Oregonian - Cantwell Touts Wind's Effects on Economy

Oregonian - Cantwell Touts Wind's Effects on Economy

VANCOUVER -- The Port of Vancouver's expertise in receiving wind turbine components is helping jumpstart a new economy that could reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil and transform Americans into "energy leaders, not energy laggards," U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell said Monday at the Port.

Cantwell, D-Wash., met with Port officials and longshoremen on a statewide tour to highlight how innovation is creating jobs in Washington. She spoke at Terminal 2 against a backdrop of a 129-foot wind turbine blade manufactured by Vestas Wind Systems of Denmark and shipped through the Port.

Components for 127 wind turbines are passing through the Port this summer and fall, headed for the Wild Horse wind power farm near Ellensburg. The project, owned by Puget Sound Energy, is the fourth Vestas project for the Port, which also handled components for two other Washington wind farms.

"We're making new jobs through renewable energy and lowering energy costs to boot," Cantwell said. "We can't remain addicted to oil."

More projects on the way

The state's wind resources will help expand the job market, she said.

"We want to keep America working, and we can show them in Washington state how it's done," Cantwell said.

Moving the Wild Horse components has created 28,000 hours of work for longshoremen, and the port plans to hire another 30 workers for it and other projects, said Larry Paulson, Port executive director.

The Port anticipates moving components for three more such projects in each of the next two years, Paulson said. Prompted in part by the turbine traffic, the Port in May bought a $3.2 million, 140-metric-ton heavy lift crane to move the massive components, he said.

Once the 230-megawatt Wild Horse farm is completed at the end of the year, it will power 73,000 Puget Sound-area homes at a rate 25 percent lower than a natural gas plant and 5 percent lower than a coal-fired plant, saving Washington residents an estimated $260 million over 10 years, Cantwell said.

Construction of the wind farm has provided 250 local jobs and brought $240 million in capital investment to Kittitas County, said Debbie Strand, executive director of the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County. It will provide 20 permanent family-wage jobs and, as the county's largest single taxpayer, reduce homeowners' property taxes, Strand said.

Benefits of wind tax credit

Brad Clark, president of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union Local 4, said his membership would support Cantwell in the November election.

Cantwell, a member of the Senate Energy Committee, helped push through Congress a two-year extension of a production tax credit for wind energy, which helped seal the current Vestas deal and provide jobs at the Port, Clark said. The credit was to expire on Dec. 31, 2005.

The extension provides a 1.9 cent per kilowatt hour tax credit to the wind farm owner -- which passes the savings to ratepayers -- for electricity generated with turbines over the first 10 years of a project -- a break that has been crucial to wind farm development, port officials said.
Energy - The industry creates jobs at the Port of Vancouver and elsewhere, the senator says

Cantwell said she also has proposed a bill for the development of clean energy that would ensure the tax credit until 2015. The lengthy extension would provide more predictability for investment and allow the wind power industry to grow, she said.

http://www.cantwell.com/news/article/view/?id=74