A key Democratic negotiator says the Trump administration’s offshore wind crackdown is endangering a hard-won Senate deal on permitting reform, Politico reports.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) reacted after the Justice Department told a federal court late Tuesday that it wants to reopen the permit for the New England Wind project off Massachusetts. It’s the administration’s fourth such move against an offshore wind project in recent weeks.
“This is how you blow up a permitting deal,” Whitehouse told Politico.
The bipartisan bill, introduced earlier this month, was seen as a significant breakthrough. It would ease permitting for transmission lines, which Democrats prize for expanding clean energy, and adjust the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act in ways Republicans wanted to speed fossil fuel projects. The legislation is likely President Donald Trump’s last chance to put his name on major legislation before the next Congress is sworn in next year, which could see Democrats take one or both chambers.
Trump has long hated wind power, ever since a wind farm in Scotland altered the view from one of his golf courses. He has pushed misleading claims about wind turbines killing birds and whales, and as president has worked to block offshore wind projects at every turn despite the continued growth of the industry.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration outright paid some wind developers to stop working on their utility-scale projects.
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