Where the Bully Winds Blow

New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s renewable-energy plan will require forcing small towns to build turbines against their will.

December 1, 2016

Infrastructure and energy
New York

On the surface, the fight over renewable-energy siting in western New York looks hopelessly mismatched. Governor Andrew Cuomo—the scion of a Democratic political dynasty and the leader of a state with nearly 20 million residents—is pushing a scheme that will require the state’s utilities to derive 50 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2030. Cuomo’s highest-profile opponent is Dan Engert, the Republican supervisor in the Niagara County town of Somerset—population 2,700. Last year, Engert won a third term by garnering about 400 votes. So, yes, Cuomo versus Engert looks like a mismatch. But here’s a tip: don’t bet against Engert and his allies.

Achieving Cuomo’s “50 by 30” goal will require inflicting hundreds of 600-foot-high wind turbines on numerous towns and counties in western New York. Engert is Cuomo’s antagonist in the fight over a proposed 200-megawatt project called Lighthouse Wind. The fate of the Lighthouse project, which will cover about 20,000 acres on the shores of Lake Ontario, could determine the fate of Cuomo’s entire renewable scheme. The project will be the first contested land-use case involving Article 10, the New York State statute that, in theory, gives local municipalities a say in renewable-project siting. Three upstate counties—Erie, Orleans, and Niagara—as well as the towns of Yates and Somerset, are all fighting the project, which is being pushed by Virginia-based Apex Clean Energy.

Article 10 gives a seven-member board the authority to decide where renewable-energy projects will be located. Two seats go to representatives from the affected region. The other five are filled with Cuomo appointees. If the siting board ignores the objections of Somerset, Yates, and the three counties, and approves the Lighthouse project, the decision could pave the way for additional Big Wind projects, all of which would be needed to meet Cuomo’s renewable goal. In July, the New York Independent System Operator estimated that meeting Cuomo’s 50-percent target will require another 3,500 megawatts of onshore wind-energy capacity. That means adding 17 projects the size of Lighthouse Wind. In addition, the NYISO estimates New York will have to install nearly 10,000 megawatts of new solar capacity—an amount roughly equal to the existing solar capacity of Spain and Australia combined. Where does Albany plan to put all those renewable-energy projects? In rural areas, of course.

Engert, a thickly muscled man who sports a close-cropped crew cut, is by day the deputy chief at the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office. He says the Article 10 process has stacked the deck against small towns like his. Cuomo is treating “upstate New York like we are second-class citizens,” Engert said. The Lighthouse Wind project “is not wanted by more than 75 percent of the residents of this community . . . . The will of this community is unquestioned.” But Apex, he said, is “hellbent on ramming a project through here despite the loud message we have sent which is that ‘your project is not wanted here, it’s not needed here.’”

Cuomo’s renewable-energy push is “a massive land grab on the part of Albany,” says Dennis Vacco, the former New York attorney general, who has been hired by the town of Somerset to represent it. When I spoke to Vacco a few weeks ago about the Lighthouse project, the anger in his voice was obvious. “The wind industry is engaged in a war of attrition against local governments,” he said. “The wind developers have all the money. They get all the tax credits. But they create effectively no jobs.” … READ MORE HERE