Over 150 protest Kennedy at Faneuil Hall today

Local Clean Power Now members joined by environmentalists

Ted Kennedy's gray head can be glimpsed ducking out of Faneuil Hall today to avoid meeting protesters there to criticize his covert efforts to kill the Cape Wind farm project.

Special to capecodtoday.com by Jack Coleman

The crowd which started at around 50, grew to nearly 200 during the two-hour wait to confront Senator Kennedy. Below CLF's Philip Warburg addresses the protesters outside Fanueil Hall.
Senator Ted Kennedy and Governor Mitt Romney expected a crowd at Faneuil Hall this morning when these two politicians turned up for a ceremonial signing of the new Massachusetts Health Care Bill.

They got a little more than they expected.

Philip Warburg (in photo on right and below with some of the protesters awaiting Kennedy's arrival), Executive Director of the Conservation Law Foundation, addressed the crowd saying that Kennedy and Romney were doing a huge disservice to the health of Massachusetts Citizens by opposing the wind farm project, which would provide significant health benefits.

"This is NIMBYism at its worst"

He also called the Cape Wind project the "best hope" to do something about climate change by reducing greenhouse gases and slowing global warming.

"This is NIMBYism at its worst," he said referring to the acronym for Not In My Back Yard. "We expect vision and enlightenment on energy issues, and Senator Kennedy and Governor Romney are offering neither."

The Boston Herald ran two stories on the protest.
   The first by Jay Fitzgerald said that when Senator Kennedy showed up for the ceremonial signing of the Healtyh Care bill "What the liberal lion of the U.S. Senate didn’t expect was a crowd of fellow liberals protesting his backroom congressional attempts to kill the controversial Cape Wind project on Nantucket Sound. 'Our health! Not your Wealth!' chanted a group of about 50 (sic) environmentalists upset with Kennedy’s opposition to the offshore windmill project just miles from his family’s famous Hyannis compound..."
   The second said that The Herald was confused at first why the Conservation Law Foundation was picketing, "Ah, but CLF officials explained it was intended to get the attention of Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who have opposed the Cape Wind project supported by CLF. Kennedy has acknowledged supporting an amendment to the Coast Guard reauthorization bill to give Romney veto power over the Cape Wind project. Kennedy, the group insists, won’t meet with supporters of the project so they thought they’d get his attention by picketing at Faneuil Hall. "

Marc Breslow, Director of the Mass Climate Action Network, discussed the reality of global warming, calling it "the most serious environmental problem facing the planet." Cape Wind, he argued, is the largest single project in the state in terms of greenhouse gas reduction. Opposition to this project "is not what we need right now," he said.

Clean Power Now Executive Director Matt Palmer referred to Kennedy's acknowledgement that he asked Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska to push for legislation that could put Cape Wind in jeopardy.

"What an incredible abuse of power on the part of our senior senator," Palmer said. "Is that what we want from our political leaders," he asked the crowd, who shouted back a resounding, "No!"

Sue Reid from the Conservation Law Foundation assured the crowd that "this fight is not over - we are continuing to work with organizations across the nation" to combat what she called a "sneak attack" against Cape Wind. The organizations she said included MassPIRG, Greenpeace, Union of Concerned Scientists, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the American Lung Association, labor unions and health organizations.

Jack Coleman is a freelance writer, editor and and media adviser to the pro-wind farm Clean Power Now non-profit organization on Cape Cod. He writes a blog advocating in favor of the Cape Wind project at Wind Farmers Almanac. He has been writing about the Cape Wind project since the fall of 2001, including three years as a political reporter for Cape Cod Times.