PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) – When President Donald Trump tried to cancel five massive offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast, it wasn’t just environmentalists who cried foul. Nine Republicans in the US House sent a letter administration officials asking for an explanation.
“America’s energy policy must be based on facts, fiscal responsibility and the national interest — not ideology or politics,” they wrote.
One of the legislators is Rep. Jen Kiggans, a former Navy helicopter pilot, who represents a coastal district in Virginia where an $11.5 billion wind farm is expected to create 1,000 jobs. Her support for an initiative targeted by Trump shows mixed clean energy policy in an election year where Republicans are at risk of losing the House of Representatives.
Kiggans may be even more at risk after Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a new congressional map this makes its competitive area more democratic than before.
Trump’s broader campaign against clean energy resulted in the cancellation of nearly $35 billion in US projects last year. according to a report by E2a clean energy business group. Republican-held congressional districts lost almost twice as much in investments as Democratic districts, the report said.
For now, the Virginia project is back on trackalong with four others, due to federal court rulings. But Elaine Luria, a former congresswoman seeking the Democratic nomination in the 2nd Congressional District represented by Kiggans, said the president’s efforts have been futile in the face of Trump’s attack.
“Her advocacy did nothing,” Luria said. Kiggans did not respond to requests for comment.
A President Who Hates ‘Windmills’
Trump has treated energy issues as another front in the country’s cultural clashes, referring to Democrats’ support for clean energy as “the new Green Scam.” He often talks about his hatred of “windmills”, which he described as “BALLY AND DISGUSTING” on social media. He released one executive order on the first day of his second term by blocking wind projects and he has insisted that “smart countries” do not use wind power.
Solar farms aren’t much better in his mind.
“You go around and you see all these things that are 3 miles long by 3 miles wide and you say what the hell is that,” Trump said at the White House last summer.
The administration even agreed to pay $1 billion to a French company exit the two US offshore wind leases and instead invest in oil and natural gas projects.
The Kiggans voted in favor of the Republican legislation for it Gut Clean Energy Tax Credit as part of Trump’s comprehensive tax and spending bill, even though she has long portrayed herself as a champion of renewable energy. Democrats have turned the issue into campaign ads, and Luria said it undermines Kiggans’ attempt to “sell herself as a moderate.”
Luria said Kiggans “voted for a bill to make energy more expensive.”
In a Facebook post after the bill passed in July, Kiggans said her vote “wasn’t about politics — it was about the overall results.”
“I had ONE vote and I voted YES on the Big Beautiful Bill not because it was perfect, but because it provides permanent tax relief for families and small businesses, rebuilds our Navy, and invests in national defense,” she wrote.
Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, said front-line Republicans have been put in a difficult position.
“Kiggans is not the only Republican who is tight-lipped” as Trump focuses on his priorities and the country faces economic headwinds worsened by the war with Iran, he said. Although few want to risk upsetting the president, Farnsworth said, “in coastal Virginia politics, there’s not a lot of upside to the headwind.”
U.S. Rep. Tom Kean Jr., RN.J., is embroiled in a controversy over the Gateway Tunnel, which will add new railroad tracks under the Hudson River to ease congestion between his state and New York City. Trump tried to block federal funding, a potential barrier to commuters in the cities Kean represents. or the judge ordered administration to restore money for the project after Democratic leaders in New Jersey and New York went to court.
An opportunity to lead in the offshore wind
Although Trump has rejected offshore wind turbines how ugly, the Virginia offshore wind project is about 27 miles (43 kilometers) out in the ocean, making it difficult to see from land. On a recent visit to the Portsmouth Marine Terminal, where construction is underway, the turbines were impossible to spot along the skyline.
Dominion Energy, which operates the wind farm, says it delivered its first power to the grid last month. The project, first announced in 2013, is expected to create 1,000 jobs and generate about $2 billion in economic activity, the company said.
Once complete, the 176-turbine project could deliver 2.6 gigawatts of power to the grid — enough to power more than 660,000 homes — at a time when Virginia faces increasing power demand from a growing hub of artificial intelligence data centers.
“There’s an opportunity here for Hampton Roads to be a national leader in offshore wind,” said Andrew Nissman, a spokesman for the Hampton Roads Workforce Council, which has trained offshore workers for the project.
Nissman declined to comment on the congressional race, saying, “as with any stop-and-go challenge, it’s important that the project moves forward.”
While the wind farm is now partially online, “Kiggans nearly dedicated the project to her constituents by standing with an administration committed to dismantling the offshore wind industry and voting to repeal critical clean energy tax credits last year,” said Dan Taylor, Southeast regional field manager for the BlueGreen Alliance, which coordinates labor unions and environmental groups.
“Kiggans claims to prioritize jobs, lowering energy costs for Virginians and reducing emissions,” Taylor added. “Yet she voted to kill jobs, raise energy costs for households and increase emissions that drive climate change.”
By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press
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