Wind Power--03/07/2008

Sent today to the Wilmington News Journal

Skipping Class

How well have our state legislators done in bringing dependably-priced energy to Delaware? They passed a bill two years ago to establish a process of requesting and approving bids, a process won by Bluewater Wind, and yet the contract is held up, on our legislators. Almost half of the state legislators have sponsored House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 38, which will end the delay.

One argument I hear is that the legislators who condone the delay is that they don’t know enough about the contract, since they did not attend the many public hearings in the past year and a half. This excuse doesn’t hold up. If your child misses a class, it is their responsibility to go back and get the notes—if not, they fail. The notes (minutes) from these public hearings are available, but the legislators who refuse to sponsor HCR 38 are too lazy to ‘do their make-up work’. What grade do they deserve?

Ask your representative and senator whether they support HCR 38. If not, ask them what they have done in the past two months to make up for their absences at last year’s contract hearings. If they have done nothing, in November give them a failing grade—they have earned it.

Not sent (too long for the News Journal)

This week brought the latest disgrace to this process, as Senate ‘leaders’ DeLuca and McDowell paid $35,000 of your money to bring a DC attorney as Grand Inquisitor of state employees from departments that ruled in favor of the Bluewater Wind contract, a contract that DeLuca and McDowell are fighting the public and their fellow legislators to kill. ‘Shoot the messenger’, anyone?

McDowell’s kangaroo court is a further waste of precious time and money, and the McCarthy-era grilling of our state employees is reprehensible, lobbyist-scripted politics at its very worst. This waste is largely the result of the 35 legislators’ failure to co-sponsor HCR 38 and demand the immediate end to the contract’s delay.