Kennedy faces fight on Cape Wind
Key lawmakers oppose his bid to block project
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | April 27, 2006

WASHINGTON -- As record oil prices turn attention to the need for renewab=

fuels, momentum is building in Congress to buck Senator Edward M. Kennedy=

bid to block the proposed Cape Cod wind energy project, potentially reviv=

efforts to construct the sprawling windmill farm in Nantucket Sound.

The chairman and the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resour=

committee said yesterday that when the bill Kennedy backs that would
effectively halt the wind farm comes up for a vote in the Senate, they wi=

object on procedural grounds. They say they'll argue that a renewable ene=

project shouldn't be lumped in with a bill governing the Coast Guard.
Meanwhile, a group of rank-and-file House members, worried about the
political ramifications of rejecting alternative energy sources while
motorists pay $3 a gallon at the gas station, have persuaded House leaders
to sidetrack the entire bill for at least several weeks, even though it w=

slated for action this week. The delay could give supporters of the wind
farm time to make their case to members of Congress.

''Are we going to be for developing alternative energy or not?" said
Representative Charles Bass, a New Hampshire Republican who helped persua=

House leaders to table the bill until at least mid-May. ''The longer you
delay it, the longer there is for people to examine the issue, and to
determine what's going on here."

The efforts to move the wind farm forward occur amid growing attention to
Kennedy's role in the secret, behind-the-scenes maneuvering to stop it.
Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska, the senator who inserted the wind-farm
provision into the Coast Guard bill, has acknowledged discussing the matt=

privately with the Massachusetts Democrat.

Environmental groups have launched an aggressive advertising and lobbying
campaign to persuade Democrats to abandon Kennedy and back a promising
source of renewable energy. If the wind farm becomes a reality, advocates
say, it could provide three-fourths of the Cape and Islands' energy needs
and could set an example for the nation.

The maneuver to stop the wind farm ''is clearly a backroom deal, and they=

going to get called publicly on it," said John Passacantando, executive
director of Greenpeace USA. ''The Democrats are going to kill the first b=

offshore wind farm in the United States because of their relationship with
Ted Kennedy."

The 130-turbine, 24-square-mile cluster of windmills would be about 8 mil=

from Kennedy's home in Hyannis Port, and he has long opposed it. The Coast
Guard bill would give Governor Mitt Romney, another wind farm opponent, t=

power to veto it, even if the project clears all other hurdles.

Kennedy rejected suggestions that he doesn't like the wind farm because it
would be near his Cape home, and said the project probably wouldn't be
visible from the Kennedy compound. He said he's against the project becau=

it would create a range of environmental and navigational problems and wo=

hurt tourism, one of the area's key industries.Continued...Page 2 of 2 --

The Cape Wind developers, he said, want to erect a sprawling, for-profit
field of giant windmills on public, state-owned territory. Kennedy noted
that the project was the beneficiary of more lenient regulations included=

last year's energy bill, which could have put it on a faster track to
construction; therefore, a special deal was warranted to stop it.

Ultimately, Kennedy said, Massachusetts and its governor should get to
decide yes or no on the site for the farm, Kennedy said.
''We had an opportunity to right a wrong," he said of the provision in the
Coast Guard bill. ''The people who ought to be irate ought to be the
citizens of Massachusetts. I don't shrink from my advocacy for them. I
welcome it. I'm going to continue to make sure that . . . a wealthy
developer is not going to ride roughshod over the state's interests."

Kennedy said the effort to block the wind farm started in the House, where
Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, another Alaska Republican,
originally inserted it in the House version of the Coast Guard bill. Young
and Stevens maintain that states should have a say in energy projects off
their coastlines.

''I just believe it's a state's right," Stevens said yesterday. ''If that
were in Puget Sound, don't you think people in Washington would want to s=

something about it? If it's off our coast, we'd want to know."

Stevens said he ''conferred" with Kennedy about adding a provision to the
bill that would allow the state to veto the Cape Cod project. He said
Kennedy agreed with that idea, an account that Kennedy confirmed.

But the project's supporters don't like the manner in which the provision
was included in the bill, an argument that appears to be catching on with
some lawmakers. The final language was hashed out in secret by a small
handful of lawmakers -- a group that included Young and Stevens.

''They've lost in the court of public opinion, so they're taking this to =

back room because it's the only way they can get it done," said Sue Reid,=

staff attorney for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation, which ba=

the wind farm. ''There's growing outrage against this provision," said Re=

who was in Washington yesterday to lobby Congress.

Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the ranking Democrat on the Senate
energy committee, said it's important to encourage development of renewab=

energy sources like wind power.

Bingaman and Chairman Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, will try
to round up enough senators to strip the provision from the Coast Guard
bill. That would send the bill back to the conference committee -- with t=

Senate on record against interference with the Cape Wind project.

The Kennedy-backed provision ''would short-circuit the process and kill t=

project, which I think would be a mistake," Bingaman said.

''If there are problems with the project, they ought to come out and be
discussed. But they shouldn't be dealt with this way."

Bass said the Cape Wind project has been treated differently in Congress
because powerful lawmakers and special interest lobbyists vacation on Cape
Cod and treasure the ocean views.

''It's odd that the people who are against it are the people who have
[scenic] views," Bass said. ''I'm sorry about that, but the project ought=

rise or fall on its merits."

Kennedy dismissed such talk as ''their response to any kind of raising of
questions" about the project's problems. ''It's just an easy response to =

argument that has merit."

=A9 Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.


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