Offshore windfarms hold huge economic potential for Jersey as a producer and exporter of renewable energy, the island's Environment Minister has said.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by New York and New Jersey residents challenging preliminary government plans for offshore wind farm development off the Atlantic coast.

During its Feb. 9 meeting, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) approved the expansion of its Wind Institute Fellowship Program, which offers students at select Garden State universities paid research fellowships to prepare them for careers in the burgeoning offshore wind industry.

According to the Murphy administration, the wind port will create several hundred construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs as additional companies lease space there.

A surge of whale deaths along the New Jersey coast has scientists concerned, activists riled and politicians pointing fingers.

Tucker Carlson's Whale Blubber
You wouldn’t expect liberal politicians and environmentalists to align with Tucker Carlson on just about anything these days. But all three players have lately found a common cause: dead whales found off of the New Jersey shore.

Federal officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with their partners from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, last week emphatically shot down the premise that recent incidents of whale strandings and deaths off New Jersey and New York are related to offshore wind survey work.

Several dead whales have washed ashore in New Jersey and New York this winter. It's not that unusual - but many of the headlines and the social media firestorm around their deaths have been. Several reports have questioned whether the whale deaths might be connected to the development of wind turbines off the coast, despite there being no evidence of that.

A spate of nine whale deaths in New York and New Jersey in the last two months have prompted several New Jersey GOP lawmakers to question whether the deaths were linked to development of a major proposed offshore wind farm in the area. But scientists say there’s no evidence to support a connection between the two.

In less than two months, seven dead whales have washed up on the shores of New Jersey and New York. What's behind the mortalities has not been clearly established, but theories abound. Some have pointed blame at offshore wind development in the region and claimed construction of the sites causes harm to marine animals. But federal officials are pushing back, saying that's not what the evidence shows.