The amendment, which would give Governor Romney authority to reject the project, draws opposition from renewable-energy proponents.

01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, April 8, 2006

BY TIMOTHY C. BARMANN
Journal Staff Writer

A congressional committee has appended language to a Coast Guard financing bill that singles out the Cape Wind energy project off Cape Cod for extra scrutiny, despite the objections of renewable-energy supporters and high-ranking legislators.

The amendment, which addresses any wind-energy project in Nantucket Sound, gives the governor "of an adjacent coastal state" the authority to reject the project for any reason.

Cape Wind Associates is the only company that has proposed building a wind farm in Nantucket Sound; Massachusetts is the only state adjacent to Nantucket Sound; and the governor of Massachusetts opposes the Cape Wind project.

A House-Senate conference committee added the language to a bill that authorizes financing for the Coast Guard. The bill now moves to the House and Senate for a final up-or-down vote.

"This is the worst type of backdoor, behind-closed-doors deal," said Jaime Steve, legislative director of the American Wind Energy Association, which supports the Cape Wind project.

"This was done with no hearings, and it's a very specific piece of legislation designed to kill one specific project."

Cape Wind Associates, based in Boston, has proposed building a 130-unit wind farm in Nantucket Sound, capable of producing up to 420 megawatts of electricity. Power would be produced by turbines that are, including blades, 417 feet high and would be spaced about six to nine football fields apart.

The developers have said that average winds would provide enough electricity to power three-quarters of the Cape and nearby islands' electricity needs.

The project has garnered a number of powerful foes who don't want the waters of Nantucket Sound disturbed by giant wind turbines. The opponents include Governor Romney, Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly.

The two top members of the Senate Energy Committee urged the House-Senate conference committee not to include the wind-energy provisions because the permitting process was addressed in the energy bill passed by Congress in August.

"I think it would be a very bad idea to give states veto authority over the siting of renewable-energy projects on federal land in a bid to stop a particular project," said Sen. Pete V. Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the energy committee. "In the energy bill, we gave states a strong voice and a key role in siting renewable projects."

Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., ranking minority member of the committee, said that a regulatory review of Cape Wind is under way. "To invent a new regulatory process designed simply to deliver a negative result would chill future investment in renewable energy," he said.

Unclear is exactly which member of the conference committee introduced the wind-energy language, since no one is taking responsibility.

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, "was heavily involved in the compromise language," said Melanie Alvord, a spokeswoman for Stevens. But to characterize it as a "Stevens amendment" would be inaccurate, she said.

"The compromise was partly based on conversations he had with Senator Kennedy, who approached him on the issue," she said.

"Senator Kennedy supports the provision because it provides an important remedy to a deeply flawed process that has, so far, exempted this project from a national policy on offshore wind development," said Melissa Wagoner, a spokeswoman for Kennedy.

Alvord cited comments Stevens made about offshore wind-energy projects and his belief that states should have a final say over whether a project is built. Asked why the amendment then applies only to Massachusetts, Alvord said she didn't know.

Jim Gordon, president of Cape Wind Associates, said his company will now try to stop the bill from passing in the House and Senate. It will be taken up in two weeks, after members return from an Easter break.

"We today call on leadership and members of Congress to stop this egregious abuse of process and to strip this special interest anti-renewable-energy provision from the legislation," Gordon said in a statement.

In an interview, he declined to say what action the company might take should the bill become law.

Cape Wind Associates would likely have some legal recourse if the bill does pass, according to Philip M. Small, an attorney for the firm Brown Rudnick in Hartford who specializes in energy law. He is not connected to the Cape Wind project.

"Certainly, it would be ripe for a constitutional challenge of some sort," he said, after hearing the wind-energy language.

He said one possible claim could be that the law discriminates against Cape Wind since it appears to apply only to that company's project.

Another claim could be a taking of Cape Wind's property without due process of law, he said.

"They began this project with assumptions based on laws and regulations they would have to meet," he said. "Then this very targeted law was passed."

Such legal challenges could be lengthy, he said, taking from months to years to resolve.

tbarmann@projo.com / (401) 277-7369