An offshore wind farm off the coast of the Netherlands. Image courtesy of Nuon @ flickr

From California to Craigsville Beach on Cape Cod, nearly twelve hundred people joined together over the past week to voice their support for Cape Wind’s clean, renewable energy and to oppose the ongoing delays depriving our country of its first offshore wind project. Their comments were directed at the Department of Energy (DOE), which was seeking the public’s input as the agency considers a federal loan guarantee for Cape Wind. The immediate issue before DOE is whether to accept the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement in its consideration of the loan. The rigorous environmental review has been deemed more than adequate by the country’s leading national, regional and local environmental organizations, including Greenpeace, the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Mass Audubon, Conservation Law Foundation and more.

In a letter sent to DOE on Monday, more than two dozen environmental, clean energy, public health, business and labor stakeholders urged the agency to proceed without delay to consider and grant a loan guarantee for Cape Wind. The letter stated, “Cape Wind will concretely advance the nation’s objectives in addressing the challenge of climate change while promoting energy security and economic development. Following an extremely lengthy and rigorous environmental review, the Cape Wind project should proceed for consideration and grant of a loan guarantee without further delay. Such action will help lay the strongest possible foundation for offshore renewable energy development in the United States.”

Cape Wind Now’s petition to DOE activated Cape Wind supporters across the country who invoked everything from protecting their children’s future to much-needed jobs to national pride in calling on DOE to approve a federal loan guarantee for the project and unleash the potential of offshore wind, one of the country’s most promising, but as yet untapped, sources of clean, renewable energy. Supporters railed against the decade of delay perpetuated by fossil fuel billionaire Bill Koch and his Cape Wind opposition group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. In yet another delay tactic, the Alliance and a couple of House Republicans recently sought to distract DOE and wrap up the loan guarantee process in red tape by questioning the completed, thoroughly researched and vetted environmental review. “No more delays!” was the common refrain from petitioners, including many Cape residents, who pleaded with DOE to do everything in its power to get the wind turbines built now.

DOE announced in November 2012 that it was considering a federal loan guarantee for the project. The DOE loan guarantee is a key component of Cape Wind’s financing, lowering the cost of the project’s debt and ultimately the cost of Cape Wind to Massachusetts ratepayers. DOE will issue its decision in the coming months.

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“The choice before us is simple. Will we continue to subsidize the dirty fossil fuels of the past, or will we transition to 21st century clean, renewable energy?” – U.S. Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

 Good question. To us, the choice is crystal clear. There is but one plausible answer if we are to avert the most devastating impacts of climate change. Thankfully, Massachusetts is sending to Capitol Hill two new leaders – Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren and Congressman-elect Joseph Kennedy III – who have declared firm commitments to fight climate change and promote a clean energy future.

They clearly and consistently have pledged to work to end huge giveaways to Big Oil and other dirty fossil fuel interests, and instead to promote investment in energy efficiency, renewables, and home-grown clean energy jobs. They get it that advancing clean energy is essential not only for confronting climate change, but also for promoting jobs and economic development, saving money by reducing energy waste, investing locally rather than sending billions of Massachusetts dollars to unfriendly dirty fuel-producing nations, and reducing health impacts and healthcare costs as we reduce air and water pollution.

CLF is eager to work with Massachusetts’ newly minted Senator-elect Warren and Congressman-elect Kennedy – and the rest of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation – to translate these laudable aspirations into concrete measures.

The election of Congressman Kennedy also heralds a noteworthy new era in a related respect: Kennedy admirably has demonstrated the courage of his convictions in breaking with prominent members of his family – and joining with his predecessor Congressman Barney Frank, Senator-elect Warren, and other members of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation – to support the Cape Wind offshore wind energy project. True, Cape Wind has all of its state and federal approvals and is ready to go. But it can’t hurt to have supportive leaders on Capitol Hill who are ready to fend off last-ditch efforts by dirty energy-funded interests seeking to gin up Congressional witch hunts to derail the project.

Also on election day, Massachusetts residents in seven communities – Beverly, Canton, Fall River, Great Barrington, Salem, Somerset, and Somerville – reinforced a strong and growing commitment to invest in thriving communities through the adoption of the Community Preservation Act. These communities joined 148 other Massachusetts cities towns that have voted to raise their property taxes in order to preserve open space and historic structures, build affordable housing, and develop recreational fields. With more than one hundred Massachusetts communities also having joined the Commonwealth’s Green Communities Program since 2008 to invest in local clean energy initiatives, the people of Massachusetts continue to grow their commitments to invest in healthy, livable communities.

So, what’s next?  One of the biggest challenges ahead during the upcoming Massachusetts legislative session will be to solve the issue of our underfunded and overextended transportation systems.  After all, we need to connect all of these thriving communities more reliably, affordably and with environmentally responsible options.

There comes a time when you just have to say that enough is enough.

That is where we are in the world of climate advocacy.

As Bill McKibben laid out in his essay on Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math we can no longer ignore the deep and fundamental need for action to save our climate, our families, our communities and our environment from catastrophe – and that there are powerful, entrenched and well-financed forces who will do just about anything to thwart our efforts.

The primary tools that CLF employs in the fight for climate protection are law, science and economics.  We fight for a thriving New England in court and work with smart business people to build markets for renewable energy like wind farms and to foster energy efficiency, the clean resource all around us.  And we are fighting to ensure that the governments of the region live up to their pledges to create great places where there is more walking and less driving and more of the remaining cars pollute less. We know that this work is essential if we are going to win the war to save our climate.

Courtesy 350.org

But sometimes we need to do more. One thing we need to do, in addition to our calm and civil lawyerly work, is to get angry and push back in the right ways at the right times and in the right places.  This is the spirit behind the Cape Wind Now! campaign that CLF and its partners have launched to call out the fossil fuel powered interests fighting against renewable energy. It is also the driving force behind the Do The Math tour and campaign led by 350.0rg.

And now it is coming to a concert hall near you. This event is a unique blend of “multimedia lecture . . . organizing rally [and] live musical performance” that is not to be missed. CLF has helped to arrange for this important effort to land at the historic Orpheum Theater in Boston on November 15 – tickets are still available!

Before coming the Boston the tour stops in Portland Maine on November 13 and then off on a cross-country odyssey from New York to Los Angeles, to Seattle and then Colorado and many stops in between and on the way.