The Biden administration is facing pressure from lawmakers and experts to immediately halt offshore wind development until its impact on military operations, navigation and radar systems is investigated.
Earlier this week, Rep. Chris Smith (RN.J.), industry insiders and experts met with officials from the highest federal oversight agency, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), to discuss their concerns about offshore wind development. We talked. More than an hour of the three-hour meeting was devoted to military impact, according to Smith, who represents the region along the Atlantic Coast, which has a naval arsenal and proposed offshore wind projects.
Smith, fellow New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Arkansas) and several others called for an investigation, and the GAO recently agreed to study the far-reaching implications of offshore wind development. The study will also partially explore the impact of wind turbines on military operations and radar.
“It will affect marine radars through acoustic interference. It will cause confusion and shadows,” Smith said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “There will be nothing but chaos. Radars will be unreliable. Therefore, ships of all sizes and types — military ships, ocean ships, and cargo ships carrying oil coming to my state for refineries. — would potentially operate on other ships, or even on these windmills themselves. “
“The Coast Guard will also not be able to conduct search and rescue operations, especially in bad weather, as it would create significant interference,” he continued. “The Navy’s … Integrated Undersea Surveillance System will also be affected and disrupted.”
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The Government Accountability Office has informed Rep. Chris Smith, RN.J., that it will look into offshore wind development. (Larry French/Getty Images)
Smith added that wind turbines could ultimately help submarines stop detecting the movements of U.S. adversaries.
He said he spoke to unnamed defense officials and was told that the development of wind power was taking precedence over national security, citing the Pentagon’s response to the issue and lack of transparency. accused of
Meanwhile, Smith’s meetings with the GAO released a report containing a map showing the vast areas blocked in federal waters near North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware by the Navy and Air Force in early October. It was done several months after it was put together. The report characterized four offshore wind lease areas proposed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) as “highly problematic” and two others as “needing further consideration.”
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Additionally, various studies and analyzes have been published in recent years suggesting that wind turbines can have a significant impact on radar. A 2022 study from the National Academy of Sciences concluded that wind power development could cause “interference with ship radar, a critical piece of equipment for use in navigation, collision avoidance, and search and rescue missions.”
Finnish and Taiwanese military leaders have also expressed concern about the impact of offshore wind on their defense capabilities.
A lift boat near Waynescott, New York, taken on December 1, 2022. (Johnny Milano/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“They’re willing to sacrifice anything for green energy,” said Megan Rapp, a fisheries officer for Sea Freeze, a Rhode Island-based fishing company, and one of the participants in Smith’s meeting with the GAO. told FOX News Digital. “I have seen national security upended. I have seen maritime security upended. I have seen domestic food production upended. And I’ve seen the concerns of communities and communities subverted.”
“All legitimate concerns are overwritten, not all realities and concerns, hoaxes and exaggerations. And what is the answer? ‘We need to do this because of climate change. 』
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In 2011, Congress established the so-called Military Aviation and Installation Assurance Locations Clearinghouse, creating a central authority within the Department of Defense to oversee the compatibility of alternative energy projects with military operations.
The organization ultimately ignored the base commander’s concerns and consistently supported green energy development, according to Rapp and Smith.
“Now this terrible decision will weaken the entire coast,” Smith said. “I have never felt so angry and disappointed at the military’s acquiescence and silence.”
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The Biden administration has aggressively pursued rapid development of offshore wind farms in millions of acres of federal waters, primarily along the East Coast, as part of its climate action. Shortly after taking office, President Joe Biden outlined a goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, the most ambitious goal of its kind in the world.
In May 2021, BOEM approved an 800-megawatt vineyard wind project 19 miles off Massachusetts, making it the first-ever large-scale offshore wind approval. And in November 2021, the agency approved its second commercial-scale offshore project, the 130-megawatt South Fork Wind Project off Long Island, New York.
At the June 23, 2022 conference on the Federal-State Offshore Wind Deployment Partnership, President Biden pointed to a wind turbine size comparison chart. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Many other offshore wind projects proposed along the Atlantic coast are under development and in the federal permitting stage. The Biden administration has also leased hundreds of thousands of acres to energy companies, with future plans to sell leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of California.
Pentagon spokeswoman Kelly Flynn told Fox News Digital, “The Pentagon is committed to protecting America’s national security interests, including reducing reliance on foreign energy sources and expanding domestic offshore wind energy development. I am trying my best,” he said. “The Department of Defense will continue to work with the Marine Energy Administration, industry and other stakeholders to identify the best locations for offshore development, as we have done in all our ports of call in the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico. There is.”
“This discussion includes impacts on the environment, shipping, fisheries, visibility, and more, as well as mitigation strategies to overcome impacts,” Flynn continued. “This is one step in the process and the Department of Defense will continue to work with stakeholders to facilitate compatible offshore wind energy development.”
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“The Department has been an active participant in similar lease programs off New York/New Jersey, the Gulf of Mexico, California and Oregon,” he said. “In each case, we have been able to find areas suitable for development, and we expect to do the same in the Central Atlantic.”
