President Donald Trump’s ban on new offshore wind leases won’t halt giant wind farms already planned off California’s coast, but industry officials say the policy shift is a blow to a renewable energy industry still working to gain a foothold.

Environmentalists say the moratorium amounts to “kneecapping” California’s offshore wind projects and puts an important source of clean energy in “mortal peril.” The Biden administration had promoted offshore wind as critical to providing cleaner power and reducing climate-warming greenhouse gases.

“I hereby withdraw from disposition for wind energy leasing all areas within the Offshore Continental Shelf,” which encompasses all federal waters off the United States, Trump wrote in an order on Monday. He said it was effective immediately and temporarily prevents “any new or renewed wind energy leasing for the purposes of generation of electricity or any other such use derived from the use of wind.”

The order has no immediate effect on leases already authorized, including two large areas off California’s coast. Trump wrote that “nothing in this” order “affects rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas.”

In 2022, the federal government leased 583 square miles of deep ocean waters 20 miles off Morro Bay and Humboldt and Del Norte counties to energy companies. Capturing offshore wind energy is considered essential to achieving California’s ambitious goal of electrifying its grid with 100% zero-carbon energy by 2045.

The Trump order also prohibits any new approvals, permits or loans for both land and offshore wind projects until his agencies conduct “a comprehensive assessment,” including the economic costs and effects on birds, marine mammals and other wildlife.

Existing offshore wind leases are not safe from future actions by the new administration. Trump ordered “a comprehensive review” of “terminating or amending” offshore wind leases and ordered his agencies to identify “any legal basis” for eliminating them.

Trump has a longstanding animosity toward all forms of wind energy, and as a candidate he often vowed to stop the turbines. He also has said, without evidence, that offshore wind platforms kill whales. The president reiterated his opposition after his inauguration on Monday. “We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said. “Big ugly windmills, they ruin your neighborhood.”

The potential environmental effects of the California projects are unknown, especially since no other floating wind farms have been built in such deep ocean waters so far from shore. Developers are still studying the feasibility of the technology and must analyze the environmental impacts before gaining state and federal permits.

The technology has its critics beyond the Oval Office, including many residents and local officials in Morro Bay, who worry that the wind farms and onshore development to support the projects will industrialize their coast.

California’s wind farms would contain hundreds of giant turbines, each about 900 feet high — as tall as a 70-story building. While the platforms would mostly be unseen from the shoreline, some may be visible at night in some areas. In addition, the projects will require expansion of ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach and Humboldt Bay for storing, staging and assembling parts.

Making the moratorium one of his first orders of business is an unwelcome signal to an industry reliant on state and federal support. Experts in California say consistent public policy is critical for developers to raise funds to invest in the projects.

Ken Alex, who was the climate change advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown and former director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, said offshore wind’s complex and novel technology requires a long-term commitment from the industry and regulators.

“The timeframe for floating offshore wind is longer than other forms of renewable energy, in part because of technological challenges, in part because of environmental review,” said Alex, who is director of Project Climate at UC Berkeley. Any interruption in policy and financial support is disruptive, he said.

“It takes time, it takes resources and it takes consistency. The industry abhors uncertainty.”

Offshore wind developers already have been buffeted by financial troubles: Because of lack of industry interest, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees offshore wind projects, canceled a lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico and sold only half of the leases available in the Gulf of Maine last October.

California’s offshore wind projects are in early planning stages but would be part of the state’s goal of producing 25 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2045, powering 25 million homes and providing about 13% of the state’s power supply.

The areas off California with the strongest winds are far from shore and too deep for traditional platforms, so developers are planning clusters of floating platforms in waters more than a half-mile deep and tethered by cables. 

The depth, distance from shore and new floating technology drive up the costs and complicate an already expensive process. Massive infusions of private and public money will be needed, officials say, underscoring the vulnerability of the industry to Washington’s shifting priorities. 

Alex Stern, executive director of the industry group Offshore Wind California, said that while federal approvals are still required, the California projects will rely on state agencies to shepherd many of the next phases.

 “As an industry we’re focused on what is advancing offshore wind in California, and right now most of that is happening at the state level,” Stern said.

Jana Ganion, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s senior advisor for offshore wind, was unavailable for comment about Trump’s order.

California has been bullish about offshore wind, with multiple agencies expediting reviews and planning. Voters approved a climate bond that included $475 million for offshore wind-related development at California ports and the state’s grid operator last year approved a $4.6 billion plan to build infrastructure to carry offshore wind power to the grid.

Developing offshore wind energy requires dozens of other initiatives working in concert, including upgrading and redesigning ports and harbors and updating and expanding much of California’s aging transmission infrastructure. Approval for the development has been contingent on programs to train and employ residents in local communities and among tribes. The depth, distance from shore and new floating technology drive up the costs and complicate an already expensive process. Massive infusions of private and public money will be needed, officials say, underscoring the vulnerability of the industry to Washington’s shifting priorities. 

Onshore wind power in the United States accounts for nearly 10% of the nation’s electricity. Those installations are largely on private land, led by Texas, Iowa and Oklahoma. Landowners earn money from the projects and the industry has a robust manufacturing and jobs sector.

“This is bad for American workers,” said Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “The growing U.S. wind industry and its manufacturing supply chain are creating quality jobs and growing local economies along our coasts and across the Midwest. This announcement put those investments — and the jobs that go with them — at mortal risk.”

Much of the policy and permitting responsibilities for wind energy fall to the Interior Department. Trump’s orders mean the agency will have to conduct extensive reviews and prepare a report regarding wind energy. 

During his Senate confirmation hearings, Trump’s Interior nominee, former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, committed to the current “all of the above” strategy for a diversified energy portfolio and said if existing leases “make sense and they’re already in law, then they’ll continue.”

As a governor and part of the Western Governors Association, Burgum signed on to the group’s Energy Policy Resolution that included a recommendation to continue support for offshore wind projects.

Another of Trump’s first-day executive orders was to open all of Alaska’s federal lands to oil exploration and do away with the “punitive restrictions” that delay or halt drilling. 

Alex of UC Berkeley noted that the same environmental impacts that Trump said he was worried about with wind energy are not taken into account with oil and gas projects.

“This kind of doublespeak is right out of ‘1984,’” he said.

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