AWEA - Swimming upstream for wind: Denise Bode

Bode is America's leading wind energy advocate and all the conversations she's hearing in Cancun are about exciting wind power projects across the globe - except in America.

Mindy S. Lubber, the president of environmental nonprofit Ceres, refers to AWEA CEO Denise Bode as being "like a salmon swimming up a dam-laden river" in a column for today's Huffington Post.

It's an unusual image, but an apt one from Ms. Lubber's perspective at the international climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, where it is becoming clear to observers that the United States is being overtaken by other countries in the global race for new clean-energy industries and manufacturing jobs.

Says Ms. Lubber, "Bode is America's leading wind energy advocate and all the conversations she's hearing in Cancun are about exciting wind power projects across the globe--except in America," where energy policy gridlock has been weighing down an industry that chalked up a world-record year for new equipment installations in 2008.

Just how far that gridlock extends has been underscored this week, with the omission of expiring tax credits for wind power and solar energy from a major tax package now being put together by the Administration and Congress.

Bode was on Capitol Hill an hour ago for a press conference with Members of Congress, environmental groups, and renewable energy advocates, pressing the case for extension of the credits--still "swimming for wind energy."


By Tom Gray, www.aweablog.org/