ILL WIND FROM WASHINGTON

A plan to install 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound has generated a lot of opposition, much of it from wealthy residents worried that their views will be ruined. Approval or denial of the project, which already has undergone four years of regulatory review, should be based on its adherence to standards set by the Coast Guard and other regulatory agencies. It should not be based on an arbitrary standard set by Congress.

Rep. Don Young, an Alaska Republican, recently attached an amendment to a Coast Guard Reauthorization bill that would prohibit wind energy facilities within 1.5 nautical miles of shipping and ferry routes (oil rigs, by the way, can be within 500 feet of a shipping lane). While ensuring wind turbines don’t interfere with navigation is important, there is no basis for this arbitrary, one-size-fits-all prohibition. The measure should be removed from the final bill, which is currently being negotiated by a conference committee that includes Sen. Olympia Snowe.

To bolster his case for the 1.5-mile standard, Rep. Young cites a British study that found “significant navigational safety problems” associated with offshore wind energy facilities. While the study did find that wind turbines could interfere with radar equipment, no collisions or accidents have been reported in the United Kingdom or Denmark, where turbines are near busy shipping lanes. The British did set a one-third mile buffer zone around shipping lanes, but the report stressed that projects be evaluated individually.

The U.S. Coast Guard is already doing this with Cape Wind, the Nantucket project. The agency began a navigational review in 2001 and has yet to complete it. Rather than scrapping that process and setting the 1.5 mile limit, which would kill the Cape Wind project, Congress could encourage the Coast Guard to expeditiously complete its work. The agency has a history of being protective of shipping and is unlikely to permit a project that would interfere with navigation. In fact, the agency does not support the 1.5-mile prohibition.

The energy bill passed by Congress last year made the Department of the Interior the lead regulatory agency for non-petroleum energy projects. The department has just begun developing standards for its own review process. That work, too, should be finished without congressional meddling.

Finally, at a time when President Bush called for more investment in alternative energy, including wind, Congress should not unnecessarily stand in the way of such projects. The Cape Wind project would produce the same amount of energy annually as 113 million gallons of oil or 570,000 tons of coal. It would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 1 million tons a year, the equivalent of taking 162,000 cars off the road.

Because it will set standards for other wind projects, perhaps including ones off the coast of Maine, thorough review of the Nantucket Sound project is necessary. Regulatory agencies already have the tools they need to do that work without this unwarranted amendment.