President Donald Trump has renewed his criticism of wind energy this week, arguing that wind turbines are responsible for killing “millions” of birds, including bald eagles.
On Friday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social, “Eagles going down!” alongside an image of a bald eagle on the ground and wind turbines in the background. In a separate post, he wrote, “Killing birds by the millions!” with a photo of a flock of birds flying near a wind turbine.
The president also posted on TruthSocial, citing a Fox News story about the administration fining the wind energy company Orsted in November for allegedly killing bald eagles at two of its wind projects.
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Friday morning’s TruthSocial posts are just the latest attack from the president on the wind industry, as he has previously called wind turbines ugly and inefficient. Earlier this week, Trump posted an image and wrote, “Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!”
But the bird in the photo was actually a dead falcon at an Israeli wind turbine in 2017.
Under the Trump administration, the wind industry has faced several policy changes aimed at preventing its expansion. The administration has increased regulatory hurdles and has canceled more than $679 million in funding for offshore wind-related projects.
The administration has also halted wind projects already permitted or under construction.
In late December, the administration announced it had paused the lease for five under-construction projects. The five offshore wind projects along the East Coast included: Vineyard Wind 1, Revolution Wind, CVOW – Commercial, Sunrise Wind, and Empire Wind 1.
The five projects had obtained all of the required federal permits and were at various stages of construction. Empire Wind was expected to come online next year.
The Interior Department paused the projects over national security concerns related to the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers, claiming the wind turbines can obscure legitimate targets and generate false targets in their vicinity.
The administration’s recent pause on wind projects resulted in Democratic lawmakers ceasing talks with Republicans over accelerating environmental reviews for energy and infrastructure projects, also known as permitting reform. Democrats for months have been hesitant to support bipartisan permitting reform legislation due to Trump’s attack on the renewable energy sources, particularly offshore wind.
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The pause in the five offshore wind projects came just one week after the House passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act, also known as the SPEED Act, with nearly a dozen Democrats in favor.
The bill would reform the National Environmental Policy Act, a law that requires federal agencies to evaluate the environmental effects of projects like transmission lines, data centers, wind turbines, oil and gas, and much more.
