“Three years ago, John B. Rhodes, the chairman of the New York Public Service Commission, insisted that his state’s renewable-energy permitting process was not stacked against rural communities. During a 2017 meeting of the Independent Power Producers of New York in Saratoga Springs, Rhodes declared that the state’s siting procedure is “not a stacked process and no, not under this governor are we going to force people in a police-state mode to do anything.”
Contrast Rhodes’ 2017 statement with what happened earlier this month. On June 3, the New York State Siting Board – with Rhodes serving as the chairman — voted unanimously to allow Chicago-based Invenergy to build the 340-megawatt Alle-Catt wind project in western New York. The Siting Board did so despite objections from the towns of Freedom and Farmersville, both of which have been fighting the project for months. The wind project will include 117 turbines each standing approximately 600 feet high, and will sprawl across 30,000 acres in Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Wyoming counties. If built, it will be the largest wind project in New York and the largest one in the northeastern United States. “
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Bryce, Robert. Forbes 25 June 2020.