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Archived Opinion

How much did legislators get from Duke?

To the Editor:

Those job killing North Carolina Republicans are at it again. The Republican General Assembly has cost North Carolina hundreds of jobs with the ill-conceived HB2 bathroom bill. Now 10 Republican legislators are asking the Trump administration to kill a big wind farm project that has been completed in the Atlantic.

A company has built a $400 million wind farm that can produce the equivalent energy for 60,000 homes in accordance with Navy specifications so as to be compatible with flight training and radar instillations. Amazon is planning to use the energy generated from the wind farm for a distribution center they are developing. Is stopping this project how Republicans promote business in North Carolina?

The legislators want the wind farm shut down and presumably dismantled. Their argument is that the turbines pose a threat to Navy pilot training. Apparently they feel that Navy aviators are unable to fly over or around the turbines. They also claim the wind farm was installed due to “ political correctness” imposed by the Obama administration. Both arguments are bogus. We need to develop more alternative energy sources, which currently support more jobs than coal mining.

Maybe the better question concerning the wind farm is how much the Republican legislators got in political contributions from Duke Energy?

Norman Hoffman

Waynesville