President Donald Trump has stated that his administration will not approve wind turbines or solar power projects and has halted current projects. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA,” said Trump.
I guess “stupidity” is in the eyes of the beholder.
Alex Henderson, writing for AlterNet, reported on Trump’s “relentless defender of fossil fuels.” He gives the example of Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that windmills cause cancer, “a claim that quite a few scientists and environmentalists say is nonsense.”
Given what we know about the relationship between air pollution from coal-burning plants and lung cancer, Trump’s concern about cancer rings a little hollow. And how many cancer studies has the Trump administration defunded at NIH and dozens of universities around the nation?
Just last week, we learned that Trump canceled funding for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, a group of 16 university medical centers and children’s hospitals dedicated to treating children with brain cancer. Trump’s concern for cancer is about as fake as his concern for election integrity.
The real “stupidity” is Trump’s continued support of coal, which is not only “terrible for the environment and a contributor to climate change,” as reported by Henderson, “but also inefficient compared to green energy” sources like wind turbines and solar. This is the environmental and economic reality that Trump ignores.
Last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy withdrew or terminated $679 million in funding for 12 offshore wind projects across the country. Duffy called the wind projects “wasteful,” “fantasy wind projects” that “offer little.” Included in the list was the “Sparrows Point Steel Marshalling Port Project that would have established an offshore wind logistics and manufacturing hub in Baltimore County,” according to a news report from Greg Ng of WBAL.
Also, last week, Trump ordered that the JH Campbell coal-fired power plant remain open, despite the operators’ desire to close it because it is no longer economically viable compared to alternative energy sources. This follows Trump’s recent orders to halt the construction of a wind farm off the Rhode Island coast for “national security concerns.” The $4 billion project was 90 percent completed and would provide clean energy to 350,000 homes in the state. Talk about “wasteful.”
The Campbell plant opened in 1962 and was scheduled to be closed by the operator. But, according to Henderson’s reporting, “just eight days away from a long-planned closure in May, Trump’s Department of Energy issued an ’emergency’ order that it remain open for a further 90 days.” Then, on Aug. 20, Trump extended the order for another 90 days. Mind you, the operator of this plant wants to close it because the 63-year-old plant is outdated, inefficient and a community polluter.
Isn’t it interesting how Trump justifies so many of his actions under the guise of an “emergency”? A quick Google search will reveal eight national emergencies declared by Trump during his first 100 days in office, justifying everything from tariff taxes to sending the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. During his first term, he declared 13 emergencies over a four-year period.
I’m guessing that what is defined as an “emergency” is also in the eyes of the beholder.
Trump has “made several unusual moves to elongate the era of coal, such as giving the industry exemptions from pollution rules,” according to Henderson. One neighbor, reports Henderson, “is Mark Oppenhuizen, who lives nearby and fears that pollution from the plant has made his wife’s lung disease worse.” Oppenhuizen asks a simple question: “Why are they (the Trump administration) inserting themselves into a decision a company has made? Just because politically, you don’t like it? It’s all so dumb.”
The Trump administration has attacked clean energy investments from several angles. First, as demonstrated in Michigan, by keeping coal plants open and operating even when the operators want to transition to more efficient and economical energy sources.
A second method is to cut off federal funding of alternative and clean energy sources. The president’s “Big Beautiful Bill” terminates all investments and tax credits for wind and solar power by the end of 2027.
Third, Trump is using tariff taxes on parts and raw materials necessary for building solar panels and wind turbines, including a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum, to stifle the clean energy industry.
Trump’s efforts to promote coal over clean energy are equivalent to someone promoting the fax machine over the internet. The growing solar industry already employs more people than the declining coal industry, and both solar and wind are among the fastest-growing businesses in the U.S. economy.
According to the Department of Energy, thanks to investments by the Biden administration, over 400,000 new manufacturing jobs have been created in the clean energy sector during the last two years, with investments of hundreds of billions of dollars. Actions by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have already eliminated about 60,000 of these new jobs.
While the rest of the world is wisely investing in wind and solar, Trump is handicapping America’s current and future energy industry, as well as our economy, health and climate, with his outdated and misleading narratives about wind and solar power. Additionally, the U.S. urgently needs to increase its energy production, and over 90% of the new energy sources brought online over the last two years came from clean energy sources that Trump is eliminating.
Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.
