It has been years (7 years actually) that people have been fighting to get the Cape Wind offshore wind farm built. Mostly because a couple very rich people don’t want to look at it. I am not joking, they would rather let the oceans rise up and destroy their beach front property than have to look a couple wind turbines. Well the good elected officials of the State of Massachusetts have had enough.

A majority of the members of the Massachusetts Legislature, 107 in total, representing Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate, including 28 Committee Chairmen, have signed onto a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar urging him to approve Cape Wind “as soon as possible.”

This announcement this week coincides with an event in Newark, Delaware where Vice President Biden and Interior Secretary Salazar are highlighting offshore wind power development in the United States.

Chairman Frank I. Smizik who authored the letter said he was pleased to have obtained nearly 30 additional signatures less than a month after he first submitted the letter with 78 signatures. “Projects that start controversial up here usually stay controversial. Not Cape Wind – rarely have I seen legislators come to such a consensus in support of a project as they learn more about it, and this letter – with a strong and ever-growing majority of the legislature signing on – represents that,” said House Chairman Smizik. “It’s clear to me that people realize Cape Wind is a development that is good for the environment, good for the economy, and overall a real win for Massachusetts,” Smizik added.

U.S. Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to issue a Record of Decision on Cape Wind in the near future. The Minerals Management Service of the U.S. Department of Interior issued Cape Wind a favorable Final Environmental Impact Statement in January. In March, the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board voted unanimously to issue Cape Wind a ‘Composite Certificate’ that will finalize State permitting.

“I am pleased that a majority of the Massachusetts Legislature along with Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and 86% of the citizens of Massachusetts support Cape Wind and want Massachusetts to become home to the nation’s first offshore wind farm,” stated Cape Wind President Jim Gordon. “Cape Wind is shovel-ready,” Gordon added.

Too bad for the project the very few people against it have both large mouths, and large wallets. Cape Wind is a perfect example of how a couple very rich (mostly oil/coal/gas barons) can stop the will of the many. The real tragedy of justice is that even though the vast vast majority of people are in favor of this project, even though it would do wonderful things for the environment, even though it would make the state richer and produce badly needed jobs, even though it would help preserve one of the most beautiful places on earth (by helping to stop global warming from erasing Cape Cod), it hasn’t gone up because a couple very rich people don’t want to see it.

Lets hope we can fix this problem soon, next time I go to Cape Cod I want to see a bunch of beautiful wind turbines spinning in the wind producing clean renewable energy.