Saving Seafood

RHODE ISLAND: R.I. Gov. McKee asks to meet with Trump over Revolution Wind project still in limbo

September 4, 2025 — After a dozen days in limbo, state and federal officials keep ramping up the pressure on the Trump administration to let the Revolution Wind project resume. The offshore wind project already under construction south of Rhode Island was put on hold on Aug. 22, leaving workers in the lurch and risking critical energy reliability and climate change mandates.

In a Wednesday letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Gov. Dan McKee outlined the consequences of the stop-work order, while asking for a meeting with President Donald Trump.

“The stop-work order undermines efforts to expand our energy supply, lower costs for families and businesses, and strengthen regional reliability,” McKee wrote to Burgum. “This action puts hundreds of well-paid blue-collar jobs at risk by halting a project that is just steps away from powering more than 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut.”

More than 1,000 union workers have spent much of the last two years building the 65-turbine project, 45 of which have been installed, as well as a pair of substations that will connect the power supply to Rhode Island and Connecticut. The 704 megawatts of nameplate capacity was set to be delivered by mid-2026, and already baked into the long-term plans for meeting Rhode Island’s decarbonization mandates under the state’s 2021 Act on Climate law. It is also critical to regional electrical grid reliability, especially in extreme weather events where fuel supply might be limited.

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current

VIRGINIA: Trump admin cancels $39M meant for Norfolk’s Fairwinds Landing because of wind energy association

September 4, 2025 — Norfolk’s Economic Development Authority will ask the Trump administration to reconsider its decision to cancel a grant meant to improve Fairwinds Landing.

The body made the decision during their monthly meeting Wednesday, five days after the U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the $39 million in Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) funding would be withdrawn, due to the sites association with the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project.

The funding, first awarded to the authority in 2023 under the Biden administration, was to “assist in transforming the marine terminal at Fairwinds Landing into offshore wind logistics facility,”

Read the full article at WAVY

Trump administration moves to block Avangrid’s New England Wind project

September 3, 2025 — Trump administration lawyers said Wednesday they will move by Oct. 10 to vacate previous federal approval for Avangrid’s New England Wind project, a move applauded by commercial fishermen and offshore wind power opponents.

Avangrid’s owner, Spanish energy company subsidiary Iberdrola, planned the New England Wind 1 and 2 turbine arrays with a collective nameplate power rating of 2,600 megawatts. New England Wind 1 had been expected to be operational in 2029.

Now it’s the latest to fall before the administration’s campaign against virtually all forms of U.S. renewable energy development. News of the Department of Justice legal filing in the District of Columbia federal court was hailed by the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association.

“This is a great win for fishermen, New England’s coast, coastal communities, and endangered wildlife,” said Dustin Delano, NEFSA’s chief operating officer. “Unlike the Biden administration, which burdened the fishing industry with rushed wind lease projects, fishing bans, and overregulation, President Trump is prioritizing restoration and resilience.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Trump administration to reconsider SouthCoast Wind permit, legal filing says

September 3, 2025 —  The Trump administration will reconsider the permit for SouthCoast Wind, a Massachusetts offshore wind farm approved by the government of former U.S. President Joe Biden last year, according to a federal court filing seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

In a motion filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, attorneys for the Department of Justice said the Interior Department intended to reconsider the approval of SouthCoast Wind’s construction and operations plan.

The legal maneuver is the latest move by President Donald Trump’s administration to stymie development of offshore wind energy, which he says is ugly, expensive and unreliable.

Read the full article at Reuters

Trump’s war on offshore wind: Tracking the actions and impacts

September 3, 2025 — President Donald Trump’s fight against offshore wind has escalated this summer, with more than one dozen agency actions in the last two months alone — the latest of which has stopped a project in its tracks.

The Trump administration has significantly truncated the window to receive multimillion dollar tax credits. It’s issued new Treasury guidance that redefines what it means to start project construction (in order to access those credits). It has imposed 50% tariffs on wind turbine imports. And it has mandated reviews of offshore wind projects by several agencies, including the Justice Department.

Some of the impacts have been quick and clear, illustrated through LinkedIn layoff posts, the return of ships to port (temporarily barred from undertaking the contracted work), project delays, and union laborers protesting the loss of work that they trained for.

Since Trump ordered a freeze on all offshore wind projects permitting on his first day in office, the industry has remained largely silent, deferring to states, lobbyists and organizations to come to its defense. Several of these state allies will return to federal court in Boston on Thursday, where they’ll argue that the permitting freeze is illegal and must be lifted.

“I would say my biggest concern and one that has borne out is this really unfortunate and deep shake to market confidence of the sector writ large,” said Kris Ohleth, director of the Special Initiative for Offshore Wind, on the administration’s treatment of the industry. “From the offshore wind developers down through the supply chain are more and more skeptical with each of these actions that the U.S. is a place for them to do business.”

Bill White, an offshore wind industry veteran, didn’t mince words: The industry is in “dire straits” because of the uncertainty created by the administration.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

VIRGINIA: Trump administration withdraws $39.27M for Norfolk offshore wind project

September 3, 2025 — The Trump administration last week withdrew $39.27 million in federal funding that had previously been awarded for an offshore wind logistics port in Norfolk and attempted to terminate $20 million for a project that had already been completed in Portsmouth.

The Norfolk Offshore Wind Logistics Port, part of the 111-acre Fairwinds Landing project at Lambert’s Point Docks, is the project losing nearly $40 million that was awarded in 2023 under the Biden administration.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced on Aug. 29 that Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy withdrew or terminated a total of $679 million in funding for 12 offshore wind projects across the country. The department stated that the action is intended to “ensure federal dollars are prioritized towards restoring America’s maritime dominance and preventing waste.”

The department stated that it identified 12 projects that were not aligned with the current administration’s priorities. The Trump administration has repeatedly criticized and targeted  projects, instead prioritizing fossil fuels and “traditional forms of energy.”

“Wasteful, wind projects are using resources that could otherwise go towards revitalizing America’s maritime industry,” said Duffy in a statement. “Joe Biden and [former Secretary of Transportation] Pete Buttigieg bent over backwards to use transportation dollars for their Green New Scam agenda while ignoring the dire needs of our shipbuilding industry. Thanks to President Trump, we are prioritizing real infrastructure improvements over fantasy wind projects that cost much and offer little.”

Read the full article at Virginia Business 

Feds move to vacate New England Wind permit as offshore wind rollback continues under Trump

September 3, 2025 — The federal government is now taking aim at New England Wind, asking a federal court to pause a lawsuit brought by island nonprofit ACK For Whales, saying it intends to seek remand and vacatur of the federal approval of the offshore wind project. It’s a move that, if granted, would effectively send the project back to square one and could make the case moot.

The announcement comes a week after the U.S. Department of Justice made a similar filing in the Town of Nantucket’s case against SouthCoast Wind. In that case, the DOJ asked the court to pause the suit while it reviewed SouthCoast’s permit.

Read the full article at The Inquirer and Mirror

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