The New England Fisheries Association is calling attention to second-degree gentleman Doug Emhoff’s fundraising trip to Nantucket as the Massachusetts island tries to weather the aftermath of a wind turbine disaster.
Emhoff appeared this week as the headliner at a fundraiser originally scheduled for First Lady Jill Biden, just over a week after Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Harris.
One such fundraiser took place on Tuesday on an island about 30 miles off the Massachusetts mainland, where Emhoff was a special guest at an “island reception hosted at an unspecified location on the island by Laura DeBonis, a business and nonprofit technology consultant who formerly worked at Google, and Ken Jarin, a partner at a Washington, D.C., law firm.” Local media reported.
His visit came two weeks after a blade from an offshore wind turbine the length of a football field broke off into the sea, sending fibreglass debris washing up on shore, forcing the temporary closure of six of the island’s beaches and posing an ongoing risk to the safety of fishermen.
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From left, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Vice President Harris, and President Biden attend the Juneteenth Concert at the White House on June 10, 2024. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
“The Vineyard Wind blade incident confirms fishermen’s worst fears about offshore wind: Large fiberglass fragments remain a significant navigation hazard for our members,” Jerry Lehman, CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Management Association, told Fox News Digital.
““We remain seriously concerned that particulates from the fibreglass debris could have a detrimental effect on local marine life. To make matters worse, we are still waiting for a response from the developer.”
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Jerry Lehman, CEO, New England Fisheries Management Association (Jerry Lehman)
“We hope that during Mr. Emhoff’s visit to Nantucket he will learn about the impact this disaster has had on coastal communities,” he said.
Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Avangrid, a foreign company that built the wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts, and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. The company is a beneficiary of the Biden-Harris Administration’s signature domestic policy achievement, the Inflation Control Act (IRA).
In October, Vineyard Wind boasted that it had closed a $1.2 billion “first-of-its-kind tax incentive package” for commercial-scale offshore wind with three U.S.-based banks, calling it “the largest single-asset tax-advantaged loan and the first for a commercial-scale offshore wind project.”
Democratic Representative Bill Keating of Massachusetts praised the announcement at the time, directly linking it to the “influence” of the IRA.
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This photo shows a windmill whose blade broke off and fell into the Atlantic Ocean. (Source: Fox News Digital)
Vineyard Wind 1 will begin on-site construction in late 2021 with completion of the nation’s first offshore substation in July 2023. Located 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, the 800 MW project is the first commercial-scale offshore wind project in the United States.
“The scariest thing is that it could happen again,” Lehman said when the blade fell last month.
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“As a fisherman, I know how powerful and volatile the North Atlantic is. If this blade can fall on a beautiful summer day, what will happen if a winter squall or hurricane comes?” he told Fox News Digital.
The Harris campaign and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
