August 29, 2023 — Earlier this month, the Democratic state Senate president and Democratic speaker of the state Assembly released a joint statement echoing our calls for a pause on offshore wind development until more research could be done. Their statements read, in part: “There are still many unanswered questions about the economic impact these projects will have on ratepayers as well as potential impacts to one of our state’s largest economic drivers, tourism at the shore.” A reasonable and rational statement one would expect from their elected officials.
In doing so, the Democratic legislative leaders joined non-partisan, concerned citizens groups like Clean Ocean Action, Defend Brigantine Beach, Save LBI and others, who have called for a pause in the project. For the record, I released my own statement urging Gov. Phil Murphy to suspend the project all the way back in February — calling for a moratorium until scientists could be ascertain what was causing the unusual number of whale and dolphin deaths plaguing our region.
Shortly after I released my statement, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) conceded that New Jersey’s offshore wind farm development “is likely to adversely affect” whales and other marine mammals, while stopping short of solely blaming it for the deaths — copping to something many of us had long-since concluded based on the tragic scenes we had witnessed throughout the late winter and early spring.