Team Trump keeps using tax dollars to scuttle renewable energy projects

As the war with Iran moves toward a possible end, one of the many takeaways of the conflict is that it’s clearly in Americans’ interest to embrace renewable energy, not only because it’s cleaner and cheaper, but also to help shield U.S. consumers from international turmoil.

It’s a basic idea the Trump administration doesn’t want to understand.

In March, the Republican administration announced it had agreed to pay a foreign company almost $1 billion in American taxpayer money to abandon two wind farm projects that would have produced enough electricity to power more than 1.3 million homes and businesses across New York, New Jersey and North Carolina.

At the administration’s insistence, the company will instead proceed with different energy projects that will cost more and pollute more. Or put another way, thanks to a model imposed by President Donald Trump, many American consumers will pay for the privilege of paying more to turn on the lights, all while polluting our own air.

In April, it happened again, when the Republican administration announced plans to pay energy companies nearly $900 million to abandon plans for two offshore wind farms.

The pattern is ongoing. The Associated Press reported this week:

The Trump administration said Wednesday it’s buying back another energy company’s U.S. offshore wind leases for four more wind projects, as it seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels.

The latest deal brings the total amount spent on these agreements to nearly $2.6 billion.

This latest move, which came with a $765 million price tag, affects plans for planned projects off the coasts of New York, California and Maine.

I’m mindful that the president has been on a personal crusade against wind power since he lost a fight a decade ago to block a project visible from one of his golf courses in Scotland. This generated such hysterical hatred for wind power that Trump, in 2019, publicly suggested that the sound generated by wind turbines “causes cancer.” (It does not.)

But that doesn’t make the latest developments any easier to defend. At a time when the U.S. would benefit from more renewable energy projects, the Trump administration is spending roughly $2.6 billion in taxpayer money to scuttle renewable energy projects.

It’s a detail consumers should keep in mind the next time they’re writing a large check to their utility company.

Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on House Natural Resources Committee, issued a written statement that read in part, “Donald Trump is using your tax dollars to make America more dependent on dirty, volatile fossil fuels. He is paying energy companies to kill homegrown offshore wind that will put electricity on the grid, lower energy bills, and create good jobs, and he is funneling that money straight back to fossil fuel, leaving families at the mercy of every price spike and global shock. It is hard to imagine a more backwards use of taxpayer money.”

The Coloradan added, “We have a chance to build cheap, reliable power right off our own coasts. Instead this administration is paying top dollar to walk away from it, tying our energy future to the vagaries of volatile markets and handing the bill to families already paying too much. These deals are illegal, and they make our country weaker.”

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

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