If Trump is re-elected, a familiar face could lead the fight against the wind: RFK Jr | Donald Trump

Donald Trump has insulted wind energy, calling it “bullshit” and “disgusting.” If elected U.S. president, he could turn to another staunch opponent of offshore wind to help stop the nascent industry: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy has become the main opponent of offshore wind in conservative circles and well-connected opposition groups, baselessly blaming new turbines for a spate of whale deaths and accusing former friends in the Democratic Party of abandoning environmental ideals on the right. Allies see this as a perfect role for him as he advises a new Trump administration crackdown on offshore wind energy.

“Because of Robert F. Kennedy’s background, I would like to see that. He has so much to offer, he's a true free thinker,” said Robin Shaffer, president of the anti-offshore wind group Protect Our Coast New Jersey, which was promoted by Kennedy earlier this year. “He loves the environment, he clearly loves nature. He brings some insights that you wouldn’t get from a typical politician.”

Kennedy, who ended his own presidential bid in August to support Trump, has already indicated he will help shape agriculture and health care policies if the Republican candidate wins. He also didn't respond to questions about a possible role in fighting offshore wind energy, but the Trump campaign said it was “proud” to have his support.

“President Trump will select the best people for his Cabinet to undo all the damage the dangerously liberal Kamala Harris has done to our country,” said Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman. “But formal discussions about who will serve in a second Trump administration are premature.”

Trump has ratcheted up his anti-wind energy rhetoric at recent rallies, increasing nervousness among climate activists and the wind industry ahead of next week's election. The former president has taken aim at offshore wind energy and said he would cancel projects on his first day in office, while accusing Harris, his Democratic opponent, of enabling the deaths of birds and whales. (Trump also recently separately told a child on Fox News that Harris wants to ban cows. She doesn't.)

“Would you like to see a bird cemetery?” “Just go under a windmill and you’ll see thousands of dead birds,” Trump said. “They all rust and look disgusting. It is the most expensive form of energy there is. It sounds so wonderful, the wind, the wind, the wind. Wind is nonsense, it's terrible. It’s too expensive, it doesn’t work.”

That stance echoes that of Kennedy, who, as a prominent environmental lawyer, helped kill a proposed offshore wind farm near his family's Cape Cod, Massachusetts, estate in the early 2000s. Since endorsing Trump, Kennedy has appeared with prominent right-wing figures Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson to further tie the cause to the former president's campaign.

“The Democrats are building these offshore wind farms, they’re destroying the whales,” Kennedy told Carlson. “With these monstrosities they are in the process of wiping out the right whales, the last on earth.”

Kennedy has few concerns about onshore wind energy, but said offshore wind energy is “junk” and that green groups and Democrats have “this fixation on carbon alone.” He told Peterson: “Republicans are focused on protecting the environment, protecting habitat and protecting our children from these toxic chemicals, and the Democratic Party and its associated environmental groups have forgotten that mission.”

When Joe Biden took office, the United States only had a relatively small offshore wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island. Since then, however, the president's administration has approved 10 commercial projects along the Atlantic coast that it says will provide enough renewable electricity to power more than 5 million homes.

In total, about 2.6 million acres (1.1 million hectares) of federal waters have been leased for about 3,200 turbines, which the government sees as critical to providing the clean energy needed to transition away from the fossil fuels that are causing the climate crisis is.

But the rise of offshore wind energy in the U.S. has been accompanied by an apparent increase in whale deaths: Since 2016, about 230 humpback whales have been found dead along the coast from Maine to Florida. Even more worrying, up to 20% of the world's remaining 370 whales in the North Atlantic are right whales, which are critically endangered, were killed or injured during this period.

Federal government scientists emphasized that there was no evidence that offshore wind turbines were responsible for the whale deaths. Whales were killed by disease after being struck by ships or caught in fishing nets, autopsies have confirmed. Warming oceans may push marine mammals to look for food in other, riskier areas.

According to Andy Lipsky, chief of the offshore wind ecology division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wind turbines can have “direct and indirect” impacts on marine life because their rigid structures either attract or deter various aquatic creatures.

Noise from construction work and connected electrical cables could also contribute to an increasingly industrialized ocean, he said, but added that more research is needed to understand these interactions.

“Noise is a big problem for animals that spend time underwater, but the operating noise of these turbines has not resulted in anything like a fatality rate,” Lipsky said. “There is a lot of solid evidence after examining the dead animals that shows they collided with ships or became entangled in fishing gear. “We have no evidence that these deaths are related to wind energy.”

Still, Kennedy has found common cause with several groups, some funded by fossil fuel interests, that have sought to slow the expansion of offshore wind energy given some of the difficulties facing the industry. Companies face rising costs and resistance, with Danish company Ørsted canceling two projects off New Jersey last year.

Meanwhile, a 300-foot-long turbine blade from the Vineyard wind project broke off in July, causing several beaches in Massachusetts to be closed to swimmers as the debris washed ashore.

Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, said she was “thrilled” to speak with Kennedy on his podcast about the alleged damage from offshore wind in June.

“No energy source carries a halo except the footprint [of wind] is so much bigger than oil and gas,” said Brady, who has ties to a Texas-based conservative group that opposes renewable energy and promotes the use of oil and gas.

“I hope whoever wins the election stops offshore wind,” she said. “These turbines are a perfect doomsday machine. They won't make anything better. They will destroy the ocean.”

But former allies of Kennedy have reacted with dismay at his alliance with Trump, who routinely mocks the dangers of the climate crisis and repealed dozens of environmental protections as president. Several green groups have condemned him as a conspiracy theorist who spreads “toxic beliefs” about vaccines and global warming.

“It was really shocking to see because Bobby was such a prominent figure in the environmental movement. He went from the Times' hero to the planet to a scourge,” said Dan Reicher, a lawyer and academic who met Kennedy through the Natural Resources Defense Council. The duo went kayaking and camping together in the 1990s.

“I have never seen such a fall from environmental hero to outcast,” Reicher said. “It's sad to say, but RFK Jr. and Donald Trump are now perfectly matched. It's scary because it could set us back decades on climate change. It's been such an extreme change, this is the last place I can imagine it ending. I wouldn’t be surprised if his father and uncle turned in their graves.”

The seemingly unlikely alliance between Kennedy, a scion of Democratic royalty who campaigned against river pollution from New York to South America, and Trump, a Republican real estate developer who has called environmental concerns a “giant fraud,” has left Trump somewhat irritated admits inconsistencies in the joint election campaign.

“He’s going to fix our health and all that,” Trump said of Kennedy at a rally in Nevada this month.

“I don't know if he can be too committed to the environment, I'm a little worried about that with Bobby. I don't know if I want him messing around with the liquid gold beneath our feet. Bobby, work on your health. I like the liquid gold, oil and gas. I think I like that a little more than Bobby.”