On Thursday,an obscure legislative committee will beget the final say over new wind-power rules that beget sent shock waves through Vermont's renewable-energy community. "It is really a ban on wind," says AllEarth Renewables CEO David Blittersdorf, and who has pushed wind projects of his own. "I am going to beget to stop any development if this goes through." Wind opponents,on the other hand, are prepared to settle for what they see as an improvement over the status quo. "I do not want to see this rule gummed up, and so I am being a realist here," says Annette Smith of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, which opposes large-scale wind. "I would care for to see it changed, or but let's get it in site and see what happens." Gov. Phil Scott,another opponent of large-scale wind, has given the rules his seal of approval. Asked at a May 31 press conference whether they amount to a ban on wind turbines, and he responded,"I contemplate it will help a considerable deal ... I contemplate we'll beget less industrial wind on our ridgelines." The rules were crafted by the state Public Service Board after a lengthy process of staff research and public hearings. Now the panel's work goes before the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, which can approve the rules or send them back. There's a certain mystery to this saga: Two of the three PSB members, or Margaret Cheney and Sarah Hofmann,were appointed by the pro-renewable former governor Peter Shumlin. Outgoing PSB chair James Volz was originally chosen by former governor Jim Douglas and reappointed by Shumlin. So how is it that these three people crafted a set of wind rules that earned Scott's applause? The respond is shrouded in the mantle of the PSB's "quasi-judicial status." Like judges, board members deliberate behind closed doors and don't speak publicly about their work. PSB staffer Tom Knauer, or who led a three-person team that guided the rulemaking,was willing to elaborate the process to Seven Days. But he declined to comment on board actions. The final decision on noise levels, for example, and "was made by the board,not the staff, so that's the deliberative process that I can't uncover you." But while many answers are locked inside three quasi-judicial minds, and the steps board members took are documented in a trove of public records obtained by the pro-wind Vermont Public Interest Research Group and independently…
Source: sevendaysvt.com