The Biden Administration announced on Monday that it is putting forth a government-wide push to increase offshore wind farms on all three coasts in the United States, citing the move will “create good-paying union jobs.”
Press Secretary Jen Psaki spoke about the effort and a fact sheet the administration released at the daily press briefing.
“Today the White House convened leaders from across the administration and is taking coordinated steps to announce a set of bold actions that will catalyze offshore wind energy and create good-paying union jobs,” Psaki said.
“The president recognizes that a thriving offshore wind industry will drive new jobs and economic opportunity up and down the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific waters,” Psaki said.
The U.S. Departments of Interior, Energy, Commerce and Transportation will spearhead the effort to “announce new leasing, funding, and development goals to accelerate and deploy offshore wind energy and jobs.”
The fact sheet stated that aside from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy met on Monday with state officials, industry executives, and labor leaders to announce new leasing and funding.
The fact sheet also said that the jobs will come “with the choice to join a union.”
“The [wind] industry will also spawn new supply chains that stretch into America’s heartland, as illustrated by the 10,000 tons of domestic steel that workers in Alabama and West Virginia are supplying to a Texas shipyard where Dominion Energy is building the nation’s first Jones Act compliant wind turbine installation vessel,” the fact sheet stated.
The fact sheet includes claims about the benefits the wind industry will reap while revealing the cost to taxpayers:
• Establishing a Target of Employing Tens of Thousands of Workers to Deploy 30 Gigawatts (30,000 megawatts) of Offshore Wind by 203
• The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Maritime Administration today is announcing a Notice of Funding Opportunity for port authorities and other applicants to apply for $230 million for port and intermodal infrastructure-related projects through the Port Infrastructure Development Program
• DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) released a fact sheet to facilitate access for the offshore wind industry for $3 billion in funding through LPO’s Title XVII Innovative Energy Loan Guarantee Program.
• The National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium (NOWRDC), created by the DOE and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), is announcing the award of $8 million to 15 offshore wind research and development projects that were selected through a competitive process.
“President Biden has declared very clearly that when he thinks of climate, he thinks of people and jobs—good-paying, union jobs,” McCarthy said in the fact sheet announcement. “That’s because President Biden believes we have an enormous opportunity in front of us to not only address the threats of climate change, but use it as a chance to create millions of good-paying, union jobs that will fuel America’s economic recovery, rebuild the middle class, and make sure we bounce back from the crises we face.”
“Nowhere is the scale of that opportunity clearer than for offshore wind,” McCarthy said. “This commitment to a new, untapped industry will create pathways to the middle class for people from all backgrounds and communities.”
“For generations, we’ve put off the transition to clean energy and now we’re facing a climate crisis,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said. “It’s a crisis that doesn’t discriminate – every community is facing more extreme weather and the costs associated with that. But not every community has the resources to rebuild, or even get up and relocate when a climate event happens in their backyards.”
“The climate crisis disproportionately impacts communities of color and low-income families,” Haaland said. “As our country faces the interlocking challenges of a global pandemic, economic downturn, racial injustice, and the climate crisis – we have to transition to a brighter future for everyone.”
“Tackling the climate crisis is vital to our nation’s future,” U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said. “The Biden-Harris administration is taking actions that show how creating jobs and addressing climate change can and must go hand in hand.”
This move comes after Biden in his early days in office declared war on the fossil fuel industry, including banning new oil and gas drilling leases on public land.
According to the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) fossil fuel is essential to the U.S. energy landscape:
Fossil fuels, or energy sources formed in the Earth’s crust from decayed organic material, including petroleum, natural gas, and coal, continue to account for the largest share of energy production and consumption in the United States. In 2019, 80 percent of domestic energy production was from fossil fuels, and 80 percent of domestic energy consumption originated from fossil fuels.
Read more at Breitbart
Has anybody involved in this latest “green” pan ever thought that the coasts of the USA especially east coast, are prone annually to hurricanes? Will they be using battery drive vessels to transport and erect the wind turbines? Or will here be quite a few failed erections in the current US Administration?
This article touts economic prosperity as a result of off shore wind. In general, the environmentalists have been claiming efforts to fight climate change will result in a robust thriving economy. I have been reading such claims for 15 years. Yet, the article in Scientific American was talking about “climate anxiety.” This is the unwillingness of whites to give up what we have to fight climate change. These are mutually exclusive concepts. If there is a robust thriving economy no one has to give up anything to fight climate change. The truth is a thriving economy from climate change efforts has always been a lie. Nations that have implemented strong climate change programs have not had a significant improvement in their economies. What they have had is very adverse impacts their lower income populations, including fuel poverty deaths in the UK.
Even if climate change/global warming were not a fraud, off shore wind doesn’t make sense. The UK has proved that. Off shore wind power is much more expensive than the same generation done on shore. Unlike the UK, the US has plenty of surface area.
It is the consumers who will pay the high cost of off shore power. The article says that climate change disproportionately impacts the poor and communities of color. Yet, adverse climate events are not getting worse. What will be a hard burden for such people the very high cost of energy that will result from the climate change movement. Like always, the climate change movement is guilty of the very thing it is claiming that climate change is doing.
I wonder if Psaki has a clue how steel and the rest of the materials used to make these bird choppers? Uh, how about fossil fuels! Lots of coke (made from coal) is used to make steel. Those blades are made with carbon fiber which comes from oil and natural gas. Etc, etc, etc.
Biden like Clinton and Obama all Globalists and supporters of the New World Order
Lots and lots of offshore Wind Turbines a Hazard the Seabirds and a eyesore for all those who live on the coast yes Sierra Club you stupid Eco-Freaks most likely supported Biden now he is going to build offshore Wind Turbines to spoil the view
Where is the cry-out for environmental impact studies?
We are preparing to waste TRILLIONS of taxpayer dollars on this misguided “Climate Crisis” agenda. The massive waste of resources is most regrettable when there are CLEAR alternatives to sensibly transition our energy system in the decades to come. I think this “Green Dream” will prove to be one of the biggest policy mistakes in our nations history. Sure hope I’m proven wrong, but I don’t see any creditable evidence to support any conclusion other than we are getting ready to voluntarily run our domestic energy system & economy right off a cliff…
Why put windmills in the oceans when sea levels will soon cover them up?