In what is, by my count, the 6th (more here here here and here) legal victory against rich NIMBY landowners and their ilk, courts have approved the transmission cables for Cape Wind.

The Pawa law firm and the Global Warming Legal Action Project have scored a major victory in the Cape Wind case. Today the Energy Facilities Siting Board (“EFSB”) rejected nearly all of the arguments by the opponents of Cape Wind to dismiss the EFSB case filed by Cape Wind. The Pawa firm represents citizens group Clean Power Now in the case. Cape Wind filed the case seeking a certificate of environmental compliance after the Cape Cod Commission had denied Cape Wind a permit for its electric transmission line.

The EFSB ruled today, in favor of Clean Power Now and Cape Wind, that

(1) the Cape Cod Commission’s procedural denial of the permit was in fact a denial;

(2) the Commission’s denial was a final decision and therefore reviewable by the EFSB;

(3) that it would not remand the case to the Commission given the extensive evidence already submitted on the Cape Wind project;

(4) that the EFSB case would be limited to the transmission line, which crosses state waters – and would not address any impacts of the wind farm itself, which lies beyond state jurisdiction in federal waters; and

(5) that its review of the Commission’s decision would not be limited to the record developed by the Commission.(via)

You can read more about this here. While this is a fairly esoteric ruling about transmission lines and who gets to say what about them, the fact of the matter is that every single time the NIMBY (not in my back yard) rich yacht owners try to stop this project, the courts rule against them. The opponents of this environmentally sound, clean, and renewable energy project, have spent millions of dollars to make sure that the nations first off shore wind farm doesn’t happen. It looks to me like that might turn out to be a big waste of money.

Normal people understand the need for clean renewable sources of energy, the courts understand that Cape Wind is on sound legal footing, and politicians are quickly learning that global warming is the biggest threat to this nation that we have ever seen. All in all I see this as a very good sign for Cape Wind.