Model Municipal Ordinance Project Designed to Facilitate Wind and Solar Projects and Green Buildings

Soaring oil prices and the reality of climate change have underscored the heed to reduce U.S. fossil fuel dependence by improving energy efficiency and by developing and expanding renewable sources of energy. The International Energy Agency declared in 2010 that [i]ncreasing energy efficiency, much of which can be achieved through low-cost options, offers the greatest potential for reducing CO2 emissions over the period to 2050. Furthermore, increasing our reliance on renewable resources such as wind and solar energy is not only a prudent measure in helping America to improve its energy security, but is a necessary component of a basket of measures that must be employed in order to limit atmospheric CO2 to a concentration that would avert the most damaging climate change. Presently, wind and solar energy account for only around one percent of the U.S. electricity supply. Yet the Department of Energy projects that as much as twenty percent of America\u27s electric power could be generated from wind energy alone by the year 2030