Maine Republicans are asking the Trump administration to revoke offshore wind leases in the Gulf of Maine that had been auctioned to developers last year, arguing they would harm the economy and fishing industry. Environmental advocates and state officials say the request is built on flawed logic and inaccurate claims.
In a letter to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Rep. Reagan Paul, R-Winterport, applauded the administration’s termination of more than $600 million in offshore wind projects late last month and asked for four commercial-scale leases off the coast of Maine to be revoked.
The projects for which funding was terminated or withdrawn last month span California to North Carolina and include a handful in New England.
Paul also called for the Maine Research Array’s lease to be terminated. The University of Maine intended to use that site to test its floating-hull turbine technology and help develop best practices for the emerging industry. The administration in April ordered the university to stop work on the project it spent over a decade developing, just weeks before the equipment was slated to be deployed.
“These actions are critical to protecting Maine’s $3.2 billion fishing industry, over 33,000 related jobs and the integrity of our coastal communities,” Paul wrote in the letter. More than 60 other legislators joined as co-signers, including all four other Republican members of the Legislature’s Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology.
The federal government sold the commercial-scale wind leases — covering more than 400,000 acres of the gulf — in October to subsidiaries of Avangrid and Invenergy. Months later, on his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order halting new offshore leases and ordering reviews of existing leases, including those in Maine.
Neither company returned written requests for comment on the letter.
Paul said Maine has some of the highest electricity costs in the nation, citing data from the federal Energy Information Administration, which appears to show Maine’s electricity costs rising more than 36% since last year. State officials have called that figure misleading, as it reflects wholesale electric costs — not actual bills ratepayers see — and glosses over a significant drop in natural gas prices last year.
Dan Burgess, director of the Governor’s Energy Office, said Maine’s high reliance on imported fossil fuels is the primary driver of rising electricity costs.
“The Energy Office still believes that offshore wind can coexist with fishing in the Gulf of Maine, and we have worked closely over the years with the fishing community to preserve Maine’s most valuable fishing grounds,” Burgess said in a written statement.
He pointed to a study released in August that found that New England’s wholesale electricity prices would have been 11% lower last winter if some offshore wind projects in Massachusetts and Rhode Island that had been contracted but not built were finished. While that report did not indicate how much Maine ratepayers could have saved, it charted savings of between $1.32 and $2.68 per month for customers in Boston.
Paul called offshore wind technology costly and experimental and said allowing development to continue would “only harm our economy and heritage.” Environmental groups pushed back on that characterization Tuesday afternoon.
Eliza Donaghue, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association, called offshore wind “a proven, safe and effective technology,” pointing to already operating projects in Europe.
Jack Shapiro, climate and clean energy program director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, said during a phone call Tuesday afternoon it’s an “illusion that offshore wind will harm the fishing industry,”
Shapiro said the leases issued last year are for sites outside of Lobster Management Area One, which includes some of the most critical lobster fishing zones. Those sites were selected specifically to avoid harming the fishing industry, he said.
Shapiro also criticized the letter’s request that an upcoming state survey meant to assess potential impacts on fishing and the environment to be canceled, as information collected there could help determine offshore development’s impact on marine ecosystems.
“If your legitimate concern about floating offshore wind is that we need data (on its impact) … then this is exactly what you should be doing,” Shapiro said. “If we follow Rep. Paul’s advice, we are going to be keeping electricity prices high.”
Paul sent a similar letter to Trump in January. That earlier message also saw more than 60 co-signers, again including all of the Republicans on the energy, utilities and technology committee.
