A wind farm project touted by President Biden would destroy the fishing industry in a massive area around Massachusetts and Rhode Island covering more than 75,000 acres. The Texas Public Policy Foundation has sued to defend the families whose fishing heritage in the region goes back several generations.  

In a speech this week that threatened new anti-science and unconstitutional environmental regulations, the president hyped the new project, “I’m also proud to point out that my administration approved the first commercial project for offshore wind in America, which is being constructed by Vineyard Wind.”  

“In the Vineyard Wind project, the federal government ignored multiple legal protections for affected stakeholders and that triggered our lawsuit,” says TPPF General Counsel Robert Henneke. “Perhaps most damning, the government admits in its own report that the turbines would force the fishing industry to abandon a 75,614-acre area because the boats can’t navigate around the massive foundations holding up the windmills.”   

“And at what benefit?,” asks Jason Isaac, Director of TPPF’s Life:Powered initiative. “Wind produces a tiny fraction of America’s power supply, it’s unreliable, and makes the grid unstable.  The better question is ‘who benefits,’ and that’s the foreign corporations investing in the project who will reap the windfall of American taxpayer-funded subsidies.”  

The Texas Public Policy Foundation produced a mini-documentary highlighting the devastation the Vineyard Wind project would inflict on the families that have been fishing this part of the ocean for generations. Megan Lapp, one of the plaintiffs in the case, is General Manager of Seafreeze Shoreside, Inc and says the government is trampling their rights: 

“The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved the project regardless of impact to U.S. lives, businesses, and U.S. food production. They ignored what they knew was true. BOEM approved the project and manipulated its process in favor of the developer knowing that it would eliminate fisheries, compromise navigation, jeopardize human safety on the sea, and interfere with the radars that keep us safe. In so doing, they violated the law that was established to protect our rights as pre-existing ocean users. It’s unacceptable.” 

Watch the mini-documentary, “A Heavy Wind.” | Read Megan Lapp’s story