He’s given up on something- something he had been fighting for his entire term. It’s closing quietly, exiting stage left. Considering what he has said about this, it’s almost an anticlimax. It’s being done very quietly in the background. At least Heatmap noticed. And now, passing it along to you via, in appreciation for, Raw Story:
According to Heatmap, the Justice Department this week “filed a motion … to dismiss its appeal of a federal court’s December decision vacating the order to halt offshore wind projects.” The motion still must be approved by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, but it marks a significant win for the plaintiffs, who include 17 states and the Alliance for Clean Energy New York. The original executive order Trump signed would have suspended all offshore wind development on the outer continental shelf.
Well, hot diggety for something going right, for once. We need alternative energy. It may not help with the current crisis of the Iran War, but it will in the future, so it will be worth the delay. These things don’t start back up in a hurry. If Trump would just finally *do* something about the war instead of letting it stagnate, then that would be something good, too. Iran holds the cards, yes, but is there something on our side that might let them conclude it gracefully? Yes, gracefully is not a word Trump knows, and it’s a lot simpler than unblocking wind farms, but still. We do not have enough information.
Trump has reportedly despised wind turbines, which he dismissively calls “windmills,” ever since a wind power array altered the view from his Scottish golf course. The president has separately tried to designate offshore wind development as a threat to national security, but federal courts have similarly blocked this. Another tactic used by the Trump administration to spike wind energy projects, which has proven more effective, is to simply pay developers to voluntarily cancel their own leases, as he did to the tune of nearly $1 billion to stop TotalEnergies projects off the coasts of New York and North Carolina.
We have to wonder who paid for all of this, since we all know it takes an act of whichever deity to get him to spend his own. There’s a lot of money gone out the door for it. If the developers are smart, they’ll restart the original projects and get paid twice for it. No matter what, we need to get alternative energy sources to crank back up. We need everything we can get. That means alternate sources to maybe get our emissions under control, since the world is hovering on the edge of something from which we can’t back away.
Despite all of Trump’s efforts to obstruct the industry, renewable energy continues to grow as a share of U.S. power generation, reaching a record 26 percent last year. Trump’s war in Iran, which has disrupted global oil markets through the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, is sparking further renewable energy investment around the world.
Hmmm, perhaps we have incomplete information. Weren’t other countries already moving that way before? Perhaps this has expedited the changes. Either way, Trump dropping the appeal is at least a step in the right direction for us. Now companies may quietly ramp them back up. And hopefully they’ll be sprouting all over the place. This isn’t exactly political, but it involved Trump and a lawsuit, so it’s something different to share.
See you soon!
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