The Department of Transportation (DOT) announced Friday that it either withdrew or terminated funding for 12 offshore wind projects in a move that continues the Trump administration’s crackdown on the green energy technology former President Joe Biden favored.
The DOT stated that the project funding amounted to $679 million taxpayer dollars, labeled the funding as “wasteful” and noted that the administration is focused on revitalizing the maritime industry over “fantasy wind projects.” The Trump administration has recently halted or moved to kill massive wind projects in addition to these, with the Department of the Interior (DOI) targeting three major Biden-era wind farms recently.
“Wasteful, wind projects are using resources that could otherwise go towards revitalizing America’s maritime industry,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Friday. “Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg bent over backwards to use transportation dollars for their Green New Scam agenda while ignoring the dire needs of our shipbuilding industry. Thanks to President Trump, we are prioritizing real infrastructure improvements over fantasy wind projects that cost much and offer little.”
The DOT noted that under the Trump administration, it will prioritize building more American ships and boosting reliable forms of energy. The agency may “recompete” the funds to “critical port upgrades” or other relevant infrastructure projects, the DOT said.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to “restore maritime dominance” on April 9 and has continually bashed and vowed to end Biden’s energy policies that he’s termed the “green new scam.” Biden routed billions into solar, wind and offshore wind initiatives during his presidency and greenlit a huge wind farm over resident protests during his final weeks in the Oval Office that Trump has since moved to scrap approval for.
The Trump administration has critiqued the intermittent energy technology Biden preferred, with the DOI labeling wind and solar as “unreliable,” “foreign-controlled” and ended any “preferable treatment” for the technologies on federal lands on July 30. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is also phasing out green energy tax credits that the Biden administration championed.
Notably, offshore wind has also been criticized by some environmentalists, fishermen and the Trump administration for posing dangers to wildlife. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation that the Biden administration did not adequately review the environmental impacts of some offshore wind projects before approval.
“The actions taken by the Biden Administration show a complete lack of regard for the decades of rigorous scientific research and expertise that formed NOAA’s environmental protection recommendations for offshore wind projects,” a spokesperson for the NOAA told the DCNF. “Internal records kept by NOAA scientists show that the Biden Administration ignored NOAA’s guidelines meant to safeguard the ecosystem, rubber-stamping these greenwashed projects and ignoring the negative impacts of offshore wind on the marine environment.”
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