12 American Journal of Transportation American Journal of Transportation ajot.com BEST IN BREAKBULK Heavy lift docks. Laydown storage. Oversized offloading. With connections throughout North America, the Port does it all to efficiently move breakbulk cargo. See all our capabilities at portofcc.com • Cargo docks with direct to rail discharge • BNSF, CPKC and UP service • Open and covered storage • Ro/Ro Ramp majority of wind turbine manufactur- ing is located in mainland China. In the study, RystadEnergy says, “Wind also grows, though its role varies depending on resource qual- ity, permitting, grid access and policy support.” In coastal states, while off- shore wind is a plentiful resource, actually building the wind turbines is a struggle. Offshore wind turbines are expensive and a logistical strug- gle to build. In addition, there are supply chain difficulties involved. The components for turbines, as well as the various other pieces that go into building an offshore wind turbine and hooking it up to the grid, do not have an established domestic supply chain in the United States. “Legally Questionable Sabotage” In July of 2026, the Attorneys General of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont filed a notice of intent, planning to challenge the unlawful payoffs made to TotalEn- ergies by the Trump Administration. Shortly after, California followed suit. New York Attorney General Letitia James stated, “After repeatedly losing in court, this administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon off- shore wind and invest in oil and gas instead,” and Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said, “This deal is a $795 million slap in the face to every Connecticut family and busi- ness struggling with unaffordable and unsustainable energy bills. We des- perately need more sources of clean, reliable energy, and this site was on track to deliver that. Instead, Donald Trump wants to throw taxpayer dol- lars at a company to do absolutely nothing and force us to pay premium prices on dirty energy all because of his irrational hatred of wind. We sued to get Revolution Wind back online, and we’re suing again now to stop Trump’s reckless attempts to cancel more offshore wind projects and waste taxpayer dollars.” What is the Point? Many of these projects were already under strain or had been actu- ally already canceled. The New York TotalEnergies’s offshore wind project had already been put on pause since 2024, for instance, and RWE had stopped work on all of their United States based projects. In his article, Who Killed Offshore Wind, James Sallee, a professor at UC Berkley in the Economics Analysis and Policy group at the Haas School of Busi- ness and the Department of Agri- cultural and Resource Economics at the Rausser College of Natural Resources, says, “The buyouts may limit how quickly offshore wind could rebound in a future economic and policy environment, but as of today it seems as though the government just spent $3.9 billion of taxpayer dollars, spent to shoot a corpse.” He also added, “The buyouts did not stop projects since the projects were not in the money or poised for development anytime soon. They did extinguish an option the companies might have held in order to possibly invest in a future with better economics and new legis- lation, but even then the government seems to have overpaid.” This begs the question, what even is the purpose of these buyouts? Cal- ifornia Attorney General Rob Bonta referred to the agreement with Golden State Wind as “blatantly unlawful,” and many experts have questioned whether the US Department of the Interior even has the legal authority to return these funds. “The Trump Administration’s back- room buyout with Golden State Wind to stop offshore wind development in favor of gas and oil drilling is, unfortunately, a classic playbook for them to line the pockets of their Big Oil donors,” Bonta said. The Trump Administration has been trying and failing to permanently stop offshore wind projects. Despite certainly causing a decline in offshore wind, the Trump Administration has not yet been able to win a court battle when the legal- ity of the original stop work orders was questioned. It has yet to be seen whether that trend will continue, the way that the attempts to stymie all environmentally sound practices and renewable energy projects have continued from the current administration. Regardless, none of the coastal states involved in these lawsuits intend to back down. The Chair of the California Energy Commission, David Hochschild, said, “We will not let the Trump administration’s reckless actions turn back the clock. California’s clean energy future is worth fighting for. See you in court.” (STRUGGLES – continued from page 10)
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