[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 63 (Friday, May 13, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5191-S5194]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. ALEXANDER (for himself and Mr. Warner):
  S. 1034. A bill to provide for local control for the siting of 
windmills; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am here today to introduce, along 
with the Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner, the Environmentally 
Responsible Wind Power Act of 2005.

[[Page S5192]]

  The legislation that Senator Warner and I offer provides for local 
authorities to be notified and have a role in the approval of the 
signing of tens of thousand of massive wind turbines that will be built 
in America under current policies. It also ensures that the Federal 
Government does not subsidize the building of these windmills, which 
are usually taller than a football field is long, within 20 miles of a 
military base or a highly scenic location, such as a national park or 
offshore.
  Senator Warner and I introduce our legislation today because next 
week the Senate Energy Committee is scheduled to begin markup on one of 
the most important pieces of legislation in this session, an energy 
bill. The Energy Committee's work, combined with the work of the 
Environment and Public Works Committee, which the distinguished 
occupant of the chair chairs, and the Finance Committee should this 
year produce a Clean Energy bill that will, over time, lower prices of 
natural gas and oil and reduce our dependence on overseas oil. This 
will be legislation for American blue-collar workers, for farmers, and 
for homeowners. It is urgently needed.
  Natural gas prices are the highest in the industrialized world. 
Gasoline prices are at record levels. We cannot keep our jobs and our 
standard of living if we do not put in place policies that will provide 
our country with new steps toward conservation and an adequate supply 
of low-cost, reliable, clean American produced energy. Senator Warner 
and I both intend to be in the middle of this discussion. He is a 
senior member of the Environment and Public Works committee. I am 
chairman of the Energy Subcommittee.
  I am grateful for, and I am greatly encouraged by, the leadership of 
the Energy Committee chairman Senator Domenici, and the ranking 
Democrat, Senator Bingaman, and the committee staff who have worked 
especially hard to create a framework for a more aggressive bipartisan 
piece of legislation than we were able to produce last year.
  One part of our energy debate will be about wind power, which is the 
subject of the legislation that Senator Warner and I offer today. We 
are introducing this because several of our colleagues have proposed 
something called a renewable portfolio standard, or RPS, which would 
require power companies to produce 10 percent of all their electricity 
from renewable sources by 2025. These renewable sources are wind, 
hydro, solar, geothermal, and biomass. Today, these renewable sources 
produce about 9 percent of U.S. electricity needs.
  This RPS is not to be confused with the renewable fuel standard which 
is a different sort of requirement, one that gasoline contain a certain 
percentage of ethanol. That matter is the subject for the jurisdiction 
of another committee. A renewable fuel standard is entirely different 
from a renewable portfolio standard and may well be part of the final 
legislation.
  It is important for our colleagues to know that a renewable portfolio 
standard, or RPS, is all about wind. There are limited opportunities to 
build new dams today in order to expand hydropower, and hydro produces 
7 of the 9 percent of renewable power that we have in America today. Of 
the remaining 2 percent of our electricity that is produced by other 
renewable sources, current subsidies are not enough to increase solar 
power by very much.
  More research and development is needed to make biomass more 
efficient, and there is a limited amount of geothermal power that is 
drawing power from water that is heated underground, which leaves wind 
power. Experts agree that the bottom line is that a requirement that 
electric companies produce 10 percent of their electricity from 
renewable energy, if it could be achieved at all, would mean about 70 
percent of the increase would come from wind. In other words, we would 
go from producing about 1 percent of America's electricity from wind to 
about 7 or 8 percent.
  Testimony before our Energy Committee and most other sources suggest 
that to produce this much wind energy in the United States could 
require building more than 100,000 new massive wind turbines. We have 
less than 7,000 such windmills in the United States today, with the 
largest number in Texas and California. Testimony before our committee 
also indicated that even without the RPS, if Congress continues its 
generous subsidy for wind production for the next 10 years-- it will 
guarantee that we have these 100,000 windmills or more by the year 
2025. According to the Treasury Department, this wind subsidy, if 
renewed each year for the next 5 years, would reimburse wind investors 
for 25 percent of the cost of wind production and cost taxpayers $3.7 
billion over those 5 years.
  I'm told that General Electric Wind, one of the largest manufacturers 
of wind turbines, has experienced a 500-percent growth in its wind 
business this year due to the renewal of the wind production tax credit 
last year.
  I want to make sure my colleagues know that there are serious 
questions about how much relying on wind power will raise the cost of 
electricity, questions about whether there are better ways to spend 
$3.7 billion in support of clean energy, and questions about whether 
wind even produces the amount of energy that it is claimed to produce.
  My studies suggest that at a time when America needs large amounts of 
low-cost reliable power, wind produces puny amounts of high-cost 
unreliable power. We need lower prices. Wind power production raises 
prices. We will have an opportunity in our debates and further hearings 
to examine these questions.
  The legislation Senator Warner and I offer today is about a different 
question: the siting or location of 100,000 of these massive machines. 
Now, the idea of windmills conjures up pleasant images in Tennessee 
and, I am sure, in Oklahoma, of Holland and tulips, images of rural 
America with windmill blades turning slowly, pumping water at the farm 
well.
  My grandparents had such a windmill at their well pump. That was back 
before rural electrification. The windmills we are talking about today 
are not our grandmother's windmills. Each one of these windmills is 
typically 100 yards tall, two stories taller than the Statue of 
Liberty, taller than a football field is long. These windmills are 
wider than a 747 jumbo jet. Their rotor blades turn at 100 miles per 
hour. These towers and their flashing red lights can be seen from more 
than 25 miles away. Their noise can be heard for up to a half a mile 
away. It is a thumping and swishing sound. It has been described by 
residents who are unhappy with the noise as sounding like a brick 
wrapped in a towel tumbling in a clothes dryer on a perpetual basis.
  These windmills produce very little power since, of course, they only 
operate when the wind blows enough or when it does not blow too much. 
So they are usually placed in large wind farms covering huge amounts of 
land.
  This is an example of what they look like. In comparison, we often 
worry about offshore drilling for oil and gas. In fact, Senator Johnson 
and I have introduced legislation that would permit States to expand 
the use of offshore oil and gas. Offshore oil and gas rigs can be 
placed far out to sea, where nobody on shore can see them. Compare that 
with the power produced by today's massive wind turbines. It would take 
46 square miles of these windmills spread across the landscape to equal 
one oil or gas rig that one could not see.
  As an example, the Congress ordered electric companies to build 10 
percent of their power from renewable energy which, as we have said, 
has to be mostly wind. If we renew the current subsidy each year, by 
the year 2025 my State of Tennessee would have about 1,700 of these 
windmills, which would cover land almost two times the size of the city 
of Knoxville, TN. If Virginia, Senator Warner's State, were to produce 
10 percent of its power from wind by 2025 and the subsidies continue, 
it would probably need more than 1,700 windmills. These windmills would 
take up enough land to equal the land mass of three cities the size of 
Richmond, VA. In North Carolina, to supply 10 percent of the 
electricity from wind, it would take almost the land mass of the 
Research Triangle, the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. According to 
testimony before our committee, in Tennessee and Virginia these 
windmills would work best and perhaps work only at all along the ridge 
tops.
  So this is what things might be looking like. This is a picture of 
the Grand Canyon in the West, but we can imagine what it might look 
like in the East. If our present policies on wind are continued, we 
could expect to see hundreds

[[Page S5193]]

of football-field sized towers as wide as jumbo jets with flashing red 
lights atop the Blue Ridges of Virginia, above the Shenandoah Valley, 
along the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, on top of Signal 
Mountain, on top of Lookout Mountain and Roan Mountain in Tennessee, 
and down the Tennessee River gorge which the city of Chattanooga has 
just spent 25 years protecting, and now it calls itself the scenic 
city.
  I hope we decide there are better ways to provide clean energy than 
to spend $3.7 billion of taxpayer dollars over the next 5 years on 
windmills. I hope we decide we need a real national energy policy 
instead of a national windmill policy. I hope we decide there 
are better and cheaper ways to discuss carbon. At least there are some 
important questions we need to answer.

  What will this number of windmills do to our tourism industry? Will 
10 million visitors who come a year to enjoy the Great Smoky Mountains 
really want to come to see ridge tops with flashing red lights and 100-
yard tall windmills? What happens to electric rates when the Federal 
subsidy disappears in a few years? Who will take down these massive 
structures if we decide we do not like them or if they do not work? Who 
is making the money on all of this, and why are some European countries 
who pioneered wind farms now slowing down or even stopping their 
construction in some places?
  Clearly, there are likely to be more sensible ways to provide clean 
energy than spending $3.7 billion of taxpayer money over the next 5 
years to destroy the American landscape. For example, $3.7 billion 
would provide enough money to give 185,000 Americans a $2,000 subsidy 
to buy a hybrid or a clean diesel vehicle, which would be about double 
the number of hybrid cars expected to be sold in the United States 
during this year. Hybrid cars burn about 60 percent of the amount of 
gasoline that conventional cars burn. Or $3.7 billion would provide 
enough money for loan guarantees to help launch a dozen new clean coal 
gasification plants and help transform the marketplace with new 
technology for clean American-produced energy that would lower natural 
gas prices and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. For $3.7 billion, 
we could provide loan guarantees for at least half a dozen new 
technology nuclear powerplants and have a billion dollars left over for 
research and development on the recapture of carbon that might be 
produced by coal plants or to encourage conservation prices.
  Just by way of comparison, a nuclear powerplant such as the Tennessee 
Valley Authority's Sequoayah nuclear plant would produce about the same 
amount of energy as the windmills, which a renewable portfolio standard 
and the tax subsidy would build in Tennessee. The electricity would be 
available even when the wind was not blowing. So while we are debating 
the wisdom of wind policies over the next several weeks, these massive 
turbines are being built across America, 6,700 of them so far, 29 of 
them in Tennessee.
  The Tennessee Valley Authority recently announced it had signed a 20-
year contract with a group of investors from Chicago to build 18 huge 
windmills atop a 3,300-foot ridge on Buffalo Mountain in east 
Tennessee. So the purpose of our legislation being offered today is to 
give citizens the opportunity to have some say in where these massive 
structures are located in their communities and to make sure that the 
Congress does not subsidize the destruction of the American landscape 
near our national parks or other highly scenic areas or build such tall 
structures dangerously close to our military bases.
  First, the bill ensures that local authorities are notified and have 
a role in the approval of new windmills to be built in their areas of 
jurisdiction. This means that at the same time a proposed windmill is 
filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC would notify 
the local authority with zoning jurisdiction. Under this bill, within 
120 days, local authorities may support or oppose the project. If they 
support it, the windmill may qualify for FERC marketbased rates--that 
means allowed to charge wholesale prices--and may be exempt from a 
series of regulations that restrict the operations of public utilities. 
If local authorities oppose the windmill, it may still go forward but 
subject to regulations--we call them PUCHA--and unable to charge 
wholesale rates or issue a qualified rate schedule. If no action is 
taken by the local authority, the FERC process would proceed as though 
the authority were in support.
  I believe it is crucial that local authorities have a chance to 
consider the impact of such massive new structures before dozens or 
hundreds of them begin to be built in their communities. In many other 
instances involving the location of facilities generating power, State 
and local governments have developed laws giving citizens an 
opportunity to comment or even stop the location of facilities they do 
not want. Our legislation gives communities that do not have such laws 
the chance to do just that, and then this legislation sunsets or 
expires in 7 years.
  The second thing our legislation would do is provide protection to 
highly scenic areas and at military bases. I do not think we want to 
see hundreds of windmills in the Grand Canyon or just outside the Grand 
Canyon or in the foothills of the Great Smokies or when we go to see 
the Grand Tetons. There are plenty of places we do not want to see 
that. This makes sure it does not happen. It does so by eliminating tax 
subsidies for any windmills within 20 miles of a world heritage area, 
which includes many national parks, and within 20 miles of military 
bases or offshore.
  Under the bill, placement of a windmill within 20 miles of such a 
site shall also require the completion of an environmental impact 
statement. Further, any windmill that is to be constructed within 20 
miles of a neighboring State's border may be vetoed by that neighboring 
State. In other words, if the neighboring State can see it and does not 
want it, they can veto it.
  I used the same kind of analogy when I introduced legislation to 
allow offshore drilling since offshore drilling can be put so far off 
sight that one does not need to see it. If Virginia wants to do it and 
North Carolina can see it and they do not like it, they can veto it. I 
believe the same thing should apply to these massive windmills.
  I believe that during our debates, we will find that there are better 
ways to produce a low-cost reliable supply of American energy than by 
spending $3.7 billion over the next 5 years, requiring power companies 
to produce energy from giant windmills that raise electric rates, only 
work when the wind blows, and destroy the American landscape.
  The legislation that Senator Johnson and I have introduced, the 
Natural Gas Price Reduction Act of 2005, includes support for 
aggressive conservation, new clean coal gas plants, new supplies of 
domestic natural gas, and, for the time being, easier import of 
liquefied natural gas. We did this because natural gas is at $7 a unit 
around the world, and that needs to change. In the USA, it is the 
highest priced gas anywhere in the industrial world. The chemical 
plants in Oklahoma, Colorado and Tennessee will find it likely that 
they will be moving their jobs to other parts of the world where the 
price of natural gas is not so high.
  (Mr. ALLARD assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I believe there is an important place in our energy 
bill for renewable fuels such as ethanol, and I believe there is an 
important place for renewable energy sources. For example, the 
legislation Senator Johnson and I introduced a few weeks ago would 
increase from 10 percent to 30 percent the tax credit for commercial 
investments in solar technology that generates electricity, heats or 
cools a structure, uses fiber optics, and illuminates a building or 
provides solar process heat. It provides a similar 30-percent tax 
credit for a solar system that heats a home. But it is important to 
keep in mind that, aside from wind, renewable energy can only provide 
about 3 percent of America's total energy needs over the next 20 years. 
I am excluding from that, also, hydro.
  In the United States of America, the wholesale destruction of the 
American landscape is not an incidental concern. The great American 
outdoors is an essential part of the American character. Italy has its 
art, Egypt has its pyramids, England has its history, and we have the 
great American outdoors. In fact, the song ``America the Beautiful'' 
was written in Colorado, the State of the Presiding Officer. We care 
about that.

[[Page S5194]]

  In my home County of Blount County, TN, my father and lots of other 
people worked at the Alcoa plant for many years to save money and buy a 
home. Where did they want to buy a home? They wanted to buy a home on 
streets that were named Mountain View, or Scenic Drive, because they 
loved to look at the Great Smoky Mountains.
  While we debate the merits of so much subsidy and reliance on wind 
power, we should at the same time protect our national parks, our 
shorelines, and our other highly scenic areas. And we should give 
American citizens the opportunity to protect their communities and 
landscapes before it is too late.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 1034

         Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives 
     of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

         This Act may be cited as the ``Environmentally 
     Responsible Windpower Act of 2005''.

     SEC. 2. LOCAL CONTROL FOR SITING OF WINDMILLS.

         (a) Local Control.--Prior to the Federal Energy 
     Regulatory Commission issuing to any onshore and above-water 
     wind turbine project its Exempt-Wholesale Generator Status, 
     Market-Based Rate Authority, or Qualified Facility rate 
     schedule, the wind project shall file with the Federal Energy 
     Regulatory Commission its Local Approval Authorization.
         (b) Local Approval Authorization.--
         (1) In this section, the term ``Local Authorities'' means 
     the governing body, and the senior executive of the body, at 
     the lowest level of government that possesses authority under 
     State law to carry out this Act.
         (2) Local Approval Authorization is a resolution from the 
     local governing body and local senior executive 
     (collectively, the ``Local Authorities'') approving or 
     denying the siting of such wind project.
         (3) Such resolution approving or denying the project 
     shall be produced by the Local Authorities within 120 days of 
     the filing of the Market-Based Rate application or Federal 
     Energy Regulatory Commission Form number 556 (or a successor 
     form) at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
         (4) If such resolution is not issued by the local 
     authorities within 120 days of the filing of the Market-Based 
     Rate application or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Form 
     number 556 (or a successor form) at the Federal Energy 
     Regulatory Commission, then such project is deemed to have 
     obtained its Local Approval Authorization.
         (5) Applicant shall notify in writing the local 
     authorities on the day of the filing of such Market-Based 
     Rate application or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Form 
     number 556 (or a successor form) at the Federal Energy 
     Regulatory Commission. Evidence of such notification shall be 
     submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
         (6) The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shall notify 
     in writing the local authorities within 10 days of the filing 
     of such Market-Based Rate application or Federal Energy 
     Regulatory Commission Form number 556 (or a successor form) 
     at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
         (7) If the Local Authorities deny the siting of a wind 
     project, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shall not 
     issue to the project Market-Based Rate Authority, Exempt 
     Wholesaler Generator Status, or Qualified Facility rate 
     schedule.
         (c) Determination of Neighboring States.--
         (1) In this subsection, the term ``viewshed'' means the 
     area located within 20 miles of the boundary of a State.
         (2) If an offshore, above-water windmill project under 
     this section is located within the viewshed of an adjacent 
     State, the adjacent State may determine that the project is 
     inconsistent with the development plan of the State under the 
     Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 (16 U.S.C. 1451 et seq.).
         (3) If a State makes a determination under paragraph (2), 
     the affected windmill project shall terminate.
         (d) Highly Scenic Area and Federal Land.--
         (1) A Highly Scenic Area is--
         (A) an offshore area;
         (B) any area listed as an official United Nations 
     Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World 
     Heritage Site, as supported by the Department of the 
     Interior, the National Park Service, and the International 
     Council on Monuments and Sites;
         (C) any area nominated by the Department of the Interior 
     and the Federal Interagency Panel for World Heritage to 
     become an official United Nations Educational, Scientific, 
     and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site; or
         (D) any Armed Forces base located in the United States.
         (2) A Qualified Wind Project is any above-water wind-
     turbine project located in a Highly Scenic Area or within 20 
     miles of the boundaries of an area described in subparagraph 
     (B), (C), or (D) of paragraph (1).
         (3) Prior to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 
     issuing to a Qualified Wind Project its Exempt-Wholesale 
     Generator Status, Market-Based Rate Authority, or Qualified 
     Facility rate schedule, an environmental impact statement 
     shall be conducted and completed by the lead agency in 
     accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 
     (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.). If no lead agency is designated, 
     the lead agency shall be the Department of the Interior.
         (4) The environmental impact statement determination 
     shall be issued within 12 months of the date of application.
         (5) Such environmental impact statement review shall 
     include a cumulative impacts analysis addressing visual 
     impacts and avian mortality analysis of a Qualified Wind 
     Project.
         (6) A Qualified Wind Project shall not be eligible for 
     any Federal tax credit.
         (e) Effective Date.--
         (1) This section shall expire 7 years after the date of 
     enactment of this Act.
         (2) Nothing in this section shall prevent or discourage 
     environmental review of any wind projects or any Qualified 
     Wind Project on a State or local level.
                                 ______