US President Donald Trump said he wanted to have no wind turbines built during his presidency, reiterating his distaste for the renewable energy source after his administration has made multiple moves to thwart its development.
“I’m proudly telling you that we’re going to try and have no windmills built in the United States during my” administration, Trump said in remarks from the Oval office on Tuesday. “They’re very bad environmentally.”
The remarks came after the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is weighing a $1 billion deal with TotalEnergies SE, the French energy company spearheading two US offshore wind farms, to cancel leases in federal waters. A representative for Total declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg News, and the Interior Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Trump has long shown contempt for wind power, claiming without evidence that the farms cause cancer, and dismissing the turbines as overly expensive eye-sores. His campaign against offshore wind energy is part of wider efforts to roll back Biden-era climate policies and to champion fossil fuels.
The administration’s efforts against the wind industry have included rescinding permits and halting construction for wind farms worth billions of dollars, including projects by companies such as Equinor ASA and Orsted A/S. US judges have overruled the administration’s efforts to block those offshore projects, rulings that the Trump administration has vowed to appeal.
Trump’s latest comments have the potential to throw cold water on negotiations with Democrats to revive permitting reform, one of the White House’s top legislative priorities.
Congressional negotiations over legislative plans to fast-track permitting for major energy and other infrastructure projects stalled after Democrats bawked at the Trump administration’s moves to halt already permitted projects, including solar and wind farms. But recently, key Democratic negotiators said they would come back to the table after the administration allowed some projects to proceed.
“As we move forward, we expect that there will be no further interference with already-permitted wind projects and that the initial movement we’ve seen on solar project permitting will accelerate, and other renewable projects will move forward as well,” Democratic Senators Martin Heinrich and Sheldon Whitehouse said in a statement earlier this month.
Photo: Wind turbine tower sections and blades at the Revolution Wind project assembly site at State Pier in New London, Connecticut, in 2025. Photographer: Joe Buglewicz/Bloomberg
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