Trump Weaponizes Bureaucratic Review to Stop Offshore Wind Project

The Trump administration has touted its desire to achieve energy independence for America. It has also made a big deal out of cutting the administrative red tape that it believes slows the development of fledgling industries. So why, one might wonder, would Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum halt the development of a major offshore wind farm over supposed concerns that the Biden administration “rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis?” That’s a rhetorical question, of course. Seemingly, the reason is that Donald Trump and his cabinet simply don’t want clean energy to succeed and risk the bottom line for their donors in the fossil fuel industry. So Empire Wind, a project that started construction last year off the shore of New York and would have generated carbon-free electricity for 500,000 homes by the time it was completed in 2027, is now dead in the water. Secretary Burgum said the decision to halt Empire Wind falls in line with Trump’s executive order, signed o ... Read full article.