President-elect Donald Trump is expected to issue an executive order banning or restricting the construction of new offshore wind farms, which critics say will depend on clean energy to fill a pie. That could be a blow to states like New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. empty goal.
New Jersey Congressman Jefferson Van DrewHe represents the Garden State's beach communities and said he is working closely with President Trump on drafting the new executive order.
“These offshore wind projects should never have been approved in the first place,” said Van Drew, a Republican.
“The Biden administration's reckless environmental policies that put politics before people are over. President Trump is committed to stopping these harmful projects and is taking decisive action.
He said the executive order was “just the beginning” and vowed to “fight tooth and nail” to prevent offshore wind farms from wreaking “havoc” on coastal communities.
Trump's opposition to wind power had an immediate impact after his election in November.
French energy giant Total Energy announced in response to President Trump's victory that it has canceled plans to build an offshore wind farm near the coastline of New York and New Jersey.
The U.S. federal government has increased spending in recent years to encourage wind energy and move away from fossil fuels.
From 2016 to 2022, the federal government spent $18.7 billion on tax credits and other subsidies for wind power, according to the Institute for Competitive Enterprise, a libertarian or “free market” think tank.
“This is a significant amount of money, and it is even more significant given that the intermittency of wind power greatly limits its reliability benefits,” the group said.
There are three wind farms operating or planned off the coast of Long Island. South Fork, 55 miles east of Montauk. Sunrise and Empire Wind 1 under construction.
If enacted, it would “cost states tens of billions of dollars to meet their climate goals,” said Ken Girardin, research director at the Empire Public Policy Center.
He said much of the cost would be passed on to ratepayers in electricity bills for wind and solar power as well as battery power plants.
Last year, Hochul and the NYS Energy Research and Development Authority announced that the average increase in residential customer bills for the Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind projects would be about 2%, or about $2.09 per month.
Sources close to the wind power industry accused critics of fear-mongering, noting that fossil fuel companies also receive large tax subsidies.
Analysis by New York Focus A study last year found that state agencies granted more than $1.1 billion in tax breaks to fossil fuel projects from 2010 to 2022, averaging nearly $85 million a year.
