Cranston, RI – Today, CEO for the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity, Mike Stenhouse, co-signed a letter, along with national energy expert, G. Allen Brooks, requesting Doug Brugum, Secretary of the US Department Of the Interior (DOI), and other federal officials to accept the formal petition previously filed Seafreeze Inc (and others) that calls upon the government to immediately suspend “further construction and energy generation activity” of the near-completed Vineyard Wind off-shore wind project.

In the letter, Brooks, adjunct scholar to the Center and Senior Fellow at the National Center for Energy Analytics, urges DOI to act upon the petition, which documents detailed “violations of regulations, environmental legislation” as well as other “mistakes … in the approval process for Vineyard Wind”.

Violations are cited across multiple fronts, including federal “Acts” involving national environmental policy, endangered species, clean water, clean air, and continental shelf lands. The enormously costly Vineyard Wind project will greatly disrupt the Rhode Island fishing industry and is not likely to produce promised energy levels; nor will it reduce carbon emissions in any meaningful way.

Stenhouse, whose Center has been fighting for the energy rights of the people of Rhode Island for 14 years, said “these obvious process violations and dishonest presentation of data should be a major red flag to the DOI’s July 29 Order No. 3347, which calls for federal review of all off-shore wind projects. The possibility that Vineyard Wind, and other OSW projects could be administratively shut down is further reason why Rhode Island’s “net zero” Act on Climate energy strategy, which is largely based on un-realistic expectations of wind and solar energy production, must be reconsidered.”

The Center has continually argued that agenda-driven Ocean State bureaucrats and lawmakers have placed the interests of special interest groups and giant green energy companies ahead of the well-being of its residents. The Center believes that a revised strategy should prioritize affordable, abundant, and reliable energy sources ahead of low-carbon sources.

The 2-page letter can be viewed, here. The Center’s recent reports and body of wok on state energy policy can be viewed at RIFreedom.org/Energy

Brooks and Stenhouse are available to the media for comment or interview.