Cape Cod Times (8/8/03):
Kennedy stands against wind farm
Senator expresses formal opposition in Times' column
By JACK COLEMAN <>
STAFF WRITER
In his strongest statement yet about the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm, U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy has erased any doubts that he is opposed to the 130-turbine project.
Kennedy, in an opinion column published in today's Cape Cod Times, indicates could not support the $700 million project proposed by Cape Wind Associates until more rigorous regulatory oversight is in place - and even then his position was unlikely to change.
"There are currently no federal laws or regulations on the siting, construction, operation and maintenance of large-scale wind farms off our coasts," Kennedy wrote. "Our national treasures deserve better."
Kennedy said a "programmatic environmental impact statement" should be part of the ongoing state and federal review to be sure the Cape Wind proposal, the first of its kind in the U.S., receives "enough state and federal scrutiny to justify its going forward."
"So far, in spite of all the loud rhetoric on the issue, Cape Wind hasn't met that test and I doubt they ever will," Kennedy wrote. "Until they do, the project should not go forward. Far more is at stake in the decision than our back yards, and I make no apology for opposing this project now."
The location of the Kennedy family's Hyannisport compound would make the Bay State's senior senator a neighbor to the controversial project.
The wind farm has been the subject of sometimes bitter debate for two years. Supporters have touted the importance of clean, renewable energy sources such as wind power, while critics have charged the developers with trying to profit on a public resource.
Cape Wind President Jim Gordon yesterday said he agreed the project required rigorous state and federal scrutiny, but he argued the project "is already undergoing a comprehensive environmental review."
Gordon said the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act "provides the highest degree of environmental and socioeconomic scrutiny."
"We are currently awaiting the release of a draft environmental impact statement reflecting nearly two years of scientific review conducted under the oversight of 17 state and federal participating agencies," Gordon said.
The draft impact statement is due out this fall from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with the final report possibly coming out next year.
Other politicians, including U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., and state Attorney General Thomas Reilly, have actively campaigned against the Cape Wind proposal. Although Kennedy has indicated misgivings - in March, he called for a national policy to govern wind-generated power - he has never specifically taken a position until today.
Kennedy recently decided against filing an amendment to the Senate energy bill that would give governors veto power over proposed wind projects on federal lands in their states, a decision that disappointed opponents of the Cape Wind project.
But some maintain that Kennedy has never wavered in his opinion on the project.
Reilly, who along Delahunt called for a moratorium of offshore wind projects, said "Kennedy's weighing-in is timely, but the senator has been with us every step of the way."
Reilly described the current state and federal oversight of offshore wind projects as "ad hoc at best."
"This project should not go forward until there is a regulatory framework in place, with standards, siting, planning and a meaningful role for the state that is involved," Reilly said.
Ernie Corrigan, a spokesman for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, which opposed the Cape Wind project, said his organization agrees with Kennedy on the need for a national policy, "not because we think wind power is inherently dangerous or undesirable, but offshore is an unknown."
"We need to know what it is we are getting into and what the tradeoffs are going to be for the electricity that would be generating," Corrigan said. "The course that Cape Wind has set on this project has divided people, has divided groups who want to support it because (Cape Wind) refuses to stand down until we have the proper rules in place."
The Humane Society of the United States and the International Wildlife Coalition have expressed opposition to the project, while the Massachusetts Audubon Society wants a three-year study of birds on Nantucket Sound before the turbines could be built.
On the other side of the issue, the Conservation Law Foundation, Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned Scientists are among those groups saying that current state and federal regulations are sufficiently rigorous.
Seth Kaplan, who directs the Conservation Law Foundation's Clean Air and Climate Change Project, said the "substantive concerns that underlie the senator's comments are legitimate and deserve respect in the process."
But as for Kennedy's assertion that there are "no federal laws or regulations on the siting, construction, operation and maintenance of large-scale wind farms off our coasts," Kaplan was "very surprised to see that."
"If it wasn't for senators like Ted Kennedy, we wouldn't have the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the laws that provide the environmental framework that a project like this needs to play out against," Kaplan said.
(Published: August 8, 2003)
To read Senator Kennedy's op-ed, please click here.