The latest BusinessWeek has a summary of how Google convinced a poor North Carolina county to pay $212 million in exchange for siting a server farm there — without even getting a guarantee of how long they would be there or how many locals they would employ. Poor suckers.

But wait. A few pages into the article there’s a table of recent corporate welfare handouts, topped by Washington’s $3.2 billion gift to Boeing in 2003 to site final assembly of the 787 in Everett. That deal surely played a part in improving perceptions of the state’s friendliness to business.

Of course you have to spend money to make money, especially in a globalized economy. But how do you walk the fine line between losing to competition and selling out taxpayers? Unfortunately the magazine suggests just a few tentative ways to safeguard the investment.

Forbes magazine ranked Washington the fifth best state in the country to do business and says the situation here is improving:

The biggest mover (tied with Tennessee), rising from 12th to fifth place, Washington is also the only state to finish in the top five in three main categories (labor, regulatory environment and growth). And Washington’s numbers are up across the board when you look both backward and at projections into the future.

Ratings like this are problematic by defintion. But this one, coming from a conservative business publication, is likely to come up during campaigns for governor and legislature over the next 18 months.

The rating gives Washington kudos in multiple categories, especially growth prospects, reduced red tape and low energy costs. The magazine says this results in innovation: “Washington has had more businesses open per capita the past three years than any other state in the U.S.”

The lowest mark was for quality of life, which includes schools. The state did well despite transportation woes (which would seem to drive up costs but don’t seem to have been a factor in the low quality of life score). The state’s tax structure wasn’t an issue.

The magazine rated Olympia as the 10th best metropolitan area for business. Spokane, Bremerton, Portland and Eugene all finished in the top 50 (out of 200 rated). Oregon moved up three places to 28th.

Tide-driven power turbines may be coming to Puget Sound. The Snohomish County energy utility is beginning research into installing generators that could power 60,000 or more homes.

The studies would inform debate over harming the already troubled ecosystem:

The modeling could also show whether the turbines could affect tidal currents in Puget Sound, slowing them. Some observers worry that losing such “kinetic energy” could harm places such as Hood Canal, where water circulation already is poor.

Others believe turbines won’t mix well with endangered salmon and the marine animals and fishermen that depend on them.

The proposal was reported a couple months ago, along with introduction of a bill by U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee to promote development of tidal energy through tax credits. That bill is now sitting in committee.

Driving across the wind-swept expanses of Eastern Washington is enough to make a person wonder: isn’t there potential for more wind power in Cascadia. If only legal ambiguity and NIMBYism weren’t in the way.

Add this to the list of hurdles: a shortage of windmill makers.

This Wall Street Journal article shows how surging global demand for turbines outstrips supply. Manufacturers are reluctant to make long-term bets since the market in the U.S. isn’t stable. Wind power requires major capital investment up front and who knows if tax incentives will continue or if siting the projects will get easier or more difficult.

Oregon is mentioned as encouraging turbine-makers to set up in the state. That’s one way Washington could encourage development (instead of simply mandating alternative energy). Consider the possibility:

In the U.S., more wind power was installed last year than in any country in the world — 2,454 megawatts, or more than the equivalent of two nuclear reactors. Despite the recent action, the U.S. still lags behind other countries that have spent decades nurturing wind power with subsidies and price supports. Germany has fewer wind resources — breezy, wide-open spaces — than the state of North Dakota, for instance, but has twice as much wind power as the entire U.S. Spain, with one-seventh the population of the U.S., has the same amount of wind power. Overall, only about 1% of power in the U.S. comes from wind.

It’s no secret that Vice President Dick Cheney has promoted the federal government’s repeated preference for resource-extracting industry over business that depends on conservation.

The final installment of this week’s superbly reported Washington Post series about Cheney shows how he did it while stirring up minimum public outcry over the methods. Most important for Cascadia is the support for some Republican farmers over the entire region’s fishing industry:

In Oregon, a battleground state that the Bush-Cheney ticket had lost by less than half of 1 percent, drought-stricken farmers and ranchers were about to be cut off from the irrigation water that kept their cropland and pastures green. Federal biologists said the Endangered Species Act left the government no choice: The survival of two imperiled species of fish was at stake.

Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in.

First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers.

Because of Cheney’s intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.

Characteristically, Cheney left no tracks.

Read the last piece of the series here.

Voting in favor of more clean energy was a no-brainer last fall. Now it’s clear that legal clarifications are necessary to reach the goal of getting 15 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Consider Kittitas County, where some residents object to plans for several dozen wind turbines on the hills outside Ellensburg. The complaint? The turbines would block views, be noisy or disrupt the rural character of the place — all predictable problems.

So why not head off such disputes by stipulating conditions for siting energy projects? For example, the state could determine allowable noise levels from turbines. If the project is quiet enough then it goes forward. Wide-open views will likely be missed, but surely windmills are a good alternative to using the land for sprawl or to dirtier air. The guidelines would speed projects throughout the state.

For now, a state agency, EFSEC, is supposed to settle disputes for the greater good. But without a stronger legal framework it could just as easily inflame urban-rural tensions and set up a backlash against decisions made in Olympia.