Abstract
The Obama Administration has consistently promised that green energy investments will jumpstart the economy and protect the environment. Just weeks after the President's first inaugural address, the 2009 America Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided the Department of Energy (DoE) with $167 billion for new grants and loan guarantees for clean energy projects, dwarfing is overall annual budget of $27 billion. The wind energy industry, dominated by multinational giants such as General Electric and Duke Energy, greatly benefits from these new investments. These federal policies presumed broad public support for a new green energy economy. Yet, national opinion polls often mask strong local resistance to the siting of renewable energy projects. Energy policy scholars have referred to this phenomenon as the "social gap" in energy planning (Bell et al. 2005, p. 461).