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MARYLAND: Offshore wind opponents have their say at forum

January 16, 2026 — Opponents of offshore windfarms gathered in Ocean City this week to discuss the status of the controversial project proposed by U.S. Wind and its potential impact on the Maryland-Delaware coastline.

The group Stop Offshore Wind organized the Jan. 12 forum, held at the Roland E. Powell Convention Center and hosted by Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan.

Speakers included Fenwick Island Mayor Natalie Magdeburger, City Manager Terry McGean of Ocean City and leaders of groups representing the fishing industry, national security concerns and environmental issues.

Magdeburger, a longtime opponent of offshore wind, updated attendees on the status of a lawsuit filed by Fenwick Island and Sussex County officials against the state of Delaware over passage of Senate Bill 159, which overrode the denial by Sussex County Council of a plan to bring power lines ashore at Three Rs beach in Delaware Seashore State Park and connect to a substation located at the former Indian River Power Plant in Dagsboro.

Fenwick has also taken legal action to prevent DNREC from allowing the connections, which would involve running cables under the Indian River Bay.

“It was interesting to me that the Center for the Inland Bays, who actually took money from U.S. Wind, when their scientists…were looking at these issues, they came to the conclusion that plowing through the Indian River Bay would be the ‘worst option’ possible. And yet that was the cheapest option, and that was the option that DNREC…approved.

“The legislature has created a market in Delaware,” Magdeburger said. “It basically mandated that a certain percentage of all of our energy that we purchase in Delaware needs to be purchased from renewables,” such as offshore wind.

Read the full article at Coastal Point

MARYLAND: Panel held in OC to Stop Offshore Wind

January 14, 2026 — A public hearing drew in hundreds to the Roland E. Powell Convention center on Monday night, as eight local leaders and experts spoke on a panel against the installation of offshore windmills.

The event, hosted by the StopOffshoreWind Coalition, in coordination with the Town of Ocean City (OC) and Worcester County Government, sought to push back against U.S. Wind’s longstanding proposal to construct a 114 turbine windfarm located 10.7 miles off the coast of OC. The project was approved in Oct. 2024 under the Biden Administration, but faced scrutiny under the following Trump Administration. On Sept. 12, 2025, the Department of the Interior (DOI) reversed course and filed a motion to vacate and remand the project approval. When the U.S. District Court ordered a briefing on that motion, the federal government then sought to stay the proceedings indefinitely. Maryland Attorney General (AG) Anthony G. Brown and Delaware AG Kathry Jennings have since filed briefs requesting preliminary injunctions to save the project. A ruling is expected late summer 2026.

Speakers gathered to inform residents on where the project currently stands, and how they are continuing the fight against offshore wind. OC Mayor Rick Meehan opened the event and introduced each of the panelists, who specialized in a particular field related to concerns surrounding offshore windmill installation.

“It is almost impossible to believe that over the past eight years, and after attending numerous public hearings at both the state and federal level, stating our concerns, that not one of our concerns has been addressed,” Mayor Meehan said in his opening remarks. “Our goal tonight is to bring to light some of these questions, and provide some of the missing answers for the people in this room.”

Read the full article at WMDT

Offshore wind fight lining lawyers’ pockets

November 7, 2025 — With a lawsuit still in court, Ocean City continues to rack up legal bills in its fight against offshore wind, with more than $350,000 spent so far.

City Manager Terry McGean said the city has paid $332,815 in legal fees to its outside legal counsel, the Washington, D.C. firm Marzulla Law, which was hired last year to fight the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval of the US Wind project off Maryland’s coast. Another $24,372 has been paid to the city solicitor’s law firm, Ayres, Jenkins, Gordy & Almand.

“These are all paid from the city general fund,” he said.

Read the full article at OC-Today-Dispatch

Delaware AG enters Delmarva offshore wind farm fight

November 6, 2025 — Delaware’s Attorney General Kathy Jennings filed a motion in federal court in support of a company seeking to build a controversial wind farm off the Delmarva coast as it fends off a lawsuit preventing the project from moving forward.

US Wind, a Maryland-based company, hopes to build 121 turbines off the coast of Ocean City, Md., but has been targeted in the courts by both city leaders and the Trump administration. The project has been the subject of years of scrutiny in both southern Delaware and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Now, Jennings has stepped in, supporting US Wind’s efforts to stop the federal government from pulling its construction permits. If the Trump administration succeeds, it would effectively kill the project and bankrupt US Wind.

Last week, Jennings’ office filed a brief in the ongoing lawsuit challenging the legality of the proposed wind farm. She expressed support for the project and outlined the benefits it would have in Delaware.

Read the full article at News From The States

MARYLAND: Maryland Democrats back offshore wind project awaiting key court decisions

November 3, 2025 — Top Maryland Democrats are coming out in full force to support a massive offshore wind project currently tied up in federal court.

Baltimore-based US Wind has faced an onslaught of challenges in recent months keeping the company from starting construction on a 114-turbine wind farm off the coast of Ocean City, which is estimated to generate enough power for 718,000 Maryland homes.

In October 2024, the Town of Ocean City and numerous plaintiffs representing the fishing and tourism industry filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), challenging the federal permit approval process for US Wind’s project.

This September, the Trump administration asked the court to vacate the project’s Construction and Operations Plan — approved under the Biden administration — and send it back to BOEM for reevaluation, signaling plans to reverse approvals of the necessary permits.

If the court approves such a move, Ocean City’s lawsuit could become moot.

Read the full article at WYPR

Judge denies motion to pause Ocean City wind farm litigation

October 6, 2025 — A federal judge denied the Trump administration’s bid to pause Ocean City’s lawsuit over offshore wind power due to the federal government shutdown.

Before the government shutdown, Judge Stephanie Gallagher was expected to issue a ruling that would either allow U.S. Wind to move forward or give the U.S. Department of the Interior the ability to pull back its approval. In August, the Department of the Interior, speaking for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, joined Ocean City in asking the court to send the case back and vacate the prior approval.

The government’s Thursday filing asked the court to pause the case because the Department of Justice’s attorneys are “prohibited from working, even on a voluntary basis, with few exceptions” since the shutdown began on Wednesday.

Read the full article at the Miami Herald

US Wind: Trump has plans to ‘kill outright offshore wind projects’

September 9, 2025 — US Wind, the Baltimore-based company behind plans to build a wind farm off the Delmarva coast, claims that a federal government plan to rescind permits for its project is a result of “political pressure” from President Donald Trump.

In a counterclaim filed Wednesday in response to a federal lawsuit originally brought by Ocean City, Md., attorneys for US Wind said the Trump administration’s efforts to rescind its permits “are inextricably tied to a wider plan to hinder or kill outright offshore wind projects.”

In the original lawsuit, Ocean City and a coalition of local groups challenged federal permits for offshore construction granted under the Biden administration. They claimed the approvals were part of a “coordinated effort” to bypass transparency and proper public notices to approve major offshore projects “as fast as possible.”

In all, the competing claims are part of a volley of lawsuits that have plagued the ambitious energy project for more than a year.

Read the full article at Spotlight Delaware

MARYLAND: Gov. stands behind offshore wind for OC coast

June 27, 2025 — As President Donald Trump continues to tweet against windmills, Maryland’s governor says his office hasn’t been in communication with the White House over a proposed offshore mid-Atlantic wind farm that’s in the final stages of approval at the state level.

“No, we haven’t had any communication with the Trump administration on this project specifically,” Moore said in an interview Tuesday with OC Today-Dispatch. The governor is in Ocean City for the annual summer conference of the Maryland Municipal League.

“I know some of the challenges that the administration has and we hear them loud and clear,” he added. “The thing that I want for everybody to hear loud and clear is that in the state of Maryland, we have got to come up with more energy options. We’ve got to come up with a more sustainable and affordable way for people to be able to harness energy. We have to do more to invest in our grid. We have to do more to make sure that we are not solely reliant on individual or independent sources of energy.”

Moore added he’s looking forward to working with the federal government “to figure out just where exactly they are, and what they will support and fund, because federal involvement does matter in these projects, we cannot deny that.”

During his 2024 campaign, Trump said he’d end offshore wind with an executive order “on Day 1.” Once he took office in January, the President continued to make overtures about stomping out offshore wind projects, calling them “an economic and environmental disaster” that only work with government subsidies.

Read the full article at OC Today-Dispatch

MARYLAND: “Not for sale” says Ocean City Mayor after multimillion dollar offer for fishing community by US Wind

May 20, 2025 — As the prospect of offshore wind projects along the coast continues, the town of Ocean City and now the Waterman’s Association seem to be on the same page in declaring that they are “not for sale.” That’s the claim made in a statement this week by Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan.

The statement was a response to a $20 million dollar investment proposal that is aimed at supporting commercial fishing operations in Maryland.

The Memoranda of Understanding between US Wind and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources was designed to asswage concerns from the local fishing industry over plans for offshore wind.

Read the full article at Coast TV

Maryland county takes on international offshore wind company to save commercial fishing jobs

December 18, 2024 — On the largely undeveloped Delmarva peninsula – which is surrounded by the Chesapeake Bay to the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east and includes portions of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia – local lawmakers are getting ready to take on a major international wind power company in an effort to save its crucial commercial fishing industry.

The Worcester County Commissioners in Maryland approved a resolution on Tuesday to acquire two properties in West Ocean City Harbor through eminent domain, which US Wind plans to develop into an operations and maintenance facility as it constructs a wind farm off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland. The action was taken in an effort to protect the county’s historic commercial and sport fishing industries.

The commissioners passed the resolution as US Wind, a subsidiary of Italian-based Renexia SpA, plans to construct a 353-foot-long-by-30-foot-wide concrete pier at the harbor to service vessels used to construct a proposed wind farm consisting of up to 118 turbines at least 15 miles off the coast of Ocean City. Along with the pier, the company plans to install 383 feet of bulkhead.

The two properties the county plans to acquire are currently being used by Southern Connection Seafood and the Martin Fish Company, which are the only two commercial seafood wholesalers in the area where watermen can offload and sell their catches.

The county’s plans for the two properties include developing a long-term lease with the existing owners, allowing them to continue serving the needs of the commercial fishing industry, according to the resolution that was passed.

“The commercial fishing industry is an integral and essential part of Worcester County’s economy,” the resolution reads, adding that it, along with the sport fishing industry, are dependent on commercial marine support in and around West Ocean City Harbor.

Read the full story at FOX Business