Trump Administration Shifts Away from Offshore Wind Projects

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0:30 Speaker 2 What’s happening on helping consumer spend less money on energy? Well, let’s fix the windmill crisis. And with us today’s Bonnie Brady and she’s the executive of Policy director of the New England Fishermen’s Association. And well, Bonnie Brady, you’ve been working on this on these windmills that are bad for our environment, they’re bad for our concern. Tell us what

1:01 the heck is going on. I understand there’s some big developments in Washington.

1:05 Speaker 3 This week, big developments. Indeed, John, thanks so much for having me. Yes, yesterday, the Trump administration announced they were buying back four more offshore wind leases from in Energy. They are a group that had one three on the East coast and one out in California. Leading Light Wind was the largest project, and they had suspended the project

1:32 in twenty five. The company and two Gulf of Main floating wind lease areas plus a California floating wind lease. So all four of those seven hundred and sixty five million dollars was paid to terminate the four leases, and they agreed to redirect investment towards natural gas generation and geothermal projects. So I could not be more happy and

1:57 thankful to the Trump administration.

2:00 Speaker 2 That sounds a great news. Now which windmills does that effect? Does that affect the ones in Long Island that we and you will worry about it?

2:07 Speaker 3 AROUSA No, No, unfortunately not yet. Overall, there have been eight lease buybacks so far since this news yesterday. We have a Tentive Energy that’s in the New York Byite that was total energies three gigawads. That’s a big project.

2:24 We’ve got Carolina Long Bay that was down in North Carolina. Blue Point Wind also in the Bite, but further south from the Empire project, Leading Light again right down off of shore of New Jersey and the Gulf of Main leases that’s way up on mained. Two of those, plus Golden State Wind out in California and another one that

2:45 was just yesterday’s another offshore wind lease area. So we still have active leases, active projects in construction. The one you’re thinking of mostly is Empire Wind. They are under development and last I.

3:01 Speaker 2 Heard, are they working on it? Are they still working on it.

3:04 Speaker 3 They’re waiting on a big crane lift coming from Singapore to help them put the turbines in the blades on. Yes. And so that’s a really big, big.

3:13 Speaker 2 Issue and the people that and to your best knowledge, is a Trump administration knowledgeable of that? And are they trying to fix it?

3:22 Speaker 3 They are knowledgeable, and so far we don’t know what their plan is. But I do know that I read yesterday in one of the foreign papers that Equinor, who owns Empire Wind, that’s the fifty four turbine project right off at JFK and Newark Airport and right from New York City, they were looking to possibly having Orsted pick

3:47 up that project because Equinor owns ten percent of Orsted. I don’t know if that’s true or not. It’s still very curious. I would imagine they would be thrilled to be able to dump it and just get the steel out of the water. But so far we don’t know anything.

4:03 The problem, of course, is the national security issues still haven’t been solved. I’ve said this to you before. It’s mind boggling. Someone in the administration needs to hear this. They only used one turbine to go to the FAA and say and get a determination of no hazards. All the other fifty three turbines were never reviewed by the

4:27 FAA under the guise of oh, but it’s outside of twelve miles, so that’s a bum issue. The Viureauvotion Energy Management. That’s not US plane fly outside of twelve miles, so does Search and Rescue, so do drone.

4:44 Speaker 2 So I mean, I love, I do talk to a lot of people at the corupt administration, including some big guys. So let’s keep me informed and I will feed the correct information to the White House that they could do something about it, because these people are doing harm to the environment, they’re doing harm to the consumer, but the

5:08 electricity is going to cost them three hundred percent more, and they’re doing harm and they’re doing harm to our national security. I mean, this is what Aubany did to us.

5:20 Speaker 3 John it’s not just Empire, it’s Vineyard Wind. They did three They’ve never done a cumulative study of every single turbine. They say, oh, well, don’t worry. If we need to, we can call Nora at and we promise to answer the phone and stop the blades. It’s not just the blade spinning, it’s the actual line of sight and the

5:38 fact that you’re going to be building a steal far so that we are literally flying blind.

5:43 Speaker 2 Addie Brady, I promise you we work together. We’re going to do the right thing for our city. Say our city, our state, our country, and God bless you, and thank you for keeping the consumer and our listeners informed.

5:59 Speaker 3 Thanks so much done.