Can Trump kill offshore wind?

Invigorated by president-elect Donald Trump’s election, opponents of offshore wind power hope for the new administration to sweep President Biden’s renewable energy plans aside.

“If Biden can cancel XL pipeline’s border crossing permit over climate concerns, why can't @realDonaldTrump yank offshore wind permits over BOEM's disregard of evidence showing harm to marine life?” wrote activist Lisa Linowes of the Save Right Whales Coalition on social media site X Dec. 9.

At a May campaign rally on a New Jersey beach, Trump famously promised to end wind projects “on day one” if he returns to the White House. In the final weeks of the campaign Trump amped up his rhetoric, repeating offshore wind critics’ accusations of projects threatening marine life.

“It drives the whales freaking crazy...and the environmentalists, they don't talk about it,” Trump said on podcaster Joe Rogans’s Oct. 26 show.

A new Trump administration could block new offshore wind leasing by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which pushed ahead future lease planning in the waning months of the Biden presidency. For developers with existing leases, Trump could interfere and slow-walk permitting – or even try to reverse it, as Department of Interior officials did to the Vineyard Wind project in late 2020 as Trump’s first administration was in its final weeks. 

As a candidate, Trump slammed the Biden administration’s Inflation Recovery Act of 2022 and threatened to rescind spending and subsidies that promote wind and solar power development. But those technologies are now the fastest-growing energy sectors, the U.S. Department of Energy has reported. Even in Texas, still dominated politically by fossil fuel industry, wind, solar and battery power have grown dramatically.

Market-driven transformations will be politically harder to derail, with bipartisan support built into Congress among members, including Republicans, whose home districts have benefitted from those new energy investments. 

Offshore wind advocates are hopeful some of that will hold true for their industry, with support from Louisiana Republicans whose offshore operators, shipbuilders and fabricators have business with wind.

“Wind projects take years to develop. Offshore wind especially has long lead times,” wrote Julia Pendleton, managing director of the Southeastern Wind Coalition, on the group’s website Nov. 11.

“While the incoming Trump-Vance administration has expressed support for fossil fuels and may seek to roll back certain climate policies, state-led and private-sector wind energy initiatives will continue to advance."