Run, Romney run

Governor Mitt Romney, dressed for success in top coat and dress shoes, jogged across the sands of Craigville Beach on Friday followed closely by Susan Nickerson and perspiring reporters in his latest attempt to polish up his environmental image for his race to the White House

Back-pedaling (in the sand) to the White House

By Walter Brooks

The natives weren't all that friendly at Craigville Beach on Friday morning

The people's Governor stuck with friends like the Alliance's Susan Nickerson

CPN's Liz Argo makes a counter statement as an Alliance member rows ashore
After spending $3 million all the Alliance could afford was a ROWBOAT!"
An old man had a young idea

A turbine to a protester's back

Wind-waving goodbye to an unhappy governor

An ominous observation by a local naturalist photographer was that the spot chosen for the Romney-Nickerson announcement was exactly halfway between Alliance founder Doug Yearley's home in Osterville and Senator Ted Kennedy's in Hyannisport.

Sharing his "bully pulpit" with the anti-wind farm leader will come back to haunt Mitt Romney later

On the same day that our Canadian neighbors announced another huge leap forward in wind energy, the Governor of Massachusetts trudged a soggy, sandy Craigville beach in his three-piece suit to announce his new ocean policy about which he said "I wish (the proposed initiative) could affect Cape Wind. We're just not comfortable with the idea that people could develop whatever they'd like in the waters off our shore without us having a say on it."

The "Royal We" (Pluralis Majestatis; "Majestic Plural") comes easily to our Governor's lips. He hasn't even announced his desire to replace George The Second yet, and he's already speaking like a monarch.

Despite being frustrated by the Cape Wind farm proposal, the Republican governor's proposal will not affect that Nantucket Sound project which is in federal waters. But it would ensure tougher review of similar proposals in the million-plus acres of state waters within the three-mile limit, and the mere thought of dealing with our pols would dissuade any other entrepreneur from attempting what Cape Wind has.

However, while Mr. Romney is still opposing Cape Cod's leap into the future, he is lauding wind farm proposals on Berkshire mountain tops where apparently there are no wealthy opponents or powerful politicians. As the Valley Advocate story put it last week, "Through initial rounds of the permitting process, the company had a green light from the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and the public support of Governor Mitt Romney."

And as The Berkshire Eagle reported it, "a spokesman for the governor said that while he opposed the Cape project, he would support similar projects in Western Massachusetts." You can expect further fudging of Mitt's anti-Cape Wind position as his presidential campaign progresses.

Politics makes strange bedfellows

The governor made his announcement here Friday along side Susan Nickerson, Executive Director of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, Cape Wind's chief opponent. He did this despite recent polls indicating a strong shift in statewide approval for the project. At this point in a presidential bid, wealthy supporters are more important than voters.

On Friday as Susan Nickerson exclaimed "Imagine Nantucket Sound with a string of 130 steel towers across the horizon," someone in the crowd yelled "Imagine clean air!"

Matt Palmer, executive director of Clean Power Now, castigated "the marriage" between Romney and Nickerson as inappropriate, citing allegations of fraud against the alliance in the immediate past. In fact, a former Asst. Director of the Alliance is still under investigation for illegal anti-wind farm activities.

"The governor should be ashamed of himself" said Matt Palmer as dozens of the wind farm's supporters picketed the governor.

No Romney vs. Reilly race in '06

Since our governor's obvious presidential ambitions are no secret, insiders are suggesting that he's smart enough, or his pollsters are smart enough, to know that his anti-Cape Wind rhetoric is a no-show at the polls in November 2006 when his term ends.

Some GOP insiders assume this means Romney will not run for re election as Governor since he will lose and thus be out of the race for the White House on 2008. And that changes everything here in the Bay State. Once Romney gets his "environmental reputation" cleaned up, he's popular enough nationwide to make a national run even if he's not in office, despite the fact the two most recent U.S. Presidents were elected as sitting Governors.

This means Tom Reilly probably won't get the Democratic nomination either since he's perceived by Democrats as strong against Mitt but an "also ran" against anyone else. We might end up with decent candidates in both parties instead. 

Meanwhile, back at the wind farm

This week while Mitt was muddying the wind and the water here, Canada's wind-power capacity, already the fastest-growing form of electricity generation in Canada, took another significant step forward with the funding for two new wind-power projects in Quebec. Together, the 60 turbines at the Mount Miller and Mount Copper wind farms provide 108 megawatts of wind-energy capacity, lifting Canada's total wind-power generation capacity from 444 to more than 550 megawatts, an increase of nearly 25%.

Critics of Romney's ocean initiative said the measure fails to create protected areas that could prohibit fishing and other activities to preserve fish spawning regions. Jack Clarke, advocacy director for Massachusetts Audubon and a member of the state Ocean Management Task Force, which Romney established in 2003 partly in response to wind farm proposals said "we don't think the governor's bill goes far enough."

Our Governor's proposed legislation, which he unveiled on Craigville Beach Friday, authorizes the Secretary of Environmental Affairs to prepare and adopt an ocean management plan within the next two years that ensures coordination among state programs that govern offshore development and ocean protection.

The way our legislature usually works, we won't hold our breath waiting for other Massachusetts off shore wind farms to be proposed.

Massachusetts children with asthma don't have that option.

P.S. This morning's Boston Globe and Providence Journal each carried Editorials in support of the wind farm. The Globe's is available here and the Journal's here (one-time registration required but worth the effort). 
....meanwhile China and Canada will work together to construct a wind power electricity generating station in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in May. The power station will be built in Erenhot, which is famous for wind energy resources. It is also expected to be the largest wind-power facility in Asia. Covering an area of 200 square kilometers, the station is expected to generate over one million kilowatts of power and be put into operation before the 2008 Olympic Games.