President Donald Trump’s Department of Energy withdrew a $715.8 million loan the Biden administration promised to a New Jersey utility company to help finance a proposed power line transporting offshore wind power to the grid, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
According to three Energy Department officials, the agency withdrew the loan after negotiations with leaders of Jersey Central Power & Light (JCPL), the company behind the project. JCPL leaders, they said, acknowledged the project was likely no longer feasible in light of recent offshore wind project cancellations in New Jersey—in other words, the power line would be rendered useless without offshore wind projects.
The officials, who spoke with the Free Beacon on the condition of anonymity, added that the loan didn’t conform with the Trump administration’s energy agenda, which prioritizes traditional power generation over weather-dependent electricity like wind and solar.
“The Trump administration is done subsidizing projects that ultimately raise energy prices and that are bad investments for the American people. This decision should come as no surprise,” one of the officials said.
“We’re happy to work with these utilities. We just want to do things that actually solve the problem of fixing higher prices and making us more energy secure,” a second official told the Free Beacon.
It’s a significant blow to the offshore wind industry and adds to the growing list of setbacks the industry has faced since Trump took office seven months ago. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has rescinded wind energy subsidies, curbed preferential treatment for wind developers, added environmental requirements for wind projects, launched an overhaul of existing regulations that make it easier for wind projects to receive quick approvals, and paused an under-construction wind farm off the coast of Connecticut.
Those actions fulfill Trump’s promises to block green energy development, which he says has led to higher electricity prices and damages the environment. “We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar. The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” he wrote on Truth Social last week.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, issued its conditional loan commitment for JCPL’s power line project—the so-called Clean Energy Corridor project—just days before Trump took office in January, stating that it would help add “clean, resilient power” to the grid and support New Jersey’s green energy mandate laws.
It was one of dozens of green energy loans worth a total of more than $80 billion that Biden officials issued after Trump was elected in November.
The Department of Energy terminated another one of those loans, a conditional commitment worth $4.9 billion to help finance the Grain Belt Express power line in the Midwest. That project, like JCPL’s Clean Energy Corridor, was designed to transport wind energy.
“The last guys rushed all these things out, knowing that they didn’t really make sense. And they tried to bind us,” one of the Energy Department officials said. “We’re not going to fall for it—it’s not the way to behave if you’re a fiduciary for the American people.”
In a statement to the Free Beacon, JCPL said it has “no new updates” on the status of the loan.
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Author: Thomas Catenacci
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