By Julianne Geiger - Feb 25, 2025
On his first day in office, President Trump paused leasing and permitting for new wind energy projects.
Wind developers are now playing a high-stakes waiting game.
Rising costs, supply chain snags, and high interest rates plagued the wind energy industry already before Trump took office.
The Biden administration wanted to paint America’s skies with spinning blades, but Trump has once again sent the wind industry into a tizzy.
On Trump's first day back in office, he took an axe to federal wind policies, pausing leasing and permitting for new projects and leaving developers in limbo. Offshore and onshore wind giants—Shell, TotalEnergies, and Orsted among them, according to the WSJ—are suddenly staring at billion-dollar write-downs and wondering if their investments just got sucked into a policy tornado.
“We aren’t going to do the wind thing,” Trump declared at a rally earlier this year, dismissing turbines as “big ugly windmills” that “ruin your neighborhood.”
Love him or hate him, the man is consistent.
The Permitting Freeze and Its Fallout
The immediate fallout is a regulatory standstill. The Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Bureau of Land Management are all reassessing their roles in permitting. The Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho was specifically called out in Trump’s executive order, at the urging of Senator Jim Risch, who praised the decision, saying, “He gets it. It’s not a hard lift because he shares my reticence about windmills.”
Wind developers are now playing a high-stakes waiting game. It’s not just about missing out on tax credits from Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (which Trump has labeled a “scam”), but about the industry’s ability to plan for the long term. David Hindman of AlixPartners summed up the uncertainty: “All parties—developers, financers, others—are going to want to have more certainty than we have now.” And certainty is in short supply.
The Trump Doctrine: Fossil Fuels First
Trump isn’t just hitting pause on wind—he’s fast-tracking fossil fuels. His first move? Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. Again. “I’m immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off,” he announced. His second move? Reversing Biden’s restrictions on offshore oil and gas drilling.
Trump’s philosophy is simple: More drilling, more exports, and energy dominance. “America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth.”
Hyperbole aside (according to Rystad, OPEC members held 40% of the world's total recoverable oil reserves at 657 billion barrels, with Saudi Arabia holding the top spot at 247 billion barrels, with the United States holding the next recoverable--not proven--oil reserves powerhouse with 156 billion barrels), his administration has promised to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, drive energy prices down, and boost U.S. exports—while giving wind and solar the cold shoulder. But will the energy industry play ball? Oil producers have already signaled that they appreciate the friendlier regulatory environment but are unlikely to jump back into “drill, baby, drill” mode with both feet unless market conditions demand it.
Trump can clear bureaucratic hurdles, but he can’t force private companies to flood the market with oil.
A Wind Industry Already Facing Headwinds
To be fair, the wind industry was already struggling before Trump slammed on the brakes. Rising costs, supply chain snags, and high interest rates had already put projects on shaky ground. Offshore wind, in particular, has been an expensive experiment in patience. Germany’s biggest utility, RWE, recently pointed out that offshore wind costs 30% more in the U.S. than in Europe. And with interest rates still biting, investors are less eager to pour money into projects with long payback periods.
Biden had ambitious offshore wind goals—up to 12 lease auctions by 2028, with a vision for a zero-emission grid by 2035. But even with tax credits and federal backing, developers were canceling projects left and right due to cost overruns. Now, with Trump freezing federal support, those cancellations might turn into an industry-wide exodus.
Is This the End of U.S. Wind?
Even if Trump guts federal incentives, wind energy still has traction at the state level. Texas and Iowa, both deeply red states, have quietly become wind powerhouses thanks to favorable economics. And while offshore wind may take a hit, onshore wind and solar could keep growing—especially if power companies continue to push for renewables as a hedge against fossil fuel volatility.
For now, though, the industry is stuck in purgatory. No new federal leases, no permitting clarity, and the looming threat of tax credit rollbacks mean developers are going to tread cautiously.
Trump has made his stance clear: Fossil fuels are king, and wind is an eyesore. His permitting freeze has left the U.S. wind industry in a state of paralysis, and unless states pick up the slack, new projects are in danger of grinding to a halt. Meanwhile, oil and gas are back in the driver’s seat—at least for now.
Whether this is a long-term death blow for U.S. wind or just another political speed bump will depend on what happens in the courts, on Wall Street, and—of course—at the ballot box in 2028.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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