Louisiana Wind Industry Bets on Outlasting Trump — SkimNews
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- Louisiana's offshore wind industry is counting on January 21, 2029 — the day after Trump is scheduled to leave office — as its revival date, with state Rep. Joe Orgeron, a former industry worker, telling a Tulane forum: "just wait for the clock to run out."
- The Trump administration has paid developers roughly $4 billion to walk away from projects, and 12 offshore wind leases representing about 21 gigawatts of potential capacity — enough to power more than 5 million homes — have been relinquished, according to the Southeastern Wind Coalition's Madelyn Smith.
- RWE's planned 2-gigawatt Gulf of Mexico wind farm 44 miles south of Lake Charles was among the abandoned projects; it had secured an Entergy deal to deliver electricity to an estimated 350,000 homes in Louisiana and Texas by 2035.
- Gulf-based firms had captured nearly a quarter of all U.S. offshore wind work contracts by 2024, with about $1 billion flowing into Louisiana ship and fabrication yards, per the Oceantic Network trade group.
- Gulf Wind Technology is pivoting to aerospace and defense contracts, with CEO James Martin reporting "huge layoffs" and saying "some of the best engineers on the planet — they're giving up."
- Trump's anti-wind posture predates his presidency, tracing to a 2006 fight against the Scottish government over an offshore wind farm he said would spoil views from a golf course he planned to develop.
Why it matters: The $4 billion in federal walk-away payouts has already killed 21 gigawatts of wind capacity that could have powered 5 million homes, while Louisiana companies that pivoted from oil and gas into wind — investing $1 billion in shipyards and retraining workers — are now shedding engineers and chasing defense contracts, gambling that a future administration will restore demand for the expertise they're losing right now.
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