Surprising, among the last energy-related actions of the Bush Administration is to set the stage for a renewable energy future for the liberal bastion of Massachusetts. One of the darker aspects of the Teddy Kennedy and RFK, Jr, legacy will be their strenuous efforts to block the Cape Wind projection. Friday, the Department of Interior Minerals Management Service “said the 24 square-mile [Cape Wind] wind farm in Nantucket Sound would pose little or no threat to wildlife and fish”. Unless there is legislative action (Ted are you going to dig your hole deeper?), there will be a Federal “record of decision” in 30 days. An agenda item for the incoming Obama team.
Sadly, Ted Kennedy has signaled that he plans to continue his opposition to this clean energy project so as to protect his family’s ancient sailing grounds:
“I do not believe that this action by the Interior Department will be sustained,” Kennedy said in a statement. “By taking this action, the Interior Department has virtually assured years of continued public conflict and contentious litigation.”
Sigh …
Kennedy’s strenuous NIMBY-ite fight against Cape Wind has empowered wind opponents across America and made it all too easy to paint Kennedy as a hypocrite when it comes to renewable power. (NIKBYBFIY: For Ted, Wind is okay “Not in Kennedy’s BackYard But Fine in Yours”).
Looking to The Washington Post coverage, astroturfing works:
Environmentalists have been split on the plan, enticed by the prospect of green energy but wary of a firm profiting from a commercial enterprise built in public waters.
Glenn Wattley, head of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, said federal officials were rushing the approval. “It’s like they’re cramming this thing in before the Bush administration leaves town, before all of these issues are appropriately looked at,” he said
“Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound” speaks for environmentalists? Who funds it? In essence, fossil fools. The “Alliance” isn’t only protecting Kennnedy’s childhood sailing grounds from having some wind turbines to sail around, but is protecting the coal industry from a threat to their revenue. Sigh …