https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-30-2025
"Just days before Labor Day, a holiday designed to celebrate the importance and
power of American workers in the United States, the Transportation Department
cancelled $679 million in funding for offshore wind projects, and the
Department of Energy announced it is withdrawing a $716 million loan guarantee
to complete infrastructure for an offshore wind project in New Jersey.
These cancellations reflect President Donald J. Trump’s apparent determination
to kill off wind and solar power initiatives and to force the United States to
depend on fossil fuels. He refers to climate change as a “hoax,” says that
windmills cause cancer, and falsely claims that renewable energy is more
expensive than other ways to generate power. Former president Joe Biden made
investing in clean energy a central pillar of his administration; Trump often
seems to construct policies mostly to erase the legacies of his predecessors.
Reversing the shift toward renewable energy not only attacks attempts to
address the crisis of climate change and boosts the fossil fuel industry on
which some of Trump’s apparent allies depend, but also undermines a society
based on the independence of American workers. In 2023, about 3.5 million
Americans worked in jobs related to the renewable energy sector, and jobs in
that sector grew at more than twice the rate of those in other sectors in what
was a strong U.S. labor market. The production of coal, which Trump often
points to as an ideal for American jobs, peaked in 2008. Between then and 2021,
employment in coal mining fell by almost 60% in the East and almost 40% in the
West, leaving a total of about 40,000 employees.
Another cut last week sums up the repercussions of the administration’s attack
on renewable energy. On August 22 the Interior Department suddenly and without
explanation stopped construction of a wind farm off the coast of Connecticut
and Rhode Island that was 80% complete and was set to be finished early next
year. As Matthew Daly of the
Associated Press noted yesterday, Revolution
Wind was the region’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm. It was
designed to power more than 350,000 homes, provide jobs in Connecticut and
Rhode Island, and enable Rhode Island to meet its goal of 100% renewable energy
by 2033.
The Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut
expressed their dismay at the decision, noting that Revolution Wind employed
more than 1,000 local union workers and is part of a $20 billion investment in
“American energy generation, port infrastructure, supply chain, and domestic
shipbuilding and manufacturing across over 40 states” by Ørsted, a Danish
multinational company.
“Stopping this fully permitted, important project without a clear stated reason
not only seriously undermines the state’s efforts to work towards a carbon
neutral energy supply but equally important it sends a message to investors
from all over the world that they may want to rethink investing in America. The
message resulting from the President’s action is a lack of trust, uncertainty,
and lack of predictability,” they wrote.
Connecticut governor Ned Lamont and Rhode Island governor Dan McKee, both
Democrats, are working together to save the project. In a statement, Lamont
said: “We are working closely with Rhode Island to save this project because it
represents exactly the kind of investment that reduces energy costs,
strengthens regional production, and builds a more secure energy future—the
very goals President Trump claims to support but undermines with this
decision.”
“It’s an attack on our jobs,” McKee said. “It’s an attack on our energy. It’s
an attack on our families and their ability to pay the bills.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
