lot of the concerns were biomass. Why don’t we turn to some of the biomass. So they turned to some of the biomass. We needed that work in the western part of the state. We needed that part of the state to expand in its economy. Unfortunately that plant was turned down as well.

This power source may not be as good as a coal power plant but it is still a viable source and it is still good work with family-supporting wages and I hear people talk about expanding the populations in their area, and worried about these things in their area. The bottom line is going to be, they’re going to have to power-up if they are going to increase and expand their population. If they want to expand their economy, they’re going to have to power-up. And the alternative is dropping a big, coal-burning plant in their community.

Now I agree with the sense that we should be turning to nuclear power. But as everybody sitting here knows, there’s an old saying, ‘it would take an act of Congress’ and it would take an act of Congress.

In Brownsville we had 88 towers. We had both the excavation and the road building. We had 30,000 hours of work on that plant, on that site. And 200 hours of that were with one of our contractors, [unintelligible] , at that average, five weeks of work for one person, 200 hours per tower. Now that’s a lot of work for our people when you average as many people as shows up on that site.

Michael’s and White had 330 hours per tower. That averaged eight weeks of work for one person. Now that’s a good average. In our business, and as transient as our workers are, that’s a good average. These wind farms are major projects. And Wisconsin economy needs this generation and local 139 needs these family supporting jobs in Wisconsin. I urge you to please support these two bills.

11th Testimony-

Forrest Ceel, Business Manager International Union of Electrical Workers Local 2150

Wisconsin Eye Video time mark 01:14:01 to 01:16:20

Ceel: Good morning. No, afternoon. My name is Forrest Ceel, I’m business manager of local 2150 the Electrical Workers Local. Thank you Chairman Plale and Chairman Soletski for the opportunity to speak.

Our organization has long supported green energy and other opportunities for energy expansion in Wisconsin. Local 2150 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is the largest labor organization representing energy and utility workers in the state.

The IBW has been generating, transmitting and distributing electrical power from coal, nuclear, and/or wind since 1891. In addition, our local manufacturers—many of the large transformers at Waukesha electrical system that serve the transmission system including wind farms throughout North America.

Local 2150 served on Governor Doyle’s Task Force on Energy and Efficiency and Renewables that lead to the first mandate that utilities must generate 10% of their electric power from renewables, primarily wind, by 2015.

In addition, local 2150 was honored to serve on the Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming that is recommending to the legislature they increase that mandate to 20% in 2020 and 25% in 2025.

These are very ambitious goals. They will be difficult enough to reach when considering that Wisconsin is not a premiere wind energy state in the same breath as the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa.

Many of the projects under construction have been [approved] under the PSC’s docket process because of their size, but many smaller projects languish under a hodge podge of bureaucracy often leading to projects being abandoned or put on the shelf.

It is our belief as an organization promoting green jobs through environmental policy that the streamlining of the process is paramount to the utilities meeting these goals.

Local 2150 is a leader in promoting low emission forms of generating power, from wind farms to nuclear.

Both of these bills add another method for Wisconsin to gain green jobs and to clean up our air in an expeditious manner.

Thank you for this opportunity.

These transcripts are taken directly from video of the hearings recorded by WisconsinEYE and are provided here for those whose internet speed isn't fast enough to allow them to watch the video.

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(Video and audio courtesy of Wisconsin Eye -- click here for source)

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CONTINUED Hearing on Wind Turbine Siting Reform
Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
May 12, 2009

9th Testimony- Against

Testimony of Representative Bob Ziegelbauer- (D) Manitowoc, 25th district

Video time mark 01:02:12 – 01:09:48

Chairman Plale: Next up is Representative Bob Zeigelbauer-- you know we still have about a hundred people or so who want to testify. And I think what we’re going to start doing is limiting comments to roughly three minutes otherwise we’re going to be here until late into the night.

But certainly, again- I reiterate my earlier promise that anybody who is here and wants to testify in front of this committee is going to have an opportunity to do that.

Welcome, Representative.

Ziegelbauer: Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you Chairman Soletzki. I’m happy to keep my remarks within three minutes. I am here to testify, briefly, in opposition to these proposals because they work to undermine the confidence people have in the value of local government and the even-handedness of also their state government.

As you know I’m also serving as the Manitowoc County Executive. And we’ve had experience in the energy industry in Manitowoc County in a variety of ways.

We’re very interested in efficient new energy technologies. We host two very valuable, highly efficient, nuclear plants in our general community—and by the way, if you’re serious about producing low-cost electricity for a very long time, we’d love to put one more between the two that are near us now.

Our workers manufacture the towers that support the wind turbines, and the city of Manitowoc operates a municipal utility with a fairly new, fairly clean coal power plant in the middle of town, in Manitowoc- a block from my house and three blocks from the courthouse. In a word- in Manitowoc county- we are all in on the energy economy.

The issue posed by these bills, I think, is a fairly simple one. It’s-- do you trust people in their communities to make serious land-use decisions on important issues?
These bills seem to say that you do not.

Nearly five years ago when it became clear that the demand for wind power sites would include our area, town and county government embarked on the intense process of trying to make the difficult land policy decisions contemplated under the state law as they found it at that time.

After a failed first attempt to create a suitable county wind power ordinance, the county board took a time out by declaring moratorium on projects while it convened a special study committee to write a new ordinance.

That committee, a balanced mix of citizen and elected officials encompassing all the principal points of view took significant public input and agonized, as local officials do, over the implications of the decisions that they were making.

After more than a year of serious deliberation, there work product, a comprehensive wind power ordinance, was overwhelmingly passed into law by the Manitowoc county board in 2006. That both sides of that debate came away from the process a little unhappy with the results, speaks--- to me--- highly of the quality of the work they did. It continues to be tested, defined and refined according to the appropriate due process that is available at the local level for these issues.

These bills would throw all of that work away. Ultimately I think they’re power-grab couched in the usual excuses. Artificially created minimum requirements for alternative power generation, sometimes speculative theories about man-made global warming and our ability to make decisions that control that, impatience with local decision making and frustration with due process.

I’m here to day to stand up for the local officials who made these decisions and the process of making these local decisions throughout the state. Their work and the work of similar groups of local officials who take their responsibilities very seriously and, in good faith, waded in to try to address controversial issues in their communities, should stand. – Not be washed away because Monday morning quarterbacks from 150 miles away don’t like the result.

These proposals tell local officials to get out of the way, dodge the tough ones, and because people in Madison know better, they’ll decide.

I urge you to not pass these bills.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Plale: Thank you, Representative. Any questions of Committee members?

Senator Harsdorf: Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Do you think any changes are necessary in our current system? You know, the current process?

Ziegelbaurer: Well, I guess I would defer to some of those who seem more willing to compromise, to tipping the power back to the state level. But I would be very slow to say—a: that the system is perfect and it doesn’t need any changes, but b: that, well, let’s centralize most of the decision making and move on and-- wink, wink—with a couple of token compromises.

I think on balance communities like ours in Manitowoc county, have, in good faith, tried to come to reasonable conclusions on this and there are—with urban sprawl in different states throughout our state—the concern of property owners and the impact on them and their lives, I think should not be washed away too quickly.

Plale: Representative Huebsch.

Huebsch: Yeah. Just real quick. I’d like to get a copy of your comments, Representative Zeigelbauer, if you could provide them.

Ziegelbauer: I believe the page is handing mine in

Huebsch: OK, Great.

Plale: Senator Cowles.

Cowles: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Bob, any comments on the Twin Creeks situation which is in your county?

Ziegelbauer: Is that the first one or the second one. I don’t think of them by those names.

Cowles: Second. It was 98 megawatts. It was permitted in Manitowoc county but due to a combination of litigation and ordinance changes the ground was never broken. It was permitted in 2005 in Manitowoc County.

Zeigelbauer: OK. I know which one you’re talking about. I would say the history you’ve been given on that is somewhat over simplified. Keep in mind that when you have opponents to a development, of whatever kind of development it is, who are highly motivated and willing to fight—as the old guy used to say years ago—til the last dog dies—they are using the process of due process to try and win one. And it hasn’t been a straight line, but the entire process of due process in these decisions is available to both the winners and the losers.

And for a variety of reasons, some things have happened unevenly in the taking the permit and converting it into towers that you can drive by and look at. So it’s- the short answer is it’s a lot more complicated than that but people are hanging on and fighting it in every way that they can. But through the process of zoning, the zoning process – as those of us who started in local government remember—can be very intense.

Plale: Any other questions of committee members?
Thank you Bob.

These transcripts are taken directly from video of the hearings recorded by WisconsinEYE and are provided here for those whose internet speed isn't fast enough to allow them to watch the video.

Watch or listen to the entire hearing by clicking on the links below:

(Video and audio courtesy of Wisconsin Eye -- click here for source)

Click here to Watch |

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CONTINUED Hearing on Wind Turbine Siting Reform
Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
May 12, 2009

Hearing on Wind Turbine Siting Reform
Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
May 12, 2009

[7th Testimony- FOR]

Testimony of Michael Vickerman
Registered Lobbyist for RENEW Wisconsin
Representing interests of the wind industry and major Wisconsin Utilities

Video time mark 43:07- 51:25

Vickerman: Hello, my name is Michael Vickerman, I’m the executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, and we are a statewide organization that’s been around since 1991. Our mission is to promote a more sustainable energy future using Wisconsin’s renewable energy resources, and one of those happens to be wind.

We have been involved in promoting commercial wind generation, really since the outset, and the first turbines that came on line in 1999, and that’s where we encountered our first taste of local opposition.

And I passed around to you, a PowerPoint presentation called: “Wind-power in Wisconsin, the Permitting Crisis” and I’m going to be, I’m going to be working off of this document. Sorry I didn’t get the PowerPoint electronically to you ahead of time.

But most of the projects that are operating now in Wisconsin are, were, built in the last year and are located along the Niagara Escarpment. And they’re there because the wind is particularly good there, relative to the rest of the state, and secondly, turbine technology has changed since 1999, even 2001. And the production from these machines has increased.

And the Class of 2008-2009 turbines which I’ll talk about in a second, those capacity factors should be upwards of 29 or 30%. And the reason is because they are taller machines with longer blades and can access a greater amount of wind.

Now, in placing projects in Wisconsin, these installations generate revenue for local landowners, occasionally adjacent landowners depending on how the land payments are structured, and also local governments.

Under a formula that was established five years ago, every turbine in a project greater than 50 megawatts returns $4,000 per megawatt per year to the host town or county, so if you look at the Class of 2008, 2009—that’s Blue Sky, Green Field, Forward, Cedar Ridge, and Butler Ridge, you’ll see that in 2009 they will contribute more than a million and a half dollars to local governments. And that’s just a formula in state law.

And the other principal source of revenues to the local economy are through landowner payments. And so I estimated with those projects—we’re talking almost 400 megawatts of wind here—250—uh—251 turbines.

And they generated at least 1.2 million dollars a year to the host land owners. And if you add them up. Those two sums. Then this wave of projects are contributing close to three million dollars a year into Wisconsin local economies in Wisconsin.

This is a very valuable source of revenue for governments and also communities and when wind generation proposers are blocked or stalled, these revenues just don’t materialize.

Or if the developer has to relocate somewhere else, those dollars are essentially forfeited. In the case of Iowa. Iowa is coming close to hosting half of the wind systems now serving Wisconsin utilities.

Let me just focus real quickly on a tale of two wind projects. One’s called Crain Creek, which is under construction right now by Green Bay based Wisconsin Public Service.

Wisconsin Public Service is not—unless the rules or the environment has changed significantly, I don’t think Wisconsin Public Service is ever going to build a wind project in the state of Wisconsin, because there is just too much uncertainty, too much delay associated with its planning and exicution.

Now that project is going to be producing power by the end of the year. It’s called “Crain Creek”.

Now just thirty five miles away in Manitowoc County is a similar sized project, and they had a permit in early 2005 and they were set to go, but then the county changed the ordinance, and suddenly the permit was not applicable to the new ordinance, and they couldn’t go forward.

And basically that project is on basic life support system, and what happens when that project is not going forward? Well the local governments lose more than $400,000 a year in future revenues. Local landowners lose nearly $300,000 in future rents. A component manufacture in the heart of Manitowoc just lost a 98 megawatt order to build towers for that project, and the construction jobs are outsourced to Iowa.

And we have—and that project is not alone. There are other examples of projects that looked forward, excuse me, that looked good but then have been stopped by ordinances that make it impossible to permit wind projects.

And I should point out that the last project that was adopted or approved by a local government, it happened in March 07. We’ve gone through more than two years without a single local approval of a wind project. And that project by the way, is the Town of Glenmore, Brown County, and approved eight turbines. And that’s all we have to go on.

The only other route to building wind projects in this state is through the Public Service Commission which means the project has to be scaled up to over 100 megawatts in order to qualify for a statewide review.

And if you can’t do that, and if you’re a developer that’s facing local opposition, your only alternative is to get out of Wisconsin. So if this situation persists, this is what will happen.

All projects go through the commission, development activity we feel will falter significantly or substantially after the year 2012, and when you couple that with regional transmission constraints, it starts to call into question the ability of the sates utilities ability to meet the 2015 renewable standard and certainly any increase in that renewable energy standard after 2015.

And there is really only one solution for this problem. Which is to initiate a process to establish uniform--- permitting standards that would be uniformly applied across Wisconsin so we can maintain the momentum that we’ve enjoyed in the last year with the four projects that came on line.

But just going forward I don’t see much likelihood of utilities or developers hanging around in Wisconsin in a couple of years if we don’t fix—if we don’t put our permitting house in order.

Thank you very much.

[Click here to download this testimony]

Hearing on Wind Turbine Siting Reform
Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
May 12, 2009

[8th Testimony-- FOR]

Testimony of Curt Pawlish- Attorney and lobbyist representing wind industry concerns, and follow-up questions from Senator Cowles.

[Mr. Pawlisch and the firm represent numerous wind energy developers, assisting them with all phases of project development, including obtaining required state and local approvals, negotiating purchase power agreements and the acquisition of real estate interests. He also advocates on their behalf at the state capitol where he currently is championing legislation to create a uniform siting standards law for wind energy and a strengthened Wisconsin Renewable Portfolio Standard. Source: http://www.cwpb.com/Bio/CurtPawlisch.asp]

Video time mark 51:25- 1:02:12

Curt Pawlish: Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, first of all thank you very much for holding a joint hearing. I think everyone in the room is grateful that we only have to go through this once and only drive to Madison from whatever distance have driven.

The points I want to make are several and I am cognizant of the time limits that we have but I thought it would be helpful to the committee to just reach back and understand how we got to this point.

Up to 1997, the Public Service Commission was regulating even small generation projects thought the certificate of public convenience and necessity down to, I think it was, twelve megawatts.

In 1997 the legislature passed reliability act 204, and what that did was say, well you don’t need a certificate of pubic convenience and necessity for any project less than a hundred megawatts. So, one unintended consequence of that was that suddenly local units of government were in the business of regulating siting decisions for those smaller projects.

To get a certificate of public convenience and necessity means preemption. Which is why, you know, wind developers might be tempted to super-size their projects, to get over 100 megawatts, so they can have pre-emptive force.

But many of the developers I’ve talked to don’t want to do that, their projects won’t fit, they want to work with local units of government. And the statutes are there for them to do that. Right now, 66.04.01 already lays out the framework for local units of government to make their decisions about wind energy systems. It says they can regulate in terms of public health and safety, or a second criteria is essentially if their requirements don’t cost too much money, or a third—if an alternative energy system—an alternative to what’s been proposed would work just as well.

The action out there, in terms of what local units of government are trying to do is to decide, well, what is public health? What is safety? What can we regulate? How shall we regulate?

And in 2006 the Wisconsin Towns Association--- I know their position has changed—but in 2006 the Wisconsin Towns Association at their statewide convention said, in so many words, ‘We don’t know how to do this. We don’t know how to regulate public health and safety. The definition is going to vary from person to person, there’s litigation, and there’s a—I have copies if the committee would like it—there’s a resolution that said ‘We need uniform siting standards, because--- we just need the guidance from the state.

That probably was the beginning of the idea for uniform siting standards. And it made its way to the Governor’s Global Warming Task Force, they endorsed the concept. Public Service Commission endorsed the concept. In fact, I negotiated last sessions bill. I sat down with the commission, the department of AG, the Counties Association, and the Town’s Association and we came up with a framework for last session.

Regrettably, the towns association has changed its mind. And has really come up with something that is unworkable. Their solution now is to say well, everybody keeps their local ordinance, but we’d be willing to have those ordinances subject to arbitration.

That is not going to put wind energy systems on the map in Wisconsin. Wind energy developers want a blueprint. They want to be able to have legal certainty of where they are going to go. They, right now, can challenge those local ordinances under current law but they don’t want to pay for people like me, lawyers, to go challenge it. If it’s just easier to go build a project in Iowa, they will.

Same thing with arbitration. It’s the same process. You’ve got to hire lawyers, you’ve got to show the ordinance is unworkable. They are not going to do that.

Additionally, arbitrators won’t be beholden to anybody. They won’t be accountable to anyone, unlike the Public Service Commission under the approach we’ve taken. So, plus, arbitrators will, you know, different arbitrators will reach different decisions. So there will be no body of law to call upon that’s reliable for developers. So for all of these reasons I like the 2006 Towns Association better than I do the 2009 Town’s Association and their approach. And even the 2008 Towns Association was right where they needed to be.

The point that Mr. Welch made was to say that your bills, AB 256 and SB 185, take away power from local units of government, take away everything from local units of government.

Two responses to that. 66.04.01 already limits the role of local units of government in terms of their regulation of wind energy systems. There was a court decision. Numrich VS the City of Mequon, which said, you know, this statute is a limitation on what local governments can do, it’s a limitation even on their zoning powers. Local units of government can only regulate for public health and safety. And those two other criteria I mentioned.

The point there is this bill works precisely off the same statute. It doesn’t seek to change in any substantive way the limitations in 66.04.01. Existing law. All it does is say we need the Public Service Commission to come in and define what those standards are. Because we’re getting wildly varying ordinances from place to place in Wisconsin.

Trempealeau County established one mile setbacks from a turbine—a proposed turbine location, to someone’s residence. That just doesn’t sound--- I think all of you would agree---that just doesn’t sound right.

Is it based on science? I don’t know.

Let’s set up a process with the Commission that will look at all the evidence, all the science, and come up with what those standards should be. That way there will be lots of public participation, lots of opportunities for public participation at the PSC but at the end of the day there will be certainty provided for the wind developers, the wind industry, and even local units of government will have, finally, some guidance as to how to do this type of regulation.

It would have been possible to draft this bill, to take local units of government entirely out of the picture. Go back to the olden days. Go back to where the PSC just makes all these decisions. But the choice was to keep local units of government in the picture, in the role of making decisions, but to have that guidance from the state.

The last point I want to make is it’s been suggested that the Public Service Commission is biased. I have—[laughs] I have for better or for worse won cases at the PSC and I have lost cases at the PSC. The PSC are three independent decision makers. I have complete confidence they will look at all the evidence and determine what the standards should be based on the input provided by the advisory committee and through the public hearing process that they are mandated to follow in making this rule.

Be happy to answer any questions you have.

Unidentified voice from the audience: Would you want one in your back yard?

Senator Plale: Excuse me. We are not going to permit that type of outburst. Questions of committee members. Senator Cowles.

Cowles: Thank you Mr. Chairman. For Michael Vickerman. Page five of the projects blocked by local opposition. Could you explain to me, Michael, it hasn’t been clear to me, in the case of Twin Creeks and White Oak, ones at 98 and ones at 99. Why don’t they just add another megawatt or two and avoid the local opposition. What’s going on there?

Vickerman: Well, first, I think the developer wanted to work with the local government to begin with.

Cowles: So they’re being conscious of the locals.

Vickerman: Yes. And then the second reason is that the [Certificate of Public Need] process is very expensive and lawyer intensive and if it can be avoided with an open an partial review by the local government, that would be an even better outcome.

Cowles: So—this is a follow up, Mr. Chairman—so even in those cases they want to work with the local folks, local governments – that dialog has not occurred and there hasn’t been—

Vickerman: Well, in the case of White Oak, there’s a moratorium in place. It can’t proceed. There are essentially three ways in which a development proposal can run afoul at the local level. One is through restrictive provisions such as very long setback distances or sound ordinances, sound levels that are based on relative standards as opposed to absolute standards. Where you have no more than five decibels above ambient. Well no one can control ambient. So it just becomes—from a risk management perspective—an impossible job.

The other two pathways for slowing down or derailing a project are litigation and a moratorium. And that’s essentially what’s stopping—one of those three is stopping all of those projects you see below.

Cowles: One follow up, Mr. Chairman.

Plale: Sure.

Cowles: The various systems that are out there. I’m familiar with Vestas and there are several others. Are any of them really good as far as a low level of noise and not having some of the effect that Bob Welch mentioned or is there any kind of a rating system, international rating system or something that would show that some are better than others? As far as that noise?

Vickerman: I’m sure there’s a little variability. But. The projects that have been permitted to date, none of them have had an incident or an instance where the turbine exceeded the established sound standard. Not one.

Cowles: You mean the sound standard for the ordinance.

Vickerman: The ordinance. Usually at 50 decibels.

Cowles: OK. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Plale: Other questions of committee members?
Thank you both very much.

[Download this testimony by Clicking Here]

For the next two weeks Better Plan, Wisconsin will be preparing transcripts of testimony given at the May 12 public hearing before the Senate and Assembly Energy Committes. This testimony was given at the Captiol regarding turbine siting reform bills SB 185 and AB 256. [Click here to download the bill]

These transcripts are taken directly from video of the hearings recorded by WisconsinEYE and are provided here for those whose internet speed isn't fast enough to allow them to watch the video.

Watch or listen to the entire hearing by clicking on the links below:

(Video and audio courtesy of Wisconsin Eye -- click here for source)

Click here to Watch |

Click here to Listen

CONTINUED Hearing on Wind Turbine Siting Reform
Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
May 12, 2009

[4th Testimony: AGAINST]

Testimony of Gerald Derr
District One Supervisor of Wisconsin Towns Association, speaking on behalf of WTA. Durr is also Chairman of the Town of Bristol, Dane County

Video time mark 22:03- 25:17

Derr: Thank you Mr. Chairman and Co-Chairs and committee members. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.

I’m Gerry Derr, I’m the Chairman of the Town of Bristol in north east Dane County. We don’t have any turbines or anything out there yet but we’re in the midst of [unintelligible] that exciting issue. So it kind of looks like that will be the direction we may be heading heading.

I have some hand-outs here—if you have somebody who could hand those out to the committee.

Plale: The page is on her way.

Derr: And I currently serve as district one director for the Wisconsin Towns Association. Rick Stadelman sends his regrets, he’s training in Minocqua, and I told him he couldn’t take his fishing stuff along, that way he’s going to be on his way back to Madison in a couple of days.
[laughter]

Anyway, I appreciate to be here this morning, and we are appearing- I’m appearing- on behalf of Rick and our board of directors to oppose this legislation.

We have concerns about the issue of local control here. And certainly turning it over to the [Wisconsin Public Service] Commission, and promulgating rules, although I think it’s a laudable goal, we’re certainly concerned about where those rules end up as far as local control goes.

Recognizing as we do, because we represent 1250 some towns in this state, that there’s been some controversial areas. Some areas where there is litigation going on over these sitings. And that’s probably going to continue.

Our concern though is that we think this legislation goes too far in exempting or taking over the local control of these local communities and I know that some communities have basically tried to regulate through ordinances and whatever, these types of systems so they couldn’t even be located in the community, so, and—and we think that goes too far also.

I have to say, on behalf of our association, we’re not opposed to alternative energy. We think it’s an important part of reaching the 2525 goal. Certainly we do have some concerns about the commission actually who is somewhat charged for making sure that we try to reach that goal, that they’re going to be the same organization that’s going to set rules eventually to regulate these systems. And it seems to me that that could be a concern of ours also.

I don’t want to take too much time here, I know that you have obviously a very busy schedule, I don’t know how many are in the other rooms but maybe Manona Terrace would have been appropriate, Mr. Chairman.

Plale: [Laughter] Duely noted.

Derr: So we are opposed to this current legislation and certainly we are willing to work you to try to find some common ground on that. And I just want to bring that message here this morning. And I thank you for the time.

[5th Testimony: AGAINST]

Testimony of Bob Welch
Welch Group Public Affairs
Representing the Coalition of Wisconsin Environmental Stewardship

Hearing on Wind Turbine Siting Reform
Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
May 12, 2009
Video time mark 25:17 - 37:28

Welch: Good morning. I’m Bob Welch and I’m representing the Coalition of Wisconsin Environmental Stewardship, CWEST.

This is a group which is as grass-roots as it gets. It’s made up of folks around the state who are concerned that when a wind mill comes to their neighborhood that proper health and safety and other concerns may not be addressed. That’s the best way to put it.

We always like to start with what is the current situation out there when the PSC sites wind turbines. Because they are asking you to give up—in the end--- your authority. They are asking guys like Gerry [Derr—Chairman, Town of Bristol, Dane County and also Wisconsin Towns Association First District Supervisor.] to give up all of their authority and give it to the Public Service Commission.

So what is the Public Service Commission doing? What they’re doing is creating situations demonstrated by the yellow circle here. If you want to site a wind turbine and you have 23 acres, right now, under the current siting standards you can site it as long as you are 500 feet from a property line and 1000 feet from a house.

In this example, someone with twenty-three acres can site that wind turbine under the PSC’s bill, the bill that’s before you—the local community would have nothing to say about it, the county would have nothing to say about it, and the neighbor would have nothing to say about it, and these neighbors, as represented by the yellow circle, have had 75 of their acres taken away from them, from their use, without any compensation or any discussion, and are just out in the cold.

That is the way it works right now. And if anybody can look at this and say for people who just bought parcels D and E,--- and they want to build a retirement home, and without any input from them whatsoever this land is just taken away from them without any compensation whatsoever--- that that’s a fair system, well then you have a different definition of fair than we do.

Now why is this important? You can say, well, so what if there’s a few places where we put this and they’re just going to have to live with it there but it’s not going to be that many places.

Let me explain. One of the target areas, just an example is Calumet County. Calumet County is the fastest growing county in northeast Wisconsin. It’s expected to grow by 56% between now and 2035. That’s over 25,000 new people, let’s say, roughly, 12,000 new homes that need to be built in Calumet County if that all comes true.

Where are they going to go? They can’t go in those yellow circles. And to put up a hundred megawatt wind farm is going to take between seven thousand and ten thousand acres.

Now that is a huge decision on land use. And what is the provision in this bill for comprehensive planning, smart growth, for land use planning,-- what is the provision in this bill that takes care of that issue? There isn’t one.

There isn’t one. And the Public Service Commission does not have any requirement to take those things into consideration.

The City of Chilton, which is where a lot of that growth may take place, under some of the proposed wind turbine sitings—the proposals—is completely ringed in by turbines and could not grow whatsoever. Is that something that this legislature wants to do? To make a decision that we’re just going to cram these things into places where they don’t necessarily belong.

So. Let’s look at why the setback needs to be perhaps different. Where’s the science?

A little over a year ago many of you were here for the hearing that lasted all day where we did this before, and the wind developers were asked, you know, where is your evidence that says a thousand feet to a house is a safe distance? That that’s good for public health and safety. Well, it’s now a year later and they still have given us nothing.

The reason is because there is very little research, but there is some research that has been done. The only peer-reviewed study that is out to date was done by Nina Pierpont who is a doctor with a PhD. She identified something called Wind Turbine Syndrome.

What is Wind Turbine Syndrome? Its symptoms include sleep disturbance, tinnitus,- which is ringing in the ears-- disturbances to balance, anxiety, memory and concentration loss and chest tightness. What is it caused by? It’s caused by noise. And most assuredly the part of noise that is causing the most of it is from the low frequency noise. The stuff you don’t hear necessarily but it kind of beats in your chest like when the kids with the boom box come driving by and you can feel it before you can hear it in your car. That’s the stuff that causes the problem.

So what does she recommend in this only peer-reviewed study of this phenomenon?

That setbacks from industrial wind turbines should be at least two kilometers or 1.2 miles.

That shorter setbacks make no clinical sense and are not based on health and safety. And this matches the setbacks that in place throughout much of the world.
In France, Germany, Holland, these setbacks are much much longer than 1000 feet. Sometimes twice as long and at least one and a half times as long.

So why are the wind companies saying a thousand feet? Why are they saying a thousand feet? What are the backing it up with? Well, we’ve got kind of a smoking gun. Some of you have seen this already but the wind developers have in their own documentation, in their operating manual from Vestas which makes a lot of the wind turbines, that for their workers—the manual they hand to them—says “Do not stay within a radius of 1300 feet from the turbine unless it is necessary.”

So for their own workers, well, you gotta stay back 1300 feet. But for the kinds in your back yard, or for grandma out on this porch swing you can live a thousand feet away every day for the rest of your life, and that’s safe. It doesn’t make any sense.

Now. A lot of you are going to say, well, we’re not writing the rules here. We’re not writing the regulations here. We’re giving that to the PSC.

You gotta remember, that you guys tasked the PSC with this renewable portfolio standard. And you heard Mr. Calisto—right before we came up—say, ‘We have to get this done’ and you know what, he’s not being evil, he’s tasked to do it. So how can you give this same agency which is tasked to put these things in where they can get them in--- because they gotta meet this number, they gotta meet the number--- with also being the judge and jury about what’s a safe distance to go from people. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s not the right model.

So. The new Glacier Hills project which is being sited right now in Cambria-Friesland area, still is designed with a 1000 foot setback to home, it still is designed with five hundred feet to the property line.

So after all of the testimony of last year, after this bill went down in the senate, after all the discussion that’s gone on, after this smoking gun memo from Vestas, we’re still operating on that same, same, setback limit.

So do you really thing that when they’re giving rule making power they are going to do any different? Advisory committee or not. That’s our concern with this bill.
They are supposed to represent the public but they haven’t really engaged with us.

I’m just going to spend a brief moment on wind out west. It’s not our major concern but if you say Bob, where are we going to put all these things? Well if you look at the map—and this was right out of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel—the darker the color, the better the wind.

Lake Michigan’s got good wind and out west has good wind, but Wisconsin really doesn’t. And how does this come into account? Something called capacity factors. Now this is something you may not have spend a lot of time thinking about, but when they put up a one megawatt wind turbine it doesn’t produce a megawatt of energy, it produces some percentage of that because the wind doesn’t blow all the time.

Out west they’re getting capacity factors of 35-40%. Here we’re getting capacity factors, like the one down at Monfort, 22%. So it’s a lot less.

You can see from this chart from the Department of Energy that there’s a wide range of capacity factors. You get some in Texas and some places that are up to 45%. We’re down at that bottom end. 20-25%.

The blue line is telling you that it’s more expensive for rate-payers when the capacity factor is lower, because it still costs just as much money to put up the wind turbine, but you’re going to end up with a lot less energy out of it.

So we could actually save billions of dollars if we imported more from out west than built it here. And again, Mr. Calisto said as much, we need to have a mix. And that makes sense.

So if you got good wind with 35% capacity, for all of our--- if we found 35% capacity to get to all of our goal for how much wind we need that would cost about $3.6 billion to build.

Typical Wisconsin wind farm to get to that same amount of energy, would cost about five billion dollars.

So granted, you have to build a transmission line. I understand that, and that isn’t free. But is that line going to be built anyway? That’s something to think about. That’s a billion and a half dollars that rate payers have to come up with in Wisconsin if it’s all built here.

So. We have belief that with this bill, you’re going to see a lot of cancellations. Now what do I mean by that? This bill will cancel local wind ordinances. The ones that are out there or the ones that people might be thinking about doing.

It’s going to cancel local comprehensive zoning. We just spent a lot of money in this state. Town money and state money in the form of grants to do comprehensive planning and smart growth, and it’s going to cancel that out.

We’re going to cancel local economic development plans, extra territorial zoning. These cities have growth plans. They’re going to be canceled.

We’re going to cancel existing potato and vegetable grower contracts. You’ll hear more today about how aerial application around these turbines is just not possible. And a lot of these things are being sited in areas that are prime potatoe and vegetable growing territory. Without consideration to what that’s going to do for our economy in terms of the spin-offs from that industry.

It’s going to cancel opportunities for rural wireless broadband. Any where these things are, the electro-magnetic frequency cancels TV, radio and cell phone coverage and forget wireless broadband. It’s just not going to be available.

It’s going to cancel offers to purchase on neighborhood homes. Imagine being in one of those yellow circles, but not just one of them, there’s four of them all the way around you. What has that done to that person’s property value? And again, they don’t have one bit of input on what happens to that.

It’s going to cancel Certificates of Need for projects which are, say, 99 megawatts. One of the things about the PSC process – I don’t like the siting setbacks—but at least they have to go through a certificate of need to say ‘hey we need this,’. If you go to 99 this bill doesn’t allow for certificates of need, at least I don’t read it into there.

So you’re going to have people being able to build these things, put people out of their homes, cause all these problems, and we’re not even sure that’s going to be part of our overall energy plan. That’s one of the big things I heard from the PSC is we’re going to need to get this done for our energy plan.

It’s going to cancel any consideration for unique animal species, unique landscape attributes, that’s what local government is all about, is making sure that local concerns are taken into consideration.
It’s going to cancel the property rights of the non-participating adjoining landowners. Their property rights are just rolled over in this bill.

And this is going to cancel the health and safety of a lot of people locally.

So that’s a lot of stuff we’re against, Mr. Chairman.

Here’s what we’re for. CWEST supports a statewide standard for wind siting. We think there does need to be a model that’s developed in a true open fashion where everyone gets to sit around the table and decide what are the right standards? We think there should be a standard. We just don’t think it should be mandatorially pre-emptive of any local concern.

An unbiased and science based committee needs to come up with this standard. Not just the public service commission or wind developers.

Consideration for local ordinances. This is a big state and there’s a lot of different things that go on in different parts of the state. And those local ordinances shouldn’t just be rolled over. If they are way out of whack with the state standard, once that is come up with, then there needs to be some kind of arbitration, the Towns Association has come up with another kind of proposals where you can work through that, but you can’t just say local ordinances don’t matter.

An assurance that wind projects need to show the same need and cost-effectiveness as larger projects. In other words, if we’re going to say to these local governments that ‘you gotta accept this thing’ how do we know it’s the most cost-effective project on the table? How do we know it’s one the state needs? And we don’t know that until it’s too late if you don’t have a process and a place to find that out.

So Mr. Chairman, we’ve been, for the last year and a half offering to work with wind developers, offering to work with the Public Service Commission, and with the author of this bill—as you know—to try to come up with something where we could all agree. And yet, those negotiations have not yet taken place and we hope you use your good offices to assure that they do.

Glad to take questions.

Hearing on Wind Turbine Siting Reform
Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
May 12, 2009

[6th Testimony: AGAINST]
Testimony of Kendall Schneider
Town of Union Chairman (Rock County)
Representing the Coalition of Wisconsin Environmental Stewardship

Video time mark 37:28- 43:07

[Introducing Kendall Schnieder is Gerry Derr, who is
District One Supervisor, Wisconsin Towns Association]

Derr: We have a gentleman here from the Town of Union in Rock County, Mr. Chairman, who actually has worked on developing and ordinance and I’d appreciate you allowing him to make a couple comments.

Plale: Sure, and then we’ll open the panel to discussions.

Schneider: Again, I’m Kendall Schneider from Rock County. There are seven towns of Union in the state of Wisconsin, so just to clarify that.

We have developed our own ordinance. We put together a public participation committee comprised of anybody that wanted to join, so we had people from EcoEnergy there as well as the public.

And we have developed a very comprehensive ordinance and have adopted that.
The reason that we really went overboard on it was that the Public Service Commission actually didn’t do their part as far as the draft.

We found out that the draft that was on line was actually developed by wind energy people in Florida, and that’s not in Wisconsin. So. They failed to have public hearings and a lot of other issues.

We have had at least 13 public hearings on this at the local town level and developed an excellent ordinance. It is on line, too.

Derr: The point here, Mr. Chairman is this can be done on the local level, and certainly, what’s the big interest—obviously we are spending a quite of bit of time here—but these things are going in Towns, folks. They’re not going into Villages and Cities as you commented, they’re not going in Milwaukee.

Plale: Questions of Committee members? Senator Cowles.

Cowles: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Bob Welch. Could you clarify the items you support? You’re indicating you support a statewide standard. Any specifics in that?

Welch: I think it would be a good idea for all the players around the table to get together, with the PSC being one of the players, but not the controlling player.
To say what is the proper health effects of wind turbines. What is the proper safety effects? What is the proper effect on property rights and property values, what’s the effect on potato and vegetable growers, what’s the effect on comprehensive planning, put all those things on the table and try to come up with sort of a model.

This is what we’ve worked on. Because not every Town wants to go through 13 hearings. If someone could do that and say here’s an example, if you pick this one, a lot of people would be happy. But still let towns say ‘That doesn’t work for us, exactly, and we want to do something little different. You can’t completely take away their ability to have some local control, I just think that’s not the Wisconsin way.

Cowles: A follow up, Mr. Chairman. Then that new standard would cancel the existing ordinances?

Welch: No. What it would be, it would be a standard to shoot at. That’s our position.

Cowles: But what do you do with the existing ordinances?

Welch: The existing ordinances. This is something we still have to discuss. But one suggestion that Rick Stadelman [Wisconsin Towns Association] came up with was to have some kind of arbitration system, where if the local ordinance is way out of whack from the state standard, they’d have to defend that, and if it’s indefensible, it may go away. But if it’ something to say, hey, we’re different. We a different circumstance here because we have a different landscape, we have a different population pattern, whatever, then they’d have a chance to defend it because of that.

Cowles: Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Plale: Representative Staskunas

Staskunas: Thank you Mr. Chair. Just one clarification if I can from the Town of Briston chairman. Are you here today on behalf of the Town in opposition or—it seemed to me you were testifying that the Wisconsin Towns Association is here to day in opposition and you’re here speaking on their behalf.
Derr: I am here on behalf of the Wisconsin Towns Association. That is correct.

Staskunas: OK. And they oppose this bill.

Derr: Yes.

Staskunas: OK. Thank you.

Plale: Senator Erpenbach

Erpenbach: Yeah, real quick. Bob. 25%. You’re saying if a wind farm is built it’s only going to work—going to get 25% of it’s capacity. Where do you get the numbers from?

Welch: I got the numbers from the U.S. Department of Energy. And some of them are a little dated because the wind farms have not been very forthcoming in putting their stuff up right away, like quarterly, or by month, or at least we can’t find it. Maybe I just don’t know where to look, but we’ve had a lot of people looking. Some were averaging below 20%, but as I said, roughly, 25%, and the stuff out west, from the same time period, was 35-40%.

Erpenbach: Is there a place in Wisconsin where it would work?

Welch: Lake Michigan would work great.

Erpenbach: How far out would you have to go?

Welch: I’m not the expert on that. But probably out a ways. But I don’t know.

Erpenbach: OK. Thanks.

Plale: Representative Huebsch.

Huebsch: Thank-you Mr. Chairman. Bob, I have a question on this Wind Turbine Syndrome. I’d not heard of that. First of all, I’d like to get a little more information on that, and secondly I wonder, how is the low frequency noise vibrations that are caused by wind turbines any different than perhaps that low frequency noise that consistency happens in medium to small cities. How would that affect us differently. And perhaps you could just give me the report to answer that, and if you have an answer for that I’d be interested in knowing.

Welch: I can share the entire report with all the members of the committee, I didn’t want to hand you a 40 page document unless you asked, but—

Plale: [holding up a thick report] Somebody’s got a bigger one than you Bob.
[Laughter]

Welch: I tried to keep it to four pages but—you’d have to be a doctor to really describe it, but it’s how it gets in your inner ear and it disturbs your balance and it’s the constant repeating, where you’re living it’s constant, constant, constant at the same frequency. And that’s the best I can do as a layman to describe it.

Huebsch: OK.

Plale: Any more questions of Committee members?
Thank you very much.

These transcripts are taken directly from video of the hearings recorded by WisconsinEYE.

Watch or listen to the entire hearing by clicking on the links below:

(Video and audio courtesy of Wisconsin Eye -- click here for source)

Click here to Watch |

Click here to Listen

Click on the image below to see what homes inside of a wind farm with PSC setbacks looks like:

OPENING REMARKS

Hearing on Wind Turbine Siting Reform
Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
May 12, 2009

Senator Jeff Plale opening remarks and testimony

Video time mark 0:00 to 10:37

Plale: All right. A very pleasant good morning everybody, I'd like to call the Joint Committees of the Utilities to order.

Just a few housekeeping things-- again there are two over-flow rooms where the audio is being broadcast in both 400 SE and 300 SE, both of which are just down that hall and to the right. And 400 obviously is on this floor and 300 is one floor down.

There are several hearings going on today, there are also caucuses going on today so members will be in and out. I know there is at least one member who is joining us by phone today. Again, if you want to speak on this bill, and this is the only matter we have before us today, please fill out one of these white hearing slips, they are located out in the halls, you can indicate on there whether you are speaking for or whether you are speaking against.

If you don't want to speak you can register your opposition or whether or not you are in favor. And that will be recorded in the committee records as well.

As you can tell, there are an awful lot of people who are here to be heard on this bill and I can assure you that anyone who wants to speak today is going to have that opportunity to speak. Some people traveled a very long distance to be here, and as a courtesy to everyone, I ask that you limit your comments to roughly four or five minutes at the very most. Please speak directly to the bill because other people have been courteous in there comments, please be courteous in your comments to allow everyone an opportunity to testify today who wants to.

I think that's all for housekeeping. The first order of business will be to call the senate committee on Commerce, Energy, Utilities, and Rail to order. And the first order of business is to call the roll.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Clerk: Chairman Plale.
Here

Senator Wirch
(absent)

Senator Erpenbach
Here

Senator Kreitlow

[on speaker-phone]

Here.

[Laugher]

Senator Cowles
Here

Senator Harsdorf
Here

Senator Kedzie
(Absent)

Plale: OK, a quorum of the Senate Committee is present. The Clerk for the Assembly Committee will now call the roll.

Clerk: Chairman Soletski
Here

Rep.Zepnick
Here

Rep Staskunas
Here

Rep Richards
(absent)

Rep Steinbrink
(absent)

Rep Frisk
Here

Rep Zigmunt
Here

Rep Huebsch
(absent)

Rep Montgomery
Here

Rep Honadel
Here

Rep Peterson
Here

Rep Zipperer

(absent)

Plale: OK. A quorum of both committees is present. The first to testify will be Representative Soletski and myself, so I will turn the gavel over to the two next in line, Rep Zepnick and Senator Erpenbach.

Erpenbach: Can I move we adjourn?
[Laugher]

Erpenbach: Yeah? No?
[Laugher]

Senator PlalePlale: Well again, good morning, and thank you very much for the members attention to Senate Bill 185 and it's companion in the State Assembly.

Let me begin by just giving a brief history of how we got to this point. Tell you what this bill is, and then tell you what this bill is not. Then I'll turn it over to my fellow chair for comments and we'd be happy to take any questions following that.

Two sessions ago, the legislature and the governor established a Renewable Portfolio Standard, also known as an RPS.

An RPS states that a utility has to have a certain percentage of the electrons on our grid generated from renewable sources in an effort to ween ourselves from coal and natural gas.

So what does that leave us?

It leaves us with nuclear, which is a topic for an entirely different hearing and not today's hearing. In the area of renewables three ways. You capture the sunshine, you capture water and you capture wind.

Not just anecdotally but also statistically, Wisconsin is not one of the sunniest states. The investment it would require to capture sun in this state yields a very small return.

Of the rivers that flow through this state that have the capacity to generate electricity, they are dammed to capacity. We could not construct another dam in the state of Wisconsin, even if we wanted to.

That leaves us wind. While we are not the windiest state, certainly compared to the Dakotas, Minnesota or Iowa, there are segments of this state where capturing wind makes a lot of sense, and it is a viable renewable source of energy.

And if we are serious about achieving our RPS and if we are serious in the legislature about capturing renewable energies, we have to be serious about how we approach capturing the wind we do have.

Right now the system of doing that, of regulating that, of siting that makes no sense. It is a patchwork quilt of ordinance here, rules there, but there is no over-riding, consistent policy in the state of Wisconsin for how we regulate this new industry.

Now windmills have been around for centuries but obviously the technology and the scope we are talking about --it is the belief of this senator and others who have co-sponsered this bill that we need to have a consistent way of going about doing that.

What this bill is, is it directs the Public Service Commission to establish criteria for the siting of wind turbines here in the state of Wisconsin. It directs them to promulgate rules which then eventually will come back in front of the legislature.

In order to do this, the PSC is directed to work with a group of stake-holders: representatives of wind energy systems developers, political sub-divisions, i.e. counties, villages, towns, energy groups, environmental groups, realtors, land owners who live adjacent to or in the vicinity of wind energy system, and the public.

That's all this bill does. There's been tremendous misinformation that this bill somehow creates the standards for where these farms go, where these turbines are located, you can scour the bill and you will not find that.

This is not an end product. This is the beginning of a product that I believe will bring some sanity as to how we site power plants here in the state of Wisconsin.

One of the criticisms I've heard over the years and I'm sure I'll hear it again today is, 'Well, you know Plale, that's real easy. You don't have wind farms in your district and you're not likely to have wind farms in your district.' And you're right.

But let me tell you what I do have in my district. If you go to the very southernmost tip of my district in the city of Oak Creek you will see the state's largest coal-fired power plant and also one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the country.

As many of you know, that was a rather controversial project when it was first proposed. To some in Oak Creek, it still is a controversial project. There was a group, very vocal, albeit small, who was extremely opposed to the siting of that power plant in the city of Oak Creek.

We have a process where one community cannot veto statewide energy policy. And it would have been wrong for the city of Oak Creek, which I represent, to try to zone that power plant out of existence. Because not only Oak Creek benefits from that power plant, but the entire state benefits from that power plant.

Wind energy-- those are power plants. They may not have trainloads full of coal, they may not have natural gas pipelines, but those are power plants. And we need to have a sane way of regulating the placement of those.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that not only is there the benefit of the energy, but when you look at a windmill, when you look at a wind farm, you're also looking at jobs. You're looking at jobs of people who design them, jobs of people who build them, jobs of people who transport them, jobs of people who install them and jobs of people who maintain them. And right now those jobs are skipping right over Wisconsin.

They're going to the Dakotas, they are going to Iowa, they're going to Minnesota, they're going to Canada. Because developers cannot see a consistent way of doing business here in Wisconsin because of our patchwork quilt system.

Just as we don't allow one town, one village, one city, one county, to dictate statewide energy policy on coal, on nuclear, and on natural gas, nor should we allow any one municipality to dictate statewide energy policy when it comes to wind.

That concludes my comments. Happy to turn it over to Chairman Soletski.

CHAIRMAN SOLETKI'S TESTIMONY

Hearing on Wind Turbine Siting Reform
Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
May 12, 2009
Representative Jim Soletski opening remarks and testimony
Video time mark: 10:37- 12:49

Representative SoletskiSoletski: You know I’d like to set the example here by not repeating anything the senator has said.

[Laughter from Plale]

Soletski: We have spent the last three months working on the implementation of the governors Task Force on Global Warming. And one of the things we talk about is the siting of windmills.

And that was included in the recommendations but we had decided in the legislature that because of the amount of investment that has been hanging in the balance in the state of Wisconsin, that it is imperative that we take this bill up first to allow that investment to be installed in the state of Wisconsin.

Some people would say if the wind is better in Iowa and Minnesota and the Dakotas, then why don’t we just build them there were people are so happy to have them there. One of the reasons of course is that transmission losses over long distances would drain off power that is – in small increments—coming in from wind farms.

It’s not an economic—in our economic interest—to go that route. It’s also, as Senator Plale said, it creates jobs in the state of Wisconsin.

I think if we are ever to meet our 25 by 2025 we will have to have a large amount of wind power created for the state of Wisconsin. And this will allow us to do it in the most economical way and environmentally correct way.

And we have to have some consistency here. As stated, we can’t have individual townships or small cities knocking the investments out of the state of Wisconsin.
That’s why we’re having this today.

Thank you.

Plale: Happy to answer any questions of committee members. Any questions at all? If not, thanks.

Hearing on Wind Turbine Siting Reform
Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
May 12, 2009
Video time ID: 12:49-22:05

Erpenbach: Next up we have Eric Calisto from the Public Service Commission, Speaking in Favor

PSC Chairman CalistoCalisto: Chairman Plale, representatives of the committee, Chairman Soletski, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify.

My name is Eric Calisto, I’m the chairperson of the Public Service Commission and I am testifying in support of SB 185.

SB 185 is an important piece of legislation and I urge its passage. It’s genesis can be found in the strong work of the Governors Global Warming Task Force.
Indeed, wind siting reform was unanimous recommendation of the task force more than 15 months ago.

I’m here today testifying on behalf of Governor Doyle, who supports the bill, the Governor’s Bio-Energy Cabinet, and the Public Service Commission which unanimously urged it’s passage in a commission vote last week.

We are at a juncture in this state and in this country. Climate change is happening and the ways we have generated and used energy in the past no longer makes sense.

We made this state and this country an industrial power in part from the use of electricity derived from coal. Coal remained an important part of our fuel mix but we need to increase our use of other fuel resources.

Wind power will be the dominant renewable energy resource for many years to come. It blows strong and clean throughout the Midwest including here in Wisconsin.

As we sensibly rebalance our energy portfolio, we need to make sure we are leaving no resource untapped. That means Wisconsin bio-gas, Wisconsin bio-mass, wind from the west, and Wisconsin wind. Balance is key, and each of these resources will help insure energy and rate stability.

While large projects will continue to play a role in helping the utilities met their renewable energy goals, small projects are also key. Unfortunately, smaller projects have had difficulty getting off the ground in Wisconsin. Disparate decisions and ordinances at the local level are creating confusion for developers and local government.

As the state pushes toward meeting it’s 10% RPS and perhaps moving to a higher standard, it cannot leave off the table the wind resources available within our very own borders.

The bill you have before you is a sensible solution to remedy that problem.

First and perhaps foremost, the bill does not strip local government from making the siting decisions on these projects in the first instance. The authority to site wind farms remains unchanged in this bill from existing law. It is, as it should be, a local decision.

What is added is the creation of standards by the PSC which will act as a ceiling of sorts. Local government restrictions cannot be more restrictive than those created by the PSC. There is also an appellate right to the commission by anyone who is aggrieved by a siting decision at the local level. Appeal the commission’s decision is to circuit court.

This construct, local siting authority, uniform standards, appeal to the commission, will well serve all interests in this debate.

Critical to success of this new structure as indicated by Chairman Plale is the rule-making process at the PSC. The bill tasks the PSC with promulgating rules that specify the restrictions local governments may impose on the installation and use of Wind Energy Systems.

The PSC must also must promulgate rules which indicate what should be in the application for wind turbines, what should be in the record when siting decisions are made at the local level, and what process the local governments should use to make that decision.

The bill specifically requires seven groups to be part of the rule-making advisory committee, and I pledge to you a rule-making process that will be open and inclusive.

I have no desire to send to you a rule that gives you heartburn.

My job is to get the rule done right the first time.

Undoubtedly there are going to be disagreements between various interest groups on the proper detail and scope of the rules. Similar debates will occur on a project-specific basis.

There is no process the commission deals with that generates more controversy than siting decisions. I suspect the same is true for local government. But if this were an easy decision, we wouldn’t be here today. If this were an easy decision this bill would have passed last session. It isn’t easy, but it is necessary.

We can’t shy away from the tough decision that this body, that the PSC, that society needs to make to make to advance a sound, different, new energy policy.
The bill addresses one of those challenges in a sensible way.

The commission will continue to be a fair partner with local government to insure the siting process is equitable to all and that decisions are made in a timely, transparent way.

I urge your passage of this bill. Its time has come.

Be happy to take any questions you may have.

Representative Montgomery: I think this hearing itself is a testimony to the co-chairs commitment to making sure this bill and this process, whether it goes to the PSC, will be transparent and will have public input.

As we’ve read numerous times there are items being put into the state budget, this could have very easily been slipped in, so first of all, I applaud the chairs and again, I want to point out to people that this hearing testament to your commitment to making sure people have a voice in this.

So, again, Mr. Calisto, this is not writing the rules. This bill does not write the rules, this sends it to you, and then we have the ability again to look at what you come up with . Is that correct?

Calisto: That is correct. It takes the existing standards, the existing authority for local government and requires the PSC to establish a rule-making process and rules to implement the existing legislative standards, and obviously, as with all rule-making processes, that rule will come back here to the committees for review.

And as I indicated in my prepared comments, it is my pledge to you to give you a rule that will be to the best of my ability, not controversial. I recognize there’s a lot of work that has to go into that rule-making process to get to that point. Our process will be open at the commission as it always is. I’ve worked at a number of state agencies in my career, and I can tell you the PSC’s rule making process is as open and inclusive a process as any.

So there certainly will be a [unintelligible] round of opportunities for comments and suggestions on the rule, and obviously they are, is, created by the non-stat language in this bill and advisory committee as well.

Senator Erpenbach: Thank you. Focus a little bit on the advisory committee.

Calisto: Sure.

Erpenbach: The advisory committee being just that, they advise to you, you don’t necessarily have to take the recommendations or not. That’s pretty much up to the PSC. Right?

Calisto: It is advisory. That’s correct.

Erpenbach: OK. Secondly, how do you see the committee make-up being? I know it’s kind of spelled out here specifically but have you ever worked in a situation where there’s, let’s say, a group of citizens that might be adamantly opposed to something, have they had a seat on these types of committees before?

Calisto: I can’t speak from history at the PSC as to whether we’ve had—we’ve certainly--- let me take a step back—we have had a variety of rule-making processes where individuals and their own capacity or representative capacity have engaged very directly in the rule-making process.

We start, as all rules do, with a scoping statement, then we have, essentially, the usual call for comments, working off of, initially, some sort of white paper, and ultimately having a series of comments as well on the ultimate rule.

At each one of those steps, people are going to have the opportunity to weigh in, give us, give the advisory committee their views on how that rule should be drafted. To the extent that we have to, at some point, limit this advisory committee to a finite number of people we will do that. Although the statute requires these seven groups to be on it, what I’m telling you here today is I’m sure we will have an expanded representation on that group.

You know, it can’t accommodate a hundred people, but through representational organizations and individuals we will have undoubtedly, a three hundred and sixty degree spectrum of representation in putting in the rule making directly and through the comment process.

Erpenbach: And do you think that, in order for the PSC to get the right information- which- they may or may not be basing rules on what the advisory committee has to say—that it’s as balanced as it best can be?

Calisto: I think this is certainly a good balance as laid out specifically in the statute. Your comment as to whether they will rely upon the information, they very clearly will. The advisory committee and then the commission itself, as a body we will rely upon the sound, scientific evidence that supports the rule.

I do think this group is pretty representative. Obviously at the discretion of this committee and the legislature if somebody else should be added to it. But it’s as inclusive of a group as I’ve seen in these sort of advisory bodies.

Erpenbach: OK. Thanks.

Plale: Any other questions of Chairman Calisto?
Thank you for your testimony.

Callisto: Thank you.