Trump’s war on offshore wind power

Trump has made no secret of his fondness for the fossil fuel industries, major funders of his campaigns. But his dislike of wind and solar power is less well known, hard to understand and has been growing over the years from mild disfavor to apparent hatred. Some people think this might have to do with a 2013 visit Trump took to his golf course near Aberdeen on the Scottish coast where he found a small offshore 11 turbine wind farm under construction in the bay in the middle of his view and tried, angrily but to no avail to stop it.

Referring to wind turbines during a recent cabinet meeting, Trump said “They’re ugly. They don’t work. They kill your birds. They’re bad for the environment.” (But if he were so concerned about saving birds — and wind machines are a negligible threat — why hasn’t he put protective bird-friendly glazing on his Manhattan skyscraper?)

Last month the Trump administration halted construction on Revolution Wind, a $6.2 billion wind farm off New London, Conn. The project, 80% finished, was stopped by the Trump administration with an unconvincing explanation that there were “national security concerns”.

The order was the third time the Trump administration had revoked permits or halted work on wind farms that had already received federal approval while offering little legal justification for doing so, following actions against wind projects in New York and Idaho. Legal experts say that there is little basis for blocking projects that have already received permits.

“There’s no upside for anyone to this decision,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, “the economy’s going to be hurt. Consumers are going to see prices go up.There’s massive economic waste in stalling this project that is so nearly concluded”. Katie Dykes, commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said at a news conference that if Revolution Wind was interrupted, “we will have an elevated risk of rolling blackouts impacting our region.”

Ørestad, the Danish renewable energy company behind the 65-turbine project had said it was on track to generate enough electricity for more than 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut by next spring. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut challenged the construction halt saying, “They have offered no facts to justify this lawless, reckless decision.”

Last month the Trump administration halted construction on Revolution Wind, a $6.2 billion wind farm off New London, Conn.

Union leaders responded that more than 1,200 jobs could be affected by the stopping of Revolution Wind. On September 4, Ørestad sued the Trump administration, saying the government’s move to halt the nearly finished wind farm was unlawful and “issued in bad faith”.

The Trump administration has signaled in a court filing that it next plans to rescind federal approvals for yet another wind farm, the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, which had not yet begun construction but would consist of up to 114 wind turbines off the coast of Ocean City, Md.

In April, the Interior Department suddenly ordered that work be stopped at Empire Wind, a $5 billion wind farm off the coast of Long Island that had received all necessary approvals from the Biden administration and was already being built. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum claimed that the project’s permits had been rushed and that scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had uncovered flaws in the approval process. Finally in response to a Freedom of Information Act demand and threats of a lawsuit, the project was allowed to proceed. No “flaws in the approval process”, if any, have been made public.

Wind turbines now provide more than 10 percent of the nation’s electricity and in Iowa, it’s the largest source of electricity. Along with solar power installations, on shore wind farms can be produced more quickly than other forms of electrical power.

After decades of relatively steady demand, electricity consumption is soaring, driven by the rise of artificial intelligence, the electrification of homes and transportation and an uptick in domestic manufacturing. The Trump administration’s campaign against the wind power industry is jeopardizing a growing source of energy at a time when the country is in need of additional electricity.

As part of his “Big, Beautiful Bill,” the law that President Trump signed on July 4 ending tax incentives for wind and solar projects is expected to drive up electricity bills across the U.S., with some of the sharpest increases in Republican-led states. Without tax credits, the cost of wind and solar plants will go up. Companies are likely to respond by building fewer of those projects, and those facilities that do come online will have bigger price tags. As that happens, the country is expected to generate more electricity from natural gas plants, which are more expensive than wind and solar projects.

Recently, President Trump has instructed at least six of his cabinet secretaries to get their agencies to find reasons to shut down offshore wind projects; so far no attempted justifications have worked including Robert Kennedy Jr’s suggestion that undersea cables from the turbines back to shore were devastating fish and whales.

The unjustified delays are causing significant layoffs and disinvestment which are sure to result in higher energy costs for everyone. even if the wind power industry fully recovers. Despite the obvious benefits of proceeding full speed ahead with wind, solar, and other benign forms of power, the United States is being led by President Trump’s misguided pique and irrational action.

Architect and landscape designer Mac Gordon lives in Lakeville.