Saving Seafood

US offshore wind farms in service, in construction and under development

January 27, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump suspended new federal offshore wind leasing on his first day back in the Oval Office on Jan. 20, pending an environmental and economic review.

On the same day, Danish energy company Orsted,  the world’s biggest offshore wind firm, posted another impairment charge on delays to a U.S. offshore project.

Those are just the latest blows for the offshore wind industry that former President Joe Biden and several states considered key to meeting federal and state clean energy targets.

In California, where offshore wind is in early stages of development, Adam Stern, Executive Director of Offshore Wind California, an industry trade group, said most of the work was happening at the state level.

Read the full article at Reuters

VIRGINIA: Virginia Beach wind farm spared from Trump order, but future projects could be slowed, experts say

January 27, 2025 — President Donald Trump used his first day in office to slam the brakes on the renewable energy industry, issuing an executive order to temporarily halt federal leasing, permitting and approval of both onshore and offshore wind energy projects.

But a Virginia Beach wind farm already under construction will be spared the immediate effects of the order, said environmental experts and Dominion Energy officials. Still, the experts say other Dominion projects could be delayed.

“It will have an effect on any future leases,” said Eileen Woll, offshore energy program director for the Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter.

Under the Monday executive order, the Trump administration will pause all offshore wind leases in federal waters, in addition to halting permitting and approvals for any wind project, both offshore or onshore. The order notes that, “Nothing in this withdrawal affects rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas.” That includes the 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, which began construction off the coast of Virginia Beach last year.

Read the full article at The Daily Progress

MAINE: Golden wants to ensure fishing areas are protected from offshore wind

January 27, 2025 — Amid efforts by President Donald Trump to halt future offshore wind efforts, U.S. Rep. Jared Golden is hoping to codify protections for lobster fishing in the Gulf of Maine.

“Maine’s fishermen deserve to know that waters critical to our historic, high-value industry are protected — not by promises, but by federal law,” Golden said. “President Trump’s recent Executive Order provides some measure of reprieve, but we need a more permanent solution.”

Even though the fishing area is currently excluded from approved offshore wind development areas, Golden wants to “take protections for Maine’s fisheries out of the discretion of the chief executive and codify it into law,” according to the news release from his office. Just days into his second term, Trump has taken steps to undo the offshore wind advances of the Biden administration.

Read the full article at Maine Morning Star

US Customs officers detain 3 employees at New Jersey seafood wholesaler

January 27, 2025 — Three people working at a New Jersey seafood wholesaler were detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on 23 January.

It is unclear whether ICE’s visit to the business was part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed changes to immigration enforcement or part of the previous administration’s immigration policy, though a Trump administration official confirmed similar arrests of at least 538 people on 23 January across the country.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Can Trump really shut down the offshore wind industry?

January 24, 2025 — President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to shut down the offshore wind industry. Before he even took office, the region saw an impact. Last Friday, a company announced it was abandoning plans to build a factory in Somerset that would’ve supplied undersea cables to American offshore wind farms.

Then, on Monday, during his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order on offshore wind, declaring that his administration wouldn’t permit any new offshore wind farms.

But what does Trump’s executive order mean for the dozens of offshore wind farms that were already under development? Attorney Drew Minciewicz of Black Point Maritime Law discusses that question with The Public’s Radio South Coast Bureau Reporter Ben Berke.

Read the full article at The Public Radio

FLORDIA: Along Gulf Coast, Donald Trump’s plan for ‘Gulf of America’ touches residents’ pride; some wonder what difference will it make

January 24, 2025 — President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico has left residents along the Gulf Coast sharply divided. Some say it awakens their pride in the U.S. while others suggest it’s a silly distraction.

The order, which Trump signed Monday night, his first day in office, directs the Secretary of the Interior Department to take all the needed steps to change the name to “Gulf of America” within 30 days.

The order says in part that the Gulf plays “a pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy, and in recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation’s economy and its people, I am directing that it officially be renamed the Gulf of America.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis has already embraced the change. He cited the new name in an executive order earlier this week attributing inclement Winter weather to a “low pressure moving across the Gulf of America.”

Cedar Key, a quaint fishing town in Levy County, is a cluster of islands that extend about three miles into the Gulf of Mexico from Florida’s mainland. One resident for more than a decade, 78-year-old Air Force retiree Thomas McKee, said he sees no reason for changing the name.

Read the full article at Florida Politics 

‘Relief’ for some, ‘dark moment’ for others: Communities react to Trump’s offshore wind order

January 23, 2025 — Amid a flurry of executive actions on his first day in office, President Donald Trump sought to put the brakes on offshore wind, halting the federal permitting of wind farms and wind-energy leasing of the Outer Continental Shelf.

On Cape Cod and the South Coast, where offshore wind is becoming part of the local economy, supporters and opponents are talking about what the order will mean.

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said the city’s position — supporting and courting offshore wind, but also challenging wind-farm locations fishermen view as unacceptable — has been informed by a desire to create jobs in New Bedford. And those jobs could be in jeopardy.

“If this goes as far as it conceivably could, this order — there will be some people who’ll lose their jobs,” he said.

But the mayor of Vineyard Wind’s primary construction port doesn’t oppose every piece of Trump’s order.

Mitchell said some of the lease areas off New York and the Mid-Atlantic warrant review because of their conflicts with commercial fishing.

Read the full article at nhpr

VIRGINIA: What does Trump’s pause on offshore wind mean for Virginia?

January 23, 2025 — One of President Trump’s first executive orders halted all new federal leases and permits for offshore wind projects.

Hampton Roads has bet big on the offshore wind industry.

Dominion Energy is building the nation’s largest offshore wind farm 27 miles off the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, and has two more leases waiting in the wings.

Local economic development officials have also worked hard to attract related businesses to make southeastern Virginia an offshore wind hub, including a South Korean manufacturer of undersea electrical cables.

President Donald Trump’s administration now threatens to put up a roadblock to further growing Virginia’s industry.

“We are going to have a policy where no windmills are being built,” Trump said recently.

On his first day in office this week, Trump signed an executive order that temporarily halts all new federal leases and permits for wind energy.

Read the full article at WHRO

Trump signs executive order halting wind power leases. What it means

January 23, 2025 — President Donald Trump’s executive order to halt new federal offshore wind leasing will likely not stop the ongoing developments off the coast of Massachusetts, but may prevent any new projects.

The executive order suspends the sale of offshore wind leases and the permitting for such projects from all areas of the U.S. outer continental shelf, pending an environmental and economic review.

But the order does not put a stop to wind farms that have already gone through the federal permitting process.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

Nantucket community and offshore wind regulator meeting cancelled. Volume of emails cited.

January 23, 2025 — Amid a backdrop of the Trump administration’s attacks on wind and solar power, federal regulators have once again put off a public meeting with Nantucket leaders focused on the Vineyard Wind 1 project, this time indefinitely.

Select Board Chairwoman Brooke Mohr in an email acknowledged that “it’s not hard to imagine” that the changeover from the Biden Administration to the Trump Administration could be at play but emphasized “that is purely speculation on my part.”

The postponed meeting comes at a time that President Trump has ordered a halt to new wind projects pending “immediate review of federal wind leasing and permitting practices.” The moratorium applies only to “any new or renewed wind energy leasing” on the Outer Continental Shelf, but the order also notes that the secretary of the interior, in consultation with the attorney general, will “conduct a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases, identifying any legal bases for such removal, and submit a report with recommendations to the president.”

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times