April 27, 2023 — A packed house at a Congressional hearing in the seaside Wildwood, N.J., convention center showed how criticizing the Biden administration’s offshore wind energy ambitions could be political gold for Republicans.
The local fire marshal ordered doors closed after about 400 people crowded in, leaving hundreds more in line outside during the March 16 hearing organized by Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., and billed as “an examination into offshore wind industrialization.”
Van Drew’s southern New Jersey district includes beach resort communities and fishing ports where residents object to planned wind turbine arrays, with concerns ranging from the economic effects on tourism to commercial fishermen getting shut out of longtime fishing grounds.
“This is the coercive power of the state,” Van Drew told the audience in his opening statement. “They are not listening to us.
“It is time we examine the process,” he said. He centered the event on objections raised by critics, especially allegations that a dozen mid-Atlantic whale strandings since December could have been related to survey work on offshore wind power leases.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has strongly denied those claims. The winter strandings of mostly humpback whales follow a trend since 2016 of increased mortality along the East Coast. Necropsies of recent strandings found evidence those animals were killed by ship strikes.