(Updates with details, background, company comment)
By Ian Talley
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Monday that he expects a final decision on Cape Wind, one of the first planned offshore wind farms in the country, by the end of the year.
The controversial project has faced major delays as local residents raised numerous objections, becoming an emblem of the problem the Obama administration faces trying to transform the nation's energy economy to more reliance on renewable energy sources.
If the Interior finally approves the permit as expected by the industry, the decision would be the project's last major hurdle.
"It is our hope that...we will be able to get to the point where we would have the final decision to hopefully be made by the end of the year," Salazar told reporters on the sidelines of a clean energy economy forum at the White House.
Developer Energy Management Inc. said on its Web site that once the 130-turbine, 468-megawatt project is fully approved, construction should take two years or less. The company originally expected the wind farm to come online in 2005. But well-funded local opposition and a shifting of the permitting authority from the Army Corps of Engineers to Interior's Minerals Management Service has meant a near-half-decade delay.
The project got a major boost from the MMS in January after the agency gave the project a favorable review in its proposed environmental impact statement.
Mark Rodgers, communications director for EMI, said his company was confident that the Obama administration would find that the benefits of the project outweigh the potential negative impacts.
Local opposition has been one of the biggest challenges to the Obama administration's plan to expand the country's use of renewable energy, as residents fight transmission siting, solar projects and wind farms across the country.
Rodgers said the company was in the final stages of choosing a turbine manufacturer, but the list was down to two companies: Siemens AG (SI) and Vestas Wind Systems (VWS.KO). He wouldn't say what the total estimated capital costs for the project would be, but indicated it would be more than $1 billion.
-By Ian Talley, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9285; ian.talley@dowjones.com