Whitehouse: Trump Administration’s Vindictive Attacks on Clean Energy Have Halted Permitting Reform Negotiations

Washington, D.C.—U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), slammed the Trump Administration on the Senate Floor for its vindictive attacks on clean energy, which have left permitting reform dead in the water.  Acting outside the law and without due process, the Trump Administration has thrice issued stop work orders on wind farms that were under construction—on top of the growing number of newer onshore solar and wind energy projects that are stalled at the Department of Interior—thereby preventing the delivery of affordable and reliable electric power to tens of millions of Americans.  Ranking Member Whitehouse was joined on the Senate Floor by Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

“Any [permitting] negotiation that we would enter into, any good bill that would result from it, would then have to be implemented by this Administration,” said Ranking Member Whitehouse.  “But in an environment … where the Executive Branch refuses its constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws, it really doesn’t make any sense for us to continue negotiations on a major bipartisan bill … This is entirely a Legislative versus Executive problem‚ an Executive Branch, a rogue Executive Branch that refuses to faithfully execute the laws, notwithstanding its constitutional duty.”

Ranking Member Whitehouse also highlighted the falsehoods Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright have spread on behalf of Big Oil.

“So, back to Zeldin and Burgum and Wright.  If they are conspicuously and consistently failing to tell the truth about savings, consistently misleading the public, pretending that fossil fuel is cheaper when it just isn’t, what does that tell you about their motives and their bias and their inability to faithfully execute the laws? It tells me that there’s really no point in passing a bipartisan bill, which would be a really good one, because we wouldn’t get the benefit of the bill. They’d just continue with illegal acts and false statements‚ anything to help fossil fuel,” said the Ranking Member.

Due in large part to the increase in AI data centers and cryptomining facilities, U.S. energy demand is expected to grow 25 percent by 2030 and more than 50 percent through 2050.  The large offshore windfarms under construction represent a near-term opportunity to close that gap.

“So, I want to resume. I want to get back to work. I want to do this permitting reform bill, and in order to get there, I’m going to need some help. The artificial intelligence folks, the crypto folks, the data system folks who need massive amounts of electrons, you all need to start showing up and letting people know that you actually want permitting reform and you actually want an administrative and regulatory process in which electrons are treated fairly, irrespective of source, so that you can get the power that you need. That’s where we need to go.”

Ranking Members Whitehouse and Heinrich previously blasted the Trump Administration for blowing up permitting reform negotiations and stated that “[t]he illegal attacks on fully permitted renewable energy projects must be reversed if there is to be any chance that permitting talks resume.  There is no path to permitting reform if this administration refuses to follow the law.”

Ranking Member Whitehouse’s full remarks on the Senate Floor are available below.  Video of his remarks is available here.

Mr. Whitehouse: I am here to give an explanation and update to my colleagues about the status of permitting reform. I think, as you know, the Chair and Ranking Member of the Energy Committee and the Chair and Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee were working on a permitting reform bill until very recently. I have, together with Senator Heinrich, declared a pause in that permitting reform process. And I want to explain that because the progress had actually been good. We were working towards what I think could have been a very meaningful, very effectual, very bipartisan permitting reform bill.

There were fairly new ideas being developed in it, like requiring front-loaded stakeholder engagement, so the whole rest of the process as it goes forward is accelerated. Disciplining the despised-by-me interagency process mechanism that excuses so much Executive Branch delay and indecision. I was actually pretty pleased with the way the process was going.

Off of Rhode Island, we’re developing offshore wind. Our offshore wind project, Revolution Wind, had already weathered one stop work order, which came out of the blue from the Administration. This is a project, then, with about $4 billion of investment already expended, and north of 80% complete. A lot of turbines fully complete out there. And that order was without any lawful basis. And as a result, the order was challenged in court, and in court, the federal judge said, you can put that project back to work. The stop work order from President Trump is invalid. The judge made that decision on September 22. The Trump Administration had 60 days to appeal. It did not appeal. We got to November 21, the last appeal day, no notice of appeal was filed. The matter was settled. Work could continue, and everybody was already back at work.

30 days later, the 22 of December, a new stop work order was dropped by the Trump Administration with no explanation. I ask that the stop work letter of December 22 be attached as an exhibit at the end of my remarks.

The presiding officer: Without objection.

Mr. Whitehouse: Thank you. So, the first stop work attempt by the Trump Administration had cited, and I quote here, the protection of national security interests of the United States as one of its bases. And obviously that was deliberated in court. There were pleadings on that subject. The Trump Administration lost. They did not appeal the order finding that they had lost, declaring that they had lost, so that was a settled question.

This second letter goes back and says, again, national security risks. It does not identify them. In comments made on Fox News, it’s been said that radar interference is the risk. Radar interference was deliberated in the initial permits. Radar interference was deliberated in the stop work order proceedings where the Trump Administration lost. So, what this looks like is a vindictive attack outside the law and proper due process by the Trump Administration.

It is not the only mischief, and I’m going to be joined here by Ranking Member Heinrich to talk about some of the more westerly tricks that the Trump Administration has been up to interfere with clean energy.

But that second stop work order kind of tore it for me. Because any negotiation that we would enter into, any good bill that would result from it, would then have to be implemented by this Administration. And this Administration has been found to have illegally stopped work on this project, did not appeal that finding, and then came up with a new stop work order 30 days later. If that’s not vindictive harassment without legal basis, I don’t know what is. It’s in litigation right now. With any luck, it will be stopped again, and they can go back to work again. And who knows, maybe there will be a third imaginary stop work order that drops.

But in an environment like that, where the Executive Branch refuses its constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws, it really doesn’t make any sense for us to continue negotiations on a major bipartisan bill. I want to say in particular that Chair Capito has been helpful, thoughtful, a good partner. All the Environment and Public Works Committee Republicans have been helpful and thoughtful. There is literally zero blame for this to land on the other side of the aisle in the Senate. This is entirely a Legislative versus Executive problem‚ an Executive Branch, a rogue Executive Branch that refuses to faithfully execute the laws, notwithstanding its constitutional duty.

It is so bad, that the three major miscreants in this process, Zeldin, Burgum, and Wright, have gone on a campaign of falsehood about the cost of offshore wind. Here are some of the things they’ve been saying.

Secretary Burgum said that “intermittent highly expensive wind is bad.” “Highly expensive,” he called it. He then tweeted, “offshore wind is one of the most expensive schemes ever pushed on American taxpayers.” He said “offshore wind forces consumers and taxpayers to pay considerably more for electricity.” He said that blue state offshore wind policies lock in high prices.

Zeldin criticized the economic impacts of wind.

Wright said that wind and solar “bring us less reliable energy delivery and higher electric bills.”

So, all three of them have falsely asserted that offshore wind will raise electric bills. In court proceedings, where you actually need to tell the truth, as opposed to in tweets and talk shows, the story that emerges is exactly the opposite.

In the Rhode Island and Connecticut sworn complaint, we alleged that Revolution Wind, the project off our shores, will yield substantial cost savings to the states’ ratepayers. Savings to ratepayers, the pleading continues, are estimated to be hundreds of millions of dollars over 20 years.

The September complaint brought in the federal court by Orsted, again, a court filing, pled that long-term contract prices are expected to act as a successful hedge against rising electricity rates projected to save ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

In January just now, in the litigation about the second stop work order, an affidavit was filed that swore that Revolution Wind would be a new source of low marginal cost power in New England‚ that, and I quote here, “Once operational, Revolution Wind alone will provide hundreds of millions of dollars each year in energy bill savings to New England.”

We specify the ISO, the grid operator, specified that during a specific cold snap from December 24, 2017, to January 8, 2018, what’s that two weeks basically, had this offshore wind been online during that period, it would have lowered regional electricity production costs by $80 to $85 million over those two weeks resulting in $11 to $13 per megawatt hour reduction in what the grid charged ratepayers. Revolution Wind has cleared in the New England capacity market, and if it were to fail, it would require increases in electricity rates in New England of hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Over and over again, when people who know what they’re talking about have to say in court pleadings, where they have an obligation to tell the truth, what the cost effect of Revolution Wind will be, they talk about cost savings of hundreds of millions of dollars. And that is confirmed across the country by grid operators. You can go to any grid, and you can see pretty much the same thing. They call up power units by cost. They call up the least expensive power units first for obvious reasons. And wind and solar tend to be the low marginal cost units. They’re the ones that are called up first.

So, the allegations made in court of savings to ratepayers are backstopped by the actual economic practice of our electric grids.

So, back to Zeldin and Burgum and Wright. If they are conspicuously and consistently failing to tell the truth about savings, consistently misleading the public, pretending that fossil fuel is cheaper when it just isn’t, what does that tell you about their motives and their bias and their inability to faithfully execute the laws? It tells me that there’s really no point in passing a bipartisan bill, which would be a really good one, because we wouldn’t get the benefit of the bill. They’d just continue with illegal acts and false statements‚ anything to help fossil fuel.

It’s not just Revolution Wind. Dominion Wind is set to lower consumer power prices in Virginia once it’s operational, and it too is now under a stop work order.

So, I want to resume. I want to get back to work. I want to do this permitting reform bill, and in order to get there, I’m going to need some help. The artificial intelligence folks, the crypto folks, the data system folks who need massive amounts of electrons, you all need to start showing up and letting people know that you actually want permitting reform and you actually want an administrative and regulatory process in which electrons are treated fairly, irrespective of source, so that you can get the power that you need. That’s where we need to go.

If you want permitting reform, don’t come to me. I’m not the problem. Don’t come to Democrats in the Senate. We’re eager to do permitting reform. Don’t bother Chairman Capito and the Republicans. They’re ready to go too. Leader Thune has been very supportive of our effort. The problem isn’t in the Senate. The problem is in the White House and in EPW EPA, Energy, and Interior. They are simply not executing the laws fairly, and the bias and injustice and illegality that they have already demonstrated have got to stop if we’re going to go forward.

And, you know, it isn’t just this bill that has to come through EPW and go through Congress. There’s a highway bill coming. There’s a water resources bill for the Army Corps. Are we really going to have to stop work on those big bipartisan bills because we can’t trust the Trump Administration to implement them according to law?

Something’s got to give here, and nobody has done anything wrong in this building. All of the problems are in illegal, false, unfair, and biased enforcement of what should be faithful execution of the laws.