The Iowa Legislature has an opportunity to help keep renewable energy profits in our rural areas rather than have outside investors extract resources and profits from those areas. SF 355, the C-BED (Community-Based Economic Development) bill, will support community and local ownership of wind energy resources. This legislation will help provide long-term, reasonably priced electricity while also protecting consumers from spikes in fuel costs.

In Minnesota, C-BED has generated nearly $1 billion in proposed economic development fairly quickly, according to the Iowa Farmers Union. IFU also points out that C-BED projects are typically financed with local area banks. C-BED projects keep a higher portion of construction and operational expenditures within the local and regional area, and they keep more dollars per KWh circulating in local and regional communities.

Major in-state and out-of-state utility and energy corporations are busy monopolizing wind resources all over Iowa. Their lobbyists will be pressuring Iowa House and Senate members, and leadership, to kill this bill. We should not allow this to happen. Renewable energy should be a resource whose benefits go to those who need them most: rural Iowans and rural Iowa communities.

Patrick Bosold

Fairfield