(task) Weak Federal Powers Could Limit Trump’s Climate-Policy Rollback - The New York Times

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renewable energy climate change

> http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/science/donald-trump-global-warming.html?_r=0 <http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/science/donald-trump-global-warming.html?_r=0>
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> Weak Federal Powers Could Limit Trump’s Climate-Policy Rollback
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> A wind farm in Pomeroy, Iowa. The wind power industry is booming in the United States, with wind-farm technician projected to be the country’s fastest-growing occupation over the next decade. Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
> With Donald J. Trump <http://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/donald-trump?inline=nyt-per> about to take control of the White House, it would seem a dark time for the renewable energy industry. After all, Mr. Trump has mocked the science of global warming <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> as a Chinese hoax, threatened to kill a global deal on climate change and promised to restore the coal industry to its former glory.
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> So consider what happened in the middle of December, after investors had had a month to absorb the implications of Mr. Trump’s victory. The federal government opened bidding on a tract of the ocean floor off New York State as a potential site for a huge wind farm.
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> Up, up and away soared the offers — interest from the bidders was so fevered that the auction went through 33 rounds <https://www.boem.gov/Bid-Summary-ATLW-6/> and spilled over to a second day. In the end, the winning bidder offered the federal Treasury $42 million, more than twice what the government got <https://www.boem.gov/press08242016/> in August for oil <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/energy-environment/oil-petroleum-and-gasoline/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> leases — oil leases — in the Gulf of Mexico.
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> Who won the bid? None other than Statoil, the Norwegian oil company, which is in the midst of a major campaign to turn itself into a big player in renewable energy.