Dateline: New Jersey - Green grift makes strange bedfellows

(Angelo Carconi/ANSA via AP)

I guess the money’s just too good. There’s simply no other explanation for it. I’m not going to crack on Ørsted, the wind turbine manufacturer and contractor for Gov Phil Murphy’s massive boondoggle off his southeastern coastline.

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I’ve covered it several times, since whales started washing ashore last winter, as well as covering the financial struggles of the wind industry. In particular the off-shore component, to include the aforementioned Orsted in a piece I wrote back in February.

In relation to the financial aspect of the planned massive Ocean 1 off the coast of New Jersey, it’s not looking so good for Governor Murphy’s home dream team.

Here we go with the Green subsidies again. Vurt da furk! If these companies can sign all these contracts for a certain humongous amount, let them live or die by what they signed, like any contractor.

But Green is different. It’s taxpayer funded grift out of the gate, and Ørsted is playing the game – hardball.

Governor Murphy’s grand designs for thousands of offshore wind turbines are going up in smoke.

Rumors of bailouts abound; now, the lead foreign company pursuing a project (Orsted) apparently warned that it’s “prepared to walk away” from East Coast wind projects (including Ocean Wind 2) during an event last week in the U.K. London.

We do need some adjustments,” Orsted’s Vice President David Hardy explained from the stage citing ongoing discussions with the Murphy Administration.

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That translates from the Danish to “Grease our palms, greasy little man.”

…For what it’s worth (and it’s not much), the company previously insisted that the related Ocean Wind 1 project is going forward, but Orsted also needs to come up with the capital (hence the bailouts chatter) to deliver the initial wind farm. It’s not clear they’ll be able to find it in the current environment, and the resistance to offshore wind generally is growing fueled, in part, by mass unexplained marine mammal deaths.

…A full-scale wind industry collapse would be disastrous for Phil Murphy’s quixotic plans to make New Jersey’s energy sector carbon neutral well before mid-century (the year 2035).

Too bad, so sad for the verminous Murphy and his renewable plans if they sink to the bottom of the briny deep.

As they very well may and not only because Ørsted is having difficulties working up the cha-ching to keep the grift going. But because the woke-as-hell populace of the Garden State, who could re-elect a royal slimeball like Murphy and should be a push-over for any radical renewable agenda, is rapidly turning into a unanimous block against the off-shore wind project – any wind project.

They don’t want to pay for it

…On Tuesday, Congressman Jeff Van Drew (R, NJ-02) called on public officials at every level of government to resist attempts to subsidize sputtering “green energy” companies with tax dollars.

“Under absolutely no circumstances should hard working middle class families – whether it’s here in South Jersey or anywhere across America – be forced to bailout the greedy foreign energy companies and their failing Green New Deal ventures which continue to put our wildlife in danger, our economy at risk, and our national security in jeopardy,” said Van Drew.

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…and they are sick and tired of being lied to that the carcasses they’re seeing on the beach and wallowing in the surf have always been there in those numbers.

This year alone, seven whales and 22 dolphins have died along the New Jersey coast, and New York has had its fair share with a death toll of three large whales and seven dolphins. If fatalities continue at the current rate, 2023 will be a record-breaking year.

The search for a cause in the spike has created tension between local advocacy groups and investigators, including the Marine Mammal Stranding Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Some advocates worry the rise in marine mammal deaths is connected to the development of offshore wind farms – in particular, the underwater acoustic surveys used to map the ocean floor. This idea was initially tied to opponents of clean energy but has also taken root among environmental groups.

From the statehouse in Trenton to the House in D.C., reps from both parties in NJ are going to battle against the Murphy and Biden administrations to at least pause the project, if not scuttle it completely.

They are actually making some progress, which has to have collective knees knocking for both Murphy and Ørsted. Rep. Smith, seen in the video above, announced today that a federal probe was being opened into the excessive marine mammal deaths.

…In a phone call Thursday afternoon, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan agency tasked with conducting oversight of government operations, informed Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., that it would conduct the probe. Smith, who represents a district along the Atlantic coast, has repeatedly called for a GAO investigation into offshore wind development, expressing concern about its potentially wide-ranging impacts on wildlife and the marine economy.

This aggressive, independent investigation into the ocean-altering impacts of the 3,400 offshore wind turbines slated for the Jersey Shore will help address the wide-ranging questions and concerns that the Biden Administration and Governor Murphy continue to dismiss as they plow full steam ahead with this unprecedented offshore wind industrialization of our shore,” Smith said in a statement.

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3400 WIND TURBINES Holy SMOKES!

This morning, Rachel Campos-Duffy asked NJ state senator Michael Testa Jr. who would be the people who could object to a “sensible” 30-60 day pause to try to determine what was going on with the whales. What possible objection could anyone have to being sure?

The answer was a disgusting surprise, but upon reflection…

“It seems to be Ørsted, the company that wants to have the windfarms…and the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, which makes absolutely no sense to me because I always thought those were the groups that were there to protect the whales.”

…I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, just disgusted. Those hypocrites would sell their mothers if it got them an extra bug from Klaus Schwab.

The NJ legislature isn’t wasting any time either. If they can’t flat out block the project, they’re going to try to tie up the sonar-testing.

…The Monmouth legislators’ proposed bill would regulate acoustic sonar surveying and, in addition, stay additional testing during which time the state (by way of the DEP) would create a new permit process for analogous activisites.

“If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the photos and carcasses of marine mammals all along the Jersey Coastline would be enough to fill an encyclopedia,” said Assemblyman Gerry Scharfenberger. “We already have been calling for an immediate halt of sonar testing, but since that has fallen on deaf ears, we are moving to the next step and seeking to make NJDEP more accountable in the process that they’ve fumbled since the onset of this “green” initiative by the President and Governor.”

Part of the new permitting process would be a suspension of sonar testing permit in the event that a marine mammal dies or is injured. The NJDEP would also be required to investigate, and testing would remain suspending pending the results of the investigation being published.

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That’s what a citizen legislature is supposed to do.

Not a minute too soon, either,

…NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is taking comments on an outrageously destructive harassment proposal from Invenergy Wind off the coast of New Jersey, where whale deaths have been greatest.

It is called a “site characterization survey,” and it does include a new offshore wind development site that Invenergy picked up last year with a whopping bid of $645 million. That apparently buys a lot of Federal cooperation because this is nothing like a site survey.

You see, the site is a mere 131 square miles, while the proposed sonar blasting survey area is over 6,000 square miles. In other words, the site is a mere 2% of the survey area, so it is clearly not a site survey.

And the predicted “harassment” numbers for the marine mammals in that enormous geographic area? Mind-blowing.

Not surprisingly, given this huge area, the predicted marine mammal harassment numbers are appalling:

138 Whales

1,900 Seals

950 Porpoises

1,742 Dolphins

Total = 4,730 or just under 5,000 supposedly protected marine mammals

I don’t suppose Greenpeace will be out there in small boats doing any harassment of sonar techs after hearing the senator.

I’m going to have to do some digging and see what’s in it for them to stay out of the water.

Sacrificing the whales for Green grift.

Put that on a rainbow warrior t-shirt, you frauds.

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John Sexton 7:00 PM | December 06, 2024
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