Saving Seafood

Transportation Dept. Cancels $679 Million for Offshore Wind Projects

September 2, 2025 — The Transportation Department on Friday said it was terminating or withdrawing $679 million in federal funding for 12 projects around the country intended to support the development of offshore wind power, the latest of the Trump administration’s escalating attacks against the wind industry.

The funds, approved by the Biden administration, include $427 million awarded last year to upgrade a marine terminal in Humboldt County, Calif. The new terminal would be used to assemble and launch wind turbines capable of floating in the ocean, which the state of California had been planning to deploy to meet its renewable energy goals.

The list of targeted projects also includes $48 million for an offshore wind port on Staten Island, $39 million to upgrade a port near Norfolk, Va. and $20 million for a marine terminal in Paulsboro, N.J. Most of the projects were intended to be staging areas for the construction of giant wind turbines that would eventually be placed at sea.

“Wasteful wind projects are using resources that could otherwise go toward revitalizing America’s maritime industry,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. He said that, where possible, the funding would be redirected toward upgrading other ports.

Read the full article at The New York Times

Tribe part of new sweeping petitions to suspend offshore wind

September 2, 2025 — The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), along with a number of other tribal nations and fishing groups, filed two new petitions Wednesday that call for the immediate suspension of all offshore wind projects in the Northeast pending a federal reassessment.

The petitions were filed with nine federal agencies — the U.S. Departments of the Interior, Transportation, Defense, Homeland Security, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Parks Service, U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force — and ask for the suspension of South Fork Wind, SouthCoast Wind, Sunrise Wind, Vineyard Wind, Empire Wind, and the New England Wind projects, many of which are off of the Vineyard.

Read the full article at the The Martha’s Vineyard Times

Murphy, other Democratic governors call on Trump to uphold wind permits

September 2, 2025 — Democratic governors are pushing back against President Donald Trump’s plans to halt offshore wind developments.

“We are looking for the Trump Administration to uphold all offshore wind permits already granted and allow these projects to be constructed,” said a statement issued Monday by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.

Trump has a deep, long-running dislike of wind farms he’s derided as ugly, bird-killing monstrosities. But his administration has moved more aggressively in recent weeks to restrict their construction, including by blocking projects from obtaining rural development business loans, halting construction of a nearly completed Ørsted A/S venture near Rhode Island and moving to invalidate the permit for another planned project off the Maryland coast.

Read the full article at Bloomberg News

Westport will wait and see following wind farm halt

September 2, 2025 — Westport officials are waiting and watching, but so far have heard no news on whether Vineyard Wind is next on a list of threatened projects following news late last week that work on Revolution Wind, a 65-turbine off the coast of Rhode Island that is 80 percent complete, has been halted by the Trump administration.

“Nothing yet,” Jake McGuigan, a select board member and chairman of the Offshore Wind Advisory Committee, said Monday.

The advisory committee has no regulatory authority but was formed last year to monitor the potential impacts of offshore wind on Westport. It was established after residents raised concerns that Vineyard Offshore had listed Westport as one of two possible landing sites for offshore cables from a wind farm it is proposing south of Nantucket. But in late February, company representatives appeared before the advisory committee and said there are no plans to route any cables through Westport, and they are instead focusing on New London, Ct. as a potential landing zone.

Since then, the board has reduced its meeting frequency to quarterly; McGuigan said the next will be held in October, and he suspects any potential regulatory news will be on the agenda.

Read the full article at East Bay RI

NEW JERSEY: Federal Action on Wind Energy Fuels Save LBI Agenda

August 28, 2025 — The U.S. Department of Interior’s recent announcement it is launching a full evaluation of offshore wind regulations is being lauded by a local grassroots organization.

“This reform effort is a clear response to concerns we raised in our July 2025 petition calling for the cancellation of Atlantic Shores North and South areas of the coast off Long Beach Island, Brigantine and Atlantic City,” Bob Stern, president and co-founder of Save LBI, said.

Stern thanked Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum for his initiative in revisiting the regulatory guidelines he said failed communities and the environment.

In an Aug. 11 missive to the interior department, Stern urged early stakeholder involvement through the advance notice of proposed rule making, saying it would provide the community, scientists, local government and others the ability to be part of the process while new guidelines are being developed.

Among the key areas to be reimagined are defining what areas are off limits for wind development based on criteria that includes distance from military radar, whale migration and shoreline; requiring project proposals to link location and design with a singular environmental impact statement treating all proposals in a region as alternatives; strengthening marine mammal protection and require decommissioning plans for turbine removal.

Read the full article at The Sand Paper

Trump administration to revoke US Wind plans off Delaware coast

August 27, 2025 — The Trump administration announced in a legal filing last week that it intends to revoke construction approvals for a controversial planned wind farm off the Delaware-Maryland coast within the next three weeks.

The move comes after the administration has spent months opposing offshore wind power, and more recently honing that opposition against Baltimore-based US Wind’s Delmarva project.

Read the full article at Spotlight Delaware

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

RHODE ISLAND: ‘You are our only chance’: Why fishermen are applauding Trump’s halt of Revolution Wind

August 27, 2025 — While Gov. Dan McKee and state elected leaders have roundly criticized the Trump administration’s order to stop work on Revolution Wind, members of the Rhode Island fishing industry are applauding the decision to halt construction of the 65-turbine offshore wind farm.

A handful of industry representatives gathered Tuesday, Aug. 26 on the Galilee waterfront to thank the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for the stop-work order, and to urge the administration to take similar action against other offshore wind projects proposed or being built in Atlantic Ocean waters in the region.

“I have one thing to say to the U.S. government,” said Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for North Kingstown-based seafood distributor Seafreeze. “Save our fishing grounds from offshore wind. All of them. You’ve started with Revolution Wind, and for that we are grateful. Now, go down the list because it’s long, and you are our only chance.”

Read the full article at The Newport Daily News

VIRGINIA: US government halts nearly complete offshore wind farm. Is Virginia’s next?

August 27, 2025 — After the Trump administration has ordered a halt to construction of a nearly complete $4 billion offshore wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut, it’s reasonable to wonder whether Dominion Energy’s $10.9 billion  project off the coast of Virginia Beach could be in similar peril.

On Aug. 22, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management stopped Orsted’s Revolution Wind project, which already has 45 of 65 turbines installed, along with all underwater foundations. Citing a January memorandum by , BOEM told Orsted North America to “halt all ongoing activities related to the Revolution Wind Project” while the federal government reviews potential national security concerns.

Read the full article at Virginia Business 

With Little Explanation, Trump Throws Wind Industry Into Chaos

August 26, 2025 — When the Trump administration ordered that construction stop last week at Revolution Wind, a giant wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that was nearly finished, it alluded vaguely to national security concerns but did not offer any further explanation.

It’s becoming a striking pattern.

The order was the third time the Trump administration had revoked permits or halted work on wind farms that had already received federal approval while offering little legal justification for doing so, following actions against wind projects in New York and Idaho. Legal experts say that there is little basis for blocking projects that have already received permits.

The Trump administration has signaled in a court filing that it next plans to rescind federal approvals for yet another wind farm, the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, which had not yet begun construction but would consist of up to 114 wind turbines off the coast of Ocean City, Md. The filing was first reported by WBOC.

Read the full article at The New York Times