You've probably flown over Fire Island dozens of times. It is about three miles southwest of Anchorage, just off the runway at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. Now big changes for the island may be blowing in the wind. Native corporation Cook Inlet Region Inc. announced today it wants to start a wind farm.

JUNEAU -- Lawmakers proposing to use $24 million to place windmills on Anchorage's Fire Island are facing opposition from at least one electric company that says such state money would be better spent for more pressing needs.

Leaders in a blustery Western Alaska city have stopped studying wind energy as a power source. The problem? Too much of it. Unalaska, a city of 4,300, seems tailor-made for the alternative energy. It’s situated in the Aleutian Islands, called the Birthplace of Winds. Powerful tempests brew there when frigid Siberian air collides with much warmer air above Pacific waters, producing major storms striking the West Coast, meteorologists say.

Kodiak Electric Association’s wind generation project is taking steps toward a naturally driven resource that could move the power company away from the high cost of diesel fuel. Results of a 10-month study on wind data were analyzed in August and showed KEA is in a favorable position to use wind atop Pillar Mountain. Darron Scott, KEA chief executive officer, said Wednesday the power company’s wind rank is a 7 on a scale of 1 to 8. “That gives us a good wind regime to work with,” Scott said.

WASHINGTON - Inside the Beltway, he's made his name as a champion for tapping oil resources in his own state - and for telling the federal government to butt out.