Once dismissed by liberals when Donald Trump labeled wind farms as ‘eagle graveyards,’ the conversation around these structures has taken a new turn. Now, a high-ranking official is sounding the alarm on the potential dangers wind farms pose not only to wildlife but also to national security.
In a candid conversation with the Daily Mail, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum highlighted a growing concern: the towering presence of wind turbines, which reach heights greater than the Statue of Liberty, may disrupt critical military radar operations. This revelation adds a new layer of complexity to the debate surrounding renewable energy.
Burgum disclosed that the Department of Defense is actively examining these potential threats. At the same time, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is voicing concerns that these wind farms might interfere with commercial air traffic systems, especially along the bustling East Coast, with its densely populated areas.
Overseeing an expansive 2.5 billion acres of offshore land, Burgum criticized Democrats for what he perceives as negligence toward the environmental issues tied to renewable energy. He argues that in their rush to move away from fossil fuels, they have overlooked significant ecological warnings.
“The Biden administration overlooked critical biological assessments that raised red flags about offshore wind towers,” Burgum asserted. He went on to highlight the economic and environmental costs, noting, “Offshore wind is one of the most expensive ways to generate electricity. It’s now evident that it causes significant harm to marine life, including fisheries and marine mammals like whales.”
‘Offshore wind is some of the highest cost electricity we can produce. Now it’s becoming quite clear that there’s enormous damage to marine fisheries, to marine mammals like whales.’
The secretary in charge of US federal lands, natural resources and cultural preservation stressed how the projects need to be re-examined due to threats to marine animal welfare and the efficacy of offshore energy.
‘When you’re pounding into the ocean floor to build a pillar for one of these gigantic wind towers, many of them taller than the Seattle Space Needle, when you’re doing that, it can produce decibels up to 220 decibels,’ the secretary explained.
When Donald Trump warned that wind farms were ‘eagle graveyards’ he was mocked by liberals, but now a top cabinet official is warning that as well as harming wildlife, they threaten America’s troops (pictured: a red kite killed by colliding with a turbine in Spain)
Trump sold guitars with his signature after the election, including this model which is emblazoned with a patriotic bald eagle
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum warned that the towers can interfere with critical military radars
‘That would just destroy your hearing if you were at a concert. I mean, 100 decibels higher than what would even be the loudest cheering you’d see at a sports event.’
Despite this, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said it has found no links to offshore wind farms and whale deaths, though it admits that studying ‘acoustic trauma, which could result from close exposure to loud human-produced sounds, is very challenging to assess.’
The Trump administration has said this year that it is investigating whether offshore wind farms pose a national security threat.
Trump has long hated windmills, believing they are an eyesore that threaten some of America’s most beloved wildlife, including the bald eagle.
‘You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go. Take a look. Go under a windmill someday. You’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen in your life… In California, they were killing the bald eagle. If you shoot a bald eagle, they want to put you in jail for 10 years. A windmill will kill many bald eagles. It’s true,’ the president told a Turning Point USA summit in 2019.
He was mocked by leftists after a news conference in January when he warned that the windmills are ‘driving the whales crazy’.
Trump cited a series of beached whales in Massachusetts where he claimed the confused mammals had been driven ashore by wind farm noise pollution.
At least half a dozen Cabinet members, including Burgum, are probing the impacts of offshore wind on their departments.
New offshore wind turbines are significantly larger than the Statue of Liberty
The Biden administration approved nearly a dozen offshore wind projects that would boast over 1,000 total turbines across US coastal waters
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Environmental Protection Agency boss Lee Zeldin and Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy are also involved, the New York Times reports.
Their effort makes good on an executive order signed by Trump on his first day in office to review the many offshore wind projects approved by Joe Biden.
In total, at least 11 different offshore wind leasing projects with over 1,000 turbines were approved to be built along US coastlines under Biden.
The projects, some of which have been canceled or paused amid the Trump administration’s review of the impacts of offshore wind, were estimated to bring in enough power for millions of homes.
Under the Democrat, permits were approved for projects in Alaska, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia and more.
Trump and Burgum are now trying to reverse many of those green energy deals.
‘Since day one, President Trump has reversed Joe Biden’s Green New Scam to restore America’s energy dominance,’ White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the Daily Mail in a statement.
Though Trump has attempted to halt offshore wind projects, many of which have already been approved with construction underway, some of his attempts have not been successful.
Despite efforts to stop the wind projects in New York and Rhode Island, both are going forward.
But it’s not just the damage to animals or the ugly appearance of turbines in coastal waters that are worrying the administration officials.
‘There’s a lot of reasons beyond just the aesthetics to be very concerned about offshore wind, but the number one for U.S. taxpayers is we were subsidizing with taxpayer dollars, massively, a source of electricity that is completely intermittent and weather-dependent,’ Burgum warned.
‘We’ve got to get back in the game now of having baseload power that’s affordable and reliable.’
