Posted: 03.01.2011

The wind industry in Wisconsin suffered a serious setback when a joint
legislative panel voted to suspend the wind siting rule promulgated by the
Public Service Commission (PSC) in December, according to RENEW Wisconsin, a statewide renewable energy advocacy group.

The five-to-two vote tracked along party lines, with all five votes to
suspend coming from Republican members of the Joint Committee for Review of
Administrative Rules (JCRAR).

Many companies involved in windpower supported the PSC's rule as a workable
compromise that would have created a stable and predictable permitting
environment for all wind energy systems regulated by local governments. The
rule, which was scheduled to take effect today, would have fulfilled the
Legislature's intent to create uniform siting regulations to replace what
had become a restrictive hodgepodge of local requirements.

"The committee gave the state of Wisconsin a black eye that, in the view of
the wind industry, will linger well into the future," Vickerman said.

"The suspension rolls the wind permitting environment back to the dark days
when wind project developers routinely faced arbitrary and ever-shifting
local regulations - the kind of chaos that will hasten their departure from
Wisconsin to more business-friendly states."

"As of today, Wisconsin utilities have placed more megawatts of wind
capacity in neighboring states than in Wisconsin. As indicated in the
following table, importing wind generation from other states deprives
Wisconsin of a valuable source of employment, income for rural residents,
and property tax relief," said Vickerman.

The figures compiled by RENEW show that the 219 utility-owned wind turbines
that will be operational by January 1, 2012, will yield nearly $2.7 million
per year in potential property tax relief for towns and counties hosting
wind projects. All told, these projects will be responsible for nearly
300,000 construction-related job-hours.

"We have a hard time foreseeing in-state utility-scale wind development
going forward without statewide siting standards."

"It's a shame to see the end of bipartisanship that led to the passage of
the rule requirement in 2009. What we are seeing here is a breakdown of
governance that will rob the state of one of its brightest economic hopes
for the future," Vickerman said.

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