New England has been called the “Saudi Arabia of wind” for our exceptional offshore wind resources, which have enormous potential to power our economy and provide local jobs. But now Trump has halted construction on a nearly finished wind project that was on track to power more than 350,000 homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island.
The unprecedented and likely illegal attempt to shut down Revolution Wind is the latest evidence that Trump is hell-bent on replacing clean, job-producing, and affordable solar and wind projects in New England with price-volatile gas from out of state. If Trump and his fossil fuel cronies prevail, they’ll drive up our energy costs, harm our health, and throttle our opportunities for local economic development.
The Trump administration has our clean energy economy in its crosshairs. Federal agencies are on a mission to find new bureaucratic means of stopping clean energy projects that are already financed and under construction or fully permitted. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has been meeting with political leaders in the northeast to demand that they concede to new gas pipelines that do not have financial support and are unlikely to reduce energy costs.
If the administration and the fossil fuel industry get their way, New England families and businesses could be stuck with expensive bills to pay for gas infrastructure and price-volatile gas for years after Zeldin and President Trump are long gone.
In Connecticut, Governor Lamont doesn’t seem to grasp that investing in new gas pipelines would be costly and shortsighted. While Lamont supports the state’s climate goals, he has cravenly agreed with Trump’s demand to expand gas pipelines in the region. Lamont claims he’s responding to high electricity rates, but new gas pipelines are not the answer. In fact, investors have been unwilling to finance new pipelines in the region because they’re not a viable investment and there are no buyers for long-term gas contracts.
What Zeldin and Lamont seem to forget is that New England has been here before. In 2016, the region rejected a similar push for new gas pipelines. When the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that it was not legal to charge electric customers for the high cost of a pipeline and the Maine utility regulator determined that the plan was not cost-effective, those plans fell like a house of cards.
What Lamont is really doing is bowing to pressure from Trump and the fossil fuel industry at the expense of the people he represents. Industry front groups with deceptive names like Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future and Consumers Energy Alliance are mobilizing in support of fossil fuels and attacking clean energy. They release pro-fossil fuel studies and surveys of questionable accuracy while receiving funding from fossil fuel companies, or in the case of Mass Fiscal Alliance, refusing to say who funds them.
Despite the fossil fuel industry’s attempts to strangle clean energy, deployment has exploded across the U.S. and globally. Nationally, solar, wind, and batteries dominate as we race to add new sources of electricity to meet growing demand. Solar is the cheapest and fastest growing source of energy in the U.S. and globally.
But the transition to clean energy in the U.S. is not happening fast enough to reduce our reliance on volatile fossil fuels. The Trump administration is making things worse by taking unprecedented – and often illegal – actions to slow the transition and continue inflating the profits of fossil fuel companies, which already enjoy huge government subsidies.
The Trump administration’s support for fossil fuels is purely ideological and unbelievably myopic. Nationally, 90 percent of new capacity added to the grid is from solar and wind. In the winter, wind power – a free and local resource – ramps up just when we need it most. In summer, abundant sunshine makes solar an excellent source of power. During the heat wave that hit the region this summer, rooftop solar and batteries saved us from losing power – and saved consumers almost $20 million in fuel costs.
Revolution Wind created 1,200 jobs in New England and was on the cusp of providing Connecticut and Rhode Island with clean electricity. If Trump succeeds in killing the project, he will destroy jobs, increase energy costs, and threaten grid reliability.
When the federal government does the bidding of multibillion dollar corporations while driving up costs for the average American, we need states to step up. Our state and local leaders have a responsibility to lead where this administration has failed us: by investing in clean, local, and affordable sources of energy, enabling families and businesses to access clean technologies that are more efficient and better for our health, and refuting Trump’s nonsensical claims that fossil fuels are the future.
Not in New England, they aren’t.
Shannon Laun is Conservation Law Foundation’s Vice President for Connecticut.