Jeff Bezos' Washington Post delivers searing rebuke of Trump's 'especially foolish' plan

The Washington Post editorial board published a scathing assessment on Thursday of President Donald Trump's newest plan to sabotage wind power in the United States.

Trump, who has hated wind power ever since an installation in Scotland altered the view from his nearby golf course, has repeatedly and falsely suggested turbines cause cancer and exaggerated their threat to avian and marine life. Since retaking office, his administration has tried to restrict wind permits on federal lands and shut down existing projects for unspecified "national security" reasons.

Now, he is taking a new approach: simply paying wind farm developers to stop. And the editorial board, which was reshaped by billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos to be more "free market" last year, slammed the new policy as "improper intervening" in the energy sector.

"The Interior Department seems to have forgotten that the United States is in desperate need of new energy capacity. In fact, this week it announced that it will pay two more companies to not pursue American wind energy projects," wrote the board. "The decision effectively cancels leases for new wind farms off the coasts of New York, New Jersey and California. Together, the payouts total $885 million, the amount the developers already paid for their leases."

This comes at a moment when sectors of the economy reliant on fossil fuels are experiencing severe inflation due to the war in Iran.

"Administration officials claim the companies have agreed to reinvest their payouts into fossil fuel projects they prefer. But there’s no mechanism to ensure that happens. And there’s no guarantee such agreements will result in new capacity," wrote the board. "TotalEnergies, for example, already dedicated more than a billion dollars to an expansion of its liquefied natural gas facility in Texas last year. The lease refund will at least partly offset that existing investment."

"Anti-wind policies ultimately designate the government as the arbiter of winners and losers instead of the more efficient market," wrote the board, concluding, "Why should the U.S. government, blessed with abundant breezes and coastlines, pay private companies not to compete? This would be unwise at any moment; it’s especially foolish when demand for new energy has never been greater."