At a press conference in his home state Friday, Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said he would stall updates to federal permitting, surface transportation reauthorization and the Water Resources Development Act until the Trump administration lifts its restrictions on offshore wind.
“We have paused permitting reform negotiations until the attack on clean energy ends and we can have some assurance that a solid bipartisan bill, which we were working on, would actually get implemented fairly by this administration,” Whitehouse said. “So that’s paused. And by the way, good luck with your highway bill — the other bill that needs to come through me. And good luck with the Army Corps of Engineers WRDA bill — the other bill that needs to come through me.”
In late December, the Interior Department paused the leases for large-scale offshore wind projects, citing national security concerns. The move again halted development on the embattled Revolution Wind project off the coasts of Rhode Island and Connecticut after a previous, and since overturned, stop-work order. Interior’s order also impacts projects near Massachusetts, Virginia and New York.
Earlier in the month, a federal judge ruled the administration’s previous attempt to stall offshore wind projects was “arbitrary and capricious” and overturned the ban on their permitting.
Immediately after the Dec. 22 pause, Whitehouse and his Democratic counterpart on the Natural Resources Committee, ranking member Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, released a joint statement saying the administration’s actions left a congressional permitting deal “dead in the water.”
At Friday’s press event in Providence, R.I., Whitehouse said that despite bipartisan efforts to address permitting in Congress, the administration “refuses to faithfully execute the laws.” He said Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., had been working with him and Heinrich on legislation to overhaul permitting policy, adding “she has no blame in all of this.”
But Whitehouse’s allusion to stalling WRDA and the surface transportation bill — both major pieces of legislation expected to move through his committee this year — represents an escalation of the senator’s pushback against efforts to stymie offshore wind.
[Related: Offshore wind projects feel brunt of Trump policy decisions]
Two other Rhode Island Democrats, Sen. Jack Reed and Rep. Gabe Amo, also spoke at the press conference, saying the administration’s reasoning for again stalling the Revolution Wind project was unfounded. They both noted the effect of the work disruption to the local economy.
“Here’s the bottom line: Revolutionary Wind is 85 percent complete. It is literally weeks away from beginning to deliver power,” Reed said.
He said that upon hearing the project was being stalled for national security reasons, he called the deputy secretary of Defense to ask about the issue.
“And, of course, his response, like every time, ‘Oh, it’s classified,’ which means we don’t have a reason — we just want to do it,” Reed said, adding that he would “get to the bottom of this classified difficulty that cannot be remediated by the companies.”
He said the Defense Department already had cleared the project during its authorization process, which he said began during the first Trump administration and continued under the Biden administration.
“There are provisions in the arrangement, which requires Revolutionary Wind to pay to the Department of Defense if they have to modify or fix any of their equipment, and also gives NORAD the ability to stop wind at any moment if they feel it’s a national security problem,” Reed said, referring to the North American Aerospace Defense Command. “So I think this is more an excuse than a reason.”
Amo added that efforts to stall the project harm union workers in Rhode Island and Connecticut, along with other states home to affected projects.
“Let’s be very clear about what Trump is telling us with this latest action,” Amo said. “What he’s telling us is that he doesn’t care for the offshore wind careers that workers have been training for. What he’s telling us is that the businesses that invested billions in securing our state’s energy future — that their investment was a waste — that permits and leases mean nothing, that really behaving illegally is the norm. And what he’s telling us is that grid reliability and low energy costs for Rhode Islanders struggling to keep the heat on this winter does not matter.”
The project, which could power about 350,000 homes if completed, was ready to start generating power this month, Amo said.
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