U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., is leading a bipartisan group of senators in pressing the Obama administration's top energy official to increase funding for distributed wind energy projects.
In a letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Franken, along with Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Jon Tester, D-Mont., Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Tim Johnson, D-S.D., urged the Department of Energy to increase investments in renewable energy technologies like distributed wind systems.
"We are writing to express our strong support for distributed wind power systems, which generate clean energy, create job, and stimulate local economic development," wrote the senators. Later they added, "Distributed wind power systems, spanning a wide variety of applications across communities, businesses, and farms and ranches nationwide, clearly have the potential to contribute many gigawatts of electricity similar to other renewable technologies. Moreover, the distributed wind power industry appears to be at the threshold of rapid commercialization."
Sen. Franken, who is Chairman of the Senate Energy Subcommittee, has been a strong advocate for clean energy technologies, such as solar, wind and bio-based energy. He helped author the energy section of the Farm Bill, and in 2012, he and colleagues successfully pressed for an extension of the wind production tax credit.
The full letter is available here.
