'Highly problematic': Pentagon pouring cold water on Biden's big plans for offshore wind

Quartermaster 3rd Class Jordan Boucher, from Worcester, Massachusetts, uses a sextant to verify the ship's position aboard USS Rafael Peralta during Exercise Talisman Sabre 21 in the Coral Sea, July 29, 2021. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Daniel Serianni)

By John Hugh DeMastri
Daily Caller News Foundation

The Department of Defense (DOD) has warned industry stakeholders that President Joe Biden’s push for offshore wind farms off the Atlantic coast would interfere with military operations in the region, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing an October 2022 letter from the DOD obtained by the outlet.

Both the Navy and Air Force said that it would be “highly problematic” to construct offshore projects — which are key to many east coast states’ climate goals — in large swathes of territory off the coast of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, Bloomberg reported. This “problematic” territory totally encompassed four of the six potential wind lease areas set aside by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), while the remaining two areas required additional study, the Pentagon said, according to Bloomberg.

Similar DOD concerns ultimately sunk plans for offshore oil leasing near Virginia around ten years ago, and delayed offshore wind plans off the coast of California for roughly three years starting in 2019, Bloomberg reported. BOEM told the outlet that it expected to resolve the DOD’s concerns in the Atlantic, noting that the two agencies had successfully identified “27 leases along the Atlantic coast, covering over 2.1 million acres.”

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The Biden administration has stepped up its support of offshore wind farms in recent months, despite concerns from some environmental groups that the projects could be linked to a series of unusual whale and dolphin deaths in the region.

The DOD and BOEM did not immediately respond to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.

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