This clean energy project has undergone a tougher, more detailed review and analysis than any coal, oil or gas power plant in New England

- Mark Rodgers, communications director for Cape Wind

Politicians being politicians

It’s amazing what we can have the political will to do and not to do. Despite a recent ballot question and public opinion surveys showing overwhelming support for Cape Wind, a Minnesota politician delayed the renewable energy project on what seems to be an insignificant issue or at least an issue that certainly could have been settled long before.

Cape Wind has been a very controversial project, but the renewable energy project shouldn’t have been so controversial. Certainly, legitimate questions need answers and studies conducted, but the concerns over Cape Wind or offshore wind power have been largely settled.

It seems that most environmentalists support Cape Wind, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a high profile environmentalist, has resisted the renewable energy project. Kennedy claims he is a supporter of “wind power, including wind power on the high seas” but he has argued, “[S]ome places should be off limits to any sort of industrial development.” In a 2005 op-ed piece for the New York Times, Kennedy argued that Nantucket Sound is too pristine to allow development and compared the area to Yosemite National Park. However, Nantucket Sound is no Yosemite National Park, since ferry boat operators, “who are among the leading opponents of the wind farm in Nantucket Sound have been flushing their toilets in it.”

Certainly, Cape Wind has turned into a circus, and as opponents continue to delay any action to advance the project, construction costs will continue to rise as global demand for raw materials and oil continue to rise. Cape Wind should have been built a long time ago. From the Cape Cod Times, MA:

When a pair of Alaskan legislators tried to block the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm three years ago, Minnesota Congressman James Oberstar, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure at the time, stayed on the periphery.

Since then, the 18-term lawmaker has taken over as chairman of the powerful committee and has used his new-found influence to delay the final federal environmental report on the proposal from Cape Wind Associates LLC to build 130 turbines in the Sound, thrusting himself into the controversial project’s spotlight.

Yesterday, the Coast Guard, at the behest of Oberstar, agreed to delay a recommendation regarding the project until at least Jan. 15. The move pushes the final environmental report on Cape Wind by the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) — the lead federal agency to review the wind farm and a division of the Interior Department — back at least a month from when it was expected to be released.

The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has oversight responsibilities for the Coast Guard, authority that puts Oberstar, 74, in a prime position to influence the review of Cape Wind.

In a Dec. 9 letter sent to Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Minnesota Democrat called for a delay of a Coast Guard recommendation on the project to allow more time to review a Coast Guard-commissioned study on the potential effects of the wind farm on marine radar.

Europe has embraced offshore wind:

Netherlands

Photo source for attribution here and here

Denmark

Photo source for attribution here

England

Photo source for attribution here

On the Net:

1. 10 Questions – Mark Rodgers Communications Director Of Cape Wind
2. Cape Wind :: America’s First Offshore Wind Farm on Nantucket Sound

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