President Donald Trump’s administration is quietly folding on a major policy to attack the development of renewable energy in the United States.
According to Heatmap, the Justice Department this week “filed a motion … to dismiss its appeal of a federal court’s December decision vacating the order to halt offshore wind projects.” The motion still must be approved by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, but it marks a significant win for the plaintiffs, which include 17 states and the Alliance for Clean Energy New York.
The original executive order Trump signed would have suspended all offshore wind development on the outer continental shelf.
Trump has reportedly despised wind turbines, which he dismissively calls “windmills,” ever since a wind power array altered the view from his Scottish golf course.
The president has separately tried to designate offshore wind development as a threat to national security, but federal courts have similarly blocked this.
Another tactic used by the Trump administration to spike wind energy projects, which has proven more effective, is to simply pay developers to voluntarily cancel their own leases, as he did to the tune of nearly $1 billion to stop FirstEnergy projects off the coasts of New York and North Carolina.
Despite all of Trump’s efforts to obstruct the industry, renewable energy continues to grow as a share of U.S. power generation, reaching a record 26 percent last year. Trump’s war in Iran, which has disrupted global oil markets through the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, is sparking further renewable energy investment around the world.
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