November 3, 2025 — Voters are choosing new governors Tuesday in Virginia and New Jersey, states where ambitious plans for offshore wind projects run against the Trump administration’s political and legal war on renewable energy projects.
Days before, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. directed the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate potential health and safety hazards from offshore wind turbines, a new front in the Trump administration’s offensive to squelch wind power development.
The administration and its executive departments like HHS have effectively derailed many of the wind industry’s earlier project approvals granted under the Biden administration. But some ongoing construction projects survive, notably Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project (CVOW), as power demands and costs escalate in the Mid-Atlantic states. Kennedy’s new review could revisit longstanding health and safety claims by offshore wind opponents, including electromagnetic effects of turbine array cables and transmission lines.