A Low Blow

Congressional committee OKs amendment to kill Cape Wind project

The Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound may have blown its final ... may have been blown ... in a gust of ... oh, never mind. We're out of wind puns, and the proposed offshore wind farm is out of steam: If a recent, sneaky effort in Congress succeeds, the project will die once and for all. A congressional conference committee attached an amendment to the Coast Guard budget bill that would give the governor of Massachusetts -- Mitt Romney (R), a longtime Cape Wind foe -- authority to block the wind farm. Congress will vote on the Coast Guard bill when it returns from a two-week recess. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) surprised many by switching sides to back the anti-Cape Wind measure, but green ire is much more focused on Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who normally champions environmental causes but backed this amendment behind the scenes -- preserving ocean views from his family's seashore compound at the expense of what would have been one of the world's largest wind farms.