Iowa’s two Republican senators and its Republican governor are calling out Donald Trump’s latest fulminations on wind turbines after the former reality TV star claimed without evidence that noise from the devices may cause cancer.
“On Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley called Trump’s cancer claim ‘idiotic’,” USA Today reports. “On Thursday, Sen. Joni Ernst called the statement ‘ridiculous’.”
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“I would say it’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous,” Ernst told local media. “I have church bells that ring all the time across from my office here in D.C. and I know that noise doesn’t give me cancer, otherwise I’d have ‘church bell cancer’,” she said, adding that she is “thrilled” to have wind energy generation in her state. “I don’t know what the president is drawing from.”
Grassley said Trump’s comments ““were first of all idiotic, and it doesn’t show much respect for Chuck Grassley as the grandfather of the wind energy tax credit.”
“I’m proud to be a leader in renewable energy, and I’m proud to say that 40% of our electricity is generated from wind,” Gov. Kim Reynolds agreed. MidAmerican Energy, with more than 2,300 wind turbines installed across the state, stressed the safety of its product.
“As a company, we don’t want to weigh in on the politics here, but we are happy to weigh in on the science,” said spokesperson Geoff Greenwood. “And the science tells us there is no correlation, no cause and effect, between wind turbines and cancer.”
Trump “told a crowd at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s annual spring dinner [last] Tuesday night that he heard that noise from wind turbines causes cancer—though there’s no scientific evidence linking wind farms to cancer,” KCCI Des Moines reports. “A University of Iowa study shows that there is no connection between wind turbines and any health issues. The president also repeated his claim that wind turbines kill birds, which is true, but experts said power lines kill far more.”
