I-937 requires that large electric utilities increase their use of renewable energy sources to account for at least 15 percent of their power by 2020. Sure, in an era of climate change fears, and a push for alternative energy supplies to wean us from our dependence on foreign sources it sounded like a step in the right direction. But I-937 had some serious and expensive flaws and the Legislature - with the waiting period for tinkering with an initiative over - is looking at ways to fix those problems.

The citizens of Washington recently passed I-937 which requires the use of narrowly defined renewable energy sources by utilities serving over 25,000 customers. PSE is required to build generating resources to meet this requirement. Never mind that the legislation effectively creates a government-mandated market for basically only one renewable energy source (commercial wind power); we should all be happy that Washington is a "leader in becoming energy independent" and we are also solving the world-wide problem of climate change. To accomplish this goal requires large amounts of capital - in fact, PSE needs to spend $5.7 billion on infrastructure in the next five years - more than the company was worth last October! But wait a minute, haven't we been told wind power is the cheapest, most cost competitive energy source available today?

Although AWB strongly supports all forms of renewable energy, we opposed the initiative because of its mandatory nature and because it will increase energy costs. The initiative does not count hydropower as renewable energy, despite the fact that hydropower is Washington's biggest source of renewable energy and produces no greenhouse gases. As a result, in order to meet the 15-percent threshold mandated by I-937, utilities in our state will be forced to sell our cheaper hydropower energy to California in exchange for more costly wind, solar and biomass energy.

A good place to start is with the passage of I-937. ...So, Mr. Pratt, don't bother asking PSE why your rates are so high, but instead ask your state legislators and Gov. Gregoire why they are so high. Answers you will not receive are that there is a lack of competition for commercial electrical power generation and that government has created and micro-manages artificial, mandated energy markets.

As the economy expands and the population grows, so does the demand for power. Even a cursory review of available options shows how few real choices we all have. For example, all our major hydropower sites are built, coal power is environmentally unacceptable (by Energy Northwest and many others), new nuclear in the region is still 20 years away, wind power is intermittent and expensive, solar power lacks output, tidal and wave power are undeveloped and environmentally suspect, and natural gas supplies are dangerously close to shortages. Any claims that the region can meet its future power needs with wind power and conservation alone are woefully misguided and overstated. As wind power developers we have first-hand knowledge of wind powers benefits and limitations. Shunning promising technologies like Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle without understanding them is the first step toward blackouts, sky high prices, and power-shortage panic like we saw in 2000-2001.

Asked this week about this summer's decision to preempt Kittitas County's rejection of the controversial Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project Washington Public Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland said it was an easy call. ...In recommending preemption of the Kittitas County decision in August, the siting council opined that proponents of the KV wind project had met most local land use requirements before county commissioners rejected it. Sutherland said the message constituents were sending to commissioners at the time was "if they wanted to continue in office politically, you're not going to allow these instruments. From the county's position, it was a political decision."

When Kittitas County approved the Wildhorse wind farm, Gregoire said the project would be the model for future projects because they have local government and citizen approval. She apparently changed models and lied to her constituents. Her decision places all counties' ability to make land-use decisions at risk. It reeks of totalitarianism, doesn't it?

Wild Horse was built in an appropriate location; an action which proves good faith and careful decision making on the part of our elected officials. Two unanimous decisions have been made by our commissioners to prevent wind installations in populated and economically viable regions of the western valley. The governor's action is unacceptable to those of us who own property, pay taxes, and participate in the local economy and county government. ...EFSEC will become the go-to bunch for every greedy energy company in the world. The citizen conduit to county authority will have been rendered useless by the emasculation of local leaders.

No one expects big infrastructure projects to drop in smoothly. From runways to sewer plants, these things often have negative spillover effects - traffic, noise or appearance. No one wants them. And while the nuisances may not be trivial, neither should they be determinative. While the downside impacts tend to be extremely local, the benefits generally extend well beyond the region. Politically, that creates a difficult dynamic. Local politicians have little to gain by supporting projects opposed by their constituents. And the diffuse benefit rarely translates to the kind of political pressure generated by those who are affected adversely.

Northwest ratepayers got a boost recently when Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., convinced the House Natural Resources Committee to agree that hydropower is a renewable energy resource. It was an important vote for ratepayers in general and for the many interests dependent upon the four Lower Snake River dams in particular. Some environmental groups are passionately in favor of breaching those dams. It will be more difficult when they - and perhaps the federal courts - have to factor in that dams are even "greener" than windmills and solar panels. "Hydropower is a clean, reliable and affordable renewable energy source that serves as a key component in our national environmental and energy policy objectives," McMorris Rodgers said. "It's about time Congress recognized that hydropower is renewable and emissions-free."

So you take a technology (commercial wind power generation) that generates electricity intermittently/inefficiently, and cannot be stored for use when needed. Next you force consumers to buy it (with the assistance of their tax dollars). Because there is still not enough money there to make it economically viable, due to added grid integration costs, you raise consumer power rates. AND then, after creating this mandated over-priced market for your product, you inform everyone of the need to spend billions of dollars more to transport the product to the consumers. Yeah, I would buy some lobbyists too. The final insult... ...is that the product being force-fed to everyone will not reduce green house gas emissions or reduce dependence on foreign oil. In fact, in some places this has been tried, it has increased it.

Dying is easy, they say in show business. Comedy is hard. Try reconfiguring an electricity generation and transmission system based largely on hydropower so as to accommodate wind power. Now that's hard.

The state's utilities, which are funded by ratepayers, are already seeking alternative energy sources because it's good business. The Pacific Northwest, with it's clean, inexpensive electric power created by the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, is the envy of the nation. Why then should it be necessary to approve Initiative 937, which mandates that the larger utilities in Washington state obtain 15 percent of their power from other clean, renewable sources? It's not. This state is already ahead of the nation.

Everyone, especially every energy company, loves renewable energy, but the conversion should occur as market conditions dictate, not forced by government in ways that lead to higher energy prices....... Another reason to reject I-937 is this glaring flaw: It does not include hydropower with wind and solar as a “renewable source.” It’s impossible to envision the inexorable flow of water through turbines at our state’s dams as anything but renewable.

Taking the wrong route to the right destination can ruin a trip. Which is why Washington voters should be wary of Initiative 937, a ballot measure that purports to steer the state toward a cleaner, cheaper power future based on wind. Ostensibly, the initiative is about all kinds of renewable energy, from biomass to ocean tides, but even advocates of I-937 concede it is primarily about wind.

But in this initiative, there’s clean energy and then there’s clean energy. Pushed by several environmental groups, I-937 excludes hydropower — made eminently renewable by spring rains and winter snowpack that melts and turns dam turbines on rivers across the state — as a qualifying source of power...... Let’s be honest. Washington has one of the cleanest energy profiles in the nation when it comes to green-house gas emissions from electricity generation. The state ranks third-best in pounds of carbon dioxide produced per kilowatt hour, just behind Idaho and Vermont, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 2002, the most recent year figures are available, Washington’s rate was half of California’s, one-fifth of Massachusetts’ and less than one-third of New York’s. Thank the state’s reliance on hydropower. At least 60 percent of Washington’s juice comes from dams.

This initiative is really about wind power. The initiative counts other renewables, such as biomass, solar and tidal power, but other approaches are less advanced. Bizarrely, I-937 leaves out a biggie. Hydropower — that hallmark renewable of the Northwest — doesn't count, except for efficiencies made at qualifying utility dams since 1999. That's right: Hydropower doesn't count as renewable energy in the initiative.

Why advocates want the return to the power of wind turning a blade is part environmental commitment and part attraction of the wind-farm industry to substantial federal subsidies. This is both the age of sail and the age of sale.

That leaves wind, solar, biomass and tidal power. While those technologies show promise and should be developed, any discussion about energy must include three simple words: location, tradeoff and costs.

"Renewable power mandates merely accentuate the inefficiency and cost premiums attached to so-called renewable power sources," said Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute. "If renewable power saved consumers money, created jobs, or carried any of the other economic benefits so frequently claimed by environmental activists, then government would not have to pass a law to force power companies to purchase it or consumers to buy it."