Ted Kennedy Wants Windmills Killed

Self-proclaimed alternative energy proponent Sen. Ted Kennedy has strongly opposed an environmentally friendly "wind farm" off the coast of Massachusetts - and now it appears Kennedy will have his way.

A proposal before Congress would limit the construction of wind turbines and most likely doom plans for the Cape Wind Project, the nation's first offshore wind farm.

"This is a dire moment for us," declared Mark Rodgers, a Cape Wind Associates spokesman, who said the proposal "would be totally fatal" for the project.

The Cape Wind Project would erect 130 windmills in Nantucket Sound and could provide three-fourths of the power needed by Cape Cod and nearby islands, which is now largely supplied by coal-fired plants.

But Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has called for a ban on all wind turbines within 1.5 nautical miles of shipping and ferry lanes, The Washington Post reports.

Young cited research in Britain suggesting that the wind turbines' huge blades could interfere with shipboard radar, and he singled out the Cape Wind site - close to sea routes between the Cape and the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard - as especially unsafe.

Cape Wind officials call Young's concerns a "pretext" for killing the project, according to the Post, and point out that in 2003 a contractor for the Army Corps of Engineers stated that the wind farm "is not expected to create negative impacts to navigational safety."

But the project had a powerful enemy in Sen. Kennedy, who has voiced strong support for alternative energy projects - as long as they are not in his backyard.

In his book "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy," author Peter Schweizer first disclosed: "Senator Kennedy has introduced dozens of pieces of legislation over the years to encourage the development of solar, hydrogen, and wind as alternatives to oil and coal."

Why, then, would Kennedy oppose the Cape Wind Project?

"The wind turbines would be built in Nantucket Sound, about six miles off the coast from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis," Schweizer explains.

"The problem was not aesthetic; the Kennedys wouldn't be able to actually see the turbines from their home. Instead Robert Kennedy Jr., who had been beating the drum for alternative sources of energy for more than a decade, complained that the project would be built in one of the family's favorite sailing and yachting areas."

Sen. Kennedy publicly called for further study of the project - but "privately, he tried to get the study canceled," Schweizer writes.

The federal Minerals Management Service is expected to issue a final verdict on the project early next year.

Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the Post: "This is sort of backdoor politics at its worst, for the worst possible reasons."