But we can't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, the state should be taking steps to indemnify itself against the possibility, however remote, of "ghost wind farms" - sprawling graveyards with 30-story tombstones in the event a developer or the technology fails.

It was with a great measure of trepidation that I watched George Smitherman introduce the much vaunted Green Energy Act (Bill 150) in the legislature last week. It only got worse. As I read the Bill, visions of Orwell's Big Brother danced in front of my eyes. The Liberal government has managed to take the same action we did - making it easier for private sector risk takers to invest in Ontario - and use that to completely undermine a competitive market for energy in Ontario.

Ontario's Green Energy Act should more accurately be called Ontario's Gangreen Act. No piece of legislation in memory will do more to simultaneously undermine Ontario's economy and environment. This one act rolls back decades of environmental gains in the energy sphere and opens the door to a future of environmental outrages. ...The Green Act undermines the advance of conservation by making renewable energy, particularly wind power, the enemy of conservation.

But as Congress translates this grand plan into legislation, lawmakers should resist calls to add an extensive and costly new transmission system that would carry electricity from remote areas like Texas, the Great Plains and Eastern Canada to places with high energy demands like Boston, Chicago and New York. This idea is being promoted by energy companies and by elected officials who see it as an economic development opportunity for their particular state or region. Long-distance transmission lines are needed, they argue, to ensure that the president's energy goals are met. But there are better - and cheaper - ways to get more clean power flowing to the big cities. Renewable energy resources are found all across the country; they don't need to be harnessed from just one place.

The objective of the GEA, which turns Ontario's electricity market from a low-cost system to a whatever-it-costs regime, is allegedly to reduce the province's carbon footprint. But no carbon-reduction targets have been set or will ever be set, no doubt because it is highly unlikely any significant reductions will occur. It is a myth that solar and wind power have no carbon emissions, as news reports often say. The main policy vehicle for renewable power is a massive subsidy regime.

Premier Dalton McGuinty wasn't kidding earlier this year when he vowed that he wouldn't tolerate NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) when it comes to the province's green energy polices. His government's Green Energy Act, introduced last week, contains a section that would ...effectively place the burden of environmental assessment or proof on anyone who challenges a proposed "green" development. Environment assessments wouldn't be automatically required.

The Green Energy Act seeks to do away with any need for proper environmental assessments for renewable energy projects, strip all planning decisions from municipalities, silence citizens and give more power to the energy companies with the help of a new Energy Czar. Rural Ontario will be wide open for exploitation and local government will be have absolutely no say. This is greenwashing with a gun to your head.

Mr. McGuinty warned last month that he won't tolerate NIMBYism when it comes to wind farms unless objections are based on safety issues and environmental standards. This doesn't solve anything, however, as a new report yesterday by Environment Commissioner Gord Miller illustrated. The main point of the report is that the 183 species facing extinction or endangerment could be further threatened if the government doesn't bolster its new Endangered Species Act.

So now the state would electrify our mountains and turn the Berkshires into the Land of the Giant Turbines -- likely for the benefit -- if any -- of communities in Boston or Central Mass. This is a bad idea at best, with so many arguments against it that it's hard to know where to begin, other than to suggest that state Sec. of Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles be run out of state on a high-speed rail.

Their responsibility is that they will listen to the discord and harmony of public discourse and determine the right direction for our public good. To emphasize, we expect them to listen. However, it appears they are failing to meet that expectation. When Mr. Smitherman hosts a town hall meeting and fails to reflect a basic level of empathy with his constituents, telling them the plant will be built regardless of what they have to say, he fails our expectations to listen.

Stutsman County officials should not be cowed by a wind developer whose business model condones theft of wind rights or be misled by a state legislator. They are to be commended for trying to protect landowner rights and safeguard the reputation of a growing and beneficial wind industry. If only our Dickey County Commission, the North Dakota Public Service Commission and the Legislative Assembly would show similar leadership.

On Tuesday, Progressive Conservative energy critic John Yakabuski proposed it be sent to committee for analysis - as a much less complicated piece of energy legislation had in the past - so second-reading debate could be more informed and productive. Predictably, even a reasonable request got a sneering slap-down from Smitherman. "I do apologize to the member if the matter at hand has caught him off guard and it's too complex for him to be able to participate in the legislative debate," he said.

An equestrian subdivision and a 500,000-volt power line just don't mix. And, somewhat belatedly, Idaho Power Co. appears to have gotten the message. Company officials have redrawn the maps for the transmission line. At this point, none of their possible routes run near Parma. Score one, for the time being, for a small-town mayor who raised a big-time and much-justified ruckus.

Not surprisingly, wind companies from all over are lining up for a piece of the free money. Little citizens' groups have sprung up across the province to try to stop them from erecting 35-storey wind turbines in their backyards. But the Premier's energy minister, George Smitherman (a.k.a. The Enforcer), has declared that he will squash the NIMBYs like a bug. I have wind turbines coming to my backyard, too. I wouldn't mind - if only they made sense. If only they could really help us break our addiction to coal and oil, cut our emissions etc. But they can't.

Why is it that when he talked about the first of “the three areas that are absolutely critical to our economic future” and to our very “survival” — namely, energy — he invoked policies that will increase the economic burden on all Americans? ...Obama may be serious about creating millions of jobs for solar-panel installers and wind-turbine manufacturers. But that probably owes more to wanting to satisfy the demands of constituencies like organized labor. Whether Obama is truly serious about meeting America’s energy-supply challenges is another question.

Under the act, municipal governments would be stripped of their roles in approving power projects such as industrial wind turbine "farms." This would override moratoria on wind farm construction imposed in several Ontario municipalities, including South Algonquin and Killaloe, Hagarty and Richards townships in our area. It is hard to see the justification for such a hard-line measure, or for Premier Dalton McGuinty's wholesale labelling of those who have legitimate concerns about wind turbines in their areas as NIMBYS - the increasingly shopworn acronym for "not in my back yard."

Opponents of New York Regional Interconnect's scheme to force a 400,000-volt power line through our area had to be cheered last week when a federal court essentially ruled that the issue should be decided on a state rather than a federal level. The Fourth Circuit Court in Richmond, Va., struck down rules that would have allowed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve the power line.

Most provinces have moved to add more "green" energy to their power supply, but the $5-billion Ontario plan sets a new standard. The proposed legislation also sets province-wide guidelines for the location of energy projects and kills municipalities' power to block them. Wind farm opponents worry the new approval process will make it possible to push projects forward without the support of the surrounding community.

There is no doubt that, if we're going to build more central station wind, solar, or nuclear power plants, we're going to have to build more wire to get that electricity to consumers. But the price signals we're seeing in electricity markets suggests that building a small number of remote power stations with a lot of wire to get that power to market is less efficient than building a relatively large number of smaller, more accessible power stations with fewer long distance transmission lines.

Few things are as alarming as politicians who don't understand an issue suddenly deciding they do and then dictating to the rest of us how we will be permitted to respond. Say hello to Premier Dalton McGuinty and his faithful pit bull, Energy Minister George Smitherman, as they bully and blunder their way across Ontario on the issue of renewable energy.