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Tuesday, February 08, 2011

With Walker, Sprawl Industry Has Wind At Its Back

When it comes to wind energy, realtors would rather fight for the real estate necessary to build new developments. After all, who wants to buy a new home built in the flicker of wind turbines?

Madison.com Excerpt:
Campaign contributions may also have played a role. Records compiled by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign show Walker received $750,833 from the construction industry and $427,629 from Realtors through Oct. 18, 2010. "The two special interests who like the anti-windmill bill gave him nearly $1.2 million during his run for governor," notes WDC research director Mike Buelow.

But I have to give Walker a bit of credit here because he played it as good as he could for his contributors. Walker offered his favored construction sprawl builders the 1,800 ft. setback (about 1/3 mile) under the pretense of protecting personal and property rights for returning authority to local jurisdictions to over-ride the state setback rule. What I don't get is why Walker wants to snuff out 11 wind projects already on the books when they could have been grandfathered in to lower industry resistance against his proposal.

Personally, I hate it when the personal and property rights I support coincides with the position of pro-sprawl builders. It's a lose-lose situation either way for the quality of life. This is one of those rare instances where the enemy of my enemies is still not my friend.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Walker snuffing out the 11 wind projects already on the books is his favor towards the fossil fuel industry. By shutting it all down now, his fossil energy contributors get a reprieve from competition for the next decade or two.

Lou Kaye said...

Promoting fossil fuels and sprawl. That sounds about right for Walker. Again, I find it a shame that he is able to triangulate this issue with protecting property rights when I believe he could care less personal or private property rights while Wisconsin is "open for business."

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