Apr 3 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Beth Daley The Boston Globe

Washington legislators are considering a measure that could give Massachusetts veto power over the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm, a move that may be the most significant threat yet to the 130-turbine project.

The developers, Cape Wind Associates, said yesterday they have confirmed that an amendment in a conference committee bill would allow state officials to nix the project if it interferes with navigation.

The Romney administration strongly opposes the project. A Romney spokesman did not return a phone call yesterday.

Cape Wind officials worried about the amendment plan to hold a press conference this morning to "alert the public . . . the Cape Wind project is exposed to a serious threat," said Jim Gordon, Cape Wind's president.

Gordon and his supporters are deeply concerned the term "navigation" could be interpreted so broadly it would give state officials an easy way to kill the project.

The proposed amendment to the Coast Guard Authorization Bill is written only to include the proposed wind farm and allows the state to kill the project within one year of the bill's passage, according to Cape Wind. It gives the state veto power over the 24-mile footprint of the project, even though the wind farm would stand in federal waters.

A far more detrimental version of the amendment was introduced this year by US Representative Don Young of Alaska that would have killed the project, the nation's first offshore wind farm, by prohibiting wind farms within 1 1/2 miles of a shipping or ferry lane.

Supporters of the wind farm protested the language, and late last week, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska introduced new compromise language that gives Massachusetts veto power.

Cape Wind officials say the four chairmen of the conference committee -- which works to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the Coast Guard Authorization Bill -- met on Friday to discuss the amendment. Those four were Stevens, Young, US Representative Jim Oberstar of Minnesota and Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. None of the legislators returned phone calls over the weekend. Cape Wind officials said they were unsure of the outcome of Friday's meeting.

Yesterday, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, the wind farm's main opposition group, said state veto power would reflect a recognition of the potential safety problems of the sprawling wind farm.

However, they said they did not know the precise language being discussed.

The federal Minerals Management Service, which took over oversight of the project last year, will decide by the fall whether the wind farm will cause too much environmental harm.

Late last month, the Massachusetts Audubon Society gave its preliminary approval of the project after years of criticism of the developer for not conducting enough studies to see whether it would kill birds.

"It appears if this language goes through, it most likely will be the end of the project," said Sue Reid, a lawyer at the Conservation Law Foundation, which has endorsed the project. "At the minimum, it is an intolerable level of uncertainty for the developer, especially given vows that have been made by the Romney administration to kill the project."