Cape Wind escapes another stealth move

Four politicians fail to agree on fate of Cape Cod's renewable wind power project

By Walter Brooks

Yesterday afternoon two U.S. Senators and two U.S. Congressmen went behind closed doors in Washington DC to decide very specifically the fate of one renewable energy project, Cape Cod's.

"It exposes that this really is a direct attack on the Cape Wind project. It's directly against the specific provisions of the Energy Policy Act that addressed Cape Wind" - Sue Reid, CLF

As Sue Reid, staff attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, said yesterday, ''It exposes that this really is a direct attack on the Cape Wind project. It's directly against the specific provisions of the Energy Policy Act that addressed Cape Wind ...''

The backroom pols couldn't agree. By last evening this reporter was told by a source in Senator John Kerry's office that Maine Senator Olympia Snowe's office had informed them that no "compromise language" had been agreed upon yesterday. It's apparently back to square one for the "stealth committe" and Alaska Congessman Don Young.

Virtually unnoticed by most, even if the most draconian version of the "compromise" below were agreed upon, it would not kick in until after the final report next Spring from the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS), and the only if the US Coast Guard had given the project a green light.

Only then would a state have had any say (in Federal waters yet), and next Spring Mitt Romney won't be our governor.

Here's what the "compromise" would have done

Congressman Don had inserted an amendment in the Coast Guard re-authorization bill after it had the final conference vote from both house's sub-committee which would have required at wind farm be one and a half miles from any shipping channel.

Young wrote in the amendment that his language was the same as recently proposed restriction in the U.K.

It wasn't. His one and a half mile restriction was over five times wider than the U.K.'s.

History repeats itself

In case you think this is the first time Don Young has tried the same ploy, on July 11, 2002, he said,

"That being said, this is the process and the time limit under which we have to act.  Because we must make recommendations to the Select Committee on Homeland Security by midnight tomorrow, we have not been able to follow our normal process for consideration of legislation." U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, U.S. Rep. Don Young, Chairman

The language of the proposed compromise yesterday to Congressman Young's amendment eliminated the restriction, but picked out Cape Wind specifically and would have required that it received "state approval".

That would mean that some state entity (legislature, governor, to be decided) could overrule six years of research by dozens of Federal agencies, and even overrule the navigation experts in the US Coast Guard.

Read the previous report here.

Here is the language as proposed (but not agreed to) yesterday:

SEC. 419. OPINIONS REGARDING WHETHER CERTAIN FACILITIES CREATE OBSTRUCTIONS TO NAVIGATION.

In any case, under the following conditions, in which a person requests the Secretary of the Army to take action to permit a wind energy facility:

(1) where the proposed site of the wind energy facility is within the area commonly known as Nantucket Sound; and
(2) the permit sought is under the authority of section 10 of the Act of March 3, 1899, popularly known as the Rivers and Harbors  Appropriations Act of 1899 (chapter 425; 33 U.S.C. 403).

The Secretary of the Army shall only issue such permit if the Commandant of the Coast Guard and the adjacent state concur in writing, after the date of enactment of this Act, that no obstructions to navigation will > result from the proposed structures or activity. The Commandant and the adjacent state shall provide in writing a determination on whether or not the proposed wind energy facility presents an obstruction to navigation within one year of the date of enactment of this Act or for requests made after the date of enactment of this Act the written determination shall be made within one year of the request for the permit. If no written determination is made by either the Commandant or  the adjacent state within the above specified time the Secretary of the Army shall proceed as if the non-responding entity has issued a written determination that no obstruction to navigation will result from the proposed structures or activities. The determination of the Commandant and the adjacent state shall not be arbitrary or capricious.

This provision shall expire five years from the date of enactment of this Act.