We can understand why some Massachusetts residents do not like the idea of a company building 130 giant windmills out in the waters of Nantucket Sound. Even if the windmills would appear quite small from the shore, they would detract from the natural beauty and tranquility of the sound for the many boaters who venture into it.
But what is troubling about the opposition to the project is that many of the critics have been politicians and media figures who are all too eager to impose windmills on "the rest of us." Only when a wind project threatened to mar the views from their Massachusetts coastal property did they object. And for nine long years, they succeeded in blocking the project, saying that particular area deserved protection that other areas did not necessarily deserve.
But recently, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar finally gave federal approval to the project. That means the 400-foot-tall windmills will be built, assuming lawsuits do not block the project further, and that it can get financing.
The question now is whether the $2 billion windmills will be funded privately, as they should be if they are to be funded at all, or partly by taxpayers through unconstitutional subsidies.
Wind power is not very economical, nor especially reliable on calm days. But that has not stopped our federal government from showering wind power projects with massive subsidies to fight the "global warming" that environmental activists blame on the use of fossil fuels.
That is unfortunate, because government should not be picking winners and losers in the energy market or any other industry.