The Trump administration is canceling plans to use large areas of federal waters for new offshore wind development, the latest step to suppress the industry in the United States.<\/p>\n
More than 3.5 million acres had been designated wind energy areas, the offshore locations deemed most suitable for wind energy development. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is now rescinding all designated wind energy areas in federal waters, announcing on Wednesday an end to setting aside large areas for \u201cspeculative wind development.\u201d <\/p>\n
Offshore wind lease sales were anticipated off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Maine, New York, California and Oregon, as well as in the central Atlantic. The Biden administration last year had announced a five-year schedule<\/a> to lease federal offshore tracts for wind energy production.<\/p>\n Trump began reversing the country\u2019s energy policies after taking office in January. A series of executive orders<\/a> took aim at increasing oil, gas and coal production.<\/a><\/p>\n The Republican president has been hostile to renewable energy, particularly offshore wind. One early executive order<\/a> temporarily halted offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and paused the issuance of approvals, permits and loans for all wind projects. In trying to make a case against wind energy, he has relied on false and misleading claims<\/a> about the use of wind power in the U.S. and around the world. <\/p>\n The bureau said it was acting in accordance with Trump\u2019s action and an order by his interior secretary<\/a> this week to end any preferential treatment toward wind and solar facilities, which were described as unreliable, foreign-controlled energy sources. <\/p>\n Robin Shaffer, president of Protect Our Coast New Jersey, applauded the administration for its actions and said they were long overdue. Opponents of offshore wind projects are particularly vocal and well-organized in New Jersey.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe these projects ever got this far because of the immensity, scale, scope and expense, compared to relatively cheap and reliable forms of onshore power,\u201d he said Thursday. \u201cWe\u2019re nearly there, but we haven\u2019t reached the finish line yet.\u201d <\/p>\n The Sierra Club said the administration\u2019s \u201crelentless obstruction of wind energy\u201d shows it does not care about creating affordable, reliable energy for everyday Americans.<\/p>\n \u201cNo matter how much they want to bolster their buddies in the dirty fossil fuel industry, we will continue to push for the cleaner, healthier, and greener future we deserve,\u201d Xavier Boatright, Sierra Club\u2019s deputy legislative director for clean energy and electrification, said in a statement.<\/p>\n Attorneys general from 17 states and the District of Columbia are suing in federal court<\/a> to challenge Trump\u2019s executive order halting leasing and permitting for wind energy projects. His administration had also halted work on a major offshore wind project for New York, but allowed it to resume in May<\/a>.<\/p>\n The nation\u2019s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, a 12-turbine wind farm called South Fork<\/a>, opened last year east of Montauk Point, New York.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration is canceling plans to use large areas of federal waters for new offshore wind development,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":107948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[64,2059,276,10106,84,69,10102,57,2055,361,353,2741,2735,401,405,403,404,50,6067,406,6065,212,80,68991,21149,358,5028,61,67,370,132,68,93,68992],"class_list":{"0":"post-107947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ca-state-wire","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-climate-and-environment","13":"tag-district-of-columbia","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-energy-industry","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-government-and-politics","18":"tag-la-state-wire","19":"tag-louisiana","20":"tag-maine","21":"tag-me-state-wire","22":"tag-new-jersey","23":"tag-new-york","24":"tag-new-york-city","25":"tag-new-york-city-wire","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-nj-state-wire","28":"tag-ny-state-wire","29":"tag-or-state-wire","30":"tag-oregon","31":"tag-politics","32":"tag-robin-shaffer","33":"tag-sierra-club","34":"tag-texas","35":"tag-tx-state-wire","36":"tag-u-s-news","37":"tag-united-states","38":"tag-united-states-government","39":"tag-unitedstates","40":"tag-us","41":"tag-washington-news","42":"tag-xavier-boatright"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}