May 7, 2023 — Republican state lawmakers and other New Jersey opponents of offshore wind turbines called Wednesday for a 30- to 60-day moratorium on construction work at such sites to see if it would lead to a decrease in whale deaths.
Four state senators hosted a online hearing about offshore wind energy generation and whale deaths, three weeks after the most recent East Coast whale death was reported and despite the assurances of most scientists and conservationists that there is no correlation.
The two-hour hearing came a week after Democrats, who control the Legislature and the governorship, held a similar hearing and many of New Jersey’s major environmental groups said the greatest danger to whales is climate change, not offshore wind generation.
“I’ve been labeled a climate change denier and a tin-foil hat wearer,” said Jim Hutchinson, managing editor of The Fisherman, a widely read New Jersey publication. “We’re defamed, denied, discarded and disparaged at every step along the way.”