Renewable Energy Project Siting Improvement Act of 2004
RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECT SITING IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2004 -- (House of Representatives - June 15, 2004)
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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4513, the Renewable Energy Project Siting Improvement Act.
This bill should really be called the Nonnegotiable Energy Project Siting Act. This is a gift to those who would like to gut the National Environmental Policy Act, wrapped in the green paper of renewable energy.
If the Republican leadership really cared about increasing renewable energy use in America, today we would be debating the extension of a renewable energy production tax credit, or a renewable portfolio standard or even national interconnection standards. Those are the policy priorities of the renewable energy industry, not gutting our national environmental laws.
Instead of taking up those policy priorities, the Republican leadership has decided instead to just take the public out of the process. H.R. 4513 would eliminate the requirement that any alternative other than not building the project be considered, and it limits the public comment period to just 20 days. 20 days is an inadequate amount of time for the public to respond to complicated energy projects like hydroelectric dams and waste incineration, which are included in the bill's broad definition of "renewable energy project." This bill says to sportsmen and Indian tribes that their comments on potentially harmful dam projects don't matter. This bill says to parents that their comments on plans to build dirty waste incinerators next to their children's schools don't matter.
This is a Republican solution in search of a problem. You'll hear a lot about wind energy today, but the fact of the matter is that 6374 megawatts of wind power have been developed under the current regulations. It is the start-stop nature of the renewable energy production tax credits under the Republican controlled Congress and White House that are making it difficult for developers to bring more wind energy online.
Democrats are ready to debate long-term production tax credits. Democrats are ready to debate a national Renewable Portfolio Standard. Democrats are ready to debate interconnection standards. But instead the Republicans just want to eliminate public involvement in energy projects that impact their families.
I urge my colleagues to vote against this misguided bill and preserve the public's right to comment on energy projects-renewable or not-that impact their families.
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