937 is an unnecessary government mandate that is going to increase your utility bill. So vote no on I-937. I say this upfront because not everybody reads articles completely. No matter what else you read about I-937, remember this: If I-937 passes, we all will pay for it.

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.

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.

Cap-and-trade schemes could hurt families and send jobs overseas The recently passed U.S. House bill to create a cap-and-trade system to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions threatens to hurt families and send jobs out of the country, argues Washington state Rep. Shelly Short, R-Addy. In Washington state, the definition of 'green jobs' is ill defined.

As for a suggested inconsistency by our locally elected permitting authority, Mr. Killian might care to read the public record on the Vantage Wind Project and see that any resident who may have had a concern about setbacks was satisfied with the project as designed. Our commissioners have been very consistent throughout the last six years of wind project permitting process. If concerns and/or objections were raised by the public, mitigations were explored - publicly. To date, the commissioners' only "hard" setback requirement was what is considered the "safety setback" that is determined by the turbine manufacturer. In the Kittitas Valley Wind Power project and the Desert Claim Wind Power Project, the overwhelming response by residents that would be affected was that they wanted greater setbacks due to impacts documented in the record. And in fact, most residents wanted 1 mile setbacks like most of Europe specifies; but the commissioners only suggested 2,500 feet. And even then, the commissioners stated that exceptions would be entertained.

Eight years ago, when my wife and I bought a 28-acre farm on the serene and beautiful Tucannon River near Dayton, we had no idea we were in the crosshairs of wind tower developers. Later, despite being told we would not see the towers, we now look out our dining room window at 43 wind turbines. About 14 miles northeast of Dayton, where Highway 12 crosses the Tucannon River, you start to see the desecration that the wind projects have wrought.

GOV. Christine Gregoire just allowed an unelected commission known as the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) to preempt a local land-use decision by the Kittitas County Board of Commissioners. The issue of siting huge wind-turbine installations has been a bit under the radar screen in Western Washington, but the governor's action should raise alarms all over the state. ...No matter which side of the wind-farm issue people may be on, the precedent-setting actions of EFSEC and Gregoire should be anathema. The issue is as much about state authority (or the lack thereof) over county governments as it is about siting some misbegotten wind turbines.

It’s not a matter of what party is right, or more passionate, but whether the projects are in the right place. The Kittitas County commissioners decided the Kittitas Wind Power Project, as proposed by Horizon, is not compatible with surrounding land uses.

Economic viability is not a criterion for determining setbacks in siting an energy facility. Setbacks should address only identified public health, safety and individual property rights impacts. The setbacks are inadequate as currently designed. The project is being proposed in the wrong location.

This whole EFSEC process has only shown how totally corrupted the siting of energy facilities has become in Washington state. If Gov. Gregoire wants to really show that "local sentiment about this project is just as important to her as it was for the Wild Horse Project," then a good first step would be to deny the KVWPP as designed and then appoint a new EFSEC chairperson that will not accept the role of mouthpiece for any special interest business group that may want to make an obscene amount of money on the backs of non-participating land owners. If this project is the precedent for siting renewable energy projects in the future, no one will win. Litigation will become the norm and commercial wind power will become even more economically unviable - if that is even possible.

The EFSEC hearings were a rubber stamp process because to my knowledge none of the EFSEC members other than the presiding officer asked any questions in the hearings. ...I feel a more important issue was that the EFSEC process violated the Washington State Growth Management Act which has local government settling growth issues. The state should stay out of it.

EnXco, one of two unscrupulous commercial wind power developers who are attempting to despoil the west end of the Kittitas Valley, is back in the county. They recently placed a full-page ad in the 4th of July Daily Record supplement implying they were a member of the community and positioning themselves as "one of America's premier wind energy companies." ...To set the record straight, a member of the community does not circumvent local land-use authority for the permitting of wind energy projects by asking unelected state EFSEC bureaucrats to pre-empt our elected commissioners' decision to reject their project as originally designed. A member of the community does not knowingly impact his neighbors under the guise of "helping" the larger community when in fact the real purpose is to further their own profits.

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.

Setback requirements are a protection of the public health, safety and individual property rights - not a yardstick of a project's economic success. The people who have the most experience with commercial wind power today are the Europeans. They are saying that a minimum of one mile from residences and any turbine should be imposed to protect the public. But the bigger issue here is that our locally elected officials denied the project as designed and the governor believes she should override local land use authority based on how much more money Horizon can make.

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.

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.

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."

If voters approve Initiative 937 in November, your utility bills will go up. That's enough reason to vote "no" on I-937, but the mandates in the initiative also are unnecessary for Washingtonians to enjoy clean, renewable energy. Here's why.

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?

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.