Post by ferryfast admin on Feb 26, 2006 12:32:38 GMT -5
Young on side of Kennedys in windmill tilt
CAPE COD: Congressman expresses environmental concerns over wind farm.
By LIZ RUSKIN
Anchorage Daily News
www.adn.com/
(Published: February 26, 2006)
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Don Young has stepped into a raging Nor'easter over a proposed wind farm off Cape Cod, and now he is tossing in an ocean of ironies that has him on the same side of the feud as two renowned liberals -- Sen. Ted Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The wind farm towers, six miles from shore, would be visible from the Kennedy compound at Hyannisport, Martha's Vineyard and other towns famous for their beautiful coastal setting. The Kennedys oppose the project, as do lots of locals, boaters and tourism boosters. And Alaska's Don Young.
Young is pushing for a buffer of 1.5 nautical miles between offshore windmills and shipping lanes, which developers says would kill the project.
"Around here, everyone is asking why does an Alaska congressman care about this issue," said Mark Rodgers, a spokesman in Cape Cod for Cape Wind, the company that wants to build the project.
Young, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, has said little publicly about his position.
"We've tried to meet or at least have a phone conversation with Congressman Young for two months," Rodgers said. "He's refused to talk to us at all."
But at a press conference in Anchorage on Thursday, Young did answer a reporter's question on the subject. He said his concern is for marine navigation.
"The Coast Guard raised this question first," he said.
"But more than that, I have a report -- I follow this business of navigation real closely -- a report from the United Kingdom, that they allowed windmills to be built on some of their traffic channels and it was a disaster."
Rodgers said the UK report calls for mandatory buffer zones of 500 meters. Young, he said, wants to impose one five times larger.
One curiosity in the Cape Cod flap is a five-page letter Young wrote to his colleagues on the subject. The letter's evocative language sometimes strikes the tone Young's traditional enemies, the environmentalists, use when they're trying to thwart his dream of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
"The proposed Cape Wind project is a massive undertaking in the heart of Nantucket Sound," Young wrote. "It will include 130 towers -- each reaching up to 417 feet in height and spread out over 24 square miles. The span of the turbine blades would approximate the length of a football field.
"It is located in the heart of Horseshoe Shoal which is a rich fishing area and provides some 60 percent of the fish that commercial fisherman catch in the area."
Among the ships that travel to Nantucket regularly is one called the Gray Gull, which, he wrote "holds 1.3 million gallons of oil. ... A Gray Gull collision with a wind turbine would be an ecological disaster in Nantucket Sound."
Arguing against energy development? Predictions of environmental doom? Is this Alaska's Don Young?
In his letter, which his committee spokesman wouldn't give out but the Daily News obtained, Young said he's not necessarily against the project, but his concerns about it extend to national security and hurricanes.
The Nantucket ruckus has split environmentalists, who are torn between yearning for clean energy and aversion to industrial development in beautiful places.
Mark Forest, chief of staff to Rep. Bill Delahunt, a Democrat who represents Hyannis, said outsiders who say it's just about rich people trying to protect their view "don't know Cape Cod. They don't know our region," he said. "It's infuriating."
That sentiment -- that outsiders don't understand the area and their ignorance shouldn't rule its future -- is one Alaskans sometimes use for drilling in ANWR. Forest's boss opposes Young on that one.
STEVENS TOUGH, REAGAN TOUGHER
The Washington Post recently ran this recollection about Ronald Reagan, which says as much about Sen. Ted Stevens' tenacity as it does about President Reagan's style.
Time: The 1980s. Place: Washington, D.C. Narrator: White House personnel director Pendleton James.
Sen. Stevens at the time was insisting on getting an Alaskan, unnamed in the story, appointed to some sort of commission. Pendleton didn't think the man was qualified. Stevens wouldn't budge.
"He just beat the hell out of me," Pendleton said. To resolve it, he got Stevens scheduled for 10 minutes with President Reagan.
"Now, Ron, this is important. I want this guy appointed," Stevens began, Pendleton says.
"He starts going on and on and on, and Reagan just sits there and listens to him. He goes on five minutes. He goes on 10 minutes. He goes on 15 minutes. He goes on 20 minutes."
Finally an aide tells the president he's got to move on. The president and the senator stand.
"Ron puts his arm around Ted and he says, "Ted, I understand what you mean, but under the Constitution, I make the appointments." And that was the end of that.
QUOTABLE
"Can you imagine me in Bermuda shorts?" -- Don Young, refuting a report, originally in TalkingPointsMemo.com, that he wore such a garment to address the parliament of the Marshall Islands.
Washington Notes is a periodic look at Alaska people and topics in the capital by Daily News reporter Liz Ruskin. She can be reached at lruskin@adn.com.
CAPE COD: Congressman expresses environmental concerns over wind farm.
By LIZ RUSKIN
Anchorage Daily News
www.adn.com/
(Published: February 26, 2006)
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Don Young has stepped into a raging Nor'easter over a proposed wind farm off Cape Cod, and now he is tossing in an ocean of ironies that has him on the same side of the feud as two renowned liberals -- Sen. Ted Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The wind farm towers, six miles from shore, would be visible from the Kennedy compound at Hyannisport, Martha's Vineyard and other towns famous for their beautiful coastal setting. The Kennedys oppose the project, as do lots of locals, boaters and tourism boosters. And Alaska's Don Young.
Young is pushing for a buffer of 1.5 nautical miles between offshore windmills and shipping lanes, which developers says would kill the project.
"Around here, everyone is asking why does an Alaska congressman care about this issue," said Mark Rodgers, a spokesman in Cape Cod for Cape Wind, the company that wants to build the project.
Young, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, has said little publicly about his position.
"We've tried to meet or at least have a phone conversation with Congressman Young for two months," Rodgers said. "He's refused to talk to us at all."
But at a press conference in Anchorage on Thursday, Young did answer a reporter's question on the subject. He said his concern is for marine navigation.
"The Coast Guard raised this question first," he said.
"But more than that, I have a report -- I follow this business of navigation real closely -- a report from the United Kingdom, that they allowed windmills to be built on some of their traffic channels and it was a disaster."
Rodgers said the UK report calls for mandatory buffer zones of 500 meters. Young, he said, wants to impose one five times larger.
One curiosity in the Cape Cod flap is a five-page letter Young wrote to his colleagues on the subject. The letter's evocative language sometimes strikes the tone Young's traditional enemies, the environmentalists, use when they're trying to thwart his dream of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
"The proposed Cape Wind project is a massive undertaking in the heart of Nantucket Sound," Young wrote. "It will include 130 towers -- each reaching up to 417 feet in height and spread out over 24 square miles. The span of the turbine blades would approximate the length of a football field.
"It is located in the heart of Horseshoe Shoal which is a rich fishing area and provides some 60 percent of the fish that commercial fisherman catch in the area."
Among the ships that travel to Nantucket regularly is one called the Gray Gull, which, he wrote "holds 1.3 million gallons of oil. ... A Gray Gull collision with a wind turbine would be an ecological disaster in Nantucket Sound."
Arguing against energy development? Predictions of environmental doom? Is this Alaska's Don Young?
In his letter, which his committee spokesman wouldn't give out but the Daily News obtained, Young said he's not necessarily against the project, but his concerns about it extend to national security and hurricanes.
The Nantucket ruckus has split environmentalists, who are torn between yearning for clean energy and aversion to industrial development in beautiful places.
Mark Forest, chief of staff to Rep. Bill Delahunt, a Democrat who represents Hyannis, said outsiders who say it's just about rich people trying to protect their view "don't know Cape Cod. They don't know our region," he said. "It's infuriating."
That sentiment -- that outsiders don't understand the area and their ignorance shouldn't rule its future -- is one Alaskans sometimes use for drilling in ANWR. Forest's boss opposes Young on that one.
STEVENS TOUGH, REAGAN TOUGHER
The Washington Post recently ran this recollection about Ronald Reagan, which says as much about Sen. Ted Stevens' tenacity as it does about President Reagan's style.
Time: The 1980s. Place: Washington, D.C. Narrator: White House personnel director Pendleton James.
Sen. Stevens at the time was insisting on getting an Alaskan, unnamed in the story, appointed to some sort of commission. Pendleton didn't think the man was qualified. Stevens wouldn't budge.
"He just beat the hell out of me," Pendleton said. To resolve it, he got Stevens scheduled for 10 minutes with President Reagan.
"Now, Ron, this is important. I want this guy appointed," Stevens began, Pendleton says.
"He starts going on and on and on, and Reagan just sits there and listens to him. He goes on five minutes. He goes on 10 minutes. He goes on 15 minutes. He goes on 20 minutes."
Finally an aide tells the president he's got to move on. The president and the senator stand.
"Ron puts his arm around Ted and he says, "Ted, I understand what you mean, but under the Constitution, I make the appointments." And that was the end of that.
QUOTABLE
"Can you imagine me in Bermuda shorts?" -- Don Young, refuting a report, originally in TalkingPointsMemo.com, that he wore such a garment to address the parliament of the Marshall Islands.
Washington Notes is a periodic look at Alaska people and topics in the capital by Daily News reporter Liz Ruskin. She can be reached at lruskin@adn.com.