HYANNIS PORT, Mass., April 30 (UPI) -- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., has teamed up with Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, to block a 130-turbine wind energy project off Cape Cod near Kennedy's home.
Stevens inserted a provision in an uncontested bill funding the Coast Guard that would give the state's governor the ability to veto the project, so Kennedy could prevent the wind farm being installed off Massachusetts' coast.
At least twice previously in recent years, Kennedy has worked behind the scenes with Republican senators to delay or halt the Cape Wind project.
Kennedy's ability to work across party lines won him recent praise in crafting a comprehensive immigration bill. Yet environmental groups accustomed to having Kennedy on their side, saw Kennedy's action as an unwelcome flipside to his mastery in the legislative process.
"It's the dark side of his bipartisan organizing power," said Seth Kaplan, a senior attorney at the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation, a group supporting the Cape Wind proposal.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and two New England Republican senators -- Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island -- plan to argue that the Coast Guard measure shouldn't include a narrow provision designed to block a single wind farm.
