As New Englanders await a decision in Massachusetts on a bitterly contested proposal to build the nation's first offshore wind farm, the state of Rhode Island is forging ahead with its own project in the hope of outpacing -- and upstaging -- its neighbor. Crucial to its strategy is dispelling worries that economics will trump the environment, or the broader public good. Instead of having a private developer dominate the research on potential sites, as Massachusetts has, Rhode Island embarked on a three-year scientific study, to be completed in August, of all waters within 30 miles of its coast. It has spent more than $8 million on research into bird migration patterns, wildlife habitats, fish distribution, fishermen's needs and areas that might be of cultural importance to Indian tribes. Its goal has been to head off the hurdles that have been in the way of the Massachusetts project, which has pitted coastal Indian tribes, business interest and homeowners against the developer, Cape Wind, and proponents of alternative energy. Frustrated by the failure of the two sides to broker an agreement, the Obama administration's interior secretary, Ken Salazar, has promised to determine the fate of the project on his own this month. (On Friday a federal historic panel sent Salazar its recommendation that the government reject the Cape Wind Project.) Still, independent of the scientific study, Rhode Island has proposed two potential offshore sites -- a $200 million eight-turbine project off Block Island, and a far bigger $1.5 billion farm in the eastern Rhode Island Sound -- and has selected a preferred developer, Deepwater Wind. Rhode Island has not secured permits, but it has trumpeted what Cape Wind so far lacks: a 'power purchase' agreement with a utility company to buy what a farm generates. Yet on Wednesday, the state's utility commission rejected that pact, which involved the proposed farm off Block Island, as too costly. So for now, Cape Wind is poised to be first, said Matt Kaplan, a wind analyst at Emerging Energy Research, a firm that tracks emerging energy markets. New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, New Jersey, New York and Maine are also eager to secure permits and to lease blocks from the federal government in waters beyond the three-mile limit of state control. The economic stakes are considerable. Deepwater, the developer favored by Rhode Island, says that the wind farm proposed in the sound could generate 1.3 million megawatt hours of power a year, light up 125,000 homes and create more than 600 jobs. 