Winning By Losing. The Strategy Of The NIMBYs And Others Trying To Thwart Wind Energy

Allie Reed of Bloomberg Law has published a thought-provoking piece on the effect of legal challenges to offshore wind projects and the Justice Department's and developers' responses to those challenges.

Some of us are old enough to remember that the Cape Wind project was continually attacked by NIMBYs from the time it was proposed in 2001 until its would-be developer finally threw in the towel in 2017. Seven years later an offshore wind project is finally under construction in the waters off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. Appropriately named Vineyard Wind, this project has also been continually attacked in court but those attacks have been defeated, first in the Federal District Court, and then in the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Sadly, the failure of a turbine blade this summer has rejuvenated the NIMBYs and others who oppose renewable energy, adding to the already heavy burden of Vineyard Wind's developer and its blade supplier. But no one seriously doubts that at some point in the foreseeable future Vineyard Wind will be completed and providing enough renewable energy to power 400,000 homes.

However, as I told Ms. Reed, we can still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in our quest to repower ourselves. Yes, the Biden-Harris Administration and Congress provided billions of dollars in Federal funds to stimulate the renewable energy industry. But it is still far too easy for NIMBYs and others to drag out the already burdensome process by which one obtains the many Federal and State permits necessary to construct ocean wind projects. As if that wasn't bad enough, they then further extend the time necessary to get from here to there by prosecuting meritless legal challenges to the Government's decisions to grant those permits.

And opponents of renewable energy are better organized and funded than they were a quarter century ago. As I wrote four years ago, the "coalition of fishing associations" that tried to kill Vineyard Wind in court was supported by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an organization with deep connections to the fossil fuel industry.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation, and others opposed to a turn toward renewable energy, which they imaginatively call "energy discrimination", know that they can win by losing. The attorney for the "coalition of fishing associations" doesn't say why he thinks there is a basis for the nation's highest court to take up his clients' doomed case, or why he thinks the Supreme Court will rule in his clients' favor. But the mere fact that it can take over a decade to permit a wind project and then defend the permits in court could be enough. Just ask the nuclear power industry of the 1970s.

If we're serious about getting to our renewable energy future before it is too late, we're going to have to decide what we're prepared to do about that.

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