Last year, the Biden administration decided to boost the US wind sector by giving cheap leases to Democratic donors, much the same way the Obama administration did when they turned over 5,000,000 acres of federal land to produce ethanol.

The areas that career bureaucrats chose were the coasts of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

Like withdrawing from Afghanistan, he forgot to tell the military about his accelerated schedule. Unlike Afghanistan, the military is taking a stand this time. Politely. It is the American military, after all, there is no Sulla in charge. The Pentagon has joined the Coast Guard in objecting to nearly every location the White House chose when it drafted the supernatural figure of 30 gigawatts of offshore power by 2030. Maybe bureaucrats never thought to ask if North Carolina’s Dare County bombing range was still being used for training. 

The most bizarre thing was that the same DoD concerns scuttled offshore drilling leases just a few years ago. President Biden cheered it then, Democrats cheered it. Did they think it would change because they were giant swaths of wind vanes rather than relatively minute oil rigs? That would mean it was a political issue, not strategic.

Corporations who have been lining up to the taxpayer trough in those states are noting that if DoD really care about national defense, they would allow these wind turbines. Energy independence is a strategic interest, they huff. Telling the Pentagon that corporate subsidies for political donors are as important as the military probably won't end well for their marcomm teams.