Year-round residents of Nantucket are voting today on whether the island should support a proposed wind farm to be built 14 miles off their scenic coast. While such offshore farms are big in Europe, this would be the first one in the U.S.

According to Cape Wind Associates, the project's developer, the 130 turbines planted in Nantucket Sound would produce an average of 170 megawatts of electricity – enough to feed 75 percent of Nantucket, Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard's needs, offsetting emissions from coal- and oil-fired plants. (You can see how much energy could theoretically be produced in current conditions at Cape Wind's monitoring station.)

While the election will have no direct effect on the wind farm's future, it will be seen as a bellwether of political movement behind the project. Last week, a Senate-House conference attached an amendment to a budget bill for the U.S. Coast Guard that would allow Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney veto power over the wind farm.

Romney, mindful of the island's tourist economy, is a vocal opponent of the project. Senator Ted Kennedy, who perhaps not coincidentally owns a well-known family compound in affluent Hyannisport on Cape Cod, is also not a fan: It's rumored that Kennedy pushed for the amendment, which was drafted by Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, whose greatest environmental hits include a lust for ANWR oil and a preference for airborne mercury.

The bill will go to the full Congress after its two-week Easter break.