US president’s offshore wind crackdown targets nine projects, imperiling jobs and the clean energy transition
Donald Trump has jettisoned Republicans’ longstanding “all of the above” approach to energy by using the US government to aggressively stamp out clean energy projects – particularly offshore wind turbines.
The scale of the intervention is remarkable – a total of nine already permitted offshore wind projects that were set to provide electricity to nearly 5m households and create about 9,000 jobs in the US are under investigation or have already been paused by the Trump administration.
Trump has barred any new solar and wind projects from federal land and waters, eliminated incentives for clean energy and, almost uniquely for a US president, called for an entire industry to be stopped in its tracks.
“Windmills – we’re just not gonna allow them, they are ruining the country,” the president said last month. On Tuesday, he told the United Nations, without evidence: “Countries are on the brink of destruction because of the green energy agenda.”
