The Snohomish County PUD Commission, in voting Tuesday to take a neutral position on Initiative 937, has shown a remarkable lack of leadership at best, if not a complete lack of courage and understanding. You can bet leadership of this sort would never have taken us to the moon. For that matter, how well do you think it would have worked if John Hancock and his pals had taken a neutral position on independence?
I-937 is the clean energy initiative that will be on the ballot in November. It will require utilities like the PUD to get 15 percent of their total capacity from renewables like solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and biofuels.
The Wednesday letter, “I-937: An environmental nightmare for state,” had one thing right in its rant against visionary leadership: We can’t afford any more blunders. The PUD recently won a five-year-long battle with Enron that wouldn’t have been necessary but for the ill-advised long-term, high-rate contracts they signed in 2001. There were four of them, one of which I’m told cost the PUD $59 million to break.
I-937 is a step in the right direction. Whether it is global warming or resource depletion on your mind, it will be through a greater reliance on renewable energy sources and greater efforts at conservation that the solutions will be found. Through an increased emphasis on research and development in renewables like solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and biofuels, we can reduce our reliance on foreign oil.
Or we can do what the writer of the Wednesday letter would apparently have us do: burn more coal, and maybe restart WPPSS
Under the “leadership” of PUD Commission President Kathy Vaughn, the PUD has decided to lead by standing aside. PUD rate payers deserve better leadership than that!
Jackie Minchew
Everett
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