http://www.ecowatch.com/wyoming-outlaw-renewable-energy-2195804679.html
[links in on-line article]
Wyoming Bill Would Outlaw Renewable Energy
Lorraine Chow
Jan. 16, 2017 03:54PM EST
Republican lawmakers in Wyoming have introduced a bill that would block
the use of renewable energy in the state. If passed, utilities that use
wind or solar to produce power for Wyoming residents would be penalized
with a costly fine of $10-per-megawatt-hour.
Under Senate File 71, only six resources—coal, hydroelectric, nuclear,
oil, natural gas, and net metering systems such as rooftop solar or
backyard wind projects—are considered "eligible" generating resources.
Electric utilities will have one year to be 95 percent compliant with
the approved resources and 100 percent compliant by 2019.
As InsideClimate News pointed out, the bill was filed last Tuesday on
the first day of the Wyoming's 2017 legislative session. Its sponsors,
who largely come from top coal counties, include climate change deniers
such as Rep. Scott Clem who once said, "I don't believe that CO2 is a
pollutant, and am furious of the EPA's overreach."
Wyoming is by far the nation's largest coal producer and a major
producer of natural gas and crude oil. But the state also has some of
the best on-shore wind resources the U.S., with wind power constituting
8 percent of the state's energy.
Still, Wyoming has waged a quasi-war on wind. Wyoming is the only state
in the country that taxes wind energy production, and a proposed tax
increase has effectively stalled a Wyoming power company's plans to
build the largest wind farm in the country. Like most of the wind power
already generated by the state, the power generated by the massive
Carbon County wind farm will head to other states. While this new bill
would allow out-of-state wind power sales to continue, it certainly
discourages future renewable energy development.
"Wyoming is a great wind state and we produce a lot of wind energy,"
bill co-sponsor Rep. David Miller explained to InsideClimate News about
the motivation behind the bill. "We also produce a lot of conventional
energy, many times our needs. The electricity generated by coal is
amongst the least expensive in the country. We want Wyoming residences
to benefit from this inexpensive electrical generation."
"We do not want to be averaged into the other states that require a
certain [percentage] of more expensive renewable energy," Miller continued.
Miller, however, is not confident the bill will pass, putting its
chances at "50 percent or less." Still, Republicans overwhelmingly
outnumber Democrats 51-9 in the state House and 27-3 in the Senate.
Opponents have called the bill "baffling," as renewable energy is
becoming cheaper and out-performing fossil fuels on a large scale.
"Why would [legislators] try to drag down solar and wind, two
potentially successful industries that could make a home in the state?"
editors at the Casper Star-Tribune asked, adding that the lawmakers are
"shutting out potential sources of revenue."
Others have remarked that this law is completely unsound and even
unprecedented.
"It would be very difficult to implement, difficult to regulate,"
Shannon Anderson, lawyer for the Powder River Basin Resource Council,
told the Star-Tribune. "It goes against longstanding precedent to choose
least-cost resources, and it ignores the reality of a multi-state grid."
Anderson also told told InsideClimate News, "I haven't seen anything
like this before. This is essentially a reverse renewable energy standard."