‘Why take those jobs away?’: the unionized workers decrying Trump’s war on wind

Summary

Workers proud of their efforts to grow renewable energy say US president pursuing ‘personal vendetta’ at their expense D onald Trump has blamed everything – from “national security” issues, the deaths of birds and whales , and cancer – in his decades-long campaign against windfarms. But as the Trump administration continues to undermine the industry, what worries workers most are their jobs. Since taking office for the second term, Trump has issued an executive order aiming to halt all wind-energy leases and permits, attempted to issue stop-work orders on wind projects under construction, and paid more than $2.6bn in settlements to buy out wind energy leases. And hundreds of workers have been affected. Thomas Kilday, a furnace electrician with IBEW local 99 in Providence, Rhode Island, was in the midst of a four-week shift onboard a vessel off the Atlantic coast working on the Revolution Wind Project in August last year when the Trump administration issued a stop-work order on the project. “No one really knew what was going on. We didn’t know what it meant for us. It’s not a great feeling to be worried about your job when you’re supposed to be home.” “We’re proud of the work that we do out here, and we want to be able to continue to do it. In Jine, the Trump administration abandoned an effort to try to halt all wind projects and leases across the US, giving up a challenge in court to a judge tossing Trump’s executive order to freeze all permitting and leasing for wind projects. Trump’s Department of Interior has completed four deals so far to cancel wind project leases, paying energy corporations a sum of more than $2.6bn , including paying $765m to Invenergy to abandon four wind projects in California, New York, and Maine and nearly $900m to Bluepoint Wind and Garden State Wind to cancel offshore wind leases in New York and California. “I think it’s a foolish policy that the Trump administration is engaging in trying to buy out these leases,” Pat Crowley, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, told the Guardian. “These projects are not only helping to reduce our carbon emissions, they’re providing good-paying union jobs for thousands.” Crowley said that workers would have had long-term job stability from working on these projects. The spokesperson did not respond to a question asking for clarification and did not comment on Trump’s prior animus toward wind turbine projects involving his golf courses. “No jobs were eliminated because none of these leases were operational or supporting employment,” the spokesperson said. “Rather than waiting years for the projects to materialize, the Trump administration is prioritizing investments in existing infrastructure and functioning supply chains that can create jobs now and deliver economic benefits faster. “This approach puts more people to work more quickly, using proven, affordable, and reliable energy rather than relying on projects tied to leases that were not producing jobs in the first place.”