Administration opposes provision to kill Cape Wind project

Washington (Platts)--5May2006

The Bush administration has come out against a provision tucked into a
massive federal authorization bill that would allow the governor of
Massachusetts to veto the country's first offshore wind power project.

In a letter sent to key lawmakers Thursday, Energy Undersecretary David
Garman said the administration believes the provision geared at killing
the 420 MW Cape Wind project "unwise for several reasons."

The Northeast requires new sources of electricity and the wind project
would provide a clean, reliable and affordable supply to meet that region's
growing demand, Garman said. Further ISO New England is "counting on this
project and the power it will provide," he said. "More broadly, singling out
wind generation in this manner could have a chilling impact on the continued
investment and growth of this promising renewable energy source," said Garman.
"For these reasons and other, we would urge that this provision be removed
form the final bill that will be presented to the president for signature."

Garman sent the letter to House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee Chairman Don Young, Republican-Alaska, who chaired the conference on
the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2006, and Ted Stevens,
Republican-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation
Committee.

Stevens and Young allowed the provision to be slipped into the conference
report on the Coast Guard bill, HR 889. Senator Edward Kennedy,
Democrat-Massachusetts, has opposed the Cape Wind project in the Nantucket
Sound, which his home overlooks.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici and
senior Democrat Jeff Bingaman, both from New Mexico, wrote the Senate
leadership on Wednesday of their intention to block the Coast Guard
authorization from passing if the anti-Cape Wind project language was not
removed or corrected.

The provision would allow the Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a
Republican opposed to Cape Wind, to overrule a finding by the commandant of
the Coast Guard approving construction of the project in the Nantucket Sound.

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