Cape Wind myths and facts

By PHILIP WARBURG and SUSAN REID
Opponents of the Cape Wind project have poured millions of dollars into a campaign aimed at substituting myth for fact regarding a project that could put Massachusetts where it should be - at the leading edge of efforts to promote clean energy.

Sadly, Sen. Edward Kennedy has become one of the more active purveyors of this anti-Cape Wind mythology, defying his own proud record as a longtime champion of sound energy policy.

Isn't it time to move beyond misleading assertion to an honest reckoning with a project that could bring Massachusetts to the forefront of our battle against climate change? Let's look at a few of the myths recently advanced by the anti-Cape Wind campaign:

Myth No. 1: Cape Wind unfairly benefits from public subsidies. Fact: Federal and state subsidies for renewable energy projects have been created for the express purpose of helping wind and other forms of clean energy compete with long-subsidized conventional fuels, such as coal and oil, as well as nuclear power. Even the anti-Cape Wind ''Alliance'' claims to support the development of renewable energy, and Senator Kennedy has a proud record of supporting federal clean energy subsidies. To support these incentives in principle and then cast stones at an entrepreneur who relies on them in planning a major pioneering renewable energy project smacks of gross hypocrisy.

Myth No. 2: Cape Wind is getting unfair access to federal land and waters. Fact: At the time Cape Wind was first proposed, there was no mechanism for an offshore wind farm developer to make payments to the federal government for occupying undersea public lands. There also was no system for leasing those lands for wind energy development on a competitive basis - though, as a practical matter, no other wind developer with an expressed interest in siting a facility in Nantucket Sound existed at the time.

The Federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 finally established requirements for royalty payments by wind energy projects in federal waters. While the Act ensured that the two pending offshore wind proposals - Cape Wind and another project off Long Island - could proceed with their review rather than start again from scratch, Cape Wind was not exempted from paying royalties equivalent to those that will be required for any other approved wind farm sited in federal waters. Cape Wind, which stands ready to pay these royalties, has no financial edge over other wind developers.

Myth No. 3: Cape Wind is not being adequately reviewed. Fact: This myth permeates anti-Cape Wind rhetoric and flies in the face of the regulatory endurance test that the project has undergone so far. For nearly five years, Cape Wind's proponents have complied with a daunting array of regulatory and permitting processes involving 17 federal, state and local agencies.

This has far exceeded the scrutiny that any coal or oil-fired power plant has been subjected to, despite the immeasurably greater environmental hazards posed by fossil fuel extraction, transportation, combustion, and waste disposal.

Given Cape Wind's scrupulous adherence to this lengthy review process, it is galling that the project's opponents, urged on by Senator Kennedy, are trying to maneuver the U.S. Congress to hand the Massachusetts governor unqualified veto power over the siting of this project in Nantucket Sound. This veto power, inserted during secret House-Senate conference committee negotiations over the pending $8.7 billion Coast Guard reauthorization bill, is an affront to sound public policy and makes a mockery of a rigorous multi-year project review.

Myth No. 4: Cape Wind will damage the economy of the Cape and Islands. Fact: There is considerable evidence from Scandinavia, California and the Pacific Northwest that the opposite is true - that wind farms attract visitors and tourists rather than repelling them. While we won't know for sure exactly what the tourism impacts of Cape Wind will be until the project is up and running, the opponents' dire warnings of a tourism slump simply aren't borne out by relevant experience elsewhere.

With gasoline prices once again topping $3 per gallon and studies pointing conclusively toward dramatic global warming trends, the shift to renewable energy is a mounting imperative. Calm, careful completion of the Cape Wind review can open the door to Massachusetts' renewable energy frontier. Stealth measures designed to jettison that review, and the Cape Wind project, should be roundly rejected by our leaders in the U.S. Congress.

Philip Warburg is president and Susan Reid is a staff attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation.

(Published: May 16, 2006)