Change is coming to the Washington, D.C. “Swamp” on January 20.
The effects of Donald Trump’s historic victory are already being felt.
And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was left fuming after Donald Trump handed her this devastating setback.
Major wind energy project canceled after Trump’s victory
President Joe Biden spent more than $100 billion in taxpayer money trying to boost offshore wind energy during his administration.
He had an ambitious goal of having 10 million homes powered by offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore wind was dealing with setbacks from cost overruns and supply chain problems before President-elect Donald Trump routed Vice President Kamala Harris.
Now, a French company is throwing in the towel on one of the largest offshore wind projects in the country.
TotalEnergies SE is canceling its Attentive Energy offshore wind farm which was going to be located 54 miles away from New York.
“Offshore wind, I have decided to put the project on pause,” Total CEO Patrick Pouyanné said at a conference in London.
The CEO cited Trump’s victory for canceling the massive project.
Pouyanné told the audience that he would reevaluate the political environment in the United States in four years.
“I said to my team, the project in New York, we’ll see that in four years,” Pouyanné said. “But the advantage is it’s only for four years.”
The offshore wind industry was used to the Green New Deal policies championed by Democrats to prop up the industry.
Trump is ending the party for the wind industry
Trump vowed on the campaign trail that he would put an end to offshore wind projects on his first day in the White House.
“We are going to make sure that that ends on Day One,” Trump said in May. “I’m going to write it out in an executive order. It’s going to end on Day One.”
“They destroy everything, they’re horrible, the most expensive energy there is,” Trump said. “They ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales.”
ClearView Energy Partners managing director Timothy Fox told Bloomberg that TotalEnergies SE’s decision could be a sign of things to come for the offshore wind industry.
“Amid the changing political landscape, we are not surprised to see a developer pause an offshore wind project that’s in the preliminary stages of development,” Fox said. “We think other projects that are not in the advanced stages could stall too.”
Trump explained the dramatic rise in whale deaths from offshore wind during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience.
“So in 50 years ahead [ago], they had one [dead] whale come ashore, now they had 18 [dead whales] come ashore in less than a year,” Trump explained.
Whales’ internal sonar is thrown off by the noise coming from wind turbines.
“Well, they say that the winds drive them crazy. You know, it’s a vibration,” Trump said. “Because you know, those things are [the size] of 50-story buildings, some of them. You know, the wind is rushing, the things are blowing, it makes noise. You know what it is, I wanna be a whale psychologist. It drives the whales freaking crazy.”
The taxpayer-funded free ride for the offshore wind industry is coming to an end with Donald Trump set to end the Green New Deal policies of the Biden-Harris administration.