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offshore wind
State AGs Sue Over Trump 'Trying to Kill Clean Energy Projects and Destroy Good-Paying Jobs'
"We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement that threatens to erase over a thousand union jobs and cheat millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy,” said New York AG Letitia James.
Jun 02, 2026
A group of state attorneys general sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, in an effort to block an unprecedented deal it made to pay an energy company to abandon a pair of large East Coast wind energy projects and invest in more polluting fossil fuel infrastructure instead.
As part of efforts to unilaterally block private wind power construction across the US while revving up fossil fuel production, the Interior Department agreed to pay $928 million in taxpayer funds to the French energy company TotalEnergies to scrap construction plans for a large wind project off the coast of New York and another off North Carolina, the leases for which had been approved back in 2022.
In exchange, the company agreed to halt any future development of clean power in the US and invest hundreds of millions of dollars in oil and gas projects instead.
On Tuesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that she was leading a coalition of seven northeastern state AGs—from New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont—in a lawsuit seeking to block the agreement.
James described the deal as an unlawful attempt to get around a previous court rejection of President Donald Trump’s Day One executive order halting all wind energy development in the US.
“The Trump administration is once again trying to kill clean energy projects and destroy good-paying jobs for New Yorkers," James said. "After repeatedly losing in court, this administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead. We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement that threatens to erase over a thousand union jobs and cheat millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy.”
The canceled New York project was expected to produce up to 1.4 gigawatts of energy for the state, powering more than 700,000 homes annually. According to a press release from James' office, it was projected to save New Yorkers $10 billion over its 25-year lifespan.
Another section of the Bight construction lease was slated for a wind farm projected to provide about 1.3 gigawatts to homes in New Jersey, powering 650,000 homes and generating $3 billion in economic benefits, according to state officials.
The other project set for North Carolina was projected by TotalEnergies to generate more than 1 gigawatt of power, enough for 300,000 homes.
The Oceantic Network, a nonprofit that supports the construction of offshore wind projects, estimated that the cancellation of a single 1-gigawatt offshore wind project costs between $8.5-9.5 billion in US economic output and about 3,350 construction jobs, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in lost wages.
Liz Burdock, the president and CEO of Oceantic, commended the states attempting to stop the Trump administration from killing the projects at a time when oil and gas costs are skyrocketing, largely due to Trump's war with Iran.
"For more than a year, offshore wind has faced an unprecedented and unrelenting campaign of political interference despite billions in private investment, state commitments, and court rulings," Burdock said. "These continued attacks on offshore wind are not just an assault on a single industry—they are an attack on American workers, energy affordability, national security, and the states’ right to shape their own energy future."
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Amid Energy Crisis of His Own Making, Trump Slammed for Using Taxpayer Money to Cancel Wind Projects
"We the taxpayers are going to pay companies $900 million... to NOT build wind power at a time when electricity prices are spiking and we need more clean power?" said one expert.
Apr 28, 2026
President Donald Trump's administration this week shelled out even more US taxpayer money to get energy firms to cancel planned renewable energy projects.
As The New York Times reported, the US Department of the Interior on Monday announced plans to reimburse energy companies a combined $885 million in exchange for forfeiting their leases to build wind farms in federal waters off the coasts of New York, New Jersey, and California.
The companies involved in the projects have promised promised to invest in fossil fuel energy projects, "including liquefied natural gas facilities along the Gulf Coast," the Times reported.
The agreements with the energy companies are similar to a deal the administration struck earlier this year with French firm TotalEnergies, which agreed to forfeit its leases for projects off the coasts of New York and North Carolina in exchange for $928 million that would be plugged into fossil fuels.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blasted the administration for killing the projects planned off the coast of his state, decrying "a reckless decision that hurts working families and the economy."
"Once again, Donald Trump is attacking New York offshore wind at the behest of his fossil fuel donors with no justification," Schumer said.
Costa Samaras, director of the Carnegie Mellon University Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, expressed disbelief that the administration was killing clean energy projects at a time when Americans are suffering from surging gas prices, which on Tuesday hit their highest level in four years.
"Hold on," he wrote in a social media post. "We the taxpayers are going to pay companies $900 million, which is more than six times what we spend on wind power research and development, to NOT build wind power at a time when electricity prices are spiking and we need more clean power?"
New polling suggests that Trump's blanket opposition to wind power projects is becoming politically costly.
As Gizmodo reported on Tuesday, a recent survey conducted by GOP public opinion research firm the Tarrance Group found that "nearly three-quarters (74%) of voters favor the construction of offshore wind projects off the coast of their own state, with majorities favoring in every state surveyed."
The poll found that even Republican voters have grown more supportive of wind power projects, with support for offshore wind rising by 30 percentage points over the last year.
In its analysis of the poll, the Tarrance Group said that more voters have come around to supporting offshore wind due in part to "ongoing concerns about energy prices," which have spiked since Trump launched an illegal war with Iran in February.
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Critics Hammer Trump Admin's 'Taxpayer Funded Bribe' to Kill Massive Wind Energy Project
"The most corrupt presidency ever—and it's not even close," said one critic.
Mar 23, 2026
Critics slammed the Trump administration on Monday after it announced a deal to pay almost $1 billion to a French energy company to cancel its plans to construct wind farms across the eastern US.
As reported by The New York Times, French firm TotalEnergies has agreed to forfeit its leases in federal waters off the coasts of New York and North Carolina, and will instead invest the money it received from the Trump administration into oil and gas projects in the US, "including a facility in Texas that would export liquefied natural gas to global markets."
TotalEnergies paid nearly $928 million for the rights to access federal waters during former President Joe Biden's administration.
The Times described the agreement as "an extraordinary transfer of taxpayer dollars to a foreign company for the purposes of boosting the production of fossil fuels, a main driver of climate change, while throttling offshore wind power."
Patrick Pouyanné, the chief executive of TotalEnergies, said that the firm decided to abandon its US wind farm plans due to "practical" considerations, while emphasizing that the firm wasn't giving up on wind power all together.
"When the Trump administration came to power and began setting US energy policy, we said that we’ll have to reconsider, clearly, these offshore wind project developments," explained Pouyanné, adding that "we continue to invest in onshore solar, onshore wind, batteries."
Many critics expressed disbelief that the Trump administration would go to such extraordinary lengths to kill a clean energy project, especially after the president sent oil and gasoline prices soaring earlier this month when he launched an unprovoked and unconstitutional war with Iran.
"Let’s call this what it is: a taxpayer-funded bribe to kill homegrown clean energy and hand the money straight to oil and gas executives," wrote climate advocacy organization Evergreen Action in a social media post. "Trump is once again making Americans pay more for energy so his Big Oil donors can rake in even more profits."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, expressed a similar sentiment.
"$1 billion of our tax dollars to kill a clean energy program that creates jobs, just so Trump's Big Oil donors can make more profit," D'Arrigo wrote. "The most corrupt presidency ever—and it's not even close."
Matt Gertz, senior fellow at press watchdog Media Matters for America, argued that the agreement was a corrupt bargain aimed at hurting the president's political foes, including the Democratic leaders of New York and North Carolina.
"Climate/renewables arguments aside, this is the president's administration paying a foreign company to invest in states where Republicans are in charge rather than ones where Democrats are in charge," Gertz wrote, "using tax dollars to punish people who didn't vote for his party."
US Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) said that the deal to kill the planned wind farms was yet another example of the Trump administration making life in the US less affordable.
"This administration just spent $1 BILLION of your money to make sure wind farms don't get built," Blunt Rochester wrote. "You''ll have them to thank for higher electric bills each month."
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Watchdog Warns Trump and Burgum's Halting of Offshore Wind Projects Is Illegal
“Burgum’s actions on offshore wind appear to be motivated by the personal financial interests of those in the administration, not our collective national interests."
Dec 29, 2025
A week after the US Department of the Interior said it was immediately halting five offshore wind projects in the interest of "national security," a watchdog group told congressional committees Monday that the move is "not legally defensible" and raises "significant" questions about conflicts of interest concerning a top DOI official's investments in fossil gas.
Timothy Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), wrote to the top members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the House Committee on Natural Resources regarding the pause on projects off the coasts of Virginia, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts—projects that account for billions of dollars in investment, employ thousands of people, and generate sustainable energy for roughly 2.5 million homes and businesses.
The announcement made by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last week pertained to "five vague, perfunctory, cookie-cutter orders" halting the projects, wrote Whitehouse, but PEER is concerned that the orders were issued to evade the Congressional Review Act (CRA), under which the action to halt the projects likely constitutes a "major rule."
Whitehouse explained:
Under the CRA, a rule that meets any one of three criteria (an annual effect on the economy of $100,000,000 or more; a major increase in costs or prices for consumers, individual industries, federal, state, or local government agencies, or geographic regions; or in pertinent part significant adverse effects on competition, employment, investment, productivity, or innovation) is a major rule. Interior’s pause likely meets all three.
As a major rule under the CRA, the pause cannot take effect until at least 60 days after BOEM provides Congress the requisite notification and report under the CRA, which, according to GAO’s database, has not yet occurred. Congress must use its oversight authority to unveil the truth and, as appropriate, and to enforce the rule of law.
He said in a statement that “Burgum’s move is designed to bypass all congressional and public input."
The CRA states that a rule is "the whole or a part of an agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy or describing the organization, procedure, or practice requirements of an agency.”
Press statements by the DOI and by Burgum last week were "statements of general applicability and imminent future effect, designed to implement policy," wrote Whitehouse, who also said the interior secretary embarked on "a coordinated rollout with Fox News entities."
On December 22, Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Burgum at 8:00 am Eastern, “What next action did you want to tell us about this morning?” Five minutes later, FoxNews.com published its first story on Burgum's orders, citing a press release that had not yet been made public and including a quote from the secretary about the "emerging national security risk" posed by the offshore wind projects.
"If last week’s actions are allowed to stand, future presidents will have unchecked authority under the guise of national security to target federal leases related to entire disfavored energy industries for political purposes."
Burgum's announcement to Fox came at least one to two hours before Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) acting Director Matthew Giacona provided the orders to the lessees running the five wind projects.
Further, wrote Whitehouse, "Burgum’s voluminous public comments in the hours and days since the pause further show the true purpose of Interior’s singular action."
"The national security pretext quickly gives way to broad and spurious talking points about the 'Green New Scam,' how 'wind doesn’t blow 24-7' (evincing Burgum’s seeming unfamiliarity with energy storage technologies), and unyielding promotion of liquified natural gas projects," wrote Whitehouse.
Aside from the alleged illegality of Burgum's order, PEER pointed to Giacona's potential conflicts of interest with BOEM operations and specifically with halting wind projects. Giacona is a "diligent filer" of financial disclosure forms required by the Ethics in Government Act, noted Whitehouse—but those forms point to potential benefits he may reap from shutting down offshore wind infrastructure.
Giacona reported his purchase of interests in the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) on September 16. The fund tracks daily price movements of "natural" gas delivered at the Henry Hub in Louisiana and is subject to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
"Accordingly, a government employee who has an interest in UNG also has a potential conflict of interest with the underlying holdings of UNG (currently primarily natural gas futures contracts at the Henry Hub)," wrote Whitehouse.
PEER does not know whether Giacona continues to hold a financial interest in UNG or whether the offshore wind pause will have a "direct and predictable effect on a financial interest in UNG," but Whitehouse noted that Burgum and DIO have entwined the pause with the promotion of liquefied natural gas.
"It is disconcerting that Mr. Giacona temporarily had even a de minimis financial interest in natural gas futures while also leading the agency that manages the development of natural gas resources on the outer continental shelf," wrote Whitehouse, adding that Giacona also sold interests in the United States Oil Fund on September 3, while overseeing BOEM.
Based on Giacona's investments, said Whitehouse, “Burgum’s actions on offshore wind appear to be motivated by the personal financial interests of those in the administration, not our collective national interests. This is another misguided step in transforming the federal government into a franchise of the fossil fuel industry.”
“On public lands across the United States, the Department of the Interior has tens of thousands of additional active leases related to oil, gas, wind, solar, and geothermal production and mining for energy-related minerals," he added. "If last week’s actions are allowed to stand, future presidents will have unchecked authority under the guise of national security to target federal leases related to entire disfavored energy industries for political purposes."
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Clean Energy Bright Spots in a Trump-Clouded Year
Clean energy is strong. And in 2025, it showed its strength in some really notable ways, as momentum, economics, policies, and people carried clean energy progress forward, despite it all.
Dec 27, 2025
To claim that 2025 in the United States has been one for the history books may be the understatement of the year. So many unprecedented things have happened, that historians will have no shortage of harrowing lessons to be learned from this era.
In the clean energy space, the Trump administration launched attack after attack to slow down the clean energy in favor of fossil fuels, killing projects, investments, and jobs. By rescinding clean energy funding, pushing to abolish tax credits, coordinating across the administration to interfere with wind and solar, and so much more, they’ve set us up for bitter harvests for years to come.
And yet…
Clean energy is strong. And in 2025, it showed its strength in some really notable ways, as momentum, economics, policies, and people carried clean energy progress forward, despite it all. And it seems all the more important to celebrate it this year.
So, here are clean energy bright spots worthy of resounding cheers.
Powering Up
One pillar of progress has been growth in renewable energy capacity, for more clean electricity and all the other benefits clean energy brings. And one clear shining star for 2025 is the US solar sector:
- 2025 looks set to land just a hair’s breadth away from breaking the record for new US solar installations set in 2024. Texas continued to be the leader in new solar, followed by California and—wait for it—Indiana (up from 15th two years ago). Overall, July to September 2025 was the third best quarter ever for new solar installations.
- Solar accounted for almost 80% of new electrical generating capacity through September (and 58% of all new electrical capacity, with energy storage included).
- All that installation progress helped push solar electricity to new heights: Solar generation from January to September 2025 was 29% higher than in the same period in 2024.
- US solar manufacturing also grew: Module manufacturing capacity increased 42% over the first three quarters of 2025, new capacity to make the solar cells that go into modules came to life in South Carolina, and new capacity to make the wafers that become the solar cells sprang forth in Michigan.
Energy storage was another fount of progress in 2025, with installations for the year projected to be more than 50% higher than in 2024, led by Texas, California, and Arizona.
All told, says the American Clean Power Association, 2025 looks “firmly on pace to surpass 2024 as the biggest clean power deployment year in history.”
Realizing Possibilities
Where solar, storage, and other clean energy technologies really shine is in what they make possible in electricity markets around the country. Some examples:
- In California, gas electricity generation has fallen as solar generation has risen, and solar in the state, up 13% year-over-year for the first three quarters of 2025, looked set to surpass gas on an annual basis for the first time.
- In Texas, where electricity demand is growing fastest, clean energy played a huge role in meeting that increased demand in 2025. Solar generation January-September was 42% higher than in the same period in 2024, and solar seems poised to overtake coal in the state in 2026. The grid operator covering most of the state reported having added 20 times as much battery, solar, and wind capacity as new gas in its service territory since last winter.
- In New England, having clean energy available to meet peaks in electricity demand helped send the region’s last coal plant out to pasture. New England solar generation was almost a fifth higher in Q1-Q3.
Even on the Water
Though the challenges were unprecedented for offshore wind, 2025 also brought noteworthy happenings in that space. Construction progressed on the next generation of projects, aimed at serving Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia, and several large-scale ones should reach full power in 2026 (if I didn’t just jinx it…). In service in Virginia to aid the work is the Charybdis, the brand-new wind turbine installation vessel that is the first built in the United States (Texas). Virginia’s offshore wind project will be one of the world’s largest when completed next year, capable of producing enough energy for more than 600,000 Virginian households.
Clean energy’s progress despite all that the Trump administration threw at it is notable, and it seems important to celebrate those accomplishments as we go into the new year.
As some of the Trump administration’s spurious excuses to halt under-construction offshore wind projects failed to stand up to legal scrutiny, the importance of offshore wind for economies—not just as a source of clean electrons—was even clearer than usual in the range of voices pushing back and speaking out in opposition to the administration’s monkeying. Those included labor unions, business networks, and even the Republican member of Congress for the Virginia project staging area and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Meanwhile, the first operating large-scale US offshore wind project, serving Long Island, showed strong results in its first year—including in the winter months, when offshore wind power comes in particularly handy. New England too was benefiting from offshore turbines, before the projects themselves even reached completion: Injections of electricity into the region’s grid led to wind generation from January to early December 2025 that was 26% higher than in the same period in 2024, and led in mid-December to a record for peak wind production that was 29% higher than 2024’s peak.
Lots More to Come
As technology moves forward, so do some leading states. Despite—or because of—the federal moves in the wrong direction, multiple states doubled down on their moves toward a clean energy economy in 2025. Maine, for example, committed to 100% clean electricity by 2040. California extended and strengthened its “cap and invest” program. Illinois passed a comprehensive clean energy package. And, because clean energy matters at all scales, it’s worth celebrating Michigan’s moves to make it easier for customers to connect distributed renewable energy systems (think rooftop solar) to the electric grid, and Utah’s embrace of balcony solar.
And there’s a lot more to come for clean energy, despite the even rougher seas ahead in the near term under this administration. Continuing affordability concerns will guide even some slow-to-come-around people to recognize solar and wind as often the cheapest source of new electricity generation. Decision-makers and the rest of us who care about good jobs and economic development will continue to push for more policies to accelerate the move to clean energy. Innovation, economies of scale in products and projects, and continued international progress will all make clean energy even more attractive.
There’s a lot about 2025 I’d really like to be able to undo, or forget. But clean energy’s progress despite all that the Trump administration threw at it is notable, and it seems important to celebrate those accomplishments as we go into the new year. Not least to keep reminding ourselves of the enormity of what’s already possible and what’s yielding dividends right now, today, and will be long into the future.
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What a GOP Government Will Really Mean for the Renewable Energy Rollout
If the next Trump administration is serious about pulling the plug on clean energy, that will add up to a lot of jobs and investments to undo in states and districts where the president-elect handily won the election.
Dec 18, 2024
For all that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump trashed renewable energy on the stump, much of his ranting may very well become a murmur when he returns to the Oval Office.
Obscured by his “green new scam” rhetoric is a mad scramble by his supporters in Congress to reap the economic benefits of green industry for their states and districts. The increasing investments, precisely in the places that voted for him, make President-elect Trump’s pledge to “terminate” many green programs political wolf talk. That is because the renewable energy industry is growing jobs more than twice as fast as the overall economy.
This acknowledgement from conservative lawmakers that clean energy and electric vehicles are good business makes it reasonable to bet that the investments they’ve secured for their districts will survive the president-elect’s rhetoric of a “green new scam.”
A lasting irony of the outgoing Biden administration will be how no Republican in Congress voted for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Yet 85% of the announced clean energy projects and 68% of the jobs triggered by the IRA, such as those related to electric vehicles, wind power, solar power, and battery storage, have gone to Republican-held congressional districts, according to E2, a nonpartisan group that monitors the clean energy industry.
The representatives of those districts see no apparent contradiction in touting the attractiveness of their areas for clean energy investments, while publicly supporting the president-elect’s rhetoric and proposals to end clean energy programs.
Love-Hate Relationships Abound
For instance, Texas Congressmember Jodey Arrington, who represents a House district that includes Lubbock and Abilene, called the IRA a “failed liberal spending spree that crippled our economy and left working American families worse off.” The Washington Post reported in October that Arrington’s district is the nation’s fifth-highest recipient of investments for clean energy and manufacturing, receiving nearly $5 billion.
Then there is Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn: a climate skeptic who says infrastructure projects that fight climate change are a “gateway to socialism.” She told the Republican National Convention this summer that the “green new scam” was “destroying small businesses.”
Huh? Relative to the size of the state’s economy (as measured by gross domestic product), Tennessee ranks first in the nation in clean technology manufacturing investment from the IRA, according to the Clean Investment Monitor, maintained by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and the Rhodium Group.
Senator Blackburn seems well aware of it. Even before the IRA, when vehicle maker Ford cut the ribbon on a $5.6 billion electric battery plant in her state in 2021, she boasted how Tennessee is “leading the way for innovation” with a “historic project” that would directly create 5,800 jobs and create “countless opportunities in supporting industries.”
The champion of hypocrisy is Representative Richard Hudson, congressman for North Carolina’s Ninth District, nestled in the center of the state. In voting against the IRA, he blasted clean energy programs as “woke climate and social programs that won’t work.”
Hudson was wide awake for the money coming to his district to expand a massive Toyota battery plant for electric vehicles and hybrids. According to E2, Hudson’s district is top in the nation both for clean energy investment and for clean energy job growth triggered by the IRA. The Toyota plant alone promises more than 5,000 jobs. Estimates of investment in his district range from nearly $10 billion to nearly $13 billion.
Selective Cuts Desired
If the next Trump administration is serious about pulling the plug on clean energy, that will add up to a lot of jobs and investments to undo in states and districts where the president-elect handily won the election. North Carolina Representative Hudson hinted he agrees. When CNN asked him in June if he would vote to repeal the IRA if the Republicans won control of the federal government in the election—which they did—he responded, “Rather than try to repeal one big bill with another big bill, we ought to look at the individual policies.”
Another sign that Republicans ultimately won’t scrap all the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act came in an August letter by 18 Republicans to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). The lawmakers asked Johnson to preserve clean energy tax credits in any effort to repeal or reform the IRA. The letter acknowledged that energy tax credits “have spurred innovation, incentivized investment, and created good jobs in many parts of the country—including many districts represented by members of our conference.”
The letter warned that repealing energy tax credits, especially those for projects that have already broken ground “would undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing.”
This acknowledgement from conservative lawmakers that clean energy and electric vehicles are good business makes it reasonable to bet that the investments they’ve secured for their districts will survive the president-elect’s rhetoric of a “green new scam.”
Risks to Offshore Wind Loom
Much less clear is the near-term future for offshore wind.
While campaigning, President-elect Trump promised to sign an executive order on the first day of his return to bring a halt to the offshore wind industry. Never mind that onshore wind is booming in red states in the windy, rural middle of the United States, providing 130,000 jobs. The fastest growing occupation in the nation is wind turbine service technician, paying an average of nearly $62,000 a year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
According to the Energy Information Agency, the top four states for electricity generation from wind in 2023 were the red states of Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
In even more serious doubt is a just transition, where communities that suffer the most from fossil fuel production and pollution can get jobs, lower energy costs, and cleaner air from a move to renewables.
The offshore wind industry, a staple of energy generation in northern Europe, is still in its infancy in the United States. It remains highly vulnerable to price shocks, supply-chain issues, local opposition to siting, and being a political dartboard. The industry is currently centered in more liberal Northeastern states thanks to ideal water depths off the Atlantic coastline and forward-looking governors from Massachusetts to Virginia who have been competing the last two decades for ports and projects.
The U.S. has the technical capacity to harness three times more electricity from offshore wind than it currently uses today, with the Atlantic Ocean off the Northeast coast possessing some of the strongest wind speeds in the country.
Surprisingly, despite its “Drill, Baby, Drill” mantra for oil, the first Trump administration promoted offshore wind when it found out how much money the leases could put into federal coffers. It conducted a then-record auction for waters off Massachusetts to site off-shore wind projects. Ports and manufacturing facilities as far south as Louisiana, home state of House Speaker Mike Johnson, helped launch the nation’s first offshore wind farm in Rhode Island.
But that has not stopped oil and gas companies from continuing to conduct disinformation campaigns to stir up opposition to offshore wind. It is clear they have a lot to lose from a full-blown offshore wind industry in the Northeast. For example, gas accounts for at least half of the electricity generation in New England and New Jersey. New York City generates between 85% and 90% of its electricity from fossil fuels. The Northeast Gas Association boasts that about half the entire region gets its electricity from gas.
On the campaign trail, President-elect Trump elected to play off that disinformation. He attacked offshore wind with gale force lies about its impact on whales and the environment, claims which have zero science behind them as NOAA and others explain.
The unending verbal assault makes it reasonable to worry that under this second administration President-elect Trump may truly try to score political points by directing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to slow permitting of new projects and telling the Justice Department to side with opponents of incomplete projects. Many experts say that just the slowing of the permitting process risks making construction more expensive and may scare off investors.
Then There’s the Issue of Equity
In even more serious doubt is a just transition, where communities that suffer the most from fossil fuel production and pollution can get jobs, lower energy costs, and cleaner air from a move to renewables.
Almost by definition, the growth of clean energy industries in more sparsely populated, majority white, Republican-held districts may exacerbate the existing structural racism in the energy sector’s workforce, which has been a driver of the Biden administration’s goal of directing 40% of federal climate and clean energy investments to disadvantaged communities.
For instance, Black people are 13% of the nation’s workforce and account for only 8% of the solar and wind workforce, according to the Department of Energy. The Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) says the percentage of Black solar workers has not budged since 2022. Yet, the second-fastest growing job in the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are solar panel installers, making on average $48,000 a year.
The percentage of people of color in leadership positions in the renewable energy supply chain is currently infinitesimally small. A 2022 report by the American Council on Renewable Energy found that of 658 manufacturers involved in utility-scale wind, solar, and battery storage, 1.8% were owned by people of color or women. And while there is one bright spot in diversity, with 33% of new clean energy jobs last year being filled by Latinos, 88% of solar industry executives are white and 80% are male, according to the IREC.
Only a quarter of solar firms in the IREC’s annual National Solar Jobs Census reported that they had strategies to hire more people of color or women.
With the return of President-elect Trump, accompanied now by Vice President-elect JD Vance, it will take maverick clean energy companies to improve diversity. Just this past June, Vance co-introduced (along with Senator Blackburn) a bill in the Senate to eliminate all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and funding for any entities that receive federal funding. Representatives Arrington and Hudson co-sponsored the measure in the House. Cynically twisting the purpose of DEI to ensure fair opportunities for people from historically excluded groups, Vice President-elect Vance claims DEI “breeds hatred and racial division.”
President-elect Trump himself has already begun to nominate members of his cabinet with direct ties to Project 2025, the de facto Republican Party platform that also calls for the elimination of DEI throughout government. Project 2025 explicitly calls for the end of DEI in the Energy Department and eliminating the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights in the Environmental Protection Agency.
The pall placed over the nation is already being felt even before Inauguration Day, as Walmart recently announced it was rolling back DEI policies or dismantling DEI teams, joining companies like Ford, Boeing, Toyota, Lowe’s, Harley Davidson, Molson Coors, John Deere, and Tractor Supply. That follows the scores of universities that are eliminating DEI in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2023 striking down of affirmative action. It was a ruling virtually assured by President Trump’s packing of the court in his first term.
In a blog last year on this flood of renewable money flowing into Republican districts from a Democratic-inspired law, I wrote that the nation would be so much stronger in the fight against climate change and the effort to clean up communities and boost the economy if conservatives would “drop the two-faced charade of climate denial while diving unabashedly into the pot of federal renewable incentives and tax breaks.” Now that the forces of climate denial have regained the White House and control of both chambers of Congress, they don’t even need two faces. They can just be bald-faced aggrandizers.
The renewable energy industry will indeed have a strong expansion in the U.S. It’s just that it will be heavily driven by a real green scam—an expansion being led by politicians who harness and hoard solar power, wind power, and electric vehicles for their own constituents, but deny it for everyone else.
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What’s Really Behind the GOP Drive to ‘Save the Whales’ From Offshore Wind?
Think tanks funded by ultra-conservative donors and fossil fuel companies coopted a coalition of “grassroots” opposition organizations to stop the development of clean energy, despite the fact that oil and gas are the true threats to ocean life.
Jun 29, 2024
As a communications director for an environmental nonprofit, much of my job boils down to separating fact from fiction and disseminating the former to the public. That’s why in June, National Ocean Month, at the top of my to-do list has been disentangling a convoluted narrative touted by Republican party officials. They claim offshore wind energy is threatening marine wildlife, begging the question, “Have Trump and his allies turned into unlikely environmental champions sporting ‘Save the Whales’ placards? Or is something more suspect lurking beneath the surface?”
Republicans have run with the myth that offshore wind energy development endangers whales drawing from vague theories about noise and electrical generation and the construction of turbines. This myth has stopped multiple wind projects in their tracks in New York and New Jersey. It has been the fodder of countless viral media moments. And most recently, it has propelled a lawsuit against a Biden administration wind project off the coast of Virginia. Despite the fact that scientists and experts say there is absolutely no evidence linking wind development to whale endangerment, this messaging spin has proliferated.
So how—and why—did the GOP successfully promulgate this false narrative without any scientific backing? Like all successful propagandists, they didn’t act alone. Think tanks funded by ultra-conservative donors and fossil fuel companies coopted a coalition of “grassroots” opposition organizations to stop the development of clean energy. The fossil fuel industry has weaponized its cronies in Congress and “the third sector” to maintain the status quo of oil and gas energy dominance. Where there was blatant climate denial years ago, there were industry-funded politicians parroting Big Oil talking points. And where there is clean energy policy obstruction and interference now, there are the same industry-bought politicians and community “environmentalist” allies with newly outfitted sloganeering.
The fossil fuel industry and its allies will continue to fight to the bloody end for the last drops of oil and the last scraps of profit, and we do not have time to entertain their deceit.
The fact is that investment in renewable energy would actually help whales and other marine species whose habitats are threatened by the effects of the climate crisis. But the richest layer in this ocean of conspiracy is that offshore oil and gas drilling, a major piece of the very industry backing this faux-ecological crusade to save the whales, is a direct threat to a seriously endangered species called Rice’s whale.
With estimates of fewer than 100 individuals in the wild, Rice’s whale is one of the most endangered species in the world and the only baleen whale resident year-round in the Gulf of Mexico. Since its reclassification three years ago, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has scrambled to protect its habitat and mitigate its declining numbers. In the NMFS’ list of primary threats to the species, the four most severe are “range curtailment from energy exploration and development, exposure to oil spills and spill response, vessel collisions, [and] anthropogenic noise during seismic survey.” For self-identified champions of marine species welfare, the organizations and think tanks behind the right-wing spin campaign about offshore wind’s endangerment of whales have been curiously silent about Big Oil’s offshore drilling operations that comprise every single one of those threats.
It is understandable that fossil fuel industry mythmaking would obfuscate the real ecological stakes in offshore energy development. Rice’s whale is but one environmental victim of the prolific and extensive fossil fuel industry’s oceanic damage.
When Big Oil drills, Big Oil spills. Since the turn of the century, there have been hundreds of oil tanker spills—spills that have released hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean. When Big Oil spills, wildlife populations and communities along the coast suffer. Seabirds, marine mammals, fish, and vegetation can be displaced, injured, or killed at each stage of the drilling process. They are also poisoned by crude oil and hydraulic fluids introduced by the drilling operations, which, once bioaccumulated up the food chain, sicken the people who consume them. Coastal communities also rely on the Gulf, in which offshore oil production accounts for 15% of total U.S. crude oil production, for fishing, boating, recreation, and tourism—to say nothing of the cultural connection they have to the ocean. Big Oil threatens these central facets of coastal life with spills and pollution. Offshore wind does not.
In the narrative battle over energy in the seas, the stakes are high. The fossil fuel industry and its allies will continue to fight to the bloody end for the last drops of oil and the last scraps of profit, and we do not have time to entertain their deceit. As National Ocean Month comes to an end, for the sake of our future, our ocean, and all who rely upon it, the importance of discerning fact from fiction cannot be lost on us.
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Don't Say 'Climate': DeSantis Signs Bill Removing References From State Law
"This purposeful act of cognitive dissonance is proof that the governor and state Legislature are not acting in the best interests of Floridians, but rather to protect profits for the fossil fuel industry," one climate advocate said.
May 16, 2024
Forida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday signed a bill that erases most references to climate change in state law, deprioritizes it in policy decisions, and eases regulations for natural gas pipelines while banning offshore wind installations in state waters.
DeSantis signed the bill despite the fact that Florida is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to the climate crisis—both from sea-level rise and extreme weather such as heatwaves and hurricanes. Indeed, on the day of the signing, Key West tied for its highest heat index on record at 115°C, heat that was made at least five times more likely because of the burning of fossil fuels.
"This purposeful act of cognitive dissonance is proof that the governor and state Legislature are not acting in the best interests of Floridians, but rather to protect profits for the fossil fuel industry," Yoca Arditi-Rocha, executive director of climate education nonprofit the Cleo Institute, told The Associated Press.
The bill's opponents told AP that it exes out nine references to climate currently on the books. It also takes steps to promote fossil gas—which already provides nearly three-quarters of Florida's electricity—and makes it harder to ban gas stoves and other appliances.
Further, AP reported:
The legislation also eliminates requirements that government agencies hold conferences and meetings in hotels certified by the state's environmental agency as "green lodging" and that government agencies make fuel efficiency the top priority in buying new vehicles. It also ends a requirement that Florida state agencies look at a list of "climate-friendly" products before making purchases.
The law, which goes into effect July 1, "is very much out of line with public opinion," Greg Knecht, director of the Nature Conservancy in Florida, told The Washington Post. A full 90% of Floridians believe climate change is occurring, 69% of them want the state government to act on it, a Florida Atlantic University survey found.
Florida is already seeing the impacts of the climate crisis from Wednesday's high heat and humidity in the Keys to last year's Hurricane Idalia. Moving forward, Florida was ranked 10th in a list of states or provinces with the most physical infrastructure at risk from climate impacts by 2050.
"This feels like Act 1 of a Greek tragedy," the Environmental Voter Project wrote on social media in response to the signing.
Knecht told the Post that DeSantis and Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature were willing to address the effects of the climate crisis—the governor earmarked more than $28 million to study flooding vulnerability in each county last year—but would not acknowledge the cause of the problem or discuss solutions that involved reducing emissions.
"On one hand, we recognize that we're seeing flooding and we're seeing property damage and we're seeing hurricanes, and we're conveying to the public that we can build our way out of these problems," Knecht said. "And then on the other hand, we're turning around and saying, 'Yeah, but climate change isn't really real, and we don't need to do anything about it.'"
This may partly be because, as green advocates told Post, the climate crisis has become a culture war issue that DeSantis can use to attract media attention and right-wing voters, as he has done with high-profile attacks on abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights.
Others blamed the influence of the fossil fuel industry.
"Fossil fuel companies don't like competing with clean energy," Democratic Florida Senate candidate Carlos Guillermo Smith wrote on social media. "So they donated to Ron DeSantis who signed a law that bans offshore wind, eliminates energy efficiency grant programs, and deletes any reference to 'climate change' from state statute."
" GOP = Profits over people always," Smith said.
Progress Florida wrote: "While Gov. Ron DeSantis does the dirty work of corporate polluters, Floridians are left to suffer as the state becomes more unaffordable and the natural treasures of the people who have farmed, hunted, and worshipped here for generations are destroyed."
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AOC's Clean Energy Bill Would Repeal Fossil Fuel Giveaways in Inflation Reduction Act
"This legislation will help end the stranglehold oil and gas has kept on our country while enabling good, union jobs in renewable energy development," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Jul 26, 2023
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among three House Democrats on Wednesday to introduce legislation aimed at undoing what climate advocates have called "unfortunate" and "absurd" provisions that were included in the Inflation Reduction Act under pressure from right-wing Sen. Joe Manchin, which locked the U.S. into continued fossil fuel development despite clear warnings from experts that oil and gas extraction is driving the climate emergency.
Manchin (D-W.Va.) supported the historic $740 billion climate and healthcare legislation only after securing "poison pills" that mandated oil and gas lease sales be held anytime a permit for onshore solar or wind power production was granted or an offshore wind lease was sold.
Those mandates would be repealed by the Comprehensive Legislation for Expanding and Advancing Nonrestrictive (CLEAN) Energy Act, introduced by Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), and the Nonrestrictive Offshore Wind (NOW) Act, introduced by Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) on Wednesday.
"The climate crisis is a national emergency for the United States and disproportionately impacts our most vulnerable communities, including Indigenous communities and communities of color," said Ocasio-Cortez. "In the midst of this crisis, there is no reason that we should require more oil and gas drilling as a prerequisite for building renewables. This legislation will help end the stranglehold oil and gas has kept on our country while enabling good, union jobs in renewable energy development."
"In the midst of this crisis, there is no reason that we should require more oil and gas drilling as a prerequisite for building renewables."
The legislation was introduced days after the American Clean Power Association reported that the IRA, which invested $369 billion in climate action and clean energy, has already led to accelerated development in the industry, with nearly 80 manufacturing facilities announced since the legislation was passed last August. The previous seven years combined saw the same number of facilities built.
"The Inflation Reduction Act is already supercharging clean energy investments and jobs, but has yet to reach its full potential due to mandatory oil and gas leasing that continues exacerbating climate change, polluting our communities, and endangering public health," said Laura M. Esquivel, senior legislative representative for Earthjustice.
The provisions that the CLEAN Energy and NOW Acts would repeal threaten to "hold clean energy development on our public lands hostage to continued oil and gas leasing," Esquivel added.
An analysis published in 2021 by the ocean conservation group Oceana found that protecting all unleased federal waters from offshore drilling could prevent more than 19 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions—equivalent to taking every car in the U.S. off the roads for 15 years—and prevent more than $720 billion in damage to people, property, and the environment.
The two pieces of legislation were introduced as wildfires destroyed dozens of homes in Oregon and parts of the Southwest continued to face record-breaking heat which has killed more than a dozen people. The World Weather Attribution reported on Tuesday that the extreme heat would have been "virtually impossible" without the climate emergency.
"It is absurd and counterproductive to forcefully hold back the expansion of clean wind energy unless we continue to expand dirty and dangerous offshore drilling. Building offshore wind energy should never come at the cost of more fossil fuels, and this bill allows us to make that a reality," said Michael Messmer, acting campaign director for Oceana, in support of Ocasio-Cortez's legislation. "The climate crisis is here, now, and it's affecting all of us through more frequent and intense weather events charged by fossil fuel use. Our oceans can and should be part of the solution."
"The NOW Act," he added, "is the logical next step in our fight to protect our coasts, advance the transition to a clean energy future, and safeguard a habitable planet for future generations."
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How We Put the Blue in the Green New Deal
The story of the grassroots initiative that launched a solution-oriented Ocean Climate Action Plan that helped shape the Biden Administration’s approach to climate.
Jul 12, 2023
The ocean was the hottest ever recorded last year according to a report from a team of international scientists. Half the world’s oceans may experience marine heat waves by September according to NOAA. July 4 was the hottest day in our blue planet’s recorded history.
Those findings are alarming but not surprising given that the ocean absorbs over 90% of the heat and a third of the carbon dioxide generated by fossil fuel fired greenhouse gas emissions. However, rather than despair over these and other climate impacts ravaging our planet, some of us decided to launch a solution-oriented Ocean Climate Action Plan that within a few years helped shape the Biden Administration’s approach to climate.
It’s not an easy process to go from a grassroots initiative to government law and policy, but how it got done could be instructive to others involved in social movements seeking to change our political economy despite the undemocratic influence of paid corporate lobbyists and campaign contributors.
The Blue Economy
While vulnerable coastal counties comprise less than 10% of the U.S. landmass, they generate 46% of gross domestic product (GDP). In California, the world’s fourth largest economy, 19 coastal counties generate 85% of that state’s $3.3 Trillion GDP. A significant part of this activity is driven by the “blue economy.”
This sector, defined by the World Bank as “sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs, and ocean ecosystem health,” includes ocean-dependent recreation and tourism; transportation (shipping and ports); coastal real estate and infrastructure; clean energy (offshore wind, tides, and waves); sustainable fisheries, such as wild Alaskan salmon; and the farming of shellfish and seaweed.
Joe Biden is the first U.S. President to fully recognize the value of the blue economy and promote its equitable and just growth through two major legislative achievements, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). These laws are the nation’s first major commitments to climate action and include billions of dollars for expanding and promoting new technology. The IRA is super-charging manufacturing, with $150 billion in new clean energy investments already announced, as well as helping communities adapt to the climate crisis with over $10 billion in coastal resilience funding.
Our plan had two goals: to use ocean and coastal resources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to enable coastal communities and industries to adapt to climate impacts more effectively and equitably, aims now mirrored closely in the White House’s OCAP.
In addition, the Biden administration has been a strong advocate for the transition from offshore oil and gas to offshore wind energy, although IRA drilling provisions introduced by Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) complicates the process. This spring the White House also announced an Ocean Climate Action Plan to coordinate all its federal efforts.
While only a first step, these actions have been deeply satisfying to those of us who helped launch the citizen-based Ocean Climate Action Plan (OCAP) in 2020. Our plan had two goals: to use ocean and coastal resources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to enable coastal communities and industries to adapt to climate impacts more effectively and equitably, aims now mirrored closely in the White House’s OCAP.
Beginning of Our Ocean Climate Work
The ocean climate work began in response to another grassroots movement, when in the fall of 2018 the Sunrise youth movement occupied Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office demanding climate action and were joined by then Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez (AOC). Not long after, in 2019 AOC (D-N.Y.) and Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a Green New Deal resolution in Congress to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build climate resilience.
Upon reviewing the Green New Deal framework, Blue Frontier, a Richmond, California, based nonprofit advocacy group for “seaweed” (marine grassroots) organizations, and the Center for the Blue Economy, an economics and policy research center based at the Middlebury Institute, realized that while the science is clear that there can be no climate solutions without addressing the role of the ocean, ocean-based solutions were largely absent from the deal.
In March 2019 the two organizaitons’ directors (and the authors of this article) wrote a joint commentary for Mongabay, a global environmental news site titled, “Putting the Blue in the Green New Deal,” addressing eight ocean issues that should be included in any climate legislation, including federal flood insurance, ports and shipping, offshore clean energy, and sustainable fisheries and aquaculture.
Combining the center’s research and academic resources with the media and grassroots strength of Blue Frontier, we launched an Ocean Climate Action Plan campaign starting in California, where both groups are based, and where there is a long history of strong ocean leadership.
In October 2019 we organized a California Summit in Monterey with 60 participants including the state controller and representatives from labor, fishing, conservation, academia, youth, and coastal communities. Out of this initial meeting a consensus was built around four action areas for the Ocean Climate Action Plan:
- Coastal Adaptation and Financing
- Clean Ocean Energy
- Ports and the Maritime Sector
- Sustainable Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Marine Biodiversity Conservation
Plans were then made to hold a larger follow-up meeting of several hundred people in Washington D.C. in 2020 to finalize a consensus draft. This live event was derailed by the global Covid-19 pandemic; moving online, however, allowed for consultations with an even greater number of individuals and organizations. The Ocean Action Climate Plan (OCAP) was eventually supported by over 200 bottom-up (and a few top-down) leaders and organizations, including former Secretary of State (and future Biden Climate Envoy) John Kerry, who became a signatory largely based on OCAP’s inclusion of Marine Protected Areas and his longtime aim of protecting 30% of the land and ocean by 2030 (known as 30 by 30).
Other signatories ranged from former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to longtime antiwar activist and actor Jane Fonda to “the father of Environmental Justice,” Dr. Robert Bullard, along with Indigenous coastal leaders, leaders in clean tech and the fishing industry, and marine scientists such as Dr. Sylvia Earle and future NOAA administrator Rick Spinrad; plus, a member of congress, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) who would go on to chair the Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee.
Growing Support Around Ocean Climate Action
Yet no single coalition can move policy by itself, especially during a presidential election year when Democrats were busy choosing the candidate with the best chance to defeat President Donald Trump, a climate denier who had taken steps to remove the U.S. from the Paris agreement.
In December 2019 Presidential Candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced her own “Blue New Deal” plan as part of her campaign, and her advisor, marine biologist Elizabeth Ayana Johnson, penned a supportive editorial for The Washington Post. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also pushed hard for a broad range of climate actions with the support of the Sunrise movement and others.
In January 2020 a first consensus draft of OCAP was completed, and in April 2020 over 800 people participated in a five-hour Zoom webinar to vet the ideas in the plan, which was increasingly viewed as a template for future legislation and policy.
“We need an outside force and an inside force to make anything happen in Congress.”
Among those participating were insurance, wind, shipping, and shellfish industry representatives, and officials from cities, including Miami Beach, working on the frontline of sea level rise. Participants also reflected regional diversity with Congresswoman (now first Indigenous Secretary of Interior) Deb Haaland of New Mexico saying, “We all need to care about the ocean no matter where we live… that’s why I’ve included elements of the Ocean Climate Action Plan into several of my own bills.”
Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon was even more explicit, telling participants that, “this type of work you are engaged in is so important… we need an outside force and an inside force to make anything happen in Congress and so let’s forge that together, bring the best ideas forward, craft legislation, and help save our oceans and our world.”
In July 2020 the final draft of the Ocean Climate Action Plan was produced and distributed to key policymakers, activists, and the media. At 32 pages it read like Cliff Notes for a legislative package.
During a presidential campaign, a Covid crisis, and a record-breaking hurricane season it also generated articles and opinion pieces in outlets ranging from The Hill, The Nation, and Huffington Post to specialty publications like Alert Diver and Sea Technology.
Legislation Emerges
In November 2020 Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) then chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, introduced the ‘Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act of 2020’ (HR-8632) with input from Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), which quickly became the new legislative template for ocean climate action.
The OCAP coalition suggested expanding the bill’s commitment for offshore wind from 25 gigawatts (GW) to 30 GW by 2030 and to strengthen the legislation’s already solid commitment to racial and social equity.
After an election that took days to call but resulted in a popular and electoral victory for Joe Biden, the new Biden-Harris administration was sworn in, having already adopted many of the climate proposals of their former democratic rivals, Bernie Sanders and Jay Inslee.
NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad noted that when he now says ‘30 by 30’ some audiences think he’s talking about marine biodiversity conservation and others offshore wind energy, and he sees no conflict in that confusion.
In a February 2020 Hill article we tweaked President Biden’s announcement that the U.S. would double its offshore wind production, pointing out this would still be less than 1% of what the European Union was already producing, and again, calling for 30 GW by 2030, enough to power over 22 million homes and create more than 85,000 jobs (according to the wind industry association).
In late March President Biden announced plans to generate 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030 through executive order. In a 2023 interview with Blue Frontier’s Rising Tide Ocean Podcast, NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad noted that when he now says ‘30 by 30’ some audiences think he’s talking about marine biodiversity conservation and others offshore wind energy, and he sees no conflict in that confusion.
In April 2021 OCAP organized a ‘virtual’ lobby for over 300 people from 30 states and territories. They heard opening addresses by Dr. Sylvia Earle, Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), and Rep. Grijalva who noted that, “If we’re going to meaningfully address the climate crisis, we need grassroots organizers like you weighing in and supporting us every step of the way.”
Meetings were held with 107 members of the House and 33 Senators or their staff. Many of the meetings were led by citizens who had never spoken with a member of Congress or their staff before, and participant leadership ranged in age from 17-year-olds to seniors in their 70s. Additional meetings were held with the White House Council on Environmental Quality and 10 federal agencies to bring them up to speed. That same month the administration committed to promoting living shorelines and decarbonizing the maritime sector (ports and ships) as forms of climate resilience.
Laws Are Established
In November 2021 the “infrastructure week” jokes that had endured during the previous administration ended, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act became law, including nearly $3 billion over five years for NOAA to work on coastal habitat restoration, resilience, and improved extreme-weather forecasting. In December the administration also officially committed to the other “30 by 30” goal of preserving 30% of US federal waters as Marine Protected Areas by 2030. Then on World Ocean Day, June 8, 2022, the White House announced its commitment to create “America’s First-Ever Ocean Climate Action Plan.”
That same month a coalition of 93 organizations coordinated by the ‘Ocean Defense Initiative’ and including major national environmental, policy, and marine conservation groups put out a “Blueprint for Ocean Climate Action,” which, along with the four areas outlined in the 2020 OCAP, included sections on plastic pollution reduction and ending all new offshore oil leasing.
On August 16 President Biden signed the IRA into law, which includes over $10 billion for coastal restoration and resilence, greening ports, offshore wind, and other key elements of the original Ocean Climate Action Plan.
In March of 2021 President Biden had signed the $2.2 Trillion Covid Relief CARES Act that helped rescue a largely shuttered U.S. economy in a year that saw 425,000 U.S. Covid deaths. Yet, with a razor-thin Democratic majority in the Senate it seemed the follow up $1.75 Trillion ‘Build Back Better’ bill that passed the House in November 2021 was going nowhere in the Senate due to resistance from Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (then D-Ariz.) plus all 50 Republican Senators opposed it. Within this progressive package’s climate provisions was language from the earlier Ocean-based Climate Solutions Act that Chairman Grijalva had introduced. Negotiations dragged on but seemed to go nowhere.
Then miraculously, following the Congressional summer recess, Senator Manchin suddenly agreed to preserve almost all the climate provisions in the renamed Inflation Reduction Act, with a greatly reduced $370 billion price tag, and it passed 51-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie breaking vote.
On August 16 President Biden signed the IRA into law, which includes over $10 billion for coastal restoration and resilence, greening ports, offshore wind, and other key elements of the original Ocean Climate Action Plan.
The Work Continues
Like dozens of other climate, labor, and environmental justice coalitions that worked hard to get this law passed, OCAP coalition members were thrilled and gratified while also remaining realistic. The IRA law is a first, important step in responding to the climate emergency, but implementing it will be incredibly complex.
In the 2022 off-year elections the Republicans failed to do as well as expected (in part because of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade) but still won a small majority in the House. OCAP activists saw almost no chance of any new ocean climate legislation. They did, however, recognize that the IRA needs to be the first tronche of billions in new investments if we’re to stabilize the climate and ocean. None of that is likely to happen if IRA spending includes any kind of waste, fraud, or abuse so we have turned our attention to making sure the law is implemented well.
The OCAP authors joined forces with the Ocean Defense Initiative and dozens of other groups to produce a new report tracking progress the administration is making across 10 categories of ocean climate action and identifying priority actions that still need to be taken, in part by using on-the-ground (and in-the-water) examples—the Port of Ricmond California, ‘Cancer Alley’ on the lower Mississippi, North Carolina’s wetlands and seagrasses—of what’s working and what’s not.
That report, Turning U.S. Ocean Climate Policy into Action, was released June 5, 2023, three days before World Ocean Day. It was presented in meetings we organized with the White House Council on Environmental Quality, EPA, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and NOAA that included both ocean advocates and agency leaders. Even the director of BOEM, which has been legally mandated to continue leasing offshore oil and gas under the IRA, asked us to, “keep doing what you’re doing.”
And of course we will, because out of the countless reports, meetings, marches, lawsuits, citizen lobbies, occupations, and rallies we work on, along with civil society activists from sea to shining sea and across the planet, we too deeply believe that when the people lead, the leaders will follow.
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