Nothing wrong with that.

But what are our tax dollars buying?

In Utah, $79 million is being spent on improving drinking water. School districts in Georgia are receiving $660 million. Nebraska received $1 million to maintain national wildlife refuges.

But what about Washington? In particular, will our tax dollars help build the Desert Claim Wind Power Project in Kittitas County?

The project has been a controversy since it began.

In 2005 Kittitas County commissioners rejected plans for a 120 turbine wind farm on 5,237 acres, to be built eight miles north of Ellensburg by the French-owned enXco. The county wanted a 2,500-foot setback from homes.

A year later, the company went over the head of county to the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC). They looked at a plan for only 90 turbines and decided in 2007 the company didn't need local approval to continue.

In February, the company revised the plan for the wind farm again increasing the number of turbines to 95, but claimed they reduced the number of homes in the county-required setback by 75 percent.

The company is not appearing to be a good neighbor.

Projections have the county receiving $1.6 million in annual tax revenue, 26 jobs after construction, and schools could receive $775,000 annually. That sounds good.

If built, the clean renewable 190 megawatts of energy would power 57,000 homes. That sounds great. But would the power be available to Washington state customers?

Puget Sound Energy is the largest utility in the state and recently agreed to sell all of its renewable electricity generated by wind farms to Southern California Edison. All the 1.1 million megawatts generated per year at Hopkins Ridge wind farm, in Columbia County, and Wild Horse wind farm, east of Ellensburg, are already sold to California.

Seems they too have a state law requiring a percentage of all their electricity be generated by renewable sources, just like us.

Would that happen with Desert Claim Wind Power Project? Would enXco sell it to California to make a profit on their $330 million investment? It would make sense. But would that leave Washington state utilities paying more to meet a similar legal requirement?

Perhaps the most troubling idea about the Desert Claim Wind Power Project is rumors about the state or federal government providing stimulus funding to help create jobs and more renewable energy.

We are not against either. We support both.

But if enXco is going to buy wind turbines, using American tax dollars, would they buy from China? Would our tax dollars be going to stimulate China's economy? Some in the industry say they are planning on buying from an Asian producer.

We hope they won't.

Katana Summit employs 121 people in Ephrata. They build the very same towers as being planned for Desert Claim Wind Power Project. According to company president Darrell Lehmann, they are already building towers for an enXco project in Indiana. But they have also had to lay people off due to a lack of wind turbines being purchased.

It would seem enXco should compare the costs of shipping turbines from Ephrata to neighboring Kittitas County, to shipping them from anywhere in Asia. The costs saving of shipping them from Ephrata would be huge.

But, more important is the idea of enXco not utilizing another company in the next county over.

If they are receiving stimulus dollars and plan to buy from Asia, let's hope our state and federal government officials catch on and require them to buy from American companies. Ones who were supposed to receive the help.

If they choose to buy from Katana Summit on their own, then there is hope they would be good neighbors.