Bill would penalize utilities for wind-generated electricity for Wyoming customers

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Bill would penalize utilities for wind-generated electricity for Wyoming customers

Heather Richards 307-266-0592, [e-mail]

@hroxaner

Updated 19 hrs ago

A bill proposed by six state lawmakers would charge utilities a penalty if they use wind or solar energy to provide Wyoming consumers with electricity.

If Senate File 71 were law, there would be six permissible resources for generating electricity for Wyomingites, including natural gas and coal. Wind and solar are not on the list, except for individual use.

Utilities would have a year to reach the first compliance milestone of the bill, in which each company would have to get 95 percent of its Wyoming-sold energy from the approved resources. ... The following year, 2019, companies must reach 100 percent compliance.

Under the bill, if electricity were generated by wind or solar in Wyoming to serve customers in the state it would come with a $10-per-megawatt-hour penalty. That penalty would be double the suggested tax hike on wind also under consideration this legislative session.

Same story, in the Billings Gazette:

Bill would penalize utilities for wind-generated electricity for Wyoming customers

[2naSalit]

1. Because they have coal mines and natural gas...

so a transition is not in their best interests... tax revenue is why they are screaming. Same is happening here in Montana, the legislature is clawing back all kinds of funds from state agencies due to the reduction of tax revenues from those industries... not that they were really paying a fair amount for what they take. We just got expanded Medicaid and now they want to end that, I guess, along with every other imaginable public good.

[LonePirate]

2. And Republicans accuse Democrats of over-regulating and over-taxing businesses?

[earthside]

3. Interference in the market place is always bad ...

... unless it is to enrich the already rich and powerful.

[NCjack]

4. This bill is Repukes picking "winners" and "losers". nt

[FBaggins]

5. Dumb idea... but also likely irrelevant

They export many times as much electricity as their total solar/wind production, so they don't have to cut anything in order to insure that Wyoming customers don't get their hands clean with solar/wind.

It's just a great big symbolic hug to the coal industry in the state.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. How fucking stupid is that?

[pscot]

7. Stupid enough to burn