NOVEMBER 2002 Through a spokesperson, then-governor-elect Mitt Romney stakes his claim as a wind-farm opponent. “He believes Cape Cod is a national treasure, and we shouldn’t install these wind [farms],” the spokesperson says.
APRIL 2003 Rhode Island governor Donald Carcieri endorses the project and urges that it be expedited.
AUGUST 2003 A Federal District Court decision dismisses an anti–Cape Wind lawsuit filed by the Ten Taxpayers Citizens group; the First Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the decision in June 2004.
OCTOBER 2004 Senator John Warner (R-Virginia) drops an amendment that would place an indefinite moratorium on wind-farm construction.
NOVEMBER 2005 Then-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney hand-delivers a letter to the US secretary of the interior, asking that the Cape Wind proposal not be reviewed until fixed guidelines are set for offshore wind-farm projects.
APRIL 2006 Greenpeace improbably (and temporarily) wins the affection of conservatives everywhere by running an ad lampooning Ted Kennedy’s opposition to Cape Wind. In the spot, a hulking Kennedy stands in the middle of Nantucket Sound and pounds down the windmills as they sprout up, growling, “I might see them from my mansion on the Cape.” The ad doesn’t run in Massachusetts.
MAY 2006 Sixty-nine Massachusetts state legislators sign a letter opposing a Ted Kennedy–backed amendment that would give the Massachusetts governor veto power over Cape Wind, which is slated for construction in federal waters. The amendment fails.
SEPTEMBER 2006 Both Republican candidates seeking to unseat Kennedy endorse Cape Wind.
NOVEMBER 2006 Democrat Deval Patrick, a Cape Wind supporter, beats Republican Kerry Healey, a Cape Wind opponent, in the Massachusetts gubernatorial election.
MARCH 2007 Ian Bowles, Massachusetts secretary of environmental affairs, certifies that Cape Wind has completed the state’s environmental-review process and can begin obtaining construction permits from state agencies.
MAY 2007 Massachusetts congressman William Delahunt explains his opposition to Cape Wind during an interview with WCAI: “Let’s begin first with the premise that we don’t save the environment by denigrating the environment.”
MAY 2007 The Ten Taxpayer Citizens Group files suit in Barnstable Superior Court, seeking to overturn the state’s certification of the project. Additional lawsuits from the town of Barnstable and the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound are also expected.
