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Donald Trump Could Blow a Big Hole in New York’s Climate Plan

Offshore wind is crucial to the state’s plans for cleaning up its electric grid, and construction is already behind schedule. The incoming president could slow it down a whole lot more.

Colin Kinniburgh · November 19, 2024

A collage with the background image of three wind turbines in the ocean. Overlayed is an image of President-elect Donald Trump with his fist in the air.

The Trump administration has several avenues to block or stall offshore wind in New York. | Photos: Dennis Schroeder / National Renewable Energy Lab; Tia Dufour / The White House | Illustration: Maha Ahmed

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President-elect Donald Trump wants to “terminate” Democrats’ climate agenda — and let America “drill, baby, drill.” Those promises could stymie a key component of New York’s plan to help slow global warming over the next few decades: building wind turbines off the coast of Long Island.

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to end all offshore wind projects on “day one” of his second term. “I’m going to write it out in an executive order,” he said at a May rally on the Jersey shore.

He said that offshore turbines, which New York is hoping will supply a sixth of its electricity within a decade, “destroy everything.”

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“They’re horrible and the most expensive energy there is. They kill the birds. They kill the whales,” he claimed.

While other sources of renewable energy are mainly regulated by the state, offshore wind can’t move forward without approval from the federal government, which provides leases, permits, and subsidies. New York’s projects rely on all three. If Trump follows through on his campaign pledge, it could blow a big hole in the state’s efforts to clean up its grid, which are already far behind schedule.

So how, concretely, could that play out?

The United States offshore wind industry is still in its infancy. Unlike some European countries, which have been building wind farms at sea since the early 2000s and now rely on them for a significant share of their electricity, the US has just three — which are each about the size of those the United Kingdom was building 20 years ago.

Soon after President Joe Biden took office in 2021, his administration announced big plans to catch up, and East Coast states like New York promised to lead the charge. Federal and state leaders have said the industry could fuel a renaissance of US manufacturing, since the skyscraper-high turbines often require brand new ports, ships, and other infrastructure to supply them.

NYSERDA, the state’s energy research and development authority, estimates that the industry could create more than 14,000 jobs in New York by the end of the decade.

New York powered up the country’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in late 2023, and construction is underway at a Brooklyn port that will supply future projects. In total, state law requires New York to build nine gigawatts of offshore wind energy — enough to power more than 4 million homes — by 2035. Offshore wind is particularly crucial to cleaning up the grid in New York City and Long Island, whose power still comes almost entirely from fossil fuels.

Even before Trump’s victory, the odds of New York meeting that goal were looking slim.

Only two of the seven projects the state has contracted are still on track. The rest have been thrown into limbo by pandemic-driven inflation and supply chain hiccups. Other renewable energy projects are seeing delays, too. Overall, New York will likely be three years late in achieving its 2030 target of supplying 70 percent of the state’s power with renewables, according to a report published over the summer by NYSERDA and the state energy regulator, the Department of Public Service. (The report blames the delays mainly on inflation and supply chain shocks, as well as growing electric demand; others have emphasized holdups in issuing state permits for new projects and connecting them to the grid.) Even under that delayed timeline, offshore wind would supply roughly 15 percent of the state’s total power within a decade.

Currently, that number stands at less than 0.5 percent — and the next four years are key to closing the gap.

The Trump administration has several avenues to block or stall offshore wind in New York. Before the projects can start construction, they have to receive permits, leases for ocean area, and adequate financing, all of which must be facilitated by the federal government.

“It’s no secret, given what people have said, that there are headwinds that are coming,” said Jeff Thaler, a Maine-based attorney who has represented offshore wind projects since 2008.

Because offshore turbines are usually built in federal waters, several miles away from the coast of any state, the US Department of the Interior issues most of their permits. Large projects, like the ones New York is counting on, often require 10 or more permits from a bevy of federal agencies.

A hostile administration could put a freeze on issuing new ones.

It would be trickier for the administration to revoke existing permits, which New York’s two contracted projects — Sunrise and Empire I — have already secured.

Does Offshore Wind Kill Wildlife?

At a May rally, Donald Trump echoed some common concerns among offshore wind opponents: that turbines kill birds and whales. Anti-wind backlash has been growing, fueled in particular by an ongoing spate of whale deaths along the East Coast since 2017. But scientists have found that the whales are primarily being killed by large ships and fishing gear — not offshore wind construction. Ramping up turbine construction could pose risks to whales, and developers and regulators are taking steps to minimize those risks.

Wind turbines, both onshore and offshore, do kill birds, but conservation groups largely agree that the danger is far smaller than the existential risks posed by climate change, not to mention the daily threats birds face from cats, buildings, and cars.

Trump also said at the rally that offshore wind energy is “the most expensive there is.” The technology is expensive up front, but it’s cheap to operate once it’s up and running, since its “fuel” — the wind — is free. According to an analysis by the investment bank Lazard, the total cost of offshore wind power over 20 years is comparable to the cost of electricity from an existing coal plant and considerably cheaper than new nuclear plants. It’s not the cheapest form of energy on offer, but it’s far from the most expensive.

Thaler said developers would inevitably fight any attempt to do so in court, and they’d have strong standing.

That’s because, according to a legal doctrine called “vested rights,” the government can’t “break its word” after someone has already acted on it or spent money on it, he said. Both the Sunrise and Empire I projects have begun some onshore construction for supporting infrastructure, and they’re each expected to start delivering power to the grid in 2026. Those projects are “going to happen, and they’re going to power over a million homes,” said Nick Guariglia, outreach manager for the New York Offshore Wind Alliance.

Things could be more complicated for the next round of projects, which the state is set to announce in early 2025. To complete them by the early 2030s as intended, the developers will likely need to submit permit applications, and begin the federal review process, within the next four years; one of them has already begun applying.

Then there are leases. Those, too, are under the purview of the Interior Department, which auctions them off periodically. The agency currently has eight auctions scheduled through 2028, including one off the coast of New York. The Trump administration could easily cancel the auctions — but existing leases would, again, be harder to undo. All of the New York projects currently under development already have leases, and there’s room to spare: Estimates by developers suggest that those lease areas could host more than enough turbines to meet New York’s offshore wind targets.

Whether the federal government could legally cancel them, Thaler said, depends on the wording in each contract.

The third pillar of federal support for offshore wind is tax credits, which defray the huge upfront costs of the installations. The federal government subsidizes wind projects to the tune of 30 percent, which can amount to hundreds of millions of dollars for large offshore projects. If a Republican-controlled Congress were to follow through on Trump’s promises and repeal the tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, the industry would lose that key source of funding.

But that’s a big if. Observers largely agree that it’s too early to say what Trump, let alone Congress, will do. Offshore wind developers in the state and elsewhere are staying upbeat for now.

“There is a level of confidence that we can find common ground and work with a Trump administration,” said Guariglia. The industry is already starting to provide “good-paying blue collar jobs,” he said, which aligns with Trump’s desire to revive US manufacturing and boost energy independence.

NYSERDA is striking a similar tune.

“New York is committed to achieving its goals that are set in the Climate Act, and we are looking forward to working with the new administration,” said Pauline Huet Le Bertre, the authority’s assistant director of offshore wind, at a November 13 webinar. NYSERDA has long adapted to shifting federal priorities, she noted, as it’s operated for nearly 50 years under nine different US presidents.

The Trump-Vance transition team did not answer questions about plans for offshore wind, saying only that the incoming president would fulfill his campaign pledges.

“The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail,” spokesperson Karoline Leavitt wrote in an email. “He will deliver.”

Permitting and leasing decisions will depend in part on the new Interior secretary. Trump announced last week that he had picked North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum for the role. Burgum, who himself sought the GOP presidential nomination last year, has a mixed record on climate change. North Dakota is a top oil-producing state and generates more than half of its electricity from coal. But roughly another third comes from wind, one of the highest shares in the country.

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“We can maintain a clean environment while supporting an all-of-the-above energy strategy that includes both fossil fuels and renewable sources,” a spokesperson for Burgum told the Washington Post last year. Offshore wind has not been on his agenda as the governor of a landlocked state.

While Burgum remains a wild card, at least one of Trump’s GOP allies in Congress has a track record of supporting offshore wind. US Representative Nick LaLota, who took over the Long Island seat of former New York gubernatorial candidate and incoming EPA chief Lee Zeldin, co-chairs a bipartisan Congressional Offshore Wind Caucus that aims to “establish the United States as a leader in the industry.” LaLota has touted the industry’s promise of jobs and climate resiliency for storm-prone Long Island.

Whatever happens under Trump, offshore wind backers are digging in for the long term.

“The need for decarbonization in the US is going to continue long after the Trump administration is done,” said Thaler, the attorney. “I am used to doing trials. I used to run marathons. You can’t quit till you get it done.”