Adam Pack
Contributor
Critics of the offshore wind industry are calling on President-elect Donald Trump to keep his campaign promise of ending federal support for offshore wind on his first day in office.
Trump’s return to the Oval Office may deal the problem-riddled offshore wind industry another blow if his administration follows through on his pledge to scrap federal support for offshore wind projects during his second term. Republican lawmakers, opposed to heavily subsidized green energy, and commercial fishermen, who view the industry as an existential threat to their livelihoods, are calling on the president-elect to follow through on his campaign’s promise, which could imply ending federal subsidies and lease sales for the industry. (RELATED: Biden Celebrates Offshore Wind ‘Progress’ Despite Industry’s Major Struggles, Cancellations)
“We are going to make sure that [offshore wind] ends on day one. I’m gonna write it out in an executive order,” Trump told a crowd of his supporters at a campaign rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, on May 11. “It’s gonna end on day one.”
Since January 2021, the Biden-Harris administration has approved ten offshore wind projects at commercial scale and conducted six offshore wind lease sales, including one held just last week in the Gulf of Maine that was criticized by the commercial fishing industry as part of President Joe Biden’s wider climate agenda. Offshore wind has notably suffered from inflation headwinds, project cancellations and souring public opinion despite the Biden administration’s embrace of the industry.
“I have no doubt that a second Trump administration will do the right thing for Americans by scrapping the Biden-Harris offshore wind agenda,” Republican New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a vocal critic of the offshore wind industry, told the DCNF. “These projects are a burden on our economy, harm local communities and are nothing but a political payoff to special interests. President Trump understands that true energy independence and prosperity come from American oil, gas, solar and especially nuclear energy, through a balanced energy policy — not from wasteful wind projects that put our economy and environment at risk.”
“I think it’s a very wise decision,” Republican Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, told the DCNF. “We are wasting money, and the worst part is that all that money is going to foreign wind companies because there are no American wind companies. They’re all foreign companies that are making billions of dollars off the American energy ratepayer.”
The Vineyard Wind energy project, jointly owned by a Danish investment firm and a Spanish utility, earned Republican lawmakers’ ire in July when debris from one of the project’s turbine blades — which stretches longer than the Statue of Liberty — washed up on Massachusetts’ beaches after breaking apart and falling into the ocean.
Scenes from the @fishstewardship flotilla protest at the Vineyard Wind farm today. pic.twitter.com/iVFpGHasYd
— Nantucket Current (@ACKCurrent) August 25, 2024
“We should never allow foreign owned companies to control our energy supply — much less harm our environment while doing it,” Harris wrote on X.
The New England Fisherman’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA), a commercial fishing industry group that organized a “flotilla protest” at the site of the broken Vineyard Wind turbine in August, is calling on the Trump administration to walk back on Biden’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. The group is also advocating for the incoming Trump administration to “delist unleased wind energy areas” off the coast of New England and the mid-Atlantic.
NEFSA CEO Jerry Leeman told the DCNF that he’s optimistic that the Trump administration will be “a voice of reason” on offshore wind, which he claimed would be a welcome departure from the previous administration, whom he accused of prioritizing green energy goals over fishermen’s livelihoods and the health of the marine environment. (RELATED: ‘We’ve Been Steamrolled’: Fishermen Protest Offshore Wind Following Turbine Failure That Shed Debris Into Atlantic)
“The incoming administration has an historic opportunity to save American workers from foreign developers, reinvigorate iconic coastal towns, and improve America’s food security,” NEFSA CEO Jerry Leeman said in a press release following Trump’s election win.
The Trump administration may also seek to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies that offshore wind projects are eligible for, which could make the industry’s continued growth off the Atlantic coast not as economically viable, according to Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute.
“I would expect the prospects of offshore wind to dim once the subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act are repealed,” Fischer told the DCNF. “The high cost of offshore wind is unavoidable. State and federal subsidies can mask the cost by shifting it to the tax base, but ultimately either ratepayers or taxpayers will bear the significantly above-market cost of offshore wind in the states that mandate it.”
Offshore wind developers and wind turbine makers’ stock prices substantially decreased on Wednesday following news of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ defeat the previous night.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request to comment from the DCNF.
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Offshore wind, like almost all wind and solar projects, are pure subsidy mining enterprises. Remove the subsidies and the mandated purchase orders, and the projects go away.
And save the whales.
In the back of my mind, I’m sure there used to be a group with “Save the Whales” as a slogan.
I think they were called something like Greenpiss.
Where are they now?
There is an old group called Save the Whales and they are against OSW but Greenpeace and the other rich greens are all for it. They say saving the planet is more important. Green industrialization.
So long as they’re the Right Whales
Wouldn’t want to save the wrong whales
True but only Congress can end the subsidies. I have yet to see how Trump can stop OSW.
The Orwellian-named “Inflation Reduction Act”, which was really a law with massive subsidies for solar and wind energy development (Trump calls it the Green New Scam), was passed by a House and Senate led by Democrats in 2022. Republicans took the House majority in 2023 (after the 2022 midterms) but Democrats still controlled the Senate and the White House, so the IRA/GNS could not be repealed then.
As of January 2025, Republicans will control both houses of Congress, so they could vote to repeal all or part of the IRA/GNS law, and return any unspent money to the Treasury, to be spent on more useful purposes, such as helping the flood victims in western North Carolina.
Make it a pocket book issue and focus the voters attention on their representatives position and make it political suicide to vote for OSW !
Congress controls the purse strings and all money bills originate in the House of Representatives. No Congress can constrain a future Congress and a new House is established every two years that will enact new money appropriations annually. If the sitting Congress doesn’t fund something in its annual appropriations that something doesn’t happen. Lets see what a Republican Party-controlled Congress does.
Lets see what a Republican Party-controlled Congress does.
Not much without the Senate. Thanks, Mitch. (hopefully his hissy fit fails)
Of course, this is the main problem of any forward planning and proclaiming what you are going to do many years into the future. It is the essence of destroying democracy
It is pure hubris to plan anything into the next congress. It might happen, it might not.
“…destroying democracy.”
The word “democracy”, nor any of it’s derivatives, does not appear in the “Declaration of Independence” or “The US “Constitution”.
The Constitution does say a “… republican form of government…”
To my way of thinking, as someone who immigrated at age 28, calling the US a democracy is the mark of an under-educated person.
The constitution guarantees to every state a republican form of government. However, a democratic process (majority winner takes all) elects those who provide that republican form of government.
To my way of thinking, as someone who was born here, misquoting the Constitution is the mark of an under-educated person.
In my experience, naturalized citizens have a much better understanding of the Constitution and how our government works than native-born.
Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators. Remove all wind and solar from the grid. Remove all mandates for renewable energy and EVs. Maintain and upgrade the grid.
There is a reasonably good case for solar power generation sufficient to match the additional air conditioning load of sunny afternoons. Running cities at midnight on windless nights is a reasonably good case for nuclear. And if you have nuclear, you don’t need the PV panels taking up real estate.
President Biden revoked a key permit for the Keystone Pipeline on his first day in office.
_________________________________________________________________________
President Trump shouldn’t have any reservations about pulling
the rug out from under the off shore wind “industry”.
Do you suppose that “key permit” can be re-instated? Too late? Just wonering.
wondering
I was wonering what you were wondering
Wonering to rule them all..!
How ’bout a double whammy? Reinstate the Keystone pipe line and nix the marine wind mills.
At least eliminate Take Or Pay and Subsidies.
Then initiate heavy fines for any depleted wind or solar assets that haven’t been removed.
Yes easily reinstated and the pipeline is half built.
IIRC, the pipeline is over 90% complete.
Of course it can. Executive orders are just that.
IIRC the company that was involved with Keystone has pulled the plug completely and is no longer interested.
Since the company had all the necessary permits and had spent real money on the project, did they sue for monetary restitution for this arbitrary “taking”?
Yes but they lost.
They could change their minds. Or another company might go for it.
Keystone required a border crossing permit which was revoked. OSW does not. Biden tried to stop LNG facilities being built and the Court said he could not so Trump has a real challenge trying to stop OSW being build on existing leases.
He may have to let them be built but he doesn’t have to pay for them.
All federal subsidies can be stopped at anytime. But that’s up to congress, not the Executive.
Wind turbines are like having a giant, noisy ceiling fan in your living room. The constant low frequency whop, whop, whopping from wind turbines probably confuses marine mammals who communicate using acoustic signals. They’re a bad idea for supplying energy and even worse for the environment. I hope President Trump puts the final nail in offshore wind.
You know what? Maybe the whales are affected by the wind mills and maybe they aren’t. What is for sure, is they are horribly expensive good for nothing boondoggles.
When George Orwell wrote “Animal Farm” he needed a boondoggle that oppressive governments promote in order to create an appearance of progress. Orwell chose the windmill.
Wind mills are a 14th century solution to a 21st century non-problem.
But tilt at windmills they must. 😉
Any wind turbine company with even a single brain-cell, must surely know what Trump will do, and cease and withdraw forthwith.
An immediate executive order, then work on laws to make it impossible to ever be considered again.
‘…then work on laws to make it impossible to ever be considered again.’
Hopefully you mean eliminating the subsidies and mandates for wind as opposed to banning it outright.
Eliminating subsidies and mandates should effectively ban offshore wind.
But I would like to see something that banned offshore wind completely.
Why? I think its a great idea to generate electricity. I think all companies that want to build offshore wind should apply and receive permits and then go for it. But stop paying them taxpayer dollars to do it. And let them figure out how and pay to manage grid inertia. If that means dumping their power into the ground, then that’s what it means.
All this New England wind and solar near the Marcellus and Utica
shale gas fields which GreenPeace and Sierra Club have stopped any and all development.
That would be a logical start to begin with policy changes.
Right- those fields right next door in NY. But the governors of NY and New England states are opposed to shale gas. Not sure what Trump could do- other than greatly weaken the wind/solar industries- then these states will see shale gas as the only alternative?
The US east coast wind energy projects were dealt a fatal blow on Election Day 2024. None of the woke States have the resources to waste on these totems to stupidity so the projects are all dead as just the risk of Federal largesse disappearing.
California has a credit rating of AA- while northeast coastal States pushing wind energy are even lower,
Australia’s Woketoria is in a debt trap. The premier went to China seeking investment in offshore wind but the Federal government stopped any direct investment from China.
US Federal debt is fuelling western inflation but there is never a problem for the Federal government to keep creating money other than price inflation. But State’s can end up in a debt trap like any household because they cannot create money. The consequence of California’s debt is loss of one House seat. Hard to see a reversal any time soon.
The Feds are not paying anything in fact they have taken about ten billion in lease sales that they might have to refund. I have yet to see how an EO can stop OSW. I did propose a study that would take a few years.
There could be a higher price for California by the 2030 census, due to the mass exodus of American citizens to greener “pastures” such as Texas and Florida. Current projections estimate that California will lose 3 or 4 House seats in the 2030 census, while Florida gains two seats and Texas gains 2 or 3 seats.
California only lost one seat in 2020 due to their ability to count illegal immigrants in the census. But with Trump’s victory in 2024, it is likely that a “citizenship question” will be on the census form by 2030.
We really do not know about or even research into the damage to our insect life which is further proof of the free ticket wind and solar get while other much greener and environmentally friendly technologies (e.g. natural gas) get criticised about nothing.at all.
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2024/11/09/uw-researchers-study-the-relationship-between-insects-and-wind-turbines/
Story Tip.
Wind Turbine installation accident.
Anger after turbine fatality on Victorian wind farm | 7NEWS
Going beyond offshore wind, Trump and the GOP needs to just cut to the chase and terminate all Federal subsidies to “renewable” sources of energy, putting all sources of energy on the same footing and competing as they will. That also should apply to terminating all subsidies to electrification of cars, trucks, and anything else that the Federal government has been wasting vast amounts of tax dollars on.
The Federal government must focus on making the USA more productive, more competitive, with a higher standard living for all.
The Federal gov should focus on getting the hell out of the way. After that, the productive & more competitive falls into place (as does the higher standard of living, although there will always be those that think they can force a better ‘standard of living’ through their hope, joy, and forced disproportional tithing.
The turbine blade failure at Vineyard was on a GE Vernova Haliade-X 13MW turbine. There are 62 such turbines scheduled for the site and the company is removing some more blades and strengthening others.
The company has also recently announced changes in their offshore wind business globally, which could impact 900 jobs.
“The proposal reflects wide challenges for wind and aims to transform our Offshore Wind business into a smaller leaner and more profitable business”
They note that there are “global supply chain challenges” and that “many of the issues were industry wide and their competitors were facing similar challenges”
https://www.offshore.wind.biz/2024/10/02/ge-vernova-slimming-down-offshore-wind-business-move-could-impact-900-employees/