July 21, 2022 — Amid a heat wave scorching Massachusetts and breaking records in much of Europe, President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced forthcoming executive actions and a $2.3 billion infrastructure investment to tackle climate change, stating it’s “code red for humanity.”
Biden said shuttered fossil fuel plants are becoming the sites for clean energy construction and technologies, adding Brayton Point is on the frontier of clean energy.
The symbolism of the Somerset site as a shift toward renewable energy has been used by other elected officials, like U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, who, standing before the Port of New Bedford last year, said the city would reclaim the title of being the city that lit the world — this time with renewable wind energy instead of whale oil.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees and regulates this development, has also discussed streamlining the process after the first projects, such as Vineyard Wind, got final approval.
As the process speeds up following a slow down during the Trump administration, fishermen and fishing industry representatives have expressed concern that not enough is being done to look into the potential negative impacts the wind farms might have on the fishing industry.
Read the full article at The New Bedford Light