A Kansas bill to sharply curtail the land available for wind turbines is splitting Republicans in the country’s fifth-largest wind energy-producing state.
“I don’t speak in hyperbole when I say this bill ends the renewable energy industry in Kansas,” Kimberly Svaty, a lobbyist for a renewable energy advocacy group that works across the Great Plains, told E&E.
Wind became Kansas’ biggest electricity source in 2019, providing about 41% of the state’s portfolio. The bill’s sponsor is State Senate Utilities Committee Chairman Mike Thompson, a retired TV weatherman, climate denier, and renewable energy critic.
If passed, the measure would be “the most wind-unfriendly legislation in the entire Wind Belt,” Dave Kerr, a former Republican Kansas Senate president, told E&E.
Sources: E&E $, AP, Topeka Capital-Journal, KCUR
Article courtesy of Nexus Media, a nonprofit climate change news service.
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