Published May 27, 2010

Blog host Andrew Phelps here. Curt Nickisch is WBUR’s business and technology reporter. He has covered the Cape Wind saga for us extensively.

Elizabeth Birnbaum, head of the troubled Minerals Management Agency, has been fired. And that has serious implications here in Massachusetts.

MMS is the agency that would ultimately issue a federal lease for — and oversee — Cape Wind, the proposed offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound. The agency was closely involved in the research and approval of the project.

Birnbaum’s agency came under withering criticism over lax oversight of drilling and cozy ties with industry.

It was only last month that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar introduced Birnbaum at a Beacon Hill news conference.

While the Gulf oil disaster gives fuel to Cape Wind supporters — who say the nation needs to move to cleaner energy — today’s firing will give new ammunition to Cape Wind opponents: If Birnbaum is being criticized for lax offshore regulation of drilling, what does that say about her oversight of the offshore wind power project?

1:26: Audra Parker, of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, says she has seen the same lax review process for Cape Wind. “Really, instead of protecting our environment, MMS has been consistently too close to industry and the developers that they’re supposed to be policing.”

Breaking news update, from Huffington Post: Large air spill reported at wind farm, no injuries reported