Rhode Island’s congressional delegation and allies speak out against Trump dirty offshore wind deals

"...they’re trying every scheme possible to stop alternative energy," said Senator Reed. "The administration bought off several wind energy companies by giving them $2.7B to cancel their leases...

Rhode Island’s Congressional Delegation joined environmental, labor, and consumer advocates at Johnson & Wales University’s Harborside Campus to call out the Trump Administration’s baseless attacks on offshore wind. Since March, the U.S. Department of the Interior has made unprecedented use of the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund to make $2.7 billion in payouts to companies to vacate their offshore wind leases, in exchange for fossil fuel development.

Monday’s event was hosted by Climate Action Rhode Island / 350 RI, New England for Offshore Wind, Green Energy Consumers Alliance, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, and League of Conservation Voters.

Avery Robertson, assistant director at Climate Action Rhode Island and the co-lead of our Yes to Wind campaign.

At Climate Action Rhode Island, our work is guided by the belief that everyday Rhode Islanders have the power to take meaningful action on climate change. We believe that advocating for clean energy and moving away from fossil fuels is essential to building a livable future, and offshore wind is a critical part of that. Rhode Island has long been a leader in offshore wind; the nation’s first offshore wind farm was built off Block Island.

And our state has continued to lead thanks to the tireless work of elected officials, scientists, labor unions, environmental advocates, community leaders, and so many others. This year, despite federal headwinds, we’ve continued to celebrate major milestones, with wind energy production in New England reaching new records.

Today, that progress faces another threat. After efforts to stop offshore wind were thwarted time and time again over the past year, we’re now seeing a new tactic. Companies are taking deals to walk away from previously secured offshore wind leases in exchange for new investments in fossil fuels. At a time when we should be accelerating the transition to clean energy, we’re moving in exactly the wrong direction. These dirty deals are not normal, and we aren’t going to let it happen quietly. We’re already seeing the consequences of these deals.

Just this past week, Rhode Islanders watched our skies turn orange from smoke carried here by the Canadian wildfires, fires made more severe by a warming climate. A quote I’ve kept thinking about as I’ve watched this coverage is that climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones, with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you’re the one filming it.

Rhode Island is my home, and we need to act to protect it. That’s why we’re here today. The progress we’ve made towards a clean energy future isn’t inevitable. It’s happened because people have continued to keep the pressure on and demand better. Today, we’re here to recognize the members of Congress who are using their authority to fight for offshore wind in D.C. and recognize the benefits that offshore wind brings here in Rhode Island. And we recognize those leading this work. From good-paying jobs and a stronger economy to moving us away from planet-warming fossil fuels, we need to say yes to wind.

Representative Seth Magaziner, 2nd Congressional District of Rhode Island

Here in Rhode Island, we know the devastating impacts of climate change. The Narragansett Bay has risen six inches in the last 30 years. Entire neighborhoods are at risk of being wiped off the map. But we also know the incredible opportunity that comes from wind energy. We know that wind energy can mean lower costs, more energy independence, good-paying union jobs, and a cleaner future. We know it because we’re doing it.

Rhode Island is leading the country in offshore wind. We are proving the point. But we are doing it in a context where President Trump and the Republicans in Washington care more about culture wars and cashing checks from the fossil fuel industry than they do about lowering costs for everyday Americans. I’ve seen it as a member of the Natural Resources Committee. Just a few weeks ago, Trump’s Interior Secretary, Doug Burnham, came in to our committee, and he repeated all the same lies about offshore wind that we know in Rhode Island are not true.

But guess what? When he was governor of North Dakota, Secretary Burnham bragged about wind energy. He bragged about how he had made his state a leader in clean wind energy. He bragged about how many jobs it created and how it was lowering costs. But now, like so many others who work for Donald Trump, he has lost his ability to tell the truth. He has lost his sense of shame, and they are also losing the American people, who are sick of paying high energy bills to the runaway profits of oil and gas companies.

So we are in a fight here. And I am so proud that in Rhode Island we have fighters like all of you, because we are not going to stop fighting until we achieve that clean energy future powered in large part by wind energy right here in Rhode Island. Join me in saying yes to jobs, yes to lower costs, yes to meeting the moment, yes to energy independence, yes to wind.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

I want to tell two stories today. One is of teamwork. We would not have been able to be where we are right now if it weren’t for our Attorney General going to court and blowing up the Trump stop-work orders. He had to do it twice for Revolution Wind. But then the ball came to Congress, and I told my Republican colleagues that our permitting reform negotiations are done while this nonsense continues, and something very interesting happened:

Senior Republicans in the Senate went to the Trump Administration and said, “Knock it off.” The result was no appeals, and all five units that had been stopped-worked continued. We worked as a team, and we’re going to continue to do that to make sure that we get the energy future Rhode Islanders deserve.

Second story: What’s going on here? Does Trump hate windmills?

No, there’s something very deliberate happening here. The Trump Administration knows that clean energy is low cost. That means they know that clean energy coming onto the grid is going to run first because grid operators run the least expensive power plants first. If they can stop those least expensive plants, what do the grid operators have to do?

They’ve got to go up what they call the generation stack to other units to run fossil fuel units, and the most expensive unit running at any moment sets the price for every electron on the grid. So when power gets more expensive, all the power gets more expensive. And billions of dollars come out of ratepayers’ pockets. Ordinary families trying to pay their bills see their electric rates go up, and every single one of those billions of dollars goes where?

It goes to the fossil fuel industry, to Trump’s big fossil fuel donors. What we are seeing is perhaps the largest scheme of corruption in American history, using blockades against all clean energy- solar, wind, you name it- to drive the grid to fossil fuel to pay back the big donors who Trump asked for a billion dollars from when he was running. So teamwork and a corrupt scheme. Remember those two things.

Senator Jack Reed, Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee

What we are seeing here right now is the Administration’s attempts to throttle alternative energy. And Sheldon really dissected the rationale very, very adroitly. On one side, it’s an idiosyncratic dislike of wind, because they tried to put one up, in fact, succeeded off his golf course in Scotland. That’s how serious he is about policy. But more importantly, this is an attempt to prevent low-cost energy from competing with high-cost oil, gas, natural gas, etc. And that’s not fair for working families in Rhode Island.

There is a huge crisis now of people trying to pay expensive rents because we have a housing shortage. Expensive food prices because we have tariffs and we have a war in the Persian Gulf. And expensive energy rates because of that war, but also because of the conscious decision of Trump to eliminate access to alternative wind power. We knew when Revolution Wind was coming on board, it would save Rhode Islanders and New Englanders about $500 million a year in costs.

That’s very important. That money could be put towards other family expenses. That money would help families get ahead. Without it, we are now seeing them struggling, struggling, struggling. I also want to commend Attorney General Neronha. He stood up, went to court, and challenged these ill-conceived ideas, and he succeeded. So thank you, Peter, for your great work. Thank you. Now, they’re trying every scheme possible to stop alternative energy. You probably know the administration bought off several wind energy companies by giving them $2.7 billion to cancel their leases.

These are projects that were evaluated, the engineering was done, they were ready to go, and he said no. Again, we’re at a time when energy is becoming one of the most important factors in our economy. When they talk about all these data centers, when they talk about all this new AI processing, you need energy. So it is the height of stupidity, frankly, to cut back on reasonable and economic sources of energy just at the time when we’re having one of the greatest energy prices in the United States.

Now we’re trying to take steps to straighten this problem out in the defense authorization bill that we passed out of committee. We have language requiring the Department of Defense to do a report on the national security implications within 180 days. And to cite specific reasons that the project is being denied or delayed. Those things are being done to conform with national security policies, frankly. Once we get this law passed, you’ll see at least a more rapid review of projects, and most projects will be approved.

And that’s one thing that will happen. But every time we try something to correct all of these failures, the administration creates another obstacle. And that... is a problem that we’ll have to face in the coming months….

Representative Gabe Amo, 1st Congressional District of Rhode Island

We have to lead in this moment with facts, unambiguously, because we know that offshore wind means two things: clean, affordable energy and good-paying jobs for Rhode Islanders, and we shouldn’t separate the two. We shouldn’t be afraid to lean into those facts. Offshore wind is already powering thousands of good-paying, family-sustaining union jobs, but our president is putting them at risk. North America’s building trades unions estimate that Trump and Republicans’ crusade against clean energy in their big, ugly law threatens 1.7 million construction jobs.

That’s 1.7 million Americans whose paychecks are on the line because Donald Trump doesn’t like clean, affordable energy. And Trump is not just holding over one million Americans’ paychecks hostage. His hostility to wind is affecting all of us, driving up energy costs. If Trump is successful in axing offshore wind and other renewable energy, Americans will pay an extra $100 a year in energy costs. And it’s going to cost our economy $11.6 billion. And those are the floors, not the ceiling. Now, we are a model of success here because there has been an effort driven for a long time, from advocates, elected officials, and so many more, to ensure that as we look to the future.

Revolution Wind coming online will have the capacity to power 350,000 homes throughout New England. We know that Trump’s tirades will continue, but that doesn’t mean progress is impeded. He’s tried to jack up Rhode Islanders’ energy bills at every turn. But the leadership that we have here, including notably that of Attorney General Neronha, has fought back in court and won. So we have successes. We should not release our optimism for the future, but we know we’re going to have more challenges. And this battle will continue because the president is using taxpayer dollars, your money, to pay off energy companies to abandon offshore wind projects.

But we cannot back down. At every step, whether it’s challenging this Department of Defense at their pauses on reviews, supporting all the action in the courts, continuing to provide alternatives in legislation, and forcing the question every time.

Just last week, in the House Budget Committee, we debated the idiocy of Reconciliation 3.0. I put forward an amendment to claw back all of the rollbacks we’ve seen from the Big Ugly Law and its cuts to investments in clean energy, to say we can do better than paying for a war nobody asked for. We can do better than all the things the Administration has done to enrich billionaires; we can do better.

But it’s going to take all hands on deck. And as you can tell by the lineup that we have here, we are all in this together. Rhode Island will again lead in making sure that the clean energy future that Americans deserve is on the horizon.

Attorney General Peter Neronha, Rhode Island’s 74th Attorney General

See: Attorney General Neronha: Don’t trust Rhode Island Energy

Harrison Antone, Climate Jobs RI

The favorite part of my job is being on job sites and in union halls, having conversations with rank-and-file union members. What I hear over and over again is not complicated: We are proud of what we do, we are the best at what we do, and we want to do it. That’s what this fight is about. It’s about the thousands of working people who invested in themselves because they thought this country was serious about creating a new American energy economy.

Electricians, laborers, ironworkers, carpenters, longshore workers, and apprentices who entered the trades believed they’d have a career that would last them decades. These workers have done everything we’ve asked of them. They’ve worked hard. They’ve completed their training. They’ve earned their certifications. They’ve left their families for weeks on end to build these projects safely and with the utmost professionalism. And through no fault of their own, they’ve watched their livelihoods become pieces in a political game. The Trump Administration has now committed $2.7 billion in agreements that eliminate nine offshore wind leases.

That is billions of dollars being spent to shut projects down instead of creating jobs and producing American energy. We are shutting down opportunity.

Here in Rhode Island, in the birthplace of offshore wind, we know exactly what successful offshore wind looks like. It represents over a thousand local union jobs and 704 megawatts of electricity flowing onto the New England grid, expected to power over 350,000 homes and businesses across this region.

You cannot turn a skilled workforce on and off like a light switch. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and you can’t bring it back overnight. You have to start from scratch. That is what is at stake here. The workers I speak to are not asking for a blank check. They’re asking for a fair shot to build American energy independence, create a new American energy economy, and earn a living.

We are demanding that the federal administration stop using American tax dollars to sabotage American jobs, and if not, they need to tell the working people who are proud of what they do that they’re paying companies to put them out of a job. They need to tell working families struggling with high energy costs that they’re making their bills higher and that they need to tell Rhode Islanders why we need to wait while our workforce is ready to go.

Years ago, Jon Stewart stood in front of Congress fighting for 911 first responders, and he said, “They responded in five seconds. They did their jobs with grace, with tenacity, with courage and with humility. 18 years later, do yours.” Yes, the circumstances we’re standing here today are different, but that moral challenge is the same.

The working people here have shown up. They have delivered on offshore wind. They have done their jobs with grace, courage, and pride. Do yours.

Amanda Barker, Green Energy Consumers Alliance

I’m the Clean Energy Program Director at Green Energy Consumers Alliance. I’m also the Rhode Island state lead for the New England for Offshore Wind Coalition.

As you’ve already heard, extreme heat, wildfires, and stronger storms are no longer distant threats. As evidenced by the smoke we have been breathing from the Canadian wildfires, this is the climate reality we are dealing with today. Yet, as these impacts intensify, the federal administration is negotiating deals to cancel offshore wind projects and instead invest our taxpayer dollars into the very fuels that are driving this crisis. Canceling offshore wind projects is not only one of our most powerful tools for cutting the pollution fueling climate change, but also for helping us withstand the impacts we’re already experiencing.

Over the 4th of July holiday weekend, you all might remember our region experienced an extreme heat wave. Air conditioners were on high and electricity demand surged. But thankfully, offshore wind projects such as South Fork Wind delivered exactly when the grid needed it most. From July 1st through July 4th, South Fork Wind generated nearly 10 gigawatt-hours of reliable homegrown American electricity. During those four days, it achieved nearly a 75% capacity factor, including a 90% capacity factor on July 2nd, a very hot day.

So while temperatures soared, South Fork Wind was producing clean electricity around the clock to keep our lights on.

That is what energy reliability looks like. Offshore wind doesn’t just reduce pollution; it strengthens our electric grid during periods of extreme demand and heat, protects consumers from volatile fossil fuel prices, creates good-paying American jobs, and provides a more resilient and independent energy system. We are here today to say no to dirty deals and yes to wind, because these deals mean more dependence on fossil fuels whose prices are dictated by global markets, more pollution that worsens the climate crisis, and more taxpayer subsidies flowing to industries that have profited for decades while our communities bear the costs of their pollution.

Thank you to leaders like Senator Whitehouse and Representative Magaziner for demanding transparency and refusing to let these backroom deals happen without scrutiny. Congress has a critical oversight role, and these investigations send an important message that taxpayer dollars should serve the public interest, not reward companies for abandoning the clean energy projects that we need now more than ever.

We want every Rhode Islander to know that these decisions being made in Washington affect us all. They affect our energy bills, our jobs, our ports, and our ability to build a cleaner, more affordable, and more secure energy future. This is about ensuring an energy future that is affordable, reliable, made in America, and capable of meeting the challenges of the climate crisis. That future must include offshore wind.

Carlos Avila, Environmental League of Massachusetts

I serve as a Community Engagement Director for the Environmental League in Massachusetts, and I’m very proud to be here today representing the New England for Offshore Wind Coalition.

My connection to this work is both professional and personal. Before joining ELM, I helped build out workforce pathways and strengthen regional supply chains across the south coast of Massachusetts, connecting both students and workers to careers and businesses to offshore wind opportunities. Politico Magazine recently highlighted that work...

Rhode Island has played a critical role in building the offshore wind industry in the United States. When the industry was targeted, it was Rhode Island’s congressional delegation that vocally stood up for their constituents, and New Englanders all around took pride in ownership of our regional projects. Offshore wind required all of us to expand our horizons and to fight for the ability to deliver on the promise of locally built renewable energy. At a time when national decisions are creating uncertainty, we must remember what has already been accomplished here in New England.

Offshore wind projects are producing power. Local businesses have entered the supply chain. Workers have developed new skills. Ports have received investment. And our communities have begun building pathways into an industry that can provide long-term economic opportunities. Incredibly, offshore wind even got the Bay State, the Ocean State, and the Constitution State all to work together. That is a unique achievement on its own.

Those achievements are real, but they cannot be taken for granted. We continue to look toward our elected officials for steady and committed leadership, and we need leaders to keep defending the progress that has been made. Please defend transparency when the unjust federal decisions threaten our communities and ensure that Rhode Island and New England remain prepared for the next phase of offshore wind development. But we must remember that preparation matters. Our communities cannot simply be told that opportunity is coming. They need the resources and support to participate in it.

That means continued investment in workforce training, small business readiness, community education beginning in our K-12 system, and meaningful engagement with people who live the closest to the projects by ensuring that historically underserved communities and businesses have a fair opportunity to benefit from this investment.

Without that preparation and continued support, we will not fully realize the benefits of offshore wind.

And those benefits represent both environmental and economic winds. Offshore wind has created jobs. It has strengthened local businesses, and it will diversify our regional economy with the support it provides, including more local intergenerational opportunities. It will also help reduce the dependence on foreign fossil fuels.

To our leaders, please do not lose sight of the fact that our communities come first. Political administrations change. Political debates will continue, but our responsibility to prepare our communities, protect our environment, and create durable economic opportunity does not change. The people of Rhode Island and their neighbors in Madison, Connecticut have demonstrated what can happen when we work across state lines, industries, and political boundaries towards a shared goal.