Billings Gazette: Guest opinion: Why hunters, anglers support Tester’s clean-energy bill
With national media dominated by BP’s cleanup effort in the Gulf Coast and images of dead fish and oil-fouled birds and beaches, advocates of a new domestic energy future have had little to cheer in recent months.
Outside of the hullabaloo of the BP fiasco, Sen. Jon Tester has found a bipartisan path forward for a clean-energy economy. The Clean Energy, Community Investment and Wildlife Conservation Act co-sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Tester and in the House by Dean Heller, R-Nev., provides a road map for developing clean energy from the public lands that comprise nearly 30 percent of Montana.
The bill would help to generate revenues for states and counties in areas where the leasing of public lands for wind and solar development occurs while also setting aside funds so that the federal government can more quickly permit wind and solar development. It would also require that water resources, special areas and critical fish and wildlife habitat are protected.
Since Jon Tester introduced Montana’s renewable-energy standard when he was still a state senator, Montana wind production has increased from less than one megawatt to almost 400 megawatts today with more on the way.
The bill would allocate 35 percent of revenues from leasing of solar and wind power to secure public access for hunting and fishing, mitigate the effects of development on fish and wildlife habitat, and allow for the protection of the most important fish and wildlife habitats.
