Offshore Wind Energy Has Produced a ‘Windfall’ of Waste

Industrial policy—the practice by which governments encourage, support, or protect certain industries—is as nearly as old in America as the republic itself.  Alexander Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures” (1791) sought to impose tariffs principally to fund the government. But his tariff policies also had the effect of protecting and encouraging local investment, manufacturing, and industries. Since then, industrial policy has led to the creation of everything from the telegraph to the transcontinental railroad to Google to the Boeing 767 to the “Goldfish” snack crackers. Industrial policy is a staple of industrial and commercial development among state governors and city mayors who offer things like property tax abatements, industrial parks, direct subsidies, and other incentives to locate businesses—and jobs—within their jurisdictions....