Wind farm bill in lonely limbo

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And then there was one.

A bill imposing a moratorium on electricity-generating windmills near the U.S. Naval Air Station Patuxent River base remains the only piece of legislation passed by the General Assembly this year that has not been signed or vetoed by Gov. Martin J. O’Malley.

Nina Smith, an O’Malley spokeswoman, said Thursday that “the governor has not announced a decision as of yet.”

O’Malley held the last of four scheduled bill signing ceremonies Thursday. Smith said no other ceremonies are anticipated. In all, the governor vetoed nearly 150 of the 811 bills sent to him for his signature — every bill but House Bill 1168 has had its fate decided.

The bill, passed overwhelmingly in both the House of Delegates and Senate, prohibits a windmill of any size in a zone that stretches 24 miles east of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. Beyond 24 miles, the windmill can be 100 feet tall, and the height limit gradually increases to 700 feet for locations 49 miles from the base.

The bill also prohibits the Maryland Public Service Commission from issuing permits before June 30, 2015, for the 25 windmills that are part of the Great Bay Wind Energy Center proposed for Somerset County until studies can be completed on the effects the windmills would have on specialized, classified radar equipment used across the Chesapeake Bay at the Patuxent base.

“We remain hopeful that the governor will veto this legislation and not give in to the misinformation from opponents of clean energy,” said Adam Cohen, vice president of Austin, Texas-based Pioneer Green Energy, developer of the proposed Somerset project. “We believe that existing federal and state laws provide extensive protection for PAX River, making this legislation unnecessary.”

The highly politicized bill was delivered to O’Malley on April 24. O’Malley, by law, has 30 days to veto the bill. If he does not, the bill will automatically become law.

“Certainly we would have liked to have seen it (vetoed) before today,” said Tommy Landers, policy director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

O’Malley has made renewable energy a focus of his administration. Supporters of the proposed Great Bay Wind Energy Center say a moratorium, even a short one, will kill the project and have a chilling effect on other investors who might be considering Maryland.

At the same time, O’Malley also must deal with the politics of the issue and support for the moratorium coming from friend and political ally Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md.

Hoyer came to Annapolis earlier this year to testify in favor of the bill before a Senate committee.

During that testimony, Hoyer told legislators that construction of the windmills in Somerset County would interfere with the highly sensitive and unique radar system. The delay in permitting would allow for completion of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology mitigation study paid for by the Navy.

Allowing the windmill facility to interfere with the radar system could result in the Navy moving operations at the station to another state in any future round of federal military base consolidation, according to Hoyer.