Posted on May 14, 2025
At a recent offshore wind industry conference, speakers had lots of advice on how to make the case for President Trump’s least favorite form of energy.
There were boat rides to see an offshore wind farm — America’s largest — being constructed. An exhibit space greeted attendees with German beer, Danish cuisine, undersea robots, and free novelty socks stamped with wind turbines. But even a black-tie gala held after hours couldn’t lift the dark cloud hanging over this group of U.S. offshore wind professionals.
Two weeks ago, I attended one of the largest offshore wind conferences in America, a surreal experience given that the industry has become a political punching bag for President Donald Trump since he and the Republican Party resumed control of Washington in January. Two of the most popular sessions at the conference, which was organized by the industry group Oceantic Network, were about how to navigate and even appeal to GOP leadership.
It seemed prescient, though I was told it was coincidental, that the event was located in Virginia. It’s the sole Republican-led state actively building an offshore wind project — Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind — and that project seems to be one of few not facing political and legal challenges. At night from my hotel room, I could see the wind farm’s blinking lights on the horizon.
In one session, a spokesperson for the project said that it was 55% complete. He told me later that the company would “bring this in on time,” by the end of 2026.
During another session, John Szoka, CEO of the advocacy group Conservative Energy Network and a former North Carolina state representative who calls himself “the Republican whisperer,” spoke to a packed room of over 100 audience members about how to talk to America’s conservative leaders.
“Most congressmen don’t understand the energy sector. They don’t. They understand ‘drill, baby, drill,’” said Szoka, adding that most leaders are more easily convinced by the argument that offshore wind builds “the supply chain” for America’s manufacturing revival than by appeals about cutting carbon emissions.
Szoka said that when he talks to fellow Republicans about offshore wind, he stresses how the energy source eases load growth issues, especially amid a boom in artificial intelligence and data centers. He also emphasizes how offshore wind can be built much faster than other forms of energy, like nuclear.
And he offered another piece of advice: to embrace Republican rhetoric. Szoka gestured to bumper stickers his group had made and passed out to audience members depicting a wind turbine rising from the sea, a U.S. flag in the sky, and the words “AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE” — one of Trump’s go-to phrases.
“I certainly don’t lead with climate change,” Jennifer Mundt, the assistant secretary of clean energy economic development for the North Carolina Department of Commerce, said during the same panel. “What we will do [with Republicans] is talk about the benefits of building a nascent industry. We talk about the opportunity to revitalize our ports.”
The state of Virginia hosted a booth promoting its offshore wind agenda at the IPF conference held in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in April 2025.
Around 1,500 attendees showed up at the Virginia Beach Convention Center for the event — fewer than organizers had expected. And big companies such as the Norwegian firm Equinor seemed to have a smaller presence than in previous years. One attendee told me he presumed the company was “laying low,” having just received a stop-work order from the Trump administration on its massive New York project two weeks prior.
The number of federal workers in attendance had also dwindled compared to previous years. Conference travel has been paused for many federal employees, according to recent news reports, and Oceantic Network spokesperson Stephanie Francoeur said that the lack of those employees impacted “not only registration numbers but also programming” — a few sessions had to be cancelled.
“It seems like half as many people are here than last year,” Matthew Morrissey, a former executive at energy company Ørsted, told me. Morrissey is a veteran offshore wind professional who has attended the conference many times, most recently in New Orleans in April last year, when attendees were riding high on the Biden administration’s support.
During former President Joe Biden’s term, the Interior Department fully approved 10 commercial-scale offshore wind farms, enough to power nearly 6 million homes. It also oversaw the completion of the country’s first commercial-scale project, South Fork off Long Island, as well as six auctions for offshore wind leases that extended the promise of wind-generated power to coastal communities along the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean.
All that changed with Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order, which froze new permitting and leasing for wind projects pending a federal investigation of Biden-era onshore and offshore wind reviews. Some attendees of the recent industry conference expressed frustration about the order without criticizing GOP leadership outright.
“All of the arguments that you’re seeing in the press recently about the insufficient reviews or needing more comprehensive reviews … those have all been dispelled by judges already in the courts in [past] cases,” Turner Smith, deputy chief of energy and environment at the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, said during a session about navigating Trump’s anti-wind executive order. (Smith’s office has since joined a coalition of attorneys general from 16 other states and D.C. in filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the order.)
Along with the other panelists, Smith detailed the difficulties presented by the president’s directive and by GOP leadership’s animosity toward wind energy. But she said they are challenges that the industry might still overcome.
