Markey presses for Cape Wind decision

The long-debated Cape Wind project is a significant measure of US commitment to alternative energy, Representative Edward Markey said today, urging a federal decision before the global warming conference in Denmark early next month.

Markey wrote a letter today to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, whose department has already completed an environmental review of the proposal. Read the letter here.

“Approving the Cape Wind project as the nation’s first commercial offshore wind project before the start of the U.N. conference would send a strong message to international negotiators about the United States’ commitment to developing sources of clean energy and reducing global warming pollution,” Markey, a co-author of the climate change bill that passed the House in June, said in a statement. “I strongly support the development of clean, renewable energy, and I believe that wind projects both onshore and offshore hold tremendous promise for our nation and for New England.”

With the Senate unlikely to complete action on a climate change bill before the Copenhagen conference, supporters are trying to line up any and all actions to demonstrate the US is serious on the issue.