|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
TAUNTON — Major labor unions in New England, with the support of Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, are calling for more state and federal investment in offshore wind development. The unions’ new report recommends that Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island together set ambitious goals, including 30 gigawatts of offshore wind in the region by 2040 — enough to power 10 million homes.
The unions’ optimistic vision comes at a tough time for the offshore wind industry. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to stop offshore wind. Market conditions, including supply-chain shortages, have caused some offshore wind developers to back out of projects. And a federal sale of leases off the Maine coast late last month saw a tepid response from developers.
“The offshore wind industry has faced its share of setbacks over the years. But make no mistake about it: we continue to make progress. It’s happening. And it’s going to happen,” said Healey on Tuesday, with the lightning-rod seal of the local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 223 union hanging behind her. “There’s going to be no transition without transmission. This is where we need workers, big time, and we need to train workers.”
Healey acknowledged Trump’s election as a challenge for offshore wind. “I know as we look ahead there’s a certain amount of uncertainty with the new administration, but I firmly believe that the fabric of this clean energy industry is strong,” she continued.
“We have a special sauce here that nobody else has,” Healey said, crediting the region’s companies, research institutions, unions, and environmental advocates. “Mark my words. We will show them because we’re moving ahead … and people will be behind it.”
Applause met the governor’s remarks at the IBEW 223 offices in Taunton during a Tuesday event for the 80-page report, written by regional Climate Jobs organizations, which are coalitions of labor unions and advocacy groups. State senators and the Massachusetts secretary for environmental affairs, Rebecca Tepper, were also there in support.
The Climate Jobs report asks the governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut to convene a “climate and jobs strategy committee” to devise a plan for investment in domestic manufacturing of major wind turbine components, the building of specialized offshore wind vessels, upgrades to New England ports, and workforce training and apprenticeship programs.
The report also echoes calls from state leadership and industry advocates for a more regional, highly collaborative approach — as the states attempted in a recent multi-state procurement — to achieve these aggressive energy targets.
In addition to setting a goal of 30 gigawatts by 2040, the report proposes achieving 60 gigawatts by 2050 for southern New England. As context, the Biden administration set a national goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.
Chrissy Lynch, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, which has about 500,000 members, spoke of the benefits offshore wind can bring to New England, including an estimated 10,000 jobs over the next decade.
“More than 10,000 local families will realize the benefits of good pay, strong benefits like health care… and they will be a critical part of the meaningful and vital work of fighting climate change,” she said.
“Our highly skilled union workers and apprentices, they take boats and they take helicopters offshore to drive these piles into the ocean floor. They build the turbines,” Lynch continued. “Soon, our union workers will also be manufacturing the necessary materials right here in New England, including offshore wind cables and low carbon cement.”
The unions’ ambitions for offshore wind would require a significant buildout of domestic supply chains, and a trained workforce to support it.
“Why do unions care about this? Why is offshore wind a working-class issue? To me, the answer is very simple. I look at the history of this region,” said Pat Crowley, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO. “Every time there’s been a new Industrial Revolution, the workers are left behind.”
“This new industry is here,” Crowley continued. “If we can pull this off, if we can do it right, intentionally, with working people at the center of the conversation … we’re going to create an entire industry from supply chain to electrons delivered to the grid with union labor.”
As the industry gets off the ground in the United States, it has had to procure much of its workforce and supplies from the mature offshore wind market in Europe.
There are tentative plans to establish manufacturing factories on the East Coast, including in New Bedford, but projects, banks and investors require a degree of certainty for domestic buildout. And uncertainty has crept back in with the incoming Trump administration. At a rally in May, Trump vowed to sign an executive order halting offshore wind.
The offshore wind industry has gained support from other unions, including the 3-million-member North America’s Building Trades Unions, whose president last month at an offshore wind industry conference praised the Inflation Reduction Act, passed during the Biden administration, saying it helped with labor standards and apprenticeship programs.
The report hones in on the IRA, which has greatly incentivized investment. It says the states must leverage the legislation in the coming decade to reach those gigawatt goals. But Trump and the incoming Republican Congress might cut or weaken the law.
“We can disrupt and slow down any efforts to backtrack on work we’ve been doing,” said Aziz Dehkan, executive director of the Connecticut Roundtable on Climate Jobs, about the prospects of wind-power opposition from Trump.
Dehkan said the climate crisis can appear to be a “big amorphous thing,” but that it is really about jobs and how someone can feed their kids or pay their bills.
Eric Hines, a Tufts University engineering professor who contributed to the report, said the offshore wind industry creates quality jobs, which he believes is “a value all Americans hold.”
Jeff Plaisted, a 25-year electrician and agent for business development at the local IBEW, got one of those jobs, working on the Vineyard Wind project for about 10 months as he helped lay cable and connect it to the onshore substation on Cape Cod.
Plaisted, who is from Cape Cod, said over 100 members have worked on the project, from offshore construction on turbines to pulling cables and wiring and constructing the substation.
Vineyard Wind, in its latest jobs report, said it exceeded its target of 500 union jobs, peaking at over 850, but fell short on its goals for employing women and people of color, The Light reported last month.
“It’s very political; people have opinions. Once they form them, it’s hard to get them to change,” Plaisted said.
He said members won’t turn down the job if it’s offered, but said if they support Trump, they’re probably not supporting the industry.
“As a representative of the union, I’d encourage all members to do research and support politicians who support union labor,” he said, adding offshore wind “keeps our members working,” some for more than two years now.
“We try not to get bogged down by things [Trump] said he’d do,” Plaisted ended. “Let’s wait and see. We’re coming to work every day and doing our jobs.”
That includes at least two IBEW 223 apprentices — one of whom just left for a trip offshore this week, and another who regularly does three- to four-week stints offshore.
Robert Revil, director of apprenticeship and training at IBEW 223, said members have worked on both Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind. He said some join the program wanting to work on the offshore wind projects, which could be a source of employment for the coming decades.
After officials’ remarks, he led a small tour group through the union’s workshops, ending outside at a scaled-down model of a turbine tower platform — the bright yellow piece at the base that offshore workers carefully transfer to from the heaving crew vessel — on which students train.
“That’s our future right there,” Revil said.
Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.
TURBINE PROJECT APPEARS TO BE “ALL STOP”
A departing crew transfer vessel WINDSERVE FRONTIER on November 20, 2024 at 6:15 AM, was the only sign of turbine activity in New Bedford Harbor since the ROLLDOCK SKY delivered repaired or modified blades from France on November 10.
After the ship unloaded, it left empty, with a destination to the Netherlands. The once busy cranes at the Maritime Commerce Terminal have remained idle ever since.
The loaded barge MARMAC 400, with a complete turbine set up was also spotted (left in photo) at the ready for orders to head out to the wind farm sight, however there’s no indication that it would be leaving anytime soon.
Some have speculated that this may be a routine seasonal slow down of operations for the winter, but our previous posts show parts being delivered by barge through the winter last year.
A recent post by JUST THE NEWS suggests the potential end to the project, possibly explaining the idle cranes at the MCT : https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/manufacturer-failed-wind-blade-faces-allegations-data-tampering-trump-vows
*NOTE: This post is not implying any conspiracy, but making simple observations of activity in New Bedford Harbor.
Link of interest: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10224925244710229&set=a.1030636538031
Compiled by MLBaron with Harborcam for westislandweather.com
This project is dead. To be honest, it had so many issues that killing it may be one of the few uncontestably good things that Trump does while in office.
I’ve read several stories about this project over the past 12 to 18 months, and I just found a few details that I wasn’t aware of until reading this recent article today, and after finding out that the ultra liberal Governor Healy is 100% in favor of this offshore wind project, I’m now completely opposed to it. I’m going to send an email later today to President-elect Trump’s Administration to let them know that there are some Republicans in Southeastern Massachusetts who are also Trump supporters who share his opposition to offshore wind, and we’re also opposed to everything in the “Green New Deal”, and as long as large populated nations, like China, India, and Pakistan continue to burn coal, and oil, it’s a complete waste of tax payer funds to build clean energy.