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On his first day in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that attempts to slow the growth in the country’s wind generation capacity.
The order paused all leasing of federal waters for offshore wind and paused new or renewed approvals for onshore or offshore wind projects on federal land until the outcome of a “comprehensive assessment and review of federal wind leases and permitting practices.” The order also suspended a large and previously approved project in Idaho. Although the order described the provisions as temporary, no end date is specified.
“We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said after his inauguration on Jan. 20 during a rally. “Big, ugly windmills, they ruin your neighborhood.”
Also on Jan. 20, the Department of Interior issued a broader order for a 60-day suspension of “any onshore or offshore renewable energy authorization.”
That same day, in a separate executive order, Trump declared a national energy emergency based on the nation’s “inadequate energy supply and infrastructure.” While the order discussed the need for “a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy,” it also blamed the previous administration for creating “a precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply, and an increasingly unreliable grid” – which mirrors some of Trump’s misleading criticisms about wind energy being unreliable.
Trump’s attacks against wind power are not new. We’ve been fact-checking his false and misleading claims for nearly a decade. He has said, for example, that wind energy doesn’t work, either because it’s unreliable or because it needs subsidies. But as we’ve explained, electrical grids are able to manage the variability of wind power due to fluctuations in weather. And while subsidies have played an important role in building the wind industry, onshore wind — the type that makes up the vast majority of wind turbines in the U.S. — is on par with or cheaper than natural gas or coal plants.
We have also explained that there is no evidence to support Trump’s claims on wind energy development killing whales. Scientists link the deaths, which are at unusual rates since 2016, to different factors including an increase of commercial activity in areas where whales eat or migrate.
He repeated some of these and other claims in a rally right after his inauguration address, as well as in his executive order itself.
For example, the executive order stated that the pause is subject to a review that will consider the environmental impact of wind projects in land and water “upon wildlife, including, but not limited to, birds and marine mammals” and “the economic costs associated with the intermittent generation of electricity and the effect of subsidies on the viability of the wind industry.”
Wind is the largest renewable source of electricity generation in the U.S., providing over 10% of the country’s electricity. More than 73,000 wind turbines generate a total of 153,000 megawatts, which is enough to power 46 million homes, according to American Clean Power, a clean energy trade group. The wind industry invested $10 billion in new projects in 2023, and it employed over 131,000 workers, according to Clean Power and the Department of Energy, respectively.
Trump’s energy emergency executive order excludes wind from its definition of the terms “energy” or “energy resources.” Included are “crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals.”
What did the order on wind energy do?
The order stopped new approvals, and renewals, of wind energy projects on federal land and waters.
It removed “all areas within the Offshore Continental Shelf” for consideration of any wind energy leasing intended to generate electricity or any other related use of wind.
The outer continental shelf consists of more than 3 billion offshore acres along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts; around the Hawaiian Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; and in the Gulf of Mexico (which the federal government is renaming the Gulf of America) and along the coast of Alaska. States have jurisdiction over 3 nautical miles from the coastline, with some exceptions, and the federal jurisdiction extends from there to roughly 200 nautical miles.
The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is responsible for all OCS leasing policy, including offshore renewable energy developments in federal waters.
The order also directed all federal agencies to pause all “new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases, or loans for onshore or offshore wind projects” until the secretary of the Interior completes a “comprehensive” review of the federal “leasing and permitting practices.”
As reasons for the directive, the order cited “deficiencies” in the leasing and permitting process that “may lead to grave harm” to the country’s interests and marine mammals, and “potential inadequacies in various environmental reviews required by the National Environmental Policy Act to lease or permit wind projects.”
“This concern directly conflicts with the objective of other EOs to potentially accelerate or avoid both NEPA and Endangered Species Act review to spur fossil energy production, including oil and gas development on the Outer Continental Shelf,” Carrie Jenks and Sara Dewey, from Harvard’s Environmental & Energy Law Program, wrote in an explainer.
In addition, the order placed a “temporary moratorium on all activities and rights” related to the construction and operation of the Lava Ridge Wind Project, a 1,000-megawatt project proposed and approved in Idaho (more on this later).
“The order is extremely expansive,” Matthew B. Eisenson, senior fellow at the Columbia University Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, told us in an email.
A last provision allows — “and seems to encourage,” according to Eisenson — the attorney general to decide if a court where litigation is pending against onshore or offshore projects should, as the order said, “stay the litigation or otherwise delay further litigation, or seek other appropriate relief consistent with this order” until the completion of the Interior secretary’s review.
“This suggests that the federal government may change its position in ongoing lawsuits. Instead of continuing to defend the permits issued by federal agencies, the federal government may seek to delay or settle those lawsuits,” Eisenson told us.
How could this impact the industry?
The order could potentially undermine the growth of the industry in the U.S.
The country’s installed wind power generating capacity has gone from 2.4 gigawatts in 2000 to 150.1 gigawatts in April 2024, when electricity generated from wind established a new record in the U.S. and exceeded coal-fired generation for a second month in a row, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Yet, the development of wind energy in the U.S. has had a number of challenges in the last years — opposition from local communities who don’t want to see the turbines, misinformation campaigns and increasing costs due to inflation and supply chain disruptions, to name some.
“It is very disappointing,” Mads Nipper, CEO of Orsted, said of the challenges in recent years, on an investors and analysts call on Jan. 21.
Orsted is a Danish multinational energy corporation and one of the world’s largest developers of offshore wind power, which owns wind projects in New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. In late 2023, Orsted canceled two massive offshore projects in New Jersey, Ocean Wind 1 and 2, citing high inflation and problems with supply chains. In a Jan. 20 statement, the company reported a decline in the value of its U.S. portfolio due to rate increases and loss of land value due to “market uncertainties among other factors.”
During the call, which happened after Trump’s orders, Nipper said the company is still making a profit in the U.S. market and remains “committed to” it, but said he would not comment on Trump’s executive order until Feb. 6, when the company will present yearly results.
“We’ve of course taken note of the executive order,” Nipper said during the call. “We’re in the process of reviewing it to assess the impact of our portfolio,” he said. “I can confirm that both Sunrise and Revolution Wind have all federal permits in place,” he added later in the call. Sunrise Wind, is a 924-megawatt project offshore of New York, while Revolution Wind is a 704-megawatt project offshore of Rhode Island.
Jeremy Slayton, a press officer for Dominion Energy, whose 2,587-megawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is projected to produce enough electricity to power up to 660,000 homes and is expected to complete construction by 2026, told us the project “is fully permitted and nearly halfway through construction.”
“We’re confident CVOW will be completed on-time, and that Virginia’s clean energy transition will continue with bipartisan support for many years to come,” he said in an email.
According to a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, as of May 2024 there were offshore projects with 80,000 megawatt capacity in the pipeline, 90% of which were either in the permitting phase or earlier in the process.
Last week, during his confirmation hearing, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said about offshore wind projects in the Gulf of Maine, “I’m not familiar with every project that the Interior has underway, but I’ll certainly be taking a look at all of those, and if they make sense and they’re already in law, then they’ll continue.”
During Biden’s administration, the Interior Department approved 11 commercial offshore wind projects.
How does the order impact approved wind projects?
While the order said that the withdrawal of the outer continental shelf areas from consideration for new leasing does not affect any rights under existing leases, it directed the secretary of the Interior to conduct a “comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending” them and to identify “any legal bases for such removal.”
“This suggests that we may see future attempts to interfere with rights under existing leases,” Eisenson told us. He added that the provision directing all federal agencies not to issue any “‘new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases, or loans for onshore or offshore wind projects’ is so expansive that it could cause trouble to projects that have received all major approvals if unforeseen circumstances force them to make minor modifications to project design that require approval from federal agencies.”
How could it impact projects on private land?
Private developers don’t usually need permitting from the federal government, but some projects are required to get federal approvals for studies on the impacts to wetlands and endangered or protected species on private land.
The vast majority of onshore wind projects — about 99% of them — are on private land, according to the American Clean Power Association.
Overall, including both onshore and offshore projects, the group told us the top state for operating wind capacity is Texas (which is also first in solar capacity), and wind is supplying about half of the electric power in other conservative-leaning states, such as Iowa, Kansas, and South Dakota, and about 40% of the electric power in Oklahoma.
Could it stop the Lava Ridge Wind project?
The proposed 1,000-megawatt project to be developed on federal land in Idaho was approved on Dec. 6 by the Bureau of Land Management. The project has faced significant opposition by some community groups, farmers and Republicans, with one of the loudest criticisms being that the wind turbines would be visible from a historic site where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. In response, the company behind the project, Magic Valley Energy, committed to reducing the number of turbines and moving them 9 miles away from the Minidoka National Historic Site.
BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said his decision to approve the project “reflects a comprehensive evaluation of environmental impacts, community input, and the potential benefits of the project” and “represents a rational compromise between important competing interests under a multiple use mandate as it results in the smallest project footprint on public lands and the lowest number of acres disturbed out of all action alternatives and still advances national directives and policy … regarding the promotion and expansion of renewable energy on public lands.”
Trump’s executive order, however, said the decision “is allegedly contrary to the public interest and suffers from legal deficiencies” and directed the Interior secretary to halt “all activities and rights” of the development. It also instructs Interior to review BLM’s decision and “as appropriate, conduct a new, comprehensive analysis of the various interests implicated by the Lava Ridge Wind Project and the potential environmental impacts.”
Following the executive order, Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little signed a complementary executive order titled “Gone with the Lava Ridge Wind Project Act,” which directs state agencies to “fully cooperate” with the new assessment.
Eisenson told us the abrupt reversal of the decision to permit Lava Ridge Wind could be challenged in court.
Magic Valley Energy told us in an email the company has no comment or statement “[a]t this time.” Lava Ridge Wind could provide power to 300,000 homes. A second project from the company in Idaho could provide an additional 800 megawatts.
What has Trump said about wind energy?
As we mentioned, Trump’s animosity against wind is not new, nor are the false and misleading claims he mentioned in a rally after his inauguration.
Trump, Jan 20: We’re not going to do the wind thing. Wind … big, ugly windmills, they ruin your neighborhood, they ruin your — If you have a house that’s near a windmill, guess what? Your house is worth less than half. And did you see up in New England with the whales? You see what’s happening? So, they had two whales killed in about 14 years. Last year and the year before total, they had 28. So, if you’re into whales, you don’t want windmills either. And they’re the most expensive form of energy that you can have, by far. And they’re all made in China, by the way, practically all of them. And they kill your birds, and they ruin your beautiful landscapes. But other than that, I think they’re quite good, right? No, remember when we used to joke and kid — when we were kidding, but we don’t kid anymore — they want to watch the debates on television, they want to watch your favorite president on television, but the wind isn’t blowing, so we can’t watch television that night, “Gladys, remember? Gladys, I’m sorry, the wind is just not blowing, we’re not watching Trump tonight.”
We’ve written about some of these claims before.
Wind and property values: As we wrote when Trump claimed in 2023 that “windmills” lower property values by 65% or 75%, no studies suggest such big declines in property values. According to a 2024 report by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, most studies show no or small changes in property values, and mostly in urban areas.
Wind and the environment: As we recently explained, wind farms do have some negative environmental impacts, but wind energy generation has dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions than energy coming from fossil fuels.
Wind and whales: There is still “no scientific evidence that noise resulting from offshore wind site characterization surveys could potentially cause whale deaths,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and “no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities.” As we wrote in 2023, scientists suspect a variety of factors are behind whale strandings on the East Coast, including at an ongoing “unusual mortality event” that goes back to 2016. Climate change has affected the distribution of the prey whales rely on, leading to altered migration routes where there could be more vessel strikes of whales and entanglement with fishing gear.
Wind and birds: As we explained in 2016 and most recently in 2024, wind turbines do kill a number of birds, but buildings and cats pose larger threats. Estimates vary, but a 2020 report concluded the median was 1.3 bird deaths per megawatt of wind capacity per year. That’s about 200,000 birds per year based on the U.S. total wind power capacity. For context, 600 million birds die annually from collisions against glass buildings; 2.4 billion per year are killed by cats, and 750,000 die per year in pits filled with oil or other fluids in oil production operations, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Cost: As we’ve explained, offshore wind energy is currently very expensive, but nuclear energy is typically the most expensive power type. Power generated from wind turbines on land is cheaper and has a similar cost as natural gas and coal plants, even without subsidies.
Made in China: It is true that China dominates the wind turbine manufacturing market, but it doesn’t produce all of them. China accounted for 65% of the global wind capacity in 2023, according to Wood Mackenzie. Clean Power’s annual market report shows there are almost 450 wind-related manufacturing facilities in the U.S.
Intermittency: As we‘ve explained several times, wind power does come with an extra variability, since the wind is not always blowing. Intermittency “would be a problem if we were trying to build an energy system that relied 100% on wind power,” Columbia’s Eisenson told us. “But nobody is trying to do that.” People don’t lose power when the wind isn’t blowing because wind is one of many energy sources coming into the electrical grid.
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