January 14, 2025 — Facing the existential threat of a new Trump administration, offshore wind power advocates are mounting their own post-election campaign to win critical support from Republican and Democratic lawmakers and governors.
President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to make sure offshore wind development “ends on day one” of his new administration has cast a pall over the fledgling U.S. wind industry – raising the prospect of the incoming administration cutting off environmental and construction permits and blocking any future offshore wind lease sales by the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management (BOEM).
Wind industry advocates are scrambling to make their case that offshore wind is good for Trump’s stated goals of rebuilding U.S. industry and jobs. Since 2016, wind power companies have invested in purpose-built, U.S.-flagged vessels and have helped promote the use of hybrid power over traditional diesel propulsion – a shift that is being adopted by ferry and passenger vessel operators too.
Pitching U.S. offshore wind power as a bipartisan success story, Liz Burdock, president and CEO of the industry group Oceantic Network, credits Trump’s first administration for helping to get the industry off the ground.
“When President-elect Donald Trump takes office, he will re-inherit an industry he kickstarted. Eight years ago, the first Trump administration began implementing the fundamental framework for our modern offshore wind industry and oversaw three federal lease sales that netted $456 million for the federal treasury,” Burdock wrote in the Nov. 22 issue of Recharge.