The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance offered the following statement in response to a press conference by Governor Maura Healey, Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll, and administration officials announcing their latest offshore wind contract with the state of Rhode Island.
The press conference, which did not disclose any specifics regarding costs to the state or ratepayers, was a blatant display of pageantry and an attempt to gaslight the people in Massachusetts that have legitimate concerns with the effect these offshore wind factories will have on costs, reliability, and the environment, especially in light of the toxic materials which continue to wash up on the coasts of Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and mainland Massachusetts following the most recent offshore wind turbine disaster.
“Governor Healey is gaslighting her own state and constituents by avoiding the topic that everyone has been seeing for the last two months. How can the Governor of Massachusetts think she can avoid the broken turbine blade in the room? Even as we speak, it remains sitting at the bottom of the ocean, falling apart, and potentially contaminating our ocean, beaches, and food supply. It’s a monument to the concerns with cost, reliability, and negative environmental impact which Beacon Hill has ignored throughout this process,” said Paul Diego Craney, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.
“There is zero doubt offshore wind is unreliable and expensive based on real life evidence, however, if you heard today’s press conference you would think they harnessed the atom. The Healey administration was pushing out propaganda talking points directly from the offshore wind interests. That’s all today was. There was no discussion of the broken turbine blade and no discussion of the price tag this very unreliable and expensive form of electricity is going to cost the taxpayers and ratepayers in the state of Massachusetts. We recently saw foreign wind companies backing out of the last two offshore wind projects because they couldn’t meet the price they promised in the contract. Since then we’ve seen other east coast projects come in with astronomical prices. I think this administration is putting the people of Massachusetts in a very precarious situation, ” concluded Craney.