Biden admin under fire for offshore wind impacts on military operations

The Biden administration is under pressure from lawmakers and experts who want offshore wind projects halted immediately until the implications, especially those on military operations, navigation, and radar systems, are assessed.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, along with industry stakeholders and experts, met with officials from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a prominent government watchdog office, earlier this week to express their concerns about offshore wind projects. According to Smith, who represents a district along the Atlantic coast that includes a navy weapons depot and offshore wind installations, more than an hour of the three-hour conference was devoted to military implications.

After Smith, colleague New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., and numerous other members pressed for an investigation, the GAO recently agreed to look into the wide-ranging implications of offshore wind development. The research will examine into the influence of wind turbines on military operations and radar.

"It will have an effect on marine radar through sonic interference." It generates disturbances and shadowing," Smith said in an interview with Fox News Digital. "There will be nothing but disruption." Radar will be untrustworthy. So you'll have ships of all sizes and types — military ships, ocean and cargo ships, including those delivering oil into my state for refineries — that could collide with other ships or even some of these windmills."

"The Coast Guard, too, will be unable to conduct search and rescue operations, particularly in bad weather, due to the massive interference that will occur," he added. "There is also an impact on the Navy's... Integrated Undersea Surveillance System, which will be interfered with."

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Smith noted that wind turbines may eventually prevent surveillance of US opponents' submarine movements. He chastised the Department of Defense for its handling of the matter and lack of transparency, claiming that he had spoken with anonymous defense officials who told him that wind development was being prioritized over national security.

Meanwhile, Smith's discussion with the GAO comes months after the Navy and Air Force released a study in early October that included maps showing significant swaths of territory shut off in federal seas in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. The research labels four planned offshore wind lease locations by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) as "highly problematic" and two others as "requiring further study."

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Furthermore, numerous studies and analyses have been published in recent years indicating that wind turbines may have a major impact on radar. Wind development, according to a 2022 National Academy of Sciences research, would cause "interference with marine vessel radar, which is a critical instrument for navigation, collision avoidance, and use in search and rescue missions."

Military leaders in Finland and Taiwan have also expressed worry about the potential impact of offshore wind farms on their defensive capabilities.

"They're willing to sacrifice anything for green energy," Meghan Lapp, the fisheries liaison with Rhode Island-based Seafreeze and one of the attendees in Smith's meeting with the GAO, told Fox News Digital. "I've seen national security be prioritized." I've seen maritime safety be compromised. I've witnessed domestic food production being undermined. Concerns of coastal companies and communities have been ignored."

"Every single entity and every single concern — legitimate concerns, not made up, not hyperbole — are simply overridden." And what is the answer? 'Well, we have to do this because of climate change,' she says.

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In 2011, Congress established the Military Aviation and Installation Assurance Siting Clearinghouse, which established a central authority inside the Department of Defense to oversee the compatibility of alternative energy projects with military activity.

According to Lapp and Smith, the organization eventually overruled the misgivings of base commanders and has consistently backed green energy growth.

"We now have an entire coast that is going to be weakened as a result of this terrible decision," Smith added. "I've never been more angry or disappointed in the military's acquiescence and silence."

The Biden administration has aggressively pursued quick offshore wind development across millions of acres of federal waters, especially along the East Coast, as part of its climate agenda. President Joe Biden announced plans to deploy 30 gigatonnes of offshore wind energy by 2030, the most ambitious target of its kind in the world.

BOEM approved the 800 megawatt Vineyard Wind project 12 miles off the coast of Massachusetts in May 2021, making it the first large-scale offshore wind approval. The commission then approved the 130-megawatt Southfork Wind project off the coast of Long Island, New York, in November 2021, the second commercial-scale offshore project.

A number of other potential offshore wind projects along the Atlantic coast are in the planning stages and are awaiting federal approval. The Biden administration has also leased hundreds of thousands of acres to energy companies and intends to sell leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of California in the near future.

"The Department of Defense is committed to protecting American national security interests, which includes reducing reliance on foreign energy sources and expanding domestic offshore wind energy development," said Pentagon spokesperson Kelly Flynn to Fox News Digital.

"The DoD continues to work with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, industry, and other stakeholders to identify the best locations for offshore development, as we have done in every call area in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico."

"This discussion includes impacts to the environment, shipping, fishing, viewshed, and more, as well as mitigation strategies to overcome the impacts," Flynn added. "This is just one step in the process, and the Department of Defense will continue to work with stakeholders to promote compatible offshore wind energy development."

"The Department has been an active participant in similar leasing plans off the coasts of New York/New Jersey, the Gulf of Mexico, California, and Oregon," she explained. "In each case, we've been able to find suitable areas for development, and we expect to do the same in the central Atlantic."