Trump Promises to Halt "Horrible" Offshore Wind "On Day One"

If he wins the presidential election this November, former President Donald Trump plans to put a halt to U.S. offshore wind development "on day one" in office, he said at a rally in New Jersey last weekend. The pledge adds another layer of uncertainty for an industry which has already been buffeted by rising equipment costs, raw material prices and interest rates.  

"[Offshore wind farms] destroy everything, they’re horrible, the most expensive energy there is . . . We're going to make sure that that ends on day one," he said. "I’m going to write it out in an executive order. It’s going to end on day one."

Trump repeated his longtime accusations about the side effects of offshore wind, including alleged impacts on "fish and the whales." He asserted that whale strandings were less frequent in the past, and that since the beginning of offshore wind development on the East Coast began, whales now "come up all the time, dead" on the beach. 

Years of research studies have linked ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement to whale mortality, but a proven linkage to offshore wind has not been established. After a dozen high-profile whale strandings in New Jersey and New York last year, some local activists and national political figures - including opponents of offshore wind - have claimed that wind project survey operations and whale deaths are related. 

Research shows that the high-intensity airgun seismic surveys used to find subsea oil and gas deposits may prompt an increase in whale strandings, and can even damage ear tissue - but the airgun technique is not needed for offshore wind development. Instead, surveyors use high-resolution geophysical surveys to find out what the seabed is made of. 

For sub-bottom profile surveying, this still involves a lot of sound: the survey crew tows a sound source - a small airgun, or a "boomer," "sparker" or "chirp" system - to bounce acoustic waves off the bottom. A subbottom profiler's sound source can penetrate the subsurface by hundreds of feet, depending on the composition of the sediment. Peak levels of acoustic pressure are in the range 213 to 228 dB at a distance of three feet, according to a study by French research institute Ifremer. This translates into an estimated safe working distance (unlikely to cause physiological damage to a whale) of about 30 feet. 

After considerable research, NOAA Fisheries and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management have concluded that sonar and subbottom profile surveys are "not likely to injure whales or other endangered species.” Whale conservation NGO Greenpeace has called the purported link between whale deaths and offshore wind surveys a "cynical disinformation campaign."

The increase in North Atlantic right whale mortality is quite real: Seven years ago, before the launch of the U.S. offshore wind industry, NOAA Fisheries noticed an uptick in North Atlantic right whale deaths and declared an "unusual mortality event" for the species. The population had been recovering, but it plateaued by 2020 and began to decline. Today there are about 360 individuals remaining, including less than 70 females capable of reproducing. Vessel strikes are the most common known cause of fatalities, and fishing gear entanglements are by far the most common identified cause of injuries.