Even with Biden’s special favors – another lucrative deferral of taxpayer protections and an approval over objections from the safety agency – an ill wind is blowing for questionable energy projects.

(Washington, DC) – If you’re in the wind power business, you’ve hit the doldrums. The good old days – around say, 2024 – are long gone and with them the sweetheart breaks you could count on from the Biden administration.

And those breaks were pretty darn sweet. The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) has learned from internal documents from the Biden Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) that Danish wind developer Ørsted requested and received a 15-year deferral of the customary financial assurance for decommissioning its Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island. The documents show that the cost of decommissioning was estimated at $325 million. Deferring the financial assurance requirements means the taxpayers could be stuck with the bill if the project fails. And failure is not a far-fetched scenario. Revolution was already a year behind schedule and costing Ørsted losses before the Trump administration ordered wind projects to stop construction pending a review the Biden-era leases. Ørsted’s revenues have tanked and taken its share price with them. On September 5, the company announced a $9 million rights issue to right the ship. Even before the second Trump administration, the company was having trouble. In 2024, Ørsted had to pay New Jersey $12 million when it abandoned two wind projects off the state’s coast.

Revolution’s is the second Biden BOEM waiver FGI has uncovered through FOIA. As FGI previously found, BOEM gave the same financial assurance benefit to the Vineyard Wind project off the Massachusetts coast. BOEM’s reasoning at the time for deferring the assurance for (in that case) $191 million in decommissioning costs was that the fees were “unnecessarily burdensome for lessees because, at that point, they have not begun receiving project income.” (That sort of situation is a reason financial assurance is required in the first place). Besides, under the agency’s reasoning at the time, Vineyard used “proven wind turbine technology,” and “guaranteed electricity sales prices that, coupled with the consistent supply of wind energy, ensure a predictable income over the life of the Project.” Remember that in June 2024, a Vineyard turbine shattered and fell into the ocean, causing a mini environmental disaster and leaving the project unable to generate a single watt of electricity for nearly half a year. That was apparently “proven” technology.

The documents show that BOEM deferred the taxpayer protections over the objections of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). In an internal memo from 2021, BSEE argued that deferring the assurance payment would raise risks to the taxpayers:

BSEE acknowledges the PPA’s [Power Purchase Agreements] and their impact on project financials versus conventional energy, however BSEE does not support a BOEM departure to existing regulations which would allow for a delay in BOEM collection of appropriate financial assurance. The primary risk are as follows:

• Delaying receipt of financial assurance increases the risk to the federal taxpayer as identified by Government Accountability Office (GAO).
• The longer financial assurance is deferred, the greater the chance that the government will not collect.
• Decommissioning funds may need to be accessed prior to the expected end of project life due to unforeseen events.

While it is nice to see nice to see that someone in the Biden administration worried about taxpayers, the deferrals of requirements in place to protect taxpayers were ignored.

Roderick Law, spokesman for FGI, issued the following statement:

“With each revelation, two things become clearer: wind electricity wasn’t ready for primetime, and the Biden administration didn’t care. It was determined to force these projects through no matter the cost, the risks to taxpayers, or the dubious value to the people who pay for electricity and pay federal taxes. President Trump was right to halt projects and put them under careful review to ensure every environmental and safety impact is examined and that the taxpayers are at risk propping up failing, untested efforts.”

###