Opinion | Trump's tilting at windmills could skewer landmark permitting reform
- Justice Dept's 11th-hour motion to reconsider fully-financed Revolution Wind could sink Senate's bipartisan permitting reform bill.
- The 704-MW project is 95% complete, already juicing 350k New England homes — but the President wants a mulligan on reality.
- Dem senators Whitehouse & Heinrich cry 'bad faith' while Trump's energy flunky swears it's all Biden's fault via X.
- If this racket torpedoes the deal, future presidents get a gift: arbitrary permit revocations for any energy source they hate.
- Both parties still act like energy is a pie fight — but the only ones eating costs are ratepayers.
Brief Summary
In a masterclass of self-sabotage, the Trump administration's unhinged crusade against offshore wind just body-slammed the one bipartisan bill that could actually be his economic legacy. The DOJ's desperate motion to revisit the Revolution Wind permit — a project that's basically done and feeding power to New England — isn't just legal whack-a-mole; it's a Molotov cocktail tossed into the Senate's fragile permitting reform deal. That package, which would streamline grid transmission and limit activist lawsuits for all energy types, now risks becoming collateral damage in Trump's personal feud with windmills. Key Democratic negotiators are openly calling the administration's bluff, noting the White House promised to ease up on wind permitting as part of the bargain. The irony is almost too rich: The Justice Department, trying to kill a wind farm for procedural kicks, may end up scuttling the one thing that could make future energy projects — including gas pipelines — easier to build. Both sides are playing ostrich while the grid groans, but if this dies, don't expect anyone in Washington to admit they lit the match.
Why This Matters
Here's why you should care beyond the beltway theater: This permitting reform bill is the closest thing to a silver bullet for your skyrocketing electricity bill and the grid's desperate need for new transmission lines. If Trump's wind obsession kills it, you're stuck with the status quo — endless lawsuits, bureaucratic limbo, and investors who jack up financing costs because they can't trust a permit to survive a presidential tweet. That means higher prices for everything from charging your EV to running your A/C, while utilities get to shrug 'what can we do?' The real kicker is the precedent: If the government can yank permits on a whim for wind, future administrations can do the same to oil, gas, or anything else they personally hate. That's a recipe for capricious energy policy that makes every kilowatt more expensive. So no, this isn't just an offshore squabble — it's a preview of a grid held hostage by the mood swings of whoever's in the Oval Office.