Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
Save Long Beach Island (Save LBI), a New Jersey-based grassroots organization opposed to offshore wind development, issued a press release on January 6, 2026, claiming that offshore wind projects significantly underestimate noise-related harm to marine mammals, including whales and dolphins.
Save Long Beach Island (Save LBI), a New Jersey-based grassroots organization opposed to offshore wind development, issued a press release on January 6, 2026, claiming that offshore wind projects significantly underestimate noise-related harm to marine mammals, including whales and dolphins.
LONG BEACH ISLAND, NJ, January 6, 2026 โ Save Long Beach Island, Inc. (Save LBI), a grassroots organization dedicated to sound energy policies and preserving our shore and ocean environment, has long contended that the high levels of noise generated during the surveying, construction, and operation phases of an offshore wind project have a detrimental effect on sea mammals โ an assertion backed by previous scientific measurements and calculations.
Because hearing acuity plays a central role in the ability of a whale or dolphin to navigate its surroundings โ especially during migration โ elevated noise can cause serious harm, including impaired or permanent hearing loss, and behavioral disturbances that can also lead indirectly to harm and death.
For years, NOAA has ignored research presented by Save LBI and maintained there is no evidence that marine mammals are directly harmed by wind energy activities. This inaction prompted Save LBI to take two steps in November: (1) petition the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) and NOAA to overhaul the flawed methodology being used for calculating โTakesโ โ instances of fatality, serious harm, or behavioral disturbance to whales and other marine mammals โ and (2) submit formal comments in response to the Regional Standards for Offshore Wind Project-Level Monitoring draft proposal released by NOAAโs Northeast Fisheries Science Center.
The Save LBI petition, which NOAA agreed to consider in late December, cites major scientific and mathematical errors in NOAA approved โTake estimationโ methods and presents calculations that show significant harm and disturbance to whales and other mammals in the vicinity of offshore wind projects. The petition is available on SaveLBI.org.
Save LBI has also asked NOAA in a formal 11-page technical critique of its proposed monitoring standards to define and require a specific monitoring program that will either verify the assumptions and calculations in its Take estimation methods or, if not, revise those methods. Existing regulations require the agency to verify Take estimates, particularly under Endangered Species Act (ESA) regulations (50 CFR ยง402.14(i)(5), to do new take estimates based on measurements and animal observation and compare to those used for Biologic Opinion approvals, and if the new results exceed the prior, to re-initiate ESA consultation immediately. Toward that end, Save LBI has asked that any monitoring plan provide the data to verify (or not):
โ The 10-decibel (dB) noise source reduction assumed from placing bubble curtains or similar systems around the pile driving operation, by measuring the noise level near the pile driver with the bubble curtains on and off
โ The pile driving noise level versus distance numbers in the noise exposure modeling reports supporting project approval that were asked for in the BOEM โRecommendation Document for Offshore Wind Pile Driving Sound Exposure Modeling and Sound Field Measurementโ
โ The 30 dB and higher noise loss factors in the pile driving noise exposure modeling reports versus the 20 dB and lower factors that Save LBI has contended are valid and that show up in the recent sound field measurement study for the Vineyard Wind 1 project; since the elevated noise range and area increase exponentially with a lower dB noise loss factor, this discrepancy alone would result in a many-fold increase in the number of animal Takes
โ That no permanent hearing loss will occur from the accumulated noise energy received by a whale passing by a pile driving activity or an operating wind complex, based on the noise versus distance measurements and observing the time it takes for a while to pass by; straightforward calculations by Save LBI show that such hearing loss will occur within 5 miles of pile driving and 2.25 miles of the perimeter of an operating wind complex, but the noise exposure modeling reports supporting project approval do not show that
โ That the North Atlantic right whaleโs migration will not be impaired or blocked by measuring the noise levels both within and outside the operating wind complex to find the distance where the noise level drops below the 120 dB whale disturbance level, and compare that distance to the width of any overlapping migration corridor
โ That very little animal disturbance occurs at levels below 160 dB for pile driving and 120 dB for turbine operation as NOAA has contended by observing animal behavior at the distances corresponding to those noise levels
โ That the elevated noise range from vessel surveying is small, as the approvals assumed versus the several miles that Save LBI calculated, by measuring the noise levels from the vessel for various sparker device energy inputs as was required in leases, but apparently never done, or if done, not publicly reported.
Save LBI President Bob Stern points out that โthe decibel (dB) scale that measures noise level is logarithmic and that an incorrect 10 dB lower number underestimates the noise actually being received by the animal by 90%, so for the whaleโs sake we humans need to get these dB numbers rightโ.
โThe NOAA monitoring proposal also seeks to establish developer-defined plans in place of true standards, making it unlikely that any questionable assumptions that supported project approval will be culled out,โ he added.
โIt is heartening that NOAA leadership will consider our petition regarding our concerns with the underestimates of animal Takes,โ Stern concluded. โWe ask them to put forward a monitoring program in conjunction with that review that will either verify or disprove the concerns we have raised. If our concerns are verified, then NOAA should define and require the use of new mathematically and scientifically defensible methods for calculating marine mammal Takes.โ
About Save LBI
Save LBI is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization that has been active in ongoing litigation and other efforts to protect the coastal and marine environment from the senseless industrialization of our oceans. The organization is led by Beach Haven, N.J. resident Bob Stern, a Ph.D. scientist with experience in environmental planning and environmental law. He is a former manager of the U.S. Department of Energy office responsible for overseeing environmental reviews related to energy projects and of the Bureau of Air Quality Planning within the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP). For more information on Save LBI and its efforts, please SaveLBI.org
The all-of-government approach to climate by Podesta-Biden-Harris covers the science agencies too. Climate hype, all the time, as well as nonstop cheerleading toward politically correct, economically incorrect government-enabled energies. It is now time for reversal, including with environmental issues concerning dilute, intermittent, fragile, and invasive wind and solar.
โMany of these 41 CFACT articles were sent to key NOAA whale protection people when published over a period of 2.5 years. All have been carefully ignored, an ongoing deception. Trump has promised action.โ ( โ David Wojick, CFACT)
The all-of-government approach to climate by Podesta-Biden-Harris covers the science agencies too. Climate hype, all the time, as well as nonstop cheerleading toward politically correct, economically incorrect government-enabled energies. It is now time for reversal, including with environmental issues concerning dilute, intermittent, fragile, and invasive wind and solar.
David Wojick, Ph.D., senior advisor to the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), [1] has chronicled the whale death/offshore wind connection since the issue arose in mid-2022. His โNew Yearโs retrospectiveโ provides a listing of this work. He begins:
Many of these 41 CFACT articles were sent to key NOAA whale protection people when published over a period of 2.5 years. All have been carefully ignored, an ongoing deception. Trump has promised action.
[1] David Wojick, independent consultant and senior advisor to CFACT, is a civil engineer with a Ph.D. in logic and analytic philosophy of science. He specializes in science and technology issues in energy and the environment. Wojick has served on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University and the sta๏ฌ of the Naval Research Laboratory. Many of his articles for think tanks, trade associations, businesses, and government agencies can be found here.
Over the last decade as offshore wind farms proliferated around the U.K., there has been a disturbing rise in coastline strandings of whales, dolphins and porpoises. Since the turn of the century, strandings have more than doubled and are now running at over 1,000 animals a year. The slaughter has been largely ignored by the mainstream media that runs with the agreed narrative that offshore wind is environmentally friendly and is the key to achieving Net Zero by 2050.
Over the last decade as offshore wind farms proliferated around the U.K., there has been a disturbing rise in coastline strandings of whales, dolphins and porpoises. Since the turn of the century, strandings have more than doubled and are now running at over 1,000 animals a year. The slaughter has been largely ignored by the mainstream media that runs with the agreed narrative that offshore wind is environmentally friendly and is the key to achieving Net Zero by 2050. In fact, wind turbines, whether on or off the shore, are a clear danger to many endangered species and concerns are mounting about their widespread and harmful effects on the natural world. Years ago, the great cause in environmentalism was to save the whales, but these concerns seem to have abated of late, while the slaughter of millions of onshore bats, along with the destruction of many types of large raptors, is simply ignored.
Andrew Montford of Net Zero Watch has updated his graph on the stranding of U.K. cetaceans and compared it to the rise of offshore wind capacity.
Both totals have soared in recent years. Is there a causal link? Perhaps not one that would inconvenience Net Zero fanatics, but Montford says the suggestion of a causal relationship โremains very strongโ.
The Daily Sceptic has reported in the past about the mounting casualties of whales stranded off the north eastern coast of the United States in the wake of massive offshore windfarm construction. There have been around 300 fatalities in the last five years, and many suggest the extensive sonar soundings, pile driving and heavy concentrated vessel traffic is causing havoc with aquatic feeding, breeding and migration up and down the coast.
The latest U.K. stranding figures have been reported to Ascobans, a UN environmental conservation body for cetaceans in the NE Atlantic. Commenting on the โshockingโ figures, the environmental writer and campaigner Jason Endfield called them โa wake-up call to those planning to further industrialise our seas in the name of renewable energy, and especially offshore wind farmsโ. In his view, it made no sense to increase ocean noise to levels that are โliterally unbearable for marine mammalsโ.
The great cover-up of this environmental disaster continues with massive industrial parks being erected around the coasts of many countries. In the U.K., the incoming Labour government is committed to a massive expansion with the Mad Miliband spraying around billions of pounds in additional subsidies to boost an industry that would not exist in a free market.
To the fore in blowing smoke over the issue is Greenpeace USAโs senior oceans campaigner Arlo Hemphill who claims there is โno evidence whatsoeverโ connecting wind turbines to whale deaths. โItโs just a cynical disinformation campaign,โ says another Greenpeace spokesman. The mainstream media often goes along with this narrative as shown by recent tweets from Agence France-Presse reporter Manon Jacob. He dismissed the focus on wind farms as a red herring โwhen offshore wind remains thus far marginal in the U.S. and scientific evidence of large marine mammal deaths is lackingโ. This is the same Jacob who wrote a recent โfact checkโ of the Daily Sceptic that was so bad and misleading it should feature in future journalism schools as an example of how not to criticise well-sourced material.
The investigative science journalist Jo Nova has a different take on the matter: โResearchers have known since at least 2013 that pile drivers were permanently deafening porpoises, leaving them presumably to die miserable deaths wandering blindly through dark or murky seas. Where were all the professors of marine science, paid by the public to know these things, and where was the BBC?โ Spread the word, she continued. Fifty years ago, environmentalists would have raised hell about a thousand dead whales and dolphins. Now they are part of the cover-up. โThey donโt want to draw attention to the blubber on the beach in case people start asking hard questions,โ she observed.
There are however some signs that the โnothing to see here, guvโ line is starting to crack. A recent essay in Watts Up With That? suggested that an impact statement from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) had finally acknowledged the harm caused by offshore wind farms. Examining leases off the New Jersey and New York coast covering over 488,000 acres, the BOEM hints that these developments are not entirely benign โdespite being repeatedly framed as environmentally friendly solutions to the climate crisisโ. Marine mammals, sea turtles, birds and fish could suffer due to noise, habitat displacement and changes in migration patterns, it is said. Even bats, says WUWT?, which are not typically associated with offshore environments, could be affected.
The essay noted that this latest BOEM work may signal a more cautious approach, โperhaps influenced by increasing legal challenges, public backlash, and even emerging scientific research indicating that wind turbines are not as harmless as once believedโ.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Scepticโs Environment Editor.
Dominion Energy has issued a brief response to the whale protection lawsuit filed by CFACT et al. When I first saw it, I thought there must be some mistake, but it has appeared in a lot of press reports.
Dominion Energy has issued a brief response to the whale protection lawsuit filed by CFACT et al. When I first saw it, I thought there must be some mistake, but it has appeared in a lot of press reports.
This central claim by Dominion is simply absurd: โThe overwhelming consensus of federal agencies and scientific organizations is that offshore wind does not adversely impact marine life.โ No adverse impact? Seriously?
In reality, the responsible federal agency predicts an enormous adverse impact.
NOAAโs National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has authorized Dominion to acoustically harass almost 80,000 marine mammals and these noise harassments are certainly adverse impacts. They even include temporary deafness, which can easily be deadly.
First, some legal Definitions from the Marine Mammal Protection Act that NMFS is supposed to enforce:
โLevel A harassment means any act of pursuit, torment, or annoyance that has the potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild.โ
โLevel B harassment refers to acts that have the potential to disturb (but not injure) a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by disrupting behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to, migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering.โ
Note that while level B harassment is not itself injurious, it may lead to injury or death. For example, if the animal flees the noise harassment into heavy ship traffic and is struck and killed.
Analog: a firecracker thrown at a dog causes it to run into a busy street, where it is struck and killed. The car killed the dog, but the firecracker caused the death.
A year and a half ago, I wrote an article about this risk: โHow to kill whales with offshore wind.โ
Most of the Dominion noise harassment is from pile driving (plus some sonar). Here is a good example of the Feds describing how pile driving noise harassment can cause harm. I could not have said it better.
โIt is possible that pile driving could displace animals into areas with lower habitat quality or higher risk of vessel collision or fisheries interaction. Multiple construction activities within the same calendar year could potentially affect migration, foraging, calving, and individual fitness. The magnitude of impacts would depend upon the locations, duration, and timing of concurrent construction. Such impacts could be long term, of high intensity, and of high exposure level. Generally, the more frequently an individualโs normal behaviors are disrupted or the longer the duration of the disruption, the greater the potential for biologically significant consequences to individual fitness. The potential for biologically significant effects is expected to increase with the number of pile-driving events to which an individual is exposed.โ
I cannot imagine why Dominion would put out such an absurd claim. Is it ignorance, deception, or something else? In any case, I would love to see them try to use this nutty argument in Court.
Leah Stokes is the senior author of a new paper in PNAS, Prevalence and predictors of wind energy opposition in North America, in which she blames White people for opposing wind projects. She goes on to say that โโฆwealthier, Whiter communities [opposition] leads to continued pollution in poorer communities, and communities of color.โ
There is evidence that offshore wind projects, or at least the geophysical site surveys required for building them, harm whales. The fact that these geophysical surveys can harm whales is well known and regulations prohibit the surveys, but numerous authorizations for surveys [waiving the rules] for renewable wind projects have been granted anyway. There is also evidence that wind turbines can harm our health, due to the low frequency sounds they produce. Thus, there are good reasons to protest wind turbine development, whether the protestor is White or not.
Stokes claims in her paper that she has โno competing interest.โ This was accepted by the editor of the paper, Michael Mann. Yet her podcast, โA Matter of Degrees,โ has received the following donations from organizations that support wind power:
โA connection to the renewable industry is OK and not biased, but to the fossil fuel industry it is. This seems to be bias.โ
This forced Google Bard to admit that:
โBoth the renewable energy industry and the fossil fuel industry have a vested interest in the climate change debate.โ
Thus, Stokes appears to have a competing interest, that could lead to bias in her paper. Advocates of wind are financially supporting her podcast. According to the PNAS rules, a financial interest may include:
โโฆmembership on a standing advisory council or committee, service on the board of directors, public association with the company or its products, โฆ compensation as a spokesperson, โฆ or financial support.โ
Do I need to ask why she left out her competing interests, or why Michael Mann accepted the paper with the โno conflict of interestโ statement?
One of the first things Biden did after occupying the Oval Office was toย halt oil & gas lease salesย in the Gulf of Mexico.ย This was illegal. When forced to choose between holding the lease sale, or having the Secretary of the Interior face contempt of court charges,ย they held Sale 257 in November 2021.
A corrupt Obama judgeย voidedย the results of that Sale 257 in January 2022. As that case was being appealed in July 2022,ย Sen. Joe Manchinโs (D-WV) Inflation Reduction Actย was passed by Congress and signed into law by Biden. This law required the Interior Department to honor the results of Sale 257 and continue to hold future sales over the open areas of the Gulf of Mexico. The law required Sale 261 to be held before September 30, 2023. Sale 261 is scheduled for September 27, 2023.
On August 17, 2023 BOEM issued anย NTLย (Notice to Lessees and Operators) implementing the arbitrary and unlawful restrictions outlined in the Riceโs whales settlement.
The NTL is allegedlyย temporary and voluntary, while the โBureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and BOEM are engaged in reinitiated consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) on the 2020 Biological Opinion.โ However, there are no more lease sales scheduled after Sale 261; nor has BOEM issued a new 5-year leasing plan, since Biden occupied the White House. The laws require them to issue a 5-year leasing plan and to continue holding lease sales.
โCircumvents law and ignores scienceโ
For Immediate Release: Monday, August 21, 2023 NOIA Contact: jwilliams@noia.org
NTL on Riceโs Whale Circumvents Law and Ignores Science, Will Have Far Reaching Impacts on Gulf of Mexico
Washington, D.C.ย โ National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) President Erik Milito issued the following statement after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)ย issued a Notice to Lesseesย (NTL) with recommended restrictions on ongoing industry activities within the expanded Riceโs Whale habitat area. BOEM delayed issuance of the NTL from last Fridayโs deadline.
โThis decision by the Biden Administration does an end-around legal requirements and the public process, imposing unwarranted restrictions on U.S. energy production at a time of continued inflation with prices rising at the pump for consumers. The NTL, coupled with the broader Stipulated Stay Agreement, poses a barrier to Americaโs energy production capabilities within a region that not only sustains hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs but also yields some of the worldโs least carbon-intensive barrels.
โDespite lacking ample scientific evidence to support such extensive bans on operations, the agreement targets the domestic offshore oil and gas industry. Theย Stipulated Stay agreementย ignores the best science, contravenes Congressโ explicit directives in enacting the Inflation Reduction Act, and threatens Americaโs energy independence.
โMoreover, the federal government is moving forward to expand these protections to other ocean users and industries through the proposed designation of critical habitat for the Riceโs Whale that will establish a restricted pathway through the entirety of the Gulf of Mexico, imposing disruptions to the full Gulf Coast economy โ home to numerous strategic national ports โ and reverberating throughout the whole U.S. economy.
โAmong other things, making areas off-limits, imposing speed restrictions, and limiting transit at night and times of low visibility will impact the ability of the offshore energy industry to explore, construct, and develop energy projects in the Gulf of Mexico. The restrictions imposed by the lease stipulations and the NTL jeopardizes the vast concert of vessels working in the Gulf of Mexico and will very likely lead to an increase in the number of vessels at sea at a given time, increasing traffic, risk, and overall emissions. The proposed restrictions would potentially eliminate or hamper safely established and efficient activities in the Gulf of Mexico.
โThe Riceโs whale is currently afforded protections under both the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Expanding the Riceโs whale habitat to include areas where there is only a negligible or no presence at all will dilute conservation resources that should be going towards protecting actual habitat areas. โSue and settleโ or โregulation by litigationโ fails to respect both environmental preservation and the economic vitality that the energy sector supports.โ
In response to this, most recent, unlawful effort by the Biden maladministration to shut down offshore drilling, the State of Louisiana, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and Chevron USA haveย filed a lawsuitย in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana Lake Charles Division. This is in the 5th Circuit, where the oil & gas industry has won lawsuits over regulatory malfeasance. The 5th Circuit is overseen by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. If thereโs a court where this arbitrary and capricious action will be immediately vacated, itโs the 5th Circuit.
Among the restrictions is the โarbitrary and unlawful last-minute changes by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (โBOEMโ) to the terms of Lease Sale 261, a lease sale under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (โOCSLAโ) covering much of the western and central Gulf of Mexico that Congress has instructed must occur by September 30, 2023โ. These last-minute changes include the removal of about 6 million acres, in the heart of the most prolific part of the Gulf of Mexico from Lease Sale 261.
ARBITRARY-OR-CAPRICIOUS TEST
The arbitrary-or-capricious test is a short-hand term for the scope-of-judicial-review provision in section 706(2)(A) of theย APAย directing reviewing courts to invalidate agency actions found to be โarbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.โ
This test applies to all agency action, specifically the review of the factual basis for agency rulemaking. In this context, reviewing courts have overturned agency rules if the underlying policy judgments, reasoning, or asserted factual premises of the action are so unreasonable as to be arbitrary.
A different test, the โsubstantial evidenceโ test, is required by the APA to be used in decisions made after formal hearings (i.e., formal adjudications andย formal rulemakings). But court interpretations of these two tests have indicated that there is not much difference between their application.
The Riceโs whales core habitat area is in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, where oil & gas leasing has been largely prohibited for decades. The dark blue strip, along the continental slope of the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico is what has been unlawfully removed from Lease Sale 261. The only purpose of these new restrictions is a continuation of the Biden maladministrationโs unlawful efforts to shut down oil & gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico. This regulatory malfeasance is arbitrary and capricious, with malice aforethought.
API Press Release
API, State of Louisiana, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. Challenge Lease Sale 261 Final Notice of Sale
WASHINGTON, August 24, 2023 โ The American Petroleum Institute (API) today joined with the State of Louisiana and Chevron U.S.A. Inc. inย filing a challengeย to the Department of the Interior (DOI) Bureau of Ocean Managementโs (BOEM) Final Notice of Sale for Lease Sale 261. Todayโs challenge follows BOEMโsย announcement yesterdayย to hold the final offshore lease sale mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act, but with significantly reduced acreage and severe restrictions on oil and natural gas vessel traffic.ย
โToday weโre taking steps to challenge the Department of the Interiorโs unjustified actions to further restrict American energy access in the Gulf of Mexico,โย said API Senior Vice President and General Counsel Ryan Meyers.ย โDespite Congressโ clear intention in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration has announced a โlease sale in name onlyโ that removes approximately 6 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico from the sale and adds new and unjustified restrictions on oil and natural gas vessels operating in this area, ignoring all other vessel traffic. Together with the State of Louisiana and Chevron U.S.A. Inc., we intend to use every legal tool at our disposal to challenge these actions.โ
โOnce again, Joe Biden is unlawfully attempting to kill both Louisiana jobs and affordable energy for all Americans,โย said Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry.ย โWe are yet again taking the President to court, where we trust the rule of law will be followed and Bidenโs bureaucrats will be defeated.โย
Background on the Five-Year Program for Federal Offshore Leasing:
For 45 years, the Interior Department has been required to prepare a five-year offshore leasing program that will best meet Americaโs energy needs for the ensuing five-year period, detailing a schedule for regular oil and natural gas lease sales, including in the Gulf of Mexico.
It has been more than one year since the Department of the Interior allowed the five-year program for federal offshore oil and natural gas leasing to lapse with no immediate replacement.
The U.S. Gulf of Mexico produces some of the lowest carbon intensity barrels in the world. Constrained production in this basin could be replaced by higher carbon intensity barrels from elsewhere in the world.
According to the U.S. EIA, Gulf of Mexico federal offshore oil production accounts for 15% of total U.S. crude oil production and federal offshore natural gas production in the Gulf accounts for 5% of total U.S. dry production.
Over 47% of total U.S. petroleum refining capacity is located along the Gulf coast, as well as 51% of total U.S. natural gas processing plant capacity.
An agreement announced last month proposed operating โrecommendationsโ that would impose significant burdens on operators and increase emissions from vessels forced to operate at suboptimal speeds or idle outside the restriction areas.
Adopting the nighttime and low visibility restrictions could cut transit windows to approximately 50%โ requiring industry to balance the governmentโs recommended practices against safely and efficiently servicing ongoing operations.
These restrictions would unfairly single out oil and gas traffic in an area that is one of the most used maritime areas in U.S. waters by a variety of industries. Thousands of vessels pass through this area every day.
API represents all segments of Americaโs natural gas and oil industry, which supports nearly 11 million U.S. jobs and is backed by a growing grassroots movement of millions of Americans. Our approximately 600 members produce, process and distribute the majority of the nationโs energy, and participate inย API Energy Excellenceยฎ,ย which is accelerating environmental and safety progress by fostering new technologies and transparent reporting. API was formed in 1919 as a standards-setting organization and has developed more than 800 standards to enhance operational and environmental safety, efficiency and sustainability.
Manchin rips administration over Gulf of Mexico leasing decision
by Matt Harvey MANAGING EDITOR
Aug 25, 2023
WASHINGTON (WV News) โ The Biden administrationโs decision to reduce a Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale from about 73.4 million acres to 67 million acres caught the ire of U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. and chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
[โฆ]
โThis administration continues to kowtow to radical environmentalists at the expense of American energy security and costs to American families,โ Manchin said.
โLet me be clear, the exclusion of more than 6 million productive acres from the upcoming offshore oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico based on a settlement reached in the name of protecting Riceโs whale while conveniently only targeting oil and gas is yet another example of this administrationโs intentional undermining of the strong energy security provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act,โ he said.
โNotably, they have issued no such blanket ban for future offshore wind in this area. Todayโs announcement comes months after the Department of the Interior put in black and white that they were choosing climate over energy security during the Alaska lease sale. The IRA required lease sales to get oil and gas leasing back on track to reduce the cost for working families to cook, heat their homes and fill their gasoline tank,โ Manchin said.
The general media response to this lawsuit is clueless, if not intentionally dishonest.
Oil giants are lawyering up against an endangered whale: Chevron, the API, and the state of Louisiana are fighting a White House attempt to protect the Gulf of Mexico (Quartz)
Oil companies sue U.S. over Gulf auction changes meant to protect whale (Reuters)
Oil industry sues Biden administration for shrinking Gulf lease to protect endangered whale (The Hill)
This is not about protecting endangered whales. They are already protected. This is about using the administrative state to slowly strangle an industry that does not support its agenda.
Defenders of Atlantic offshore wind have taken to saying that offshore oil and gas development is more dangerous to whales and other marine mammals. This is wildly false.
Here is a recent example in the DC Journal: โTo Protect Whales, We Should Ban Offshore Oil and Gas, Not Wind Farmsโ.
To begin with these authors, including a whale expert, have the same problem we see repeatedly in the mainstream articles trying to defend offshore wind. They do not acknowledge the nature of the threat.
It is not the noise that kills the whales; it is what the noise causes the whales to do, especially get hit by ships. This then depends heavily on the location, duration and size of the noise. Here the offshore wind threat is enormous compared of oil and gas. But no mention is made of this stark fact, so letโs look at it a bit.
The proposed offshore wind megaproject is to line the Atlantic coast with dozens of huge wind โfarmsโ. These monster wind facilities are directly adjacent to one of the worldโs heaviest traffic shipping corridors. This corridor is named the M-95 because it parallels I-95, Americaโs heaviest traffic interstate highway.
The threat is that the extreme noise from developing and operating these huge facilities will force the whales into heavy ship traffic. NOAA predicts that thousands of whales and hundreds of thousands of other marine mammals will be harassed by this noise. The threat is obvious.
In contrast, offshore oil and gas development is scattered about in the Gulf of Mexico, where shipping is far less concentrated.
Moreover the excessive noise from an oil and gas development is very brief, typically a few months, while with offshore wind it goes on for decades. Oil development and wind both begin with loud seismic surveys, but then the similarity ends.
NOAA has issued only a few survey harassment permits for oil studies in the last decade, because development has been going on for a very long time. Wind permits are running a dozen a year.
After the survey a typical wind facility might then install a hundred or more incredibly tall towers. Each requires driving an enormous monopile into the seabed. These piles may be 300โฒ long and 30โฒ in diameter so the pile driving noise is horrendous. It can be heard underwater 50 miles away. Oil development just requires drilling, which makes very little noise, certainly nothing like pile driving.
Then when the oil rig is quietly pumping the wind towers are noisily generating electricity. These are huge, new generation generators which by some estimates each make as much operational noise underwater as a supertanker under full throttle. A single facility might have several hundred of these incredibly loud monstrosities.
As to size, an oil rig is maybe 350โฒ on a side, while a single wind facility can cover a whopping 150 square miles. Dozens of these monsters are now proposed along the Atlantic coast, right beside the M-95 ship traffic. In fact they are largely filling up the low traffic areas where the whales might be safe.
So in summary an oil rig is tiny and quite, just maybe making some seismic survey noise for a few months in the beginning. Wind facilities are enormous and incredibly noisy for their entire 20-30 year lives.
When it comes to redirecting whales into ship traffic there is simply no comparison. Oil is harmless; wind is deadly.
In Episode 374 of District of Conservation, Gabriella welcomes back Townhall editor, New York Times Bestselling Author, & Fox Nation host Katie Pavlich, back to the podcast. Katie is also a Fox News Contributor. She just released Season 2 of her wildly successful show โLuxury Hunting Lodges of America.โ
โI think for me, the thing thatโs been coming up the most lately, is when Iโve been doing this traveling, whether itโs by plane or driving to these remote areas across the country, you know, seeing these massive wind farms up on the ridges, right, and understanding that energy is not an efficient way to gain energy, and also takes tons of resources and and makes the environment look horrible. I think that this false idea of thinking that wind energy or solar panel energy in the form that itโs in now is a substitute for things like natural gas. I mean, Iโve been in Wyoming and I donโt even see the natural gas plants hardly. But you do see the windmills that are, you know, being stood up everywhere. And you know, that the gas is much more efficient at bringing energy to what Americans need โ whether itโs farming or keeping homes warm, getting goods to market, etc. So you also look at, you know, the amount of land it takes to set up a solar farm. And so this push to move to that, and the amount of environmental resources it actually takes to fulfill those, quote, climate change goals, I think that itโs been wildly underreported what the environmental cost, actually ,is to standing up, you know, these, quote, green energy sources.โ โ Katie Pavlich
In Episode 374 of District of Conservation, Gabriella welcomes back Townhall editor, New York Times Bestselling Author, & Fox Nation host Katie Pavlich, back to the podcast. Katie is also a Fox News Contributor. She just released Season 2 of her wildly successful show โLuxury Hunting Lodges of America.โ
Katie chats with Gabriella about the new season, her favorite lodge experiences, if sheโll take the series globally, her take on current energy and conservation issues, if President Bidenโs policies are endangered hunting and fishing, how conservatives can champion true conservation, and more.
In Episode 579 of District of Conservation, Gabriella discusses the permitting reform bill – aka BAAJA – that is gaining traction in Congress now. The Senate will hold a cloture vote starting at 3:30pm ET in a motion to proceed. Gabriella discusses the status quo without permitting reform, how BAAJA is good for the environment and affordability. Tune in!SHOW NOTESBipartisan Policy Center: BAAJA ExplainerEstimating the US Energy System Impacts of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act
What happened: European bureaucrats in dreary Ireland are plotting the murder of roughly 200,000 cows in order to combat so-called climate change.
โข Mass execution is one of the options being considered by the Irish government as it scrambles to satisfy the European Unionโs draconian emissions targets by 2030.
Why it matters: Liberal activists have long sought to alleviate their personality disorders, sometimes referred to as โclimate anxiety,โ by killing innocent animals.
โข Former president Barackย Obama deployedย solar farms,ย wind farms,ย and otherย โclean energyโ murder machinesย toย execute thousands ofย bald eaglesย on his watch.
The noise produced from building the farms, especially pile-driving the turbines into the ocean floor, has been shown to affect aquatic life, according to federal regulators, who implemented a โsoft startโ approach before construction to drive away species.
The US government granted the dolphins a license to kill whales, porpoises and dolphins and itโs doing so at an astonishing rate.
Dozens of whale carcasses have washed-up along the Atlantic coast in the last few months, joining dozens of porpoises and dolphins that met the same fate.
More than 500,000 Americans have united in a concerted attempt to shutdown this subsidy-soaked industry โ an industry apparently determined to wipe out all manner of marine mammals, including the last members of endangered whale species. And which does so with absolute impunity, thanks to the โIncidental Harassment Authorizationโ. Literally a licence to kill an unlimited number of whales, porpoises and dolphins during the construction and operation of offshore wind farms.
The carcasses are washing up with such frequency that the wind industry is now able to claim, with some justification, that itโs responsible for an uptick in ecotourism, albeit that the charismatic megafauna in question is well and truly dead. Not all (dead) whale watchers are keen on the experience, however. Indeed, Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, reckons โ even if the government has given it green light โ there is no justification for the wanton slaughter.
Four whales die in 4 days: Wind farms creating โdeath zoneโ at sea says ex-Greenpeace boss New York Post Josh Miller and Franklin Raff 8 May 2023
Drilling foundations for offshore wind turbines and sound pulses used to prepare for the 900-foot towers has created a โdeath zoneโ for whales, according to former Greenpeace chief, Patrick Moore.
Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace and its ex-president in Canada, believes the acoustic systems used by vessels surveying the ocean floor harm the marine mammalsโ sense of hearing โ risking their crucial ability to navigate, and leading to more dead whales washing up onshore.
His intervention comes after four minke whale corpses were discovered between Thursday and Sunday in New York and New England, one of them on Friday in Moriches Bay, close to Westhampton, Long Island.
The four-day run of death began in Eastham, on Cape Cod, Mass., on Thursday, with a second minke found at York, Maine, on Friday, and the final corpse at Gloucester, Mass. on Sunday.
At least 36 โlargeโ whales have washed up along the East Coast since Dec. 1, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
It tracks the deaths of โlargeโ species in the Atlantic including minke, humpback, bowhead, fin, sei, sperm and blue North Atlantic right whales.
The toll of whale deaths includes 16 humpbacks thus far in 2023, seven of them found along the New Jersey shore.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an โunusual mortality eventโ among humpbacks in January 2016.
This yearโs mortalities are on pace to shatter 2017โs tally of 34, federal data shows.
The overall scale of whale deaths could be even worse: NOAA does not have a public tracker for toothed whales, such as narwhals and beluga whales.
Republican lawmakers in New Jersey said last week they wanted a 60-day moratorium on offshore wind farm development to investigate any possible link to the rash of carcasses.
Massive offshore wind turbines up to 900-feet tall have been given the go-ahead off both New York and New Jersey, as part of moves to increase renewable energy production.
In New York, cable-laying for the South Fork Wind Farm, about 35 miles east of Montauk Point began in March while in New Jersey, large areas off the Jersey Shore are zoned for turbines.
Moore voiced support for the Republicansโ concern, saying that survey work โ which uses acoustic pulses to scan the seabed ahead of drilling for the turbines โ is risky for whales.
โThe effect of the high-intensity acoustic pulses is unknown, and the excavations are muddying waters for what will be years on end,โ Moore said. โIt is not reasonable to say there is no possibility of a causal relationship.โ
Whales and other endangered species impacted by the acoustic pulses could be guided to their demise, with possible strandings in shallow water, striking vessels or getting entangled in fishing gear, Moore said.
โThey tend to migrate south in the winter and north in the summer on certain pathways, just like birds,โ he continued. โAnd it in this case, they appear to be swimming back into a death zone.โ
Offshore wind vessels typically use high-resolution geophysical (HRG) surveys during siting efforts, utilizing a โsuite of active sound sourcesโ to obtain images of the seafloor and other geophysical features.
Two offshore wind farms are currently operating in US waters. Block Island Wind Farm off Rhode Island, which has five turbines, has been online since late 2016. The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project, which has two turbines off Virginia Beach, has been fully operational since fall 2020.
New Jersey state Sen. Anthony Bucco, R-Boonton, noted that the feds started tracking the spate of dead humpbacks along the East Coast since 2016 โ the same year Rhode Islandโs Block Island Wind Farm went operational.
โThereโs too much of a coincidence here to ignore, and we continue to rapidly push forward,โ Bucco told The Post. โThis activity off our coast is only going to dramatically increase as they begin pile-driving and installing these wind turbines. So if this is having an effect on our marine mammals now, it could be catastrophic when that work begins.โ
Greenpeace has long distanced itself from Moore, accusing the 75-year-old Canadian of lobbying for polluters and exaggerating his role. It said in 2010: โAlthough Mr. Moore played a significant role in Greenpeace Canada for several years, he did not found Greenpeace.โ
Moore insists Greenpeace only disavowed him when he came out in favor of nuclear energy in a Washington Post op-ed in April 2006.
โGreenpeace has betrayed the mission of its founders,โ Moore said. โThey are protecting [windmills] instead of wild whales.โ New York Post
Conservative watchdogs highlight โalarmingโ surge in whale deaths as wind farms grow off NY, NJ coasts New York Post Josh Christenson 23 April 2023
Conservative watchdog groups ran a guerrilla-style ad campaign on the Jersey Shore for Earth Day, drawing attention to a surge in whale deaths amid the growth of offshore wind farms.
Beachgoers in Atlantic City on Saturday looked on as a single-propeller plane carried a message waving from a banner โ โSAVE-WHALES-STOP-WINDMILLS.ORGโ โ and drivers heading out of town saw a billboard with the same message and a picture of a dead whale washed ashore.
The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the Heartland Institute sponsored the ads to highlight the potential threat that wind turbine development poses to whales, dolphins and other aquatic life.
The campaign comes after a ProPublica report last week found that federal regulators in the Biden administration have downplayed environmental risks to greenlight โan unprecedented expansion for offshore windโ projects โ including tax incentives through the presidentโs Inflation Reduction Act for renewable energy developers.
Steve Milloy, a senior fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute who sits on Heartlandโs board of directors, told The Post that the ad campaign reveals how โOrwellianโ government action on the environment has become.
โAs the Biden administration is literally permitting the offshore wind industry to kill endangered whales under the guise of โsaving the planet,โ Earth Day has gone 180 degrees from where it started and has become truly Orwellian,โ Milloy said.
โItโs gone from โSave the Whalesโ to โKill the Whales.โ And the green groups that have promoted Earth Day for 53 years are totally okay with this agenda.โ
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow president Craig Rucker said the push to build the wind farms comes โdespite growing evidence that whales are being impacted by the preliminary sonar blasting being conducted to site windmills, as well as scores of the marine mammals washing up dead on beaches.โ
โโDamn the whales, full speed aheadโ seems to be the official policy of the Biden administration when it comes to the construction of offshore wind,โ Rucker said in a statement. โThe White House seems to remain unfazed and fixated on implementing its reckless โnet zeroโ energy agenda.โ
โLetโs hope some court steps in to, at a minimum, place an injunction against any continued offshore wind energy development until proper environmental studies can be conducted,โ he added.
The noise produced from building the farms, especially pile-driving the turbines into the ocean floor, has been shown to affect aquatic life, according to federal regulators, who implemented a โsoft startโ approach before construction to drive away species.
The ProPublica report states that in the next 10 years, more than 3,000 turbines will be built and nearly 10,000 miles of cable will be laid on 2.4 million acres of the ocean managed by the federal government.
The construction would involve scores of ships traveling at high speeds and crisscrossing known whale habitats, increasing the chances of marine mammals being fatally struck.
Developers like Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, which has been approved to start wind farms off the coast of New York and New Jersey, receive special authorization from the National Marine Fisheries Service to potentially injure or kill the whales as long as mitigation protocols and reporting procedures are followed.
The noise produced from building the farms, especially pile-driving the turbines into the ocean floor, has been shown to affect aquatic life, according to federal regulators, who implemented a โsoft startโ approach before construction to drive away species.
The ProPublica report states that in the next 10 years, more than 3,000 turbines will be built and nearly 10,000 miles of cable will be laid on 2.4 million acres of the ocean managed by the federal government.
The construction would involve scores of ships traveling at high speeds and crisscrossing known whale habitats, increasing the chances of marine mammals being fatally struck.
Developers like Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, which has been approved to start wind farms off the coast of New York and New Jersey, receive special authorization from the National Marine Fisheries Service to potentially injure or kill the whales as long as mitigation protocols and reporting procedures are followed.
Feds admit offshore wind can kill whales! CFACT David Wojick 27 April 2023
Despite public proclamations of innocence, it turns out BOEM and NOAA clearly acknowledge the deadly threat of offshore wind development to marine mammals. Not surprisingly they do it in documents that are subject to judicial review, lest they be caught fibbing.
Of course these admissions are well hidden, buried in the depths of thousand page documents, but they are there to be found. These are the Draft Environmental Impact Statements (DEIS) that precede each offshore wind project. They are jointly prepared by BOEM and NOAA.
The key is that the overall project EIS includes the EIS for NOAAโs harassment authorizations for the construction of that project. In fact you can find this language by searching the DEIS for the word โharassmentโ. I am told that this is standard language which varies little from project to project.
The standard language says just what we have been saying! Harassment is likely to lead to dangerous behavior, including increased likelihood of deadly ship strikes and entanglements. It also says, as we have, that having multiple projects increases these risks.
Here is a good example of admitting that harassment is can cause harm. I could not have said it better.
โIt is possible that pile driving could displace animals into areas with lower habitat quality or higher risk of vessel collision or fisheries interaction. Multiple construction activities within the same calendar year could potentially affect migration, foraging, calving, and individual fitness. The magnitude of impacts would depend upon the locations, duration, and timing of concurrent construction. Such impacts could be long term, of high intensity, and of high exposure level. Generally, the more frequently an individualโs normal behaviors are disrupted or the longer the duration of the disruption, the greater the potential for biologically significant consequences to individual fitness. The potential for biologically significant effects is expected to increase with the number of pile-driving events to which an individual is exposed.โ
This warning is about risks created by pile driving but all forms of acoustic harassment fit this description. NOAA harassment authorizations are based on the estimated number of critters that will be exposed to unsafe sound levels. The source of the dangerous sounds is irrelevant. What matters most is the volume. Sound is a pressure wave; the louder the sound the greater the physical pressure on the hearing system. Pain and physical damage are possible.
In fact the infamous sonar surveying sounds, implicated in the whale deaths to date, can be much louder that the incredibly loud pile driving. Driving the enormous piles for the proposed wind projects is estimated to create sounds around 190 decibels, which is painfully loud in humans.
But some sonar equipment deliberately emits sounds over 200 decibels. Decibels is a log scale so this is not just 5% greater than 190; it is much greater.
Thus it makes no sense that NOAA claims sonar surveys have no significant impact and so do not fall under NEPA, while pile driving does. This is especially true when, as just happened, a dozen different projects are given simultaneous authorization to acoustically harass large numbers of whales.
What is important is that NOAA and a BOEM are clearly stating that the acoustic threats we have been warning about and suspecting are real. The telling correlations between sonar blasting and increased whale deaths cannot be waived away.
Correlation is not causation, but correlation between cause and predicted effect is very strong evidence that the cause is effective. NOAA and BOEMโs repeated insistence that there is no evidence offshore wind development is killing whales is clearly contradicted by their own Environmental Impact Statements.
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