Jeff Bingaman: “I reluctantly rise to speak against this amendment. I do so for some very basic and sound reasons. I will just mention a…”

“I reluctantly rise to speak against this amendment. I do so for some very basic and sound reasons. I will just mention a few of them. No. 1, this amendment moves in the exact opposite direction of the legislation that is before us. I have been working with Senators Domenici and Alexander and others on the committee to develop a piece of legislation that would provide for the energy future of the country, would encourage domestic development of energy from all sources, all available sources. We are encouraging development of clean coal, natural gas, nuclear power, oil resources, hydrogen technology, renewable fuels, electricity; and in each case, we have tried to simplify the process that a person or applicant has to go through in order to develop these resources and meet the needs of the country, as we see them. We have also put incentives in this bill so as to further the development of these resources. This amendment, with regard to wind power, does just the opposite of that. It raises obstacles, and it says that we are going to make it more and more difficult for people to proceed with development of wind power projects. How does it do that? It goes through and it says we are going to, first of all, designate what we call highly scenic areas.…”