WSJ editorial belies free-market principles

“The Journal normally opposes protectionism, free riding and costly renewable energy, but your editorial on electric transmission (“The Great Transmission Heist,” Nov. 8 ) endorses all three.” So says Lew Hay, Chairman and CEO of NextEra Energy, the nation's largest operator of wind farms, in a recent letter to the Wall Street Journal. The real heist, as Hay points out, occurs when utilities, in a classic anti-competitive move, block transmission lines that could carry clean, inexpensive wind power from wind-rich areas of the central U.S. to population centers in the East and South. Recommended reading.