The spending bill MAGA Republicans put forward this week for the Department of the Interior comes with yet another blow to the offshore wind industry. according to Heatmap News.
The legislation the House Appropriations subcommittee advanced last week would impose a range of fees on offshore wind projects, including $7,300 annual fees for onshore inspection visits and $15,400 for a visual inspection of an individual turbine. Further physical inspections of a turbine or substation would total $72,800. The fees, E&E News reported, “could amount to much more than is paid by offshore oil companies for inspections, given that the language calls for per-turbine inspections and wind farms include many turbines.”
In a statement, Timothy Fox, the managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, told E&E's newswire: “This appears as another direct effort to constrain the offshore wind industry. The Trump Administration has already significantly constrained proposed offshore wind projects and may hope the inspection fees undermine the viability of projects already in service.”
It’s the GOP’s latest contribution to President Donald Trump’s effort to sentence the offshore wind industry to what I called earlier this month a death by a thousand cuts. The move comes as offshore wind projects keep coming online, despite the Trump administration pulling out all stops to try to thwart their development. The White House’s latest effort to halt construction on offshore turbines — paying off developers to abandon projects — is attracting increased scrutiny, as Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo has extensively reported of late.
