“We’re going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built,” Trump said during a wide-ranging press conference at Mar-a-Lago.
This is not the incoming president’s first attack on wind power, with his campaign website decrying “insane wind subsidies.” But, saying he doesn’t want to see it built at all represents an escalation.
During his Tuesday remarks, Trump said that wind energy doesn’t “work without subsidy. … You don’t want energy that needs subsidy.”
The U.S. government subsidizes energy production coming from a wide range of sources, including renewables, nuclear and fossil fuels.
The Democrats’ 2022 Inflation Reduction Act put significant amounts of money into low-carbon energy tax credits as part of an effort to combat climate change.
Now that Republicans have control of Congress and the White House, they may try to repeal or otherwise limit the climate spending passed under their predecessors.
Jason Grumet, CEO of American Clean Power, which lobbies for renewable energy interests, criticized Trump’s remarks.
“Whether it’s withdrawing offshore oil and gas resources from development or threatening policies that harm wind energy, American presidents shouldn’t be taking American resources away from the American people,” Grumet said in a written statement.
“At a time of skyrocketing energy demand, our leaders must mean it when they express support for an all of the above energy strategy,” he added.
Read more at TheHill.com.
