Jim Gordon May Have an Answer to our Energy Problems

Senator, Can You Help Me?

"It's a war of attrition," says Gordon. "They're trying to wear us down and make us run out of money."

Gordon has spent millions on lawyers, lobbyists and consultants, but two of his most powerful weapons are his own determination and salesmanship. When Walter Cronkite, a longtime resident of Martha's Vineyard, recorded radio ads against the wind farm, Gordon picked up the phone. "We're renting a summer house in Nantucket and he gets on the phone and cold calls Walter Cronkite," recalls Gordon's wife Meg. "The next thing I know, I'm out buying a box of candy for Jim to bring to his house." He convinced Cronkite to keep an open mind, and the newsman asked the alliance to pull his ads.

Gordon also has proven to be a savvy political operator. When the Democratic convention came to Boston in 2004, somebody distributed a bogus press release claiming that a contractor had refused to work with Cape Wind. Gordon hired a forensic computer expert from Kroll Security who, armed with two court orders, traced the phony release to the home of a staff member of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. Gordon sued the staffer and won a $15,000 judgment, which Cape Wind -- not to let a good publicity opportunity slip by -- donated to a charity that helps needy families pay energy bills.

Gordon's strategy includes another unorthodox business tactic: grassroots organizing. The Cape Wind web site, with calls for action and warnings of global warming, resembles that of an environmental organization more than a private utility. One of the ironies of the Cape Wind debate is that a power plant tycoon has allied with environmentalists who normally are more accustomed to suing utilities. Those allies include Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We can dance with corporations or we can dance on them," says Kate Smolski of Greenpeace. "We do not support Cape Wind Associates or Jim Gordon -- we support the project they are building because of the clean renewable energy it will produce."

Such alliances raise an interesting question: Is Gordon the environmentalist he claims to be? Or the opportunist portrayed by his opponents? "My personal opinion is the challenge alone is what keeps him at it," says Cochran, the engineer who helped Gordon develop power plants. "He wants to beat the odds. He has waaaayyy to much personal money into it for it to be anything else, in my opinion. He certainly has passion for cleaning up the environment and all that good stuff, but I would argue it's because it seems an impossible task -- and he's going to prove that it isn't."

Certainly Gordon could find easier ways to make money. "This may sound corny to you," says Gordon, "but I'm kind of a patriotic person, and I think that if we don't get away from importing most of our energy, we're in trouble. Yeah, I'll be upset if this whole thing is flushed down the toilet, all the money we've invested. But if it's all lost, then I'm glad I tried."

There was a point last year when it did seem all might be lost. A Senate-House conference committee approved an amendment to a Coast Guard budget bill that would effectively kill Cape Wind by giving veto power on navigational issues to the governor of "the adjacent state" -- at the time, that governor was wind farm opponent Mitt Romney. Gordon read his own political obituary. "Cape Cod Wind Farm Project May Be Headed for Pasture," said a headline in the Los Angeles Times. The amendment was inserted by committee chairman Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that Stevens had discussed it with Ted Kennedy.

"Jimmy went to Washington and literally stood in the hallway of the congressional building and flagged people down in between sessions," says Meg Gordon. "He pounded the pavement in Washington for four months straight until he was able to turn around what Kennedy was trying to do."

Even a vacation turned into a lobbying trip. On the first morning of a long-delayed visit to his mother in Florida, Gordon learned that Senator John McCain would be signing books at a nearby bookstore. He spent two hours waiting in line, handed McCain his book, and pleaded, "Senator, Can you help me?" A few days later, McCain announced his support for Cape Wind.

The controversy elevated Cape Wind into rallying point for green energy and Congressional reform. Editorials from coast to coast decried the backroom politics. Even as the project's political fate became more perilous, its public support grew. By last fall, Cape Wind had become a wedge issue in the Bay State elections. Says Gordon, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Climate Change!