President Donald Trump says windmills are like “garbage in a field.”
Many of those fields, though, belong to a loyal Trump constituency — farmers — who rely on wind turbines to help pay the bills. They may even help crops grow, according to some research.
Trump’s Jan. 20 directive ordering a review of federal leasing and permitting for wind energy projects — and withdrawing offshore areas from such projects — didn’t directly address modest or small-scale projects on farmland. But the rhetoric behind the move raises a question for farm country: Will the federal government back away from wind power that’s helped rural America in modest but meaningful ways?
The president made his disdain clear at a Jan. 7 news conference.