WASHINGTON-Three days after Energy Secretary Rick Perry directed his staff to find ways to give a boost to coal and nuclear power, the rival wind industry kicked its lobbying response into action.
The American Wind Energy Association would tap allies in Congress willing to weigh in with Perry and buy advertisements on "news channels closely followed by the Trump administration," according to a memo its leader sent to board members. During the Obama administration it had touted its role in addressing climate change, but now it would emphasize an economic message, something sure to resonate with President Donald Trump.
"The wind industry drives over 100,000 American jobs, more than coal, nuclear, or hydropower electricity generation," Chief Executive Officer Tom Kiernan wrote in the eight-page memo on April 17. The memo was provided to Bloomberg News by a competing lobbyist and confirmed by AWEA. Once a darling of federal policy makers during the tenure of President Barack Obama, wind energy has been buffeted under Trump, who frequently complains that wind turbines kill eagles and aren't a reliable power source. In the administration's efforts to help coal miners, oil drillers and nuclear-plant operators, wind is the variable, subsidized power that is making life difficult for those so-called baseload electricity producers.
"I don't want to just hope the wind blows to light up your homes and your factory-as the birds fall to the ground," Trump said this month in Iowa, a state that gets more than a third of its electricity from wind power.
Kiernan has taken to fact-checking Trump's comments on Twitter. And the group has hired Republican lobbyists this year to help it gain a foothold in a very different Washington.
Last month, AWEA hired Amy Farrell, a former official in the administration of President George W. Bush and natural gas lobbyist, as its senior vice president for government and public affairs. It also hired William Myers, Bush's former Interior Department solicitor, as a lobbyist that same month.
The Energy Department study of the electric grid, however, poses the most tangible risk to wind power, which more than doubled in capacity during the Obama administration to more than 82,000 megawatts. A memo from Perry ordering the study posited that the reliability of the power grid was at risk, and listed factors such as regulations that could be forcing the "premature retirement of baseload power plants," which refers to mostly coal and nuclear facilities.