ICYMI: Trump Escalates His Vendetta Against Wind 

Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, the New York Times published a piece highlighting the Trump administration’s coordinated effort to gut clean energy production amid soaring energy prices and demand. 

This comes after Trump and his Cabinet met last week to launch a baseless tirade against clean energy and closed two wind projects in less than a week, cancelling jobs and threatening Americans with an increased risk of blackouts. With utility bills up 10% under Trump, Energy Secretary Wright has even admitted that rising utility bills are his top concern and that the Trump Administration will be blamed by the public, but that has not led to any pause in the Trump Administration attacks on American energy. Once again, Trump is putting his own personal hatred for wind – and his promises to billionaire Big Oil campaign donors – over the needs of the American people. 

The New York Times: White House Orders Agencies to Escalate Fight Against Offshore Wind

The White House has taken the extraordinary step of instructing a half-dozen agencies to draft plans to thwart the country’s offshore wind industry as it intensifies its governmentwide attack on a source of renewable energy that President Trump has criticized as ugly, expensive and inefficient…

Agencies that typically have little to do with offshore wind power have been drawn into the effort, the two people said. At the Health and Human Services Department, for instance, officials are studying whether wind turbines are emitting electromagnetic fields that could harm human health. And the Defense Department is probing whether the projects could pose risks to national security…

When the Trump administration abruptly ordered that construction stop last month at Revolution Wind, a $4 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that is 80 percent complete, it alluded to national security concerns without elaborating. The administration has since seized on the idea that offshore wind projects could threaten national security…

Some experts said they were baffled by those comments. By law, offshore wind projects already undergo an extensive review process by the Defense Department. The Pentagon had participated in a review of Revolution Wind and, in 2023, signed off on modifications that would reduce or avoid effects on military radar operations.

Mr. Kennedy has warned that the subsea cables used in offshore wind farms are emitting an electromagnetic field that can harm people and whales. But experts say that these fields are similar to those emitted by many household appliances and there is no evidence that they have negative environmental or health effects.

“The impression they’re leaving, which I think is the truth, is that they’re grasping at straws,” said John Leshy, who served as general counsel for the Interior Department during the Clinton administration.

Mr. Trump has disparaged wind power ever since he failed 14 years ago to stop an offshore wind farm visible from of one of his golf courses in Scotland. He railed against wind and solar power during his presidential campaign last year, when he also promised oil and gas executives that he would make policy changes that would help their industry, such as rolling back environmental rules…

Since 2006 the U.S. military has studied the potential for offshore wind turbines to disrupt radar. It has generally concluded that the risk is real but can be offset with planning and technological upgrades.

“It’s a false narrative” to say that offshore wind turbines threaten national security, said Kirk Lippold, a retired Navy commander who now writes about energy. “There are a lot of options, including operator training, that can mitigate many of those issues.”

Of Mr. Burgum’s warning that drones could attack the United States by going through wind farms, Mr. Lippold was dismissive. “If we’re at a point where undersea drones are operating within U.S. territorial waters, that would be an incredible intelligence and military failure,” he said. “They’re making some very specious arguments to try to justify shutting these wind projects down.”