Wind farms were on the verge of providing electricity to millions of homes along the East Coast. The projects had generated tens of thousands of jobs and promised to speed the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.
But President Donald Trump despises wind power and, in December, his administration issued stop-work orders for five East Coast wind farms that were under construction.
His animosity dates back to the time when turbines, which he called “monsters,” were proposed off the coast of Scotland in sight of his Aberdeenshire golf course. He went before the Scottish Parliament in an unsuccessful attempt to block their construction. Trump derides wind farms as “losers” that lose money, destroy the landscape and kill birds.
The president also contends that they pose a national security threat. His administration argued in court that wind turbine blade movement can interfere with radar. New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) termed that a “bogus pretense,” adding, “When I heard this, I said one thing: I’m the governor of New York. If there is a national security threat off the coast of New York, you need to tell me what it is. I want a briefing right now. Well, lo and behold, they had no answer.”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said wind projects are “bad for everybody.”
Workers are now back on the job at three of those offshore sites, thanks to rulings by federal judges. On January 12, a judge said that work could resume on Revolution Wind, which will power 350,000 homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Three days later, District Judge Carl J. Nichols, a Trump appointee, ruled that construction on the Empire Wind project could go forward offshore from Long Island, N.Y., while he considers the merits of the government’s order to suspend the project.
Twenty-four hours later, a third wind farm got a green light. Federal Judge Jamar Walker allowed the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Commercial Project to temporarily keep building.
Meantime, Orsted is suing over the pause of its Sunrise Wind project for New York, with a hearing still to be set. The fifth paused project is Vineyard Wind, under construction in Massachusetts.
Pointing to the upheaval for Orsted’s Revolution Wind, Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a champion of the oil and gas industry, said, “You have this project that has been underway for years, millions of dollars, 80 percent complete, and then you have, ‘Sorry, that’s not on our approved list,’” she said.
“OK, now we’re back on. But what is the message that is sent to Ørsted? What is the message that is sent to any of these companies about the reliability of working on a project in the United States?” she continued. “I worry about that.”
In contrast, as Claire Brown and Brad Plumer reported in The New York Times, “Over the past eight months, the Energy Department has taken the extraordinary step of ordering that generators at five coal-burning power plants that had been headed for retirement stay open and keep running. That’s just the beginning, officials say.”
Trump has expressed “a certain affection for the fuel,” Brown and Plumer wrote, calling it “beautiful clean coal” even though it is the dirtiest of fossil fuels and a major driver of global warming.
If Congress could find the will and energy to put a price on carbon, it would be easier to move away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. Urge your senators and House member to take that important step.