Skipping the Rules: Offshore Wind’s Legal Issue

By -- June 11, 2025 No Comments

“The law remains clear: the Department of the Interior must ensure that offshore projects prevent unreasonable interference before approval — not simply allow harm and hope payouts will quiet objections.”

With offshore wind, a lethal tort issue lurks beneath the waves: Is it enough to pay off harmed ocean users after the fact, or does the law demand the government prevent harm in the first place? Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), a clear answer is being dangerously overlooked.

OCSLA, originally passed in 1953 and amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, governs energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Section 8(p)(4)(I) imposes a specific duty on the Department of the Interior: before approving offshore activities like wind development, the Secretary must ensure the project “provides for the prevention of interference with reasonable uses” of the ocean — including fishing, recreation, and navigation.…

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Offshore Wind’s EPA Check (Empire Wind 1 at risk)

By -- April 22, 2025 1 Comment

“Every statement pushing back on Interior Secretary Burgum’s directive would equally apply to the Keystone XL pipeline situation. However, since Keystone involved crude oil, it was not entitled to the rights that green energy demands. Yet, the current critics quickly point out that the U.S. needs all forms of energy.”

On April 16, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to order Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor (formerly Statoil) to cease all construction activities related to its offshore wind project, Empire Wind 1. The announcement came when Equinor notified BOEM to begin construction activities.

The initial work included dumping the first load of rocks on the ocean floor to protect the wind turbine foundations. The work was scheduled to start in late April, with foundation pile-driving to follow.…

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CFACT: Stop Offshore Wind!

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 13, 2025 4 Comments

Ed note: One of the nation’s leading environmental organizations, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, has done their homework on the ecological harms of offshore wind turbines. This letter to Secretary Burgum of the U.S. Department of the Interior from David Wojick (CFACT) and David Stevenson (Center for Energy & Environment, Caesar Rodney Institute) follows.

A previous post, Whales and Offshore Wind: Trump Time (Wojick has built a case), detailed the forty-one (!) posts of David Wojick on this issue. The latest is to put the evidence into political action now that look-the-other-way Podesta-Biden-Harris (and a lot of hypocritical ‘environmental’ groups) has been replaced by a new Administration. The letter and accompanying information follow.

RE: Reviewing legitimacy of Offshore Wind Project approvals

Dear Secretary Burgum,

It is with a sense of real urgency we are writing to you today.…

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Wind, Solar, Batteries: The High Cost of Duplicative Energy

By -- February 10, 2025 1 Comment

“The data make it clear that the only possible rationale for renewable energy—making significant reductions of CO2 emissions—cannot be achieved. The costs of attempting to do this are already imposing heavy costs on economies across the world.”

By the 1800s, wind and solar were both mature and successful technologies. Yet as soon as Western society developed the wealth and technology to take advantage of fossil fuels, they were discarded—along with batteries for electric cars—with no place in the modern world for grid-scale generation of electricity.  

Renewable energy still cannot compete with the efficiency, affordability, and reliability of fossil fuels. But this has not stopped it from making a comeback on the backs of American taxpayers and consumers who have paid for hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies from federal, state, and local governments.…

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Whales and Offshore Wind: Trump Time (Wojick has built a case)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 5, 2025 1 Comment Continue Reading

Last Gasp for Offshore Wind: “Reinvesting in Shoreline Economies and Ecosystems Act”

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 16, 2025 1 Comment Continue Reading

Wind and Solar Are Fragile

By Steve Goreham -- December 2, 2024 6 Comments Continue Reading

Industrial Wind Turbine Noise: A Summary

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 25, 2024 No Comments Continue Reading

Wind vs. Ecology in Australia (Nick Cater reports)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 18, 2024 No Comments Continue Reading

U.S. Offshore Wind: GE Vernova’s Big Problems

By Kennedy Maize -- October 3, 2024 2 Comments Continue Reading