Trump yanks millions of hectares of ocean designated for wind power
The move applies to more than 1.4 million hectares of federal waters across the Gulf of America, Gulf of Maine, the New York Bight, California, Oregon, and the Central Atlantic
[WASHINGTON] The Trump administration is revoking approval for millions of acres of ocean to be set aside for offshore wind development amid an escalating attack on the renewable power source.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced on Wednesday (Jul 30) it was rescinding huge swaths of ocean in the US Outer Continental Shelf initially set aside for the fast-tracking of offshore wind projects by the administration of former president Barack Obama, and expanded by former president Joe Biden.
The move applies to more than 1.4 million hectares of federal waters across the Gulf of America, Gulf of Maine, the New York Bight, California, Oregon, and the Central Atlantic.
A day earlier, the Interior Department said that it was considering halting all wind development on federal lands and in federal waters amid a broader review of the energy source derided by US President Donald Trump as unreliable.
Since Trump’s re-election, BloombergNEF’s forecast for new offshore wind developments has fallen by 56 per cent.
Meantime, a conservative Texas research institute urged the Trump administration to yank approval for a wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts, the first to be greenlit by the Biden administration in 2021.
The 62-turbine wind farm is under construction about 22.2 kilometres off Martha’s Vineyard.
A petition filed by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which has received funding from Koch Industries, said that it was acting on “behalf of local fishermen whose livelihoods have been severely impacted” by the Avangrid Grid’s Vineyard Wind project.
Vineyard Wind did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking a comment and the Interior Department declined to comment. BLOOMBERG
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