October 22, 2026 — In what is clearly emerging as a new tactic to derail the offshore wind energy sector, the Department of Justice filed for the fourth time in just a matter of days, asking a District Court to remand the prior approval of the Construction and Operations Plan of a proposed offshore wind farm. The latest target is New England Wind and is drawing angry criticism from environmentalists and elected officials.
The Department of Justice filed a memorandum in support of the long-running case between an environmental group, Ack For Whales, which has been suing the Department of Commerce and Avangrid, the developer of a project known as New England Wind. In the now common tactic, DOJ asks the District Court for the District of Columbia to remand the approval of the Construction and Operations Plan back to the Department of the Interior so that it can reconsider the approval under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
It writes in the memorandum that the approval, which was announced on July 1, 2024, “did not properly consider or explain how the COP ‘provides for’ the subsection’s identified factors.” It is the fourth time DOJ has used a similar tactic to target the permits for wind farms. It took the same approach to challenge the largely completed Revolution Wind project, which should complete commissioning by the end of this year, and then to challenge a series of projects that had gained approvals under the Biden administration but have not commenced construction.