How President Trump can stop offshore wind on day one
Recently, President Trump discussed offshore wind (OSW) power generation with Joe Rogan on the very popular (14 million listeners) Joe Rogan Experience podcast. He promised to terminate the OSW industry “on day one”
He should. Offshore wind is a travesty – economically, environmentally, and morally.
Shredding thousands of birds and bats, ruining vast acres of ocean floor, destroying historical fishing grounds, exterminating endangered species (like the North Atlantic Right Whale)’, and burdening the electric grid with unreliable and expensive electricity’
OSW has no redeeming attributes and exists only by virtue of massive subsidies (construction and production tax credits and outright grants) paid for by US taxpayers.
Take these obscene subsidies away, and offshore wind in the US evaporates. As Warren Buffet famously said about the need for offshore wind, “Without the tax credits, why bother?”
In fact, because OSW generates electricity less than 50 percent of the time, it actually is a parasite on the electricity grid, requiring the construction of huge additional amounts of reliable, dispatchable electricity generation, such as from natural gas, to provide power for the time when the wind doesn’t blow or blows too hard.
A host of organizations on the East Coast, including CFACT, the Heartland Institute, the National Legal and Policy Center and numerous civic organizations plus concerned citizens in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Virginia have brought ligation against US government agencies, State utilities, and wind developers to stop OSW based on obvious violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.
Unfortunately, all of these cases that have been decided by the courts thus far have gone down to defeat, both at the trial court and appellate levels.
It is difficult to win these cases against the force of the US government and with judges who are loath to substitute their opinions on the merits against the supposed expertise and judgement of the extensive federal bureaucracy galvanized by the Biden Administration to promote offshore wind.
So the question remains: how can President Trump fulfill his promise to eliminate OSW?
Fortunately, there is an answer. He can issue an Executive Order rescinding the Biden Administration’s Executive Order 14008.
Executive Order 14008 is the guiding document which launched the entire OSW program in the US. Titled “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”, the Order was issued by the Biden White House on Feb.1, 2020, just two weeks after his Inauguration.
This extraordinarily detailed Order, written entirely by the wind industry lobbyists, established the whole rationale for and structure of the federal bureaucracy charged with implementing OSW.
For example, EO 14008 creates and mandates:
– a climate “policy” declaring that there exists “a profound climate crisis that threatens our ability to live on planet earth” (does anyone actually still believe this nonsense?)
– a mandate to rejoin the Paris Agreement
– creation of a White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy and a National Clmate Advisor
– creation of a National Climate Task Force of 21 government agencies to implement OSW
– a mandate for “zero emission vehicles”
– a pause on new oil and gas leasing for offshore waters
– creation of a Civilian Climate Corps
– establishment of an “Environmental Justice Council” of 18 federal agencies to prevent “environmental injustice”
– creation of a working group of the Interior, Energy, and Commerce Departments to deploy 30 gigawatts of OSW by 2030
– a $230 million grant program and $3 billion loan program to support offshore wind
If EO 14008 is rescinded in its entirety, a single stroke of the pen will reverse both the febrile rationale for the offshore wind program and its supporting bureaucratic infrastructure.
Gone also is the Executive Branch impetus and rationale for implementing many of the discretionary parts of the ridiculously named Inflation Reduction Act that require further bureaucratic approval.
Since the rescission is accomplished by an Executive Order, it is not required to abide by the Administrative Procedure Act, which demands hearings, public input, and other procedural requirements, nor does it require Congressional approval.
A rescission can also be accompanied by the Trump Administration’s replacement of a handful of political appointees in the relevant federal agencies in order to stymie key provisions of the offshore wind program.
Indeed, the Wall Street Joirnal has reported that Trump’s transition team has already drafted 300 Executive Orders to be implemented soon after President Trump takes office.
One can only hope that rescission of EO 14008 is at the top of this list.
See more here cfact.org
Header image: Baltic Wind
Bold emphasis added
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