The Trump administration halted construction on a nearly complete offshore wind project near Rhode Island as the White House continues to attack the battered U.S. offshore wind industry that scientists say is crucial to the urgent fight against climate change. <\/p>\n
Danish wind farm developer Orsted says the Revolution Wind project is about 80% complete, with 45 out of its 65 turbines already installed.<\/p>\n
Despite that progress \u2014 and the fact that the project had cleared years of federal and state reviews \u2014 the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued the order Friday, saying the federal government needs to review the project and \u201caddress concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
It did not specify what the national security concerns are.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump has made sweeping strides to prioritize fossil fuels and hinder renewable energy projects<\/a>. Trump recently called wind and solar power \u201cTHE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!\u201d in a social media post and vowed not to approve wind or \u201cfarmer destroying Solar\u201d projects. \u201cThe days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!\u201d he wrote on his Truth Social site this week.<\/p>\n Scientists across the globe agree that nations need to rapidly embrace renewable energy to stave off the worst effects of climate change<\/a>, including extreme heat<\/a> and drought<\/a>; larger, more intense wildfires and supercharged hurricanes<\/a>, typhoons and rainstorms that lead to catastrophic flooding<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee criticized the stop-work order and said he and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont \u201cwill pursue every avenue to reverse the decision to halt work on Revolution Wind\u201d in a post on X<\/a>. Both governors are Democrats.<\/p>\n Construction on Revolution Wind began in 2023, and the project was expected to be fully operational next year. Orsted says it is evaluating the financial impact of stopping construction and is considering legal proceedings. <\/p>\n Revolution Wind is located more than 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of the Rhode Island coast, 32 miles (51 kilometers) southeast of the Connecticut coast and 12 miles (19 kilometers) southwest of Martha\u2019s Vineyard. Rhode Island is already home to one offshore wind farm, the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm.<\/p>\n Revolution Wind was expected to be Rhode Island and Connecticut\u2019s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, capable of powering more than 350,000 homes. The densely populated states have minimal space available for land-based energy projects, which is why the offshore wind project is considered crucial for the states to meet their climate goals.<\/p>\n \u201cThis arbitrary decision defies all logic and reason \u2014 Revolution Wind\u2019s project was already well underway and employed hundreds of skilled tradesmen and women. This is a major setback for a critical project in Connecticut, and I will fight it,\u201d Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said in a statement.<\/p>\n Wind power is the largest source of renewable energy in the U.S. and provides about 10% of the electricity generated in the nation<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cToday, the U.S. has only one fully operational large-scale offshore wind project producing power. That is not enough to meet America\u2019s rising energy needs. We need more energy of all types, including oil and gas, wind, and new and emerging technologies,\u201d said Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, a group that supports offshore oil, gas and wind.<\/p>\n Green Oceans, a nonprofit that opposes the offshore wind industry, applauded the BOEM\u2019s decision. \u201cWe are grateful that the Trump Administration and the federal government are taking meaningful action to preserve the fragile ocean environment off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts,\u201d the nonprofit said in a statement. <\/p>\n This is the second major offshore wind project the White House has halted. Work was stopped on Empire Wind<\/a>, a New York offshore wind project, but construction was allowed to resume after New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, intervened.<\/p>\n \u201cThis administration has it exactly backwards. It\u2019s trying to prop up clunky, polluting coal plants while doing all it can to halt the fastest growing energy sources of the future \u2013 solar and wind power,\u201d said Kit Kennedy, managing director for the power division at Natural Resources Defense Council, in a statement. \u201cUnfortunately, every American is paying the price for these misguided decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Reporter Jennifer McDermott contributed from Providence, Rhode Island, and Matthew Daly contributed from Washington. <\/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 halted construction on a nearly complete offshore wind project near Rhode Island as the White…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":170156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,8120,10106,285,2738,97326,69,10102,97327,57,5371,2739,36362,80,866,2737,36363,89,61,67,370,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-170155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-charles-schumer","10":"tag-climate-and-environment","11":"tag-climate-change","12":"tag-connecticut","13":"tag-dan-mckee","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-energy-industry","16":"tag-erik-milito","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-kathy-hochul","19":"tag-massachusetts","20":"tag-ned-lamont","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-renewable-energy","23":"tag-rhode-island","24":"tag-richard-blumenthal","25":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","26":"tag-u-s-news","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-united-states-government","29":"tag-unitedstates","30":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115080356479050550","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170155","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=170155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}