Senators Edward Kennedy and Ted Stevens agree to drop a requirement giving the Massachusetts governor and the Coast Guard a veto over the project.

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 22, 2006

BY TIMOTHY C. BARMANN
Journal Staff Writer

Cape Wind Associates has scored a significant victory as two key U.S. senators have agreed to drop language from a pending bill that would have allowed the governor of Massachusetts or the U.S. Coast Guard to veto the wind farm project for any reason.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who backed the original measure, agreed late Tuesday to a compromise amendment that drops the veto provisions, but gives the Coast Guard additional oversight over the siting of the project.

"It's a significant victory in our effort to deal with the legitimate safety concerns of the project," said Kennedy, a staunch opponent of the Cape Wind farm. "I'm grateful to my colleagues for working with us to achieve this result," he said in a statement.

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 generated by turbines that are, including blades, 417 feet high and would be spaced the equivalent of about six to nine football fields apart.

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

A spokeswoman for Kennedy said the senator still believes the governor should have a say over whether the project should be built. But Kennedy agreed to the new language, she said, because it will ensure that "public safety is going to be central" in siting the project.

The new provision requires the Coast Guard to develop a list of "reasonable terms and conditions" that Cape Wind would be required to meet to provide navigational safety. Those terms would also be included in any lease granted to the project developers.

The provision applies only to an offshore project in Nantucket Sound and the Cape Wind undertaking is the only such proposal. The rules would not apply to any other wind project, such as the one proposed by Jay Cashman Inc. for Buzzards Bay.

Cape Wind Associates was low key about the new provision, which spares its project from almost certain death.

"We will follow the decision of Congress and continue forward in the permitting process," said Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for Cape Wind.

"I think it's a very good step forward," said Jaime Steve, legislative director of the American Wind Energy Association, which supports the Cape Wind project.

"It's going to allow the Coast Guard bill to move forward and allow the process set by the Energy Policy Act to go into place as well."

Those who oppose the Cape Wind project also expressed support for the compromise language.

"Navigational risk was barely a footnote in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' review of this project," said Charles Vinick, president and chief executive officer of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. Under existing rules, the Coast Guard's role was minimized, he said.

"The Coast Guard now has statutory authority to set the standards for ensuring public safety," Vinick said.

The agreement was reached after more than two months of lobbying by the American Wind Energy Association, Cape Wind Associates and several other supporters of the project.

Those supporters decried what they saw as a last-minute attempt to derail the project by a handful of legislators in a closed-door conference committee. The committee's charge was to resolve differences between House and Senate versions of a Coast Guard financing bill. But the panel added a controversial amendment that singled out the Cape Wind project for extra scrutiny. It would have given the governor of Massachusetts the power to kill the project for any reason. Governor Romney opposes the Cape Wind project.

That amendment drew criticism almost immediately from wind-power and renewable-energy supporters, who saw it as a backroom deal designed to circumvent the siting process and kill the project.

Among the critics were the two top members of the Senate Energy Committee: Sen. Pete V. Domenici, R-N.M., chairman; and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., ranking minority member. They contended that the amendment conflicted with the energy bill passed last summer that established a government approval process by which wind-power projects would be evaluated.

Domenici and Bingaman negotiated the compromise with Kennedy and Stevens, Kennedy's spokeswoman said. They reached an agreement late Tuesday evening.

"I'm pleased that we've been able to address the concerns of my colleagues while preserving the integrity of the siting procedure we outlined in the Energy Policy Act," Domenici said in a statement. But future offshore wind projects in federal waters will be evaluated according to last summer's energy act, he said.

"That's a sound model. It gives the Coast Guard and other federal agencies a voice; it gives local and state governments a voice; but it prevents local special interests from torpedoing a reasonable and much-needed energy project in federal waters."

Bingaman implied that the compromise language was duplicative of what's already in the law. The Energy Act "did not diminish the Coast Guard's authority over navigational safety, and it expressly required the Interior Department to consult with the Coast Guard before granting leases for projects like Cape Wind," he said in a statement.

Nevertheless, he said the amendment "confirms the Coast Guard's role for ensuring the navigational safety of the Cape Wind project," and is "an appropriate clarification."

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