President Donald Trump reversed the direction of U.S. energy policy Monday, setting it on a course at odds with the renewable energy push that state officials in Massachusetts have been aggressively pursuing for years.
Through a series of executive orders, Trump declared a national energy emergency, asserting that “swift and decisive action” is needed because Biden administration policies have led to a “precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply, and an increasingly unreliable grid.”
Tying his domestic energy push to foreign policy considerations, Trump called for a “reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy,” saying it was needed to power the manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and defense industries, and “to sustain the basics of modern life and military preparedness.”
Trump backed up his pledge to throw up barriers to offshore wind power by immediately withdrawing “from disposition for wind energy leasing all areas within the Offshore Continental Shelf.” The order describes the withdrawal as “temporarily” preventing consideration of any shelf area for new or renewed wind energy leasing, but specifies it does not apply to leasing related to oil, gas, minerals, and environmental conservation.
On Friday, the last business day of the Biden administration, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved the construction and operations plan for SouthCoast Wind, a big offshore wind project that Massachusetts is counting on. The agency described it as the nation’s 11th commercial scale offshore wind energy project.
The project will be located about 26 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and 20 nautical miles south of Nantucket, an area where developers with federal leases are planning to set up major industrial operations. The approved project includes the construction of up to 141 wind turbines, up to five substation platforms, and up to eight offshore export cables needed to deliver power to the mainland.
Trump’s order states that “nothing in this withdrawal affects rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas.” It directs the secretary of the U.S Department of the Interior to conduct a comprehensive review and make recommendations related to “the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases, identifying any legal bases for such removal.”
The order directs federal energy officials to “not issue new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases, or loans for onshore or offshore wind projects pending the completion of a comprehensive assessment and review of federal wind leasing and permitting practices.”
The order reflects Trump’s opposition to wind energy, stating that the consequences of onshore and offshore wind projects “may lead to grave harm — including negative impacts on navigational safety interests, transportation interests, national security interests, commercial interests, and marine mammals.”
The assessment must “consider the environmental impact of onshore and offshore wind projects upon wildlife, including, but not limited to, birds and marine mammals” and consider “the economic costs associated with the intermittent generation of electricity and the effect of subsidies on the viability of the wind industry.”
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