Let’s set aside the biting environmental imperative for the development of offshore wind energy, if we can, and think for a moment about the near-term economic imperative for the state of Maine.

Forget about the irony of the new administration undertaking to “consider the environmental impact of wind projects on wildlife.” Ignore a coarse and regressive slogan that’s by now darkened the doors of most American households: “Drill, baby, drill.”

Let’s review instead the cold, hard (if still nascent, locally) business of offshore wind energy in 2025.

As we reported in some depth last week, at least one of President Trump’s many brand-new executive orders — temporarily halting offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and pausing approvals, permits or loans for onshore and offshore wind projects — is bad news for Maine.

Work on at least three major projects is complicated by this shortsighted order. All three of these projects have earned the support, at one point or other, of this editorial board.

The first victims of this sweeping decision are the commercial leases for floating turbines in the Gulf of Maine. 

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Negotiations between the two bid-winning private energy contractors and the federal government are now more or less guaranteed to take a back seat, and the negotiations for projects and plans such as these (pertaining to construction and operation) tend to be complex and thus protracted enough as it is.

Time is not something that’s on our side here.

The second hit lands on Sears Island, the state’s preferred site for a terminal at which to build turbines for offshore wind energy. After years of contentious back-and-forth about its siting, the funding of the terminal’s development — and the fate of as many as 13,000 well-paid permanent manufacturing jobs associated with it — is now up in the air.

An “ambitious” application for more than $450 million in federal financing for the project was rejected last fall. And for Maine to go back to the drawing board and try again, now? Try where, exactly?

The third relevant project is the so-called research array mooted for the Gulf of Maine: plans for a cluster of as many as 12 floating turbines over 15 square miles that promises to give a number of parties an opportunity to study offshore wind in practice and determine the best and most mutually agreeable means of getting it off the ground here.

The concrete platforms used at the site are to be designed by the University of Maine. State and federal officials reached agreement on the finer points of this lease just last August.

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The jolt of the executive order appeared to be calmly and optimistically received last week by the commercial developer working with the University of Maine on the project. In an email to a reporter, Chris Wissemann, chief executive of Boston-based Diamond Offshore Wind, said no federal action was “necessary or expected for the research array for more than five years,” the end of Trump’s second term in office. Wissemann suggested the pause on new leases, permitting and loans could stand to make the work of the research array more valuable in the end. We can only hope this is indeed the case.

As we noted this time last year, a 2009 task force reporting to the then-governor described the strong and abundant wind off the coast of Maine as “one of the great untapped energy resources on earth.” The pursuit of this industry, if we can be said to be in pursuit of it, is no fad.

This executive order was signed by President Trump without a care for the economy of the future or the creation of thousands of jobs for more than one generation of workers.

The development of an offshore wind industry needs to be seen for what it is: a valuable and dependable means for Maine to attract investment and diversify its economic base, the diversification which is years overdue. We’re in real need of strong, competitive enterprises and a shot in the arm of a labor market that is crying out for it. We need to be moving steadily towards a supply of clean energy to a grid that will require a lot of it to meet demand. Generalized skepticism should not stand in the way of any of this. To be pro-business, to be pro-America, is to be pro-wind energy.

And climate change? Well. We’ll save that argument for another day.

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