Trump hates wind, because some turbines were built near his golf course in Scotland, and he has the mind of a toddler.
They tried the whale thing, when that didn’t fly, they tried “national Security”.
- The 800-MW Vineyard Wind project offshore Massachusetts can resume construction, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, in another setback to the Trump administration’s efforts to halt offshore wind development with a Dec. 22 stop work order.
- Vineyard Wind is the fourth offshore wind project to receive an injunction against the stop work orders, which cited classified national security concerns as the reason for the pause. A fifth case is pending.
- Vineyard Wind said after the order was issued, it “repeatedly” reached out to confer with the relevant government agencies “to forge a path forward without litigation,” but that those agencies “refused to discuss the supposedly new information about national security impacts or what Vineyard Wind might do to mitigate them.”
Vineyard Wind’s developer says the project is 95% complete and partially operational – already delivering power to the grid. In its stop work order to the project, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management gave its developers permission to continue activities necessary for power generation but not more construction.
Judge Brian Murphy with the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted Vineyard Wind a stay against the stop work order during a Tuesday hearing. The preliminary injunction follows similar rulings in cases brought by Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, Revolution Wind and Empire Wind. Sunrise Wind is still awaiting a decision in court.
The Department of the Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said at the time that last month’s stop work orderwas prompted by “national security risks” identified in “recently completed classified reports.”
Developers and states sued seeking to block the administration’s order. Prior to Vineyard Wind’s hearing, federal judges had allowed three (now 4) of the five to restart construction: the Revolution Wind project for Rhode Island and Connecticut by Danish company Orsted, the Empire Wind project for New York by Norwegian company Equinor, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind for Virginia by Dominion Energy Virginia. Those three judges essentially concluded that the government did not show that the national security risk is so imminent that construction must halt, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond Law School professor who has been following the lawsuits.
Orsted is also suing over the administration halting its Sunrise Wind project for New York — the fifth paused project — but has not had a hearing yet.
Is U.S. offshore wind development linked to any whale deaths?
We work with our partners to analyze and understand the causes of death when we are able, following the science and data. At this point, there is no scientific evidence that noise resulting from offshore wind site characterization surveys could potentially cause whale deaths. There are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities.
This is more good news. The industry is being damaged unnecessarily, but at least courts are working to uphold things like the law and other niceties. And if offshore wind projects are allowed to continue, the shipyard in Texas that finished their first offshore wind installer vessel will make money and hire more people into more skilled trades to create more boats. Having our own vessels will let the economics of offshore improve from the high cost of any first-time engineering project.
https://maritime-executive.com/article/photos-first-u-s-built-wtiv-completes-first-trials
I was in Brooklyn in December and walked past the main gate at the site that’s being revamped as the staging port for the NY wind projects and the Brooklyn guys at the gate had some words about what Donald from Queens was doing needlessly, ending thousands of jobs just because.
The thought that the oil&gas industry, which has been doing seismic mapping forever, is now concerned about marine mammals is another obscene irony of the anti-RE lobbying.