IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – President Trump’s putdown of wind energy at his Iowa rally was denounced Thursday across the state, which takes pride in its position as a national leader in wind generation.
Trump was talking up his support for coal during his speech in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday night when he said: “I don’t want to just hope the wind blows to light up your homes and your factories.” He paused before adding, “as the birds fall to the ground,” a reference to birds killed by turbines.
The remark drew some cheers and laughs inside the arena but didn’t go over well across Iowa, where the rapid growth of the state’s wind energy industry has been a bipartisan success story. Environmentalists and politicians said the president’s suggestion that wind is unreliable was outdated and off-base, and noted that bird deaths have been minimized and aren’t a source of controversy in Iowa.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andy McGuire called Trump’s comment “an attack on Iowa’s economy.” Iowa Environmental Council executive director Ralph Rosenberg called the president “inaccurate and misinformed.”
Iowa’s senior Republican senator, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is considered the father of the federal wind production tax credit that has subsidized the expansion of the industry since the 1990s, again vowed to oppose any anti-wind policies Trump may pursue.