President Donald Trump has always been crystal clear about his disdain for wind farms, but his second term\u2019s landmark effort to halt new wind farm construction has now been undermined by five rulings from federal courts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump has called wind farms \u201cugly<\/a>\u201d eyesores. He has said they are \u201cdriving the whales crazy<\/a>\u201d and that wind energy \u201ckills the birds<\/a>.\u201d He has also falsely claimed<\/a> that the noise emanating from windmills can cause cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Clearly, Trump has had particular contempt for offshore wind\u2014the variant that places turbines dozens of miles into open water\u2014ostensibly since a failed legal challenge<\/a> against a proposed offshore wind farm near his Scottish golf course a decade ago. His scorn culminated in a Department of the Interior announcement in December that it had paused leases<\/a> for five multibillion-dollar offshore wind farms on national security grounds, arguing wind turbines could interfere with radar signals. <\/p>\n On Monday, a federal judge ruled that \u00d8rsted, a Danish energy giant developing one of those projects off the coast of New York State, could resume construction. It marked the fifth time in the past three weeks a federal judge had ruled against the Trump administration in the case, and now all five of the wind farms planned in federal waters have gotten the go-ahead. While the legal battle has not yet concluded, it\u2019s another loss for Trump in his war against wind energy, which continues to scale in the U.S. despite the president\u2019s attacks.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter five rulings and five clear outcomes, it is time to move past litigation-driven uncertainty and allow these projects to finish the job they were approved to do,\u201d Hillary Bright, executive director of offshore wind advocacy group Turn Forward, said in a statement.<\/p>\n A spokesperson from the Department of the Interior declined Fortune\u2019s request for comment owing to pending litigation.<\/p>\n Wind power, and renewable energy at large, fared much better during Trump\u2019s first year back in office than many had expected. In the first 11 months of 2025, wind and solar power combined accounted for nearly 90% of all newly installed generation capacity in the U.S., according to data<\/a> released last week by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Massive growth<\/a> for solar energy and battery storage in the past year was responsible for most of that, but wind power was no slouch either. The energy source represented nearly 16% of newly installed electricity generation last year, more than natural gas and second only to solar.<\/p>\n Wind is not only staying steady in the U.S.\u2019s energy mix: Its share is rising. Between January and November of last year, more than 5,500 megawatts of new wind power were installed in the U.S., which is 71% more than had been built in the same period in 2024.<\/p>\n While the Trump administration has scrapped most federal funding for green energy and tried to litigate wind and other renewable energy projects<\/a> into submission, investors have mostly remained sanguine<\/a> about clean power\u2019s prospects in the U.S. This has largely been the result of higher electricity prices and surging demand from data center projects.<\/p>\n