SINKING IN
BUREAUCRACY
backing of virtually every major
environmental group — including
the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace and others — the government’s unhurried review of the
project cost tens of millions of
dollars more than it would have in
countries with more streamlined
permitting processes. And even
now, Cape Wind remains stuck in
a briar patch of legal challenges to
its siting, most ly filed by a small
but determined coalition of local
residents and unusually wealthy
property owners in the area who
have no incentive to relent.
It is a dilemma that developers
of major infrastructure projects
know all too well, and one that
some critics say is in dire need of
reform. “There has to be a better way,” said Matthew Brown, an
attorney with Common Good, a
nonpartisan group seeking ways to
overhaul governmental and legal
systems to streamline the approval or rejection of major projects
of all kinds. “It shows just exactly
how far away from the purposes
of the process the actual reality
has come,” Brown said, “because
environmental review, and the
lawsuits attending it, now actively
thwart environmentally positive
HUFFINGTON
03.10.13
“WHEN YOU’RE FINANCING
A PROJECT, NOVELTY IS BAD.”
projects like Cape Wind.”
During his State of the Union
address, President Barack Obama
declared that, “for the sake of
our children and our future, we
must do more to combat climate change,” and he promised
to “speed the transition to more
sustainable sources of energy.”
But just what an idealized projectpermitting system might look like
— for clean energy or any major
infrastructure project — remains
a matter of debate. Environmental and citizen groups are understandably loath to limit access to
the courts, or to overhaul a regulatory machinery that, for all of
its messiness, affords them a good
deal of leverage against deep-pocketed developers of far more menacing projects than Cape Wind.
And while the Nantucket wind
farm appears to be nearing the
end of its own legal and regulatory
limbo, it still remains too soon to
say with any certainty when — or
even if — the project will be built.
This, critics say, needs to change.
“I can’t think of anything more
benign in terms of impact than
an offshore wind farm, compared