
Union leaders recently gathered in Newport News, Virginia, calling on the state's political leaders to step up development of offshore wind projects.
The U.S. Department of the Interior has identified the water off Virginia Beach as ideal for wind power generation, and the Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium estimates a 20-year wind power project would create 10,000 jobs, half of them permanent, the Associated Press reports. The labor leaders gathered in Newport News were aware of the industry's promise.
"We see this as a growth industry," Bill Harriday said at the news conference organized by the Sierra Club of Virginia. Harriday added that the 8,000 union workers at the Newport News shipyard, the nation's only aircraft carrier building facility, have the skills to construct wind turbines.
Glen Besa, director of the Sierra Club of Virginia, pointed out that offshore wind development improves national security by reducing the country's dependence on foreign oil, the Newport News Daily Press reports.
Other states on the Eastern Seaboard are also moving ahead with offshore wind development. The Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management recently announced the start of a commercial leasing process for wind developments off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

