‘Did People Forget About 9/11?’: Doug Burgum Warns Of Wind Energy Security Risks

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum discussed his first year leading the agency and stressed the national security risks posed by offshore wind farms during a sit-down interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Burgum said the Trump administration has reversed Biden-era policies that blocked “virtually every mining or refining project in America,” while the Department of the Interior (DOI) has advanced permitting for oil and gas development. The Secretary argued that the U.S. must consider offshore wind’s national security implications, warning that adversaries could exploit them and suggesting that anyone who doubts America could be a target is naive.

“I know that people think ‘oh, no one’s going to attack us. In the U.S., we aren’t going to be attacked.’ Did people forget about 9/11 already?” Burgum told the DCNF, describing how enemy-piloted drones or autonomous submarines could avoid early detection due to offshore wind farms purportedly disrupting radar and sonar. “So, we want to take that risk for a source of energy that is the highest-cost producing electricity we have [and is] completely uncontrollable? … It would not exist at all if not for the massive tax subsidies which cost Americans.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Kills Massive Offshore Wind Project)

Burgum also stated that offshore wind is an inferior energy source, arguing that wind farms are “highly subsidized, completely unreliable, completely weather dependent [and] built by foreign companies.” The Secretary continued to argue that wind farms are “bad for the marine environment” and opposed by some fishermen and coastal communities.

“Fishermen are heroes in my mind,” Burgum told the DCNF, comparing them to “farmers of the sea” and noting that they toil to put food on Americans’ tables.

The DOI and the Department of War raised national security concerns over offshore wind farms in December, when the DOI announced that it was pausing leases for all five large-scale offshore wind projects being built in the U.S. Judges have since ruled that all five projects can resume construction. Burgum told the DCNF that his agency intends to “press forward through the legal system.”

Notably, the Swedish government rejected several offshore wind applications over defense concerns in November 2024, Reuters reported.

The Biden administration approved numerous offshore wind farms as part of its green energy resource push, while also signing off in billions for solar and wind project subsidies. President Donald Trump campaigned against former President Joe Biden’s energy policy, calling it the “green new scam.”

In his first year back in office, Trump rolled back several Biden-era green energy subsidies and bolstered conventional energy resources such as coal, oil and natural gas.

Trump has also advanced major critical mineral initiatives, including unveiling the first civilian stockpile — known as “Project Vault” — after China repeatedly leveraged its monopoly in 2025 to undercut his global tariff strategy.

Burgum told the DCNF that both Project Vault and a new critical mineral price floor are intended to prevent China from flooding the market with critical minerals, causing a price collapse that would dry up investment. Burgum added that establishing the “club of nations” should also diversify the critical mineral supply chain.

In response to a question on how to increase U.S. refining capacity, Burgum said, “that’s where the price floors come in,” explaining that he hopes the result would “see a lot of private capital going towards building refining capacity in the U.S. because of these … price floor agreements.”

The Secretary said that after Trump campaigned on the slogan: “drill, baby, drill,” or “his way of summing up that we needed to unleash American energy.” Under Biden, the federal government restricted a broad swath of waters from oil and gas development, froze liquified natural gas (LNG) exports and blocked the major Keystone XL pipeline.

“The Biden administration had been doing everything they could to kill American energy production,” Burgum told the DCNF.

Burgum noted that Trump used energy as leverage to “end eight wars abroad,” and that “peace in the world [as well as] prosperity at home, [are] all tied back to energy dominance.”

Additionally, Burgum pointed to California and New England as examples of Democratic states and regions that have adopted “anti-common sense” energy policies that hurt reliability and affordability. Burgum noted that New England has blocked natural gas pipelines, while California has shuttered dozens of refineries as it has hammered the oil and gas industry with regulations and now relies increasingly on imported foreign oil to meet demand.

“Some states are still adopting very anti-common sense energy policies,” Burgum said, adding that though the Trump administration is working to bolster American energy, “results may vary by your zip code.”

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