'Extortion and corruption': States condemn Trump’s Revolution offshore wind order
Connecticut and Rhode Island leaders said they were willing to negotiate to resume work on the $4bn project while admitting they ‘don’t even know what the ask is’
Northeast state politicians, labour leaders and government officials came out in separate press conferences in Connecticut and Rhode Island to condemn and fight Trump’s halt of Orsted’s $4bn Revolution offshore wind array.
The 704MW array, which is split between the two states, is already 80% complete with commercial operations slated for next year.
“And this is a deal that was made with all different facets of state, local and federal government, going back some years,” he added.
Lamont was speaking at the New London State Pier, which has undergone a $300m upgrade to serve as marshalling hub for Orsted’s three Northeast projects.
Orsted has already completed its 132MW South Fork and has begun at-sea installation for its 924MW Sunrise array, both to New York.
“They shut down Empire wind, and there were some negotiations, and they got Empire Wind going again,” said Lamont.
“I think there's a deal to be had, and I got to see what the ask is. I have no idea what the ask is,” he added.
Senator Christopher Murphy, Democrat for Connecticut, however, cautioned against dealmaking with a president willing to stretch legal bounds.
The President “doesn't have the legal authority to suspend a project that's permitted and then use it as a leverage point on some unrelated grievance he has with a Democratic state,” he said.
“You don't have to pledge political loyalty to the President of the United States in order to build wind power in this country,” he said.
“We all have to be really careful about doing trades with this with this President that could send this country down a really dangerous, anti-democratic rabbit hole,” he added.
Grid and jobs
The thousands of union workers on the project have installed 45 of 64 turbines at the lease in the Massachusetts and Rhode Island wind energy area some 15 miles (24 km) south of Point Judith, Rhode Island.
Regional grid operator ISO-NE said, “delaying the project will increase risks to reliability.”
The ISO had been expecting the project to come online and included it in analyses of near-term and future grid reliability.
“Delays in the availability of new resources will [also] adversely affect New England’s economy and industrial growth, including potential future data centres,” it added.
Rhode Island governor Dan McKee said coastal states should be able to harness the energy potential of offshore wind.
“Rhode Island doesn't have oil wells. It doesn't have easy access to natural gas, but... we're the ocean state, and we want to make sure we use the full benefit that the ocean brings us,” he said at a press conference at Quonset Point, home to Revolution Wind's logistics and operations hub.
'Extortion'
Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse called the President’s move against the project “extortion”.
“This is not on the merits. This is not legitimate. We are taking a real blow as a result of fossil fuel industry corruption dictating to the Trump administration what they should be doing,” he said.
Trump’s energy dominance agenda specifically excludes wind and increasingly solar, with the Departments of Energy (DoE) and Interior (DoI) pushing for added investment in fossil fuel extraction and power generation.
Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal suggested that this move put Trump in the pocket of fossil fuel interests in violation of law.
The DoE and DoI Inspectors General “ought to be all over this decision, looking into how it was made, who made it, and who should be held accountable if laws were broken,” said Blumenthal.
“If there was the kind of corruption that we think, namely, the fossil fuel industry exerting its weight, then there ought to be accountability,” he added.
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