Trump’s 19 year war against wind energy is “armed bureaucracy to undermine American energy production,” say criticism

“I’m not delighted. I want to see the ocean; I don’t want to see the windmills,” Trump told BBC News in May 2006. It was the first known example of Trump’s War against wind energy.

It took more than five years at the Offshore Aberdeen wind farm to initiate permits and, in 2012, when the golf course approached its opening, Trump launched a media and a legal aggression against the wind project – a campaign that turned out to be unsuccessful. “Tourism will suffer and the beauty of your country is in danger,” warned Trump in a 2012 advertising.

Trump wrote in an article in the Daily Mail 2013 that it would fight “as long as it would be – in hell if I had to – and spend as much as it takes to block this useless and grotesque stain on our heritage.” As he first presented himself to the presidency in 2015, Trump had tweeted negatively on the wind or the “windmills” more than 130 times.

At the chagrin of Trump, the Scottish wind farm opened in 2018. But he wore this fight much more aggressively during his second term as American president.

Upon his return to Scotland in July, he stressed: “We do not allow to build a windmill in the United States. They kill us ”. Trump added on August 20 on Truth Social that he “will not approve” wind or solar projects. “The days of stupidity are ended in the United States !!!” He posted.

Although Trump may not prevent each new wind turbine installed in the United States, he certainly tries.

In addition to a rapid suffocating of tax credits for wind and solar projects in the same major bill signed in July, the Trump administration has increased its attacks on wind – and solar – project – in a large -scale war, in particular by prohibiting new wind and solar projects on federal land and waters, moving highways and railways for turbines for the Turbines of eagle, and, most recently, for repaints for repaints for turbines for eagead, and, most recently, for repaints for repaints for turbines for eagle. For short -term credits eliminated after 2027.

Potentially, wind or solar projects must now go through three levels of federal examination, notably the interior secretary Doug Burgum, who declared in August that “the gargantuan energy projects, unreliable and intermittent, prevent America from reaching the domination of American energy”. These examinations at the secretary include many proposals on private land. Earlier this month, the administration canceled the Massive Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho, the Yanking permits approved last year.

While Trump has long despised wind turbines, he made it a major political priority in 2025. More wind projects were built during Trump’s first term than during the Biden administration. It is only now that the demand for American electricity has increased – thank you for the arrow of the AI ​​data center – and this happens just when renewable energies are disabled.

The average costs of the electricity bill increased by 7% from one year to the next in May, according to the Ministry of Energy, and they should continue to increase.

“It is a triumph of polarization on pragmatism,” said Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association Fortune. “What is breathtaking is that after having eliminated the subsidies, the administration was then launched with federal mandates and paperwork buckets to actively oppose the projects under construction.”

Executive “Double-Cross”

The last -minute compromise in the “Big Beautiful Bill” focused on setting up the tax credits on renewable energies for the moment, but quickly eliminating them.

To qualify, projects must innovate by July 4, 2026 or be completed by the end of 2027. The key is really on the ground by next summer, because they have started after July 2026, it is likely to end by the end of 2027.

As soon as the Omnibus expenditure law has been adopted, the Trump administration has gone to work, which makes the qualification of tax credits more difficult – which counts in particular what counts as a break. These revised rules were finalized on August 15.

Previously, the developers had only to pay 5% of the costs in advance to lock the tax credits. Instead, the 5% rule is eliminated for all solar farms except small, forcing all others to demonstrate that “physical work of a significant nature” began on or off site, such as the excavation of foundations.

Grumet calls it a “double-cross” to immediately modify the rules after having concluded an agreement which was already difficult in the clean energy sector. “It is essentially an energy policy of the” last last “,” he said.

The fear was that the administration would change the rules in a even more spectacular way, but some Republican senators – including John Curtis from Utah and Chuck Grassley of Iowa – were threatened to confirm certain candidates of Trump until the rules were published. After all, most of the wind and solar farms are built in red United States.

The new rules of foreign space which penalize projects for the use of Chinese documents in a renewable energy industry have also been annoying.

Other regulatory aspects are also potentially worse for industry. For example, the Burgum interior service went further on August 1 to also include “improved” examinations for the transmission projects of the electric line which are known to allow wind or solar projects.

This prescription occurred a few days after the Energy Department revoked a loan guarantee for the Grain Express transmission project of 800 miles from Kansas to Indiana.

Christina Hayes, executive director of Americans for a clean energy network, said Fortune The fact that the movement of the transmission policy adds more “uncertainty” when the nation quickly needs more electricity infrastructure, in particular when the power lines are agnostic to electricity produced by wind turbines or the combustion of coal.

“There is no sorting hacking for electrons. Once an electron is on the system, it’s like all other electrons,” said Hayes, a Harry Potter reference. “It’s not like” Oh, you are an electron gryffindor, you are a renewable electron, you are chicken, you are coal. “This is not how it works.

Upward obstacles

Potentially the most insidious changes to wind and solar energy are not the revisions of pure and simple policy, but the obstacles of the curains have been created: federal websites becoming dark, canceled meetings, telephone calls on several occasions without response.

“In order to allow a project, you must interact with the federal government,” said Grumet. “You are a developer, and you have traveled your 63 on 64 steps, and suddenly, you cannot get your final meeting. And now the future permits will be politicized at the level of the cabinet secretary for any place where you put a fence on how you create a road. It is the bureaucracy armed by armament to relieve the production of American energy. ”

For example, Hayes said that Elon Musk’s Doge Cutts contributed to the staffing of the Energy Department for Transmission Authorizations Coordinated Internsitations and enabled the narrowing program (CITAP) of around 60 people to six – criticisms for the location and the transmission permit.

Grumet compared the process to the department of motor vehicles in the Soviet Union of the 1950s. “The government is sufficiently difficult when everyone works towards solutions; It is impossible when the government works to create problems. ”

All false affirmations

Trump has repeatedly called the “windmills” a green energy scam and accused them of killing birds and marine life. He even falsely said that noise can cause cancer. But above all, he hates wind turbines for their aesthetics.

On the other hand, atmospheric pollution of fossil fuels can be carcinogenic, and the American fish and fauna service revealed that oil pits cause three times more deaths of birds than wind turbines, which were deemed responsible for less than 0.01% of the deaths of birds caused by humans.

Apart from, yes, cats, the main cause of death of birds is the construction and glass collisions, including Trump towers in New York and in the world. Trump’s Aberdeen Golf Complex was also built on sand dunes that sheltered several endangered bird species.

“The American public sees the idea that a wind of wind is overtaken is a carcinogenic,” said Grumet. “The problem on which the president really concentrates is aesthetics. It is a question of personal opinion if the president thinks that looking at a natural gas center is a source of American beauty, and watching a wind turbine is an assault against the landscape.”

So why now? First, this Trump administration is more full of partisan players who were ready to hit the ground. Second, the energy struggle has become more and more politically biased.

“Between 2020 and 2024, I think that the whole debate on energy has become more partisan, and wind energy, in particular, was locked in the imagination” US against them “of the way America works,” said Grum.

Yes, this is a difficult period for renewable energies in America. Fewer projects will materialize. The extent of this drop is not clear. But new natural gas factories and nuclear installations will take five to 10 years to build. The retreat of coal -fired power plants will have their prolonged life, but only temporarily. A new electricity production is necessary more quickly and renewable energies, in particular solar energy, will always fill most of the short -term gap – with or without tax credits.

“We are inexorably heading for a more efficient and more carbon energy system,” said Grumet. “The president’s actions could certainly slow this for a few years, but management will not change.”