From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Shares of big Danish offshore wind developer Orsted dropped by 17% Monday, the same day President Donald Trump took the oath of office to become the 47^th president of the United States. The two events are not merely coincidental with one another.

To be sure, Orsted’s loss of market cap was caused by several factors, including both the general slowing of the offshore wind business, and Orsted’s own announcement that it will incur a $1.69 billion impairment charge related to its Sunrise Wind project off the coast of New York. Company CEO Mads Nipper  attributed the charge to delays and cost increases and said the project completion date is now delayed to the second half of 2027.

But there can be little doubt that the raft of energy-related executive orders signed by Trump also contributed to the drop in Orsted’s stock price. As part of a Day 1 agenda consisting of a reported 196 executive orders, the new president took dead aim at reversing the Biden Green New Deal agenda in general, with a special focus on wind power projects on federal lands and waters.

In addition to general orders declaring a national energy emergency and pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords (for a second time), Trump signed a separate order titled, “Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects.” That long-winded title (pardon the pun) is quite descriptive of what the order is designed to accomplish.

Section 1 of this order withdraws “from disposition for wind energy leasing all areas within the Offshore Continental Shelf (OCS) as defined in section 2 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), 43 U.S.C. 1331.” Somewhat ironically, this is the same OCSLA cited in early January by former President Joe Biden when he set 625 million acres of federal offshore waters off limits to oil and gas leasing and drilling into perpetuity.

As with Biden’s LNG permitting pause, the fourth paragraph of Section 1 in Trump’s order states that  “Nothing in this withdrawal affects rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas.” However, the same paragraph goes on to subject those existing leases to review by the secretary of the Interior, who is charged with conducting “a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases, identifying any legal bases for such removal, and submit a report with recommendations to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.”

Observant readers will know that the parameters of this order as it relates to offshore wind are essentially the same as a proposal I suggested in a previous piece here on Jan. 1. So, obviously, it receives the Blackmon Seal of Approval.

But we should also note that Trump goes even further, extending this freeze to onshore wind projects as well. While the rationale for the freeze in offshore leasing and permitting cites factors unique to the offshore like harm to marine mammals, ocean currents and the marine fishing industry, the rationale supporting the onshore freeze cites “environmental impact and cost to surrounding communities of defunct and idle windmills and deliver a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, with their findings and recommended authorities to require the removal of such windmills.”

This gets at concerns long held by me and many others that neither the federal government nor any state government has seen fit to require the proper, complete tear down and safe disposal of these massive wind turbines, blades, towers and foundations once they outlive their useful lives. In most jurisdictions, wind operators are free to just abandon the projects and leave the equipment to dilapidate and rot.

The dirty secret of the wind industry, whether onshore or offshore, is that it is not sustainable without consistent new injections of more and more subsidies, along with the tacit refusal by governments to properly regulate its operations. Trump and his team understand this reality and should be applauded for taking real action to address it.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Megan Brock

One day into his presidency, Trump has taken significant executive action to preserve the integrity of the sexes and root out gender ideology from the federal government.

Throughout his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump promised to affirm the unique distinctions of the two sexes, male and female, and reverse the spread of gender ideology that was pushed during the Biden administration. Trump kept that promise Monday by signing an executive order (EO) titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government,” which defends the integrity of the sexes by mandating the federal government apply “clear and accurate language” that includes requiring the use of the term “sex” over “gender.”

“My Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,” the EO states.

“When administering or enforcing sex-based distinctions, every agency and all Federal employees acting in an official capacity on behalf of their agency shall use the term ‘sex’ and not ‘gender’ in all applicable Federal policies and documents.”

Trump’s order defines male and female as “immutable biological” classifications, noting that “sex” is not synonymous with the term “gender identity.”

“‘Sex’ shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. ‘Sex’ is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity’,” the EO states.

“Gender Identity” is a term used by transgender activists to describe an individual’s imagined sex. Transgender activists believe a person’s imagined sex is as real as their physical sex, and should hold equal weight in society and law.

For example, in April 2024 the Biden administration expanded Title IX regulations, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, to include “gender identity,” giving men claiming to have a female “gender identity” full legal access to women’s sports and private spaces. A federal judge recently struck down the expanded Title IX regulations in a lawsuit filed against the Biden administration by six states, including Tennessee.

Transgender activists often use the terms “gender” and “gender identity” interchangeably.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) described how these terms are used synonymously in their gender medical guidance, called the Standards of Care version 8 (SOC 8), which is routinely used by medical associations, governments, and insurance companies in the U.S. and abroad to create policy driven by gender ideology.

“Depending on the context, gender may reference gender identity, gender expression, and/or social gender role, including understandings and expectations culturally tied to people who were assigned male or female at birth,” the SOC 8 states.

“Gender identities other than those of men and women (who can be either cisgender or transgender) include transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, gender neutral, agender, gender fluid, and “third” gender, among others; many other genders are recognized around the world.”

This muddying of language is found throughout medical institutions including The National Institutes of Health who define gender as “A multidimensional construct that encompasses gender identity and expression, as well as social and cultural expectations about status, characteristics, and behavior as they are associated with certain sex traits.”

The Trump administration acknowledged how the corruption of language by transgender activists has had an “corrosive impact” on American society, stating: “The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system,” in the EO. “Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.”

The term “gender identity” was popularized in the 1960s by controversial sexologist John Money, whose most high-profile experiment involved advising parents of a boy whose penis was damaged in a botched circumcision to cut the rest of it off and raise him as a girl. At age 15, the boy — who was raised as “Brenda” — discovered the truth and rejected further hormone treatments. He eventually committed suicide at age 38.

Gender ideology believes a person’s sex can differ from their “gender identity,” rejecting the long-established scientific understanding of biology that there are only two sexes based on the fact there are only two types of reproductive cells — sperm and ova.

The very concept of “gender identity” creates the possibility of changing one’s sex — a biological impossibility — through medical interventions, therefore creating a demand for medical sex reassignment interventions.

WPATH defines “gender identity” in the SOC 8 as “a person’s deeply felt, internal, intrinsic sense of their own gender,” whereas the Trump administration defines it as “A fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality.”

The EO further explains that because “gender identity” is wholly subjective to the individual, it cannot be used to replace the objective reality of sex.

“‘Gender identity’ reflects a fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex,” Trump’s EO states.