May 29, 2026 — The House Republican spending bill for the Interior Department contains another potential punch for the beleaguered offshore wind industry: big new fees.
The fiscal 2027 Interior-Environment spending bill, which a House Appropriations subcommittee advanced last week, would impose a range of fees on offshore wind projects. Those are broken into annual fees and physical inspection fees.
Annual fees would be $7,300 for an onshore inspection visit to an offshore wind project’s control center and $15,400 for a visual inspection of a wind turbine. Further physical inspections of a wind turbine or substation would cost $72,800.
The new fees largely reflect the White House’s proposed budget for Interior, released in March. The fees could amount to much more than is paid by offshore oil companies for inspections, given that the language calls for per-turbine inspections and wind farms include many turbines: 62 for the newly running Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts and more than 170 anticipated for a project under construction off the coast of Virginia.
“This appears as another direct effort to constrain the offshore wind industry,” said Timothy Fox, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, in an email. “The Trump Administration has already significantly constrained proposed offshore wind projects and may hope the inspection fees undermine the viability of projects already in service.”
Inspection fees and other similar charges are common in the energy sector, and wind industry players have long expected a fee schedule was in the offing. Offshore wind did not take off in the U.S. until the Biden administration, with several projects under construction right now along the East Coast. Vineyard Wind finished construction in March and is working to bring all of its turbines online, while Revolution Wind off the coast of Rhode Island has nearly installed all of its 65 turbines and has begun to send power to the grid.
But the Trump administration has hammered wind energy by canceling leases, trying to block projects currently being built and paying companies to abandon their plans.