Trump and Biden on Wind and LNG
Regulatory Friction, Courts, and Energy Policy Driven by Executive Preference
Why would a pro–energy abundance president target wind in an era where energy demand is growing? Why would a climate-focused president, concerned about Europe’s security, impede LNG, a relatively clean technology in a world that needs energy?
Introduction
Both President Biden (in the case of liquefied natural gas) and President Trump (in the case of wind power) used federal regulatory authority to inject uncertainty and friction into the development of energy projects that are widely viewed as economically viable and environmentally beneficial. In both cases, executive and administrative tools were used rather than legislation, courts were quickly drawn in as a backstop, and material market outcomes lagged the regulatory actions.
Both wind power and liquefied natural gas are mature, large-scale energy industries that deliver substantial economic, energy security, and environmental benefits under mainstream economic and energy-system analysis. As a result, federal interventions affecting either sector should clear a high bar of economic, environmental, or security justification.
Onshore wind is among the lowest-cost sources of new electricity generation in much of the United States. It is largely privately financed, relies on domestic construction and operating supply chains, and contributes to grid resilience through geographic diversification. Offshore wind, while more capital intensive, offers scale potential near major load centers and reduces reliance on long-distance transmission. Environmentally, wind provides zero-combustion electricity, reduces local air pollution, and lowers global emissions when it displaces fossil generation. While siting and wildlife impacts require management, the core cost-benefit case for wind is well established in mainstream energy economics.
U.S. LNG export capacity supports domestic natural gas production, improves the U.S. trade balance, and strengthens global energy security. Internationally, LNG has displaced coal in power generation and provided flexibility during major supply disruptions, most notably in Europe following the loss of Russian pipeline gas.
From a climate perspective, LNG is not zero-carbon, but it is materially less emissions-intensive than coal and has played a transitional role in reducing global emissions. Economically, LNG projects are long-lead, capital-intensive investments whose viability depends critically on stable and predictable regulatory expectations.
Taken together, wind and LNG are best understood as complementary components of a pragmatic energy system: domestic supply, diversified risk, and incremental environmental improvement.
The Biden administration’s posture toward wind was largely consistent with its stated worldview. From 2021 through 2024, federal agencies restarted and expanded offshore wind leasing, accelerated permitting, defended approvals in court, and paired those actions with long-duration tax incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act. This approach reflects the president’s concern about the need for decarbonization to reduce climate change.
Under President Trump, wind became a target of regulatory intervention despite rhetoric favoring energy abundance and deregulation.
In January 2025, the administration directed federal agencies to pause processing of wind-related permits and approvals, an action implemented by the Department of the Interior as a broad suspension of federal wind authorizations. That pause was challenged by a coalition of states and subsequently struck down by a federal court as an unlawful, indefinite halt under administrative law.
In December 2025, Interior issued stop-work orders halting several offshore wind projects already under construction, citing national security concerns related primarily to alleged radar interference. Developers immediately filed suit. In early 2026, federal courts allowed multiple projects to resume construction, finding the government’s justification insufficient at the preliminary stage and emphasizing the irreparable harm from delay.
The practical effect of Trump’s regulatory actions is not an immediate reduction in wind generation but heightened regulatory uncertainty for future projects and increased financing risk for capital-intensive developments.
Trump’s approach to wind is difficult to reconcile with the argument that the United States should pursue all available sources of domestic energy, particularly given wind’s cost competitiveness, domestic supply, and strong presence in Republican-led states, particularly Texas.
Republican-led states account for a substantial share of U.S. wind generation and manufacturing, reflecting the technology’s alignment with cost minimization, landowner income, and rural economic development rather than partisan climate policy.
Texas is the largest wind-producing state in the United States by a wide margin, with wind routinely supplying more than one-quarter of total in-state electricity generation and substantially higher shares during peak output periods. Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wyoming also rank among the national leaders in wind penetration, capacity additions, or wind-related manufacturing. All are states with long-standing Republican control of statewide offices or legislatures.
Wind development in these states is driven by economics. Fixed-price power purchase agreements from wind projects often undercut new fossil generation, while federal tax credits largely flow to private capital rather than state governments. Lease payments to landowners provide a steady income stream in agricultural regions, and construction activity supports local tax bases without requiring ongoing public expenditure.
Republican elected officials in these states have consistently defended wind as a component of an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has repeatedly emphasized that wind is an integral part of the state’s electricity mix and has supported transmission investments that enabled large-scale deployment across West Texas. While Abbott has criticized federal climate mandates and offshore wind proposals, he has distinguished those positions from Texas’s market-driven onshore wind development, which he has described as a success of competitive electricity markets rather than regulation.
Similarly, Republican governors and legislators in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas have defended wind development as pro-farmer, pro-manufacturing, and consistent with energy independence. Their support has typically been framed in terms of property rights, rural economic growth, and grid resilience rather than emissions reduction.
This state-level Republican support underscores the tension between federal executive actions targeting wind and the revealed preferences of Republican energy-producing states where wind is already a mature, economically embedded industry.
Offshore wind, while more capital intensive, does not obviously impose greater system costs or environmental tradeoffs than other forms of large-scale generation. At the same time, U.S. electricity demand growth—driven in part by data centers and other energy-intensive loads—raises the value of adding deployable capacity from multiple sources. From that perspective, federal actions that impede wind development are difficult to justify as serving energy abundance, cost minimization, or system reliability.
The tension in the Biden administration’s energy policy appears most clearly in its treatment of LNG exports.
In January 2024, the Department of Energy announced an indefinite pause on issuing new authorizations for LNG exports to non-free-trade-agreement countries. The pause was implemented administratively through DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, which has statutory responsibility under the Natural Gas Act to determine whether LNG exports are in the “public interest.” The administration framed the pause as necessary to conduct a new review of LNG’s lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, domestic price effects, and consistency with U.S. climate goals.
The action did not revoke existing export authorizations or restrict ongoing LNG shipments. Instead, it froze the approval pipeline for future projects—precisely those long-lead, capital-intensive facilities whose viability depends on regulatory certainty well before construction begins.
The substantive case for the pause was contested. Economically, U.S. LNG projects were already supplying global markets at scale. Environmentally, U.S. LNG had displaced higher-emissions coal generation abroad. Strategically, LNG exports had become central to European energy security following the loss of Russian pipeline gas. None of these considerations pointed toward an obvious need for a permitting freeze.
Legally, the policy proved vulnerable. States and industry groups challenged the pause as an unlawful, indefinite suspension inconsistent with DOE’s statutory obligation to make case-specific public-interest determinations. Within months, a federal court blocked the pause, requiring DOE to resume processing export applications. LNG exports continued uninterrupted, but uncertainty around future projects increased materially.
Taken together, Biden’s LNG policy is best understood as a response to climate-policy aspirations associated with the Green New Deal coalition rather than as the outcome of a decisive shift in scientific or economic evidence. The administration sought to signal climate seriousness through administrative control points, even where the underlying energy and security tradeoffs were unfavorable.
The Trump administration promoted LNG and treated it as an important instruments of economic growth and geopolitical influence. The Trump administration removed the regulatory barriers created by the Biden administration which impeded export of LNG.
Through DOE, it expedited approvals of LNG export authorizations under the Natural Gas Act, avoiding additional climate or market tests beyond those historically applied. Federal agencies streamlined permitting for associated infrastructure, and the administration publicly encouraged export capacity expansion as part of a broader strategy of “energy dominance.” The result was rapid expansion of U.S. LNG export capacity and the United States’ emergence as the world’s leading LNG exporter by the early 2020s. This approach aligned closely with Trump’s deregulatory rhetoric and his emphasis on maximizing domestic energy production and exports.
The Biden administration’s treatment of LNG and the Trump administration’s treatment of wind reflect a shared governing pattern: the use of executive and administrative discretion to override market signals at critical federal chokepoints for disfavored energy technologies.
In Biden’s case, an administrative pause on LNG export approvals subordinated widely accepted economic, environmental, and geopolitical benefits to aspirational climate objectives associated with the Green New Deal coalition.
In Trump’s case, executive pauses and stop-work orders targeting wind—particularly offshore wind—ran counter to cost competitiveness, domestic energy abundance, and state-level Republican support.
In both instances, the interventions were undertaken without new legislation, justified through expansive interpretations of discretionary authority, and quickly tested in court. The result in each case was not an immediate change in energy production, but higher regulatory uncertainty, delayed investment, and increased project risk—demonstrating how executive preference, rather than science or economics, increasingly shapes U.S. energy outcomes at the margin.
The two appendices that follow are available to paid subscribers. They translate the policy and regulatory analysis above into a practical framework for evaluating companies operating in wind power and liquefied natural gas. Appendix A focuses on wind-exposed firms, distinguishing between pure exposure, regulated utility ownership, and embedded infrastructure. Appendix B focuses on LNG and gas-linked companies, separating infrastructure-backed exporters from upstream producers whose exposure to LNG is indirect but economically meaningful.
Taken together, the appendices are designed to identify business models that can compound value through regulatory turbulence rather than being derailed by it.
Appendix A. Wind: companies and stocks to study
