Top Interior Official Made Millions In An Industry Trump Despises
Katharine MacGregor returned to DOI after a lucrative gig as an executive at NextEra — the energy behemoth that touts itself as a leader in wind and solar.
Ask President Donald Trump or his Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about wind energy and they’ll tell you it’s a “joke,” “pathetic” and “bad for everybody.” They’ll stress that energy production shouldn’t need subsidies — ignoring that fossil fuels are among America’s most subsidized industries — and claim that wind farms have an outsized negative impact on bird populations and other wildlife.
Yet when it came to filling the No. 2 post at Interior, Trump and his team tapped Katharine MacGregor, a veteran of the first Trump administration who between stints in government made millions as an executive at NextEra Energy, the energy giant that has 55 percent of its portfolio in wind and other renewables. Its subsidiary, NextEra Energy Resources, is among the world’s largest wind and solar developers, with more than 160 wind projects in the U.S. and Canada.
As vice president of environmental services for NextEra, MacGregor earned $1.28 million annually in salary and bonuses, according to her financial disclosure. Prior to the NextEra gig, she held the same title at Florida Power and Light Company, another NextEra subsidiary and one of the nation’s largest utility companies.
MacGregor reentered government in May with broad support not only from fossil fuel interests, but also advocates for wind and other renewables. Turn Forward, an offshore wind advocacy group, responded to her confirmation in May with a statement touting her as “well equipped to drive Interior’s work to advance U.S. interests through appropriate management of our energy resources and address America’s rising electricity demand through an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy strategy that includes offshore wind.”
If one thing has become clear over the last nine months, renewables are not part of Trump’s so-called “energy dominance” strategy.
During her confirmation hearing, MacGregor touted that during her time in the private sector, she “worked on environmental permitting and compliance for almost every type of energy infrastructure project around our great nation.” But when pressed by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) in written questions about whether she would work with him to boost wind, solar and energy storage on public lands, MacGregor dodged the question, stating she would strive “to address the national energy emergency and increasing our domestic supply of reliable, affordable energy in accordance with law.”
The administration has sought to stymie what it views as “unreliable” energy projects, including wind farms both onshore and off. Earlier this month, Interior’s Bureau of Land Management abruptly canceled Esmeralda 7, the massive solar project in Nevada that NextEra and several other companies are developing.
In an email statement, Interior spokesperson Charlotte Taylor called MacGregor an “exceptionally qualified and steadfast public servant” who “continues to work around the clock to advance this administration’s agenda for Energy Dominance while diligently maintaining adherence to the ethical standards applicable to the Executive Branch.”
NextEra did not respond to Public Domain’s request for comment. Turn Forward declined to comment for this story.
Along with the hefty salary she earned as a NextEra executive, MacGregor received hundreds of thousands of dollars in company stock. She divested those financial interests — valued between $750,000 and $1.6 million — in July, fulfilling the terms of an ethics agreement she signed in March, according to ethics documents.
NextEra has walked a fine line since Trump’s return to office. John Ketchum, the company’s CEO, has voiced support for Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda while urging the administration not to abandon renewables, which he says will be needed to power energy intensive data centers.
“We are firmly aligned with the administration’s goal to unleash American energy dominance,” he said during an earnings call in July, as HeatMap reported at the time. “And to do so, we need all of the electrons we can get on the grid.”
More recently, NextEra joined numerous other organizations and individuals in backrolling Trump’s Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom at the White House. The president demolished the White House East Wing to make way for the new party space.
As part of its attack on wind energy, Trump and his team have zeroed in on the impacts of turbines on eagles and other birds. On the campaign trail last year, Trump bemoaned that “nobody goes to jail” when a bald eagle is killed by the spinning blade of a wind turbine. In August, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced that the agency would strictly enforce the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act “to ensure that our national bird is not sacrificed for unreliable wind facilities!”
“Wind projects are known to kill eagles, and climate extremists in the Biden admin still greenlit scores of these projects,” he wrote in a social media post announcing the move.
In 2022, Energy Resources LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of NextEra, pleaded guilty and was fined $8 million — reportedly the largest-ever Migratory Bird Treaty Act penalty ever levied against a wind company — for killing at least 150 bald and golden eagles at dozens of its wind energy facilities across multiple states. It was the Department of Justice during the Biden administration that prosecuted the case.
The contradiction here is staggering. MacGregor pulls in $1.28 million annually from NextEra's renewables divison, then steps right back into government to push an agenda that actively undermines that same industry. It really shows how policy positions seem to follow political expediency rather than any consistent energy strategy.
Your first paragraph reminds me of the need to promote this well-founded analysis of fossil fuel subsidy reform...includes links to recent IMF estimates of US fossil fuel subsidies, which totaled about $750 billion in 2022. https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-proposals-to-reduce-fossil-fuel-subsidies-january-2024