Will Trump Venture to Impose ‘No New (Offshore) Wind Turbines’ Policy and Bring US Industry Supporting 120,000 Jobs to Halt?

During his presidential campaign in 2024, Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order to stop offshore wind farms from being built in the US “on day one”. On 7 January, the US president-elect reiterated the plan which now seems to apply to wind energy on land too, saying he would look into implementing “a policy where no windmills are being built”.

The backlash is coming not only from the wind energy industry but also from government officials, as wind energy now accounts for 10 per cent of the US electricity generation, employs more than 120,000 people, and attracts tens of billions of US dollars in investments per year.

Donald Trump’s pledge that his administration would try to introduce the new policy comes shortly after the US president about to leave office, Joe Biden, imposed an offshore drilling ban encompassing 625 million acres of the US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), and also a few days after Trump called on the UK government to “get rid of windmills” and “open up the North Sea” for oil & gas as a US company exited the UK market due to the country’s oil & gas tax regime.

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• Trump Calls On UK to ‘Get Rid’ of Offshore Wind Farms in Favour of Oil & Gas; Gets Invited to Hull
• Biden’s US offshore oil & gas drilling ban throws a spanner in the works but ‘drill, baby, drill’ still on Trump’s energy agenda (Offshore-Energy.biz)

At a press conference on 7 January, live-streamed by US and global media, Trump said wind turbines “turn to garbage” after a time and “litter” the country, and reflected on the size of wind turbine components, also mentioning offshore wind turbines in New Jersey and Massachusetts. He emphasised wind energy was “the most expensive energy ever (…) many, many times more expensive than clean natural gas” and that wind energy only works when subsidised.

“You don’t want energy that needs subsidy. Energy is a good business, you don’t need subsidy”, Donald Trump said.

According to an analysis by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) published in August 2023, which looks at the fiscal years (FYs) 2016-2022 – most of the period being during Donald Trump’s first presidential mandate (from January 2017 to January 2021) – the US government allocated federal subsidies to a significant number of renewable energy producers, primarily including biofuels, wind, and solar energy, as well as low-income households and energy-efficiency improvements, with around 46 per cent of the federal energy subsidy list associated with renewable energy.

Looking at EIA’s data for the same period for natural gas and oil tax provisions, the amounts were exceeding those for renewable energy but they also brought in revenue to the government, especially in FYs 2016 and 2017. However, in FY 2022, the government’s tax expenditures in this area increased to reverse a trend from an estimated revenue inflow and “natural gas and petroleum-related subsidies became a net cost to the federal government”, according to the EIA.

The support provided to wind energy has already created an industry in the US that employs nearly 126,000 people and brings in billions of US dollars to the country, according to American Clean Power Association (ACP), which states on its website that wind energy in the US is the country’s fourth-largest source of electricity generation capacity. According to information from the US Department of Energy (DOE) from December 2023, wind farms are supplying over 10 per cent of US electricity generation.

So, will the incoming US president fulfil the promise and embark on implementing a policy that bans building new wind farms, both offshore and onshore, jeopardising jobs and billions in investments and federal lease fees?

This is left to be seen since Donald Trump was voicing his disapproval of wind energy, and especially offshore wind, before his first mandate, part of which time he spent fighting the Aberdeen Bay offshore wind farm (or the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre) in UK courts, claiming it would ruin the landscape and the view from his golf resort in Aberdeen. The UK Supreme Court ruled in favour of the project in December 2015 and the offshore wind farm was built and put into operation in 2018.

Still, during Trump’s first presidential term, seven large-scale offshore wind projects were awarded leases: Kitty Hawk North, Empire Wind, South Fork Wind, Skipjack, Beacon Wind, SouthCoast Wind, and Vineyard Northeast.

Some of these are operational, under construction or yet to enter construction, and more offshore wind projects are waiting to be built across the eleven leases awarded under the Biden administration.

Nevertheless, the industry might be on alert now even more so than before, one example being TotalEnergies’ move from November 2024 – before Trump’s announcement of the “no new wind farms” policy but after his vowing to stop offshore wind projects “on day one” in New Jersey in May 2024.

Namely, the French global energy company (and an oil & gas major) decided to pause the development of its offshore wind project in New York, citing political uncertainties following Donald Trump’s US presidential election win.

Also in November 2024 and before the news about the potential new policy, Oceantic Network’s CEO Liz Burdock said momentum had already been built in the US offshore wind industry and, even though macroeconomic conditions are posing new challenges, the industry was thriving.

“We have too many people working. We have too many investments made. We have too many commercial deals happening. So I believe our industry will not stop because we’ve gained unbelievable momentum”, Liz Burdock said on 26 November 2024 at Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference (OEEC) in Amsterdam.

Burdock also said that “this isn’t eight years ago” and a lot of things have changed, including the United States requiring 20 per cent more energy production by the end of the decade, because of users such as AI data centres that are coming online.

The US has so far permitted almost 17 GW of offshore wind and leased over 66 GW, with investments that have been made in the supply chain totalling about USD 25.2 billion (around EUR 24.4 billion).

“I know that there’s been talk about repealing the [Inflation Reduction Act]. We don’t think that that is going to happen. Some tax credits will get repealed, but the tax credits that support offshore wind, the production tax credits and the advanced manufacturing tax credits, we believe will stay intact. They might have a sooner sunset date, but they will still go forward”, Burdock said.

The US saw USD 40 billion (around EUR 38.8 billion) invested in the offshore wind industry overall and there are now 39 states that are involved in offshore wind, Liz Burdock pointed out in November 2024.  

Trump’s plan to ban new wind energy projects has also seen comments from government officials, including the US Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member, Ron Wyden, who said the move, if realised, would increase consumer electric bills.

“Donald Trump’s ‘no windmills’ policy is a guaranteed way to cut American energy production and increase families’ electricity bills. Trump is against wind energy because he doesn’t understand our country’s energy needs and dislikes the sight of turbines near his private country clubs. He is completely out of touch”, Ron Wyden said in a statement on 7 January.

The growing (offshore) wind energy industry and the rising electricity demand in the US, and the consequences of not utilising all resources at the country’s disposal, have been highlighted in multiple comments on Donald Trump’s statement he would put a stop to new wind energy projects.

“The President-Elect’s statement yesterday doesn’t change the jobs and investment already contributing to the U.S. economy, nor the imminent need for more domestically-produced energy. Without utilizing all of the available energy sources at our disposal, the country won’t meet the projected need in the short or long term”, a source from the US wind energy industry said to offshoreWIND.biz.

At the press conference on Tuesday, Trump also attacked Biden’s recent move to ban offshore drilling across several US OCS areas, saying it was a mistake and adding that AI, which is the next big thing, would require double the electricity the US is using now. He also said his administration would reverse Biden’s drilling ban “immediately”.

According to information shared by the media after the Biden administration imposed the ban, revoking it would not be easy as it first needs to be discussed and changed by the US Congress.

Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association (ACP), had a response for both the incoming and outgoing president: “Whether it’s withdrawing offshore oil and gas resources from development or threatening policies that harm wind energy, American presidents shouldn’t be taking American resources away from the American people.”