Donald Trump promised to immediately suspend offshore wind projects “on day one” of a new term as US president, in his most explicit threat yet to the industry and the latest in a series of promises to undo key aspects of the transition for a cleaner economy. energy.
Trump repeated false accusations about wind projects as being lethal to whales during a race on Saturday in Wildwood, a resort town on the New Jersey coast, vowing to end an industry that has been enthusiastically supported by Joe Biden.
“We’re going to make sure this ends on day one,” Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for November’s presidential election, said of offshore wind farms. “I’m going to write this into an executive order. This will be over on the first day.”
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The former president, who was impeached twice and currently faces four separate criminal charges, said offshore wind turbines “cause tremendous problems with fish and whales.” He added that whales “surface all the time, dead,” comparing a stranded whale carcass to Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and rare Republican critic of Trump.
“They destroy everything, they’re horrible, the most expensive energy there is,” Trump said of wind turbines. “They ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales.”
Trump, who has long complained that wind turbines spoil views from his golf course in Scotland, has repeatedly criticized the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry.
“I hate the wind,” he supposedly he said at a recent fundraising dinner with oil industry executives, at which he promised to eliminate several environmental rules once elected if he received a billion dollars in campaign donations.
“If I were in the offshore wind industry, I would probably be very, very nervous,” a former Trump administration energy official told the Washington Post.
There is no evidence that the installation of wind turbines is causing whale deaths, experts said, with other factors such as fishing nets, boat collisions, pollution and the climate crisis all cited as much greater threats to marine mammals. But a series of dead whales have washed up on beaches along the US East Coast, including in New Jersey, providing ammunition to groups, some funded by the fossil fuel industry, who have called for a ban on offshore wind energy.
Last year, a Danish developer canceled two major offshore wind projects in New Jersey that would have provided clean energy to a million people due to economic concerns, in a major setback for an industry that Biden helped promote in a bid to reduce pollution. of the planet. -heating emissions from the energy sector. Two other projects were recently approved by regulators to proceed in the state, however.
“It’s incredibly concerning, short-sighted and misguided to see these types of comments,” said Allison McLeod, senior policy director at the League of Conservation Voters of New Jersey and a former observer of protected marine species. “The No. 1 threat to our oceans is climate change, and New Jersey has a vested interest in finding clean energy to protect our coast and our economy.”
McLeod said there has been a concerted disinformation campaign, funded by oil and gas interests, to mislead voters. “Big Oil is benefiting from all this fear-mongering,” she said. “President Trump was not talking to the average New Jerseyan here. He was talking to big oil companies.”
Trump’s invective against offshore wind energy was accompanied by other attacks on Biden’s climate and environmental policies during his last presidential campaign. If he regains the White House, the former president and reality show host should immediately attack:
Eletric cars
Trump’s animosity toward wind — and sharks — is matched only by his seemingly implacable aversion to electric vehicles, which he falsely accused of not working in cold weather. The former president on Saturday told his supporters not to buy electric cars, despite his friendship with Tesla chief Elon Musk, because they are “ultra-expensive electric vehicles that don’t go far.”
“On day one, I will immediately end Joe Biden’s insane electric vehicle mandate and there will be no ban on gasoline cars or trucks,” he told the crowd, to applause. He added that he would impose “a 200% tax on every car that enters” the US, although he did not specify which countries this tariff would apply to. “They are forcing you into this,” he said of the current government.
Biden did not impose a ban on gasoline-powered cars, but rather imposed new rules to reduce pollution emitted by vehicles, which would prompt car manufacturers to make non-emitting electric models. Meanwhile, American drivers received tax credits of up to $7,500 per eligible electric car through Biden’s Reducing Inflation Act.
Last year, more than a million electric vehicles were sold in the USA for the first time, although a much larger transformation of the American car market will be needed to significantly reduce pollution from a sector that causes more carbon emissions than any other in the country.
Gas exports
In January, the Biden administration announced a pause on new liquefied natural gas export licenses, following a boom in gas development along the Gulf of Mexico coast. Experts have warned that excess gas shipments risk destroying climate goals.
This temporary pause will come to a quick end under Trump, the former president said at a rally in Las Vegas shortly after the announcement. “I will approve the export terminals on my first day back,” Trump said. “He doesn’t want factories built in the United States, even though that’s the best thing you could do,” Trump said of Biden’s decision.
The Paris climate agreement
In one of the most vivid illustrations Due to his stance on the climate crisis, Trump withdrew the US from the Paris climate agreement during his first term in the White House.
Biden later rejoined the pact when he became president, promising that the US will participate in the global effort to address the “existential threat” of the climate crisis, but a return by Trump would likely undo this, despite protests from other countries and the climate internal. activists.
“The Paris climate agreement does nothing to actually improve the environment here in the United States or globally,” Mandy Gunasekara, Trump’s former EPA chief of staff, told the Guardian in February. She argued that the agreement puts too little pressure on China, India and other developing countries to reduce their emissions.
