Kathy Hochul vetoes bill that would have sped up construction of a planned offshore wind depot after civic pressure
On Friday, New York’s governor Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill which would have sped up the construction of a planned offshore wind depot as it would have allowed for the developer to bypass local rules and run the transmission line from the offshore turbines under the community of Long Beach. (According to the Department of Energy, transmission lines carry electricity at high voltages from the generator to the community.) From a CBS report on the matter:
A major renewable energy project off Long Island suffered a big blow on Friday when Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a controversial bill that would’ve expedited a planned wind farm off Long Beach.
Residents concerned about electromagnetic fields and construction won a victory against landing an offshore wind transmission line there.
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‘Equinor [the developer] never made any real attempt to address the cities’ concerns and they have brought this upon themselves,’ said Long Beach City Council President John Bendo. ‘They’re talking about potentially closing our roads for up to two years ... absolutely disastrous to traffic flow.’
Opponents said they support the transition away from fossil fuels to combat climate change, but the transmission line doesn’t belong under densely-populated communities.
So Long Beach residents, which are majority Democrat (including Bendo), want projects that come with butt-ugly fiberglass monstrosities polluting landscapes and seascapes, cancer-inducing high voltage mechanisms running through the ground, and “disastrous” traffic consequences to manifest… just as long as all of this doesn’t crop up in their backyard. They’re “green,” but only if it doesn’t affect them negatively; the burden should be on those flyover people!
Classic. They’re like Bill Gates, lecturing on the detrimental impact of humanity while almost single handedly funding endless initiatives that reap ruin and death; or John Kerry, who stumps at climate conference after climate conference as he jetsets between the events in a Gulfstream; or like Leonardo DiCaprio, who rails against the common man for his carbon footprint, but flies in a beauty guru from Australia just to pluck his eyebrows.
All the sacrifice for a “green” utopia must be made by the little people, not the pseudo-elites.
Let’s be honest though, we’re all creatures of NIMBY—Not In My Backyard—because nobody wants anything in their own backyard that would diminish their quality of life, or invite problems into their community.
However, there is a line dividing people into two distinct NIMBY segments:
The one side of NIMBY includes the people who, if they don’t want something in their own backyard, then they won’t demand you put it in yours—it goes without saying, these are the political conservatives.
Now the other side… the other side is composed of the pseudo-elites, who generally (and coincidentally), are leftists. These are the “no human being is illegal” Martha’s Vineyard winos wearing $2,000 t-shirts, applauding themselves for playing hostess to illegal invaders for a day (before shipping them off on a bus to a military base), and breaking down into sobs of relief when the aliens are out of the neighborhood… and apparently, a good portion of the people of Long Beach, New York.
If a conservative doesn’t want it, then no one is expected to take it. But, a leftist? Then, naturally, you should take the yoke, for the sake of tolerance, inclusion, progress, environmentalism, or whatever other virtue with which they want to gaslight you.
Hypocrisy upon hypocrisy.
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