Anticipating opposition from the impending Trump presidency, offshore wind developer TotalEnergies SE says it is suspending work on its Attentive Energy project planned off New York and New Jersey.
The 3,000-megawatt array south of New York Harbor could be operational in the 2030s according to developers. But on Tuesday, “I have decided to put the project on pause” with Trump’s return, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said at an energy industry conference in London, Bloomberg reported.
The Attentive Energy project is still in the early stages of permitting with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, although developers have obtained offshore leasing rights from BOEM. Pouyanne indicated TotalEnergies may wait for political winds to shift again.
“I said to my team, the project in New York, we’ll see that in four years,” he said, Bloomberg reported. “But the advantage is it’s only for four years.”
Trump’s campaign promise to kill offshore wind projects on “day one” of his next presidency has cast a pall over the fledging U.S. ocean wind industry. After lukewarm support during Trump’s first administration, his Department of Interior officials turned sharply in their last months, trying to cancel permits for the Vineyard Wind project off southern New England.
In early 2021 President Biden’s new administration swiftly restarted Vineyard Wind permitting. A new Trump administration can upend the process again, by blocking permits and new lease sales.
The move by TotalEnergies could be foreshadow difficult decisions by other offshore wind companies – and domestic U.S. companies who have mobilized to provide the supply chain to offshore wind power.
Wind industry advocates are scrambling to make their case that offshore wind is good for Trump’s stated goals of rebuilding U.S. industry and jobs.
