Editorial

Worst recession in decades, Chamber opposes a billion-dollar project

The world turned upside down
Our Chamber's performance is near criminal

 Let's see if I get this straight

1. Cape Wind, a private company, wants to build a project 6 miles offshore which will cost a billion dollars and employ scads of workers and develop a whole new tourist attraction in the process which will give new, high-paying jobs to countless more Cape Codders.
2. Cape Cod and the nation is already in what the everyone now concedes will be the worse recession in our lifetimes with jobless claims at record highs and no relief in sight.  That's today's New York Times front page on the right. Some economists are using the term "depression" as a distinct possibility for the first time since 1929.
3. There are more unsold homes on Cape Cod today than at any time in memory.
   
4. Most Cape shopping malls look ghost towns at night and every restaurant owner reports huge drops in business.  A Yarmouth House waitress told me last week that even last month's vacation week was a disaster with half as much business as normal.  That's the Cape Cod Mall last Sunday in late afternoon on the right.
   

How our chamber responds 

Compare these facts with the attitude of our Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, which BTW the dictionary defines as "an association, primarily of people in business, to promote the commercial interests of an area."

"The Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce has consistently opposed the construction of 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, viewing this mammoth project as the industrialization of a fundamental part of our economy and way of life.

"The chamber, as with all major public policy issues, thoroughly investigated all aspects of the proposal, and the results of this objective, extensive cost/benefit analysis led us to conclude that the benefits of the wind plant did not exceed the costs associated with this power plant construction. We continue to have our doubts about its effect on prices, air quality and energy independence; at least in the measures that the developer and his adherents expound.

Now the federal Draft Environmental Impact Statement, recently released by the Department of the Interior, confirms the negative economic effects of the proposal."

Curiouser and curiouser
We  underlined the grosser outright misstatements above. For beginners, John O'Brien was asked by Cape Wind's President Jim Gordon for permission to lay out his plans to the chamber's membership. He made his approach to O'Brien ahead of everyone else. But a week later, rather than responding to Cape Wind's request, Mr. Obrien ran a Chamber press release in the Cape Cod Times castigating the proposed project with accusations not based on fact but only speculation, and accusing the project of having a negative impact the on Cape Cod.

So much for John O'Brien's impartiality and concern for our economy or air quality. He was a paid lobbyist for the Alliance while dissing Cape Wind and workin for Cape Cod  Chamber of Commerce. Shortly afterwards Mr O'Brien left his post as Chamber executive director and
became a lobbyist for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and also for Sithe Energies, a company, a firm which owns a number of fossil fuel companies in the Northeast and a firm where his son John O'Brien Jr. was a Vice President.

So much for O'Brien impartiality and concern for Cape Cod's economy or air quality. 

Better read than dead 

Since you, dear reader, unlike Mr. O'Brien, probably  actually read the Draft Environmental Report just issued, you already know that there is no environmental damage and in fact considerable economic benefit to Cape Wind.  This knowledge might save your life, or at least your lungs as Cape Cod continues to lie downwind of some of the worst polluting power plant and our air quality is worse than most cities because of that.

When is the last time anyone spent a billion dollars around here on new construction and during a deep recession to boot?

When is the last time anyone spent a billion dollars here on new construction and during a deep recession to boot?So fellow Cape Codders, as you huddle in your perhaps about-to-be foreclosed home paying $4 a gallon for gas and 50% more this year than last for  heating oil, or walking to the unemployment office (shucks, you can't afford to drive there), and welcoming your kids back to the family home as they get laid off too, think of John O'Brien in his condo in Naples Florida writing plagiarized Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound handouts for your local daily newspaper which itself is another major impediment to this magnificent renewable energy project, a project which could start America on the road to energy independence.

Give John a call at 508-362-3225 x525 or email him at john@capecodchamber.org. He's so important at the chamber he doesn't have to use his surname in his email address.

Walter Brooks, Editor