President Donald Trump’s recent claim that noise from wind turbines causes cancer was “idiotic,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Wednesday.
Speaking at a fundraiser for Republicans in Washington Tuesday, Trump took aim at wind turbines — which he called windmills — and what he labeled the inadequacy of wind energy, saying at one point that “they say the noise (from wind turbines) causes cancer.” Scientific studies have not identified any human health risk from wind turbines.
On a weekly conference call with reporters Wednesday, Grassley expressed frustration with Trump’s comments, saying they “were first of all idiotic” and that they don’t “show much respect for Chuck Grassley as the grandfather of the wind energy tax credit,” according to the senator’s spokesman, Michael Zona.
Grassley authored the Wind Energy Incentives Act of 1993, which provided wind energy tax credits.
According to the Iowa Wind Energy Association, the state is home to more than 4,000 wind turbines that provide 37% of the state’s electricity. The industry also provides the state with some 9,000 jobs, according to the group.
In his speech, the President also effectively claimed that if the wind stopped blowing, people that get energy from wind turbines would lose power.
“I told the story about, at (the Conservative Political Action Conference), the woman, she wants to watch television and she says to her husband, ‘Is the wind blowing? I’d love to watch a show tonight, darling. The wind hasn’t blown for three days. I can’t watch television, darling. Darling, please, tell the wind to blow,'” Trump said.
In practice, if the wind stops blowing, homes that use wind energy do not lose power as only about 6% of total US electricity comes from wind energy, according to the Department of Energy.
