The two-year, $68 billion budget proposal Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker unveiled Tuesday includes a request for $250,000 to study the health impacts of wind turbines.
Page 449 of the budget proposal includes a recommendation from the governor “directing the commission to conduct a study on wind energy system-related health issues.” The request states that a report should be submitted to the governor and legislature within a year after the budget goes into effect.
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“All peer-reviewed studies to date indicate using the wind is a safe way to generate electricity, far safer for human health than other forms of electricity production, such as coal,” Tyler Huebner, executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, told HuffPost. “If approved and funded, this study should be specifically designed so that the results would be acceptable to the appropriate peer-reviewed science or medical journal. That way, this study would meaningfully expand the body of knowledge on wind and health.”
Others were more skeptical of the governor’s motives. Chris Kunkle, the regional policy manager for the pro-wind group Wind on the Wires, said the study proposed in the budget is “just another example of Gov. Walker’s targeting of an industry that is incredibly successful in largely every other state in the Midwest.”
