Graphic by Jeff Walsh, Boston Herald

As Green-Rainbow Party candidate Jill Stein called out the backroom deals with a monopoly utility at last week’s Cape Wind debate by MassINC, her demands for transparency, accountability and fair competition by municipal energy providers surprised many observers. David Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix didn’t even know how to categorize her criticism, incorrectly pigeon-holing Stein’s critique as opposition to the Cape Wind project, end of story.

The Boston Globe reported on Martha Coakley rushing in to show that they weren’t hiding anything. Nothing to see here! So it was interesting when the Boston Herald reported that Coakley’s 85-page report to the Department of Public Utilities was heavily redacted. According to the Herald:

The report, which was Coakley’s official justification of her rate settlement with Cape Wind and National Grid, includes “redacted” words, numbers, sentences, paragraphs and charts. It even blanked out a question asked of an energy expert hired by Coakley’s office – and the expert’s response was also crossed out.

Coakley’s defense is that DPU mandated that this information be kept from public view, and that keeping proprietary information secret during rate settlement negotiations is routine. What seems really odd to me is that footnoted sources are themselves redacted. What proprietary information could be revealed by naming the source of the information?

At this stage of the game, the estimated $2.5 billion project could easily parallel what was supposed to be a $2.5 billion Big Dig. And as Stein asserted in the debate, the potential for this becoming “Big Wind” should be a serious concern for taxpayers. We know the Big Dig culture is alive and well on Beacon Hill, and it’s critical that we don’t allow our support for renewable energy become blind support for the crummy crumbs thrown our way.

Backroom dealing toward a secure green future is an oxymoron.