Senator Unloads on Trump’s ‘Idiotic’ Wind Energy Comments

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) threw caution to the wind and called President Donald Trump‘s recent comments on wind power “idiotic.”

Trump this week claimed that the noise from wind turbines causes cancer and that wind isn’t a reliable source of energy because wind “only blows sometimes.”
Grassley is a major supporter of wind energy and has been referred to as the “grandfather of wind energy” thanks to his efforts of providing a tax credit for the alternative energy source.

According to the Des Moines Register, who first reported on Grassley’s comments, the senator’s home state of Iowa relies on wind for about a third of its total electricity.

“I’m told that the White House respects my views on a lot of issues,” Grassley told Iowa reporters Wednesday.

“(Trump’s) comments on wind energy — not only as a president but when he was a candidate — were, first of all, idiotic, and it didn’t show much respect for Chuck Grassley as the grandfather of the wind energy tax credit,” he added.

Trump has been a longtime opponent of wind energy ever since his legal fight with the Scottish government over wind turbines placed in view of his golf course in 2012.

Grassley told reporters that most people think it’s “stupid” not to harness wind and solar energy.

“I’m not a progressive, but I’m in favor of alternative energy,” Grassley stated, according to Politico.
“I wish his staff would tell him I’m the father and now the grandfather of wind energy tax credits,” he continued. “I don’t think he knows it, or I don’t think he’d make those comments that aren’t quite appropriate.”

Meanwhile, the White House didn’t try to clarify Trump’s outlandish comments. On Wednesday, reporters asked Mercedes Schlapp, the White House director of strategic communications, if wind turbines cause cancer.

“I don’t have an answer to that,” she responded.
The answer is there is no evidence that noise from wind turbines cause cancer, as the president suggested.