Two Virginia Wind Energy Grants Cancelled by Trump’s DOT
By Steve Haner
President Donald Trump’s war on the offshore wind industry has finally reached Virginia with the cancellation of two U.S. Department of Transportation grants intended to help develop Hampton Roads as a hub for that now-endangered industry. The decision was announced Friday.
There still has been no attempt, and not even any public discussion, of the Trump Interior Department seeking to alter or cancel the permits or leases it granted under President Biden to Dominion Energy Virginia’s $11.3 billion wind turbine construction project. Nor has there been any indication from Washington that the project is safe from interference.
If it is, it would seem to be almost alone in enjoying that protection. Recently the Trump Administration cancelled a New England wind project that was past the halfway point in its construction phase and has indicated it will kill a project off Delaware by simply siding in a lawsuit with the project’s opponents. That second project was not yet under construction.
A New York based project poised for construction was also terminated, but the Trump Administration reversed its decision and allowed it to proceed. It has been reported a deal was struck with New York authorities to proceed with some long-opposed natural gas pipeline proposals in exchange for relenting on the wind cancellation.
The 176-turbine. 2.6-gigawatt Dominion project is the largest offshore facility proposed so far in the United States and is one of the few (if not the only one) with the active support of a Republican governor and his administration. It is also the only one owned by a monopoly utility and financed by that utility’s ratepayers, who could bear the full $6-8 billion stranded cost of its cancellation.
The other projects targeted are owned by merchant generators planning to sell the electricity, but with the risk carried by their investors. Many are foreign-based. One legal pathway they may take is to sue for full compensation for their losses from the government by claiming the actions were a taking.
Now Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has announced that $679 million in federal funding for several projects around the United States, mostly shore-based facilities in support of offshore wind, was being withdrawn or cancelled. Of that, $427 million was for a proposed facility to support a floating wind project off Humbolt, California.
The two Virginia projects on the list, as reported this afternoon by CNBC, were:
The Norfolk Offshore Wind Logistics Port in Virginia, with $39.3 million withdrawn and
The Portsmouth Marine Terminal (PMT) offshore wind development in Virginia, with $20 million terminated.
From the USDOT release:
“Wasteful, wind projects are using resources that could otherwise go towards revitalizing America’s maritime industry,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg bent over backwards to use transportation dollars for their Green New Scam agenda while ignoring the dire needs of our shipbuilding industry. Thanks to President Trump, we are prioritizing real infrastructure improvements over fantasy wind projects that cost much and offer little.”
Dominion recently reported to the State Corporation Commission that it will begin perhaps next month to install the first of the massive nacelles and turbines on top of some of the installed pylons, using a special U.S.-flagged ocean vessel it paid to build for that purpose. Normally one would expect media attention surrounding such an event, some hoopla even. Instead, the silence around the once high profile project amid this election season has been noticeable.
