Rhode Island Right Divides Over Wind Farm
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Groups that in the past have embraced Governor Don Carcieri for his staunch conservatism are now turning against him over one of his signature issues—the proposed wind farm off Block Island.
Their opposition came one week after a personal appeal from Carcieri in a private meeting with him and his staff.
The meeting ended up pushing the Rhode Island Tea Party in the opposite direction, according to its president, Colleen Conley. She warns that the wind farm will saddle Rhode Islanders with higher electricity bills. “With the high unemployment and the recession, that is just not another hit that the people can take,” Conley told GoLocalProv.
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The Tea Party, which is fiscally conservative, has supported Carcieri in the past, Conley said. Indeed, in two terms as governor, Carcieri has stuck to his guns on lower taxes and spending. He has also won accolades from social conservatives for his outspoken opposition to abortion and gay marriage, breaking with the tradition of moderate Republicanism in the mold of John Chafee.
But now, fiscal and social conservatives who once rallied around Carcieri are finding themselves odds with him.
At a Tuesday press conference, Conley aired her misgivings about the wind farm, flanked by Larry Valencia, the head of Operation Clean Government, and William Felkner, president of the Ocean State Policy Research Institute, or OSPRI. All three had attended the meeting with the governor the previous week, according to Conley.
Conservatives have not always seen eye to eye with the governor, but never before has their criticism been so public or deep, one activist said yesterday.
“Fiscal and cultural conservatives—whether they are Republican or by ideology—have somewhat embraced the governor as one of their own. This is certainly the broadest rift in that coalition,” said Brian Bishop, a prominent property rights activist and research fellow at OSPRI. “There’s been no issue that the Right has been more at odds with the governor than this issue.”
The connections between Carcieri and conservatives run deeper than mere ideological affinity.
His wife, Suzanne Carcieri, sits on the board of directors for OSPRI, which is a free-market conservative group that claims the wind farm development will kill 1,000 jobs and cost Rhode Islanders—unless there is a 410 percent inflation in energy prices over 20 years.
Suzanne Carcieri is still on the board, Felkner said yesterday.
“Mrs. Carcieri has always been supportive of our role of providing a free-market perspective and our contributions to the debate process,” Felkner said. “That doesn’t mean she always agrees with that perspective. She just knows the value of having a vigorous debate and how it usually produces a better intellectual product.”
A sticking point for many is the fact that National Grid will be buying electricity from wind-farm developer Deepwater Wind at 24.4 cents per kilowatt, nearly three times the current retail rate of 9.2 cents per kilowatt. But Amy Kempe, a spokeswoman for Gov. Carcieri said that the first phase of the wind farm will deliver just one percent of the energy supply in Rhode Island. “It’s a very small increase in terms of their monthly bill,” she said.
She said the Ocean State could not pass up the opportunity to become a leader in a new off-shore wind power industry. “This is really a once-in-a-generation opportunity and Rhode Island is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this,” Kempe said. “We have the right resources. We have the right infrastructure. We have the right people.”
In Wind Farm Debate, Conservatives on the Side of Regulation
The wind farm was dealt a blow in March when the Public Utilities Commission, or PUC, rejected a contract between National Grid and Deepwater Wind. Carcieri is backing a bill that would bypass the PUC and allow four other state agencies to approve the contract.
Now, some small-government conservatives are siding with the PUC. “If we had our way, we’d dissolve the PUC tomorrow,” said Will Ricci, a board member of the Rhode Island Republican Assembly, which bills itself as the “Republican wing” of the Republican Party. “However, it just doesn’t smack of good public policy to have special laws created for a single company.”
Conley suggested the bill goes against everything the Tea Party stands for. “We look at it from an economic standpoint,” she said. “The Tea Party is all about fiscal responsibility, accountability, and transparency and all these issues are strewn across this bill.”
Spokeswoman: Governor Not Worried About Legacy
Kempe said Carcieri didn’t have a reaction to the public opposition from the Tea Party and OSPRI. “If an individual or a group disagrees with a public policy, that is their issue,” she said. “That’s not something we concern ourselves with.”
Kempe also said that the meeting between Carcieri and the three organizations was not an effort to persuade them to change their minds. “Absolutely not. It was not a request for support,” Kempe said. She said the purpose of the meeting was to clear up some misunderstandings and misinformation about the wind farm bill.
Kempe said Carcieri believes the wind farm is right for Rhode Island for a host of reasons—from energy independence to economic development. For Carcieri, she said this was a matter of public policy, not politics. “The governor does not think about legacy issues,” Kempe said. “He thinks about what is best for Rhode Island.”
