The Great Gadfly

Everyone Should Be Angry

Perhaps no disclaimer is required because I am a well known opponent of Cape Wind's plans for a wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal. Balancing my opposition is the long standing and well known support enjoyed by Cape Wind at Cape Cod Today. It is a credit to Walter Brooks that he allows and does not interfere with non-inflammatory comments opposing this project. And it is unfortunate that some, on both sides of the issue, have sunk to incredible lows in their comments.

So, here we ego: From the very beginning of the federal review process, now in the neighborhood of six years, the only thing more stunning that the vitriolic persnal comments about Kennedy and others or the similar comments made by anti Cape Wind agents against Cape Wind supporters has been the utter and seemingly  not-to- be-overcome incompetence of two major federal agancies. First there was the Army of Engineers in our hall of shame and now the Minerals Management Service. In my opinion the outrage caused by their incompetence should be shared equally by both sides of this debate. Jim Gordon should be purple with rage that he has been forced to spend probably $10 million more than he should have because the USACE review was shoddy enough to allow Cape Wind opponents to argue successfully for review by another agency. Gordon's opposition should be boiling mad that the USACE review was so sloppily done that it could not be used to kill the Horseshoe Shoal siting. Now, we have an even more amateurish effort by the Minerals Management Service, which flagrantly violated federal law in several key regards.

We here on Cape Cod and we the citizens of the entire country should be camped on our congressman's and senators' doorsteps demanding to know why the Cape Wind matter was not settled three years ago or more. People on both sides of this issue have been done a disservice by lawless an incompetent federal officials.

Here are some of the failures and breaches by MMS:

 1.     The Envirinmental Policy Act 0f 2005, signed into law on August 18 of 2005, commanded that MMS promulgate and put into effect a full rule making no later than 270 months thence. That meant that in May of 2006 MMS was to have all the rules and policies in place for such things as the erview of the Cape Wind application. As of today those rules and policies have not been written, much less published and put into play.

2.     Section 338 of this same law commands MMS to work with all other relevant federal agencies when doing such things as reviewing a Cape Wind application.  Really? Well, here are some of MMS omssions:

        A. The Coast Guard was supposed to have full terms and procedures published sixty days before the MMS could issue  a Draft Environmental Impact 

              Statement. These terms and conditions do not extist, even in draft form,  and the Coast Guard has said it does not have the funds needed to perform.

        B.  The FAA issued a letter of presumed hazard months ago but MMS went ahead with release of it DEIS and based its findings of no hazard to aviation on

              information from 2002 which is now being reviewed and possibly contested by the FAA.

        C. The Army Corps was given a failing grade for its review of the Cape Wind proposal under the Endangered Species Act by EPA but MMS used the USACE

             report as the basis for its own DEIS.

        D. MMS admits that its own financial analysis, if published in full in the DEIS might *"tend to mislead" so they simply stated their conclusions, which even Jim 

             Gordon are incorrect, without supporting documentation. We are left not knowing how much Cape Wind's power will cost or if the project is economically  

             viable at all. 

             *This remark is actually made in the DEIS by the MMS staff member who did the economic analysis. See Appendix F, response to peer review.

3.     MMS was required to evaluate alternative sites. they pretended to do so but easily elimianted seven out of nine and assumed the same power output from

         each site in spite of a report by Walt musial, chief of engineering for the National renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado that shows clearly the 

         more constistent winds at greater water depths and the higher yield of power at deeper sites.

And on, and on, and on. We should have had a decision by a federal permitting agency three or four years ago. But we have instead nonsense. Those who support this project should blame, not the opposition, but the very federal agencies whose charge it is to make renewable energy happen. None of us in the opposition told MMS to be stupid and sloppy and incomplete. They did this all on their own. In fact, someone arranged for a midnight change in the Environmantal Policy Act of 2005. Without publication of the change, without hearings on the change, without the chance for public comment or floor debate a small provision was slipped in (how do you spell Pete Domenici?) that exempted two offshore wind projects, specifically two, from certain rules and procedures, such as competitive bidding for sites. The two projects exempted, ignoring two others also in the pipeline, were Horshoe Shoal and LIPA's project in Long Island Sound...both Jim Gordon's projects. (Gordon eventually dropped out of the LIPA project and it is now dead.) So, we cannot say that some advantage was gained for Gordon in the same way as that rediculous and bizarre mess given to us by Alaska's Ted Stevens. As long as the United States Congress continues vipers will never be an endangered species.

The point is that our federal review and regulatory agencies are woefully inadequate at doing their jobs. Because of this inadequacy we are left with moribund projects, enormous expense for aspplicants and no clear direction for our energy future. While I would argue that a proper review would have rejected Cape Wind's proposal Jim Gordon and his supporters would argue the opposite. But the fact is that we share a common enemy...our own government agencies who produce not results but uncertainty and inertia. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory lost over one hundred staff last year alone and the Coast Guard cannot perform the work needed to develope the terms and procedures the Cape Wind project requires. One critically important study needed by MMS would cost $4 million but the country cannot afford it while we spend $12 billion every month in Iraq.

These are my observations and I oppose Cape Wind on Horseshoe Shoal. Where are its supporters in the face of such dereliction of duty?...poking fun at a fat senator or a man who once worked for a coal company. If we don't all smarten up and pull together we will all find ourselves shivering in the dark, but probably still bickering.