March 4, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump followed through on his original order to institute 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, launching tariffs on goods from both countries on 4 March after a one-month pause.
In addition to the 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Trump also instituted an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods on top of the 10 percent he announced in February, meaning certain goods from China are now subject to a 45 percent import tariff.
February 28, 2025 — President Trump’s executive order on offshore wind continues to have impacts, with a parent company of SouthCoast Wind this week announcing to investors a more than $260 million reduction in the value of its North American portfolio, which includes three U.S. offshore wind projects. The action reflects the company’s assumption that the Trump administration may cause years of delays in offshore development.
In simple terms, the value of an offshore wind farm hinges on two factors: what the expected revenue will be, and when that revenue is expected to start coming in. Delays to when an offshore wind project comes online and starts generating electricity mean delayed revenue, which makes the asset worth less at present. That’s why the company announced the reduction in value, also known as an “impairment” or “write down.”
The parent company, EDP Renewables, told investors it assumed a four-year delay under the new administration as a worst-case scenario. However, this does not mean the project is adopting a four-year delay, as another news outlet erroneously reported. SouthCoast Wind plans to move forward to the degree it can, including finalizing an agreement (known as a power purchase agreement or PPA) at the end of March with Massachusetts to purchase the project’s power.
February 27, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump clarified the start date of 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico will be 4 March, after comments on 26 February suggested they could be delayed until April.
Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social that the tariffs originally delayed on 4 February until 4 March will go forward as scheduled. Trump said the tariffs will go into place because “drugs are still pouring into our country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels.”
February 27, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump said he is planning to announce tariffs of up to 25 percent on goods from the European Union.
Trump, speaking to press after the first meeting of his administration’s cabinet secretaries, said he is planning to announce tariffs of up to 25 percent on a range of goods “soon.”
February 24, 2025 — Environmental groups on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration to overturn an executive order seeking to open Arctic waters off Alaska, as well as waters in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to oil drilling.
Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order, which revoked protective actions taken by Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, violated the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the plaintiffs argue in their lawsuit.
The law “authorizes the President to withdraw unleased lands of the outer continental shelf from disposition. It does not authorize the President to re-open withdrawn areas to disposition,” said the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage and which the plaintiffs said is the first environmental lawsuit filed against the new Trump administration.
A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior declined to comment, citing a policy of avoiding comments on pending litigation.
Trump’s order seeking to open more areas to leasing, which was followed by an order by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum with the same purpose, comes at a time when previous ideas for remote offshore drilling in Alaska appear stalled or fizzled.
February 24, 2025 — Citing President Donald Trump’s executive order halting new federal offshore wind leases, the New Hampshire House voted Thursday to roll back offshore wind development in the state.
HB 682 would remove “offshore wind industry development” from the Office of Offshore Wind Industry Development and Energy Innovation. It would also repeal the Offshore Wind Industry Workforce Training Center Committee and the Offshore and Port Development Commission.
The legislation passed the House 206-163 largely along party lines.
February 24, 2025 — Despite resistance from the Trump White House, California government officials and administrators at the state’s ports say they are still going full-speed ahead on offshore wind projects.
“Now more than ever, California needs to be the hand around that candle of hope and keep the momentum going” for the state to reach its ambitious wind energy goals, David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission, said at a symposium Friday in Long Beach.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and state policymakers expect offshore wind to generate as much as 5 gigawatts of power by 2030 and 25 gigawatts by 2045. For perspective, the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in San Luis Obispo produces 2.2 gigawatts of capacity, which accounts for about 9% of the state’s power mix each year.
Five companies collectively bid $751.1 million in December 2022 to win the leases to build wind farms off the coasts of Morro Bay in Central California and Humboldt Bay in Northern California. When completed, each project that covers tens of thousands of acres will be located at least 20 miles from the mainland, in federal waters.
But on his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued a review of leasing and permitting practices for all wind energy projects in the U.S. and called for a temporary withdrawal of all areas on the outer Continental Shelf from offshore wind leasing.
“We acknowledge new uncertainties in federal policies and we have important work ahead of us to understand where that federal policy is actually headed and what the implications are for California,” said Jana Ganion, Newsom’s senior adviser for offshore wind.
February 21, 2025 — Dozens of offshore wind opponents are lobbying the new Interior secretary to revoke authorizations for the energy projects and order an immediate stop to construction, including at Vineyard Wind, citing concerns over whales and other marine species.
President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 order on offshore wind has already had a chilling effect on the industry. It halted leasing and permitting, and ordered Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to not only review all projects and permits, but also consider terminating leases and rescinding approvals.
This Feb. 11 request from the groups, submitted in a letter, is seeking to fast-track possible actions by the Interior Department before it completes its project-wide review.
The status of that review is unclear. The Interior Department did not provide a comment on the letter, or answer questions from The Light about the secretary’s review of permitted offshore wind projects, what it entails, and when it might be completed.
February 20, 2025 — The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Howard Lutnick as the secretary of the Department of Commerce despite fears that the Trump administration plans to cut NOAA funding or dismantle the agency altogether.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Commerce, which oversees such agencies as NOAA, was confirmed on a 51-45 vote, with no Democrat senators supporting his nomination.
February 18, 2025 — As Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick will oversee NOAA, which includes the National Marine Fisheries Service. The following excerpt is from an article by the Associated Press:
The Senate confirmed wealthy financier Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary Tuesday, putting in place a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump’s hardline trade polices.
At the Commerce Department, Lutnick, who was CEO at the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, will oversee 50,000 employees who do everything from collecting economic statistics to running the census to issuing weather reports. But he’s likely to spend a lot of time — along with Jamieson Greer, Trump’s nominee to be the top U.S. trade negotiator — managing the president’s aggressive plans to impose import taxes on U.S. trading partners, including allies and adversaries alike.
The Senate vote to confirm Lutnick was 51-45.
Trump views the tariffs as a versatile economic tool. They can raise money to finance his tax cuts elsewhere, protect U.S. industries and pressure other countries into making concessions on such issues as their own trade barriers, immigration and drug trafficking. Mainstream economists mostly view tariffs as counterproductive: They are paid by import companies in the United States, which try to pass along the higher costs to consumers and can thereby add to inflationary pressures throughout the economy.