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renewable energy
The US Must Stop Asphyxiating Cuba Now
Cuba should not be treated as a political chess piece to demonstrate US economic and military might.
Feb 05, 2026
Since the Cuban Revolution overthrew a US-backed dictatorship and asserted national independence, Cuba has remained in the United States' crosshairs. The country has endured nearly 600 assassination attempts against its leadership, along with countless covert and overt operations aimed at destabilizing its government. For more than six decades, the US has also imposed an economic embargo explicitly designed to bring about regime change.
By any honest measure, this policy has failed. What it has succeeded in doing is fostering deep resentment toward the United States, not only in Cuba, but across much of the world, while inflicting immense suffering on ordinary Cubans.
Basic necessities such as food, paint, printing paper, baby formula, syringes, and other lifesaving supplies, including vaccines and cancer treatment drugs, are either restricted by the embargo or priced far beyond most people’s reach. A simple walk through Havana tells the story: crumbling infrastructure, uncollected trash, and growing numbers of people gathering near tourist areas, hands outstretched in desperation.
Fuel shortages are widespread, inflation is at historic highs, and a sharp decline in tourism, Cuba’s primary economic lifeline, has made daily life nearly unbearable for many.
It is time for the United States to respect Cuba’s sovereignty and lift the embargo and accompanying sanctions.
In response, the Cuban government has expanded the private sector, legalized small- and medium-sized enterprises, decentralized food production, and opened its markets to limited foreign investment, all while attempting to maintain the core socialist principles of the revolution. It has also reduced reliance on fossil fuels, slowly shifting to solar energy. In 2025, renewable energy accounted for more than 10% of Cuba’s energy consumption, an increase from 3% the year before.
Yet these measures alone cannot offset the outsize impact of US policy and the blockade, which has been dramatically tightened in recent months. The latest effort to cut off of nearly all oil shipments to the island has led to daily blackouts and deepened human suffering.
It is time for the United States to respect Cuba’s sovereignty and lift the embargo and accompanying sanctions. They are a cruel and inhumane form of collective punishment that disproportionately harms the most vulnerable. These sanctions, without legitimate justification, have restricted travel for Americans, made remittances far more difficult, and unjustly placed Cuba on the State Sponsor of Terrorism list. That designation effectively cuts the country off from the global banking system, making even basic international transactions nearly impossible. The absurdity is stark: Cuban biotechnology produced five globally used Covid-19 vaccines, while the US embargo restricted Cuba’s ability to purchase syringes to administer them.
Cuba should not be treated as a political chess piece to demonstrate US economic and military might. It is a proud nation of nearly 11 million people who want nothing more than to be good neighbors. It is time for the United States to end its asphyxiation of Cuba and allow the Cuban people to determine their own future, a future free from US interference, coercion, and perpetual threat.
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As Trump Doubles Down on Fossil Fuels, Courts Let Offshore Wind Projects Resume Construction
"The unilateral court victories are evidence of what we've known all along—Donald Trump has it out for offshore wind, but we aren’t giving up without a fight," said a Sierra Club senior adviser.
Feb 02, 2026
While President Donald Trump's administration on Monday again made its commitment to planet-wrecking fossil fuels clear, a Republican-appointed judge in Washington, DC dealt yet another blow to the Department of the Interior's attacks on offshore wind power.
US District Judge Royce Lamberth, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, issued a preliminary injunction allowing the developer of the Sunrise Wind project off New York to resume construction during the court battle over the department's legally dubious move to block this and four other wind farms along the East Coast under the guise of national security concerns.
Lamberth previously issued a similar ruling for Revolution Wind off Rhode Island—which, like Sunrise, is a project of the Danish company Ørsted. Other judges did so for Empire Wind off New York, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind off Virginia, and Vineyard Wind off Massachusetts, meaning Monday's decision was the fifth defeat for the administration.
Ørsted said in a Monday statement that the Sunrise "will resume construction work as soon as possible, with safety as the top priority, to deliver affordable, reliable power to the State of New York." The company also pledged to "determine how it may be possible to work with the US administration to achieve an expeditious and durable resolution."
Welcoming Lamberth's decision as "a big win for New York workers, families, and our future," Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul stressed that "it puts union workers back on the job, keeps billions in private investment in New York, and delivers the clean, reliable power our grid needs, especially as extreme weather becomes more frequent."
Despite the series of defeats, the Big Oil-backed Trump administration intends to keep fighting the projects. As E&E News reported:
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers reiterated in a response Monday that Trump has been clear that "wind energy is the scam of the century."
"The Trump administration has paused the construction of all large-scale offshore wind projects because our number one priority is to put America First and protect the national security of the American people," Rogers said. "The administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue."
The Interior Department said it had no comment at this time due to pending litigation.
Still, advocates for wind energy and other efforts to address the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency are celebrating the courts' consistent rejections of the Trump administration's "abrupt attempt to halt construction on these fully permitted projects," as Hillary Bright, executive director of the pro-wind group Turn Forward, put it Monday.
"Taken together, these five offshore wind projects represent nearly 6 gigawatts of new electricity now under construction along the East Coast, enough power to serve 2.5 million American homes and businesses," she noted. "At a time when electricity demand is rising rapidly and grid reliability is under increasing strain, these projects represent critically needed utility-scale power sources that are making progress toward completion."
"We hope the consistent outcomes in court bode well for the completion of these projects," Bright said. "Energy experts and grid operators alike recognize that offshore wind is a critical reliability resource for densely populated coastal regions, particularly during periods of high demand. Delaying or obstructing these projects only increases the risk of higher costs and greater instability for ratepayers."
"After five rulings and five clear outcomes, it is time to move past litigation-driven uncertainty and allow these projects to finish the job they were approved to do," she argued. "Offshore wind strengthens American energy security, supports domestic manufacturing and construction jobs, and delivers reliable power where it is needed most. We need to leverage this resource, not hold it back."
Sierra Club senior adviser Nancy Pyne similarly said that "the unilateral court victories are evidence of what we've known all along—Donald Trump has it out for offshore wind, but we aren't giving up without a fight. Communities deserve a cleaner, cheaper, healthier future, and offshore wind will help us get there."
"Despite the roadblocks Donald Trump has tried to throw up in an effort to bolster dirty fossil fuels, offshore wind will prevail," she predicted. "We will continue to call for responsible and equitable offshore wind from coast to coast, as we fight for an affordable and reliable clean energy future for all."
Allyson Samuell, a Sierra Club senior campaign representative in the state, highlighted that beyond the climate benefits of the project, "we are glad to see Sunrise Wind's 800 workers, made up largely of local New Yorkers, get back to work."
"Once constructed, Sunrise Wind will supply 600,000 local homes with affordable, reliable, renewable energy—this power is super needed and especially important during extreme cold snaps and winter storms like Storm Fern," Samuell said in the wake of the dangerous weather. "Here in New York, South Fork has proven offshore wind works, now is the time to see Sunrise, and Empire Wind, come online too."
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Climate Progress Is Still Going Strong When Workers Take the Lead
Labor in Maine and elsewhere is proud to be advocating for and building clean power that provides affordable energy and good jobs for our communities.
Feb 01, 2026
The first year of this Trump administration has dealt significant blows to the advancement of clean energy and efforts to lower energy prices. The federal government has cut clean energy funding, repeatedly disrupted construction on in-progress wind energy projects, and shut down energy affordability programs. For workers on solar and wind energy projects, there’s been no shortage of bad news.
And yet, there’s also been undeniable progress. In the absence of federal leadership, state and local governments have picked up the slack, and labor unions have taken action.
To see what I mean, just take a closer look at my home state of Maine. In 2025, we had one of the most successful legislative sessions for climate and workers in our history. We passed landmark bills that expanded the state’s ability to build new clean energy projects and committed the state to achieve 100% clean electricity by 2040. Strong labor standards throughout this legislation help ensure every clean energy project we build in Maine creates high-quality, family-sustaining jobs while protecting ratepayers from rising costs. Policies like this are how we can insulate ourselves from harmful federal actions and continue to deliver real benefits. Other states could take note.
Across the country, energy demand is rising for the first time in decades, and we’re not building enough new energy to keep up. This supply and demand imbalance is pushing energy bills to unaffordable prices for working families, who are already struggling to stay afloat. At the same time, we’re experiencing the impacts of climate change with more and more frequency—extreme cold and devastating storms in the winter; scorching heatwaves, wildfires, and smog in the summer.
If we want climate policy to be popular and durable, it needs to do more than reduce emissions. It needs to materially deliver for working people.
This moment of high costs, worsening climate impacts, and a lack of good-wage jobs requires us to build more clean energy, urgently. We simply cannot bring down energy prices without more energy. Labor unions understand this, and we understand that clean energy will and is already creating thousands of job opportunities.
That’s why we so ardently fight for strong climate legislation in our state. It’s why our members were some of the first to speak up against federal cuts to clean energy tax credits. And throughout it all, we’re still building solar panels, installing heat pumps, erecting wind turbines, and upgrading building efficiency—work that makes our communities cleaner and safer.
Labor’s work for climate action will continue on, both in Maine and across the country. If we want climate policy to be popular and durable, it needs to do more than reduce emissions. It needs to materially deliver for working people—with good jobs, higher wages, and lower bills. It’s both possible and necessary to do all of this at once.
This year in Maine, we’re working to push the envelope even further to win bold, worker-led climate policy while driving down costs for ratepayers.
For example, we are advancing legislation that would streamline permitting of utility-scale clean energy projects built in Maine with high-road labor standards, accelerating the pace by which Maine brings clean energy online that is cheaper and lowering our exposure to global energy price volatility through greater energy independence.
The onus has certainly shifted to states to lead on climate and affordability; it’s not coming from the federal level. But that hasn’t deterred us in Maine, and it shouldn’t deter the rest of the country either. Even in red states like Texas, our brothers and sisters in labor have pushed for and won local climate progress.
Labor is proud to be advocating for and building clean power that provides affordable energy and good jobs for our communities. With working people at the table, we can drive meaningful climate action and pocketbook benefits for working people—all at once.
Let us not be afraid or resigned in this moment. Maine is proof that we can still create union jobs, lower costs, and build domestic clean energy, but only if we keep fighting for it.
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