Federal Judge Lifts Administration Halt of Offshore Wind Farm in New England
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A federal judge has lifted a halt on an offshore wind farm in New England, sparking debate on the project's merits and the politics surrounding it.
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> President Donald Trump has made sweeping strides to prioritize fossil fuels and hinder renewable energy projects. Trump recently called wind and solar power “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!” in a social media post and vowed not to approve wind or “farmer destroying Solar” projects. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” he wrote on his Truth Social site this week.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biden_v._Texas
If we look at how often the justices voted in favour of each administration in emergency applications when the government was the filer, we get Sotomayor and Jackson favouring Biden with a 77-point margin (88 to 11 percent and 77 to 0 percent, respectively), Alito favouring Trump with a 77-point margin (95 to 18%), and Kavanaugh, Barrett and Roberts with 48, 26 and 21-point margins [1].
On the whole, Trump has been successful 84% of the time against Biden's 53%. But my point is that the partisan fracture of our court--on the level of individual justices--has been happening for a while. (The fact that we have (a) Alito, who's a hack and (b) a decadelong conservative majority is more explanatory than e.g. Barrett or Roberts having gone to the dark side.)
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/us/politics/supreme-court...
Obviously it is impossible to answer this without projecting some bias. But I don't think that makes it unanswerable.
It's really difficult to answer this separate from one's biases.
I'd also note that Trump, then Biden, then Trump again escalated the use of the shadow docket way beyond historical norms [1]. This was a deliberate choice by both Presidents.
> there is something fishy with both sidesing it
Didn't mean to both sides this, at least not at the level of the Court. The Court has had a conservative majority for a decade; one could argue Jackson and Sotomayor are balancing the court by leaning against its centre of pressure. But it's not unexpected for the Court to be a bit more deferential towards a Republican President. We haven't been appointing and confirming neutral arbiters for a while.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_docket#Since_2017
The President does not choose to use the shadow docket. The use of the shadow docket is controlled by the court justices, who (as you pointed out) have been a conservative majority for a decade.
You are correct that the use of the shadow docket increased under Trump and then Biden, but this is consistent with the (somewhat obvious) explanation that the conservative justices began to use this tool as a partisan weapon for Trump and the GOP and then later against Biden's policies.
Oh wow, I didn't know this [1]. Thank you...what in the actual fuck.
I'm having trouble parsing how the shadow docket relates to a party requesting emergency relief. Do you have a good source on this?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_docket#Procedure
I'm not American so I try not to wade into it too much. I think Americans and everybody is entitled to a basic human right of self-determination, holding, and voting for diverse political beliefs. They have a bunch of shit to sort out and are pretty divided sadly, but so is my country and many others.
Now something that America has been known for is extraordinary renditions, extrajudicial executions, foreign "interventions", and that kind of thing. Again I don't say America is unique or even the worst at this by a long shot. Hell, France carried out a state sponsored terrorist action and murder against a civilians in a friendly democracy (New Zealand) within living memory. But America, being the biggest, most influential, and "leader of the free world" gets most of the focus.
With those disclaimers out of the way, the presidential immunity ruling did not come as any shock to those outside America and slightly removed from the propaganda war. We've seen W start questionable wars and the whole CIA renditions, Obama's love of drones and his ordering extra-judicial execution of US citizens, their destruction of Syria and Libya and Iraq, etc.
Presidential immunity was the defacto operating principle and most legal experts outside the fringe really agreed that an action like the killing of an American citizen abroad by the executive branch could not be prosecuted, despite it otherwise meeting all elements of the criminal statute for murder.
I'm no legal expert, but the presidential immunity ruling from SCOTUS as far as I could see affirmed existing practice and understanding. If anything it actually restricted presidential immunity because it explicitly limited it to official actions and created some guidelines for how courts could decide how to make that classification.
But the reaction online was literally that it made Trump a dictator and it meant he could go personally shooting opposing politicians, judges, and bureaucrats with no consequences! People who believed that of course will categorize that decision as extreme. But the reality seems to be the opposite, extreme (not as a value judgement but in terms of distance from status quo of both sides of mainstream politics) would have been to rule the other way and permit the prosecution of presidents for executive actions, because presumably then the DOJ would have begun cases against Obama, W, as well for their criminal and now prosecutable actions in office.
Yes, so many Americans forget about this or gloss over it. Even the fact you’re getting downvoted show how biased most folks are.
Trump has in many ways done less than previous administrations. He just makes it very public and brash.
> Presidential immunity was the defacto operating principle and most legal experts outside the fringe really agreed that an action like the killing of an American citizen abroad by the executive branch could not be prosecuted, despite it otherwise meeting all elements of the criminal statute for murder.
Which leaves me with mixed feelings. The idea that the President basically gets to do whatever he wants as long as congress won’t impeach him is scary for the rule of law. However on the other hand, it does allow the President the power to do things that may need doing.
It’s been that way since Thomas Jefferson sent the marines to fight Barbary wars without congresses approval. Perhaps earlier.
Maybe. My point wasn't that one was better or worse, and I did try to add some "balance" to that by including both W and O examples of presidential immunity :) Presidential immunity I just used as one (of many) issues where there are basically irreconcilable differences between people who are otherwise quite intelligent, sane, rational.
There are equivalents going the other way too where conservatives think something is bad or wrong or extreme but it really isn't. I chose the example of this particular disconnect because of the context, it would not have worked going the other way. The assertion was that Trump / Trump cases are more extreme. And furthermore that may even be true, I do nothing to disprove that with my example, I just try to show show why as I see it, it is extremely difficult to judge something like that objectively or even for people to discuss it calmly and rationally.
> Which leaves me with mixed feelings. The idea that the President basically gets to do whatever he wants as long as congress won’t impeach him is scary for the rule of law.
All systems are flawed in some ways, but this seemed to make sense to me. Prosecutions are brought to courts by the executive branch, so having the executive prosecute itself has a fundamental problem. Having executive overseen by the legislature at least avoids that particular catch. Executive holds power to physically enforce anything of course so that's always a problem, but at least it's not hiding away behind "national security" or "prosecutorial discretion" or "ongoing investigation" or "lost the evidence", rather it makes the issue public and forces the executive to openly defy the representatives of the people and the states, and the people can then decide their next course of action much better informed. Which is about as best you can hope for I think, it's the people who are really the final arbiters of all this, so if they're kept informed then that's the best thing.
Having the executive prosecute itself in some ways could be worse than nothing because it kind of delegitimizes the congressional impeachment process. Let's say if Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election and took power, then his DOJ prosecuted and carefully and secretly sabotaged the trial and he was found innocent in court, then congress came along and tried to impeach for the same crime and convicted him, where would that leave things? The executive and judicial branches found him not guilty, so it could appear that congress is defying the other two branches.
That's all my own idle musings though, and way above my pay grade!
For sure, president's from both major parties in the US have done those things. My point was that by some standards Trump hasn't been worse (or better) but different.
If you step back and consider just the actions that violate the US constitution, then Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, Biden have all done it. Their parties justified it at the time, but nonetheless it grows the scope of the presidential power each time.
> All systems are flawed in some ways, but this seemed to make sense to me. Prosecutions are brought to courts by the executive branch, so having the executive prosecute itself has a fundamental problem.
Good point, though without congress stepping up and keeping the president in check it means a president can accomplish a lot. Good or bad depends on someone's perspective.
Hopefully that's a current cultural issue which could change if / when folks realize that that's not a good thing. For example congress members start pushing back on executive power.
"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Happy to unflag once edited.)
Good thing that you prefaced with that you're not an American and you try not to wade into it too much. Your have a good excuse for ignorance of drone strikes and are a great example of how manufactured consent works. "Obama" + "drones" eventually leads to "both sides" enlightened centrism without understanding policy nuances. Just one such example - https://www.jstor.org/stable/23526906?seq=8.
> It's not unanswerable, but it is impossible to have a reasoned discussion about it even with otherwise reasonable people, sadly.
You're right about that one.
Not sure what you're getting at here or how it addresses the substance of my point. Seems like a pathetic attempt to strawman by attempting to nitpick a tiny irrelevant aspect of my comment, and even that failed badly for you because I never claimed other sides did not also use drones or that both sides were as good or bad as one another. Come on, pull yourself together, if you can't cope with talking about this like a normal person, just refrain from commenting.
Do you deny that Obama ordered extrajudicial execution of a US citizen and relied on and was widely believed to be shielded by presidential immunity for that action? Or that it was not a controversial mainstream legal opinion before Trump that presidents operated the executive branch under presidential immunity?
> You're right about that one.
I know.
I would not at all extrapolate that to unlimited regulation of economic activity; it would be something of a reversal of their known stances on regulatory authority of federal agencies. I'm not making bets either way.
(I also think it's incredibly shortsighted)
So that's not even remotely economically sound or logical.
In conclusion you're probably right.
Obviously that would be crazy.
Joining OPEC would subject the United States to production quotas. We're the world's largest oil producer. But we're also the largest consumer.
Trump is a monster who would throw his own children into a furnace if it made him richer.
While I agree in broad details, his kids seem to be the only people to whom he has any sense of loyalty. Everyone else is expendable.
If that were the case, he should be happy for alternative energy projects to free up some fuel for sale.
'What giants?' asked Sancho Panza.
'Those you see over there,' replied his master, 'with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length.'
'Take care, sir,' cried Sancho. 'Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone.'"
https://xkcd.com/556/
https://youtu.be/kRuqPKcxMZY
Polymarket is, at least for tariffs [1].
[1] https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-supreme-court-rule-in-...
> if you look closely, you can see DUMFUQ Sucks-His-Balls BUYING HIGH, then SELLING LOW! Dumfuq SUCKS-HIS-BALLS must have confused this for a Ceasefire market to trade like shit!
While there is legitimate concern around manipulation given Polymarket's thin volumes [1], there is limited evidence that the broader value of prediction markets applies to them [2]. (I started taking it seriously after Nate Silver hitched up his wagon [3].)
I'm sceptical of political predictions. I have limited respect for crypto. But on the balance, once you account for manipulation risk, it has a good track record. More pointedly to OP's question, I don't see any controversy around its adjudication and ability to pay.
[1] https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/dont-trust-the-politi...
[2] https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2024/12/election-results-sh...
[3] https://www.axios.com/2024/07/16/nate-silver-polymarket
Regardless of the pretext of any given action the the way things generally are is that the people who have a view they want to protect, the tourism industry and the hippie/nature/biology types are on the no-wind side and the climate types, green energy people, domestic energy and big business types are on the other. Sometimes one side wins, sometimes another side wins. But nobody ever gets a win streak long enough to bring anything to fruition.
The area is well suited to wind power but the area but it's also chock full of rich people and moneyed interests that can afford to fight it, likely to the long term detriment of the region, but like locusts they will be gone and cashed out by then so they don't care. That's probably when these things will finally get built.
I'd love to see some wind turbines go up but I'll believe it when I see it. And even then, I bet they'll find some way to make everyone's bill go up instead of down because of it.
Sincerely and with the utmost disrespect,
A cape wind proponent.
My wind energy professor[1] assigned everyone the task of arguing against cape wind as one of our assignments (and later, for it). Of course, we found a few valid arguments for and against, but enormous reasons for it. The professor had a despondent take on utility scale wind, even though it was environmentally + economically viable, partially from the decades of fighting against the often irrational public perception.
Example homework:
"Wind turbines will block our sunset"
> no, dune grass will block more of the sunset for you, many turbines won't even be visible (insert math)
"Wind turbines will be too loud"
> no, they're so far away from shore that even your breathing is louder (insert math)
"They won't make energy cheap enough to reduce costs"
> no, even using conservative payback plans and limited life, it still works (insert math)
"The native's sunset ritual will be ruined by the wind turbines"
>no, see above, are you serious? [Yes, this was proposed- https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/environment/article/tribes... ]
It's less about a conspiracy against renewables, you start to feel this conspiracy for pro foreign fossil fuels in the Boston area. The iconic Citgo sign, core to Boston's image [2]-> maybe The iconic Rainbow tank for liquid natural gas[3] -> maybe maybe The fact that Boston receives tanker ships of LNG from Russia[4]-> maybe maybe maybe
[1]I have a Wind Energy Certificate from my university education, but this was not my focus
[2]https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/how-century-old-citgo-...
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Swash
[4]https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/why-is-lng-coming-4500-miles-...
Because there's no actual impetus to "not suck" all sorts of stupid emotional "but the seagulls" arguments that would normally not stop anything resonate. And of course the foreign energy interests are happy to fan those stupid flames.
Maybe $300+ energy bills (also a result of short sighted let them eat cake policies) will be what finally does it.
MONDAY: The lower court has denied the NIMBY injunction against installing any more wind turbines.
MONDAY NIGHT: Thousands of wind turbines are hurled off the back of a container ship with a catapult and automatically drop anchor and start generating power.
TUESDAY: The appellate court has reinstated the NIMBY injunction against installing any more wind turbines.
..but they're already all installed.
The best kind of racket really.
>The same will be true for every windmill and solar farm.
No, you don't. That's purely a figment of how successful the civil engineering lobby was at regulatory-capturing their way into the process.
The people who build buildings and windmills know what kind of foundations they need. If you have even a ballpark estimate of your site conditions they will happily tell you approximately what you'll need to do.
An extra inch of concrete here or there or a foot less of pile spacing or an extra few passed with the dozer costs basically nothing. The only reason you see people designing things to the bare minimum is that when you're being forced to pay a engineer to punch in numbers either way it makes sense to take advantage of that and make them tell you what the bare minimum is so you can at least save a bit on actual construction costs.
You think you hate crony capitalism or the micromanaging nanny state or whatever you want to call it now. Just wait until you engage in any kind of project that doesn't benefit from all the exemptions that residential does.
Whereas if you put aside the dogma you might notice that giving the other team what they want in this case and getting rid of some regulations would actually be good and allow you to do the thing you want to do.
The stop-start nature of US efforts, which isn't limited to this particular illegal stop work order, don't help with costs.
Of course, if the rest of the world moves to renewables, which it is, and just the USA remains reliant on oil then that also destroys this benefit. But the USA refusing to help implement renewable energy will definitely slow it down.
It's the only rational argument I can see for this policy. Of course there's the irrational to consider ("real men burn stuff" as Cory Doctorow puts it), and that may be the more important consideration.
The price of renewables is also being driven down because we're getting better at making them. So it's a virtuous cycle; the more we make, the cheaper it gets, and the cheaper it gets, the more demand there is, so the more we make.
If the USA is not demanding renewables, the effect is less and we don't get as good at making them
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law
Is guaranteed to be some utterly deranged crackpot nonsense which some reason otherwise intelligent people find plausible.
This administration is beyond stupid.
you are either not reading the news enough or are not able to understand it.
"Drill, baby, drill!"
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/iF17bGH65gU
from the description of that YouTube short:
Trump to Starmer: "Drill, Baby, Drill’ in North Sea to cut energy bills; Calls Wind ‘Expensive Joke
Trump doesn't like windmills because his base hates windmills. They hate windmills because libs like them.
This isn't the five year old not liking green beans. It's the five year old seeing his sibling like them and then deciding--despite having no green beans on his plate, not being offered any--to spit in Mom's.
There are also energy interests at play. But from all appearance, those aren't controlling here. Trump hasn't given the energy lobby what they want, not substantially. He has leaned over backwards to please his base.
What followed was a saga;
He lost appeals against protection, he lost appeals against the "unsightly" wind farms, he was relentlessly mocked and protested against by the Scots, which hasn't ceased:Jig of Slurs: A Musical Record of Scotland’s Best Insults to Trump - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NNWmZwObZc
Cockwomble is a delight for lovers of the language.
You wouldn't ask why your toddler didn't scream about green beans last week but won't shut up about them today, that's just the kind of thing they do.
It's all just random personal dislikes and not the best funded misinformation campaign the world has ever seen.
I want to see a barge with one of these windmills anchored off the coast at the proposed install spot. So people can actually see what one would look like in real life.
I know it's not representative of the array of windmills the projects seek to install, but it something.
Also, I wonder if the same people who object to the windmills ever raise objections to the boats with giant LED advertisement screens that creep past the beach close enough to shore that you can smell their engine exhaust.
https://youtu.be/9ISZuW1JKkI