Windmills Win Against Trump & The Minions on Olympic Ice

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1:51You know, I know windmills very much. I've studied it better than anybody. You'll see these things all over the place. They destroy everything. They're horrible and the most expensive energy there is. They ruin the environment. They kill the birds. They kill the whales. Darling, I want to watch Donald Trump on television tonight. But the wind stopped blowing and I can't watch. There's no electricity in the house, darling. You want to see a bird cemetery? Go under a windmill sometime. You'll see the sadness. President Donald Trump has been a vehement critic of wind power for years, deriding wind turbines as bird-killing eyesores and falsely claiming that they're the most expensive form of energy, cause cancer and drive whales crazy.

2:39And Trump has aggressively sought to cripple the wind power industry in his second term. Within hours of returning to the White House in 2025, he issued a directive that froze new permitting for wind energy and ordered officials to consider terminating existing leases. So we're going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built. And so in December, the Department of the Interior ordered a pause to five multibillion-dollar wind farm projects under construction, citing unspecified national security concerns. This Monday, for the fifth time in three weeks, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking the government's stop work order, saying the administration's decision was likely arbitrary and capricious.

3:30Now, all five of the wind farms planned in federal waters have gotten the go-ahead from the courts, although the Trump administration says it will keep fighting in court. My guest is an expert in environmental law, Pat Parenteau, a professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School. Pat, tell us what happened when five different judges took a look at the Interior Department's stop work orders on these wind farm projects. so trump is 0 for 5 basically in these cases and the interesting thing is these are a variety of judges two of them were appointed by trump and a third one royce lambert who just issued the final nail in the coffin for this stop work order he was nominated by ronald reagan so you know we're not talking about woke judges we're talking about conservative judges all of whom without exception, have said that this order, this stop work order on five offshore wind projects, which, by the way, is six gigawatts, okay?

4:38It's designed to serve more than two and a half million homes and businesses all up and down the East Coast. So, you know, this is a really, really significant amount of electricity that this stop work order has tried to halt. So there's a preliminary injunction against all of the stop work orders at this point. The Trump administration, the Interior Department, has said that they're suspending these because of national security risks. It didn't disclose the security risks, but it claimed that the Department of Defense provided new classified information about advances in adversary technologies that could raise national security issues with offshore wind projects.

5:21I'm not sure what that means. And Judge Lamberth looked at those confidential documents and said he didn't get it. He didn't see the security risks. Right. He said there was no proof of imminent threat to national security at all. On the other hand, he said that stopping the work orders was going to cost these companies $2 million a day. One of the projects, Vineyard Wind, was 95 percent complete. It's already sending some electricity to the grid. And two of the other projects, one of them was 40 % complete, the other one 65 % complete. So you got to remember, these are projects that have gone through an incredible amount of vetting, including Department of Defense vetting, including clearance from the Department of Defense.

6:11Of course, that was the Department of Defense before Trump. Okay. So when Trump now comes up with these secret classified documents demonstrating a threat to national security, and as you point out, Judge Lamberth looked at them and said, I don't see it. It does raise the serious question. Is this all just a pretext for Trump's, you know, well known animosity, outright hostility to wind power. And it all comes from the fact that he owns a golf course in scotland and from his golf course you can see wind farms off the coast of scotland generating all kinds of clean electricity he doesn't like the look of them he's come up with all kinds of reasons why they're bad they cause cancer no they don't they kill a disproportionate number of birds no they don't they're unreliable no they're not they're too expensive no they're not so that's where we are i think the whales too oh the whales Don't forget the whales.

7:08Yeah. And all of this has been true, you know, years and years, not only of vetting in the agencies, but the whale issue in particular has been up and down the courts in the First Circuit and the Second Circuit repeatedly. And none of the cases have found a serious threat to the whales. Believe me, if there was a serious threat to the whales, you'd be hearing about it from me. Is it the look of the windmills or is it that Trump wants to promote fossil fuels? And also these wind energy projects were favorites of former President Biden. Yeah. Anything that Biden supported, he's going to kill. Every single thing he can find that is connected to Biden, he'll kill it.

7:51And, you know, these arguments just fall apart. The studies that have been done by banks, serious people, right? all say that wind and solar energy are the cheapest forms of energy to bring online quickly. Not that they're going to solve all of our problems. They're not. You need baseload electricity. But when it comes to really costing out the life cycle costs of these various energy transmission options, and you look at everything from where do you get the materials, whether it's fuel or other things, to build these systems? And then how much does it cost to buy the fuel for these systems? Just think about it.

8:33The wind is free. The sun is free. Once you've installed these systems, these wind turbines offshore, you don't suffer the fluctuations of gas prices. You know, you don't have oil spills. You have wind spills, but not oil spills. So the sober analysis of renewables is saying to meet the growing demand for electricity, including the huge one from AI data centers, you need more wind and solar. You need all kinds of forms of energy, but you in particular need projects that are almost complete and ready to go. The White House said they're going to continue fighting in court. Do you think that appellate courts might have a different viewpoint?

9:19They might. You know, oh, you always have to leave open the possibility that a different panel of judges would reach a different conclusion. But the point is that the evidence here of a national security threat consists of a document or documents, right? And so you don't have witnesses. Yeah, I mean, some other judges might look at these documents and reach a different conclusion than Judge Lamberth did. But the rule is the trial court's decision to issue an injunction, if it's reasonable, right, if it's based on an analysis of whether the government's stated reason for these stop work orders passes muster, I don't think the courts of appeal are going to overturn these preliminary injunctions.

10:04The cases are proceeding. The proponents of these projects, primarily Orsted, the Denmark firm, they're bound and determined to work with the Trump administration to resolve whatever their questions are. The real question is, with the signals coming from these wind turbines to the grid, would they interfere with military radar readings? That's what it comes down to. And, you know, the companies are saying, hey, look, if you need more safeguards and more mitigation of whatever risks you think there are, we're all about addressing that and fixing that. We have decades of experience with building these systems, running these systems.

10:46In every country in which they're operating, they have the same set of radar and military needs and national security needs. And if there are issues out there, they can be dealt with. Pat, so despite the fact that the Trump administration is losing in court, court battle after court battle over the wind farms. The shift in policy under Trump, for example, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill sped up the phase out of federal tax credits for offshore wind. Has this all escalated the risk of investing in offshore wind projects so that it's unlikely that you'll have new projects? The ones that are ongoing now, they'll fight to keep.

11:32But new projects, I mean, I think the government's not even going to approve new projects. Yeah. Yes, that is the bigger threat here, that they're going to discourage investment. And when you think about it, this is foreign investment. This isn't costing U.S. companies or U.S. taxpayers a nickel, okay, to build these things. This is free money that we're getting, and it's billions and billions of dollars. And oh, by the way, if you think about it, just simply delaying these five projects at$2 million a day, who do you think is ultimately going to pay for that? The consumers of electricity. And so there are studies out there saying an extended delay like this could cost consumers billions of dollars because of the amount of electricity that these would generate.

12:20So the chilling effect on investment is the goal of this administration. I mean, they don't really care if they lose in court. They'll just keep appealing if they can, all the way to the Supreme Court if they can. But their real goal is to stifle renewable energy and particularly win. And I hate to say it, but they're succeeding in that. You know, that's not in the national interest. It's not in the national security interest to cripple a major source of electricity at a time when we're seeing escalating demands for it. How does that make any sense at all? Thanks so much, Pat. That's Professor Pat Parenteau of the Vermont Law and Graduate School.

13:01Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show. Those mischievous minions will be taking the Olympic ice after all. and how the U.S. Olympic Committee jealously guards its intellectual property. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card members can earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases wherever they shop. This means you could be earning daily cash on just about anything, like a slice of pizza from your local pizza place or a latte from the corner coffee shop. Apply for Apple Card and the Wallet app to see your credit limit offer in minutes.

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16:02It was in doubt, but it now appears that those mischievous Minions will be taking the Olympic ice after all. Those cheeky characters have been causing a musical nightmare for Spanish figure skater Tomás Jorín's Guarino Sabate. He's been using a medley from the animated comedy film Minions while dressed in their iconic blue overalls and yellow t-shirt in his performances all season, believing he'd gone through the proper protocols to obtain the necessary permissions. But then on Friday, NBCUniversal told him he didn't have the clearance to use the music. So just days before the Olympics are to begin, he was scrambling to come up with a whole new show until Universal changed its mind.

16:51My guest is intellectual property litigator Terrence Ross, a partner at Kattenmuchen Rosenman. So Terry, this skater has been using the Minions music during the whole season. And all of a sudden, before the Olympics, NBCUniversal tells him, no, you don't have permission. You can't use it. It seems like having the Minions music in the Olympics would be a plus for the franchise and Universal. Yes, I agree with that completely. Apparently, he had flown under the radar of the copyright folks at Universal for most of the season. But now that he's in the Olympics, and I guess NBC has got the coverage rights to the Olympics, and they're owned by Universal.

17:37Probably somebody in the NBC sports broadcasting called it to the attention of Universal. This guy's using the Minions music. Did you approve it? And Universal had not. The Spanish skater had never obtained advance approval. The music is copyrighted, as was the film, as all music is copyrighted. And a friend of mine said, well, yeah, but the Olympics aren't taking place in the United States. They're taking place in Italy. And I said, come on, guys. In the modern world, we have international treaties where almost all the countries sign up to and allow enforcement of their copyrights in other countries through the simplicity of filing a couple pieces of paper with an international organization.

18:21So that's not going to excuse this guy. And at some point during the last week or so, it seemed like he was really not going to be able to perform his music. Well, this got a lot of attention, a lot of negative attention, I think, for NBCUniversal. People were calling it MinionGate. And there was a lot of sympathy on social media for the ice skater who now was faced with the prospect of changing his whole routine at the last minute. So perhaps Universal saw which way the wind was blowing and did a turnaround, allowing him to use the music after all. Ultimately, that's what the Spanish skater said.

19:02He thanked Universal for letting him do it. He thanked all his fans for calling out the problem and getting Universal to pay attention to it. You know, it just comes back to the point you made at the beginning. Why would you not want your music being used in a setting like that? and getting all the international exposure. I guess Universal was taking the position that Minions and the various Minions movies are so well known that they don't need any more exposure from some ice skater in Spain. And what happens if he falls down during the music? You know, I could see that kind of conversation going on within the Universal legal department.

19:42And so they sent out a cease and desist letter. And thankfully, sanity prevailed and he's been authorized to use it. I was dying to see if he got some sort of written license agreement, but that hasn't shown up at the press. But yeah, he gets to use it now. And, you know, it's funny because if you're making a movie, if you're making a television show, there's literally a person who gets credit on the screen who's called the music supervisor. And they're not the people who make the music or write the score. Music supervisor references the person who's responsible for getting all the licenses for the music.

20:17And so it's literally a job in the movies and television. But apparently in ice dancing, they haven't gotten that for you. Copyright problems are pretty new in figure skating because for years, music using lyrics wasn't allowed. And so classical music and other standard music that's part of the public domain was used by the skaters in their routines. And it was only in 2014 that the International Skating Union relaxed its rules to allow words in music. And that leads to modern music being used and copyright problems. Three-time U.S. champion Amber Glenn called her experience in getting music approved pure chaos.

21:03And as you said, it's so complicated because one piece of music can involve getting how many authorizations? You know, I feel sorry for them. We've had this discussion before in the context of documentaries, where a documentary filmmaker wants to use a short piece of music. They just want to be cautious. Arguably, they could claim fair use, but they want to be cautious. So they ask for advance approval. And, you know, filmmakers are typically not lawyers, just as ice skaters typically aren't lawyers. and the bureaucratic process of trying to get it is very challenging and then there's the problem at the other end you jump through all the hoops you ask for permission and they go what you're not paying us for this and then they try to collect you know a couple bucks out of you and it's a challenging process and I feel sorry for these ice dancers who put on beautiful performances quite frankly and it's a really engaging sort of transformation of the music by combining it with ice dancing, but they're not lawyers.

22:01The Olympic Committee or somebody should figure out a way to get these guys some help. Well, apparently they've been trying but not succeeding because the International Skating Union and national governing bodies have apparently been spending the past four years trying to develop systems to help skaters obtain permission to use music. Sabate, for example, said he followed the prescribed procedure for getting his music approved through a system called Click Clear in August, before the figure skating season began. So obviously there's a lot more work to be done there. Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue this conversation with intellectual property litigator Terrence Ross.

22:44No, you can't use onion rings to create your own version of the Olympic trademark. And what's called ambush marketing is also a no-no. Swimmer Michael Phelps and Subway were accused of that. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg. Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Smart Talks with IBM. I recently sat down with IBM's chairman and CEO, Arvind Krishna, and I asked him, how can companies use AI to its fullest potential to create smarter business? My one advice to them, pick areas you can scale. Don't pick the shiny little toys on the side. For example? If anybody has more than 10 % of what they had for customer service 10 years ago, they're already five years behind.

23:39If anybody is not using AI to make their developers who write software 30 % more productive today, with the goal of being 70 % more productive, so we are not asking our clients to be the first experiment on it we say you can leverage what we did we are happy to bring out all our learnings including what needs to change in the process because the biggest change is not technology it's getting people to accept that there's a different way to do things to listen to the full conversation visit ibm.com slash smart talks

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25:18We'll be right back.

25:44The 2026 Winter Olympics, known as Milano Cortina 2020, 2026 begins on Friday in Italy, and the Olympic Committee will be on the lookout for the unauthorized commercial use of the many, many trademarks that it holds the exclusive rights to. We're talking about symbols like the five interlocking rings, the Olympic flame and torch, the Olympic flag, the motto, the anthem, the words Olympic, Olympiad, Team USA, Goal for the Gold, Milano 2026, and on and on and on. I've been talking to intellectual property litigator Terrence Ross, a partner at Kattenmuchin Rosenman. Terry, let's turn now to the U.S.

26:29Olympic Committee and the way it so carefully guards its intellectual property. So the use of Olympic trademarks, logos, images, and symbols is prohibited without permission from the U.S. Olympic Committee. I think it's easier to ask you whether anything related to the Olympics is not protected than to ask you what is protected. Well, it's a great legal question. And every couple of years when we either have the Winter Olympics or Summer Olympics, the Olympic Committee literally sends out notices about six months ahead of time warning people. And they post things on their website. And they are very aggressive in enforcing their intellectual property rights.

27:12But it's a completely different regime than what we usually talk about, June. It's not under the Lanham Act, which is the name of the United States trademark laws. A number of years ago, Congress passed a law entitled the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act. Now, you may remember Ted Stevens was the longtime senator from Alaska who got indicted for taking a bribe, was convicted, and he resigned from the Senate. And his conviction was overturned because the Department of Justice had committed a series of ethical lapses and not provided him with exculpatory information. So the poor guy had all that bad press and had to get out of the Senate because the DOJ screwed up.

27:56But he got this piece of legislation named after him, and it is very unique. It's 36 U.S. Code Section 220506. And what it does is set up a special intellectual property rights regime for the United States Olympic Committee. And it says that the five rings, you know, the International Symbol of Olympics, the five rings. Also, the Pan-American sports symbol, which I'm less familiar with, the words Olympic, Olympiad, Paralympic, Paralympiad, Pan-American, Parapan-American, all those words are all exclusively within the use of the United States Olympic Committee. and has nothing to do with the trademark laws.

28:42Congress has simply taken this group of words and symbols and given them to the United States Olympic Committee. Incredibly unusual thing. It's the only law like that I know of in the United States. I was looking at the guidelines that they have on a website entitled Commercial and Brand Usage Guidelines. And I found some of the trademarks really surprising. For example, they've trademarked the phrase, let the games begin. I mean, that seems so generic. Let the games begin is used in a lot of different contexts, not just in the Olympic realm. You're absolutely right. Now, there is one distinction within the law.

29:23Specific words are set aside and you just can't use them, period. Now, there's a couple exceptions to that. If you're in that part of the state of Washington where the town of Olympia is, And I guess there's a set of mountains there, Cascades Mountains. And you do business there. You can use the word Olympic or Olympia. And you can also use the word Olympics, Olympia for a sportscaster talking about the games in a non-commercial context. So that's one part of the regime. The other part of the regime is there's this very broad provision that says, I'll just read it here. Any trademark, trade name, sign, symbol, or insignia falsely representing association with or authorization by the International Olympics Committee also violates the law.