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Spotlight

Offshore Wind Opponents Zero in on Their Next Two Targets

Will Sunrise Wind and Revolution Wind get the Trump treatment?

Offshore wind and a whale.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The sharks of opposition are circling the American offshore wind industry, as they await the federal government’s next victims.

This week, we received news that Equinor – developer of the Empire Wind project – is inching towards potentially canceling development after a visit to Washington and the White House yielded little success. In addition, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox Business that the department is now reviewing all offshore wind permits issued under the Biden administration.

“What people don’t realize, billions of tons of rock are poured into the ocean before they can begin the years of pile driving,” Burgum told Fox Business, claiming the review of offshore wind permits that Trump ordered uncovered new data about Empire Wind “that was never released to the public” showing the approval “lacked total rigor.”

Meanwhile, coastal opponents of wind energy have moved onto other projects: Orsted’s Revolution Wind project near Rhode Island and Sunrise Wind project off New York’s coastline. In petitions to the EPA, two anti-wind groups – Green Oceans and Protect Our Coast N.J. – have asked the agency to rescind key permits for air emissions and water discharges, asserting the federal government moved too fast to get them approved.

In addition, an environmental consultancy hired by Green Oceans called Planet A* Strategies sent a detailed report to Burgum examining “the background, legal requirements, and data used in Federal agency decision-making regarding offshore wind development.” The consultancy claimed it had found actual violations of environmental law and that facts in the report “include material information that may have been omitted or misrepresented by offshore wind project developers and governmental decisionmakers.” Planet A* Strategies is run by Maureen Koatz, a former policy director for the Nuclear Energy Institute and Senate staffer.

Green Oceans has also retained federal lobbyists from two different firms, a noteworthy move for an organization that previously had no obvious government affairs footprint.

It is likely no coincidence that all of these petitions and this report are all being filed right now, as we saw a similar flurry of activity surround Empire Wind before its stop work order was issued. Similar noise occurred in the days before Atlantic Shores lost a key EPA permit, sending work on the project into indefinite hiatus. For this reason, I suspect we will see more actions threatening other permits for offshore wind projects – and will be surprised if that doesn’t happen.

But at least this time there’s a countervailing force, as climate-minded environmentalists now swoop in too. Late Thursday, 10 major environmental non-profits – including NRDC, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, and the National Wildlife Federation – filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit that was filed by Democrat-led states against Trump’s blanket ban on offshore wind approvals and leases. I obtained a copy of the filing this afternoon from NRDC.

The amicus brief focuses on the argument that Trump’s order and the government’s compliance with it violates the Administrative Procedures Act. This comes after months of relative inaction from the environmental movement, other than a handful of rallies and public statements against the offshore wind ban.

The brief also declares that “when robust environmental review and permitting frameworks are applied, the responsible deployment of U.S. wind power is compatible with wildlife protection, public health, community protection and economic development,” and that the agencies “have taken an abrupt, 180-degree turn in their approach to wind permitting, without acknowledging this about-face, and without providing any justification, let alone a reasoned one.”

Yellow

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Q&A

How Are Renewable Energy Developers Reacting to IRA Cuts?

A conversation with Mike Hall of Anza.

The Fight's Q&A subject.
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This week’s conversation is with Mike Hall, CEO of the solar and battery storage data company Anza. I rang him because, in my book, the more insights into the ways renewables companies are responding to the war on the Inflation Reduction Act, the better.

The following chat was lightly edited for clarity. Let’s jump in!

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A Solar Flare-Up in New York, Battery Aftershocks in California

And more of the week’s top news in renewable energy conflicts.

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Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Columbia County, New York – A Hecate Energy solar project in upstate New York blessed by Governor Kathy Hochul is now getting local blowback.

  • Last week, the Hochul administration granted many solar projects their renewable energy certificates, including Hecate’s Shepherd’s Run solar project in the town of Copake. Shepherd’s Run has struggled for years with its application process and was previously rejected by state land use regulators.
  • This certificate award has now inflamed longstanding local criticism of the project, which has persisted due to its proximity to schools and concerns about fire risk.
  • We’ll find out whether this flare-up will cause more headaches when the state’s Renewable Energy Siting office completes reviewing Hecate’s application in 60 days.

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Anti-solar activists in agricultural areas get a powerful new ally.

Sheep and solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

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In a report released last week, President Trump’s Agriculture Department took aim at solar and stated competition with “solar development on productive farmland” was creating a “considerable barrier” for farmers trying to acquire land. The USDA also stated it would disincentivize “the use of federal funding” for solar “through prioritization points and regulatory action,” which a spokesperson – Emily Cannon – later clarified in an email to me this week will include reconfiguring the agency’s Rural Energy for America loan and grant program. Cannon declined to give a time-table for the new regulation, stating that the agency “will have more information when the updates are ready to be published.”

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