A European-owned and planned offshore wind farm moved a step closer to construction Tuesday with the Department of the Interior announcing it has approved the project–it will be located in federal waters near Rhode Island south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Danish company Orsted is leading the project.
It’s the department’s fourth approval of a commercial-scale, offshore wind energy project, joining the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts, the South Fork Wind project off Rhode Island and New York, and the Ocean Wind 1 project off New Jersey.
In an article for the Daily Caller, Steve Milloy of the Energy & Environment Legal Institute points out the problems with this whole cluster.
As whale deaths mount on the East Coast, the Biden administration can no longer pretend offshore wind farms are harmless to marine life.
FOX News Digital revealed that the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is quietly offering a grant to study interactions between wind farms and critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. Even though government-issued permits allow the offshore wind industry to kill whales, scientists and allied nonprofits have loudly denied any connection between wind farms and dead whales to protect the industry.
The Biden administration’s total and hypocritical, if not illegal, disregard for the welfare of whales is consistent with the regulatory and financial favoritism it extends to foreign green energy companies who are industrializing America’s coasts. The government’s many accommodations to these entities puts the lie to claims that wind energy is good for the environment.
The whole thing is layered in grift: mandates, subsidies, permits, and see no evil regulators.
The Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature domestic policy accomplishment, is chock full of giveaways to the wind industry. The law offers a 30 percent tax credit to offshore wind projects that break ground before 2026. Another credit is available for companies that manufacture turbine components or specialty products like installation vessels. The law also appropriates $100 million to model and plan energy transmission.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D.) recently signed a tax cut for Danish giant Orstead to keep its Ocean Wind 1 project on track. The state is also spending $500 million to build a staging facility for wind farm construction in Salem County. The state will lease the facility to Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind—a joint partnership between American subsidiaries of British and French companies—but won’t disclose the lease terms. Doubtless, they’re generous to the company.
Projects are encountering cost overruns owing to inflation. Steel prices and interest rates are higher than expected. Avangrid recently paid almost $50 million in fines to scrap a 1200-megawatt project off the coast of Massachusetts. The developer cited supply chain upheaval.
The company will likely rebid the project at a higher price. Spanish energy giant Iberdrola owns Avangrid. SouthCoast Wind, another New England project, is similarly backing out of its contracts with Massachusetts because of unfavorable macroeconomic conditions. Southcoast Wind is another British-French energy venture.
Environmental regulators are doing the industry plenty of favors and helping developers cut corners.
federal regulators broadly authorize developers to harm animals in the ocean. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issues permits for particular projects authorizing a specific number of “takes” per species. One proposed permit for Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind authorizes “takes” for 42 whales, 1,472 seals, and 2,678 dolphins.
These permits are licenses to kill.
Wind industry proponents insist that take permits only authorizes ecosystem displacement or low-grade injury. Of course, when marine mammals die around these project sites, developers will point to the take authorizations to avoid consequences. It’s doubtful that federal regulators will even try to penalize developers over dead mammals. The take authorizations are a tacit admission that regulators anticipate wind farms will cause significant environmental damage.
As the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) has argued, it’s likely that environmental surveys actually undersell the damage wind turbines cause. Regulators are assessing environmental impact on a project-by-project basis. But to understand how wind farms are affecting ocean ecosystems, they should be assessing the cumulative effects of development.
The special treatment the wind industry enjoys reflects the extent to which it’s captured the regulatory agencies.
Take deputy Interior secretary Tommy Beaudreau. ProPublica reported that Beaudreau represented wind industry developers as a partner at Latham & Watkins. Beaudreau, as ProPublica notes, is now regulating the very entities he once represented as a lawyer. Likewise, Amanda Lefton served in the Biden administration for two years as director of BOEM, but recently left to join Foley Hoag. The firm has represented the Vineyard Wind project near Martha’s Vineyard, according to ProPublica.
It will be months before the BOEM-financed study returns findings on offshore wind and marine life. Whatever the results, if they can even be trusted, don’t expect the Biden administration to abandon its creepy commitment to the industry.
About the Author
Wayne here is some more perspective. Give them a read. Post them if you wish.
NJ whale deaths: See the full list to learn how each of them died.
https://www.app.com/story/news/local/land-environment/2023/03/08/nj-whale-deaths-full-list-how-they-died-jersey-shore/69977937007/
Why have so many dead whales have washed ashore along the New Jersey, New York coasts in 2023?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-have-so-many-dead-whales-have-washed-ashore-along-the-new-jersey-new-york-coasts-in-2023/ar-AA187zYL
A consequence of the insidious nature of contemporary Progressivism. Climate change activists, foot soldiers of the Progressive moment, are more than happy to kill off a mammal species to advance the agenda.
If Progessive are willing to destroy one species of mammal, would they be less inclined to reduce the population of another?
They are actually calling for a reduction in the human population, which call was repeated by Karmela Harris, Joe Biden’s assistant:
The Telegraph
“The lunacy of climate change fanatics is driving humanity to extinction”
Story by Allister Heath •
24 August 2023
Why do extreme environmentalists appear to dislike babies so much?
These eco-radicals jubilantly celebrated the news that the number of children born in Britain has taken another tumble, on the grounds that fewer rich Westerners means less consumption.
In a world in desperate search of meaning, this kind of neo-Malthusian, misanthropic nonsense has tragically found willing ears, with some young people pledging not to have children to “save the planet”.
I hope they reconsider.
The eco-extremists’ fixation with over-population, beginning in 1972 with the Club for Rome’s infamous Limits to Growth, is hopelessly outdated.
Enthusiastic climate activists that rant and protest yet do not have the data to support their claims. Recent deep dives by research scientists are finding that the evidence proclaiming that the whales aren’t dying due to ocean wind farms is merely misinformation (misleading) by lazy journalists is bought and paid for. The lemmings hear it and they proclaim it truth.
https://public.substack.com/p/wind-industry-money-behind-media
Who is ultimately responsible for those whale deaths?
The man at the top, Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, aka THE BIG GUY, THE TEFLON DON, Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, Celtic, or JRB Ware, to wit:
July 20, 2022
Remarks by President Biden on Actions to Tackle the Climate Crisis from Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset, Massachusetts
THE PRESIDENT: Folks, when I think about climate change — and I’ve been saying this for three years — I think jobs.
Climate change, I think jobs.
(Applause.)
Almost 100 wind turbines going up off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island with ground broken and work underway.
We’re going to make sure that the ocean is open for the clean energy of our future, and everything we can do — give a green light to wind power on the Atlantic coast, where my predecessor’s actions only created confusion.
Let’s clear the way — let’s clear the way for clean energy and connect these projects to the grid.
I’ve directed my administration to clear every federal hurdle and streamline federal permitting that brings these clean energy projects online right now and right away.
And in the coming weeks, I’m going to use the power I have as President to turn these words into formal, official government actions through the appropriate proclamations, executive orders, and regulatory power that a President possesses.
(Applause.)
And when it comes to fighting the climate change — climate change, I will not take no for an answer.
When is a supposed law not really a law, at all?
Let’s take a look at the following for an answer to that question, to wit:
Record of Decision
Vineyard Wind 1 Offshore Wind Energy Project
Construction and Operations Plan
May 10, 2021
U.S. Department of the Interior
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
U.S. Department of Defense
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
New England District
U.S. Department of Commerce
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Marine Fisheries Service
1.2.1. BOEM Authority
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, Public Law 109-58, amended the OCSLA to authorize the Secretary of Interior to issue leases, easements, and rights-of-way in the OCS for renewable energy development, including wind energy projects.
The Secretary of the Interior must consider certain factors before acting under OCSLA subsection 8(p).
Specifically, “[t]he Secretary shall ensure that any activity under [subsection 8(p)] is carried out in a manner that provides for—
(A) safety;
(B) protection of the environment;
(C) prevention of waste;
(D) conservation of the natural resources of the outer Continental Shelf;
(E) coordination with relevant Federal agencies;
(F) protection of national security interests of the United States;
(G) protection of correlative rights in the outer Continental Shelf;
(H) a fair return to the United States for any lease, easement, or right-of-way
under this subsection;
(I) prevention of interference with reasonable uses (as determined by the
Secretary) of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas;
(J) consideration of—
(i) the location of, and any schedule relating to, a lease, easement, or right-of-way for an area of the outer Continental Shelf; and
(ii) any other use of the sea or seabed, including use for a fishery, a sealane, a potential site of a deepwater port, or navigation;
(K) public notice and comment on any proposal submitted for a lease, easement, or right-of-way under this subsection; and
(L) oversight, inspection, research, monitoring, and enforcement relating to a lease, easement, or right-of-way under this subsection.”
Subsection 8(p)(4) requires the Secretary to ensure that activities authorized under subsection 8(p) of OCSLA are carried out in a manner that provides for these twelve different goals.
As stated in M-Opinion 37067 “…subsection 8(p)(4) of OCSLA imposes a general duty on the Secretary to act in a manner providing for the subsection’s enumerated goals.”
“The subsection does not require the Secretary to ensure that the goals are achieved to a particular degree, and she retains wide discretion to determine the appropriate balance between two or more goals that conflict or are otherwise in tension.”
WHAT BULL****!
And given that she has been given such wide discretion, she really can’t be challenged in court for abusing her discretion.
And such is the game that is being played here with the whales.
Said again, it is the federal government, i.e. Joe Biden, allowing those whales to be killed as “incidental takes,” which is akin to “collateral damage”:
NOAA Fisheries https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/incidental-take-authorizations-other-energy-activities-renewable
Incidental Take Authorizations for Other Energy Activities
This page lists Incidental Take Authorizations for energy activities other than oil and gas (including renewable energy activities and LNG).
Applications are typically posted once public review is initiated.
New England/Mid-Atlantic
Authorizations In Process
The following Authorizations are in process:
Park City Wind, LLC Construction of the New England Wind Offshore Wind Farm Project off of Massachusetts
Summary: NOAA Fisheries has received a request from Park City Wind, LLC for Incidental Take Regulations and an associated Letter of Authorization.
The requested regulations would govern the authorization of take, by Level A harassment and/or Level B harassment, of small numbers of marine mammals over the course of 5 years (2025-2030) incidental to construction of the New England Wind Project.
Park City Wind proposes to develop the New England Wind Project in two phases, known as Park City Wind (Phase 1) and Commonwealth Wind (Phase 2).
Project activities that may result in incidental take include pile driving (impact and vibratory), drilling, unexploded ordnance or munitions and explosives of concern detonation, and vessel-based site assessment surveys using high-resolution geophysical equipment.
If adopted, the proposed regulations would be effective March 27, 2025, through March 26, 2030.
Dominion Energy Virginia Construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Commercial Project off of Virginia
Summary: NOAA Fisheries has received a request from the Virginia Electric and Power Company, doing business as Dominion Energy Virginia, for Incidental Take Regulations and an associated Letter of Authorization.
The requested regulations would govern the authorization of take, by Level A harassment and Level B harassment, of small numbers of marine mammals over the course of 5 years (2024-2029) incidental to construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Commercial project offshore of Virginia within the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Commercial Lease of Submerged Lands for Renewable Energy Development on the Outer Continental Shelf Lease Area OCS-A 0483 and associated Export Cable Routes.
Project activities likely to result in incidental take include pile driving activities (impact and vibratory) and site assessment surveys using high-resolution geophysical equipment.
The proposed regulations, if promulgated, would be effective February 5, 2024, through February 4, 2029.
US Wind, Inc. Construction and Operation of the Maryland Offshore Wind Project off of Maryland
Summary: NOAA Fisheries has received a request from US Wind, Inc. for authorization to take small numbers of marine mammals incidental to the development of the Maryland Offshore Wind Project (Project) in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Commercial Lease on the Outer Continental Shelf OCS-A 0490 off of Maryland over the course of 5 years beginning on January 1, 2025.
NOAA Fisheries is announcing receipt of US Wind’s request for regulations governing the incidental taking of marine mammals.
Sunrise Wind, LLC Construction and Operation of the Sunrise Wind Offshore Wind Farm off of New York
Summary: NOAA Fisheries has received a request from Sunrise Wind, LLC, a 50/50 joint venture between Ørsted North America, Inc. and Eversource Investment, LLC, for Incidental Take Regulations and an associated Letter of Authorization.
The requested regulations would govern the authorization of take, by Level A harassment and/or Level B harassment, of small numbers of marine mammals over the course of 5 years (2023-2028) incidental to construction of the Sunrise Wind Offshore Wind Farm Project offshore of New York in a designated lease area on the Outer Continental Shelf.
Project activities likely to result in incidental take include pile driving, potential unexploded ordnance or munitions and explosives of concern detonation, and vessel-based site assessment surveys using high-resolution geophysical equipment.
The proposed regulations, if adopted, would be effective November 20, 2023 – November 19, 2028.
According to a New York Post article titled “Why wind and solar power are running out of juice” by Jonathan Lesser on 2 September 2023, in New Jersey, the legislature passed a law in July, which is likely unconstitutional, to bail out Ørsted, with the legislation awarding the company with several billion dollars of investment tax credits that were supposed to go to consumers.
CCM: Regulators are assessing environmental impact on a project-by-project basis.
But to understand how wind farms are affecting ocean ecosystems, they should be assessing the cumulative effects of development.
********************************
What a huge pile of pure BULL**** this all is, because that is unlawful segmentation.
Thus the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has been thrown right in the toilet along with OUR Constitution and made a mockery of by American dictator Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., aka THE BIG GUY, THE TEFLON DON, Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, Celtic, or JRB Ware, and when Joe Biden makes a mockery of OUR laws, Joe Biden is making a mockery of WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE and is doing the equivalent of pissing on our heads, to wit:
38 CFR § 200.4 Implementation of NEPA and related authorities.
(a) Classification of AFRH actions.
(1) All AFRH proposed actions typically fall into one of the following three classes, in terms of requirements for review under NEPA: Categorical exclusions, environmental assessments, and environmental impact statements.
(2) The Master Planner, is responsible for classifying proposed actions and undertaking the level of analysis, consultation, and review appropriate to each.
(b) Categorical Exclusions (CATEX).
(1) A categorical exclusion (CATEX) is a category of actions which do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment, except under extraordinary circumstances (42 CFR 1508.4).
Because they lack the potential for effect, they do not require detailed analysis or documentation under NEPA.
(i) Determining when to use a CATEX (screening criteria). To use a CATEX, the proponent must satisfy the following three screening conditions:
(A) The action has not been segmented.
Determine that the action has not been segmented to meet the definition of a CATEX.
Segmentation can occur when an action is broken down into small parts in order to avoid the appearance of significance of the total action.
An action can be too narrowly defined, minimizing potential impacts in an effort to avoid a higher level of NEPA documentation.
The scope of an action must include the consideration of connected, cumulative, and similar actions.
Tax payers should standby to get screwed again.
https://energynow.com/2023/09/orsted-ready-to-abandon-us-wind-projects-as-it-asks-for-help/
Marine conservation organizations have raked in donations from companies behind offshore wind energy projects, including the developer of one project potentially linked to a surge in whale deaths along the eastern seaboard, according to a Save Right Whales coalition report.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/03/15/conflict-of-interest-marine-conservation-groups-took-millions-from-offshore-wind-companies-potentially-linked-to-whale-deaths/