President-elect Donald Trump has long been skeptical of renewable energy production efforts and has been particularly critical of massive windmills that ostensibly harness and convert naturally occurring winds into electricity, albeit at significant financial and social costs.

Trump signaled this week that he will attempt to restrict the production of new windmill projects during the next four years of his second administration, Fox News reported.

That may prove easier said than done, though, and Trump can expect to receive substantial pushback from Democrats and the renewable energy industry that is heavily invested in the proliferation of windmill farms both on land and offshore.

Trump says no more windmills under his administration

During a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday, President-elect Trump lamented that wind-produced energy is "the most expensive energy there is. It's many, many times more expensive than clean natural gas."

"So we’re going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built," Trump continued as he also called out windmill producers and operators for the sizeable government subsidies they receive.

"The only people that want them are the people getting rich off windmills, getting massive subsidies from the U.S. government," he asserted. "You don’t want energy that needs subsidy."

Trump further called attention to allegations that offshore windmill farms were causing problems for whales and other sea mammals, particularly off the East Coast, and told reporters, "You see what's happening up in the Massachusetts area, where they had two whales wash ashore in I think a 17-year period. Now they had 14 this season. The windmills are driving the whales crazy, obviously."

Windmills and whales

To be sure, Fox News noted, there are some who share President-elect Trump's concerns about windmills and the alleged adverse effect they have on whales, including Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), who said in 2023, "Like the canary in the coal mine, the recent spate of tragic whale deaths shed new light and increased scrutiny to the fast-tracking of thousands of wind turbines off our coast."

A somewhat surprising ally for Trump in this fight is an environmentalist group known as Green Oceans, which aims to protect oceanic life and believes that there is a connection between the dual upticks in recent years of offshore windmill construction and whale deaths.

"That's the only thing out there that's changed, and it's changed dramatically," founding member Constance Gee said. "There is so much ship traffic out there. It's so loud. There's piledriving. There's sub-bottom profiling with sonar."

Predictable pushback

That said, there are also plenty who disagree with President-elect Trump's critical view of windmills, according to The Hill, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has denied and downplayed any alleged links between offshore windmills and whale deaths, though it has been acknowledged that windmills may "disturb" ocean life and disrupt normal "behavioral patterns."

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a huge proponent of renewable energy like windmills, responded to the incoming president's remarks with a statement that asserted, "Donald Trump’s 'no windmills' policy is a guaranteed way to cut American energy production and increase families’ electricity bills."

"Trump is against wind energy because he doesn’t understand our country’s energy needs and dislikes the sight of turbines near his private country clubs," he added. "He is completely out of touch."

Given that wind energy production was heavily promoted by the Biden administration, as well as that numerous projects for more windmills have already been funded and are ongoing, it remains to be seen what sort of impact, if any, Trump's proposed "no more windmills" policy will have.