Well, it all got very complicated this afternoon on my show. It started calmly enough when Jim Lanard, Director of Strategic Planning for Bluewater Wind, joined me to discuss the wind project.

But later in the day, Delmarva Power threatened to litigate to stop the Public Service Commission staff preliminary recommendations. Seems they would lose market share in this deal and would not be able to control profits as easily if there were more than one game in town. Word, too, that Delmarva Power and NRG, the dirty little plant in our backyard and the big loser in this recommendation, are putting pressure on the Comptroller General Russ Larson, to abstain from voting which would derail the process.

Do you wonder what the real problem is here? NRG bought that plant from Delmarva Power. There would be no problem if NRG got the bid over wind and there would be no litigation. But this recommendation is the beginning of the end to the incestuous relationship between NRG and Delmarva Power. Then, consider that Conectiv owns Delmarva Power. These three companies are, and always have been, in bed together. They wield enormous political power. The good ole boys need to make sure that the only outsider in this process, Bluewater wind, doesn’t provide clean, renewable energy that saves billions of dollars in health and environmental costs not picked up by fossil fuel energy providers. Wind would take money out of their pockets. It’s big energy controlling big money at the public expense. And there’s a lot at stake. After all, what does this mean for their buddy NRG? What’s NRG’s future now? Cleaning up?

I hear legislators are scurrying about up at Leg Hall worried about their money supply from NRG and Delmarva Power. All you need to do is look at the campaign finance reports of every elected official in Delaware and you will find substantial “contributions” from the officers, directors and key employees of NRG and Delmarva Power. Think about it, other than developers, what other source of campaign money is there? So don’t expect your elected officials to act in your interests. There’s no cash in that.

They say 92% of incumbents get reelected in Delaware. Want to see that number drop? Just watch what happens if wind doesn’t come to Delaware.

Now the politicians in the pass-the-buck state are good at finding ways to keep their hands clean…but not this time. This could get ugly. And expensive. Maybe Governor Minner should follow the example of the governor of Rhode Island and bypass the process and just put the wind farm in. Oh wait, that would require guts and action. That won’t happen. So we may be looking at the possibility of a major overhaul of our political leaders…even right here in Sussex County. Now that’s real democracy.

Listen to Jim Lanard from Blue Water Wind, Merrie Street from Delmarva Power & Light, and Bill Yingling from Conectiv HERE.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Energy, Environment, Local Politics, Millsboro. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.