Few people realize that BOEM has released Ørsted, a multi-billion dollar foreign company, from any financial obligation to put aside funds for decommissioning within the first fifteen years of operation. What happens if they fail, become obsolete, or are determined to be harmful before that? Who will pay?

Decommissioning can cost 70% of the construction costs, according to this analysis from Europe. After fifteen years of operation, BOEM will only require Revolution Wind to put aside $325 million, when the likely cost of decommissioning could exceed $7 billion. Who will pay the difference?

“The notion that we humans can intervene in the ocean at a colossal scale and drive other species to extinction without harming ourselves seems, if not perversely arrogant, then excessively naive. Short-circuiting environmental laws in the name of solving our climate crisis will leave us vulnerable in the future; once de-clawed, they will no longer protect either biodiversity or what remains of our natural world.”

A majority of citizens support urgent action on climate change, but the current plan to industrialize 22 million acres of the Atlantic Ocean with wind turbines contradicts both President Biden’s executive order and environmental laws. The plan lacks sufficient evidence of safety or efficacy, risks biodiversity loss, and could exacerbate the crisis instead of addressing it. NOAA’s authorization for offshore wind companies to harass endangered North Atlantic right whales jeopardizes their survival, directly undermining the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act.