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US poised to sell offshore wind leases

Interior secretary warns loss of funds would set back renewable energy gains

By Erin Ailworth

 |  Globe Staff  

  February 27, 2013

A year after designating large swaths of federal water south of Martha’s Vineyard as ideal for offshore wind development, the government is preparing to hold competitive lease sales for plots inside one of those wind energy areas this summer, outgoing Secretary of the ­Interior Ken Salazar said Tuesday.

Lease sales inside the expanse covering roughly 257 square miles — and others inside another plot off the coast of Virginia — will be the first of their kind, Salazar told a crowd of about 300 at the opening of the Offshore Wind Power USA conference in Boston. The area off Martha’s Vineyard is about 10 times the size of the controversial Cape Wind site off Cape Cod.

Comments

Secretary Salazar,

You've opened Pandora's Box as the man in control of the ocean floor, climate, heritage trades, Tribal Cultural Property, Essential Fish Habitat, Squid spawning grounds, shellfish beds, navigational lanes, ports, endangered North Atlantic right whales, marine mammals, federally protected avian life, fish, fishing trades.  The federal court in reviewing the lawsuits filed against DOI and Cape Wind under the Endangered Species Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act violation by Cape Wind favorable Record of Decision you have signed. 

http://www.peer.org/assets/docs/doi/10_10_12_Cape_Wind_motion.pdf

Your Department of Interior MMS Is the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.  MMS was the federal regulator in charge during the --British Petroleum Oil spill disaster under the DOI, your watch.  MMS became BOERME became BOEM, but this group is in charge of oil, gas, minerals rights, and wind, all one in the same, in this "auction" of the "commons" under your supreme authority as Secretary of the Interior. 

September 2008, reports by the Inspector General of the Interior Department, Earl E. Devaney, were released that implicated over a dozen officials of the MMS of unethical and criminal conduct in the performance of their duties. The investigation found MMS employees had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sex with energy company representatives. MMS staff had also accepted gifts and free holidays amid "a culture of ethical failure", according to the investigation.

The Limited Liability Corporations that you, the DOI BOEM, entertain in your "auction" of the public resources, fishing and recreational areas, Tribal Cultural Property, should be scrutinized as former Senator Ted Kennedy warned fellow Senators.  Cape Wind energy is three times the current cost of energy IF all goes well.  The technology has failed that Cape Wind has specified to the federal regulators, your DOI, in the Construction Operation Plan and 4,000 page Cape Wind Environmental Impact Statement.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-offshore-wind-offensive-plagued-by-problems-a-852728.html

Our billions have gone overseas by your stimulus, and we have nothing to show for this except the debt.  The public is on the hook for failed Solyndra, Evergreen Solar, Beacon Power, A123 Systems, Konarka Technologies, and this resonates with mortals. The DOE is now seeking comments for a loan to Cape Wind backed by the public for Cape Wind with failing technology.  http://bjdurk.newsvine.com/_news/2011/07/30/7203120-offshore-cape-wind-technology-fails

Public funding for the Solyndra of the Sea, Cape Wind, at triple current cost energy, if all goes well. is reckless waste of time of time and money.  Above all else,  Cape Wind poses a threat to public safety. 

Behind Big Wind is Big Oil and Big Gas.  Wind energy is a "stalking horse".

  Multinational corporations behind rent seeking wind companies are also oil, gas, and minerals rights' companies. BOEM is pursuing a DeepWater Wind lease.   DeepWater Wind Chairman of the Board of Managers Tony Meggs is th e former Vice President of Technology at BP and former Group Vice President in BP Exploration and Production, and current Co-Chair of MIT Natural Gas Study Initiative. DeepWater Wind Board of Managers Spencer Abraham is Former U.S. Senator from Michigan (1995-2001) and US Secretary of Energy (2001-2005), and member of the Board of Directors of Occidental Petroleum Corporation.    

The ominous irony is that British Petroleum's former technical chief and VP, who is now with DeepWater Wind, answered to the same lead federal regulator now auctioning the Public Trust, or the "commons", the Northeast ocean area that belongs to the public, to faceless Limited Liability Corporations. Minerals Management Service, that changed its name after the Gulf Oil Spill disaster over which it had purview to Bureau of Ocean Energy Management BOEM, has returned as lead federal regulator transferring public ocean resources to shadowy LLCs, and past BP execs. 

Meet your wind developers-

http://bjdurk.newsvine.com/_news/2010/12/30/5737860-meet-your-wind-developers-upc-first-wind-deepwater-wind-cape-wind-associates-llc-emi-ivpc-   Barbara Durkin   P.S.   It is disrespectful to wear a black cowboy hat to formal government to government consultations with federally recognized Tribes.