With President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, Republican lawmakers are preparing to brawl with the offshore wind industry.
Congressman Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey Republican, announced in a statement this week that he has been “working closely” with Trump to draft an executive order to “temporarily halt offshore wind turbine activities along the East Coast,” and “lay the groundwork for permanent action.”
“These offshore wind projects should have never been approved in the first place,” the statement reads. “The Biden administration rammed them through without proper oversight, transparent leases, or a full understanding of their devastating consequences.
“We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home,” the New Jersey Republican stated.
Officials in Van Drew’s own district, Cape May County, had successfully waged a legal battle against federal agencies and the Ocean Winds 1 and 2 projects, located off New Jersey’s southernmost region and owned by developers Ørsted. The projects have since been shelved.
Van Drew’s statement suggests that the executive order is expected to be finalized within the first few months of the Trump presidency; a more permanent action targeting the offshore wind industry along the East Coast is less certain.
“Unfortunately, we cannot release the details of the executive order at this time,” Paxton Antonucci, Van Drew’s spokesperson, said in an email to The Times.
Many of the projects south of Martha’s Vineyard are owned by international energy companies Ørsted and Avangrid. Ørsted declined to comment on the proposed order, and an Avangrid spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
Trump has had a history of opposing wind power, most recently saying at a Jan. 7 press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida he will block wind developments. Trump called wind turbines detrimental to the environment, and criticized government subsidies given to developers. “We’re going to try to have a policy where no windmills are being built,” he said.
And Trump’s upcoming decisions may have more teeth than during his first presidency.
Jack Fruchtman, an Aquinnah resident and retired professor of political science and constitutional law at Towson University in Maryland, said presidential executive orders have “wide-ranging effects,” nearly on par with a congressional act.
Executive orders can face legal challenges, and Fruchtman said some of Trump’s previous executive orders have been blocked in court, and were determined by the judge to need to be “confirmed by Congress” to advance.
“Back then [during Trump’s first presidency], that was not possible, but it is now: Republicans control both houses of Congress, even with a small majority in the House of Representatives,” Fruchtman said.
Not only is he considering pressuring the offshore wind industry, Trump has signaled he is planning executive orders to boost fossil-fuel production in the U.S. as well. “Trump’s emphasis on fossil fuel development through executive orders will have [an] enormous impact on our lives in terms of the environment and climate change,” Fruchtman told The Times.
Cape and Islands state Sen. Julian Cyr, a Provincetown Democrat, said it “remains to be seen” what an incoming Trump administration will mean for offshore wind, although he expects projects already under construction or those that received federal and state approvals will be more resilient.
“I think we can expect the incoming administration will seriously delay and thwart early-stage proposals,” Cyr said, pointing to offshore wind lease areas in the Gulf of Maine that were auctioned off only a few months ago, in October.
Still, Cyr worries that Trump will also try to accelerate offshore oil drilling in New England and other parts of the East Coast — something he is trying to prevent in Massachusetts waters through a bill he introduced in the state Senate.
“Most all Islanders and Cape Codders I speak to are quite worried about a climate crisis playing out right before our very eyes,” Cyr said. “We live by the water’s edge. Rising seas, worsening storms are already making it all that much harder to live on the Island and across the region.”
While U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, vowed to push for domestic “conventional energy” production to prioritize “American energy security,” Fruchtman said, moderate Republicans’ votes will determine the House of Representatives’ decisions.
“They may well go along with Trump, thinking that the U.S. needs to be energy-dominant,” Fruchtman said. “Which, by the way, the U.S. is now energy-dominant: the most oil, the most gas produced of other nations.”
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office could potentially challenge an executive order, as was the case in Trump’s last presidency. The office declined to comment on any potential legal action.
Cape and Islands state Rep. Thomas Moakley, a Falmouth Democrat, said efforts will continue to fight climate change.
“While we will be using all the tools available to us at the state level to meet our climate and emissions goals, we will also be relying on our federal legislators to take up the fight in Washington,” he said.
Gov. Maura Healey will be delivering her State of the Commonwealth address on Thursday, and Moakley is hoping she will outline “some big environmental goals for this year.”
The Healey administration had heavily pushed the offshore wind industry as a part of the state’s goal to be carbon-neutral by 2050, and as a means to generate economic growth — although it is uncertain how many workers on some offshore wind projects are from southeastern Massachusetts.
Congressman Bill Keating, who represents Martha’s Vineyard, told The Times that Massachusetts’ “energy goals, job creation, domestic manufacturing, and energy affordability depend on our offshore wind industry.” Keating said it is clear that the Trump administration is “prioritizing big oil over clean energy,” which he says is “turning their back” on blue-collar workers building the offshore wind projects and ratepayers nationwide who want “clean, affordable energy.”
“Make no mistake, pulling out the rug from under one energy sector to prop up another is not governing — it’s playing politics,” Keating said. “I stand ready to work with the incoming administration on energy policies that will create jobs, boost American manufacturing, and not harm ratepayers and working families in our region. And I remain committed to continuing to work with offshore wind developers and local government to ensure transparency and open lines of communication as construction continues.”
Martha’s Vineyard plans to be fully powered by renewable energy by 2040, largely dependent on the New England electrical grid that powers the Island. The state plans to generate around two-thirds of its total energy demand from offshore wind by 2040.
Offshore wind has been a contentious topic on Martha’s Vineyard. Some people pushed against it, raising possible environmental impacts of the projects and that the Vineyard community had not been properly compensated for the visual obstructions of the towering turbines. Others underscored the power source as necessary to fight climate change, and said it would be economically beneficial in the long run.
Cyr, the Island’s representative in the state Senate, said he’ll continue to push for cleaner energy sources. He said that part of the difficulties in living on the Island, like the high rate of insurance nonrenewals on the Vineyard, prompted by intensifying storms and floods, are results of a “manmade problem” ignored by prior generations. He said the state will be tackling climate change “head-on with honesty” to transition to net-zero carbon emissions.
“And offshore wind is a part of that solution,” Cyr said.