Cape Wind, Don Young, and sleazeball politics

Think Washington's lobbying scandal has nothing to do with you? Think about this:

Everyone around here knows about Cape Wind and the pitched battle playing out down on the cape. The latest came out of the Globe: Representative Don Young of Alaska has inserted an amendment to the Coast Guard reauthorization bill to kill the Cape Wind proposal. The Washington Post has picked up on the story.

So a Representative from Alaska wants to kill a wind farm proposal in Massachusetts. Let's look beyond the obvious, that Alaska's oil industry feels threatened by the prospect of successful offshore wind farms. Young has been lobbied hard by the deep-pocketed opponents of the wind farm. Apparently, the view from a millionaire's window is worth at least $100,000 in disposable cash. And that's just from the first half of last year.

Add into that Young's entanglement with Jack Abramoff (exposed by the always great Talking Points Memo), and you start to get a picture of the street fighter nature of this issue. The rich folk on Cape Cod are willing to purchase a renegade representative to kill a renewable energy project that's been green lighted at every regulatory venue. And Don Young's services are clearly up for sale. So you tell me; Does hiring an Alaskan lobbyist and giving him huge gobs of cash translate into legislative action? Or was Don Young of Alaksa always intested in the shipping routes along Horseshoe Shoal near Cape Cod, some 4,700 miles away?