Earth Equity News

Congress May Further Delay Cape Wind. By James Kinsella, Cape Cod Today, December 11, 2008. "The chairman of the U.S. House subcommittee that oversees the Coast Guard has asked that service to delay issuing a recommendation on the proposed Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound. U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minnesota, further said he is considering holding hearings on the issue, 'given that any action taken on this project will set a precedent for all future offshore renewable energy projects.' Oberstar's request threatens yet another delay in the final federal decision on Cape Wind, which would be built in U.S. waters south of Cape Cod. The project initially was proposed more than seven years ago. Project supporters say the 11th hour move recalls a behind-the-scenes effort several years ago by former (and now criminally convicted) U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, andU.S. Rep. DonYoung, both Republicans, to move legislation that effectively would have barred Cape Wind's construction. The conservative Republicans had odd bedfellows in liberal Democrats U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who lives in Hyannis Port and routinely sails in Nantucket Sound, and U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, whose district includes the Cape and Islands. Both legislators have worked to stop the Cape Wind project... Barbara Hill, executive director of Clean Power Now, a non-profit organization that backs the wind farm, blasted the Minnesota congressman. 'This move by Oberstar is ridiculous government bureaucracy,' Hill said Thursday. 'When [the project opponents] don't like the results of environmental results or studies, they want to change the process,' she said."