Former President Donald Trump asserted during a Monday speech in South Carolina that offshore wind development is driving the recent spike in whale deaths along the East Coast.
Trump made the remarks about offshore wind’s possible link to the surge in baleen whale deaths along the East Coast during a campaign speech delivered at Sportsman Boats in Summerville, South Carolina, a town in the state’s “Lowcountry” that relies heavily on boating for recreational and economic activity. [emphasis, links added]
He made the comment after ripping the Biden administration’s efforts to impose low-speed zones in large swaths of coastal Atlantic waters, a policy that advocates say will help protect whales from vessel strikes.
“You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than hitting a whale with your boat,” Trump said.
“There has only been, listen to this, one such whale killed off the coast of South Carolina in the last 50 years, but on the other hand, [Biden-supported] windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before. Nobody does anything about that.”
Offshore wind is a key aspect of the Biden administration’s overall green energy agenda, which aims to have the U.S. power sector reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2035 and net-zero for the entire U.S. economy by 2050.
The administration is striving to have offshore wind generate enough power to satisfy the demand for ten million American homes by 203o, according to the White House.
“You wouldn’t see it once a year, now they’re [the whales] coming up on a weekly basis,” Trump continued, referring to beached whales along the East Coast. “The windmills are driving them crazy.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared “unusual mortality events” for humpback and North Atlantic right whales since 2016 and 2017, respectively, a timeline which generally coincides with the start of offshore wind farm operations off of the East Coast in 2016, according to the Department of Energy.
About 200 humpback whales alone have washed up dead near or on East Coast beaches since 2016, according to Forbes.
Read rest at Daily Caller
WHERES GREENPEACE?!
The same time the Biden administration gives the offshore wind industry carte blanche to murder the whales, including the nearly extinct right whale, they are trying to shut down oil leasing and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico due to some whale down there even though there has not been a single whale killed by drilling operations.