Three days before President Trump took office, an undersea-cable company abandoned plans to build a plant that would employ up to 350 people in Somerset, Massachusetts. Media outlets were quick to spotlight the loss as a specter of what’s to come for the offshore wind industry that Trump put on ice with the stroke of a pen last week.
It’s a reminder that Trump’s attempts to kill the offshore wind industry threaten not just the decarbonization plans of a few states, but job opportunities for a wide array of Americans. In fact, over 64% of the offshore wind manufacturing and supply-chain investments made or announced are in Republican congressional districts, according to data from industry group Oceantic Network.
The 64% statistic describes mostly private investment into offshore wind but also includes some public investment, including money flowing in from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration’s cornerstone climate law and a favorite target of Trump. In total, $3.4 billion has either been invested in or pledged to Republican districts to build a domestic offshore wind supply chain.
“Who’s benefiting? It’s the entire United States,” said Liz Burdock, president and CEO of the group, which previously went by the name Business Network for Offshore Wind.
But Trump last week signed an executive order that paused the approval of leases, permits, and loans for both offshore and onshore wind energy pending a federal review. The freeze will likely impact projects in earlier stages of development while the nine commercial-scale offshore wind projects that already have federal permits in hand appear safe.
It could also ripple throughout the emerging U.S. offshore wind supply chain. Developers have signed nearly 2,000 supply-chain contracts with manufacturing firms in 40 states, including some that are hundreds of miles from a coastline, like Ohio and Wisconsin.
For example, said Burdock, Italian shipbuilding firm Fincantieri is building customized offshore vessels in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, which is part of a Republican congressional district. And in Houston, Texas — which she called the “engine” of offshore wind manufacturing — multiple companies are adapting technologies used for the region’s offshore oil operations to accommodate offshore wind.
Investments reach states red and blue
In a 60-page photo-heavy publication released six days before Trump’s inauguration, Oceantic prominently featured the Republican-leaning regions central to the U.S. offshore wind industry.
A worker smiles at an undersea cable factory near Charleston, South Carolina. Welders with masks work on wind-friendly aluminum parts near the Florida coast. A crowd gathers on a dock near Galliano, Louisiana, for the christening of a freshly painted $97 million vessel purpose-built for offshore turbine installation. The report’s photographs are meant to profile the diversity of workers and places already intertwined in the ongoing construction of ocean turbines across the Northeast.
“You can see the human face behind the industry … beyond the beauty shots of turbines,” said Burdock. “We wanted to show that in our report as proof of the jobs that are being created.”
America currently has 73 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in various stages of development, according to the latest data collected by the American Clean Power Association. Before Trump returned to office, the industry group estimated that offshore wind would support 56,000 jobs by 2030. About a third of those would be operation and maintenance jobs while the vast majority would be direct construction jobs, at least in these early years of the sector.
Only one commercial-scale U.S. offshore wind project is in operation today, but at least five more are under construction, all off the coastlines of Northeastern states.
In addition to the money flowing to manufacturing projects to support these installations, Oceantic reports that offshore wind has spurred $1.8 billion worth of direct investments into updating 21 shipyards and across 12 states, like the St. John’s Ship Building shipyard in Palatka, Florida, which sits in a district that’s been represented by a Republican since 1989.
Thousands of workers are also helping to update 25 ports across the East, West and Gulf coasts that will store massive wind components and safely load them onto vessels that can then carry them miles out to sea for installation. Oceantic reports that a recent revitalization project at a Connecticut port created 400 construction jobs and sourced components from Texas.
