October 5, 2010
Massachusetts

Charlie Baker, Tim Cahill blast costs of Deval Patrick ‘pet’ Cape Wind

By Jay Fitzgerald, Boston Herald, www.bostonherald.com 5 October 2010

Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker yesterday accused Gov. Deval Patrick of treating Cape Wind as a “personal pet project” despite mounting concerns about its multibillion-dollar costs.

Reacting to a Herald story on the huge cost burdens the Cape Wind project could put on businesses, all three of the major gubernatorial candidates jumped into the ongoing donnybrook over the proposed wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod.

“Governor Patrick continually ignores more cost-effective renewable energy sources in favor of his personal pet project,” Baker’s campaign said in a statement yesterday. “Cape Wind is a bad deal for families and businesses of all sizes and Gov. Patrick will not be satisfied until Massachusetts ratepayers have the highest cost of electricity in the country.”

Independent candidate Tim Cahill described Cape Wind, now under review by state regulators, as a “bad deal for ratepayers.”

But he took swipes at both Patrick, a big supporter of Cape Wind, and Baker, who was a high-ranking cabinet member during previous Republican administrations that oversaw construction of the Big Dig.

“The Republicans lied and defrauded taxpayers with the Big Dig, and now the Democrats are trying to do it again with Cape Wind,” Cahill said in a statement. “It’s time for Massachusetts to move in a new direction.”

But Patrick’s campaign didn’t back down from the governor’s support for Cape Wind.

“The governor understands that the cost of inaction and leaving ourselves at the mercy of future spikes in oil and gas prices is too great,” Patrick’s campaign said. “Charlie Baker and Tim Cahill oppose Cape Wind, and would jeopardize the progress we have made in creating new jobs and supporting clean-energy-related businesses in Massachusetts.”

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/10/05/charlie-baker-tim-cahill-blast-costs-of-deval-patrick-pet-cape-wind/