What's New
On January 14th, the Cape Wind project advanced one step closer to construction. After more than six years of review, the agency in charge of the project’s federal environmental review, the Minerals Management Service, released their draft analysis of the project. The 2,000-page environmental impact assessment found that building and operating the project would cause no major problems for birds, wildlife, ship and air traffic, and recreation.
Now, the federal government is opening up the decision making process to the public. Environment Massachusetts has a goal of sending 3,000 messages in support of Cape Wind from Bay Staters.
Thousands of you have e-mailed the MMS in support of Cape Wind, and dozens of you have joined our Cape Wind photo petition. Here are a few of the photos from Environment Massachusetts e-activists:
How You Can Help
Please help Cape Wind pass one of its final tests. Click here to tell MMS you want Massachusetts to move away from dirty power, and toward a clean energy future.
Brief Summary
Do we want Cape Wind or more dirty coal—a renewable energy future or a fossil fuel-laden past? Since choosing the past means more dirty coal plants, more oil dependency, more global warming and smog pollution, and more energy bills determined by world events, Environment Massachusetts chooses the future. That means embracing wind power. Wind energy is one of the most promising clean energy sources we have, and wind is an abundant, renewable resource found right here in Massachusetts. By providing three quarters of the electricity used by the Cape and Islands, wind energy from Cape Wind represents an important step toward a new energy future.
Choosing the future also means choosing Cape Wind. Cape Wind has been carefully and thoroughly reviewed, and the record is clear: it is good for the environment and good for consumers. With Cape Wind, the future is now—if we make the right choice.
Time to make a choice. Cape Wind has been under review by 17 local, state and federal agencies for more than six years. That review has created a clear public record: the project is good for the environment, good for consumers, and good for our energy independence. There is no evidence of significant negative impacts on either navigation or the marine ecosystem. Moreover, it is a whole lot better than the other choices: more coal, oil, gas or nuclear power.
Solving energy problems. Cape Wind will get us started solving our energy problems. It will generate pollution-free energy, using a free local energy resource—our region’s strong offshore winds. It is expected to lower bills, cut pollution by displacing dirtier and more expensive facilities, and create local jobs. Cape Wind will help make Massachusetts a national leader in the emerging clean energy economy.
Cape Wind under attack. In 2007, the project was nearly killed by a dark-of-night amendment attached to an unrelated piece of legislation in Congress. We had to rally citizens in Massachusetts and around the country to call, write and lobby their Congress members to stop that bad bill. It took the work of one Congressman from New Hampshire and two Senators from New Mexico to save Cape Wind. We can’t risk that again. Without real and visible political support in Massachusetts, the project is vulnerable to continued attacks. Project opponents are still doing all they can—hiring lobbyists, filing lawsuits, and more—to stall the review and stop the project. That’s why we’re calling on members of the Massachusetts delegation to join Congress members Frank, Olver and Tsongas and finally support Cape Wind as well as calling on the MMS to quickly finalize the long drawn-out review process.
If we build Cape Wind, we open the door to many more wind and other renewable energy projects. If we reject it, we are choosing to live in the past—more fossil and nuclear power, more pollution, more energy dependence.
