Audrey Streb
DCNF Energy Reporter
The Biden administration granted major offshore wind projects financial breaks despite internal warnings of increased risks to taxpayers, according to documents obtained by the watchdog group Functional Government Initiative (FGI).
Denmark-based Ørsted’s massive “Revolution Wind” project off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut not only received final approval in August 2023 under the Biden administration but also an exception that allowed the company to postpone the funds for dismantling the project at the end of its life for 15 years, according to the documents. Despite internal warnings that this kind of exception “increases the risk to the federal taxpayer,” the Biden administration granted Revolution Wind and Vineyard Wind sweetheart breaks for their decommissioning costs that were estimated at $325 million and $191 million, respectively, according to the documents and FGI.
“With each revelation, two things become clearer: wind electricity wasn’t ready for primetime, and the Biden administration didn’t care. It was determined to force these projects through no matter the cost, the risks to taxpayers, or the dubious value to the people who pay for electricity and pay federal taxes,” FGI spokesman Roderick Law told the DCNF. “President Trump was right to halt projects and put them under careful review to ensure every environmental and safety impact is examined and that the taxpayers are at risk propping up failing, untested efforts.” (RELATED: ‘David And Goliath’: Offshore Wind Opponents Ecstatic With Trump’s Day One Assault Against Industry)
FOIA DOCS REDACTED by audreystreb
A May 2021 internal memo revealed the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) warned the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) that “delaying receipt of financial assurance increases the risk to the federal taxpayer” when BOEM was considering granting Vineyard Wind the 15-year decommissioning cost delay.
Federal rules typically require companies to pre-fund decommissioning to protect taxpayers if a project fails or reaches the end of its life. The Biden administration allowed Ørsted and other developers a special exception to delay those funds, despite offshore wind being relatively untested in the U.S., while cracking down on well-established energy resources like oil, gas and coal.
“While this is a BOEM decision, BSEE has significant concerns with granting a departure to current regulations that require financial assurance before installation of any facilities,” the memo states. “The primary risk are as follows: delaying receipt of financial assurance increases the risk to the federal taxpayer as identified by Government Accountability Office (GAO), the longer financial assurance is deferred, the greater the chance that the government will not collect [and] decommissioning funds may need to be accessed prior to the expected end of project life due to unforeseen events.”
The documents show that Ørsted requested the 15-year deferral of the customary financial assurance for decommissioning Revolution Wind in November 2023 and subsequently received approval for it in March 2024. Notably, a Reagan-appointed federal judge allowed Revolution Wind to continue in a ruling on Sept. 22 after the Department of the Interior (DOI) issued a work-stop order in August 2025.
“Revolution Wind, LLC is in compliance with BOEM financial assurance requirements for the project, including with respect to decommissioning,” an Ørsted spokesperson told the DCNF. “Revolution Wind is 80% complete, remains under construction, and will power more than 350,000 American homes upon its completion.”
While the Biden administration aggressively promoted offshore wind development, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that temporarily blocked virtually all federal waters from new wind leasing on his first day back in office, pending a review. The Trump administration has branded offshore wind farms as “costly failures” and moved to block several projects, with Trump himself repeatedly lambasting wind energy.
The DOI halted all “preferential treatment” on July 17 for wind and solar projects that it considered to be “unreliable,” “subsidy-dependent” and “foreign-controlled.”
FGI previously discovered Vineyard Wind, the project that shed debris off the coast of Nantucket after a defective turbine broke, received a similar exception from the Biden administration in 2021.
“This was essentially a $191 million gamble with our money,” Roderick said at the time of the first discovered decommission cost delay exception. “It’s not often you can put a price on recklessness, but BOEM under its previous leadership was in such a rush to get the risky project underway that it left American taxpayers unprotected.”
FGI argues that the failure of these projects granted exemptions by the Biden administration were not implausible, as Revolution Wind was reportedly a year behind schedule before Trump called for the wind farm reviews.
BOEM adapted its “renewable energy modernization” rules in May 2024, allowing wind companies a more flexible framework to cover decommissioning costs. In some cases, wind companies can avoid paying these costs upfront by proving their financial strength through other means, including power purchase agreements. Notably, multiple other power purchase agreements for offshore wind have been scrapped in recent years, including projects involving Ørsted, after utilities backed out citing financial concerns with contract costs.
Additionally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) previously confirmed to the DCNF that the Biden administration did not adequately review the environmental impacts of some offshore wind projects before approval. Additionally, some fishermen and environmentalists have protested and criticized offshore wind as they believe wind farms pose dangers to and disturb marine life.
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Luckily for US taxpayers, a guy called Trump turned up to the call for a major
“cleanup in aisle 3”.
Yes Trump called for major clean up on “aisle Biden”
Unfortunately a federal judge ruled trump cant clean up biden’s Fup
Trump is now something like 20 to zero in the Supreme Court against these petty far-leftist judges trying to stall what the people of the USA elected Trump to do.
You got to wonder what is the real motivation of the democrats in all this.
What? Follow the money and TDS; baby steps but a good start.
Lining their pockets through “conveniently timed” “investments” in the companies getting the contracts most likely.
Just as with Covid or QE-
all these(deliberately created) crisis’ has shifted trilloons into the pockets of the same billionaires.
Later on the money will be used to buy up all relevant assets from bancrupted(by war and green energy and lockdowns) for pennies on the dollar.
(and yes – the banking crisis was also deliberate(just as the drug crisis and the education crisis noone is talking about))
“what is the real motivation of the democrats in all this”.
To buy new sombreros. ! 😉
It has to be the deliberate destruction of the US economy in order to bring about their much-desired “New World Order”.
Because nobody could achieve such bad governance just because they’re incompetent.
Democrats are now trying another method…
.. Support of AnitFa/ Palestine/Illegal-invaders/trans etc… by instigating riots in blue cities.
It is essentially a form of Civil War. !!
If you add the attacks on INS agents to the above list you can’t rule out the Drug Cartels. They probably benefit more from the general unrest in the cities and would have no trouble supporting the whole shebang :<)
Yet another example of why bureaucrats should not make law (e.g. regulation), they ignore their own laws as they see fit. The US constitution doesn’t give unelected bureaucrats the power to make law, that power remains with Congress.
As I’ve noted before, bureaucrats should only be empowered to enforce the laws Congress makes and act as a body making recommendations for laws to be passed. If a law is important and useful enough it will have bipartisan support. Congress has abdicated responsibility by pretending to offload their constitutional duty to an unelected bureaucracy.
Utter bullshit, yet again. Fill in the blank for the “number of homes,” and it’s a LIE every time.
They willfully neglect the necessary caveats:
IF operating at “capacity.”
IF backed up 100% by fossil fuel plants when the wind dies.
Otherwise, it can “power” ZERO homes unless your expectation is for electricity being available ONLY on windy days, subjecttothelights going out the minute the wind dies down.
The more installed renewables the more the consumer pays for electricity with a drastically reduced reliability factor. How long will the people put up with this?
What can I say? Government sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong, as usual. Get the government out of the energy production and transmission business. They can only make things worse.
BOEM’s mandate should be changed to only facilitating off-shore fossil fuel production instead of wind turbines. The country needs reliable energy sources that are not beholden to a geostrategic competitor [ie China, which dominates the wind, solar and battery industries].
Also, if you truly believe our weather is going to get more extreme [and I don’t] is it rational to make our energy grid reliant on weather-dependent energy sources like wind & solar ?
The Biden energy/climate policies were beyond stupid.
From the above article:
“Notably, a Reagan-appointed federal judge allowed Revolution Wind to continue in a ruling on Sept. 22 after the Department of the Interior (DOI) issued a work-stop order in August 2025.”
This, despite the evidence that:
— Ørsted’s Revolution Wind project is one year behind schedule: the project was originally sold as being operational in 2025, but in August 2024, Ørsted announced a one-year delay, pushing the completion date to 2026
— Ørsted’s Revolution Wind project already has massive cost overruns: in 2024, Ørsted reported a $310 million impairment loss associated with the one-year delay caused by the soil contamination at the onshore substation)
— Ørsted’s itself appears to be financially unstable: the company underwent a $9.4 billion capital raise from shareholders in September 2025 to stabilize its finances, and in October 2025 Ørsted announced plans to lay off 20% of its global workforce.
— Vineyard Wind 1 is far behind schedule: the project was originally sold as being operational in 2022; as of of July 2025, only 17 of the 62 turbines planned are exporting power
— Vineyard Wind 1 is far over budget: the project was initially funded in October 2021 for $2.3 billion; in 2024 The New York Times cited the estimated total cost of the project at completion to be $4 billion.
— Vineyard Wind 1 is using wind turbine manufacturing technology of questionable quality/capability: the turbines are manufactured by GE Offshore Wind and a blade from one of offshore wind turbines broke apart in July 2024, sending fiberglass shards into the Atlantic Ocean and onto the nearby coast; the blade failure was traced to a manufacturing defect and failure of the factory’s quality control system. There is no credible evidence that one or more turbine blades will not fail over the stated operation life expectancy of “up to 30 years” for this wind farm, since no such blades, as manufactured, have been tested to such design cycle life, let alone tested to show margin against high-cycle fatigue failure.
Being a Reagan-era judge does not protect one against becoming senile and issuing wrong rulings despite evidence available to the court.
“Being a Reagan-era judge does not protect one against becoming senile and issuing wrong rulings despite evidence available to the court.”
I might be mistaken but, back then, it required (I think it was.) 2/3rds of the Senate to approve a President’s judicial nominee.
In other words, the Democrats only allowed judges they “could live with” to be approved.
You need to know that the US Senate, tasked with the job of confirming presidential appointments of federal judges, was under REPUBLICAN control for almost all of Reagan’s two successive Presidencies, from 1981 through 1987, with Democrats only controlling the Senate during the final full year of his presidency,1988.
The Reagan-era judge identification is obviously to point out this has nothing to do with politics.
It was a republican, not a democrat that made the ruling.
Obviously deserves a /sarc
“The Reagan-era judge identification is obviously to point out this has nothing to do with politics.”
No. I assumed a “Reagan-appointed federal judge” was most likely at least 35 years old at the time of his/her appointment and since the Reagan presidency ended in January 1989 (almost 37 years ago!), that judge would now be around 72 or older. Hence my comment about senility, which affects Democrats and Republicans alike.