President Donald Trump may have chosen to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to a California wind project to punish Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) for signing a separate climate change deal with Denmark.
Last week, as Breitbart News reported, the Trump administration had canceled $679 million that was to have been spent on supposedly “doomed” offshore wind projects — $427 million of which was to have gone to a single wind project in Humboldt County, California.
The New York Times reported Friday:
The Transportation Department on Friday said it was terminating or withdrawing $679 million in federal funding for 12 projects around the country intended to support the development of offshore wind power, the latest of the Trump administration’s escalating attacks against the wind industry.
The funds, approved by the Biden administration, include $427 million awarded last year to upgrade a marine terminal in Humboldt County, Calif. The new terminal would be used to assemble and launch wind turbines capable of floating in the ocean, which the state of California had been planning to deploy to meet its renewable energy goals.
The list of targeted projects also includes $48 million for an offshore wind port on Staten Island, $39 million to upgrade a port near Norfolk, Va. and $20 million for a marine terminal in Paulsboro, N.J. Most of the projects were intended to be staging areas for the construction of giant wind turbines that would eventually be placed at sea.
“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,” Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said at the time. “Thanks to President Trump, we are prioritizing real infrastructure improvements over fantasy wind projects that cost much and offer little.”
One project, however, off the coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island, was reportedly 80% complete and due to begin operations next year.
It is being developed by Danish wind farm developer Orsted.
That, in turn, led to speculation that the Trump administration was acting against wind projects partly to punish California Gov. Gavin Newsom for signing a climate change deal with Denmark — behaving as if he were the leader of a country, rather than a state (one with massive wildfire and water problems).
Bloomberg News reported:
The timing of [Trump’s] order is generating chatter, too. Issued hours after Denmark’s foreign minister signed a climate cooperation deal with California Governor Gavin Newsom, there’s speculation it was retaliation against two key Trump adversaries: wind power and the Democratic star.
For the Danish government, the parallels with the Greenland episode of earlier this year are hard to miss: once again, Denmark finds itself blindsided by the whims of a US leader wielding economic and political leverage.
With Orsted now caught up in the White House’s agenda, Copenhagen can’t seem to escape its role as a political football in Washington.
Newsom has decided on a path of confrontation with Trump instead of cooperation, mocking the president even as he seeks $40 billion in aid from the federal government for aid related to wildfires earlier this year.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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