Legislators are tilting at windmills

This time, the Senate has passed a bill effectively outlawing wind power in most of North Carolina.

The reason (are you ready?): Homeland Security.

State Sen. Harry Brown of Onslow County, who introduced the measure, and his colleagues are desperately afraid the Pentagon is about to close down Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg and move them to, oh, Massachusetts or someplace like that.

So they want to make the Tar Heel State as military-friendly as possible.

And how does one do that? By banning wind farms -- arrays of wind-power turbines -- in the flight paths used by low-flying military aircraft during training exercises. Look at map, and those flight paths cover almost all of eastern and central North Carolina, plus a significant chunk of the mountain region.

Too bad, Hippie. Take your windmill somewhere else.

Notice, however, that Sen. Brown's bill does not likewise prohibit other tall structures in flight paths, such as radio or television antennas, cell or microwave towers or skyscrapers.

This is not hypothetical. Back in 1981, some will recall, an Air National Guard jet clipped a guy wire on the broadcast tower for Wilmington TV station WWAY and toppled it. (WWAY rebuilt its tower in a different spot.) TV towers are not prohibited under the law, though; only wind turbines.

One strongly suspects the whole "We don't want our bases shut down" business is an excuse, rather than an actual reason. Many Republicans in the legislators -- who have bent over backward to promote hydraulic fracking in this state -- seem to regard wind and solar power as somehow evil. Good ol' petrochemicals are the only power source that manly men should want or need.

This (may we humbly suggest yet again) is expensive folly. For economic and, yet, military security, our nation needs to draw its energy from a diverse array of sources. Wind power should certainly be part of this mix.

Wind turbines pose some local problems, but by most measurements, the pluses outweigh the minuses. Wind power is abundant and consistent, especially along the Tar Heel coast. Running wind turbines doesn't create greenhouse gases or other pollutants. Wind doesn't have to be pumped from unstable corners of the world, filled with terrorists, guerrilla fighters and two-bit despots intent on milking Uncle Sam for every penny they can.

Travel in Germany and other parts of Europe, and you'll see giant wind turbines gently churning away in the midst of placid fields. Rock-ribbed Republican farmers in America's Midwest are making money by allowing turbines amid their corn and soybeans.

Even Duke Energy has pledged public allegiance to wind power in a series of big print advertisements. One assumes that Duke's lobbyists will therefore be passing among state House members, telling them what a bad idea this de facto wind-farm ban will be.

In case the Honorables don't get the message, the voters should tell them, too.