The Department of Energy's newest order, based on one of Donald Trump's long-running "obsessions," seems destined to fall flat as it runs into "inevitable court battles," according to an analysis from MS NOW.
On Monday, the DOE announced that all leases for ongoing offshore wind energy construction projects were being paused. Energy Secretary Doug Burgum claimed this decision was “due to national security risks identified” by the Defense Department’s “recently completed classified reports.” All told, the move will suspend five projects on the East Coast that, if completed and brought online, could have produced clean energy for millions of homes.
Despite Burgum's claims, many have pointed out that the decision, along with the administration's many other attacks on offshore wind energy projects, is in line with Trump's longstanding hatred of wind turbines, suggesting that the government is "engineering justifications for acting on President Donald Trump’s obsessions," according to MS NOW contributor Hayes Brown.
In an analysis published Tuesday, Brown suggested that this latest suspension of wind projects seems doomed to fail in court, citing a number of other orders that have been struck down, and the fact that the government's evidence against wind turbines is weak or nonexistent.
"It’s hard to think the wind farm claims will hold up in the inevitable court battles that will follow," Brown wrote. "Already, federal judges have overruled the initial executive order freezing new permits and the attempt to shut down the Rhode Island project. The scant evidence provided publicly, and the fact that the Biden administration had already conducted studies on the projects’ national security impact before approving them, don’t bode well for Burgum’s new order."
Throughout the piece, Brown also chronicled the history of Trump's antipathy towards wind turbines. The disdain appears to have begun when a series of turbines were constructed off the coast of Trump's golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland, which he decried as "some of the ugliest you've ever seen." Throughout the years, as his political career took off, he continued to rail against the turbines, which he refers to as "windmills."
"He’s called them out for being a blight on landscapes, and he’s repeatedly warned (often lately without being prompted) that they’re deadly to birds and, somehow even more bafflingly, whales," Brown explained.