By BRENDA FLANAGAN, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, NJ Spotlight News 

“This is a momentous day for the state because we are creating jobs for the future right now,” said Gov. Phil Murphy as he stood between massive steel supports and praised an agreement to boost financial support for a Paulsboro plant that builds monopiles for offshore wind turbines. The Paulsboro plant is scheduled to supply 98 of the gigantic 400-foot-long pylons for developer Ørsted’s first wind farm off the South Jersey coast. A new law Murphy signed Thursday guarantees that Ørsted will get federal tax credits and in return put up $200 million for South Jersey wind manufacturing facilities.

“They’re making this huge investment, and we’re doing it to capture manufacturing jobs which we would have lost to other states if this hadn’t been done,” said former Senate President Steve Sweeney. His think tank published a report, warning that fierce competition for wind industry business threatened to blow New Jersey away. Ørsted, which underwrites NJ Spotlight News, claimed rising costs threatened to cripple the project.

“The reality is, steel doubled in price, interest rates went up, so at the end of the day, we had to do something,” Sweeney said.

But if Ørsted gets federal tax credits, why not New Jersey’s other major offshore wind energy developer? Atlantic Shores said it wants the same deal that Ørsted got, stating, “We need an industry-wide solution, one that stabilizes all current projects, including Atlantic Shores Project 1.” That project sits right beside Ørsted’s two wind farm tracts. Murphy said, “We’re open-minded, absolutely open-minded. We want to make sure taxpayers get a good deal, jobs are created, that the corporates do what they say they’re going to do. Are we open-minded trying to figure out some common ground with the other offshore sequences? Absolutely.”

Republican responds to Murphy’s bailout of foreign wind company

There’s backlash as Republicans call this a bailout. And some coastal towns object, worried that wind farms will harm marine mammals and spoil their view. New Jersey’s Division of Rate Counsel is also concerned because Ørsted will be optioning tax credits that otherwise would have gone to ratepayers. But environmental advocates emphasized that offshore wind energy helps address the climate crisis.

Ørsted also just received final federal approval for the project with construction slated to begin this fall.

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