Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/02/court-orders-restart-of-all-us-offshore-wind-construction/

by ck2 • 6 months ago

497 379 6 months ago

ggm6• 6 months ago

posted this at ars forum: (it should be clear I think it was a stupid move by the WH, but I am trying to think what might have "informed" it)

Steelmanning the risks, its the link to mainland as a weakness in supply chain of power, compared to onshore sources possibly. But, the construction is in close water, well inside the exclusive economic zone. You would think passage of a craft capable of causing a power shock with an anchor chain was raising hackles well before this, because it's hugely unusual for a warcraft of another nation to be that close without an explicit permit. Under the Jones act, all inshore commercial craft delivering goods to and from named ports have to be US badged, for international shipping it's clear from the baltic there's a concrete risk, but that's a matter of policing the boats, not banning the structures at risk.

A second steelman might be some belief about the intermittency. Thats easily knocked over because the system as a whole is building out storage and continuity systems, is adapting to a mix of technology with different power availability throughout the day, and of all the sources of power, wind is one of the most easily predicted to a useful window forward. You know roughly when a dunkelflaut is expected inside 48h, if you don't know exactly when, or for how long. Thats well north of the spin-up time for alternative (dirty) sources of power, if your storage capacity isn't there yet to handle it.

kentm• 6 months ago

I appreciate the sentiment behind steelmanning but Trump has had over a decade of publicaly, vocally hating windmills because some were built too close to his golf course. See https://www.npr.org/2013/07/01/196352470/thar-he-blows-trump...

Its completely in-line with his personality to hold onto personal grievances for decades to the point that they become policy.

ggm6• 6 months ago

The Judges appear to have responded to something specific. If it was made-up, they would have thrown the case out harder and sanctioned whoever submitted false evidence. So I assume somebody with an ability to legally bind intel into the right form was persuaded to say something.

defrost4• 6 months ago

This is very much a root cause.

Not just the fact that Scottish wind farms prevailed, also that he was relentlessly mocked, ridiculed, and protested against in unavoidably visible ways by the Scots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NNWmZwObZc

( Note: while a recent youtube clip, the anti Trump protests in Scotland date back to well before his campaign for his first term as POTUS )

rootusrootus12• 6 months ago

Its completely in-line with his personality to hold onto personal grievances for decades to the point that they become policy.

I feel like much of what he does today can be directly attributed to the epic roasting he got from Obama at the correspondents' dinner. Most of us would be absolutely honored by being roasted by the sitting president, but he seemed at the time to take it very personally.

CGMthrowaway2• 6 months ago

Treating offshore wind like ports and pipelines from a security POV makes sense, it's exactly what we do with offshore O&G. The rub is that securing offshore wind installations is an order of magnitude more resource-intensive than securing a deepwater rig, bc you're talking about a perimeter than spans 100's of square miles, not a single platform with a limited # of risers

ggm6• 6 months ago

If you wanted to defend an O&G field, wouldn't you need to consider a similar extent? per wellhead, yes. but the go to a concentrator for onshore feed don't they? or some kind of attached floating rig, which itself is a SPF.

I thought fields had 100s of square km of extent too. The exclusion zone after nordstream is now pretty big, albiet "temporary" according to the web its 5 to 7 nm so 9 to 13 km so close to 100 km^2

defrost4• 6 months ago

From an attack PoV that's hundreds of square miles to destroy or disable many structures Vs taking out a single target.

ie. They can nibble a bit at an array before you're onto them Vs everything gets thrown at a point source target.

mschuster912• 6 months ago

Treating offshore wind like ports and pipelines from a security POV makes sense

No it does not. Even if you'd manage to disable an entire wind farm, the impact on the grid as a whole is negligible. An attacker has to spend a whole lot of effort on such an attack for very little, if any at all, gain.

In contrast, shell a port or the right piece of infrastructure [1] and entire economies can get wrecked. And shell an oil rig... I mean, I seriously hope even the Russians don't sink that low but hey they did attack a goddamn NPP and a hydropower dam... anyway, taking out an oil rig risks an environmental disaster similar to Deepwater Horizon. That's a lot more effect for an opponent.

The actual threat to wind farms is software. We've seen that in the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine - the Russians took down satellite modems [2], causing about 6000 wind turbines to lose their command infrastructure and thus stop generating power.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Scott_Key_Bridge_colla...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viasat_hack

janice1999• 6 months ago

US wind farms are 30 miles from the coast at most? No country is attacking that under some plausible deniability and it not being seen as an act of war.There are more important power lines further from civilisation running through rural areas in the US. These are not fiber cables a 1000 miles from the coast.

Gas generators can be spun up to provide megawatts in seconds btw. With less than a quarter of the grid being renewable, intermittency is not an issue. Grids are built with resilience in mind (or at least should be...).

bob1029• 6 months ago

Gas generators can be spun up to provide megawatts in seconds btw

Only if they're already spinning and everything is hot and ready.

Non-spinning reserves can take hours to bring online. Cold power plants cannot be brought up quickly. The simplest designs can ramp within a few minutes, but these are generally not intended for any kind of continuous operation due to efficiency concerns.

lovich• 6 months ago

Weird how these security risks only show up to tank projects in blue states

wattso• 6 months ago

The pretext for the suspension was radar noise.[1]

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/trump-offshore-wind-...

ggm6• 6 months ago

Thank you!

citrin_ru2• 6 months ago

Wind towers create radar interference but also offshore wind platforms could provide a place for radars further away from the shore.

aqme28• 6 months ago

I think that wind farms dotted along the entire US coast would be a bad target for crippling US power compared to a few coal/gas/nuclear mega power plants.

cosmic_cheese• 6 months ago

Even if there were legitimate concerns surrounding defense of the wind farms, it makes more sense to instead de-risk with redundancy elsewhere, which is increasingly cheap and quick to do thanks to the combo of solar+batteries. That’s what we should be doing anyway if AI data center energy requirements are to continue to increase.

pjdesno• 6 months ago

In the 70s the oil companies were furious that Venezuela (if my understanding is correct) revoked their leases and forced them to abandon their equipment investments.

That's basically what the administration was trying to do here, under a legal system which (unlike Venezuela in the 70s) is very keen on protecting corporate investment. It seems like a classic "takings" case.

unyttigfjelltol• 6 months ago

If the concern is the control module of the wind turbine— that’s not a nationalization and confiscation program. It might look similar in the near-term to participants, but that’s simply because they are functioning as instruments of the control module supplier, extending the inference, which isn’t a legitimate owner of the wind farms or US electrical grid anyway, and is quite unlike the fossil fuel companies in Venezuela of the 1970s.

fsckboy• 6 months ago

the Venezuelan oil leases you are talking about was 1990s, not 1970s.

for Venezuelan oil leases to be comparable to wind farms you'd have to have the Venezuelan govt say "we are taking the leases away because we don't want any more offshore oil production", rather than "we are taking these leases away because you are rich and we want to pump the oil ourselves"

the cancelled Venezuelan oil leases were a taking, but that word is less useful in the case of wind farms. I would imagine firms with wind farm contracts would be made whole (i.e. get back lost investment, but not get back potential profit) but it's not a case of the wind farms being given to somebody else or those areas being put to some other use.

if you are "environmental" you might think it's a great loss not to pursue the wind approach, or that it's a great idea to shut down offshore drilling, but that's political not property ownership/taking.

bruce5115• 6 months ago

> I would imagine firms with wind farm contracts would be made whole

Wait..what? Made whole by whom? Has this happened before?

(I'm genuinely curious, I've not seen this brought up before...)

roenxi• 6 months ago

for Venezuelan oil leases to be comparable to wind farms you'd have to have the Venezuelan govt say "we are taking the leases away because we don't want any more offshore oil production"

That isn't a crazy interpretation of what actually happened. According to wiki [0] the industry basically collapsed to 50% of its former production after the nationalisation era and the overall trend since then has been downwards. If a major political contingent in the US sets themselves against wind energy it could easily play out similarly. That'd be in line with other battles in the War on Energy that played out with nuclear and fossil fuels.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Venezuelan_oil_...

Drupon• 6 months ago

Were the Venezuelans wrong? Should a country just legally accept its conquerors economically?

aucisson_masque2• 6 months ago

That's pretty much the law of the strongest. Mess with American colonialism and you end up like Cuba or Venezuela.

It's better to have your natural resources stolen than having your whole country wrecked by embargo, secret NSA plots, etc..

einpoklum• 6 months ago

Judge: "Why were these projects put on hold?"

Government lawyers: "Uh, well, we could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you."

Now, I would point out how the US is making itself into a joke, but I'm afraid the joke's on us, because carbon output is not decreasing dramatically like it must, and the effects of global warming will, slowly but surely, become worse with every passing year. I live in a region where warming is predicted to be near twice the global average, so I'm particularly worried about what it's going to be like when I'm old, or in the generation following mine.

IhateAI• 6 months ago

Offshore windmills legitimately do interfere with some of these military radars monitoring the coastline that are probably top secret, or so I'm told by people that would know. However, I doubt that's the only reason of course.

softwaredoug2• 6 months ago

If these projects ultimately end up canceled they’ll be the largest “mostly done” infrastructure projects to be cancelled. A huge waste. And a monument to US incompetency.

toomuchtodo5• 6 months ago

Well, judicial checks and balances should protect them until regime change, which is coming.

Waterluvian2• 6 months ago

I dunno. The Americans stuck their hand in a blender for four years and then four years later needed to try it again. Alas, Stumpy McNubs remains long on limbs but short on memory.

behringer• 6 months ago

There's no regime change coming when those in power run the elections, have already cheated in the past, and know that they are now untouchable.

softwaredoug2• 6 months ago

It's going to be dicey whether you can keep all the suppliers engaged with start / stops over 3 years.

bgroins• 6 months ago

Worse than the Superconducting Supercollider?

xeonmc• 6 months ago

Or that space telescope?

Retric• 6 months ago

Yes far worse, the superconducting supercollider produced science which has debatable value. There’s an argument we lost nothing by canceling the project.

Wind farms produce electricity which pays for the investment when you finish but pays nothing when a stop early. This makes stopping early extremely economically harmful.

JumpCrisscross• 6 months ago

A huge waste. And a monument to US incompetency

But a windfall for the litigation financier that buys those claims off the U.S. government.

These leases are contracts. Sovereign immunity is curtailed when the U.S. contracts.

kabdib• 6 months ago

incompetency

"corruption"

verdverm2• 6 months ago

spite of one man child

dyauspitr2• 6 months ago

GOP cronyism and deep corruption.

zobzu• 6 months ago

have you met the california high speed rail or not yet?

sephamorr• 6 months ago

Well, that's not 'mostly done'

epistasis3• 6 months ago

Even bigger than the abandoned AP1000 reactors in South Carolina? That was about $5B of abandoned capital, IIRC. It was also a monument to IS incompetency, but at least those responsible went to prison for it. I doubt we would see the same for cancelling the wind projects.

nebula88045• 6 months ago

Just as a side note: Recently it seems as if there is interest in finishing those projects as a result of data center energy needs. Your point still stands but just wanted to put that out there.

abcd_f• 6 months ago

US incompetency

US corruption.

Incompetence would've been a good news here.

sandworm1012• 6 months ago

I am all for green energy, but these windfarms were designed years ago. Since then, solar has progressed in leaps whereas wind has not. Im not so sure that fighting the olds over wind farms is the fight worth winning. Let them cancel the wind farms if that means a free hand to develop solar.

Rapzid2• 6 months ago

Whether or not these wind farms are economically viable sounds like something for the companies building them to work out.

monero-xmr2• 6 months ago

They are 100% not viable without tax dollars

aspbee555• 6 months ago

solar only runs during the day and when it is not cloudy, wind farms can run constantly with low weather impact

multiple energy sources are what is important to make up for where solar falls short. sure solar is amazing, but it will never replace everything on its own

anon7000• 6 months ago

Solar + battery is good enough & cheap enough (and recyclable enough). But agreed that multiple renewable energy sources aren’t a bad thing!

Solar + battery is just so good at staying stable and productive for decades with no moving parts, minimal maintenance, and unbeatable scalability

Jedd• 6 months ago

solar only runs during the day and when it is not cloudy

Solar PVC output directly and immediately correlates to sun landing on the panels.

Solar thermal runs well into the evening, and its output is not impacted by the occasional cloud.

Analemma_• 6 months ago

What olds? The shutdown here was ostensibly for national security reasons.

Let them cancel the wind farms if that means a free hand to develop solar.

That's not actually a bargain anyone has the power to agree to in a binding way. The people protesting the appearance of wind farms are on the coasts, the people protesting solar are in the country's interior. There's no "deal" you can make to get the latter instead of the former. Just build all the power generation and then we'll have cheaper electricity and a more resilient grid.

tzs2• 6 months ago

It doesn't mean a free hand to develop solar. The Trump administration hates solar, too, and is doing as much as it can to hinder solar development.

Also, wind and solar have different production patterns, such as how they perform seasonally, how weather affects them, and how they perform at different times of day. You are much better off including a good mix of them in your system.

ianburrell• 6 months ago

Solar and wind are good complements. Solar works during the day and best on clear, windless days. Wind blows best during the night and on cloudy, stormy days. Solar is best in summer and wind in winter.

Wind also works better in some areas that don't have solar. UK has a lot of offshore wind, but less solar. The US Northeast has a lot of wind but lags behind on solar.

Wind has dropped significantly in price over the decades and is competitive in price with solar. I saw article about early Scottish wind farm being upgraded so that one new turbine equals the whole old farm.

sandworm1012• 6 months ago

I theory yes, but grid storage favors solar. Solar can be placed much closer to consumption, literally on the roof of the consumer. Wind exists in large farms away from cities. They are not perfect partners.

The rich/old paticularly hate wind because they do not like looking at it. (The link to golf courses is not by accident. Wind farms and golf course tend to appear together due to them both gravitating towards areas with shallow waters.) We still here stories about blinking shadows interupting sleep cycles, even causing cancer. So perhaps we let them alone for another decade and allow solar+storage to take up the slack. Then, when the nimby people are no longer in power, we bring back wind.

(Shallow sea means no commercial traffic/ports. That means cheap land for non-industrial things like yacht clubs and big houses, which give rise to golf courses. So the rich/old dont like seeing the wind farms that, inevitably, want to live just offshore of their yacht/golf clubs. See Nantuket.)

malfist• 6 months ago

You don't appear to be "all for green energy" if you want to prohibit some forms of green energy. In fact that appears to be the stance of someone who opposes green energy

leosussan• 6 months ago

That definitely won't be what they're using that free hand for, unfortunately. I wish it weren't true, but the Republican party is sticking to its blanket opposition to anything that isn't fossil-fuel related. Add it to the growing list of stuff to be annoyed / angry about.

padjo3• 6 months ago

Wind is just concentrated solar if that helps you feel better

padjo3• 6 months ago

The notion that wing turbines have not advanced in recent years is absurd.

petcat• 6 months ago

3 more years. I don't know who the Dems can elect to go against JD Vance, maybe Tim Walz, but they need somebody.

toomuchtodo5• 6 months ago

Pritzker.

aaronbrethorst2• 6 months ago

There'll be a ton of people running, any of which I think would be highly competitive against Vance: Walz, Pritzker, Newsom, Chris Murphy, Harris, Josh Shapiro, etc.

But I think Mark Kelly is likely to be a top-tier candidate from the jump. He's not my favorite of the bunch, necessarily, but I'd consider putting money on him being the Democratic nominee in 2028.

barbazoo2• 6 months ago

Interesting you say Newsom. Interesting, interesting very interesting. It’s just interesting you bring up Newsom.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/gavin-newsom-short-circu...

zthrowaway• 6 months ago

3 more years til the next dog and pony show but different colors.

mschuster912• 6 months ago

The midterms this year can already seriously throw wrenches into the Project 2025 plans. Trump's failure to address the economy situation, the constant and ongoing wars, ICE seriously disrupting agriculture and construction sites, ICE executing white people in front of cameras [1] and now the latest Epstein crap... Democrats are flipping what used to be solid-red seats these days.

People are fed up. Assuming there will be free elections - as absurd as it is to even write this sentence referring to the US, but here we are [2] - it most probably will end in an utter wipeout for MAGA. They'll have the President, of course, but assuming the Democrat leadership finds some spine - again, an assumption, given Schumer - stuff has the potential to change.

On top of that are state and local level elections that are all the time. Stuff like school boards, sheriffs, whatever that is where MAGA and the Evangelicals built out their initial networks. All of that can be flipped around as well, if people actually bother to show up and vote.

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shootings_by_U.S._immi... - it is notable that widespread outrage only followed after the execution of Renee Good and Alex Pretti

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/02/georgia-fult...

actionfromafar2• 6 months ago

A wet towel could go against JD Vance, but what if Vance shutters polling stations in blue districts? Because "terrorism".

carefulfungi• 6 months ago

Weird to see this so downvoted on the same day that Trump asked republicans to "Nationalize" elections in 15 places. Whatever that means.

“Republicans should say, ‘We want to take control of this. We need to take control of voting in at least 15 places.’ Republicans should nationalize voting,” [Trump] said on the podcast of former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, which was relaunched on Monday.

shagie• 6 months ago

maybe Tim Walz

https://www.uppermichiganssource.com/2026/01/29/tim-walz-say...

MINNEAPOLIS (Gray News) - Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he will not run for elected office again.
Walz touched on his political plans in a recent interview with cable news channel MS Now.
“I will never run for an elected office again,” Walz said. “Never again.”
The 2024 Democratic vice-presidential nominee said he plans to “do the work” while finding other ways to serve the country.

rootusrootus12• 6 months ago

I would guess that many politicians (of both sides, see also MTG) suddenly start to rethink how bad they want the public job when Trump turns the firehose of death threats their direction.

rootusrootus12• 6 months ago

3 years of Trump getting progressively weaker as more and more Republicans in purple districts decide they are more likely to be reelected by going against Trump than by supporting him. Not to mention the midterms will at least make it impossible to get any legislation passed that they want (which, thankfully, they have been mercifully incompetent at so far).

bpodgursky• 6 months ago

If the Democrats nominate Tim Walz they deserve to lose the next ten thousand elections. My god.

dyauspitr2• 6 months ago

Newsom, maybe Mark Kelly

delfinom• 6 months ago

Tim Walz had a chance and he started listening to the trustfund babies that are hired DNC consultants.

aussieguy1234• 6 months ago

Trump banning offshore wind projects is why oil and gas workers vote for him.

The only way they can keep their jobs working on vastly inferior, dangerous technology is to ban new, safer, better technology.

defrost4• 6 months ago

The reality, of course, being that wind farm construction is big on labour, specialist transport machinery, crane operating, jacking, bolts, working to weather extreme thresholds, etc.

Different as from a distance but still a lot of applicable skill and team work experience transfer for many workers.

firejake308• 6 months ago

I mean, we need all the electricity we can get to run all of these datacenters, right? So I think this might be one of those things that the Republicans quietly allow to continue so that the corporate interests can maximize electricity production

WatchDog• 6 months ago

...the Department of the Interior settled on a single justification for blocking turbine installation: a classified national security risk.

To speculate on what this risk is, the two obvious risk I can think of would be:

- Susceptibility to seabed warfare[0]. A rival nation can sabotage the infrastructure and maintain deniability, like we have seen with the Nord Stream sabotage[1].

- Potential interference with passive sonar systems, the turbines are likely to generate a fair bit of noise, which could potentially make it harder for SOSUS[2] to detect rival submarines.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabed_warfare

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_pipelines_sabotage

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOSUS

eclipticplane• 6 months ago

If the latter were true, the permits would have never been granted. The permits took years of back and forth, public and government commentary.

The former is a threat vector but one that can be priced into the ongoing maintenance costs.

4gotunameagain3• 6 months ago

A rival nation can sabotage the infrastructure and maintain deniability, like we have seen with the Nord Stream sabotage.

We didn't see that with Nord stream. It was not a rival nation, but an allied one unfortunately. And Germany did nothing. Zero.

fch422• 6 months ago

Sometimes, not to do something can be the right (morally, technically, economically, ...) thing to do.

You don't always need to present the other cheek to do right. Neither do you always need to retaliate.

Nord Stream finally made it clear to Germany that "convenience" isn't a durable energy market strategy.

It's not correct though that Germany has done "nothing". The suspects are pursued by Germany, https://www.dw.com/en/nord-stream-poland-blocks-extradition-... so there's that.

If you mean though whether there's a will in Germany (nevermind a commitment or funding) to rebuild Nordstream ... you're right, nothing has happened

igorramazanov• 6 months ago

If a country changes course every four years, how can the success of a long-term project be ensured?

And what of its negotiating credibility? How can the other side trust that an agreement will hold in the future?

This is not a critique, but a genuine curiosity, because there's an obvious drawback with a system with opposing world views.

Unless, of course, something still unites them in the first place, with acceptable disparity on each side turning it into an advantage of flexibility and adaptability while keeping the focus on long-term ideas and plans.

pwarner• 6 months ago

I'm not advocating their system, but here's one pro for China obviously.

SecretDreams2• 6 months ago

Dictatorships work as long as they're benevolent, much like democracies work as long as they aren't bought.

chongli• 6 months ago

China doesn't have flip-flopping like this with its attendant massive waste. Instead it has endemic corruption which siphons off funds all over the place, perhaps with the exception of the big projects that command the full attention of central leadership.

ncr100• 6 months ago

Also, China can lobby indirectly through media manipulation, and relatively cheaply disrupt our already clunky-feeling Democratic governmental processes.

olerich• 6 months ago

Quite the opposite, a working, independent justice system guarantees rule of law and long term stability.

cm21872• 6 months ago

It's a double edge sword. If the Boss has decided that the country should do X, it's much harder to make him reverse course if it's a bad direction. Zero covid and return to good old communism are two recent examples. For all their flaws and ineffectiveness, democracies are self correcting.

johanvts3• 6 months ago

You can have a functional democracy and still do long term planning, the problem is the current US government. Its not a fundamental flaw in democracy.

clarionbell• 6 months ago

The disadvantage in their system, is if the the leadership makes a wrong decision, it will stick for much longer than 4 years, and it won't be challenged.

Now, recently, they had a very good run. This must be admitted and even celebrated.

But the aforementioned flaw is still very much present.

SpicyLemonZest7• 6 months ago

I'm not sure I follow the questions. The success of a long-term project can be ensured through the procedures described in the source article: you set up a durable judicial system, and invest them with the power to require that the country uphold its end of the bargain, no matter how much its current political leaders might want to change course.

CamperBob24• 6 months ago

you set up a durable judicial system, and give them their own army.

That's the only way to work around Trump. According to the Constitution, no one can actually make the executive branch do anything it doesn't want to do.

aboardRat45• 6 months ago

success of a long-term project can be ensured through the procedures described in the source article: you set up a durable judicial system, and invest them with the power to require that the country uphold its end of the bargain, no matter how much its current political leaders might want to change course.

That's an abuse of the judicial system. Politicians are elected exactly because the voters perceive a need to change the execution of government's functions.

The thing is, you cannot beat human moral qualities with formalist means. People who come to power by raising hatred towards their political opponents will always find a way to subvert policies even if not cancel them.

Long-term policies should be established through consensus among all parties, not though legalistic bureaucracy.

alextheparrot• 6 months ago

I mean, you could also frame this as an issue the electorate could actually prioritize instead of just hoping the courts work it out

Octoth0rpe• 6 months ago

how can the success of a long-term project be ensured?

Well, for one by ensuring that 'long-term' means it starts at the start of a term and ends before the end of that term. At most that only rules out nuclear, at least wrt long term energy projects. And it's not like recent dem administrations were unfriendly towards nuclear. Vogtle 3/4 were approved early in Obama's term, and finished under Biden's.

Sharlin2• 6 months ago

"Long term" means decades when it comes to energy strategy, major infrastructure initiatives, and decarbonization. Four years is woefully inadequate for strategic planning, you’re operating on a tactical level at best.

bradchris• 6 months ago

4 years gets you, historically, an 8-plex built in San Francisco. If you’re lucky. The ship is slowly turning, but that’s what institutional investors would call a short-term win in the most economically productive state in the USA.

I’m a supporter of it regardless of the cost, but for a “long term” project look at the California HSR, which was directly approved by voters 19 years ago and we’re still debating how to fund the majority of it, let alone actually build what we voted to construct and open in its entirety within 10 years.

sirspacey• 6 months ago

you’ve landed on the core of politics

the shape of how things actually work is what’s left when constant churn (and now budget blocking) is a fact of life

shimman• 6 months ago

No, this is the core of a particular brand of politics: neoliberal politics. Where the financialization of everything is what's most important. There was a time, still in lived memory, where the US government was able to complete many types of projects and it also coincided with the period of lowest economic inequality (the great compression), the expansion of civil rights, and had the highest taxes against the elites this country has ever seen.

Obviously if you hate democracy you'll want to destroy this system, which is what they've been working at for the last 50ish years.

vvpan• 6 months ago

Which is largely why presidencies do not mess with the order they inherit too much (subjective statement I know). Most institutions and projects are not stressed and the government branches just keep doing what they always did. The current administration is an outlier, but we all know that.

Krasnol• 6 months ago

The problem is that the outlier might mark a beginning.

Seeing what's possible in this position, I doubt future US presidents will hold back.

graemep7• 6 months ago

That could be a problem in itself. It certainly is here in the UK.

If you have two parties that have much the same policies you do not get necessary change and voting becomes meaningless.

iso16312• 6 months ago

The current administration is an outlier

Is it? What stops the next one being an outlier, or the one after that?

Its going to take decades to recover from the whims of the US population (the plurarity of whom voted for this)

Gormo• 6 months ago

More to the point, it's why our political system does not give unilateral control over most of this stuff to the executive branch. That's the reason why the courts are regularly ruling against the administration -- they're pretending to legal authority they don't have in the first place.

diego_moita• 6 months ago

The current administration is an outlier, but we all know that.

No, it isn't. This administration is a rupture. It is the beginning of a new normal. Future presidents will try to emulate this guy.

You could say "outlier" when he lost in 2020. You can't say that after he came back. The American people wants this authoritarian populism. The SCOTUS enables it. And the world shouldn't trust both the American people and its crumbling institutions.

themafia3• 6 months ago

If a country changes course every four years

Dozens of new GW+ wind farms came online in the last four years. This concerns a few projects in a few particular locations that are exposed to federal interference. It has impacts on the market but the market is larger than these minor disturbances by an order of magnitude.

while keeping the focus on long-term ideas and plans.

We have private business in this country. They're doing just fine.

hvb23• 6 months ago

Dozens of new GW+ wind farms came online in the last four years.

Thats not that much is it given the size and energy demand of the country? And that's over the past 4 years, you'll only see the true impact of this in the next 6 years.

This concerns a few projects in a few particular locations that are exposed to federal interference

Markets are driven by a lot of feelings too. If you're trying to build a wind farm now, why on earth would you do that in the US? There are just many better options.

Your private businesses will happily skip over the US if they understand markets. Don't row upstream, find a place where your investment is wanted

epistasis3• 6 months ago

Private industry is not doing just fine, it's barely holding on due to massive uncertainty caused by erratic tariffs and farcical government overreach and direct meddling with corporations. All from Trump and his supporters, who are very nationalist but also appear to love socialism when it is national, such as with a 10% purchase of Intel by the US government.

If the Fed falls and monetary policy is subject to the political whims of a tyrant that only cares about himself, then we lost reserve currency stays and we are ducked so hard by simultaneous inability to continue the deficit and a need to pay back interest at far far higher rates. It would cause a spiral in the US economy like we have never seen. Or in the best case just a gradual switch from USD to other standin currencies causing a decade or two of recession in the US, best case.

So far most businesses have not jacked up prices from tariffs because they are hoping they can have the US Supreme Court overturn what look to be obviously illegal tariffs that should have been enacted by Congress rather than the king (we fought an entire revolutionary war over this!). If the Supreme Court doesn't overturn tariffs then we are at risk for inflation going up to 1970s levels.

The state of private business in the US is best represented by the meme of a dog sitting at a kitchen table saying "this is fine" while the house burns down around him. The firefighters may come, but they had better come soon.

Aziz_aze• 6 months ago

_How can the other side trust that an agreement will hold in the future?_ You can't, and US history is full of that. It's deeply rooted in US culture !

See for example the numerous wars against native Americans in the 19th century; even in some Washington US museum they admin the natives were not wrong when they had to assume any peace treaty was not worth the ink it was written with (and meant "we're only regrouping and will attack again in less than 5 years").

neilwilson• 6 months ago

By only doing projects for which there is sufficient political support across the board, not the ones that are supported by a tiny vocal minority of the electorate.

Either we live in a democracy or we do not. Democracy determines the correct path by wobbling between two incompatible options - implementation and repeal. That which is implemented by one side, but not repealed by the other survives as the appropriate path.

There is no alternative to this - without abandoning democracy and universal suffrage.

Remember that democracy is the worst way to run a country, except for all the other.

spacebacon• 6 months ago

The pitchfork bifurcation: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5987495

epolanski2• 6 months ago

If a country changes course every four years, how can the success of a long-term project be ensured?

Sadly this is an inherent weakness of the US constitution. It's old and it was written at a time where we didn't have enough experience with democracies.

In a modern parliamentary democracy you vote parties which form coalitions and settle on one of the party leaders (in general the one with most votes) as prime minister.

This means that:

- other parties are still involved in the legislative process. In a presidential republic with the president holding executive power, other parties are not represented at all. Trump doesn't need approval on his actions neither by opposition nor his own party. In a parliament, many members will support continuity on many topics rather than change if it doesn't make sense. They still vote based on their conscience, not just on their affiliation.

- the executive depends on its effectiveness and for staying in power on the support of its parliament members. If some members of Giorgia Meloni's coalition don't like the direction she's taking they are not gonna vote her proposals and ultimately she may need to resign if she gets a vote of no confidence. Removing a president in countries like US is extremely difficult in comparison, and the executive has no checks, neither from opposition nor its own party to go in whatever direction a single individual decides to go.

Seriously, what Belarus, Turkey, Hungary, Russia, etc, all have in common? They are presidential republics. Single individuals hold too much power and have little checks from their own party members, let alone a parliament. It's no coincidence that the last parliamentary democracy to turn into authoritarian state has been Sri Lanka over 50 years ago: it's difficult for individuals to grab power, as there is a long checklist of things that need to happen. In a presidential one?

It's very simple: a single individual can claim popular mandate, building a personality cult is simple (you don't vote parties, you vote individuals), a single individual holds executive power and is very hard to remove.

Presidential republics are more effective than slow parliamentary ones, but we should ask ourselves if our focus in 2020s, in advanced economies where things are objectively fine, isn't slow refinement instead of sharp turns.

theshrike79• 6 months ago

Sadly this is an inherent weakness of the US constitution. It's old and it was written at a time where we didn't have enough experience with democracies.

(I'm not even American and I know this)

The constitution was meant to be a living document, adjusted over the years as the world changes.

But the very opposite happened, it became Holy Scripture, unchanging and never evolving.

The whole American system was based on the idea that the ruling class cared for "reputation", "honor" or "legacy". It was wholy unprepared for people who just don't give a fuck about all that and actively wipe their asses on existing rules and conventions.

Like going in front of Congress and just ... lying. Provably, verifiably lying. Zero recourse, the shame of lying used to be enough. And because of ancient decorum rules, the congress can't even say "you're lying" and google the facts right there and then, they have to do this idiotic perfromatic dance of asking the same question repeatedly and getting a word salad non-answer back for hours.

Or just not going for the inquiry because, why would you? There's no penalty past "losing face" for not going. Why bother.

The system was flawed from the start, but the people were still in there for the best of everyone so it held together and mostly worked. Politicians respected one another as people and humans, even though they differed in opinion.

I personally can't see a way back for USA without a massive purge in the government followed by actual ironclad laws and processes set in stone to prevent anything like this from happening again. Let congress google basic facts, let them call people liars to their face, give them their own execuitve branch that can drag people for hearings by force if needed.

And copy the German Federal Constitutional Court[0] system, they have term limits and people are nominated through multiple channels.

fuzzfactor2• 6 months ago

Ideally they don't change course every 4 years, they change only people who become more adept at maintaining course as they go along.

Quite simply the US had founding fathers who were ahead of their time, and some uncharted waters ahead of it.

This set the example for the decent navigators who took the executive positions, but momentum can only last so long.

You need decent people to come along on a regular basis to refresh the progress.

The very system that allowed for a gifted individual to have an outsized positive outcome, has always posed a real vulnerability if the decency is compromised. Whether that is a "natural" lack of decency or if compromises escalate over time, that's a weakness which is magnified when it does show up.

Different presidents have had this problem from time to time.

When you start with a country where the big advantage is being ahead of its time with an emphasis on more decency than average, it doesn't take somebody completely behind the times or absolutely disgusting to do serious damage. Even dropping the ball one time can be a major setback.

Just ask every respectable President in history.

expedition322• 6 months ago

I am from a country with 20 political parties and near constant political drama. It makes America look sane.

The answer is contract law. Pulling the plug out of a project costs money.

Obviously this still requires a level of sanity which may no longer exist in the US.

JKCalhoun• 6 months ago

You attenuate the power of the presidency.

titzer• 6 months ago

Wild that you're being downvoted. America was explicitly founded in rejection of the power of a monarch.

randomtoast• 6 months ago

If a country changes course every four years, how can the success of a long-term project be ensured?

Simple. You begin constructing an offshore wind park when someone competent is president, pause the project for four years during Trump's term, and then resume work to complete it.

ghtbircshotbe• 6 months ago

This problem has already been solved. The legislature creates the laws, the executive executes the laws, and the judiciary interprets the laws. But now we're in a situation where the executive does whatever it wants including illegally shutting down congressionally created programs, the legislature lets it happen despite not having the votes to legally change the law, and the judiciary is also letting it happen when they aren't inventing new constitutional amendments. If you're asking how to prevent society from descending into authoritarianism, they've been trying to figure that out since Caesar at least.

Throaway1982• 6 months ago

Ironically Caesar was merely the culmination of the ever-increasing centralization of wealth & power into fewer hands. He wasn't assassinated in order to restore freedom to Rome, he was assassinated by former elites who resented that they weren't in charge like they used to be. Civil rights actually improved, somewhat dramatically, during Rome's Imperial age.

pjc503• 6 months ago

The legislature

Congress 53/45 R; House 219/215 R

creates the laws, the executive

Donald Trump (R)

executes the laws, and the judiciary

SCOTUS (5-4 R)

interprets the laws.

So Republicans create, execute, interpret, and enforce the laws. Congratulations on discovering how the party system works. Guess you're Big Poland (PiS) now. You can watch this on the news: Fox (R-Murdoch), CBS (R-Weiss), or read about it in the Washington Post (R-Bezos)

(snark aside, the situation where there's popular demand for authoritarianism is very dangerous, difficult to unravel, but like in Poland, it can be done once the public realize their mistake)

ecshafer3• 6 months ago

Caesar was assassinated because the Senate was jealous Caesar's wealth, power, prestige and love by the people. Also because he wanted to redistribute land, threatening their own power.

Freedumbs• 6 months ago

You need a mutex to constrain the natural tendencies. The mutex is regulation. Regulation has been defeated and we live in oligarchy (see: Gilens and Page).

maxdo• 6 months ago

People mix up freedom and dicatorship here:

1. Freedom — free markets, minimal regulation Early USA had both political and economic freedom. Modern China has only economic freedom (plus heavy protectionism).

2. Dictatorship of a certain group Modern USA and the Western world have a dictatorship of lawyers, regulators, and ideological enforcement. Communist China has straightforward political dictatorship. As you can see, it's not black and white. China struggled when they had both economic and political dictatorship, but thrived once they introduced economic freedom.

3. It's always a race, freedom of the past is not enough. What the West should do is focus on better planning, less politics, more economic freedom, and a dictatorship of data-driven decisions instead.

flumpcakes• 6 months ago

This must be the best example of why China will overtake the US as the world's number 1 super power before 2050. I would link you to a white house press briefing from Biden https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases... but it has been taken down by Trumpists. Another irony.

It's a shame that the US is being actively sabotaged by Republicans and Trumpists and people will continue on because saying that is apparently a capital-p Politics and not an objective fact.

stainablesteel4• 6 months ago

looking at wind as objectively as I can, it doesn't look like a good investment, and the environmental problems caused by putting these in the ocean are tragic to wildlife

jibal2• 6 months ago

Then apparently you have a very limited ability to be objective.

aucisson_masque2• 6 months ago

USA was already extremely, laughably, backward on renewable energy.

At least with Trump, there is no more pretending. It's gas, gas, gas and pollution.

0xTJ• 6 months ago

* gas, gas, coal, clean beautiful coal, and oil, don't forget about oil, drill, baby drill.

elzbardico• 6 months ago

Trump is mostly correct. Offshore wind is a costly and inefficient scam.

padjo3• 6 months ago

How is it a scam? Does it not actually produce electricity?

jibal2• 6 months ago

Provide evidence for any of these (radically false) claims.

array_key_first5• 6 months ago

Ah but it's more fun if you don't!

1970-01-01• 6 months ago

Imagine a world where Biden blocked construction of oil rigs and you can see how crazy this all looks to the rest of the world. Oh wait he did. It's tit for tat politics and nothing else. The downside is we have to play along until the courts fix it.

Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

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