“At the risk of sounding harsh, these gestures [by the American Bird Conservancy et al.] seem little more than the war’s defeated negotiating terms of surrender when, in reality, the industrial wind profiteers should be made to justify their existence. With tens of thousands of turbines placed in the U.S. and easily hundreds of thousands more to be placed until the business falls under its own weight, the onus is on industrial wind to prove its worth.”

Under the banner of the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), approximately seventy organizations have requested that Interior Secretary Sally Jewell “develop a Programmatic Wind Environmental Impact Statement to identify appropriate areas for wind energy development as well as areas where new projects should be avoided to conserve wildlife and sensitive habitats.”

The letter refers to studies which “have documented significant losses of birds and bats, including threatened, endangered and other protected species (an estimated 573,000 birds and 888,000 bats annually at 2012 build-out levels).…

“We ask that you deny any permit to LEEDCo for siting of 6-9 turbines in Lake Erie…. Sadly, it is extremely easy to refute and challenge the environmental guidance this project is putting before you. It is disappointing that this project has progressed even thus far.”

Many groups and individuals from OHIO and Canada and Europe, who care deeply about wildlife, birds, bats and habitat, have been communicating their concerns with the LEEDCo “Incubator” project proposed for 6-9 industrial wind turbines off the shores of Cleveland.

The signatories to this letter represent only a fraction of the sentiment about this proposed improper placement and immature concept of industrializing what is part of 20% of the world’s remaining fresh water reserves.

International Perspective: Ontario, Canada, has in place a precautionary PROVINCIAL offshore moratorium, and four others from Ajax, Pickering, Council of Scarborough, and the largest Conservation body in the province, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA).…

“The world of wind energy lobbyists, developers, and their ‘environmental group’ advocates is one in which up is down, black is white, loud is quiet, double talk is the lingua franca, and the U.S. Constitution does not apply.”

Testimony of Kevon Martis Concerning Sub. SB 58 & HN 302, Ohio Senate and House Public Utilities Committees, November 13, 2013.

I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to testify today. I have a BA in History from the University of Michigan. I have also served as the vice-chairman of the Riga Township planning commission as well as the vice-chairman of the Lenawee County Rural Land Use Committee. I lecture widely across the Michigan on wind-energy zoning matters. I have testified before the Michigan House Energy and Tech committee on energy policy and am a resource for legislators from both sides of the aisle.…

“It makes absolutely no sense to claim that we need an ‘all of the above’ energy policy to wean us from ‘climate damaging’ fossil fuel plants by subsidizing a source of energy that can only replace a small fraction of that fossil generation but at a snail’s pace and very high price.”

My name is Kevon Martis. I am the volunteer director of the Interstate Informed Citizen’s Coalition, Inc. We are a bipartisan non-profit based in southeast Michigan.

I speak today at the IER/AEA Wind Policy Luncheon on behalf of citizens living on the front lines of Production Tax Credit (PTC)-driven industrial wind development in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.

I will get right to the point: Why do we preferentially subsidize wind energy?

1. Is it to free the U.S. from Middle Eastern oil?