Sen. Harry Brown, who last year received $4,000 in campaign contributions from anti-wind energy billionaires, the Koch Brothers, has filed a bill that would cripple the wind energy along the North Carolina coast.
The Onslow County Republican yesterday filed Senate Bill 377, the “Military Base Protection Act,” which would prohibit wind farms in areas that could present a high risk for military training exercises. Based on Department of Defense maps, the bill essentially outlaws wind farms within 100 miles of the coast — a prime area for wind energy.
Sens. Paul Newton, a former Duke Energy employee, and Norm Sanderson are the other primary co-sponsors of the bill.
Brown and other coastal wind energy opponents say wind turbines present an unacceptable risk to the military and could jeopardize the state’s bases in the next round of base closings. However, the Department of Defense Site Clearinghouse reviews all energy project proposals that could interfere with military missions, and works with states and energy companies to mitigate potential problems.
Federal law states that the Defense Department “may only oppose development of an energy project when impacts cannot be feasibly and affordably mitigated, and may significantly degrade or impair military operations.”
However, at least one military base, Otis Air National Guard in Massachusetts, has built its own independent microgrid using a wind turbine, solar energy and battery storage.
No military crashes have been reported with wind farms as the cause. In 2014, a Piper civilian plane crashed in South Dakota near a wind farm, but the FAA attributed bad weather, including dense fog, as the cause. In 2008, a Cessna crashed near a wind farm in Minnesota during bad weather. Federal investigators determined the pilot didn’t have the proper instrument training to fly in those conditions.
If it becomes law, the legislation would not affect the 104-turbine Amazon Wind Farm, which has operated in Perquimans and Pasquotank counties in northeastern North Carolina since 2017. That same year, Brown at the last minute inserted language into a clean energy bill that established an 18-month moratorium on new wind farms. The measure was controversial, and nearly hijacked months-long negotiations among Duke Energy, lawmakers and the clean energy sector. The bill eventually passed and became law. The hiatus expired on Dec. 31, 2018.
According to 2018 campaign finance reports, Koch Industries, which is run by the Koch Brothers, contributed $4,000 to Brown’s campaign. The Koch Brothers have made their fortune in fossil fuels.
Although the Trump administration has said the next closings could occur in 2021, that is speculative. Congress often opposes the closings, known as BRAC for short, to protect bases in their home districts.
Nonetheless, the Trump administration has several renewable energy opponents among its ranks. Christine Harbin, a senior adviser for external affairs in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, came from Americans for Prosperity, a longtime foe of renewable energy. According to DesSmogBlog, which coves climate science, in 2012, Harbin organized Koch Brothers-backed groups to send an anti-wind letter to Congress asking federal lawmakers to end wind production credits.
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.
