Our View - Wednesday

Allard off the fence

Leaving Sen. Salazar on the hot seat

We were glad to see Sen. Wayne Allard, after Monday’s visit to Fort Carson, coming out with his most definitive statement to date in support of the possible expansion of the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site. Allard again stressed the importance of trying to do this without using eminent domain, but he didn’t close the door on it altogether, suggesting in a letter to Army Secretary Pete Geren that a temporary moratorium be placed on the consideration of eminent domain. We think this makes sense.

Removing eminent domain as an imminent threat might help ratchet down the fear and the rhetoric a bit, lifting the shadow this controversy has cast over property owners in the area and giving an opportunity for cooler heads to be heard from. This would also give the Army the time it needs to study expansion further, make its case to the public and work with individuals and communities in southeastern Colorado on winwin solutions. The land acquisition phase of expansion is many steps down the road and probably years away. The studies and public process required before any action can take place might demonstrate that expansion is unnecessary. At this point, the nearly exclusive focus on eminent domain seems premature.

Allard’s opposition to a House amendment to a military construction bill, which was designed to block any Pentagon work on expansion, is also a welcome development. The pressure on Sen. Ken Salazar now builds, since his support for or opposition to the anti-expansion amendment could decide whether the idea dies a premature death or survives long enough to get the more thorough airing it deserves.

Opposing the amendment isn’t an endorsement of expansion. It just buys the Army time to make its case and put together a plan that can create win-wins for ranchers and soldiers. Salazar’s reluctance to be stampeded takes political courage, since it has the potential to get him crosswise with rural folk with whom he has a strong affinity.

We aren’t any closer to endorsing expansion than Salazar is. But we believe the option deserves to be more thoroughly explored before we close the door on something that might be good for Fort Carson, for Colorado and for national security. That’s what we expect senators to do.

The real test of political courage will come farther down the road, if the plan actually gets traction and eminent domain is needed to secure parcels from owners unwilling to sell at any price. Categorically removing the use of eminent domain from the table raises a very high bar for the Army to meet: so high, in fact, that it could doom the plan. But expansion of a military training area meets the traditional definition of a “public benefit,” for which these extraordinary powers might be justified.

Just because eminent domain can be used doesn’t mean it should be used. But we believe it sets a potentially bad precedent when politicians, playing to the passions of the moment, declare that eminent domain can never be used under any circumstances, since there are situations (hopefully, very rare ones) in which it can serve the larger good.

And this just might — might — be one of those cases.

Putting first things fifth

We oppose most of what’s in the energy bills awaiting Congress’ return from recess, because they favor mandates over markets, pie in the sky over practicality and are largely disconnected from reality. But it turns out they’re disconnected in a literal sense, too.

In a case of putting the renewable energy bandwagon before the horse, Congress might soon impose stringent renewable energy production quotas on every utility in the country without doing anything to clear the way for a major expansion of the electric grid. These one-size-fits-all mandates — which require every utility to generate 15 percent of power from wind, solar and other “renewables” by 2020 — are misguided on a number of levels. But without a concomitant expansion of the transmission system, and without the construction of conventional power plants to back up these intermittent energy sources, this amounts to a fool’s errand.

“You can build all the solar arrays or wind turbines in the world, but if you don’t have the transmission lines it does you no good,” Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for Edison Electric Institute, pointed out in a recent news story. Added Rob Gramlich of the American Wind Energy Association: “There is wide recognition in the wind industry that (lack of transmission) is our biggest long-term barrier.”

It takes about one year to construct a wind farm, but five to seven years, on average, to permit and build the transmission networks needed to carry wind or solar power to the grid, according to Greenwire, an environmental news Web site. And some transmission projects can take much longer, in part due to red tape, in part due to NIMBYism. The American Electric power line linking Virginia and West Virginia, for instance, took 16 years to permit and build.

Unless Congress does something to streamline the regulatory burdens on line builders, and to incentivize investment in new capacity (which is possible without subsidies), a federal crash program to boost wind and solar energy is even more likely to be a disaster.

Everyone in America demands reliable electricity, but no one wants the transmission lines running through their proverbial or literal backyards. NIMBYism has thus become a major hurdle to expansion of the grid. Overcoming this selfish and irrational mindset might present the most vexing challenge of all.

Washington is bursting with schemes for promoting renewables. But only two bills before Congress aim at modernizing our antiquated and overloaded grid. Neither of the bills has been included in the pending energy packages.

They say members of Congress are disconnected from the real world. This lack of foresight and common sense proves it.