Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026

Floor Speech

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Mr. HARRIS of Maryland. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for bringing up this topic.

The fact of the matter is that the permitting process was abbreviated for offshore wind because we have this fascination that we have to bring this very expensive type of energy production somehow to the United States, and the gentleman from New Jersey brings up the point.

The fact of the matter is, Mr. Chair, these new windmills that they propose off my district are twice as high as the ones that they have initially proposed. They have never been placed in the maritime environment, so we have no idea what the undersea effect will be. In my district, this is the closest point to Washington, D.C., off the coast.

Time is not our enemy. Russia and China are our enemies. They have submarines. Russia has submarines that could come close to our coast, launch a weapon, and not be detected because we don't know what the effect is of these windmills.

As the gentleman brings up, Sweden canceled 12 of 13 offshore projects on their side toward Russia because it would delay detection by 1 minute. The time needed to detect a missile would go from 1 minute to 2 minutes because of that interference.

Now, we stand here, closest to the shore. We absolutely should make certain that these windmills are not going to affect our safety standing right here in the Capitol.

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