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Fact-checking a Trump-inspired fear.
As someone on the “will this thing kill me” beat, I was paying close attention when the former president of the United States recently expressed concern about electric-powered boats — apparently, the new aquatic twist on his electric car rant. “Let’s say your boat goes down and I’m sitting on top of this big powerful battery and the boat’s going down,” Donald Trump mused to a group of supporters in the landlocked state of Iowa. “Do I get electrocuted?”
Trump then dramatically upped the stakes by imagining the sinking electric boat was also being circled by a shark. “So I have a choice of electrocution or shark,” he went on. “You know what I’m going to take? Electrocution. I will take electrocution every single time.”
I wanted to find out if it was actually possible for Trump to be electrocuted and/or eaten by a shark (you know, hypothetically). It was a question that inspired many related, obsessive searches: What about if you drive an electric vehicle into a lake — would that electrocute you? Are first responders afraid to help people in submerged EVs? Would they leave you inside to die?!
Like I said, I can be a little morbid.
Below, I attempt to sort electrocution fact from electrocution fiction, with a few detours thrown in.
People have been using electricity to power their boats for over 120 years. In fact, until the high-energy storage density of oil became obvious around the turn of the century, electric boats actually enjoyed a bit of a heyday. (RIP to the electric canoe).
Moreover, if you’ve ever been on a marine vessel with any more sophistication than a rowboat, it probably had a battery and an electrical system on board, even if it wasn’t powered by an electric motor. Standard 12-volt marine batteries are used for everything from starting the main engine to running the lights, radio, or a trolling motor on board.
The modern iteration of the fully electrified boat movement is still in its relative infancy and faces some big challenges. But the short version is, we’ve been using electricity at sea for a long time and have gotten pretty good at not electrocuting ourselves. And the potential electrocution problems that do exist usually aren’t exclusive to high-voltage electric boats, but gas-powered ones as well.
First of all, battery packs on electric boats are designed to be watertight — duh, because they’re
on a boat. Believe it or not, electric boat makers have taken into account the fact that their products could, in a worst-case scenario, end up underwater. A spokesperson for Arc Boat Company, a flashy new player in the electric boat space, pointed me to their FAQ which explains that “our fault table — a list of possible points of failure and what to do about each one — is hundreds of lines long, meaning we’ve thought about, tested, and planned for every scenario you might encounter on and off the water.” (This seems like a job I could be good at.)
In fact, all the electric boat manufacturers I was in touch with said they meet a waterproofing standard that is either at, or just below, what is required for a submarine. The high-voltage batteries are additionally kept in “puncture-resistant shells,” so even if the boat somehow got completely mangled, the battery won’t just be openly exposed to the water.
Still, you definitely don’t want to sit on an exposed “big powerful battery,” as Trump suggests in his scenario, since you could theoretically interrupt the closed loop of a DC battery’s electrical circuit and get shocked. But just being on an electric boat that is sinking does not inherently expose you to electrocution danger.
Electric shock drowning is caused by faulty wiring at a dock or a marina leaking 120-volt alternating current into the water. That electricity can potentially kill a nearby swimmer on its own, or cause them to become incapacitated and drown.
This overwhelmingly happens in lakes and rivers, since human bodies are a better conductor of electricity than fresh water but not saltwater. “In saltwater, the human body only slows electricity down, so most of it will go around a swimmer on its way back to ground unless the swimmer grabs hold of something — like a propeller or a swim ladder — that’s electrified,” BoatUS, a marine insurance company and safety advocacy group, explains in its publication Seaworthy. “In fresh water, the current gets ‘stuck’ trying to return to its source and generates voltage gradients that will take a shortcut through the human body.”
While it’s possible that a poorly maintained electric boat charging station could cause this sort of leak, it’s not a danger exclusive to the electric boat world; gas-powered boats hooked to shore power kill people every year, as well. Regardless, this is why you should never, ever swim around boat docks, especially at lakes.
If you are worried about sea life getting electrocuted by a high-voltage shipwreck, don’t be. When a battery is underwater, its current will flow into the water between its two terminals. This is bad for the battery (it’ll cause it to rapidly discharge) but you don’t have to worry about the entire ocean or lake getting filled with charge and electrocuting everything in it; high-voltage batteries are powerful but not nearly that powerful. If a shark is in the immediate vicinity of the battery — like, trying to eat it — it might potentially get hurt, but this whole premise is also starting to get absurd with this many “what ifs” piled on top of each other. (Really, the environmental hazard of a leaking lithium battery on the seafloor is probably the greater cause for concern.)
You’ll have bigger problems than electrocution!
Like electric boats, EV batteries are obsessively insulated and the cars are designed with a number of fail-safes to isolate the battery in the case of an accident. Again, the people who thought up these things have already considered the worst-case scenarios. (Plus, getting sued for repeatedly electrocuting anyone who drives through a puddle is not good business).
What’s important to understand is that unlike the 12-volt batteries used in gas-powered cars, which are harmlessly grounded to the car’s large chassis, high-voltage systems in EVs use a floating ground, which helps prevent you from being electrocuted if the car becomes submerged. “It’s not grounded chassis — there is no return path for a vehicle that has been submerged to return that charge,” Joe McLaine, a safety engineer with General Motors, told me. “And if there [are] any faults or anomalies with the high voltage system, and it’s operating in normal functioning ranges, it’s going to shut off anyway.”
Yes — and it’s also true of driving in the rain, or washing your car, or charging in a downpour.
Trying to drive an EV through deep water is not a great idea for a number of very good reasons, but fear of electrocution isn’t one of them. The most likely scenario is that the water will cause any less-well-insulated electronic components to short out, causing the car to die — which is what happened when Motor Mythbusterstried to drive a Nissan Leaf through a water-filled trench.
Of course, gas-powered cars don’t love driving in floods, either, and there is some reason to believe that EVs might actually do better in flood conditions than their counterparts.
Back in 2016, Elon Musk tweeted that the “Model S floats well enough to turn it into a boat for short periods of time.” Just searching the words “EV” or “Tesla” and “flood” or “boat mode” will lead you to tons of videos of EVs plowing through deep bodies of water.
Don’t … do this. Most flood-related deaths occur in cars, and this fact doesn’t change just because your vehicle has a plug. Additionally, just because an EV drove through a flood successfully in a short video doesn’t mean there was no lasting damage from the water (which, it should be added, isn’t covered under warranty).
Florida’s State Fire Marshal’s Office reported there were at least 21 EV battery fires in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in 2022. This is specifically a phenomenon caused by saltwater storm surge: When the car eventually dries out, the salt residue can remain behind on the battery, creating conductive “bridges” that lead to short circuits and fires.
This is still fairly rare: “The odds that your electric battery pack is on fire in Florida are about the same odds of you getting struck by lightning,” Joe Britton, the executive director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association, told Utility Drive. To be safe, FEMA recommends that any EVs flooded by saltwater be moved at least 50 feet away from any structures, other vehicles, or combustibles. And if you are expecting storm surge, move your EV preemptively to higher ground.
Tesla echoes this advice: “As with any electric vehicle, if your Tesla has been exposed to flooding, extreme weather events, or has otherwise been submerged in water (especially in salt water), treat it as if it’s been in an accident and contact your insurance company for support,” the company writes in its user manual.
“That is not true,” McLaine, the safety engineer with General Motors, told me. McLaine is responsible for GM’s Battery Electric Vehicle First Responder Training program, which has educated over 5,000 first- and second-responders in 25 different locations across the U.S. and Canada, and is focused on dispelling some of the rumors and misinformation around electric cars.
In addition to trainings like GM’s, a growing familiarity with the thousands of EVs now on the road has also made first responders more confident when responding to bad accidents. Orange cables are used to easily identify high-voltage components, which are placed “in areas and locations in the vehicle in which first responders typically wouldn’t have access to anyway,” McLaine explained.
First responders are trained to disable the high-voltage systems in an EV just like they would snip the cut loops around a 12-volt battery in a gas-powered vehicle accident. Additionally, most manufacturers make it extremely easy to find individual emergency response guides for their vehicles online, and there are various hotlines available for first- and second-responders when EV-related questions arise.
What First Responders Do in an EV Accidentwww.youtube.com
As for first responders handling cars that have been fully or partially submerged: Pretty much all of the emergency response documents I could find stated some version of “A submerged electric vehicle does not have a high voltage potential on the metal vehicle body, and is safe to touch” (this one specifically comes from the papers for the RAV 4 EV). Though first responders need to be careful with cutting into crushed cars, there are no shocking surprises when it comes to simply handling a submerged EV.
Are you kidding me? Electrocution would at least be quick! Trump got that part right: In this round of “would you rather,” you should take electrocution every time.
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On the IEA’s latest report, flooding in LA, and Bill Gates’ bad news
Current conditions: Severe thunderstorms tomorrow could spawn tornadoes in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama • A massive wildfire on a biodiverse island in the Indian Ocean has been burning for nearly a month, threatening wildlife • Tropical Cyclone Zelia has made landfall in Western Australia with winds up to 180mph.
Bill Gates’ climate tech advocacy organization has told its partners that it will slash its grantmaking budget this year, dealing a blow to climate-focused policy and advocacy groups that relied on the Microsoft founder, Heatmap’s Katie Brigham has learned. Breakthrough Energy, the umbrella organization for Gates’ various climate-focused programs, alerted many nonprofit grantees earlier this month that it would not be renewing its support for them. This pullback will not affect Breakthrough’s $3.5 billion climate-focused venture capital arm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which funds an extensive portfolio of climate tech companies. Breakthrough’s fellowship program, which provides early-stage climate tech leaders with funding and assistance, will also remain intact, a spokesperson confirmed. They would not comment on whether this change will lead to layoffs at Breakthrough Energy.
“Breakthrough Energy made up a relatively small share — perhaps 1% — of climate philanthropy worldwide,” Brigham writes. “But what has made Breakthrough Energy distinctive is its support for policy and advocacy groups that promote a wide range of technological solutions, including nuclear energy and direct air capture, to fight climate change.”
Anti-wind activists have joined with well-connected figures in conservative legal and energy circles to privately lobby the Trump administration to undo permitting decisions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to documents obtained by Heatmap’s Jael Holzman. Representatives of conservative think tanks and legal nonprofits — including the Caesar Rodney Institute, the Heartland Institute and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT — sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dated February 11 requesting that the Trump administration “immediately revoke” letters from NOAA to 11 offshore wind projects authorizing “incidental takes,” a term of regulatory art referencing accidental and permissible deaths under federal endangered species and mammal protection laws. The letter also requested “an immediate cession of construction” at four offshore wind projects with federal approvals that have begun construction: Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ Vineyard Wind 1, and Ørsted’s Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind projects.
“This letter represents a new stage of Trump’s war on offshore wind,” Holzman writes. “Yes, he has frozen leasing, along with most permitting activity and even public meetings related to pending projects. But the president's executive order targeting offshore wind opened the door to rescinding leases and previous permits. Doing so would produce new, costly legal battles for developers and for publicly-regulated utilities, ratepayers. Over the past few weeks, offshore wind developers with projects that got their permits under Biden have sought to reassure investors that at least they’ll be fine. If this new request is heeded, that calm will subside.”
Heavy downpours triggered flooding and debris flows across Los Angeles County yesterday. A portion of the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the most iconic roadways in America, is closed indefinitely due to mudslides near Malibu, an area devastated in last month’s fires. Duke’s Malibu, a famous oceanfront restaurant along the PCH, was inundated. The worst of the rain has passed now and many flood alerts have been canceled, but the cleanup has just begun.
Rain flows down a street outside a burned home.Mario Tama/Getty Images
Global electricity use is set to rise by 4% annually through 2027, “the equivalent of adding an amount greater than Japan’s annual electricity consumption every year,” according to the International Energy Agency’s new Electricity 2025 report. Here are some key points:
IEA
JPMorgan Chase clients have apparently been demanding more guidance about the climate crisis. As a result, the bank launched a new climate report authored by its global head of climate advisory, Sarah Kapnick, an atmospheric and oceanic scientist who was previously chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report seeks to build what Kapnick is calling “climate intuition” – the ability to use science to assess and make strategic investment decisions about the shifting climate. “Success in the New Climate Era hinges on our ability to integrate climate considerations into daily decision-making,” Kapnick writes. “Those who adapt will lead, while others risk falling behind.” Here’s a snippet from the report, to give you a sense of the tone and takeaways:
“Adhering to temperatures below 1.5C will require emissions reductions. Depending on your definition of 1.5C, they may require historic annual reductions and potentially carbon removal. Conversely, if you have a technical or financial view that carbon dioxide removal will not scale, you should assume there is a difficult path to 1.5C (i.e. emissions reductions to zero depending on your definition in 6, 15, or 30+ years). If that is the case, you need to plan for the physical manifestations of climate change and social responses that will ensue if your investment horizons are longer.”
Greenhouse gas leaks from supermarket refrigerators are estimated to create as much pollution each year as burning more than 30 million tons of coal.
Grantees told Heatmap they were informed that Bill Gates’ climate funding organization would not renew its support.
Bill Gates’ climate tech advocacy organization has told its partners that it will slash its grantmaking budget this year, dealing a blow to climate-focused policy and advocacy groups that relied on the Microsoft founder, Heatmap has learned.
Breakthrough Energy, the umbrella organization for Gates’ various climate-focused programs, alerted many nonprofit grantees earlier this month that it would not be renewing its support for them. This pullback will not affect Breakthrough’s $3.5 billion climate-focused venture capital arm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which funds an extensive portfolio of climate tech companies. Breakthrough’s fellowship program, which provides early-stage climate tech leaders with funding and assistance, will also remain intact, a spokesperson confirmed. They would not comment on whether this change will lead to layoffs at Breakthrough Energy.
“Bill Gates and Breakthrough Energy remain as committed as ever to using our voice and resources to advocate for the energy innovations needed to address climate change,” the Breakthrough spokesperson told me in a written statement. “We continue to believe that innovation in energy is essential for achieving global climate goals and securing a prosperous, sustainable world for future generations.”
Gates founded Breakthrough Energy in 2015 to help develop and deploy technologies that would help the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The organization made more than $96 million in grants in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available.
Among its beneficiaries was the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based think tank that promotes technological solutions to climate change. (Despite having a similar name, it is not affiliatedwith Breakthrough Energy.) Last week, a representative from Breakthrough Energy told the institute’s executive director, Ted Nordhaus, that its funding would not be renewed. The Breakthrough Institute had previously received a two-year grant of about $1.2 million per year, which wrapped up this month.
“What we were told is that they are ceasing all of their climate grantmaking — zeroed out immediately after the USAID shutdown because Bill wants to refocus all of his grantmaking efforts on global health,” Nordhaus told me on Monday, referring to the Trump administration’s efforts to defund the United States Agency for International Development. “But it’s very clear that this wasn’t brought on solely by USAID. I had heard from several people that there was a big reassessment going on for a couple of months.”
The Breakthrough spokesperson disputed this characterization, and denied that cutbacks were due to the USAID shutdown or a shift in funding from climate to global health initiatives. The spokesperson also told me that some grantmaking budget remains, though they would not reveal how much.
As for Breakthrough Institute, the funding cut will primarily impact its agricultural program, which received about 90% of its budget from Breakthrough Energy. Nordhaus is trying to figure out how to keep that program afloat, while the institute’s other three areas of policy focus — energy and climate, nuclear innovation, and energy and development — remain largely unaffected.
Multiple other organizations confirmed to Heatmap that they also will not receive future grants from Breakthrough Energy. A representative for the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment, a trade organization for sustainability professionals, told me that Breakthrough had recently informed the group that it would not renew a $400,000 grant, which is set to wrap up this May. (ACLCA’s spokesperson also noted that the grant had not come with any indication that it would be renewed.) Another former grantee told me that while their organization is currently wrapping up a grant with Breakthrough and does not have anything in the works with them for this year, they expected that future funding would be impacted, though they did not explain why.
Breakthrough Energy made up a relatively small share — perhaps 1% — of climate philanthropy worldwide. Foundations and individuals around the world gave a total of $9 billion to $15 billion to climate causes in 2023, according to an analysis from the Climateworks Foundation.
But what has made Breakthrough Energy distinctive is its support for policy and advocacy groups that promote a wide range of technological solutions, including nuclear energy and direct air capture, to fight climate change.
“Their presence will be missed,” said the CEO of another climate nonprofit who was notified by Breakthrough that its funding would not be renewed. Breakthrough Energy “was one of the few funders supporting pragmatic research and advocacy work that pushed at neglected areas such as the need for zero-carbon firm power and accelerated energy innovation,” they added.
"Even if it’s a drop in the bucket, it still makes a difference,” another former grantee with a particularly large budget told me. This organization recently sent Breakthrough an inquiry about partnering up again and is waiting to hear back. “But for small organizations, it’s make it or break it.”
Speculation abounds as to the rationale behind Breakthrough’s funding cuts. “I have heard that one of the reasons that Bill decided to stop funding climate was that he concluded that there was so much money in climate that his money really wasn’t that important,” Nordhaus told me. But that is not true when it comes to agriculture, he said, which comprises about 12% of global emissions. ”There’s very little money for advocating for agriculture innovation to address the climate impacts of the ag sector,” Nordhaus told me.
Gates, who privately donated to a nonprofit affiliated with the Harris campaign in 2024 but did not endorse the Democrat, dined with Trump and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, for more than three hours at Mar-a-Lago around New Year’s Day, he told Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker. He said that Trump was interested in the possibility of eradicating polio or developing an HIV vaccine. “I felt like he was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation,” he told her, days before the inauguration.
Since then, Trump’s war on USAID has frozen funding to a polio eradication program and shut down the phase 1 clinical trial of an HIV vaccine in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda.
The Trump administration is now being lobbied to nix offshore wind projects already under construction.
Anti-wind activists have joined with well-connected figures in conservative legal and energy circles to privately lobby the Trump administration to undo permitting decisions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to documents obtained by Heatmap.
Representatives of conservative think tanks and legal nonprofits — including the Caesar Rodney Institute, the Heartland Institute and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT — sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dated February 11 requesting that the Trump administration “immediately revoke” letters from NOAA to 11 offshore wind projects authorizing “incidental takes,” a term of regulatory art referencing accidental and permissible deaths under federal endangered species and mammal protection laws. The letter lays out a number of perceived issues with how those approvals have historically been issued for offshore wind companies and claims the government has improperly analyzed the cumulative effects of adding offshore wind to the ocean’s existing industrialization. NOAA oversees marine species protection.
The letter also requested “an immediate cession of construction” at four offshore wind projects with federal approvals that have begun construction: Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ Vineyard Wind 1, and Ørsted’s Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind projects.
“It is with a sense of real urgency we write you today,” the letter states, referencing Trump’s executive order targeting the offshore wind industry to ask that he go further. “[E]leven projects have already received approvals with four of those under construction. Leasing and permitting will be reviewed for these approved projects but may take time.”
I obtained the letter from Paul Kamenar, a longtime attorney in conservative legal circles currently with the D.C.-based National Legal and Policy Center, who told me the letter had been sent to the department this week. Kamenar is one of multiple attorneys involved in a lawsuit filed last year by Heartland and CFACT challenging permits for Dominion’s Coastal Virginia project over alleged potential impacts to the endangered North Atlantic right whale. We reported earlier this week that the government signaled in proceedings for that case it will review approvals for Coastal Virginia, the first indication that previous permits issued for offshore wind could be vulnerable to the Trump effect.
Kamenar described the request to Burgum as “a coalition letter,” and told me that “the new secretary there is sympathetic” to their complaints about offshore wind permits. “We’re hoping that this letter will basically reverse the letter[s] of authorizations, or have the agency go back,” Kamenar said, adding a message for Dominion and other developers implicated by the letter: “Just because the company has the approval doesn’t mean it’s all systems go.”
The Interior Department does not directly oversee NOAA – that’s the Commerce Department. But it does control the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which ultimately regulates all offshore wind development and issues final approvals.
Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Some signees of the document are part of a constellation of influential figures in the anti-renewables movement whose voices have been magnified in the new administration.
One of the letter’s two lead signatories is David Stevenson, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy at the Caesar Rodney Institute, an organization involved in legal battles against offshore wind projects under development in the Mid-Atlantic. The Institute says on its website it is a member of the State Policy Network, a broad constellation of think tanks, legal advocacy groups, and nonprofits.
Multiple activists who signed onto the letter work with the Save Right Whales Coalition, a network of local organizations and activists. Coalition members have appeared with Republican lawmakers at field hearings and rallies over the past few years attacking offshore wind. They became especially influential in GOP politics after being featured in a film by outspoken renewables critic and famous liberal-turned-conservative Michael Shellenberger, who is himself involved in the Coalition. His film, Thrown to the Wind, blew up in right-wing media circles because it claimed to correlate whale deaths with offshore wind development.
When asked if the Coalition was formally involved in this request of the administration, Lisa Linowes, a co-founder of the Coalition, replied in an email: “The Coalition was not a signer of the request.”
One cosigner sure to turn heads: John Droz, a pioneer in the anti-wind activist movement who for years has given talks and offered roadmaps on how best to stop renewables projects.
The letter also includes an endorsement from Mandy Davis, who was involved with the draft anti-wind executive order we told you was sent to the Trump transition team before inauguration. CFACT also co-signed that draft order when it was transmitted to the transition team, according to correspondence reviewed by Heatmap.
Most of the signatories to the letter list their locations. Many of the individuals unrelated to bigger organizations list their locations as in Delaware or Maryland. Only a few signatories on the letter have locations in other states dealing with offshore wind projects.
On its face, this letter represents a new stage of Trump’s war on offshore wind.
Yes, he has frozen leasing, along with most permitting activity and even public meetings related to pending projects. But the president’s executive order targeting offshore wind opened the door to rescinding leases and previous permits. Doing so would produce new, costly legal battles for developers and for publicly-regulated utilities, ratepayers. Over the past few weeks, offshore wind developers with projects that got their permits under Biden have sought to reassure investors that at least they’ll be fine.
If this new request is heeded, that calm will subside.
Beyond that, reversing these authorizations could represent a scandal for scientific integrity at NOAA – or at least NOAA’s Fisheries division, the National Marine Fisheries Service. Heeding the letter’s requests would mean revisiting the findings of career scientists for what developers may argue are purely political reasons, or at minimum arbitrary ones.
This wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened under Trump. In 2020, I used public records to prove that plans by career NOAA Fisheries employees to protect endangered whales from oil and gas exploration in the Atlantic were watered down after a political review. At the time, Democratic Representative Jared Huffman — now the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee — told me that my reporting was evidence of potential scientific integrity issues at NOAA and represented “blatant scientific and environmental malpractice at the highest order.”
It’s worth emphasizing how much this mattered, not just for science but literally in court, as the decision to allow more seismic testing for oil under Trump was challenged at the time on the grounds that it was made arbitrarily.
Peter Corkeron, a former NOAA scientist with expertise researching the North Atlantic right whale, reviewed the letter to Burgum and told me in an email that essentially, the anti-offshore wind movement is exploiting similar arguments made by conservationists about issues with the federal government’s protection of the species to target this sector. The federal regulator has for many years faced the ire of conservation activists, who’ve said it does not go far enough to protect endangered species from more longstanding threats like fishing and vessel strikes.
If NOAA were to bow to this request, Corkeron wrote, he would interpret that as the agency’s failure to fully protect the species in good faith instead becoming “suborned by the hydrocarbon exploitation industry as a way of eliminating a competing form of energy production that should, in time, prove more beneficial for whales than what we’re currently doing.”
“The point on cumulative impacts is, on face value, fair,” he said. “The problem is its lack of context. Cumulative impacts on North Atlantic right whales from offshore wind are possible. However, in the context of the cumulative impacts of the shipping (vessel strike kills, noise pollution), and fishing (death, maiming, failure to breed) industries, they’ll be insignificant. Because NOAA has never clearly set out to address ways to offset other impacts while developing the offshore wind industry, these additive impacts place a burden on this new industry in ways that existing, and more damaging, industries don’t have to address.”
CFACT responded to a request for comment by sending me a press release with the letter attached that was not publicly available, and did not respond to the climate criticisms by press time. David Stevenson of the Caesar Rodney Institute sent me a statement criticizing offshore wind energy and questioning its ability to “lower global emissions.”
“The goal is to pause construction until everything is reviewed,” Stevenson said. When asked if there was an outcome where a review led to projects being built, he said no, calling offshore wind an “environmental wrecking ball.”
Well, we’ll soon find out what the real wrecking ball is.