The president-elect thinks wind farms are ugly, expensive, and inefficient — and he’s going to start working to kill the industry on Day One.
President-elect Donald Trump thinks offshore wind farms are ugly, expensive, and inefficient — and he’s going to begin working to kill the industry on Day One of his presidency.
“They destroy everything, they’re horrible, the most expensive energy there is,” Trump said during a May campaign event in Wildwood, N.J. “They ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales.”
It’s not yet clear exactly how Trump plans to throttle a deeply entrenched, infrastructure-heavy industry that expanded its footprint significantly during the friendly Biden years, but energy industry experts are confident that he can, at the very least, prevent the construction of new projects. They’re less confident in his ability to shut down many sites that popped up or expanded with Biden administration support.
Assuming that Trump’s pick to lead the Department of the Interior, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, is confirmed by the Senate, he will likely face pressure to end the leases of offshore wind projects and be given the authority to prioritize oil and gas leasing instead. The next administration’s expected focus on oil and gas production would fulfill Trump’s campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill.”
Trump has a suite of executive tools at his disposal, but he could also push the new GOP-controlled Congress to reduce or outright eliminate tax credits used to fund offshore wind projects.
While Trump can certainly present fiscally minded legislators with data showing that offshore wind represents a bad investment for taxpayers, his campaign rhetoric suggests he’s more attracted to the visceral argument that offshore wind farms are actively harmful to the environment.
Speaking to podcaster Joe Rogan ahead of the election for an episode that drew tens of millions of listens, Trump likened offshore wind sites to “bird cemeter[ies]” and suggested that whales are driven “crazy” because of the vibrations and noises from windmills.
“I wanna be a whale psychiatrist,” Trump told Rogan. “It drives the whales fricking crazy. And something happens with them, but for whatever reason, they’re getting washed up onshore, and you know, they’re ignored by these environmentalists. But they don’t talk about it.”
It may sound like standard Trumpian bluster, but the president-elect was advancing an argument that has taken center stage in a number of legal venues around the country as opponents of wind energy are fighting back against the industry’s expansion.
One major front in the battle against offshore wind is the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind site, a $9.8 billion facility operated by Dominion Energy. The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) accuse Dominion of harming the endangered North Atlantic right whale by constructing a wind farm close to its migration path and habitat along the Atlantic coast, where 29 other projects will also be located.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) estimates that there will be nearly 3,300 man-made structures for planned offshore wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean. The federal office concedes that the sheer number of turbines will result in “overall major impacts” on the whale species, yet it still approves the construction and operations plans for these sites.
BOEM also admits that the area set aside for Dominion’s wind farm is “biologically important” for the right whale. While the marine mammal primarily lives in the North Atlantic Ocean, some whales do have a year-round presence in the mid-Atlantic off the coasts of New Jersey, Virginia, and North Carolina.
At least two right whales have died this year, further straining an endangered species “that cannot afford to lose a single member,” as the plaintiffs put it. Fewer than 350 North Atlantic right whales remain, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service wrote in a May 2022 letter to BOEM.
The newly released 2023 estimate is approximately 372, but five North Atlantic right whales have died so far this year and four lost calves are presumed dead. Furthermore, about 70 of the total remaining are reproductively active females.
The “extreme number” of whale deaths has been “deemed an unusual mortality event,” ACK for Whales board member Amy DiSibio told National Review. “We’re seeing it, and it correlates perfectly with the offshore wind survey work and all of this construction.”
“For some reason, the agencies are not willing to make that the hypothesis and do the real testing,” DiSibio continued. “They just turn around and say things like, ‘There’s no proof that this is caused by offshore wind.’ That’s a really easy thing to say because they haven’t studied it. There’s also no proof that it isn’t caused by that. But when we see this high correlation, it’s shocking that nobody takes pause on that. It’s actually completely reckless.”
Though it’s unclear if whale deaths can be directly attributed to offshore wind farms, CFACT and NLPC argue that the federal government is ignoring the cumulative impact of wind turbines on the whale species.
Their new motion posits that pile-driving turbines into the ocean floor will destroy and disturb the habitats of fish and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act, including the right whale. The constant droning of pile-driving causes loud noises and vibrations that can potentially harm whales, according to research conducted by the University of Maryland. Whales have an acute sense of hearing, making them susceptible to low-frequency sounds.
While the National Marine Fisheries Service concluded in its biological opinion that the adverse effects caused by pile-driving constitute temporary harassment under the Endangered Species Act, the federal agency said right whales are not at risk of mortality or permanent damage.
But CFACT and NLPC contend that regardless of whether the harm is permanent or temporary, BOEM’s approval of the Dominion project and the National Marine Fisheries Service’s biological opinion still violate the Endangered Species Act.
It’s not just their construction. Once they’re up, wind turbines can experience structural failures that pose a danger to North Atlantic right whales and other marine species, a factor that the plaintiffs say the National Marine Fisheries Service did not fully consider in its assessment.
There have been three blade failures this year, the most notable occurring at Vineyard Wind this summer. The other two blade failures occurred at Dogger Bank Wind Farm off the northeast coast of England in May and August. Each incident can be linked directly to GE Vernova’s Haliade-X turbine blades, which either experienced manufacturing deviations or installation issues.
The Haliade-X blade is a relatively new model considered to be larger and more powerful than older models. It measures 351 feet long, about the same length as a football field.
If those blades break, as the one at Vineyard Wind did, fiberglass shards and microplastic debris could come into contact with or be ingested by fish and marine mammals.
Out of the estimated 700,000 turbine blades in operation around the world, an average of about 3,800 fail each year. That’s an annual failure rate of 0.54 percent.
The National Marine Fisheries Service’s refusal to engage with inconvenient hypotheses may change under Trump. Using his executive authority, Trump could order the agency to conduct new analyses that consider all the existing data on how wind farms affect whale migration, as well as the risk of structural failures that result in water pollution.
And it’s not just whales that are being harmed by the construction of new wind farms.
NLPC chairman Peter Flaherty cites economic injury in the case against Dominion’s wind farm. As a Virginia resident, Flaherty pays a surcharge of $2.53 on his monthly electric bills from Dominion to finance Coastal Virginia. Based in Falls Church, NLPC is charged $3.74 per month.
The federal judge overseeing the case must determine whether the plaintiffs have standing after the federal government submits its opposing motion before the court. Though the judge previously ruled that the plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction was not strong on the merits, she did find that they were likely to have been injured by Dominion.
The numerous lawsuits challenging offshore wind may very well benefit from a recent ruling. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court overturned the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine, which gave administrative agencies significant deference in interpreting ambiguous statutes. Instead of deferring to the agency’s interpretation of the statute, federal judges must independently make their own conclusions about the agency’s actions under the Court’s ruling.
As a result, federal agencies may face more judicial scrutiny when complex projects such as offshore wind farms are challenged in court. NLPC counsel Paul Kamenar hopes this plays to their advantage.
“I think we have a better shot of winning now that Chevron has been overturned than if it had not been,” Kamenar told NR.
While much of the opposition is playing out in courtrooms across the country — there are currently at least 13 pending lawsuits in federal court and countless others in state court — the fight for public attention is being led by grassroots activists, commercial fishermen, and environmental groups committed to the health of marine life.
Vineyard Wind, the Massachusetts wind farm that saw one of its turbine blades malfunction and break in July, has galvanized grassroots opposition to offshore wind. The incident prompted New England fishermen to sail out to the site and protest for three hours in late August.
Another protest was held on a beach in Nantucket at the same time as the flotilla protest, with one participant dressed up in a whale costume holding a sign that reads, “Save me.”
Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard were the areas directly affected given their proximity to the wind farm, but debris traveled as far west as Long Island.
Seafreeze Shoreside, a seafood wholesaler based in Rhode Island that owns and operates commercial fishing vessels, and other fishing organizations brought a federal case against Vineyard Wind unrelated to this summer’s blade disaster. Seafreeze’s lawsuit primarily argues that the Massachusetts offshore wind farm is harming the livelihoods of fishermen and wiping out a key food source: squid.
Vineyard Wind sits on top of an area where squid are frequently found, making it difficult for fishermen to catch the animal. Trawl fishing, which involves towing a net behind a boat to catch squid and other fish, is no longer tenable with wind turbines obstructing the commercial fishing grounds in federal waters. It’s also unsafe.
Because turbines are connected by underwater cables, a net used for trawl fishing can get easily entangled and risk capsizing or otherwise damaging the boat. Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison of Seafreeze, described the cables and concrete foundations as an “underwater minefield” too dangerous to navigate.
Offshore wind turbines also interfere with marine radar, posing another safety risk for fishermen. Lapp said there are no current solutions for marine radar interference caused by turbines.
Search and rescue efforts are also hindered by the towering offshore wind turbines. Vineyard Wind’s turbines are 853 feet tall, nearly three times the height of the Statue of Liberty.
Bonnie Brady, executive director of Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and a concerned party in the case, said helicopter pilots need the room to fly between turbines at a lower height.
“I’ve spoken to a couple of helicopter pilots over time, and some start the search at about 500 feet,” Brady said. “But when they’re really looking for individual people in the water, that drops down to 100 to 200 feet in order to be able to see little blips that turn out to be humans or a raft.”
Construction of the skyscraper-like structures also changes the squid’s sandy habitat on the ocean floor to rocks. Squid and other marine life are then displaced, altering the entire ecosystem.
Seafreeze has raised these concerns and more in public-comment letters to BOEM, which ultimately ignored them.
“At no point in the process were our interests legitimately considered, whether from a safety perspective, whether from an operational perspective, whether from an interference perspective or an environmental perspective,” Lapp said.
The plaintiffs also offered economic injury to justify their standing in the case. Squid is one of Seafreeze’s top products. In 2016, Seafreeze brought in $1.7 million by catching squid in Vineyard Wind’s lease area — about 19 percent of the company’s business.
A federal judge denied the plaintiffs’ motion to halt Vineyard Wind’s construction and operations plan last year, finding that the fishing companies did not adequately demonstrate how their businesses could be seriously harmed. The appeal of that decision remains ongoing.
The Vineyard Wind project, estimated to cost $4 billion, currently has ten turbines out of the total 62 planned. The wind farm is expected to be finished in 2025. But since July’s blade incident, it has hit a snag.
The offshore wind developer is prohibited from installing blades and producing power under a temporary suspension order from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, although it can continue installing turbine towers and perform survey work in the lease area. Vineyard Wind is currently evaluating the environmental harm caused by the blade failure, complying with the federal agency’s order.
“We’re literally talking about creating a solution that destroys the environment in order to save it,” Brady said. “The majority of people have been so brainwashed by being told, ‘No, they’re just pretty windmills and, Oh, we’re going to save the world this way.’ We’re going to destroy the best carbon sink that exists, our ocean.”