Ted Kennedy must be spinning in his grave!
The Obama administration has given the green light for the nation’s first offshore wind farm off the pristine coast of Cape Cod — a surprise move in direct opposition to the wishes of the mighty Massachusetts political icon who helped propel the president to power.
US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made the announcement yesterday in Boston, capping a nine-year federal review process that pitted the liberal Kennedy clan — whose Hyannis Port compound is near the future wind farm — against fellow Dems and some environmental groups.
A month before he died, Ted Kennedy — who was one of President Obama’s earliest backers — wrote the president a letter begging him to stop the wind farm from being erected.
“He [Ted Kennedy] would be heartbroken,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer and the nephew of the late liberal lion.
Some environmentalists accused the longtime Massachusetts senator — who often sailed in the waters off of Cape Cod — of opposing the wind farm simply because it would mar the picturesque views of the Nantucket Sound from the family’s storied compound.
Robert Kennedy — who also opposes the wind farm — scoffed, “No Kennedy has ever said that.”
He said the Kennedys and others oppose it for a number of reasons, including fears for the local fishing industry and the belief that there are cheaper ways to tap wind energy.
The late Ted Kennedy once said, “The people who ought to be irate [over the wind farm] ought to be the citizens of Massachusetts. I don’t shrink from my advocacy for them.”
Also in opposition to the wind farm are two Wampanoag Indian tribes, who have complained that the giant turbines will disturb their spiritual ceremonies and possibly destroy the tribe’s burial grounds.
The 130-turbine wind farm is expected to cut carbon dioxide by 700,000 tons a year, the Interior Department said — the equivalent of taking 175,000 cars off the road.