Can NJ Democrats spin their wind power debacle? They're facing rough seas | Stile

There is no way for New Jersey Democrats to sugarcoat it:

The Danish energy company’s Halloween night announcement that it was abandoning its ambitious and controversial plans to build massive wind energy turbines off the New Jersey coast is a political debacle for the party.

It is a blow to Gov. Phil Murphy, who made wind power the centerpiece of his climate change legacy. The fledgling industry, he hoped, would help turn New Jersey into a national hub for the industry, where thousands of jobs would be devoted to building, maintaining and operating the wind farms.

Ocean Wind 1, the first phase planned by Ørsted, the energy company, was slated to be built 15 miles off the South Jersey coast and generate electricity for 500,000 homes. Ocean Wind 2 was going to be its sequel. Now, all it has generated is disappointment and difficult questions about the Murphy administration’s due diligence and eager embrace of the financially struggling company.

Murphy’s loss is also a loss for President Joe Biden, who had made wind power along the Eastern Seaboard a cornerstone of his own clean energy ambitions that he plans to trumpet in what is shaping up to be another rematch with Donald Trump in 2024.

And the announcement also thrusts the issue front and center into next Tuesday’s election, when all 120 seats in the Legislature are up for grabs.

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GOP: We told you so

The egg-on-face moment for Murphy — and the Democratic lawmakers who rubber-stamped generous tax incentives for Ørsted — have buoyed the Republicans who made wind project part of a panoply of culture war issues that they have used to target the ruling Democrats.

On Wednesday, there was an I-told-you-so swagger among Republicans, who trail Democrats in fundraising, registered voters and mail-in voting returns.

Some longtime observers believe it will animate the GOP base — which is already fired up over "parental rights" involving transgender children, and a Murphy administration push to discourage the use of gas stoves — and deflate Democrats, who have largely been on the defensive this fall.

“Republicans will say to themselves, 'This shows that we were right,' which means their base is all excited," said Jeff Tittel, the former lobbyist for the Sierra Club of New Jersey and a political consultant.

Indeed, Republicans barely contained their glee and quickly attacked Democrats for voting for the project and last June’s approval of tax incentives to the company.

Several also claimed that Ørsted walked away from the project in the face of relentless, election season outcry from grassroots groups along the shore who seized on a string of whale and dolphin strandings as evidence that early seismic testing posed an existential threat to marine life, the state’s commercial fishing companies and its $20 billion annual tourism industry.

But government scientists found no evidence linking the preliminary prep work for the project to the dead whales, which were most likely killed by collisions with ocean tankers. Still, the relentless backlash led to a steady erosion of public support for the project. A Monmouth University poll found that 54% of voters endorsed the offshore wind project, down from 76% just four years earlier.

Ørsted officials said the decision was strictly a financial one spurred by macroeconomic forces — rising inflation and supply chain issues. But that didn’t stop Republicans from taking a victory lap.

“This is foremost a victory for the grassroots groups and ratepayers who stood up to one-party rule and a powerful, foreign offshore wind company to save our beautiful shore, and we were proud to stand with those who dared to challenge the Murphy administration’s offshore wind narrative — even when it was unpopular to do so,” said Steve Dnistrian, a Republican who is seeking to unseat Democratic incumbent state Sen. Vin Gopal in the 11^th Legislative District in Monmouth County. Gopal was the lone Senate Democrat in June to vote against the tax incentives for wind farms.

Dnistrian’s chest-pounding statement conveniently omitted a glaring hypocrisy — that his own strategic communications firm also cashed in on the promised wind-energy boom by representing a company that sought to build power lines from the wind turbines.

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Democrats scramble

Yet the Democrats scrambled to find a face-saving message Wednesday. They generally sounded like a semi-deflated football coach after a devastating loss, who asserts, somewhat unconvincingly, that the season isn’t over. Former Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a leading proponent of wind energy development, noted that companies paid $4 billion in offshore leases over the past year.

Others took solace in the fact that they created a $300 million surety account for Ørsted in case it walked away from the project. That measure was included in the $1 billion in tax incentives that the Democratic-controlled Legislature approved in June for the project.

And some, like Senate President Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, spoke vaguely about protecting ratepayers. And a furious Murphy lashed out at the company’s credibility and competence.

Some struggled to put a positive spin on it.

“It certainly doesn’t help," Atlantic County Democratic Chairman Michael Suleiman said with considerable understatement when asked about the contests in Legislative District 2, which includes Atlantic City.

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Suleiman posited that maybe the Ørsted announcement might neutralize the issue, since there is no longer any immediate threat of wind energy projects popping up along the shore.

“If you're a hard-core Republican, do you need to come out? You’re not voting to stop the windmills. The wind project is already dead," he said.

Given the reaction Wednesday, it's clear that the GOP believes the issue is more potent than ever. But top Republicans in the Senate signaled a need to repackage the issue from a fight to stop the wind project to a post-election pledge to interrogate the Murphy administration about its decision to push to provide a “bailout” to Ørsted.

State Sen. Michael Testa, R-Vineland, who represents a vast district that includes the South Jersey shoreline in Cape May County, wants a “what did they know and when did they know it” accounting of Ørsted’s financial difficulties.

“Those two questions apply equally to Ørsted and the Murphy administration," Testa said in an interview, noting that the GOP will also demand a full legislative investigation into the issue.

But one thing going for the Democrats is the short time period before Tuesday. Although it could fire up the GOP base, it may be difficult and costly to craft a new television advertising blitz with only a few days left in the race.

Testa said a full-blown social media campaign might be in order to get the repackaged message out. And in a tight, low-turnout race, as Tuesday is projected to be, getting a few extra voters motivated to keep the pressure on the Democrats could be enough to score an upset.

Charlie Stile is a veteran New Jersey political columnist. For unlimited access to his unique insights into New Jersey’s political power structure and his powerful watchdog work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: stile@northjersey.com 

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ wind turbines: Ørsted's departure a Democratic debacle