Governors' Wind Energy Coalition
Bernhardt: Trump tried to boost offshore wind, not kill it
Source: By Benjamin Storrow, E&E News • Posted: Wednesday, July 21, 2021
Then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt spoke last year as President Trump looked on. Bernhardt yesterday defended his role in delaying a major offshore wind farm. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt defended the Trump administration’s lengthy review of America’s first offshore wind farm in an interview yesterday, saying the additional environmental analysis he ordered was intended to strengthen the project against legal challenges rather than kill it.
The Trump administration had initially planned to complete a review of Vineyard Wind in the summer of 2019. But Bernhardt surprised the project’s developers, who proposed a $2.8 billion wind farm near Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., by expanding a government study of the project to consider other wind farms proposed along the East Coast.