After spending years battling the Biden administration’s offshore wind rollout, activists told the Daily Caller News Foundation that they are feeling vindicated after President Donald Trump immediately took aim at the industry upon being sworn in.
The Biden administration subsidized and supported a massive buildout of offshore wind generation along America’s coasts, even while critics and activists pointed out that the projects did not make much economic sense and posed potentially serious risks to marine ecosystems. Trump temporarily suspended offshore wind leasing in federally-controlled waters and kicked off a review of the government’s offshore wind permitting practices, but the activists told the DCNF there is still more to do in the fight against ocean industrialization.
“We have been in this fight since the very beginning, and we wouldn’t take anything else for an answer except the demise of offshore wind,” Dustin Delano, COO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA), told the DCNF. “It’s been a David and Goliath situation, for sure, but we have always gone in with the attitude that someday, somebody will listen to us, and we’ve known that even if this agenda had continued moving forward, someday, they’re going to realize that they’ve made a big mistake.”
TRUMP: “I want to be a whale psychiatrist.”
Trump discusses offshore wind mills with Joe Rogan. pic.twitter.com/8T4NpIDA3T
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 26, 2024
Delano and his organization consider offshore wind’s proliferation to be a grave threat to lobstermen and other fishermen who have harvested America’s waters for generations. After a Vineyard Wind turbine blade broke into the ocean and polluted the beaches of Nantucket, NEFSA conducted a boat convoy protest against offshore wind in July 2024 off the Massachusetts coast.
In some ways, Nantucket became ground zero for anti-offshore wind activism over the summer of 2024 due to the Vineyard Wind blade malfunction and subsequent pollution. Some major environmental groups were quick to downplay the incident, but ACK4WHALES — a Nantucket-based group arguing offshore wind is harming whales — amplified the malfunction as a sign that the technology poses environmental hazards.
“We are very, very grateful that the executive order is out there, and very, very grateful that it was addressed right off the bat. It’s obviously been a huge issue for us, and for a lot of others, and there’s a lot of frustration,” Amy DiSibio, who sits on the board of ACK4WHALES, told the DCNF. “It really hasn’t been a fair fight. This has been an all-hands-on-deck government assist to the offshore wind companies. They’re mostly foreign energy companies, but it’s really been an all-of-government approach to ‘get this done.’ And we feel that the executive order is really going to open up an opportunity for everyone to take the good, hard look that has needed to happen for a very, very long time.”
‘Bunch Of Suits Trying To Cover Their Tracks’: Beach Town Locals Slam Offshore Wind Developer For Polluting Shoreshttps://t.co/8pnl4SmJ0E
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 19, 2024
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared “unusual mortality events” for three different species of whales living off the East Coast going back to 2016 or 2017, which generally aligns with the beginning of large-scale offshore wind development and related activities in the region.
Nevertheless, the federal government and several leading environmental groups insist that there is no available scientific evidence that whale mortalities are linked to offshore wind development, arguing instead that vessel strikes, fishing gear and climate change are driving the surge
Despite DiSibio’s concern for the marine ecosystem and opposition to offshore wind, she still wants to see the Trump administration go by the book as it conducts its review of the industry.
“Although I wish that President Trump could wave a magic wand and make all of these projects go away, because it would make our jobs easier, that wouldn’t be the right way to do it,” DiSibio continued. “We’re not in communist China, and we’re not in Russia. We have a process, and we feel like the process has not really played out as it should. It’ll be great that there’s a pause on new lease areas, etcetera. But if we’re going to actually do the work and review things properly, the facts will speak for themselves.”
Currently, there are three operational offshore wind farms off the East Coast, and many more projects were going through the regulatory process when Trump issued the order cracking down on the industry, according to TGS Wind. In his memo announcing the policy shift, Trump specifically cited offshore wind’s possible impacts on the marine ecosystem and fishermen as reasons for the offshore wind pause, though he noted that the policy does not apply to offshore oil, gas and mineral development.
Bill Thompson, the co-founder and vice president of Green Oceans, felt a sense of relief upon hearing news of Trump’s new policy, though he told the DCNF his organization is going to continue fighting against the industry.
“As soon as he did win the election, we felt for the first time like we had a chance at some kind of success, and that it was a little bit less of a David versus Goliath fight … it’s been a bit of whiplash, feeling like we actually have government backing for what we’re trying to do,” Bill Thompson, the co-founder and vice president of Green Oceans, told the DCNF. “We’re not going to slow down at all. If anything, we’re going to speed up. And we feel like our public outreach has been really successful, and the more people that know about offshore wind, the easier it is for them to say ‘no’ to offshore wind … We feel the momentum has shifted in our favor, and the more people we speak with, we have people coming to us with their expertise, offering to volunteer, and that’s really picked up over the past few months.”
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
