Vox clamantis in deserto
Cuddle up
Work by Will Kasso Condry in his show “Everything is Everything,’’ at Burlington (Vt.) City Arts, July 10-Sept. 12
The gallery says:
“Will Kasso Condry brings his distinctive Afro-surrealist style to the BCA Center with ‘Everything is Everything,’ an immersive exhibition of painting and illustration that weaves together parallel journeys of healing and discovery. Condry is the co-founder of Juniper Creative Arts, a Vermont-based Black and Dominican family collective with a mission-driven practice of creating art that celebrates the lives and stories of the African Diaspora. Drawing on imagery and characters from Juniper Creative’s ‘The Afro-Pollinators’ series, Condry layers his personal journey into a mythic framework, using Kelis the Afronaut and other figures to explore memory, ecological reciprocity, and the sacred intelligence of the natural world.’’
Chris Powell: A great candidate in theory but disaster in practice; immigration’s cost
New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart
MANCHESTER, Conn.
In theory Erin Stewart was a great idea for the Republican nomination for governor of Connecticut: not just a woman but a Republican who was elected six times consecutively as mayor of a heavily Democratic city, New Britain. She must have had something going for her.
But in practice as a candidate for governor Stewart has been giddy, superficial, reckless, vulgar, and astonishingly inept politically even as challenging a Democratic incumbent and Connecticut's entrenched Democratic machine requires great political skill just to have a chance.
In recent weeks Stewart has been a disaster.
First she gave an interview in which she claimed to have been offered bribes by many New Britain residents seeking favors from her office, bribes that she didn't accept but never reported. Stewart seems to have thought she was touting her integrity but she actually impugned herself.
Then there were allegations that the Stewart administration's tax collector had mishandled funds and backdated taxpayer checks to let delinquents escape late fees.
Then the Connecticut Mirror disclosed that as Stewart was preparing to leave office she applied to city government for a form of annual pension that didn't exist, a pension she imagined to be worth nearly $40,000 a year. Challenged about this, her explanation was simply: "Why wouldn't I?"
And The Hartford Courant and WTHN-TV8, in New Haven, disclosed that Stewart had used her city government credit card for thousands of dollars of purchases for personal items delivered to her home but misclassified as office expenses, as well as for an expensive membership at the Hartford Club and a $500 birthday dinner. She denied nothing, instead claiming that the purchases were in the city's interest and people were just out to get her.
Even Gov. Ned Lamont couldn't resist noting the irony that, after Republicans highlighted the expense account abuse for which the chancellor of the Connecticut State Colleges and University system, Terrence Cheng, was removed and given a year of paid leave, Republicans seemed about to nominate their own expense-account cheater for governor.
While the governor himself has not been implicated, corruption, malfeasance, and indifference to failure have been frequent in his administration. Mastery of the many specific examples of this might be the strongest attribute for a challenger to the governor's re-election. Can Connecticut's Republicans really think that Stewart could exploit such examples now without being made ridiculous by her own self-dealing and unaccountability?
Indeed, Stewart's exploitation of her expense account probably would resonate more with the public than state government's longstanding failures with education, child protection, housing, and urban living standards. Those failures are simply taken for granted, the natural order of things. But people do understand when elected officials abuse their office to enrich themselves.
At their state nominating convention this weekend maybe some Republican delegates will figure that the party's chances in the state election in November are so poor, with the Democrats so entrenched in the state and President Trump's national Republican administration so capricious and corrupt, it won't matter if, in nominating Stewart, Connecticut Republicans are seen to condone capriciousness and corruption at the top of their state ticket as well.
Republicans who think that way will be wrong. Win or lose, every election is an opportunity to restore faith in democracy, or diminish it.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION'S COST: Enrollment in Bridgeport's schools has fallen by 700 students over the last year, from 20,000 to 19,300, and much of the decline is attributed to illegal immigrants leaving the city or at least removing their children from school in fear of the Trump administration's enforcement of immigration law.
Whether this is good or bad, Bridgeport spends an average of more than $18,000 per student per year, so the decline in its student population could save nearly $13 million per year, if the money wasn't used just to increase spending elsewhere.
In any case this development invites review of how much the illegal immigration facilitated by state government is costing Connecticut, and how it is never directly appropriated for.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).
A threatened way of life
“The Barrett Family, Addison, Maine,’’ in photographer Cheryl Clegg’s show “The Endangered Lobstermen,’’ at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, Mass., through May 30.
The gallery explains that:
Clegg was struck by the ‘‘red-listing’’ of Maine lobsters —the classification of the lobsters as endangered. She considered how the classification is “a direct threat to the way of life’’ of The Pine Tree State’s lobstering communities, and so she began to photograph the families in these communities to show the people “at risk of losing their livelihood and way of life, capturing the strength, resilience, and uncertainty of the people behind the industry.’’
Assume nothing
Greensboro, Vt., and Caspian Lake from the southeast as ominous clouds gather. Caspian Lake has long drawn people in the arts and low-key rich people to summer there,
— Photo by Ascended Dreamer
“A genuine New Englander learned by example never to take anything for granted. Once, when I remarked that it was a nice day, my Uncle Henry looked up at the sky, turned in every direction, and seeing there wasn’t a cloud anywhere, took the pipe from his mouth and finally conceded, ‘Well, maybe.’’’
— Lewis Hill (1924-2008) in Fetched-up Yankee (2001). He lived on the family homestead in Greensboro, Vt., where he was a nurseryman.
‘Interrupted’ art
Acrylic on canvas painting by Giorgio Griffa in his show “Paths in the Forest,’’ June 13-Oct. 12 at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass.
The museum says:
“For almost sixty years, Giorgio Griffa has explored the potential of painting in a practice that is both rigorous and lyrical. Griffa (born in 1936 in Turin, Italy, where he lives and works) paints with diluted acrylics in pastel colors on unstretched, unprimed canvases. These are tacked to the wall for display and folded for storage, a memory of which persists in their creases. Griffa values ‘the intelligence of materials’ and views his paintings as neither representational nor abstract, but as real, material facts.
“‘Impersonal marks that belong to any hand, with thousands of years of memory’ are Griffa’s subject; he follows and blurs the lines of drawing, counting, and writing. Griffa ‘interrupts’ his paintings before they are finished because, ‘in the meantime, life has moved on,’ an idea he credits to Zen Buddhism. Like the artist himself, each work remains vital: ‘Leaving the work incomplete means symbolically omitting that final point, which, like the period at the end of this sentence, fixes it in the past.”’
No swimming
The Muddy River in the Back Bay Fens
— Photo by Another Believer
Edited from a Boston Guardian article by Jules Roscoe
(Robert Whitcomb, New England Diary’s editor, is chairman of The Boston Guardian.)
Water quality in the Charles River and its Muddy River tributary decreased this past year, due to illicit sewage discharges, a statewide drought and a massive cyanobacterial bloom.
The Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA) released its annual water quality report card last week. The report monitors bacterial levels and instances of sewage overflows in different parts of the river. Every year, the association evaluates a three-year average of data to determine how much of the time the river was safely swimmable.
The Muddy River, which runs through the Fenway, was the most polluted part of the Charles watershed. It earned a grade of C, one step below its grade of C+ last year. Though cleanup efforts continue to be made, it has consistently been the river’s most polluted above-ground tributary. Its grade means it’s safe for swimming between 55 and 70 percent of the time.
“Ultimately, the biggest factor for the grades in the Muddy River is that it passes through a lot of urban areas,” said Marielena Lima, the CRWA who handles water quality monitoring programs. “It passes through a lot of major highways like Route 9 and I-90. All of these are opportunities for stormwater runoff pollution, unfortunately, to go into the Muddy River.”
A second factor is combined sewer overflows (CSOs), which happen because Boston’s stormwater drainage pipes are connected to its sewage system. When heavy rains overload the storm drains, the stormwater can sometimes mix with raw sewage before it drains into the river. The Muddy River didn’t have any CSOs last year, but it did experience a few in prior years, which are still counted towards its grade because of the three-year average used by the CRWA. Yet another factor is that there are some illicit sewage discharges that dump straight into the Muddy River.
“There are pipes and sewage system infrastructure that allows for discharge that shouldn't be going into the Muddy River,” Lima said. “The main thing is just detecting where those illicit connections are, so that the city can actually fix them. That’s something that the city of Brookline and the city of Boston have been working on for years, but that is still a problem.”
The lower basin of the Charles, which runs along neighborhoods like the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, earned a grade of B-, also one step below last year’s B. This means that it was safely swimmable between 70 and 85 percent of the time. The reason for this decrease was a massive cyanobacterial bloom that lasted for over 80 days, from late July nearly to the Head of the Charles Regatta in October. “Generally in the lower basin, we have more elevated phosphorus levels from stormwater runoff pollution,” Lima said. Phosphorus is a limiting nutrient for cyanobacteria and algae, which means that its concentration largely controls how much bacteria can grow. “But a big factor was the fact that we were in a drought last year.”
During a drought, the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority will conserve water in the river to prevent water levels from dipping too low by closing the locks at the Charles River Dam, near the mouth of the river at the Museum of Science.
“Because we were in a drought, they kept more water in the lower basin, versus letting more flow out” Lima said. “The consistent water level allowed the water to become stagnant. Water temperatures increased, and so it just was this kind of recipe for cyanobacteria blooms.”
Apart from the three-month-long bloom, however, the water quality in the urban part of the Charles was fairly consistent. Lima said that, had the bloom not happened, the lower basin would have earned a B.
Retyping Conn. suburban angst
Tim Youd at work retyping for the show “Aldrich Decennial: I am what is around me,’’ which opens June 7 at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Conn.
The museum says:
This is part of Mr. Youd’s long-running “100 Novels Project,’’ in which the artist retypes an entire chosen book onto a single sheet of paper, reinforced with another sheet, layering every word until the page becomes an abstract, ink-saturated record of the entire novel.
At The Aldrich, Youd will enact a live, durational retyping of Richard Yates’s famed 1961 debut novel Revolutionary Road, about suburban angst in a Connecticut suburb, on the same model typewriter that Yates used. This is part of the museum’s recurring 10-year series spotlighting Nutmeg State- based artists. This year’s program runs from June 7, 2026 to Jan. 10, 2027. Youd’s project draws on the state’s rich literary history and Yates’s own ties to Connecticut.
Roving the museum’s campus, Youd will work daily in public view from June 7 through June 27, inviting visitors to interact with him. The project will culminate with a framed diptych, a relic of the process.
(And there’s John Cheever….)
“Hybridized forms’
“Something#53’’ (class, plaster, wood), by Roberley Bell, in her show “Almost Knowing,’’ at Cove Street Arts, Portland, Maine, May 14-July 11.
She says:
“My sculptures are a conglomeration of contrasting elements, straddling the space between representation and abstraction. The dominant features of color, form, and material push against one another, expanding the potential for disparate materials to come together in new ways, creating hybridized forms. I am inspired by, and referential to, the natural world, blurring the line between the natural world and my own reimaginings of it.’’
James T. Brett: Early disease detection — Another reason we’re lucky to live in ‘research-rich’ New England
The cozy-looking Boston University Medical Campus hosts the school's Alzheimer's Disease Center, the site of much research into early detection and treatment.
Via The New England Council (slightly edited)
BOSTON
The New England Council recently hosted a forum in Boston exploring some of the incredible innovation in our region focused on the early detection of diseases. We heard about some of the remarkable advances in technology that are enabling earlier detection of everything from cancer to Alzheimer’s disease.
From our keynote speaker, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D.-Mass.) and our panel of experts from the business and medical communities, we learned how some of these groundbreaking innovations are not only saving lives, but also having a significant economic impact by minimizing long-term health care costs and alleviating strain on our beleaguered health-care system.
A key focus of the discussion among the experts at this program was on how federal policy can continue to foster innovation in this area, and can ensure that every American has access to early- detection tools. And on that front, there was some good news, as Congress has taken steps in recent months to advance policies that will expand access to these tools.
Earlier this year, as part of the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill, Congress enacted the Nancy Gardner Sewell Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage (MCED) Act, which will allow Medicare — beginning in 2028 — to cover MCED tests in a timely manner following FDA approval and evidence of clinical benefit.
Currently, most vulnerable patients could face years-long waits to access the latest innovations in cancer detection. The New England Council proudly endorsed this bipartisan legislation, and is grateful to the many members of the New England delegation who co-sponsored the proposal.
In more good news, bipartisan legislation has been introduced to expand access to similar testing aimed at early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia. Last fall, leaders in both the House and Senate introduced the Alzheimer’s Screening and Detection (ASAP) Act, which would create a pathway for Medicare coverage of FDA-approved blood biomarker screening tests that help detect Alzheimer’s and other dementia.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, if passed, this bill will not only improve patient care, but also help facilitate smoother transitions from primary care to specialists — reducing the burden on overextended health-care workers and helping to alleviate bottlenecks in the health-care system.
However, as we learned from the experts at the program, there are also a number of potential roadblocks to early detection of disease. One of those roadblocks is a lack of access to screening, which has been exacerbated by two recent developments at the federal level: Medicaid cuts enacted under last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act and the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies at the end of 2025.
These developments will undoubtedly result in millions of Americans losing coverage and therefore losing access not just to some of the advanced testing discussed here, but also routine screenings like mammograms, pap smears and colonoscopies.
A second threat to early detection is potential cuts to federally funded research from agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. As home to some of the world’s premier medical and scientific research institutions, New England is the recipient of billions of dollars of federal research funding that has supported the development of new early-detection technologies, as well as live-saving new treatments.
In recent years, this funding has repeatedly been on the cutting block, which threatens to slow down the groundbreaking research that is quite literally saving lives each and every day. Indeed, President Trump’s recently released fiscal year 2027 budget proposes some $5 billion in cuts to NIH funding.
The takeaway message is loud and clear: Early detection saves lives, and saves money. Much progress has been made, but we cannot afford to take our foot of the gas pedal.
As Congressman McGovern said in his keynote remarks, “We’re lucky to live in the most
scientifically advanced time in the history of the world … we’re lucky to live in New England, one of the most research-rich regions anywhere in the world.”
Let’s not squander that good fortune. We need to keep supporting the innovation that will detect diseases and save lives.
James T. Brett is president and CEO of The New England Council.
Llewellyn King: Three big challenges for new college grads in these crazy times
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
Dear Graduates of 2026,
Welcome to the world you will be taking jobs in and where you will begin building careers, and at times shaping history.
It isn’t the world of your parents, and it isn’t the world your college has taught you about, because it is changing too fast. It begins anew daily. As Maya Angelou said, “This is a wonderful day. I haven’t seen this one before.”
There are three big forces looming on the horizon that will shape your world and that you will play a role in shaping. They are technology, specifically AI; politics, the harsher politics of today; and the environment, which is eventually everything.
AI will have an effect that defies comprehension — it is so enormous. It is also evolving so fast that it keeps slipping out of your grasp.
“It is exponential, and human thinking is linear.” So said one of the foremost thinkers about AI, Omar Hatamleh, former head of AI at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He has written five books on AI.
All that is absolutely, definitely and incontrovertibly known is that AI will affect everything. It will change how we work, play and learn. It will change how we mate, think and expect.
Graduates, you will come to realize that political action and speech have changed from what they were. Both are out of the guide rails that have served them well over time.
Authoritarianism has taken root in America, and it will be hard to pull out. The bureaucracy has been politicized. There has been an expansion of presidential power over areas constitutionally assigned to Congress, under the watch of an accommodating Supreme Court.
There are troops on American streets, political searches and seizures, arrests and indictments, and deportations without due process. All this was unleashed with the Republicans. When Democrats take power, will they put the evil genie of unconstitutional government back in its bottle?
Domestic politics has also changed our relations to the world — a world where America, Canada and Europe stood together, sharing a common heritage and a common view of law, and savoring a shared peace in Europe until Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, and set in motion four years of bloody fighting.
Could we have done more? Yes, more weapons, more money, and less acceptance of Putin. Maybe troops, too.
We didn’t, and that has changed the world. Free countries now know that America won’t axiomatically have their backs. That time is past and will have major geopolitical consequences.
Internationally, the big, open American hand has been closing as it has curtailed or ended participation in international institutions from NATO to the World Health Organization to the Paris climate agreement. The arbitrary closing of USAID was a declaration of withdrawal from the world and from the exercise of soft power as a diplomatic tool.
Another challenge for future Americans as they grow into adulthood: They will live in a more dangerous world with fewer friends. Hubris is an expensive luxury.
They may also not live in a world where the climate is as predictable as it once was. Already aberrant, unpredictable weather is the norm with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and tinder-dry regions.
Politicians may deny that the climate is changing, but the evidence is there. Sea levels are rising, city streets are flooding, and beachfront homes are being swept away. Hurricanes and tornadoes, part of our usual weather cycle, are getting more severe. Drought and floods, recurring phenomena, are worsening.
Texas and the Southwest, which have long attracted working and retired residents, are facing prolonged droughts and water shortages that will curb future growth.
Dealing with the environment is a challenge that AI may meet quite dramatically. Its ability to predict, organize and find the exit in dense data is without peer.
Graduates, as the generation coming of age in 2026, you shouldn’t fear AI; rather, you should throw yourselves at it and learn what it can do for you. Gradually, it will be understood, regulated and you will come to terms with it as a tool, not an aggressor.
We have left you a messy world, but it was always that way.
Over two and a half centuries, America has absorbed and changed. Along the way — including civil war — it produced a society in which there is still opportunity; there is still freedom, although the door may be closing; and much has been perfected here.
Remember, more people live better in the world today because of America, its ideas, its inventions and its heart. Go forth and be that American.
On X: @llewellynking2
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS, and an international energy-sector consultant. He’s based in Rhode Island.
Washington’s lily-white dream
“Washington’s Dream’’ (1857 hand-colored lithograph), by Currier & Ives (1834-1907), at the Springfield (Mass.) Museums
The museum explains:
“Currier & Ives pictures a hero dedicated to attaining American independence from British rule. With his battle plans spread on the table and his sword beside him, Washington is portrayed as a leader fighting for freedom. An army encampment is visible through a door in the background. In his dream, Washington’s desire to establish an independent nation is realized by the presence of three allegorical figures dressed in flowing garb. Triumphantly positioned on a globe labeled ‘America,’ the figures symbolize (from left to right) prosperity, liberty and justice.’’
Of course, ‘‘liberty’’ was not meant to extend to his slaves.
Seeking ‘a glorious past’ to better face the future
In Lover's Leap State Park, New Milford, Conn.
—Photo by Bob P. B. - https://www.flickr.com/photos/7272600@N06/21939948784/
“A man rising in the world is not concerned with history; he is too busy making it. But a citizen with a fixed place in the community wants to acquire a glorious past just as he acquires antique furniture. By that past he is reassured of his present importance; in it he finds strength to face the dangers that lie in front of him.’’
xxx
“Opinions about the future of society are political opinions.’’
—Malcolm Cowley (1898-1989), writer and editor best known as a literary historian. He lived in New Milford, Conn.
‘Boundaries of public and private space’
“Adrift,’’ by Kate Ruddle in her show “Hortus Conclusus,’’ at The Front Gallery, Montpelier, Vt., through May 31.
She says:
“My sculptural installations consist of sewn and manipulated fabric (apparel, home decor, equestrian, camping, nautical) as well as photographic images and video. I use fabric, video and architectural elements to create objects and environments that explore how fabric can protect or control and reveal and define social position. My art references architecture, clothing and customs to investigate boundaries of personal and public space. I like to play with trappings that serve to wrap people into a social structure.
“The history of garments, social habitats, and power structures fascinate me. Worn items can be used to protect or expose the body and reveal and define social position. Throughout history there are examples of people’s erasure as they don’t fit into society’s structure. As society becomes more advanced does individualism become more or less threatening? How do we define ourselves in relationship to a social history that encompasses and precedes us? Can we tailor society to meet our needs? My installations grapple with these questions.’’
The Pavilion, a gorgeous government office building and state history museum, on State Street in Montpelier.
— Photo by Farragutful
No umbrella needed
“Paper Cloud” (paper and wood), by Waldo Evan Jespersen, in his show at Boston Sculptors Gallery, June 11-July 12.
He says:
"My sculptures are investigations into form with a ridged set of guidelines. Whether driven by process, material, or vision, my goal is to make complicated and challenging situations that resolve themselves into simple and elegant forms, moments or movement. In working this way, I find my self allied not with a material or style, but instead an internal standard. The result is an ever shifting and engaging body of work that is as educational as it is surprising."
Chris Powell: ‘Affordability’ for whom in Connecticut?
MANCHESTER, Conn.
A brief chronology from the last four months may explain Connecticut's political economy better than any so-called political scientist could.
In February, with the state's high and ever-rising cost of living -- its "affordability" -- beginning to get political attention, Gov. Ned Lamont said thay state government was doing so well financially that it should bestow tax rebates of $200 on more than 2 million taxpayers, an expense that would total about $400 million. The governor's proposal prompted much cynicism and derision, since the rebates would be delivered a few days before the election in November, in which Lamont will probably again be the Democratic nominee . But at least the governor's proposal was a token of respect for those paying government's bills.
But then the General Assembly convened and the major interests that rely on state government appropriations descended on the state Capitol. They maintained that their own affordability challenges were more compelling than those of mere taxpayers.
The governor already had promised generous raises to the state employee unions, since government employees are a key part of his political party and the Democrats overwhelmingly control the legislature. So the governor negotiated and the legislature approved a new master union contract for the state employees, estimated to cost $675 million more over the next three years than is now being spent for their services.
Municipal government officials were well represented at the Capitol, too, and the governor and legislative leaders promised them an extra $270 million in state financial aid, much of it for "education," the euphemism for raises for unionized teachers, another big component of the Democratic Party. Most of the rest of the extra aid will cover raises for other unionized municipal employees, another Democratic-leaning group.
These raises are euphemized as "contractual obligations" as if the obligations are forces of nature or acts of God, beyond the control of mere mortals, though municipal elected officials helped write and agreed to the contracts imposing the obligations.
So when the legislative session was through, the governor's proposal for $200 rebates for taxpayers had disappeared. He didn't fight for it. He was persuaded to abandon it by a more accurate political calculation -- that the unionized government employees pay far more attention than taxpayers do and would notice and act on the extra money much more than taxpayers would.
So this year in Connecticut "affordability" will be for government employees. They have earned it with their political activism for the Democrats. Other state residents will have to keep bearing their tax burden, which they have earned with their apathy and will keep earning if, as expected, they return the Democrats to power in November.
For as the late New York Times journalist James Reston observed, the first rule of politics is the indifference of the majority. Government money keeps going to the minority that is most mobilized politically to claim it, not necessarily to where it might do the most good for the public. That's Connecticut's political economy.
Even so, a recent poll of Connecticut residents taken by the University of New Hampshire's Survey Center suggested a surprising undertone of dissatisfaction with Governor Lamont and his administration. The poll found that Lamont's job approval is trending gradually down, with 48 percent approving and 46 percen disapproving, and with majorities unhappy with his handling of the state's cost of living, taxes, housing, and the economy.
It's not that the governor has been raising taxes. That complaint in the poll may reflect resentment of municipal property taxes, which rise steadily in part because of longstanding state mandates on local government, such as binding arbitration of government employee union contracts.
It's not clear whether the governor is judged poorly on housing because there is a shortage and prices are high or because he supports controversial legislation that would slightly constrain municipal zoning to encourage housing construction in the suburbs.
But in any case the poll hints at openings for the governor's challengers -- not that they yet have the campaign money, the wit, or the courage to exploit them.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net),
Trump’s assault on offshore wind is very bad for taxpayers, jobs and the overall economy
Old Higgins Farm Windmill, West Brewster, Mass., on Cape Cod
— Photo by John Phelan
Via The Conversation (not including images above)
This article is by Christopher Niezrecki, director of the Center for Energy Innovation at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell; Ben Link, the deputy director of the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute at Johns Hopkins University; Zoe Getman-Pickering is program director of the Academic Center for Reliability and Resilience of Offshore Wind at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
(See disclosures below.)
The U.S. is in a bizarre situation in 2026: It’s facing a looming energy shortage, yet the Trump administration is making deals to pay offshore wind developers nearly US$2 billion in taxpayer money to walk away from energy projects.
These politically motivated moves are costing Americans far more than just the buyouts.
Communities have been laying the groundwork for offshore energy projects for years. Offshore wind development brings jobs and economic development that reshape regional economies, with the scale of public and private investment reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars over years. East Coast communities have built up ports to support the industry and launched job-training programs to prepare workers. Construction, maintenance and shipping businesses have sprung up, along with secondary businesses that support the industry.
Offshore wind farms bring jobs and economic development. State Pier in New London, Conn., serves as a staging site for wind farm construction and supplies. AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey
Losing the projects, and the threat of losing other planned wind farms, will also likely mean higher energy prices. And while some offshore wind farms are moving ahead, developers must account for both lost momentum and increased uncertainty from the Trump administration.
As a result, Americans will bear the economic brunt of these decisions for decades ahead.
How America got to this point
To understand how the U.S. arrived in this predicament, let’s take a step back.
In March 2023, leaders from three U.S. federal agencies under the Biden administration met with the CEOs from American technology and manufacturing giants Microsoft, Amazon, Ford, GM, Dow Chemical and GE at the annual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, under the banner of “Affordable, Reliable and Secure American-Made Energy”.
They agreed on a key point: The nation was staring down a severe shortage of electrons to drive American business forward.
Fortunately, solutions abounded. Enormous amounts of onshore wind and solar power had been deployed during the previous five years. More than 80% of all new power additions to the U.S. grid had come from these two sources.
Particularly exciting were plans to build large offshore wind farms up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Taken together, the wind farms would generate 30 gigawatts of new power by 2030, enough to power more than 10 million homes and reduce volatility in energy pricing thanks to long-term power purchase agreements.
The U.S. had one small wind farm at the time, off Rhode Island, and two wind turbines off Virginia, but Europe had been operating large offshore wind projects for over two decades and was building more.
In the months following the 2023 meeting, leasing and permitting for the U.S. mega projects continued, and in some areas construction got underway.
A map of offshore wind lease areas shows how many companies have paid the U.S. to lease areas of ocean for offshore wind farms. A few wind farms off New England are already operating. The lease areas where the Trump administration used taxpayer money to persuade companies to drop their wind farm plans include two TotalEnergies leases – Attentive Energy, off New Jersey, and a lease area off South Carolina – and Bluepoint Wind, also off New Jersey. U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
Then, the Trump administration arrived in 2025. As president, Donald Trump immediately issued an executive order to halt offshore wind lease sales and any approvals, permits or loans for wind farms. He had made his disdain for wind power clear ever since he lost a fight to stop construction of a small wind farm near his golf course in Scotland in the 2010s.
After a federal judge declared Trump’s executive order unconstitutional in December 2025, the administration shifted strategies.
In March 2026, news outlets began reporting on deals struck in which the federal government would pay three offshore wind project developers hundreds of millions of dollars to cease development of their permitted projects, agree not to build others and repurpose the funds toward fossil fuel projects.
According to reported discussions involving the French energy company TotalEnergies, the money would be paid out through the Department of Interior’s Judgment Fund, intended for payment of legal settlements, despite there not being any active litigation with TotalEnergies.
The other projects agreeing to Trump’s buyouts as of early May were Golden State Wind, in California, and Bluepoint Wind, off New Jersey and New York. Both are co-owned by Ocean Winds, a joint venture of the French energy company Engie and EDP Renewables, headquartered in Spain. The California Energy Commission and members of Congress are now investigating the moves.
Offshore wind means local investment
Regardless of whether these buyouts are even legal, the losing parties will be the American taxpayers and a U.S. economy that needs more electrons on the grid, not fewer.
One analysis projected that deploying 40 GW along the U.S. East Coast by 2035 would generate roughly $140 billion in investment, much of it concentrated in port infrastructure and supply chain development.
New York in early 2026 announced a $300 million state grant program to expand port infrastructure supporting offshore wind. And the New Jersey Wind Port represents an investment exceeding $600 million to enable manufacturing and assembly of turbines.
Workers in New London, Conn., prepare a generator and its blades for transport to South Fork Wind’s offshore wind farm in 2023. To build an offshore wind farm requires manufacturing jobs, parts suppliers, dockworkers, crane operators, ship crews, as well as the wind farm construction crews and maintenance teams and many more businesses and their employees. AP Photo/Seth Wenig
In 2025, California state lawmakers authorized $225.7 million in spending for offshore wind ports and related facilities.
For these projects to pay off for local communities, however, the regions will need to see the development of wind farms.
Killing jobs
The cancellations of the planned projects also take jobs away from hard-working, blue-collar Americans.
The construction and installation of offshore wind turbines requires the expertise of skilled electrical workers, pipe fitters, welders, pile drivers, iron workers, machinists and carpenters.
Future offshore wind costs depend on investments today. As infrastructure is established and expertise grows, each subsequent project becomes easier to build, less risky and less expensive.
This pattern is already evident globally: The levelized cost of electricity from offshore wind globally fell by 62% between 2010 and 2024.
Canceling projects or buying back leases eliminates the electricity those projects would have generated. It also slows the accumulation of experience, scale and supply chain maturity that drive costs down over time.
The result is higher costs for future projects and for electricity ratepayers.
An energy crisis
Developing a robust offshore wind industry provides resilience in the face of an unstable global energy market.
Future U.S. and global energy demand is projected to grow significantly, largely driven by the rapid expansion of AI data centers and electrification of vehicles, homes and businesses.
Limiting the supply of homegrown energy will increase energy costs for Americans, especially in the regions where the wind farms were supposed to be located – New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and California.
With the federal buyouts, the U.S. is losing 8 GW of planned electricity generation, enough to power more than 3 million homes. That generation needs to be replaced by other energy sources and expanding power transmission lines that can take seven to 10 years to get permits for and build out. The leased projects were on their way to providing new clean power generation fairly quickly. Eliminating them restarts the project clock.
Reliance on dirtier, conventional forms of power generation will increase along with foreign energy imports, such as electricity delivered from Canada to New York, leading to higher and more volatile electricity prices.
Evidence from Europe shows that offshore wind can also reduce electricity costs for consumers by lowering wholesale prices and reducing dependence on fossil fuels and their volatile prices.
Vineyard Wind I, an offshore wind farm completed in 2026, with 806 MW of generation – enough to power about 400,000 homes – is projected to save Massachusetts customers about $1.4 billion on electricity bills over the next 20 years. With a fixed-price, 20-year contract, the project also lowered prices during cold snaps and peak demand for gas, reducing volatility and cost.
From jobs to local economic development to power costs, we believe canceling these offshore wind projects is a bad deal for American taxpayers.
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Christopher Niezrecki receives funding from from the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, ARROW Center, and several companies that support the WindSTAR Industry-University Cooperative Research Center.
Ben Link serves on the Maryland Clean Energy Center Board of Directors.
Zoe Getman-Pickering receives funding from The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and Maryland Energy Administration. She is affiliated with ARROW based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. ARROW is a member of NE4Wind and sits on the advisory board for The Pacific Offshore Wind Consortium.
‘Sodom on the Bay’?
Wiccan jewelry. Popular in Salem?
“To hear {George W. Bush} tell it, Massachusetts is not a state now in its fourth Republican governor in a row or one with one of the lowest tax burdens in the country…but some sort of Sodom on the Bay, with 90 percent tax rates, mandatory Wicca ceremonies in the public schools, and an anarcho-syndicalist majority in the state legislature. How could ‘real’ Americans be expected to accept a candidate from such a place?”
— Liberal columnist Paul Waldman in 2004, when Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry was the Democratic presidential nominee.
‘Where place and imagination meet’
"Emergence" (acrylic on canvas), by Michele Johnsen, in her joint show with Gretchen Woodman, “Of Birds and Places,’’ at The Gallery at WREN, Bethlehem, N.H., through July 3.
— Image courtesy of The Gallery at WREN
The gallery says:
The two artists have "a shared love of landscape and the fantastical…. through bold color, expressive mark-making, and whimsical birds that drift between the real and the surreal, the artists explore the space where place and imagination meet."
Johnsen says her paintings of the natural world's understory "express the wonder I feel for the sacred power that is invisible to us, yet links our existence to the land and trees." Woodman's depictions of animals, in this case, birds, "explore the enigma of the human-animal relationship.’’
The little town of Bethlehem in 1883, as the White Mountains were becoming a prime summer vacation region for those fleeing the noise, smoke and summer heat of the Industrial Revolution in the rapidly urbanizing parts of the Northeast to the south.
Snob zoning?
Work by Islay Petrie, in the Jamestown (R.I.) Arts Center’s group show NEXT featuring younger artists with connection with the island town.