Saving Seafood

Feds target fully permitted New England Wind project

September 4, 2025 —  The Trump administration ratcheted up its targeting of the offshore wind industry on Wednesday, stating its intent to revoke a key approval for the fully permitted New England Wind 1 project, which plans to use New Bedford for long-term operations.

In the document, filed as part of a lawsuit brought by ACK for Whales against the Avangrid project, the federal government said it is “intending to move no later than October 10 to remand and, separately, to vacate” the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval of the construction and operations plan, a permit granted to the project in mid-2024.

Without the permit, the project cannot be built. Separately, the project has been in the process of securing a power purchase agreement with the state, another necessity for project buildout. The agreement has been delayed several times due to the Trump administration’s freeze on offshore wind permitting and the uncertainty it has created.

New England Wind 1 plans to construct the project out of Salem (a terminal yet to be built that last week lost $34 million in federal funding), but house its long-term operations and maintenance hub in New Bedford. Contingent on the project moving forward, the Danish company, Liftra, also plans to establish a crane manufacturing facility in the city.

New England Wind 1’s lease area is located south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The project’s first phase plans to install up to 800 megawatts of energy.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Trump Administration Plans to Withdraw Approval for Maryland Offshore Wind

August 27, 2025 — The efforts to derail the U.S. offshore wind energy business are continuing with the Department of Justice confirming the Trump administration’s intent to withdraw previously issued approvals for Maryland’s first offshore wind farm to be developed by US Wind. Justice informed district courts in Delaware and Maryland of its intended action following an earlier jurisdictional dispute between Maryland and the federal Environmental Protection Agency that also sought to challenge the process for the Maryland project.

The TV news channel in Maryland, WBOC, reported on Friday, August 22, that the Department of Justice had moved to stay a pending lawsuit in Delaware in which a homeowner is challenging the wind farm’s permits under the Clean Water Act. The reasoning the DOJ gave was its intent to withdraw approval for the wind farm, making the court case irrelevant and a waste of time.

DOJ on Monday, August 25, WBOC reports, filed additional details in the District Court of Maryland. There it told the court that the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy (BOEM) intends to “voluntarily remand and vacate its approval of the Construction and Operations Plan” for US Wind’s Maryland windfarm project. DOJ revealed the action would come by September 12.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Trump administration halts under-construction Revolution Wind project

August 27, 2025 — The Trump administration has taken another big swipe at the offshore wind industry, issuing a stop work order on Friday afternoon on Orsted’s Revolution Wind project, which as of this month was well under construction and 80% complete.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management cited “concerns that have arisen” during the project-wide review ordered by President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 wind memo, as well as national security concerns.

“In particular, BOEM is seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States and prevention of interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas,” wrote BOEM Acting Director Matthew Giacona in the two-page order.

Less than one year ago, the agency signed a memorandum of understanding with the Defense Department, formalizing collaboration between the agencies to ensure that lease areas and project plans will “strengthen the nation’s energy security in ways that are compatible with military operations.”

In a statement, Orsted said it is “evaluating all options to resolve the matter expeditiously. This includes engagement with relevant permitting agencies for any necessary clarification or resolution as well as through potential legal proceedings, with the aim being to proceed with continued project construction towards … the second half of 2026.”

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

Democratic governors demand Trump resume offshore wind project near Rhode Island

August 26, 2025 — A nearly complete wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut faces an uncertain future as the states’ Democratic governors, members of Congress and union workers are calling Monday for the Trump administration to let construction resume.

The administration halted construction on the Revolution Wind project last week, saying the federal government needs to review the project and address national security concerns. It did not specify what those concerns are. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said Monday it’s not commenting further at this time.

Read the full article at PBS

Trump administration strikes at Revolution Wind project

August 25, 2025 — The Trump administration issued a stop-work order Friday on Ørsted’s Revolution Wind project, a 65-turbine, 704-megawatt array already almost complete off southern New England. The order followed an announcement Thursday that the administration will investigate “national security” issues around offshore wind power projects.

In a letter to Denmark-based Ørsted the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management cited national security as the reason for the agency’s sudden decision to review the project despite previous approvals under the Biden administration.

“Ørsted is evaluating all options to resolve the matter expeditiously,” including court action, the company said in a statement.

Revolution Wind, under construction off Rhode Island, has been vigorously opposed by the commercial fishing industry for its siting near Cox Ledge, an important habitat for cod. In 2023 fishermen’s fierce opposition led to the mass resignation of  the Rhode Island Fishermen’s Advisory Board, whose members charged the state Coastal Resource Management Council is too deferential to wind development interests at the expense of habitat and fisheries impacts.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

‘Offshore Wind Gets a Pass’ When It Comes to Environmental Concerns

August 19, 2025 —  In 2024, I penned an op-ed here at ecoRI News entitled Commonsense Environmentalism is Being Destroyed by a Wind-Less Revolution, opening with a statement that, “the Ocean State has become ground zero for the most important environmental battle in modern times.” Indeed, this battle persists — that is, whether to preserve and protect nature, versus to concede nature for the fantastical ideology of a greenwashed industrial panacea.

This rift was exposed through recent reporting that summarizes the outcome of a recent Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB) meeting in Portsmouth, R.I. The meeting aimed to productively discuss the plans for South Coast Wind to run a power cable from 60 miles offshore extending up through the Sakonnet River, beneath Portsmouth, and then up through Mount Hope Bay to Brayton Point. The meeting was well attended, with equal numbers of public comments presented by both opponents and supporters of the project. Despite these equal voices, the ecoRI News article emphasized that those opposed were the minority opinion, even denigrating such opinions as parroted views of those under the thumb of fossil fuel lobbyists.

This is nothing further from the truth, and a significant disservice to those seeking balanced environmental reporting from which their own opinions may be formulated.

While it would take multiple volumes of literature to collate the plethora of very valid concerns for harms that both onshore and offshore industrial activities inflict, it is worth dispelling the mythology promulgated in the follow-up to the EFSB meeting. I will do so here through several exemplary issues that are very real and should resonate for all — regardless of your personal opinions on the windless revolution.

First, the ecoRI News reporting claimed South Coast Wind is “expected to generate 2,400 megawatts (MW) of electricity, powering around a million homes by the end of the decade.” On Jan. 17, 2025, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced approval of a Construction and Operations Plan with the potential to generate up to 2,400 megawatts of which could power 840,000 homes. These facts matter when separating marketing propaganda from reality. For visual perspective, the project is slated to span 127,388 acres of the continental shelf — more than 10 TIMES the land area of Providence. Would you advocate that an equivalent farmland area be mowed for a solar farm? Unlikely.

Read the full article at EcoRI

MARYLAND: Offshore wind project for OC not impacted by federal action

August 8, 2025 — A decision to rescind all Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) located in federal waters will not affect an offshore wind project near Ocean City’s coast.

That’s the message City Manager Terry McGean delivered last week after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced it was taking that action in areas located on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.

“These are the ‘new’ lease areas that were being vetted back in 2022-24,” he explained. “It was known as the Central Atlantic planning area.”

On July 30, the Trump administration announced it was closing federal waters to new wind energy development, effectively reversing course on the Biden administration’s plan to build up the industry.

Read the full article at the OC-Today-Dispatch

Offshore wind plans caught in federal headwinds, but sites east of Cape Cod unaffected

August 7, 2025 — State and local officials and regional advocacy groups are split over the federal government’s decision to back off on offshore wind projects, a shift that casts uncertainty over new projects nationwide but doesn’t affect leases east and south of Cape Cod.

State Rep. Steven Xiarhos, R-West Barnstable, welcomes the changes as “a necessary course correction.”

“It reflects what many of us on Cape Cod and across the commonwealth have been saying for some time: the rush to industrialize our oceans has gone too far, too fast, and without enough science, transparency, or respect for local communities,” he said.

He added that the action “gives us a critical opportunity to pause, reassess, and get this right.”

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

 

Wind industry doubts any new offshore projects in next year thanks to Trump

August 4, 2025 — The offshore wind industry cast doubt on any new projects starting construction in the next year, as the Trump administration has removed subsidies for and added restrictions on the renewable power source.

President Donald Trump harshly criticized the industry while visiting Scotland in late July, saying his administration would not allow a windmill to be built in the United States. As his public criticisms increase and various agencies have taken action to stifle growth, that promise appears likely to come true.

Read the full article at The Washington Examiner

Offshore wind leasing is officially dead under Trump

August 4, 2025 — This story was originally published by Canary Media.

Offshore wind leasing is effectively dead in the U.S. following a Trump administration order issued last week.

Large swaths of U.S. waters that had been identified by federal agencies as ideal for offshore wind are no longer eligible for such developments under an Interior Department statement released Wednesday.

In the four-sentence statement, the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said the U.S. government is ​“de-designating over 3.5 million acres of unleased federal waters previously targeted for offshore wind development across the Gulf of America, Gulf of Maine, the New York Bight, California, Oregon, and the Central Atlantic.”

The move comes just a day after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered his staff to stop ​“preferential treatment for wind projects” and falsely called wind energy ​“unreliable.” Analysts say that offshore wind power can be a reliable form of carbon-free energy, especially in New England, where the region’s grid operator has called it critical to grid stability. It also follows the Trump administration’s monthslong assault on the industry, which has included multiple attacks on in-progress projects.

Read the full article at Maine Morning Star