Can a bipartisan offshore wind caucus survive Trump?

Offshore wind is stuck in political doldrums as Republican support vanishes.

June 03, 2025

Republican support for offshore wind has flatlined across the federal government, but Capitol Hill's only bipartisan caucus dedicated to the energy source is hoping to reverse that trend.

The House Offshore Wind Caucus, created in 2022, was pitched as a way to find bipartisan solutions to address the industry’s challenges and create policies to spur further growth of the renewable energy source.

It's main leader, Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), said in a recent interview that the caucus will remain active in the coming year to achieve those goals.

The offshore wind industry, however, needs the caucus to be more active and supportive than ever, due to a flurry of executive actions from President Donald Trump that have thrown the industry into chaos.

"Offshore wind, it's all about jobs, helping the economy and creating alternative sources of energy: What the hell is wrong with that?" Carbajal said. "It just shows you how idiotic, myopic and head-in-the-sand that Trump is."

The winnowing of Republican ranks in the caucus is part of a wider Republican hostility toward renewable energy after the Biden administration lavished billions of dollars on it.

Indeed, many congressional Republicans are echoing administration talking points that renewable sources are unreliable and costly.

Last year, the caucus reached 30 total members and held bipartisan, roundtable meetings with industry and policy advocates to examine supply chain issues related to offshore wind development.

The industry got some good news recently when the Trump administration reversed a stop-work order on a New York wind project that is 30 percent complete.

But other challenges remain from the executive branch, including a still-active executive order halting all new federal leases for offshore wind and steel tariffs that are projected to balloon costs for projects currently under construction.

Congress, for its part, is also taking aim at the industry in an uncertain time. The Republican-led reconciliation bill that passed the House in May would phase out Inflation Reduction Act production tax incentives for renewable energy projects not yet plugged into the grid by 2028. Trump has always hated wind power, but broader Republican abandonment on the source has been a recent development.

Despite these headwinds, Democratic leaders of the caucus are placing their bipartisan hopes on one Republican member who has remained a staunch supporter of offshore wind this year.

Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia, one of the last remaining Republican members of the caucus, has been working to find new Republican lawmakers before the group resumes its activities at some point this year, a Democratic member said.

"Kiggans is going to do a round of recruitment from her colleagues to get on the offshore wind caucus," the Democratic offshore caucus member said, granted anonymity to speak candidly. "A bunch of Republicans say they're environmentally friendly, so we hope to get a good amount of them to come on board in the near future."

Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.), a co-chair of the caucus, did not project much confidence that Republicans would suddenly buck Trump and start pushing back on his anti-offshore-wind actions.

"[Republicans] have completely ceded their authority as members of Congress and the congressional branch of government," Ross said. "And that is, of course, dangerous for the future of our energy security, but it's really dangerous for the future of offshore wind."

For now, the caucus remains in a holding pattern. The group has not met this year, and its website still retains the roster of members that were a part of it last Congress

"I do think that this caucus will remain bipartisan," Carbajal said. "It's bipartisan now, but truly bipartisan in numbers, more numbers, is my hope."

History paints grim picture

New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, the original Republican co-founder of the caucus, has done a complete about-face: He's become the offshore wind industry's No. 1 opponent in Congress.

He says offshore wind projects have a particular negative effect on wildlife due to whale deaths and bird strikes, and has said wind energy in general is unreliable and not aesthetically pleasing for his constituents living on the coast.

Wind boosters have argued that critics don't have science on their side. NOAA Fisheries has said there is no evidence that preparations to build offshore wind facilities were the cause of recent whale deaths and blamed many of the casualties on vessel strikes.

A Government Accountability Office study is pending. And even though wind farms do kill birds, researchers say it is fewer than killed by cats or buildings.

Van Drew said he supported the construction of small amounts of wind turbines back in 2022, which is why he joined the caucus in the first place. But as the years went by, the New Jersey Republican changed his mind on that small level of support.

"I never supported 1,000-foot turbines, hundreds of them across the coast, and that caucus was really pro-wind, rather than discussing the pros and cons," Van Drew said. "And the more I learned about wind turbines, I became the diametric opposite of supporting them, which is why I left."

The former wind caucus co-chair even took credit for Trump's hostility toward the energy source, saying the president "talked to" him a lot about the negatives of new turbines. Indeed, much of the language of the executive order halting offshore wind leases on federal waters came directly from Van Drew's office.

More recent history hasn't been much better. Former New York Republican Rep. Anthony D'Esposito and co-chair of the caucus said in a reelection debate that he does "not support offshore wind."

D’Esposito, who remained a co-chair of the caucus even after those comments, lost his reelection campaign last year. Fellow New York Republican and caucus member Marc Molinaro also lost his campaign.

New hope in Kiggans?

Kiggans, whose seat is a top target for Democrats, has long championed the 176-turbine Dominion Energy-operated offshore wind project, dubbed Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind. It is more than halfway complete and on track to power 660,000 homes.

Carbajal specifically pointed out that Kiggans led a group of Republicans fighting to protect some renewable energy tax credits from the Democrats' 2022 climate law from elimination in the GOP's budget reconciliation package. That, Carbajal said, is evidence that there are Republican members out there who support renewable energy in general.

But those moderate Republicans failed to protect green energy credits in the House bill. In fact, the budget reconciliation package actually got worse for renewable energy projects when phaseout dates of credits were sped up from 2031 to 2028 in the final version of the legislation passed by the House.

And the offshore wind caucus hasn't yet secured the retention of its other Republican member. Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) said he has not decided whether to remain a member when asked, although he did say he supports an "all-of-the-above" energy source that includes offshore wind.

One Democratic member did not project confidence that offshore wind would be getting a lot of Republicans lining up to join in the coming months.

"I would love for the caucus to remain bipartisan, but I don't see any signs of it," said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee. "There's been real shift from the all-of-above energy talking point from Republicans to the fossil-only reality."


By:  Nico Portuondo
Source: E&E Daily